Note de l'auteur
I can never manage my deadlines on time. But I did manage to get this out before my vacation starts. So here you go, the new chapter, my lovelies. I hope you guys enjoy this half as much as I was excited for you to read it.
So, happy reading!
I also wanted to point out that King Regis's face in this fic remained at how we grew to know him, oppose to his more elderly face they gave him now. Idk, he looks less regal now, and I bet Tabata did it on purpose to get rid of all the Mafioso theme of Versus XIII completely from XV, but I love Regis's previous design more. Oh well.
The Punch Lord you should have seen this shoutout coming! You've helped me with so many things, whether that be about this story or any other, or random things altogether, I am incredibly happy I got to meet you and talk to you and befriend you! From our same ships preference of Zutara to Arawyn, to our differences about Luna and Gruncle Ford, I appreciate our conversations every time. This one's for you, sweetie!
…Like a mirror on the wall…
Noctis Caelum tried to avoid his father as much as he could the following day, but night came and just after Sergeant Farron did one of her patrolling tour around the castle, the prince got an official summoning to the king's private rooms that he couldn't escape.
King Regis accepted his son's timid arrival in his study. The place was covered in shadows save for the hearth that was harboring a flickering fire. His imposing chair cast dark angles on his father's face that left him looking more ominous than he intended, but the image was broken by the delicate teacup steaming in his hand. The corners of his mouth lifted and his manner was upbeat when he spoke, almost proud. "The nobles were quite in a hassle after you stormed out of the Chamber of Dawn." He started on a high note. "They were angry and demanded me to look after you."
Noctis grumbled, glaring down at the floor. "Did you change the verdict about the war prisoners?" He would expect as much. Even his father would go against it. But Noctis would stand behind his decision. Those words that resounded something different within him.
"I did not." The king looked up from his cup of tea. "But a lot of them persisted, kindly and some not so kindly, for me to eradicate it."
"Will you?"
His father's face softened, like Noctis knew he would in his younger years, when the prince always got what he wanted as a child. "Let this go into history as your first Kingly act. I shan't change it."
Noctis nodded, biting his lip to keep the elated smile from showing. Lightning would be happy to hear that it won't be changed. "Thank you, dad."
"You made a wise choice concerning the prisoners. One that even I had not thought of." Regis put a heavy, proud hand on Noct's shoulder. "Shows that you are gentler than me, but far more sagely than any Caelum before us. You're going to be a wise king, son."
Noctis blinked up at him, before staring at his feet. It felt wrong to take credit for a notion that was not his in the first place. Lightning. It was all Lightning Farron. He had just repeated her words, her sagacity, her empathy, her compassion. It was all thanks to the rosette soldier from Cocoon.
He didn't have the courage to tell his father the truth about that, though. It was heartwarming to hear those words come from his father, who once was so determined to be the last guardian of the Caelum crystal. It was cowardly of Noctis to withheld the truth of it, but his father was looking at him with such pride in his eyes, it was almost a disservice to disappoint him. To tell him that it was a foreigner, a soldier who was here to bodyguard him and no more, was the one who spoke those very words and opened all their eyes.
Noct swore that one day he'll tell his dad the truth. But right now he smiled and thanked his father for the compliment.
"Another thing." Regis didn't want to relay on him the next tidbit that would have that warm smile on his son's face melting away like snow in the summer sun. "While we were there, the parliament brought up a single intriguing point that I hadn't considered before, but they dared to mention it only when you were away."
Noctis didn't have a good feeling about this. A sudden dread dropped heavy in his stomach. He knew he had offended the high lords with his stunt. He didn't regret it, but he also did not expect them to take their vengeance quite so fast. "What is it?"
"It's a matter that the high lords insisted on bringing up after your… decision." Regis looked down uncomfortably. "A matter that isn't quite a great of an issue at the moment, yet not a trifle that even I could not brush aside immediately. But I want you to keep your mind around this."
Noctis scowled. His father was beating around the bush. "Around what?"
"You may be somewhat young still, maybe too young at present, but it'll come to light sooner or later. You're heir apparent to the Lucii throne, Noctis, and as such, I would like to remind you that you are in need of an heir of your own."
Noctis's mouth dried up like a desert. Before he gathered up his wits to stop his father from speaking any further, Regis proceeded. "You have to understand that I married your own mother – Etro guard her soul – when I was at least ten years your senior, and even then I would say having children is quite early, but… the bloodline of the Caelum must continue." How many times is this sentence uttered to Caelum heirs since the beginning of their dynasty? The bloodline must continue. Having children was what kept their family alive. How those children grew up to be was a different story altogether, but the Crystal must always have an heir, a Caelum always had to guard it.
It must have been hard for Noctis, whose plans of the future was recently ripped out of him. "Dad…" The prince said pained.
"Entertain the idea. It is your future we are talking about. The Guardian must always be a Caelum. You know the stories as well as I. And it takes two to have an heir." The next thing he was about to say would hurt him more than it would Noctis, though he knew it was worse for his son still. "I… I do not know if you want me to arrange suitors after Stella Fleuret-"
"Please, don't." Noctis raised a hand that had the king silenced immediately. Even Regis could hear the thick emotion in his boy's voice that he struggled hard to conceal, but was still unable to. It was a mistake to mention her.
Stella. The name was a knife, twisting in his stomach.
"You shouldn't worry about me marrying, dad." His heart felt like it was tearing apart all over again. "My chance of happiness is long gone. Along with Stella Fleuret that day."
Regis sighed but didn't let the words drag his mood down. He wouldn't believe that a man that young, a boy really, would give up on his heart just because it got hurt once. He rose and came around to hold his son by the shoulders. "You have it all wrong, Prince Noctis." He said with a happier tone than the atmosphere allowed. "The world is made for two. I want you to remember that."
Noctis would see the light soon, Regis was undoubtedly certain about that, and his son will leave the darkness that Stella created behind him.
His son nodded absentmindedly. No longer was he mentally present in the same room with his father. His eyes were glazed over, his expression brooding before he blinked furiously. Regis did not know if he glimpsed a crimson color to his otherwise azure eyes when he blinked away the ache that must surely be gnawing on his inside. Prince Caelum picked himself up, both emotionally and physically, and excused himself from his father's rooms.
Regis gave his quiet okay and continued staring at the doors that his son just left through. Returning to his chair, he felt the need for a stiff drink but refrained much from doing so. Steeping his fingers together, he pressed his lips to them and continued frowning at the exit. "You think it's wise, to keep it from him?"
From the shadows, the very corner of Regis's spacious study, General Cor Leonis stepped forth. "Technically, he has a right to know." The Lord Commander shrugged. "Then again, technicalities are meant to be overseen."
Regis inner struggles went on for some time in silence. His Lord Commander remained quiet in the meantime, knowing his king well enough that he will come to a conclusion all too soon. "This…" King Caelum started slowly. "This information from Tenebrae seeps with treachery and if Noct knew about their new heir… It will crush him."
"The prince is young, filled with suppressing repentant emotions he has yet to address." Perpetually grim looking Cor stated matter of fact. Even he knew what the prince had gone through. This must not be easy for him.
Regis felt his heart break for his son before he hardened it. "He will be in my place all too soon, General Leonis. As king, Noct doesn't have the luxuries to mourn his old love." He looked down, remembering the time he had to deal with when his queen passed through Etro's gates. "Not for long, at least.
The old general knew that was bound to happen, but pity was never one of Cor's strong suits. "He'll find out about Tenebrae's new heir one time or another, sire."
King Caelum looked down forlorn, allowing sadness to overcome him in the presence of the one man he trusted the most in his service. "Etro forgives me when he does."
~§~
Noctis returned teetering from his father's quarters. Lost in memories and pain and internal conflict, he wasn't even sure if he could reach his own chambers without breaking down. The very conversation flashed through his head like a cruel movie on repeat; the high lords pressed for an heir. Of course they did. Once, not so long ago, he would have embraced the very notion. He once envisioned his entire life already.
Back when Stella was his.
Back when life was warm and good and naïve. When her smile rotated his world and she agreed to marry him. He had envisioned their wedding, taking place in the beautiful lush gardens of the palace, with honored guests and family from far and wide to see them marry. His father would see that he would have been ready to take the crown. He would be king and Stella would have been his queen. He once saw the future brightly, with her as the mother of his family.
That had been his dream once, when he couldn't fully describe the love he harbored for Stella. She broke that dream in thousand pieces, like a rock thrown through glass.
He threw himself on his bed in total darkness and stared up at the painted ceiling until his eyes adjusted to the dark. He saw the angels with their feathered wings and wondered if death truly was so divine. His visions of the gods was smashed a long time ago and he learned that most of what is written in ancient holy scriptures was a lie. For all the sight of Light and sense of death that he had, it didn't give him an insight to the Other World at all. Maybe Stella was an angel as well.
Either that, or she was burning somewhere else altogether.
He wished he had something to make his thoughts disappear. He used to train excessively hard to drown his sorrows away in sweat and pain in his muscles, but the underground base wasn't working for him anymore. And he didn't want to go right now either. Ever since his father laid down the order, Lightning had to accompany him to the base and he really wasn't in the mood to see anyone except to wallow in his misery.
He just lied there on his bed, feeling awful until he became numb and fell asleep with her name on his lips.
He couldn't specifically smell it, but he knew that the scent of apple mint tea wafted in the air like perfume. There was a significant ring around her significant finger, and as it caught sunlight, it shone rainbow colors around them on reflection.
'White dragon lilies or purple panda orchids?' She had asked once, in a time not quite forgotten.
He barely withheld a chuckle when he had responded to her in kind. 'How about pink gladioli?'
Stella had laughed at his suggestion of flowers, even more at the pun behind it. Her laugh was as carefree and guiltless like none before. 'How would Gladiolus take that quip?' She giggled again, waving away his unhelpful remark. 'It's not his wedding, you know? No need to reference him.'
'And pass up the opportunity to make him uncomfortable?'
She took a gulp of her cooling tea. Apple mint was her favorite. 'Oh, Noct, you're such a tease.'
He remembered her face, the way she lit up a room with her smile. A second later he remembered that same face, in the semi darkness where only the full moon was their major source of light, and tears ran down those hauntingly violet eyes filled with agony and regret.
'There's only one way to stop me.' Her voice had been unlike the day of choosing flowers. Back then she spoke softly, mild mannered. Too sweet. Now she sounded harsh and unrelenting. 'I'm so sorry that I have to do this, Noct.'
It hurt. To look at her, it had hurt. She was striking, even in the night, bedazzling with her rapier in her hand. The sharp blade had gleamed in the moonlight, the magic around her surging and powerful. But all he could focus on, was her left hand, that was missing a significant ring on a significant finger.
I'm sorry.
He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to fight.
The sound of their blades clashing, screeching, burning, left a tremor coursing through his body. He had never hated the sound until then, never had felt so eager to lose a battle as he had then. Every time he blocked her advancement, she managed to cut through him regardless, wounding him, scarring him in ways that wasn't physically visible.
Their swords clashed and rang and cried.
And the knock on his door jolted him awake.
He rose to see that he hadn't changed from the clothes he wore yesterday, and he slept wrong on his neck because it was aching something fierce. He opened his bedchamber's door and found two Adservio with a breakfast pallet that he didn't order and his bodyguard standing behind them.
"Something going on?" He spoke groggily to her, and ignored the food as well as the servants.
"It's passed eleven o'clock." Lightning knew he loved his sleep, probably more than anyone else she knew, but Noctis not having come out of his rooms after ten was an oddity even for him. He looked like shit too. "…Are you doing well?"'
"Peachy." He felt like shit. Dead warmed up would be a better state. "Is there something you need?"
His distant attitude wasn't something Lightning was expecting. He sounded like he wanted to get rid of her, and it made her own voice deadpan. "You normally don't stay in this late. I needed to check up on you."
He paused for a moment, letting the two Adservio leave after a nod before looking back at the rosette haired soldier. He didn't know if it was truly her duty that brought her to his door or something else, but he went on with believing it was the former. "Sorry." He mumbled quietly. He meant that genuinely; he didn't want to sound half as harsh as he said it. "I just… slept wrong."
She eyed him again. The fact that he still had the same clothes on him that she saw him with last night, she figured there was something wrong. "Maybe you should eat something." She wanted to take a step towards him, even if she didn't know what to do if she got closer. She remained where she stood and pushed the pallet of food towards him to prove her point.
He bobbed his head in acquisition. "I will."
However he didn't touch the food. Not for breakfast, he barely came out for lunch and skipped dinner. He didn't eat the next day either. Lightning found a shade living in the prince's quarters. He was so silent, he was nearly nonexistent.
It worried her. She wouldn't say so out loud of course, but Noctis's behavior concerned her. She didn't know what to do. He was avoiding her mostly, she heard neither sound nor movements from his chambers, and when she did confront the prince, he was curt to her and looked like he hadn't slept in days. She refrained from asking him what he was going through every time, and bit her tongue when she wanted to tell him to take care of himself.
She wanted to contact his friends for him. Maybe they could bump him out of this down mood he has been in for the last four days. She had no idea what brought it on. One day he was fine and the next… he was not. Thankfully, on that fifth day he came out, looking refreshed and ready to take on life again. He even send her a tiny smile, as if to reassure her that he was doing fine now. He never talked to her on what had happened four days past, and she didn't ask. But she was glad he was doing better.
Having been cooped in his rooms for too long, with memories that haunted him and wouldn't let him go, he was determined to push it all behind him. He couldn't get rid of them, but he could find distractions in his everyday life. He had neglected his duties for too long and cancelled his meetings with the parliament just the day before. They had pressed for the most uncomfortable subject he had to tackle in his life now, and it wasn't something he wanted to get smacked in his face if he went.
"Your father wasn't happy that you didn't show up, or so I've heard." Lightning informed him just as she was about to do her patrol through the castle and without. "Maybe you should see him."
Noctis didn't want to. He hid his gaze under his black mess of hair. "Later. I just need to blow some steam at the base. Meet me there?"
She wasn't going to deny him his exercise, after he had barricaded himself in his own chambers for days for reasons she did not know. "Right." She agreed and left to do her rounds as quickly as possible. When she arrived at the underground base, the prince was already present. From afar she followed the sparkles of crystal floating in the air. It was a sight to behold really; the air looked like she stepped into space to be among the stars and within that bubble was the entity of the royal heir; dark, sweaty and so intensely concentrated that he didn't even notice her join him within.
Noctis swept the sweat from his brow, as broken crystal shards floated around him in the air. One more time, he thought, feeling blood pumping in his veins and the magic surging into his eyes, making everything clearer, more focused and more intense. There was anger in him, boiling anger that he pushed down but he was brimming with it, ever since his conversation with his father about his future. And he had dreams. Bad dreams at night that kept him half awake and half upset for hours. He summoned his sword through a call that was ancient, and the power coursing through him from the tip of his sword to the toes of his feet was enormous and overwhelming, but was only checked and diminished with the sheer intensity of his will.
His problem had never been being too weak and increasing any of his powers, but rather controlling the vast amount of such lest he can't handle it.
In the corner of the training base his bodyguard stood against the wall, as was her habit, only this time, he felt her eyes on him more heavily than he was used to. One glimpse over his shoulder confirmed his suspicions. She was looking right at him.
A thought flashed through his mind as to how uncommon the situation was; she always pretended like he didn't exist while he was down here and zoned off into her own private world in the remaining time. But right now no movements of his were missed by her sharp eyes – they may have no powerful sight by an ancient crystal, but her viridian gaze was keen nonetheless.
Her attention was pulled by the way he moved, the amount of crystal dust lingering in the air every time he pulled a weapon, or the light speed of his warping. She noticed by now that wherever he had thrown his sword, he flashed towards. Something he didn't pull on her when they had their own battle those months ago.
Noctis, in turn, tried to ignore her stare on him while he proceeded with his exercise, but he felt her piercing gaze on him with every minute. He sighed and let his sword disappear, and finally turned to her.
"What?" His glowing crimson eyes met hers.
"If I asked you a question," She started slowly, but evenly. "Would answer me truthfully?"
"Depends on the question." His answer was vague, but somewhere in him knew that he would tell her anything she wanted to know. Unless it was about Stella. She has been nothing but straightforward with him, why couldn't he be with her? Besides the subject of a lost love, he could tell her anything.
She didn't seem to ponder too long about her musings too long. Her lips pursed to one side of her face and she burst out saying, "How do your crystal power works?"
"Crystal?" A feeling of protectiveness went through him. A taught instinct that told him to lie, to play dumb, to deny its very existence. But he wouldn't. "What makes you think it involves a crystal?"
A shard floated by Lightning's face and she send a pointed look to it.
Sheepishly, he chuckled. "Alright, it's a crystal. But people aren't actually supposed to know."
Lightning raised a rose eyebrow at him. "If I weren't supposed to know, I hardly think your father would have appointed me to be anywhere near you when you trained."
"Sure, but I think he expects you not to question anything about it."
"Right." He had it true there. The King wouldn't allow her with Noctis if he didn't trust her to keep herself silent. Regis trusted her… but she didn't trust herself anymore. She shouldn't have asked. This wasn't her. It wasn't her place to question him and she wouldn't have fallen to the temptation of her curiosity. She should have known better than to pry. She looked away, ready to drop the whole subject.
But he smiled under his red gaze. "Lemme show you something?" He stated it like a question, while he jerked his head towards the exit of the training base. She nodded, and he let his swords disappear in a cloud of sparkles and dust. He led the way out of the base and into the castle's keep while she followed him quietly, the click of her heels silent for once. Noctis found himself talking to fill the silence in the air. "To the public the crystal is nothing but legends turned myths." He told her as they ascended the stairs towards the main castle. "It's been that way for thousands of years, as long as my family has ruling the kingdom almost."
"Impressive." It was impressive. The Caelum dynasty has ruled unbrokenly for generations upon generations. That's incredible.
"The only reason why my family has been in the line of monarchy for so long is because of the crystal. It gives us power; strength unlike any other; the power to rule a kingdom. In turn, we must protect the crystal."
"So you shield the crystal and the crystal shields you?" Sounds logical enough. The root of the Caelum's magic is the crystal, but without the Caelums, the crystal is vulnerable.
"That about sums it up. It's always been our duty to guard the crystal. According to legends, that's the deal that was made."
The paintings of the Caelums of old were an eerie sight in the gloomy corridors of the castle. More than once, visitors and household staff alike claimed that the eyes of the dead in their paintings would follow them as they walked passed. And some fables even went route, that the kings and queens of old came alive to step out of their drawings, and haunt the cold dark halls that was once theirs in the night.
Noctis didn't believe any of it of course. He was born and bred in the castle, and there were countless times where he roamed through the empty hallways in the dead of the night when he was a child. He had never seen the ghosts of his dead ancestors, or hear their voices whisper in the shadows. He would remember if he had, for he knew all the names and faces of his forebears, and the tales that came with them.
If there was anyone he would have wished to have met the dead ghost of it was Vincent Caelum, one of the first monarchs to wear the crown of Lucis, who had lived but a few thousands of years ago. Before Lucis had been a true kingdom, Vincent's father, Grimoire Caelum, had been but a mighty lord of the town that is the crown city Insomnia today. During his father's lordship, it was Vincent who thought to expand their wealth for the benefit of the people and created a whole united kingdom. His plans were said to be approved by the goddess Etro herself, and she came forth from the Invisible World to shine her Light as blessing on Vincent. But, like every favor of Etro, the price of her blessing came with a curse.
Vincent was crowned a king by the people of the town, for they witnessed Etro's divine judgment and chose him as their leader, ruler and superior. In that age, Lucis was riddled of many heinous wild creatures – many of whom you can still find in the mountains and desolate areas today – and Vincent managed to cleanse the land of them all for the safety of the folk. Legends have it, he only managed to do so because he was half a beast himself, changing into a monster to kill other monsters. More favorable legends say that Vincent rode a behemoth as mount, to the bane of all his enemies. And it were those enemies who put forth the stories that he was both a servant of Etro and the Chaos, which made Vincent transform into a vicious creature, with a dragon-like inhuman arm, that he used to slay such enemies.
Whether those stories were true, is but a guess. Noctis didn't used to believe in the tales that was the mystery of King Vincent Caelum, but after all the things he has seen himself by now, he wasn't so sure. Even so, Noct knew they only had Vincent's likeness in his human form, a small drawing no bigger than a hand mirror in his father's quarters, with his features quite indiscernible. High capes were the fashion of the time, and he held his hair bound with a cloth round his head, allegedly to cover a scar on his forehead that he had gained during some kind of battle. The drawing was but from Vincent's shoulders up, so if there were any disfiguring limbs like stories claim, Noctis couldn't see it. The only attributes utterly clear of Vincent's picture that has survived over thousands of years, are the color of his eyes. A crimson burning fiercely, said to have discolored red upon seeing Etro's blessed form and apparently is an attribute all Caelum descendants have inherited since, if they are touched by Etro's Light.
Today it is believed that Etro's Light wasn't really the goddess that came from the skies, but Vincent finding the crystal that the Caelums henceforth protected and used its power for their own. Legends in their family differ from account to account and the truth of it would remain hidden in the mist of time and mystery.
Lightning blinked. "Legends?"
The prince turned to her then, his tone was down, as if it was too ludicrous to believe but he was unfathomably serious. His eyes had long since faded from red back to its usual blue. "There's an unrecorded story passing down the generations that one of the first Caelum who borne our family made a deal with the goddess Etro Herself, and a chunk of crystal came from Her being. The pact they made was clear; She gave the Caelum godlike power and all those who share the same bonded blood. The Caelum in return guard Her essence, or better known, the crystal. That's what has been told to every Caelum child. What they never add to mention is the curse that came with accepting Etro's deal."
A curse? Lightning's swallowed. "Etro's a benevolent goddess. She has never purposely caused any harm to humankind. At least…" At this Lightning faltered, knowing herself what she went through as L'Cie. "Not with clear evil intent, She hasn't. If this story is true, why would She curse your family?"
Noctis frowned at the marble floor when he held open a door until she passed through. "I don't think Etro cursed us Herself. She blessed us with Her presence, but it's the crystal… They say our family go hand-in-hand with Death. That our blood is the scythe that reaps souls and sends them to the Invisible World for Etro. We are death and we are the dead – too many Caelums have seen their end come too soon. That is the price we pay, I'm sure, for using the crystal. It's too powerful, and we have tried to keep its existence from the world for centuries because of it."
"You've done a poor job." Lightning crossed her arms. "Didn't you just have a war because of it?"
"More or less. Niflheim has wanted to conquer the world ever since Idola proclaimed himself Emperor. The key to Lucis is Insomnia, and Insomnia is protected by the crystal. When he couldn't break through it by force, he used more disingenuous methods. He had heard stories about what our family is capable of, and he wanted the abilities for himself."
"I guess there would be no stopping a conquering emperor with highly lethal magical weapons in his arsenal." Lightning wasn't surprised men like this Idola fellow would want Noct's powers for his own greedy gain. She had seen it countlessly times before. Dysley being the latest one on her list.
At this, a more spirited grin appeared on Prince Caelum's face. "Oh, the crystal is able to give us more than just epic weapons." A part of him asked himself if he should be explaining this all to her. She was as much a foreigner as the rest of them, but the way she was looking at him right now, all curious and genuinely attentive to everything he was saying, he knew he could expose his family's secrets safely, to the bane of his father's knowledge. She was a professional wasn't she? She could keep his secret.
"We may wield epic power, but we aren't above ambition and narcissism or even greed. There was once a Caelum king who used the crystal to bind all behemoths and wyverns and many kind of dangerous creatures to his will. With the crystal's power and his army of monsters, he aimed to rule the world."
That sounded entirely pernicious for their doing. "A Caelum king?"
"King Golbez the Third had the world at war for six years." Noctis sighed, not looking proud of himself at the moment. "My family goes back thousands of years, and, like everyone, we too have a dark past."
Lightning saw his equally dark expression and for a reason she didn't yet understand, she wanted his previous elated grin to return to him instead, so she quickly proceeded on to her next question. "So did someone defeat this wyvern king?"
As she had hoped, the cloud that hung over him dispersed. "Yeah," He assured her with a small smile, recalling the story he was taught when he was younger. "His little brother did, in fact. The one named the Warrior of Light. He dared not to kill his own older brother, but he managed to imprison King Golbez and took the crown for himself. Once he ended the war they call the Conquest of Nidhogg, he had to kill over half of the monster army and push the rest into exile. He gave the lands back to the owners, but many a man died in the war. The lords and would-be-kings of the time wanted a decent apology and an assuring that something like that will never happen again, so the Warrior of Light broke the crystal and gave each part to a new kingdom, Niflheim, Tenebrae and Accordo are the other three."
"I've got the feeling that that didn't last long."
"It did not. The fragments lost its magic and died." Noctis shrugged as if it was logical that something broken can never work. "There's a small lore saying that one of the first Niflheim rulers was a bastard son of the old wyvern king, and took the sigil for his own."
"Looks like the corruption remained within the family."
"If there's truth to it, then remember it once started in mine." He found one of the hallways that bore all the paintings of the old monarchs. "Like there was a Caelum queen once, some twelve-hundred years ago, Queen Lulu, who was insulted by the King of Accordo at the time, whom she both loved and hated, so in her wrath she carved an arrow from our crystal and fused it with a firaga spell. How she did it, no one knows, but she managed it nevertheless. She hired men to stage a theft on the crystal fragment in Accordo to lure its king to be in the same room as their crystal. Queen Lulu shot her arrow when her targets were together, killing the Accordian king, exploding his castle and destroying the crystal piece with it. She was the only one responsible for destroying another country's crystal."
The story had Lightning gaping. It was a hilarious story to be heard now, but at the time she was sure it was nothing to laugh about. This queen Lulu sounds fearsome.
Noctis stopped in front of a painting. Its size was huge, painted in oil and looking ancient. There was a woman painted in it, with long dark hair in a golden dress with black embroilment. Her eyes seemed a dark shade of blue. The corset pushed her ample breasts up to peek above the square neckline of her dress. On her fingers she wore a single familiar ring that was suspiciously the same as Lightning saw King Regis wear, and a long golden necklace around her neck, as well as a tall crown on her head that was made of ruby and black pearls. On the picture, her eyes were cold, distant and aloof. She wasn't particularly what one would call gorgeous, but there was something to her that was beautiful regardless.
"This is Queen Lulu," Noctis pointed, as if he was introducing the two. The size of the painting dwarfed them when they stood beside it. "They say she made herself look prettier in every of her drawings, and that in reality she was neither homely nor a beauty, but there was something to her that drew the eye nonetheless. Intus Mihi Vires, she wrote in retrospect, My Strength Comes From Within, that her power wasn't her looks, but her intellect. She reigned for twenty-two years after inheriting the throne when she was about nineteen. It is said that in the end she became was so vain, she deemed herself too ugly to rule when she got older. She passed on the crown to her son, whom she disliked."
Lightning eyed the imposing figure that was Lulu Caelum. "She disliked her own son?"
"The history scrolls tell us that nobody liked her son, but then again, most of the ancient scrolls were written biasedly and probably inaccurate. Many whispered that she hated her son because he looked too much alike as the Accordian king she murdered, but that was never said to her person. That meant she was unfaithful to her husband and sired a child with him. Others believed it's because her son threw her old age too much in her face and other insults alike, that the two never had quite a warm relationship with each other. Some say she was too sweet of character, and it was due to the jealousy of her husband that she shattered Accordian crystal, because its king loved her too much. Others say Lulu was heartbroken and took revenge by destroying it. Either way, the stories have one thing in common; Queen Lulu demolished their fragment."
"She doesn't look so temperamental." One has to be, to go as far as to destroy something so important to an entire kingdom.
"Some described the way she could stare at you cruel, other called her a flower. Till this day, we are not certain who to believe."
Lightning looked up at her. The woman seemed too regal than a person should. It would have been both an honor and a pest to have met her. Lightning didn't take well to people with superiority complexes. "She didn't do any wrong acts as queen, did she? Did she neglect her people, forwent her duty for her own sake?"
"I guess not." Noctis shrugged. "They never wrote about her rule and whether or not she was an inadequate monarch or not. I suppose she wasn't, or else they would have taken note of it. Historians at the time were much more interested in her personal life than her reign. But if she was a tyrannical queen, we would have heard tales about her."
"You make it sound like they only make worthy mentions of the bad king or queens."
Noctis smiled, having noticed her attention. "No, though they make for good stories. For example, King Cecil was quite a philanthropist and beloved by the kingdom for as long as he was king. He spend fifty-seven years of his reign improving Lucis's economy, but his good work was devastated when he had twin children, who became Queen Parom and King Polum on his death."
"Wait," Lightning asked confused, "Both were crowned? At the same time?"
"At the same time." He confirmed. "It wasn't that simple, unfortunately. When their father Cecil died, the elder one Parom presumed the throne. Only there was a mishap, and the older lords seem to claim that Polum was really born first, despite keeping silent about this for all these years. Parom was indeed the older one, but the two looked identical at birth, and even growing up into adulthood people could've mistaken one for the other. About eight hundred years ago they couldn't prove at all who was born first, except to rely on witnesses, who each had a different tale to tell. King Polum demanded his birthright while Queen Parom wouldn't give hers up. The War of the False Crown came next that tore the kingdom apart and ended both the king and queen's life."
Noctis continued on with his stories and Lightning continued listening. It was the first time he opened up about the crystal or his family, and he actually seemed to enjoy telling it to her. It was easy to see how caught up he was by his storytelling. He had the voice for it, Lightning concluding, it had a deep rumble that kept the tales intriguing. His family proved to be far older than she ever realized, with ancestors going back twelve-hundred years. It was something to be proud of, truly. Lightning didn't even know the name of her grandmother. It was quite apparent Prince Noctis enjoyed telling his histories far more than sharing it. The hallways had always been haunted with eyes of dead people in their paintings, and there were a lot of them hanging all over the castle.
Lightning eyed the portraits. Some paintings were so huge against the walls, that she looked like an ant compared to them. "So all of these were truly monarchs that once ruled Lucis?"
Noctis looked up at them, having the feeling that they are truly looking down on him. The two of them were slowly heading towards the west squadron, where more paintings of ancient royalties hung. "They are. I remember how dad used to tell me about their lives when I was little. Instead of bedtime stories, I got my family's histories. Dad had a way of making them sound like fairytale stories instead of boring facts. When I got old enough I had to study the histories myself. The grand library is filled with accounts and stories of my ancestors."
Lightning looked up at the faces of kings and queens that all lived centuries or millennia ago. One day, Noctis too, will join them. "Do you have a picture of yourself yet?"
Noctis smiled awkwardly. "I'm not crowned king. It's not my place yet."
She wondered how he'd look like, she thought fleetingly. His drawing painted with oil on canvas, looking regal and dark and kingly.
And handsome.
Lightning blinked and continued following the prince silently, distracting herself with the paintings on the walls that she has seen countless of times by now.
By now they were practically standing near the entrance of the King's privy chambers and above hung his father on the wall, as it was a customary place for the ruling sovereign to be set. Noctis glanced at the painting with his father's likeness. On painting he was considerably younger than he is today, and the crown on his head was of thin silver and quite modest so far as crowns go.
"Right." Lightning understood. He wasn't to join them until he had taking the throne. "You'll be one of the legendary kings, I bet."
He turned, looking at her. She was still staring the paintings of dead rulers. "What makes you say that?"
The genuine confusing in his voice made Lightning's green eyes settle on him. She shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. "You have your own story now, don't you? You saved your kingdom, protected the crystal from nearly being lost to you forever, fought… enemies. You saved everyone. Over a few hundred years, a little prince will read about you and be awed." She ended with a smile.
It may have been a small one, but she smiled for him. It passed by so quickly though, that Noctis didn't even realize at first that she complimented him. He was sure she did, or maybe she was stating facts about him? It sounded nice enough coming from her and his stomach fluttered at the thought. Lightning Farron didn't flatter anyone.
She broke from his intense stare and cleared her throat. "So if you and your father harbor these magical powers of that crystal, why does your father feel the need to appoint you with a bodyguard? You can very much protect your own."
"I can." Noctis agreed with a tone much more cocky than he intended but wasn't regretful of it.
Her nose crinkled. "Then why hire a personal bodyguard for you then?"
When Lightning first came here, Noctis wondered the same question. Why did his father feel the need to call a soldier all the way from Cocoon to guard him? It took some time to ponder this and some bitterness to overcome. After all, he thought she was unwanted and therefore unwelcome. He may have enemies on him and made some careless decisions once or twice in the past, but on the grand scheme of things, those paled in light of what he had gone through during the war, where his injuries were far greater and he had made enough illogical actions that eventually made him wiser to this day.
He had thought she was unnecessary at first, but after spending months in her presence and getting so used to her being around by now, she was not so bad. He understood where his father was coming from, he supposed; Regis wanted to see his son crowned king, and there had been enough princes and princesses in their family's history that had been snuffed out before they could ascend the throne. With him becoming more and more focused on making his own reign soon, he has less time to look over his shoulder for some hidden knives. With Lightning right behind him, she would be on the lookout for him instead.
Without realizing, all Regis has done was appoint Noctis his own personal Cor Leonis in the form of Lightning. Even if Gladiolus is to fill that role eventually, he has responsibilities now of his own that goes beyond just being the Caelum's Shield, as is the Amicitia's hereditary position.
"If you believe the curse is real that came with Etro's blessing, then being born a Caelum means you're constantly in the eye of Death. For all the powers the crystal gives us, we are not invincible." Noctis had heard about it enough from his father; power doesn't mean immortality. Enough monarchs had belied that little truth from themselves, and they found their end too soon. "Dad just wants me safe. If I can't prevent my undoing with magic, or the want for my magic, then he wants someone else to look out for me."
A failsafe. She was there to assure he was going to be king. Epic powers he may have, he could still die just as quickly all the same. And as future sovereign meant he was a target for many enemies. Especially if his death meant that those enemies could get this crystal that the Caelums guard. "Then it's true you gain those abilities by this magical crystal?"
He hesitated. "Yes." And decided to proceed. "We're connected by blood. Something thieves don't specifically seem to know is that only those of the Caelum blood can bond with the crystal, and use its power. They seem to think that if they merely steal it from our grasp, they could utilize its power for their own gain. It's not. Its power is both a blessing and a curse, and only open to those it originally made a pact of bond with, which is only my family. The last war for the crystal seemed to let people like Idola Eldercapt believe that they have found a way to break the Caelum blood link with the crystal, and bond themselves to it. But the crystal's existence is only legendary, a secret."
Lightning blinked, feeling like something wasn't right with his statement. "If that is true, then why are you telling me this?"
He smirked, nodding for her to follow him. "Because you asked."
Noctis continued on with his tales of his ancestors history. Lightning couldn't believe he was actually telling her this in the first place. She thought that after she punched him so recklessly as she did, things would go back the way they were in the beginning between them. She expected scorn and disdain, but he was none of those.
She hadn't regretted hitting him. He threatened, but it wasn't like she wanted to remain here for long in the first place. True, she could whistle to that recommendation as a colonel, but she wouldn't remorse much of it anyway. She enjoyed doing what she does currently at the Guardian Corps. Besides, you couldn't miss something that you never had. And she had been far from home for far too long. She wanted to be with her sister again, to hang around or hunt with Fang. So if her quitting Lucis was the price she had to pay to have punched Noctis, it would have been worth it, Lightning decided. Worth it to flat out hit him in the face for being an inconsiderate ass, as she had wanted to pretty much since she arrived her. She had always composed herself from lashing out because she was a professional, and the award for completing her mission unhindered outweighed the need to face the consequences should she not.
But she didn't care for it at the moment. Screw it all to hell, it was well worth the effort to give the prince what was due. There was a time where even her temper got the best of her and the last drop had been that morning.
She was entirely prepared to have the king call her to his office, but that summoning never came. Noctis apologized. In an unorthodox rude way, but apologize he did. It showed that he was capable of reasoning, even though her own actions were over the line. He didn't tell his father.
In a stupid, unfriendly kind of way, it was nice of him to show some compassion where he didn't have to at all.
The week following she expected him to bring it up, but he didn't. He wasn't comfortable around her though, she could read that right off of him, and his distraction came in the form of meetings.
That meeting. She didn't expect him to listen. But he did.
He did.
And here he was opening up about the crystal and the Caelum history where he never had to. Maybe she was finally seeing a side to Noctis that she never had before.
~§~
"We heard your father is set to let the war prisoners free." Ignis's face was without expression. If there's anything the man was good at, it was playing his cards close to his chest. "It's an interesting decision."
"It was mine, actually. Sort of." He didn't know if the Scientia approved of it or not. But Noctis discovered that he didn't care. It was a sound verdict and Lightning had the right of it. "Dad only signed his signature."
"Someone is really growing into his role." Gladiolus seemed impressed and he bobbed his head at the prospect.
Prompto made an ambiguous sound and leaned back on his chair.
Noct's three friends had come soon, much to the satisfaction of Lightning. She knew that the prince needed to see them. She couldn't improve his mood by much, she didn't know particularly how, especially since she didn't know why he fell in such a dip in the first place. They had spent an afternoon talking about his family history, but by mid-afternoon she was required to leave for her routinely patrols and Noctis slipped back into his rooms. She hadn't seen him since and didn't know whether or not he had felt so gloomy again as he had earlier, but as soon as his friends appeared in the morning with frosted donuts and coffee, a smile appeared on Noctis's face that Lightning hadn't seen in days.
In a surprising turn of events, when they appeared in front of the heir's doors, Lightning returned from her first round of the day.
"Hey-hey!" Prompto had yelled excitedly, pointing at the bodyguard. "Look who's here!"
Lightning nodded a hello to the three of them. She knew that it was about high time they visited again.
Ignis messed with his glasses with one hand, and held the bag with food in the other. Gladio turned to look at her as well, with a giant beam on his face as he kept the coffee up. The door to Noct's rooms opened and the prince appeared to receive his friends.
"We brought breakfast!" Prompto wiggled his fingers at the food the other two was holding. "I'm sure you're hungry."
Noctis smile couldn't be any brighter. "I am."
Prompto halted for a second, looking over at Lightning, contemplating an idea for a second. "You know, we brought enough food, I'm sure you'd like some as well?" The blond had asked Lightning directly, who stood stone still at the sudden invitation. Prompto looked over at his three friends who were half inside and didn't seem entirely convinced that his suggestion was a sound one. "I mean, it's okay, right you guys?"
Ignis heaved his shoulders. "I always buy more than we can bear. Gladiolus has an unquenchable appetite most of the time. He's like a bottomless pit really."
"Eh, he's right." Gladio commented without much protest.
Noctis's cobalt eyes flew to her. "You've eaten yet?" His question was hesitant when he asked her, like he was hopeful that she hasn't and yet at the same time, hoped that she had.
She shook her head no. "I was going to."
"Yes," Prompto jumped up at the first opportunity. "Eat with us then?"
Lightning backed a step away. She may have come to somewhat tolerate, maybe even like these men, but she wasn't entirely sure that limitations like dinners, or even breakfasts, was something she wanted to cross. "Um, I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why not?" Both Prompto and Noctis wondered in unison. The latter blinked and looked down, Argentum shuffled closer to the Cocoonian soldier instead.
Lightning felt awkward. She didn't do awkward. "I can just order up food. No need to–"
"Nonsense." Prompto waved her decline off and snorted. "If you're good enough to train with us, you can eat with us."
"I…"
"Ah, come on. Who can pass up chocolate filled-chocolate frosted donuts? Come on." Prompto gingerly guided the bodyguard inside as a final push to convince her to stay. And the more shocking thing was that she couldn't make herself leave. "Take a seat. You can have my coffee. I like them sugary sweet but Iggy says Ebony Caffeine isn't meant to be drowned with a mountain of sugar."
Ignis pulled a chair out for Lightning to take and she thanked him quietly, before the bespectacled man took the one next to her. "You aren't, dimwit. It ruins the unique flavor."
Prompto fell in on Lightning's other side. "Meh, whatever. Coffee is coffee."
She wasn't big on coffee anyway, but she took what was offered. The bag of food was opened and along with donuts, bagels were also bought and croissants, but true to Prompto's promise, she was reaching for the chocolate filled and frosted donut. It was certainly a weakness of hers. She promised herself that she would only eat one and be done with it, but Prompto kind of pushed a bagel in her way and then another donut. She didn't want to stuff herself, but on the other hand she didn't want to decline him. Gladiolus inhaled most of his food within second and Noctis sipped more of his coffee than he ate. Ignis seemed to be a fan of the croissants with butter and Ebony coffee while he bickered with Prompto about the decent amount of sugar to put in it. According to him, Ebony shouldn't have any.
They fell into conversation and Ignis told Noctis what he heard about the prisoners of the war. Lightning could only hide her smile as much as she could. They went on with their usual shenanigans during breakfast. Ignis informed them that his family had even higher expectation to him now more than ever, which bothered him. Gladiolus responded that his family knew what he needed to do, but he didn't find their standards challenging enough. Prompto whistled at the lot of them; he was glad he was pretty much an orphan, with no important family members breathing down his neck to continue with traditions and leave legacies of his own. His three other friends asked him instead how his restaurant was doing, which was smooth and running.
"You should come down to eat someday." Prompto told Lightning. "You haven't actually sat down to eat there."
She remembered the first time, and last time, she was there. How strange was it to almost feel regretful of her actions. "Maybe." She managed at least that much.
"In fact," The blond tapped his chin. "You should bring a date."
On the word date Noctis rushed ahead of himself. "We'll all come around again, Prompto." Noctis slid his eyes towards his bodyguard. "She'll be with us."
Her slow, almost insecure nod was one of agreement, though. And he was happy she didn't flat out reject the suggestion. Could it be that she didn't mind as much to be around them anymore? That would be some impressive progress, coming from her. They stayed at the table until all the food was gone, most of which had disappeared down Gladio's throat. Noctis started cleaning up and when Lightning asked if she could help, he told her that she didn't need to.
It was a relatively nice day and Prompto immediately bid that they do something proactive today. If he stayed indoors too much, he'd go nuts.
"Let's do some training then!" Gladiolus suggested, always a glutton for any kind of workout.
"Cool." Prompto agreed for once. In between everyday life of working at his restaurant and helping out Noct here and there, it feels like all the excitement has rushed out of his life. He would be up for some extensive activities. "But I'm so done going to the base now."
"Yeah…" Gladiolus sighed dreamily. "To get some action with you guys under the clear blue sky again. I've missed that. It's so quiet without you guys when I go alone."
Noctis paused and flipped around like a whirlwind. "You go out hunting alone?"
"Sure." His big friend admitted without much remorse. "Just because you're not allowed to go doesn't mean I am."
Noctis sneered. "Traitor."
Lightning looked out the window. Unless you were on the roofs you couldn't really see them but she knew they were there. "Why don't you make a trip to the mountains? Plenty of action there, I suppose."
At this the prince looked bummed out. "I can't."
"The king has prohibited Noct from going up there after an incident last time." Prompto added as an explanation.
Lightning eyed Noctis directly. "What happened last time?"
Gladio had a warm chuckle to the memory. "Prince Charmless here got hurt and daddy didn't like it." He brushed Noctis's dissatisfied glance off easily.
Lightning thought about it. A training up the mountain range sounded as good as a cool glass of water on a scorching hot day. And she had a thirst for quite a while now. She could see Noctis wanted to go too. Apparently his friends had more mobility on where they choose to train, but ever since she arrived in Lucis Noctis stuck to the underground base. Now she understood that it was by his father's command he had nowhere else to exercise. "We should go."
Prompto raised an eyebrow. "Where to, exactly?"
Lightning nodded out of the window. "The mountains."
"What?"
"What?!"
"For real?"
Ignis tipped his glasses up his nose and Gladiolus couldn't believe what he was hearing. Did the stiff and dutiful soldier go against the king's own words? "But Regis's orders…?"
Noctis had once accused Lightning of never having fun. Somehow, after months, that sentence still echoed through her mind, and though she would never admit it out loud, the thought bothered her. So she shrugged and kept a rare mischievous smirk on her lips. "What the king doesn't know…"
It was a new sort of amusement to see their faces lit up in obvious elation.
"Up to the car then!"
Noctis and Prompto shared a high five to which Gladiolus demanded a bro fist in return because he didn't want to be left out. Lightning trailed behind them, not realizing she held a small smile on her until Ignis Scientia walked right next to her. Beneath his thin rim of glasses, his eyes were blue and always filled with calmness and rationality. "You think this is a good choice, Sergeant?" He asked quietly, though not ungently. "To go against the wishes of the king and sovereign? The very reason why Highness is prohibited from going there is because he took a severe injury the last time."
Truth be told, it wasn't a good decision. She knew that it wasn't in the slightest. She had aimed to be discharged honorably from this mission and with an unblemished record if she could help it. If King Regis discovers this escapade, she will be held accountable and repercussions could be unpleasant. However, she would take this risk more for selfish reasons than to please Noctis's opinion of her. She was highly in need for some very thrilling exercise and action. She wasn't unfamiliar with monster exterminations – it was a duty she did well even on Cocoon. She was glad to hear that Lucis had such areas filled with beasts. She would've taken the opportunity to go there sooner if she didn't have to guard the prince. She wasn't allowed to go anywhere too far from Noctis and neither could he from her, unless with the permission of the king. If it just so happens that the prince made his way to the mountains, well, it's only her job to follow him.
Ignis himself didn't seem to object much to the suggestion, save for this slight warning he thought was sound to tell her. Lightning nodded and assured him. "Nothing will happen to the prince now."
He raised an eyebrow curiously at her. "How are you so certain? Noct was seriously wounded the previous time we took to the mountains."
Lightning lifted Blazefire Sabre with a convincing smile of her own. "I wasn't there last time."
~§~
They headed to the garage in a commotion of laughter and excitement. Lightning only trailed behind them, following them silently as the boys horsed around, especially Gladiolus and Prompto. Her heels clicked loudly on the marble floor of the hallways, drowned by the sound of the prince and his friends' merriment. They headed down into the garage, where Lightning lingered behind when the boys practically ran towards their accustomed car.
The Prince paused when she did. "What are you doing?" Noctis's tone wasn't accusing, but he was confused when she reached for one of the car keys at the garage's wall. The whole group stopped at the sound of the prince's question. The convertible's suicide doors were already thrown open, with its roof still raised.
In an awkward moment, Lightning didn't know what to say. They were going on a secret hunting trip to the mountains. That was still the plan, wasn't it? "Taking a key?" They were driving to the place, weren't they? Evidently they are, or else they wouldn't be ready to hop in the Regelia right about now.
"What?" Noctis asked with a slight chuckle, as if the thought amused him. "Aren't you coming with us?"
Lightning was so stunned at the moment that she could do nothing but stare. He… he invited her to ride along with them? Wasn't he so adamant about sharing his personal vehicle space that he pressed for her to take any other car but their own since all those months ago? She had never been invited along, not in the Regelia and definitely not with all of the prince's friends together. There had been times, of course, where she had shared the same ride with Noctis out of necessity, but ever since their last car fiasco about five months ago, she assumed that she wasn't welcome within their group whenever they traveled with the convertible.
But they've passed that point. And Lightning nodded. "Alright."
Gladiolus opened the door even wider and bowed courteously. "Ladies first."
"Ha!" Prompto squealed, waving his gun. "I've got shotgun!" Then he laughed at himself like a complete dweeb and pointed at himself. "Get it? Shotgun?"
Ignis, Noctis and Gladiolus simultaneously groaned.
"You're hilarious, really." Amicitia commented sarcastically as he scooted besides Lightning on her left.
Noctis was on her right, and he closed the door with a warm smile that Lightning wasn't sure if it was directed at her or appeared due to the easy banter between his friends. Ignis started the engine and the whole vehicle purred to life. Then they were floating over the road and away from the Caelum palace, through the city and onto the highway. As soon as it was them and the road, the roof of the car was lowered and the wind was flowing freely through Lightning's hair. She barely caught the sound of Gladiolus's boisterous laughter on her left with all the wind rushing past her ears, accompanied with the loud pop music Prompto decided to put on. She was bewildered with how easily they left the bustling city and all the other cars behind as Ignis zoomed by them, leaving them soon all alone on a quiet highway.
There were trees all around and hills, rocks and snow-capped mountains, about an hour drive from Insomnia. Lightning got lost to the sights around her and the cold of the wind and the easy air in the car. Prompto danced to the beat, Noctis leaned half into his seat, and Gladiolus was trying to poke some life into Ignis as he was focusing on the road. Lightning thought she would otherwise feel crowded in the car, between friends that weren't quite yet hers, but they were very welcome to her presence. Everything smelled like leather and boys, but it was a nice mix. Soon, the scent of leafs and pine trees added to it when nature was all around them.
In what seems like minutes, they pulled over and Prompto was the first that jumped out. He took a deep breath, puffing up his chest and exhaled loudly. "Inhale that clean smog-free air, gents. It'll cleanse ya."
"It didn't do much cleansing the last time we were here." Noctis's reply was sardonic, but his attitude was cheery, and he found himself excited to be here again. Before his father banned him from the mountains, he came several times just for the sake of action and training. The last time they were here, he was angry and hurt and emotional about Stella. He was lighter now, the guilt not eating away at him so much that all he wanted was to kill things.
Now, he knew he was here for the sake of his own entertainment.
"Let's pretend last time didn't happen." Gladiolus stretched his long limbs and started to warm up his muscles.
Lightning jumped out of the car and drifted, quite unconsciously, towards the prince. "What exactly happened last time?" She asked, still having the habit to looking at Noctis.
Ignis closed and locked the door behind them. "Nothing that is of importance anymore." He clicked on his phone, readjusting his glasses. "I see there's a particular behemoth that is wanted dead or alive." He slid his finger over the picture, adding in sarcasm, "Although I imagine sooner dead than alive."
"Wait," Prompto shoved himself against Ignis's side to look over his shoulder onto his phone. "They have an app for wanted monsters?"
"Only if you have high clearance."
Prompto squinted hard at their bespectacled friend. "You have no such thing. Not until that dork becomes king at least." He jerked his thumb lamely at Noct's direction, who rolled his eyes.
"After everything, you still don't know what I'm capable of, Argentum." Ignis called him an idiot under his breath and proceeded to eye his phone. "It's a fully gown, mature behemoth we're talking about here. Maybe we should consider a lesser beast."
"No way." Noct protested.
"We can take 'em." Gladio added.
"It's not impossible." Lightning said behind them. They all turned to her curiously. "Winter season is almost over, that means it has been able to fed but didn't regain all of its strength yet. They're nocturnal creatures and it's about noon, so it should be resting in its lair. A surprise attack on our part could leave it crippling and easy to finish off."
"My, my." Prompto whistled. "Someone is well informed."
Gladiolus seemed impressed all over again. "Is there something you don't know?"
Plenty. Lightning thought quietly, but showing that she didn't wasn't her style.
Noctis crossed his arms, leaning towards her with a slight smile. "You do seem to know about everything. Are you always right?"
Lightning shook her head no, trying to suppress a smirk but failing. "Not when I'm wrong."
Her comment got Noct's smile growing despite himself, and to his surprise – but not unwelcome – she returned the look. A moment of silence passed by within the group where Noctis's attention was solely on the Cocoonian Sergeant without him even noticing, until Ignis moved and announced that they should get going before the sun sets with them still standing there.
"Time to find some clues where this big boy might be hiding." The tall Amicitia cracked his knuckles, ready for a new adventure and taking point into the woods.
Prompto and Ignis followed easily, one still looking at his phone. "There's a chocobo ranch nearby." Ignis revealed, to the joy and elation of Prince Caelum and his blond friend. "But it's closed due to this behemoth we're hunting."
Prompto gasped appalled. "Those majestic birds are denied their right to stretch their paws because a vicious monster is stalking on their territory? I know enough. This behemoth is going down."
"Right with you." Noctis joined, frowning. "Who knows how many he has eaten already."
"Ugh, I could go for some fried chocobo nuggets right about now." Gladiolus massaged his stomach through his filter thin shirt. "I'm starving."
Noctis and Prompto gasped once again, utterly disgusted. "How could you even think about eating a chocobo? Go wash your mouth."
"You barbaric swine."
Ignis made some kind of snorting sound in the back of throat, that may have been a chuckle and even Lightning found herself amused by their conversation.
They made their way to the center of the forest, where a giant lake was. Several docile animals lingered about, that Gladio suggested they attack the poor creatures as a warm-up, but Lightning advised against it, knowing they needed all their strength. And she secretly didn't want to bring any harm to the peaceful animals. The group moseyed around the lake into the slough, finding giant paw prints.
"Eureka!" Prompto yelled, his index finger in the sky. "Found something."
Gladiolus shook his head at Prompto's antics. "You're such a doofus."
"This doofus happens to have found our first clue. What have you done except making ugly faces?"
A vein throbbed on Gladio's forehead in his anger. "Keep yapping like that and I'll make your face ugly."
Finding herself nearly laughing loudly with these guys around, Lightning distracted herself with investigating the paw prints in the mud. Having differed the fresher prints from the older ones, she could follow where it went. A slight movement to her right made her look up. Her first instinct told her it was Noctis – since he was always the one closest to her – but when she recognized the figure standing right in the gaze of the blaring sun, she knew it was Ignis Scientia instead. He was studying the prints along her and came to same conclusion.
"We need to go north."
Lightning hummed her agreement. "It hasn't been in a hurry. Let's go."
The boys followed Lightning this time, back into the trees and bushes, finding more claw marks and blood on their way. At a certain moment, when they were silently stalking through the bushes, an awful odor of excrement wafted up their noses.
"Gross." Gladiolus squeezed his nose. "What is that stench?"
Ignis pushed aside some bushes. "Sssh." He told his taller friend.
Gladiolus waved the air in front of his face, as if that would help with getting rid of the smell. "Etro's Light, that reeks!"
Ignis turned again. "Be quiet."
Thinking that their smart friend spotted danger before he did, Gladio shut up. They didn't stop travelling, and two minutes later Ignis said, "See? You kept your mouth closed and the smell is gone."
Letting the implication connect in Gladiolus's mind, as well as the other companions, Prompto burst out laughing and Gladio growled. "Harr-di-harr. You should be a standing comedian." Ignis shrugged and when the blond Argentum kept laughing and laughing, Gladio turned his offended temper to their more fragile friend. "Keep laughing you little shit. I oughta–"
"Sssh!" It was Noctis this time, stopping the whole group when he did so.
Amicitia grumbled. "It isn't funny the second time around, Noct."
"No, seriously." The prince whispered. "I heard something."
Lightning was the first who fingered her gunblade when she heard twigs crack and bushes rustle. Even a few meters away from him, Lightning still clearly saw Noctis's eyes bleed from blue to hazel to red. Every muscle, tendon and nerve was on high alert. The three other boys moved in a stance when the sounds grew nearer.
Out popped an all-black chocobo, and it seemed as surprised to see them as they were by it.
"A chocobo!" Prompto squealed, where the giant bird chirped a 'kweh' before turning and bolting away. "Noooo!"
"Great." Noctis droned disappointedly. "You scared it away with your nasal screeching."
"No, I did not, it left on its own!"
"Sure it did."
Lightning pushed her weapon back into her crimson satchel. "Let's get going. We're burning daylight."
"Yes, ma'am!" Prompto nodded, but couldn't help himself when he turned his head over his shoulder and stuck his tongue out at Noct.
The prince rolled his eyes and flanked by Gladiolus and Ignis, they proceeded on. The day was warm for the time of the year and peaceful, and although it was bright and sunny, there were parts of the forest that was densely overgrown, where very little light pierced through. The bushes around them were vast and some grew so thickly, that some of them was taller than they were. That wasn't always an inconvenience to them, however. Bushes that were trampled, tree branches that were broken indicated that the behemoth they're looking for has crossed this path and they were heading into the right direction. The trees and bushes thinned out eventually when they reached a bunch of rock formations that lay about higher than even the forest.
"Hm." Noctis eyed the rocks unconvinced. "Where to now?" He glanced over at Lightning, who led the group on point until now.
"Maybe the beast has climbed over it." Ignis suggested.
Lightning debated that statement. "By the looks of the torn off branches we saw earlier, it's certainly big enough to have managed to climb over these."
The only brunette Scientia among them inspected the stone much more closer this time, going back on his own musings. "No, we would have seen scratches and claw marks if he did that."
"It must've gone around then." Lightning looked northwards for it was highly unlikely it had gone back south.
And north they went again, where not much later they found a passage wide enough leading into, what seemed like, a maze of more rocks. They were going right, for this time the stones showed deep and very large claw marks that had Gladiolus whistling. "A very big boy, this one."
"Eh," Prompto made an unsure sound by the sight of the scratches alone. "Are we sure we're going to do this?"
"What, you scared?" Noctis pointed with a hidden smirk of his own.
"Just cautious, is all." The blond grabbed his gun, as if inspecting it. "Don't know if I have enough bullets for the thing."
"I think I smell a scaredy cat." Gladiolus sniffed the air, purposely moving his head towards Argentum.
Prompto only shrugged. "Remember your mouth is right under your nose." He had walked ahead before he caught his friend's glare.
Noctis smiled. "Come on, guys. Let's continue."
Entering the maze, they got their first sport when they were attacked by red wolves that they finished off quickly. No mere hundred meters away, the group got ambushed by another pack of wolves again. Ten minutes later, small pebbles rolled off the bigger rocks and they were surrounded by a group of sabertusks that took too much time, made too much noise and splattered too much blood to get rid of. The small fights left them warmed up, but it annoyed Lightning more than the boys, for she regarded the hunt for the behemoth her mission, and if there was anything she disliked more it would be distractions during missions. Which was exactly what the red wolves and sabertusks turned out to be. The next time they heard twigs crack behind them, weapons were pulled out faster than a blink of an eye only to be pleasantly surprised with the sight of another black chocobo standing behind them. It cocked its head left and right, and the first one who dissolved his sword in a bubble of crystal shards was Noctis.
"Don't make a sudden move." The prince warned the rest of the team. He was closest to the rare bird than any of them and slowly approached it. Prompto had a great need to run over to the chocobo as well, but Noct's warning still rang through his mind as well as what happened not but an hour or two ago when his excitement got the best of him and the chocobo fled.
Prince Caelum showed to have a true affinity to the birds, whether they be gold or black, he had a natural air about him that made the chocobo comfortable. He lifted a single hand to it, and Lightning was quite impressed, when he did so and the chocobo didn't run away again. In fact, the tall animal glanced down at the hand of the prince, did something akin to sniffing it before it released a very loud 'kweh kweh.' As if he knew he was allowed to, Noctis touched the black feathers on the chocobo's neck.
"Would you look at that." Gladio announced with a crooked smile, crossing his tattooed arms over his chest. "Guess wonderboy here still got it in 'em." Lightning wondered what he meant with that but didn't bother to ask. Fortunately, the young Amicitia lord was courteously enough to explain it to her himself. "Noct's always had a thing for chocobos." He said. "He likes them and they seem to like him."
"A true chocobo-whisperer." Prompto grinned.
"And frogs." Ignis added as an afterthought. "That aside, this is quite a rare sight. The Ducula Melanochroa Cocubii, or better known as the Black Imperial Chocobo, is an odd species related to the more familiar golden chocobos. What makes this so special is, in the wilds they are known to shy away from human presence."
And yet Noctis was petting one of them as if he had trained it since it was a chick.
Lightning stared at the dark prince and the equally dark chocobo. "That's… amazing." She couldn't keep the awe out of her voice if she tried.
"Oh, I want to stroke him too." Prompto shuffled slowly towards them to cope a feel and the chocobo only squawked. He even managed to make a picture with the black rare bird.
A minute or two later, Ignis announced that they better move on. "After all, we're not here to pet chocobos. As rare as they may be."
"Yeah, yeah." Noctis shrugged. Shooing the beautiful dark feathered bird away.
They continued following the rocks that led to the ruins of what used to be an unfinished building. And something strange hung in the air.
"You hear that?" Prompto lowered his voice, eyes focused.
Ignis shrugged. "I hear nothing."
Prompto frowned. "Exactly."
"He's right." Lightning's own voice matched Prompto's decibel. She could feel there was something heavy about to happen. Bird songs or crickets were nowhere to be heard. Something big and dangerous was around.
Gladiolus kicked away old plates. "Guys, I found something." It was something of a tunnel, and it looked dank and small and drowsy inside. And from that tunneling darkness they heard echoing growling that could only belong to the creature they were hunting.
"You go first." Noct told Gladio. "You found it."
Puffing up his chest, he went, with Noct going second and Lightning right after it. Prompto was on her heels, shotgun already out and Ignis protected their end. Crawling through dim light and wetness of old rain puddles, they quietly shuffled along. They hadn't nearly reached the middle of it when the entire tunnel started to shake and tremble. Everyone's breath was cut short when they heard the familiar roar of a behemoth not ten meters away from them.
"Shit!" Prompto cursed, even if it was under his breath, Lightning still signaled him to stay completely silent.
All five of them remained unmoving as the behemoth walked about mere meters away from them, and the whole group caught their first glimpse of the creature they were stalking through the cracks of the tunnel. A fully grown beast it was, packed with muscle everywhere you looked, missing a horn as well as an eye. It was a nightmare come to life. Here in the wild open air it could grow taller than any Lightning had seen on Cocoon and could easily rival the few still roaming Gran Pulse. It was going to be a challenge to get this monster down, but they came here to find one and do some real training. It would be a memorable one, to say the least, should they survive.
Gladio threw a look over his shoulder signifying he was going towards the end of the tunnel. With the behemoth practically above them, they couldn't very much remain there. Even getting out of the tunnel proved a dangerous task. There was a ten meter drop from the end to the ground and jumping out wasn't the problem, but the noise they created doing so. There was no way they could go unnoticed.
It proved true; as soon as Lightning's heels touched the ground, they clicked loudly before she could stop it and the sound of uneven, monstrous steps coming their way was heard. Gladiolus, Noctis and Lightning squeezed themselves under the shade of the tunnel, while Prompto and Ignis remained within. Above them the large shadow of the behemoth appeared. It looked around but – Etro bless them – it didn't look straight down where the group hid poorly. Worst place ever. Where Lightning was sandwiched between Gladiolus Amicitia and Prince Noctis before she could alter their position and at least have Noctis the protected middle. The behemoth never noticed them, and even surely it felt a presence that didn't belong in his territory, but he only let out a giant roar. Standing right beneath the behemoth, the heroes smelled its breath of fish, rotten meat and death when it opened his jaw. It was so bad, it produced tears in Gladio's eyes, who got the most of it fanned down on him.
Even when it left, the group didn't move a single finger for at least a minute before Prompto and Ignis climbed down painfully slow to keep as quiet as possible.
"Did you see the size of that thing?" Prompto was still whispering, even though the behemoth left. "We're gonna die."
Lightning felt her own sense of trepidation, but it had never stopped her before from playing the game. "I'm sure you've faced things far worse than that." She told him.
Ambrotus
By
Sweet . Crazy – Drama Queen
X Is est nos quisnam imperium nostrum fortuna quod fatum. X
Episode IX
"When I couldn't see a future, I was afraid. When the future was clear and it hurt to see, I just close my eyes and lose myself in happier days." ~ Oerba Dia Vanille
They have, Noctis agreed. This behemoth should be a cake walk compared to the creatures – or people – they had once battled.
"We should follow it." Prince Caelum pointed, knowing now what lay waiting. "Its lair shouldn't be too far off."
"A well executed ambush would be in order." Ignis nodded, thinking of a plan. " Gladio and I will go in first, luring it outside. Prompto and Highness take unawares once outside, and Noct can take a high angle and hit it from its blind spot. Sergeant…?"
Lightning cast a look at Noctis so fast, she hoped no one caught it. "I'll be outside too." She cocked her gun for emphasis, but her true reasoning was more duty based. Wherever the prince would go, she would go. She had fully intended to continue guarding him, whether or not it was her own idea to seek this danger, she would keep to her initial mission.
"Then it's settled." Ignis nodded.
"Alright!" Prompto held up his thumbs.
"Sounds good to me." Noctis drawled.
"Heh." Gladiolus chucked.
"Right." And Lightning agreed.
What started pretty optimistically, turned out to be the opposite. The lair was easy to find, where the rocks came together into a mouth of a cave that opened up. Dark, cold and creepy it was. As planned, Scientia and Amicitia went in first, while the three others hid by in the side they knew the behemoth was blind to. Crystal sparks flew in the air while Noct held one of his swords on standby. The two oldest entered the cave and took quite a while inside too. The most peculiar thing about it was that no sounds of fighting or growling came outside, except for a colony of bats screeching their way out of the entrance that spooked the three outside.
Nothing happened for minutes, until Gladiolus and Ignis came trotting back out, looking disappointed and perturbed.
"Lemme guess." Noct dropped the sword and long before it hit the ground it disappeared. "He's not home."
"I don't understand." Ignis, for the first time Lightning had seen, looked confused. "He should be here."
"Clearly he isn't."
"Thank you for your observation, Captain Obvious." Ignis glared with an unusual upset reply from him.
"Hey, don't blame me for our lousy tracking skills." Noctis lifted his shoulders.
"He came this way." Lightning pressed, feeling somehow offended that Noctis insulted her own hunting skills as well. She was excellent at it, mind you. Or maybe not as excellent as she thought, as proven. "Even if he's not in there, he should be around."
Prompto raised a skeptic brow. "Maybe that's not even his lair."
"No, that was definitely his lair." Gladio waved the air in front of his nose. "Trust me."
"Then what went wrong?" Noct asked.
"Ignis's plans aren't as waterproof as he thinks they are." Prompto pointed the first finger at his four-eyed friend.
"I didn't hear you suggest anything. If it were up to you, we would still be cowering by the slough." Ignis retorted, throwing the second stone.
Prompto waved him off. "Oh, don't be so dramatic!"
"I'm dramatic?!"
"Guys." Noctis tried to intervene, but they didn't hear him.
"You know that your plans don't always work out. Just admit that you're wrong now."
"I'm not in the least. The beast isn't here."
"And you didn't calculate that. And you count on everything. So you're wrong."
"I. Am. Not."
"Something's coming!" Lightning warned, her instincts flaring up with warning bells.
But it was too late.
Deadeye was here and the ambushers became the ambushed, and the fight started off sloppy.
Prompto stumbled over his own two feet, caught in surprise and fear and clumsiness. Gladiolus ran headfirst towards Deadeye, but the behemoth flipped around faster and with more agility than his size betrayed, and it threw Gladiolus back with the lash of his tail. Amicitia made heavy impact with the ground and Ignis rushed to his side while summoning his own weapons. Noctis and Lightning quickly shared a glance, nodded within a fragment of a second to each other, and ran circles around the behemoth. Deadeye's single slitted eye had trouble keeping up with following the two of them as they ran in opposite direction.
Once Prompto caught on, he started shooting Deadeye from his blind side. When the behemoth whipped around to find the source of his agitation, Lightning shot him from the other side with her gunblade. By that time Ignis had Gladiolus back on his feet. Magic swam into the air when Gladio's giant longsword was summoned up, and he started to hack away at its tail as if bend on revenge. Ignis didn't waste time falling into attack mode either, if he wasn't yelling instructions on how to find weak spots or looking out for incoming attacks, he's handing healing spells for every hurt.
Lightning ducked and rolled away from a paw heavy with claws coming in her direction, and swiped Blazefire Sabre's lethal edge around before Deadeye could turn around. He got distracted with Gladiolus hacking off a part of his tail, which the behemoth howled in pain and anger at, twisted around to run after Gladiolus who was significantly slower due to his sword. Prompto and Ignis ran to his aide, keeping Deadeye from further advancing on Gladio.
Noctis warped up to Lightning, his crimson eyes flashing when he looked down at her, crystal shard glittering before disappearing. "I've got an idea."
"Spill." They haven't gotten much time to ponder carefully about every step, since the behemoth wasn't going wait to rip them to pieces.
Noctis always had a plan B in case any regular attacks wasn't enough to fell the beast. A summoning was his last hope, one he'd rather not reach for if he could help it. Too much magic it consumes him to call one of the great ones and he already abused all his favors enough with the Eidolons during the war. Besides, they were the five of them and excellent warriors at that. What was a mere behemoth compared to the gods they faced before?
"His neck is his weak spot." Noct shared with her, summoning one of his most largest swords. "I need you to create a distraction for me."
Lightning knew well enough how to do that. "Right." He didn't even have to elaborate how she went about doing this distraction. She knew she had to do it fast and long enough for Noctis to get up there without the incredibly agile behemoth notices him and avoids it altogether.
She saw Ignis cast a Firaga spell at Deadeye's hind legs and it screamed and lashed out viciously at his attackers, running around with a cut off tail and burning backside. She flashed at the behemoth's side as fast as she could muster, activating her gravity bomb device with a snap of her fingers. She had to come precariously close to Deadeye to be completely sure her hit would count. And before a paw with deadly sharp black claws could descend on her, she threw Blazefire Sabre point first into Deadeye's one remaining good eye.
It howled and cried and trashed around, where Lightning rolled away from getting stepped on. Completely blind, Noctis managed to warp up into the sky high above Deadeye, only to use his light speed to ascend down on him and impaled his large sword into the back of the behemoth's head. A spray of blood spouted out along with an ear-piercing roar. Lightning ran around, jumped up with the help of her anti-gravity device, pulled her weapon out of his eye and flipped over his head. Both Lightning and Noctis landed together.
Prompto shot twice at each of Deadeye's paws, causing the enormous beast to lose its balance and fall onto his side. Gladiolus ran forward as fast as he could and stabbed through Deadeye's muscled chest, delivered the fatal blow. Deadeye stayed like that, bleeding from every direction, with its tongue lolled out and as dead as a skinned bear carpet.
When a second or two there was no movement spotted from the behemoth, the group cheered in their success.
"We've done it!" Gladiolus leaning on his equally tall sword, wiping away sweat from his brow.
"That wasn't half as bad." Ignis wiped blood from the rim of his glasses.
"Woohoo!" Prompto jumped up and down in front of the dead beast. He turned and ran around for high fives.
Lightning slapped her own hand against his. "That was exciting, to say the least." There was a faint flush to her cheeks brought on by the exhilarating action. It has been quite some time since she could participate in a dangerous old-fashion hunting trip. She forgot how epic it could be.
"An afternoon well spent." Noctis's eyes were already fading back to the once familiar azure blue Lightning always knew. "That was so awesome."
"If by awesome you mean almost ripped to shreds," Prompto said, but still gleefully. "Then yeah. But soooo worth it."
"Right." Lightning couldn't keep stop grinning herself. The blood on her gunblade was gleaming and nasty, but Ignis handed her one of his own handkerchiefs that he apparently always has on him, for her to clean her weapon. The boys had it easy, with Noct's shared magic, their weapons disappeared in a poof of crystals, – except for Prompto's – but Lightning cleaned her beloved Blazefire Sabre, promised to oil and sharpen it once they returned home.
"I guess now we can go inform that chocobo ranch nearby that the coast is clear again." Noctis pointed out, already ecstatic at the prospect of seeing more chocobos than he already had.
"We should take a horn." Gladiolus still had his own bloody sword, ready to chop one off.
"I don't think it fits in the car with us as a souvenir, Gladio." Although the idea didn't sound too bad to Prompto.
"I meant as proof for the ranch that Deadeye is really dead."
"Damn," Prompto glanced back at said behemoth. From his only working eye was oozing blood, completely ruined when Lightning retrieved her gunblade from the eye. The blond whistled. "You really did a number on his one working eyeball. Poor thing." He told Lightning with a goofy grin.
Light shrugged. "Guess Deadeye is deadeyes now." She really sucked at making jokes, even worse than Prompto in general.
But the blond laughed regardless. "And good riddance too! Now them pretty and adorable chocobos can freely run around again without getting turned into raw chocobo nuggets."
The eldest Amicitia cut off a horn in one fell swoop and lifted the thing over his shoulder like it was light weight. Ignis produced his telephone again to check in which direction they had to head towards the chocobo ranch. Following the late midday sun, they headed back south to south-east, finding no other enemies to fight surprisingly. Prompto seemed strangely ready to go into more battles, but this time around there were none to accommodate him.
Their fight against Deadeye must've taken about twenty minutes, if not less, and they had spent much more hours just searching for the behemoth than they have defeating it. It took another hour of them wandering back through the thick forest and following the sounds of squawking birds and a few littering tourists to find the ranch. People looked around to stare at the blood-spattered group, and the big guy carrying a huge horn over his shoulder.
The owner of the ranch, a pretty chubby fellow with a hairy chest, came out laughing to welcome the newcomers. "Killed good ol' Deadeye, have ye?"
"Yep! And now you're all free to open your tours all over again." Prompto exclaimed chipper.
The ranch owner delightfully ripped one of Deadeye's wanted flyers, to the joy of the few tourists hanging about. The ranch would be back in good business, the chocobos could be ridden into the wild again and the area was safe. He had even asked Gladiolus to hung the behemoth horn against the wall while they were here and promising a free tour the next time they were here.
Noctis called that they better be heading back to the car and castle, before anyone misses them for too long, even though he was as reluctant to leave the golden chocobos as Prompto was. They shook hands with the ranch owner, got a few words of gratitude from tourists and they left the ranch behind towards the car.
"We shouldn't be sitting in the Regelia with all this blood on us." Ignis's cleaning disorder made an appearance, but Gladiolus waved it off. They could hardly get themselves clean. The lake water was still too cold to even risk a dip and in return they would be sopping wet in the car.
"Not like we haven't bled all over the car before, Iggy." Noctis reminded him, much to their bespectacled brunet.
They found said car soon, just where they left it, untouched. Ignis popped the roof, unlocked the door and in they went, back towards the crown city of Insomnia. The ride back was much the same as it were when they came, only they had the sunset with them as they drove. Wind rushed loudly past Lightning's ears, Prompto listened to his music yet refrained from dancing this time. Gladiolus spent dozing off besides Lightning, and Noctis touched her arm.
He leaned towards her so she can hear him over the wind, yet kept his voice relatively low to keep the conversation between the two of them. "And what did you think of your hunting trip in Lucis?"
"Not the same as on Cocoon, that's for sure." Or Gran Pulse. "Compared to some I've seen over there, Deadeye over here was a lapdog. We should have taken him easily with one arm tied to our backs."
"A lapdog?" Noctis repeated with a chuckle. "One that can swallow you whole."
True, Deadeye was huge in seize. "But he has pathetic senses. We were right under him and he didn't hear nor smell us? He fails as a predator." If they were on Gran Pulse, the mere scratch on your knee could draw the deadliest of behemoths to you on the drop of that single blood alone. There were times at night they feared lighting a campfire while in the wilderness, should they attracted such monsters.
"Lady Luck smiled upon us. Imagine how unprepared we would have been if he attacked us then."
His eyes were a complete indigo in the light of the setting sun around them. It may have been mesmerizing. Lightning quickly looked ahead as she answered him. "You mean even more unprepared than what we were when it found us?"
"Man," Noctis shook his head. "We sucked. We should be thanking Etro we came out of that alive in the first place."
"Our plan was still solid. It worked out, didn't it?"
"It did." He looked at her, a smile playing on his lips. "We work pretty well together as a team."
If they put their minds to it and set aside their differences… then yeah. The thought that they got along, even in such a way, was nice. It was progress, she guessed but, not unwelcome. "Yeah. We do."
As soon as they joined the highway that led straight into the crown city, Ignis lifted the rooftop of the car once again. It was quieter now, with low Lucian music only drifting among them. Lightning guessed everyone was too tired to actually fool around or make conversation between themselves. Light herself was looking forward to a good hot shower, a warm meal and a whetstone for her weapon. It wasn't long that they found themselves in the dense city filled with the familiar skyscraping buildings, lights and people. They drove off into the middle of it, stopping in front of a very tall apartment building that Prompto jumped out to.
"Well, this is my stop!" He exited the car and called a goodbye to everyone.
Lightning tried to look out of the window, eyeing the very height of the apartment building that reached into the sky and beyond. "Prompto lives here?" The place looks particularly fancy. She never pegged him as rich as Ignis and Gladiolus would be – Noctis notwithstanding for obvious reasons – so she wondered how he was able to afford this.
"For now." Gladiolus grinned in answer.
"We own the building." Noctis explained, eying the Caelum flag that hung outside. "I'm kind of lending him my own penthouse for the time being. Until he finds a place of his own, he said."
Lightning blinked. He owns an apartment building down town of Insomnia?
"Yeah, that was more than a year ago. He just likes the luxury." Gladiolus grumbled on Lightning's left.
Noctis didn't mind. His house was theirs and Prompto was in high need of an upgraded home after the ending of the war. They drove over and out of the town to the more desolate part of the city, that Lightning recognized they were heading towards the Caelum castle. The prince and his bodyguard were dropped off next, with Gladio remaining the only one in the car with Ignis. The latter promised to return the car after he dropped Amicitia at his own house, like always.
Deciding it was better not to be seen by anyone, they snuck onto the castle grounds, trying to keep out of sight from any servants around, lest they see the spots of blood on their clothing and went to tattle to the king.
"If we go around and climb the balcony via one of my patrol routes, we'll be least likely seen."
"Who knew your patrol routes could come in handy this way?" Noctis grinned and they ran around the castle walls, ducking under windows like children who done something naughty and tried not to be caught.
Lightning pointed at their shared balcony above them. "Just up there and we're home free." She started climbing and she hardly swung over the railing when Noctis warped besides her. "Not fair." She told him with a scowl.
If he didn't know it any better, he'd say she was pouting. The thought was as incredulous as it was cute. "Sorry," He said with a smile that betrayed how not sorry he was. "Climbing is not really my thing."
She pursed her mouth, but shook her head goodheartedly. "You're a cheat."
She opened her own balcony door to her room when he opened his, but he hesitated for a moment, and called her before she disappeared inside. "Hey, Lightning?" Her name was still foreign to his mouth, but, he realized, he wouldn't mind getting used to it.
She took a step back, looking at him with viridian eyes that were nowhere near as cold and icy as they once were when she just arrived here in Lucis. "Yes?"
Noctis glanced down, suddenly feeling bashful. "Thank you, y'know, for today." It had to mean something that she, the ever dutiful soldier, went against direct orders of his father. "We really needed it."
The corner of her mouth raised, her voice quiet. "Sure. No problem." The click of her door closing was just as soft behind her.
Noctis went into his own chamber, throwing off his jacket and shirt that was spotted with behemoth blood. He leaned against the cool glass door, feeling calm and content and a large sense of gratitude towards the Cocoonian Sergeant that he never thought he'd ever feel for her.
~§~
The end of March meant hope for the end of winter soon and they could dream of spring. The cold would thaw to warmth, Lightning's mission would be halfway over and the new military base skirting Insomnia was officially opening. They were heading there now, having had an invitation for the royal family to grace them with their presence and metaphorically cut the ribbon to opening the new doors, as it were. Any bases they once had were no more and this one would be one of the four new bases planted within Lucis. It wasn't even a rebuilding of the old one, but a brand new location closer to the crown city.
Noctis had mixed feeling about all of it. New bases meant protection, but an anxious feeling within him asked him, why did they need this protection in the first place.
"What's gotten you looking so pensive for?" Lightning whispered over to the prince on their ride towards the new base.
In a procession of cars, escorted by local police and tons of guards in between, the road was cleared and empty so it could be a swift ride to their destination. Two cars ahead of them, his father occupied in his own limousine and each a car behind them were Gladiolus and Ignis. Prompto had opted out from the very beginning, saying he had no business in military bases – considering the problem against authority he had in the first place – and his new lordly title gave him no particular reason to be there. He had a restaurant to run still, which he enjoyed much more immensely than hanging around stiff officers and pretended to be interested in what they had to say.
Noctis shifted his head from leaning against the window to look at her. He hadn't realized he had any particular expression on except for appearing to zone out. He didn't know if that meant that he was an open book or she was just able to read him so easily. "Nothing." He drawled instead to an actual answer.
Lightning wasn't fooled. That was a lie. "It's this military base thing, isn't it?" He had been absent and unusually quiet all day.
Noctis grimaced before he stared out the car window again. But eventually he nodded, not in the mood to deny the truth of her observation.
"Why, do you hate it?" She kept her voice continually low. Argus drove them around in a rented limousine and although Noctis trusted the man with his life, Argus was still Regis's man. Who knew what he would say to the king what he overheard? Noct confided in his father plenty enough, but there were things he liked to keep to himself. Lightning seem to have caught that notion.
"You think we need one?" He asked her. "A new base?"
"It means you and yours have a defense up close."
"Defense from what?" He didn't mean to hiss, but his frustration leaked through his voice. "Another war?"
He feared another war and she couldn't blame him. She could only piece together the things he must've gone through, since they have never talked about it together, but war was a terrible thing. "You never know," She argued gently. "One may break out again down the line."
His voice was serious, determined. "Not if I can help it."
As optimistic as that may be, he couldn't be absolutely certain about that. "Sure, but it doesn't always depend on you. Some other country can declare war and bring it to your doorstep regardless. What do you do then?"
Lucis had been frozen in a cold war for years at a time. Regis reached out for a truce to Niflheim and they used that vulnerability to invade. It could happen all over again. "I plan to negotiate with all our neighboring kingdoms once I ascend the throne. Peace is a two-way road. We can't do this alone and I don't plan to." He frowned at the sky outside. "I want to involve all the kingdoms and nations alike, try to hear their differences, offer deals and pacts to make it work among us all."
It was the most ambitious thing she had ever heard. It was the most admirable thing as well. "What if their difference lie so separated from yours, that you find it hard to settle on anything?"
He smiled ruefully then, and it was the first time Lightning saw the way these kind of uncomfortable questions and future responsibilities weighed heavy down on him. "A pact well done is where both parties involved always leave slightly disappointed. I'm prepared to see to it for the benefit of all the people."
She liked that he considered the future and didn't only include the well-being of his own people, but those of the other countries as well. Lightning could honestly say that she respected him for it. He would be a worthy king that Lucis could be proud of.
The cars followed through opened barb wired covered gates and parked inside the wide courtyard of the base. The press were already present and stood in wait to film the arrival of the king and his heir apparent. The door to his father's limousine was opened for him and out came King Regis to a group of soldiers and ranked officers saluting him. General Cor shared the ride with King Caelum and he nodded to the officers while he took his secured position behind Regis, as he always would. The security cars spread round and coming from behind, Noctis's own ride rolled up and someone opened the door for him from the outside as well. He climbed out to the flashes of cameras and loud salutes of the military. Lightning was one step behind him and her red cape blew in the wind. He wondered idly if these officers had any objections to a foreign militia stepping without beforehand permission or authority on their terrain. Then again, Noctis could care less what they would think of it. Lightning was here with him. If they had a problem with that, hey would have to deal with him directly.
Gladiolus Amicitia, being Noct's shield who was accumulated to be present as well, stepped out of his own vehicle and one car behind him, Ignis joined them. The base's Mayor General, whose title excluded Cor Leonis's own, came forward to salute them as well. Regis warmly went ahead and shook the ranking officers' hands. Noctis exchanged the same gesture, and after some introductions were made, pictures were made, the king briefly stepped forward to the press to give a curt speech. After such details were swapped, that Noct was just thankful he wasn't pushed into the forefront of it all, the official tour around the brand new base began. The place was airy, lacked any architectural exterior attraction that didn't fit with the ancient cultural look of Insomnia, but it didn't need to match the rest of the city. It was made to show that Lucis was ready for anything.
Noct's father was busy discussion the deeper details of the place, with Cor listening intently and nodding once or twice to the parts he seemed to approve of. A good chunk of the reporters followed them everywhere they went, and filmed most of it to broadcast their feed live to whatever news channel they were on. Noctis knew all that he needed to know; the base's first priority was the defense of the crown city and under the direct order of the king, if he so wishes to lead the command. Since he was foreseeing a future of perpetual peace in the long run, Noctis listened to only half of it. It is a skill he learned quite well to master throughout his young life as royal prince. He had to study and listen to tutors for more time than most were used to. He was accustomed to using only one ear and yet remember the most details that truly mattered. It's what got him through most of the parliament meetings he has to attend weekly.
When the whole group stopped at a building to listen to what the function of it was, Noctis let Gladiolus and Ignis slip in front of him. He purposely slowed down his gait, creating a small distance between him and the rest of the touring group. It left him with Lightning who matched him step by step, but made sure she was always one behind him.
"So what do you think of our new base?" He let the words slide under his breath during one of the Mayor General's incessant talking and the cameras that followed them.
He couldn't look at her over his shoulder, for that would make it obvious he wasn't paying attention to what was happening in front of him, but he could hear the smirk in her voice. "You're asking for my approval?"
He wanted to shrug his shoulders. "You're more familiar with military bases than I'll ever be. This should be right up your alley."
It was. "Guardian Corp doesn't have a large base in Bodhum, but the PSICOM bases I know are at least twice the size of this one."
Now that was quite something. The current base they were present at was not something small in any sense of the word, yet Cocoon seems to have bigger still. He wondered how the things looked like over there and then he figured that there was very little Noctis knew about this world that was stars and space away, the one Lightning hailed from. It was famous for being a floating world above a bigger planet they called Gran Pulse, but other than that, the place was foreign to Noctis's knowledge. What was their culture like? Their technology? Their nature and landscapes? The way they ran their government? What were their traditions? Their religion?
Noctis was aware that religion wise, theirs had the basics of his own, with Etro as the goddess in the Invisible World and the three other gods with Her. But angels of death, reapers of souls, and rare magical crystals bestowed by deities were not something she heard of until she stepped foot in Lucis. He knew nothing about her home planet and, he realized, he knew so little about her. He had a nagging feeling that told him he should change that.
"Is that a good or bad thing?" He questioned.
"PSICOM may have huge bases, but their soldiers could still be undisciplined, sloppy, trigger-happy fools. Their bases don't count. If your people do what they need to do, fast and direct, then it doesn't matter where they come from."
Quietly he mused on how she was so wise. She could be distant and aloof and incredibly stoic, but underneath it all there was wisdom to her that earned his respect. "I guess not."
Ahead of them, Ignis's calculated look on his face only meant he was taking notes in his head to store and remember for a time and they would need it. Hopefully they never will. Cor whispered something down Regis's ear, and the king was seen pointing here and there about the order of things. Video cameras were quick to capture what the monarch questioned and the response he got in return.
"Our previous base got destroyed during the invasion." Noctis told his bodyguard. "Supposedly this one is an improvement to the last one we had. You skim flaws from everything within moments." He meant that in the best way. She was a soldier trained to be observant at all times, after all. These kind of things should be second nature to her by now. She could spot weaknesses a mile away, he was certain. "You think this is missing something? If it's important I can always inform my father about it and he could bring the issue to whoever oversees this place." His father shared a laugh at whatever was being said. A camera flashed in the distance.
"The base needs more exits. A place this size needs more escape routes for those within in case–" She never got to finish that sentence.
An explosion rang in the distance that shook the very ground and blinded them all for a second or two. On instinct, everyone ducked down to avoid anything flying their way, except for Lord Commander Leonis, who stood covering the king without flinching. Noctis rose, only to find that Lightning was holding him down. She hadn't moved an inch away from him either.
A huge mushroom shaped cloud rose up into the sky from one of the destroyed buildings that they had exited no mere five minutes ago. Half the journalists that were around them cowered or screamed their fear to be caught near an explosion so huge. The other half reached for their filming devices to get the whole thing on camera.
Lightning didn't hesitate to unfold her gunblade. She jumped up faster than gravity should allow. Soldiers and officers alike ran to the scene of the crime and not a second later, gun shots were going off.
"We're being attacked!" Someone yelled out, followed by a second large explosion to their off right.
People were screaming, though Lightning had no idea who. Sounds of alarms and whistles and sirens going off rang ear deafening through the air, along with countless footsteps running around.
"Protect His Majesty the King!" Cor yelled out in a stern command, that had guards and soldiers alike forming a circle around Regis.
Thick black smoke blew their way thanks to the direction of the wind right up in their faces. Lightning had not much time on her own hand. She grabbed Noctis by his shoulder, disoriented he was, and pushed him towards Ignis and Gladiolus. She knew they would protect him, they have always done so. And while it was her job to look after the prince, she knew she had to deal with this situation. This wasn't the first time Noctis was in or near an attack. If she could finish this now, she could stop future attacks from happening again.
"Get out of here!" Sergeant Farron pointed over the sound of guns and crackling of fire.
What about you? Noctis wanted to ask her, but she was gone in a blink of an eye. If he didn't know any better he'd thought that she had warping abilities too. The air had been clean a minute ago, but now there was smoke everywhere and the scent of burning plastic filled his nose.
Ignis's voice of reason was the first thing he heard after Lightning disappeared. "We need to leave!"
"No way!" Noct yelled in return. He summoned an armiger of his phantom swords around him. "I'm not letting them scare me away!"
"Ain't got nothing to do with whether you fear them or not. They're trying to kill you or your father." Gladiolus's deep voice overpowered the chaos around them. Noctis's two friends were included within his shield of swords, but even his invisible defense couldn't keep the smoke out. "Either way, we're not risking it!"
The prince glared his red gaze at them. "I'm not running!" Lightning was out there. And he had no idea where she was or who she was fighting. Plus there were people all around. Unsuspecting soldiers, reporters, royal guards… he couldn't leave them like this.
"Nocti–" Both Ignis and Gladio remained within the exclamation of his name, because he warped away from them a split second later, towards the continuing sound of guns popping.
He couldn't say precisely that the magic surging in his eyes gave him superior vision; he couldn't magically see in pitch black darkness or see a fly buzzing clearly from twenty paces away, but the crystal's magic did enhance his sight somewhat. The smoke however, made it hard to see regardless, but the pools of blood staining the concrete was unmistakable. He kept his shield up as he ran into the rain of bullets and found the first of the culprits of this attack. They were dressed all in white with gasmasks covering their faces to hide from the smoke. It means that they've come prepared, so this was a predetermined attack rather than a random spurge of the moment thing.
Noctis telepathically let one of his swords impale itself on the first wrongdoer he saw. He warped to the second and slit the masked person himself. He searched for more and more there were. He had no inkling where they came from or how they managed to infiltrate a military base with so many of them, but here they were, shooting with semi-automatic guns blindly through the smoke, not caring who they hit whether it be friend or foe. They came here to kill and create chaos, and Noctis wasn't going to sit by and allow them to have a full blown attack on them on their own soil. Noctis didn't see the Niflheim insignia on them, or any other symbol that connected them to any other alliance, but that didn't mean they did not this in the name of the fallen Empire.
During a sheet of gunfire, Noctis protected the soldiers from the corps by extending his shield of swords in front of them. Thankfully the dark smoke hid most of his actions from view, and if they did see anything, it were nothing but floating crystal dust he left in his wake. He was too fast to follow with how he warps around trying to find enemies to kill and his phantom swords were mostly invisible to the naked eye.
"Noctis!" That was Gladiolus's voice and he came running in his direction. His cheeks were black from smoke and sweat clung to his brow. He originally came dressed in an appropriate suit, but the jacket of such was disregarded somewhere and there was a tear in the sleeve of his shirt.
"Don't run off like that again." Ignis scolded, dual daggers in hands. One of them dripping blood.
"You saw who did this?" Noct retorted instead. He had no time to be dealing with his friend's snubbed feelings. People's lives were at stake.
"We found some. We killed some." Gladiolus said gravely. "The fuck have you been? You could have been shot!"
The prince's phantom swords circled around him. "I'm fine. These people aren't. I am not leaving!"
"We weren't going to ask you to." Ignis twirled his own weapons in a nervous gesture that showed he was angry or worried. Or both.
"We'll go wherever you go, Noct!" Gladio yelled out over all the noise. "Thought you knew that by now."
Noctis did know that. His friends would always be at his side, even if his actions tends to contradict logic and reason, they followed him through hail and fire. It swelled his heart all over again to see how loyal to the bone his brothers were, his family. He shouldn't have left them behind, he saw that now. It was wrong of him, and when the dust settled and he knows that they are in the clear, he'll apologize to them. He owed them as much.
He realized that it was Sergeant Lightning Farron that motivated his acts. She was in the middle of this hassle somewhere and he wanted to be of aid to her. He could do it. He could easily help protect his own people. And she could be outnumbered by the infiltrators anywhere. He didn't know. And he hated going into battles blind. He knew she could stand her own ground. Someone who could keep up with him and fight him on par was badass enough on their own, but Noct was unable to keep his sense of protectiveness from including even her recently. He considered her a kind of a friend, a comrade of sorts. And he had a habit of guarding his friends. It was integrated inside of him by now.
He had no idea where she was, though. The cluelessness made him run around the base like a headless chicken, but at the very least it provided with a chance to end all enemies he met on his way.
He didn't find Lightning, but she found him instead. The glare on her face was undeniable. She had told him to leave. He didn't listen. "What the hell are you doing here?"
She had been at the furthest side of the base, the only places where nothing had been exploding and smoke didn't cloud her vision. She figured that the culprits needed a clear head start, far away from the distractions that was happening elsewhere and her intuition told her right. She did found a chunk of white dressed rebels, about to don their gasmasks and load up their guns, when she descended on them. A quick work with her anti-gravity bomb device allowed her to cut through them. She made sure that the wounds weren't fetal. She aimed for kneecaps and hamstrings, broken arms and pressure points. It wouldn't be her place to rob them of their lives. They were to be apprehended and trialed by the law.
She was going to run around to find whoever was responsible of this attack, because there were certainly more around, when the unique sound of Noctis's abilities reached her ears, accompanied with Gladiolus's familiar voice calling out the prince's name.
The idiot. She had shoved him along to get him out of here and he went against her command. A violation she didn't tolerate on any of her missions. She expected the utmost obedience on the job, especially during duress such as now. She spit his name between clenched teeth from the rooftop she was standing on. "Noctis!" He was below her, if not a little off, amidst crystal dust and banging of guns going off, he looked up at her. "Get out of here!"
"You should too!" He yelled in return. She noticed his two companions were with him, both looking disheveled and covered in dirt and grime due to the smoke.
She was convinced that Scientia and Amicitia would see to the prince and his leaving the heat before things got out of control, but they only followed the prince like good loyal bees did to the queen bee. "Noctis!"
But he and his friends were gone before another word was spoken, mostly by whatever order she was going to give. Having no idea where he went, Lightning forced herself to continue running over the rooftops, basically air assassinating any rebel dressed in white. Within the area of smoke was the hardest, for she could barely make out soldiers from enemies. It forced her to get up close to whoever she heard or saw shooting near her, either leaving the soldier alone or cutting down the enemy before they shot her.
She couldn't find Noctis if she tried. Wherever he warped to, with his friends in tow, they made sure they kept on the move around the entirety of the base, and by now Lightning knew the mere size of it wasn't joking around. Every minute she couldn't find him, the hotter the anger inside her shimmered.
Sirens of ambulances and firefighters were closing in on the base, and General Cor Leonis was seen to have gone back on his old ways and rallied up the soldiers around him using the whistles he whisked from one of the officers. She didn't linger too long to see how the soldiers lined up for him. She had a royal prince to find and drag his ass out of here before something happened.
The prince had vanished. She made another circle throughout the base, and the rebels were dwindling down, either by being stopped or running in fear. They should have known that attacking a military base in the middle of Lucis's crown city would have been futile. The first of the buildings that exploded was getting water hosed down on it to control the fire raging with. Part of the black smoke turned white, and the air became somewhat better to breathe in.
She made her way back to the officers to report on her status and get some intel on whether or not there were more rebels around, when she did finally spot the prince from the rooftop she was perched on and was ready to murder him herself. Lightning jumped, landing slightly behind the prince who was accompanied with his friends, several securities and Cor Leonis. They turned around when they heard the thud of her landing, and half of them instantly reacted by pointing their weapon in her direction. When they realized who she was a split second later, those weapons were lowered, but Lightning's glare didn't leave Noctis's person.
She grabbed him by the collar in her anger to pull him down to her eye level and yelled in his face. "What the hell were you doing?!"
Noctis kept his cool. "I was in control of the situation." He didn't back away from her heated gaze that would have unnerved any other man.
"I told you to stay back."
Noctis had about enough of hearing that command. He could've helped stopping these rebels and save these soldiers. And if they didn't need saving then provide them with some protection. They were his people, aren't they? He would be their king, and he was capable to help them out. "I'm not going to sit behind if I can do something about the situation!"
"I don't care." She hissed in return. "You can't just rush off when I told you to stay put." This stubbornness of his she should have seen coming from afar.
"You can't tell me what to do. I have my own strength and I've used it to stop the enemy long before you came along and I'll do it again."
"Wrong! I was appointed your bodyguard by your father the king, so in any calamity whatsoever, any at all, you'll do exactly what I say and when I say it. When I tell you to jump, all I want you to ask is how high! I'm not going to run after you wherever danger is. I'm the one preventing that, not you." After her scolding she didn't let her glare falter, but her voice turned softer and – dare he say it – more concerned. "You could have died."
Uncertainly, he put his own hand on her wrist to gently make her let go of his dress shirt. The gesture was meant sterner than he did but all his touch was on her was gentle. "I'm fine."
"You better be." She pushed him on with the rest of group, falling into step to escort the prince towards the cars.
The limousine they arrived in was unharmed and the doors were thrown over for the prince to slip into even faster. Cor Leonis joined Noct's ride, along with several guards under Cor's command. Regis and his company was long gone, probably already having arrived at the Caelum's keep after being brought there directly. Noctis probably messed with enough protocols when he headed into the danger zone rather than away from it when he didn't heed Lightning's orders.
He scooted over to make room for her beside him in the car, but she lingered by the limousine's door instead. Noctis's mouth dried when he noticed she wasn't turning away of the now smoking military base. "Aren't you coming?"
"I need to take care of this." She pointed back to the building. "I have a feeling I know who we're dealing with."
"But-"
She was on full on soldier-mode. Her voice broke no argument and her eyes were steel. "General Leonis will take you home. I believe Gladiolus and Ignis are driving right behind you."
Everything within him told him he shouldn't relent. But she was his bodyguard. He couldn't fault her for doing what was best for him. As his bodyguard, she wanted him save. Even if it meant dealing with any remaining rebels back at the broken base. "Alright." He conceded weakly, annoyed most of all that he can't help at all, when he's very much capable to. But it was her job to do this. She asked him to leave it to her and he would. "Be careful."
He caught her smile before she closed the car door. "I will."
He hadn't seen Lightning again until that very night. He was brought to the castle after Cor dropped him off whose deep set frown only deepened when he said that he would return to the military base to oversee the last of the details and the apprehended rebels. Once there he learned that there were more as the mastermind of this attack than participants, so that meant there was a tense hunt going on within the crown city.
Arriving in his chambers, he checked his phone, only to see that his friend has called him at least twenty times by now. He had barely swiped the notification away when his phone buzzed again in his hand. He picked up.
"Etro's tits! Finally! You know how long I've been calling you? Are you okay? Fuck, I'm so sorry I wasn't there! I should have been there! Damn it!" Prompto was yelling in the prince's ear before he had a word out.
Noctis's voice was quiet, in order to keep the blond settled. "Calm down, Prompto. I'm fine."
"You couldn't have been! Shit. Something could have happened and if I was there I could have helped you!"
"Nothing happened to me. Or dad, might I add. Gladio, Iggy and I had it under control."
Prompto's voice was completely in a frenzy and he hardly took a breath between his outbursts. "Control? I see on the news right now that shit is still smoking at the base. And where there's smoke there's fire, and that fire is set ablaze by folk who want you dead!"
"It was a planned attack, yes. But we're all okay. Gladio's shirt was a casualty, but what else is new with him?" He attempted at a joke but Prompto wasn't having it. He sounded guilty and grave through the line.
"This is serious, Noct. If I was there, I could have helped."
Funny. Noctis had insisted the same thing if he stayed longer. "I wanted to as well, but Lightning send me home. This whole attack wasn't something that could have been foreseen either way."
"I don't care." Argentum huffed. "I'm not going to avoid responsibilities in the future because I think they're above me. My duty should have been to you. I'm sorry, Noctis. It won't happen again."
His friend was too severe than Noct was used to and he spend the rest of the conversation assuring his friend until he calmed down reasonably enough for Noct to hang up. He was left in the silence of his chambers and clicked on his tv to see any kind of news about the state of the new military base. Lightning returned back long after the sun had set and the moon was a fingernail in the sky, dirty with smoke stains from head to heel and looking incredibly tired.
Noctis couldn't quite admit that he had waited until he heard her return to his quarters, but upon one look at her he saw she was not up for any strenuous inquiry. She told him that the situation was dealt with accordingly when General Leonis came back to the base, and she warned the prince beforehand that Cor Leonis had intentions of putting the castle on lockdown.
Surely enough, next morning Noctis was ushered to his father's privy chambers, where Cor and the king stood already waiting. Regis looked grim, Cor even more.
Noctis crossed his arms. "This has to do with what happened yesterday, doesn't it?"
Regis flicked his eyes to his old general. Lord Commander Leonis nodded. "It seems there are more rebels underground of Insomnia than we previously realized. I'm starting an expedition on any remaining war criminals found within the crown city's borders, that I will eventually extent towards the whole of Lucis. In the meantime, the royal family remains within the castle walls, prohibited from leaving its grounds under any condition starting immediately."
Lightning said as much. "For how long?" He was going to be prisoned in his own home? Joy.
"For as long as necessary."
~§~
For as long as necessary turned from one day into three and three days going onwards to seven. During the first week that they were all ordered on house arrest, Lightning found the king as restless in his confinements as his son was. Tuesday rolled around and with it came her obligation to bring Regis the weekly report of her missions. She was escorted, as ever, by the Nimphus to the monarch's study and found King Caelum nearly hidden by stacks and stacks of papers. He looked up miserably when she was permitted into the room and he was so much like Noctis in that moment that she couldn't hide the smile fast enough.
"I've come to hand you my report, sire." She saluted, keeping her tone as monotone as she could muster, despite the lost puppy look on the king's face mirroring the ones she has seen countless times on the prince's. It was kind of amusing to notice these small similarities between father and son. It was – dare she say it – rather cute, too.
Regis, being more disheveled than ever, raised a confused eyebrow. "What, it's Tuesday?" He glanced at his watch. "Time blends into each other when you're stuck in one of the same three rooms for days."
Lightning swallowed down her chuckles. "It has barely been a week since lockdown, Your Majesty."
The king grunted, asking her how the week has been for her since the last time they had this meeting, while he took her report. "Awfully thin file this time around, don't you say?"
Lightning shrugged. "I do not idle, Your Highness, but it has been a relatively uneventful few days since General Leonis's orders of no outings." By the looks of it, it had been extremely busy for the king if the ridiculous amount of documents surrounding him was anything to go by. She knew that Prince Noctis has been occupied with office matters himself, but not to this extent.
"Yes." Regis groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "By Etro's Light, this house arrest can be heaved soon and I can escape these lords and their petty requests." She only nodded while Regis half-eyed through her file. He flicked his wrist to check the time again. "Thank you for keeping punctual to our meetings as usual, Sergeant. I'll have Cor see you soon regarding these rebels and how we'll proceed with your extra curriculum side-mission. I doubt such services are required for much longer in the future."
She wasn't thrilled to have her more active mission cancelled soon, but she supposed this only meant she was doing her job right. She saluted again, knowing she was dismissed when she heard it.
"Oh, one last favor, Sergeant Farron? I know you are no messenger, but since he's on your way, can you tell Noctis to meet me here in the hour?"
"Of course, sire." She certainly did feel like a messenger. She hasn't spoken a word to the prince all day today. She did spot him through the window when she started her rounds earlier around the walls, but she hadn't faced him personally yet. Leaving the king's quarters and maneuvering through the castle she knew by the back of her hand by now, she made her way back to his rooms.
She found Noctis alone in his sitting chamber, frowning away at the tv and smashing his fingers on the buttons of his controller. It was a surprise to find him alone like this, whereas whenever he took to gaming he would be with his friends. He hardly spared her a glance when she came in and muttered a 'hey' under his breath to her before focusing back on the tv. He turned here and there before cursing and the tv let out a bummed sound of death and disappointment.
"Damn it."
Lightning rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Aren't there more useful things that you could be doing with your time?"
Noct ran a hand through his messy hair. "I already finished most of my homework." Homework he called his own studies and documents he should go through given by his father. "Besides, if I keep myself around papers and ink for days nonstop I'll go crazy. I need an outlet. Something to relax."
"You call that relaxing?" She eyed the videogame. "With the way you were cursing at the television and almost broke that thing in half," She pointed at the controller. "I'd say it's anything but relaxing."
"Gaming is quite the outlet for some people. Why do you think my friends and I do it all the time?"
To be a bunch of immature children, Lightning thought. "You guys go around training too."
"True." He admitted and agreed. "But more than enough times Prompto is too weary to pull his gun." That was a half-truth to be honest. Most of those times Noct had been lazy as well. "So instead we play games."
"By the sound of it, it seems more stress inducing than anything else." The countless times she heard the guys cursing either at each other or some inanimate object like the tv was evidence by itself.
Noctis shook his head. He casually grabbed the controller and offered it to her. "You should try it."
Lightning didn't take it, but remembered why she was here in the first place. "Your father wants to see you within the hour, he told me." As that would be the excuse she'd tell in order not to take up on Noctis's offer.
But the prince didn't seem perturbed by the message. "He can wait." And he waved the thing around like to say here, take it.
He was the only person in the kingdom who could dismiss the sovereign so aloofly like that. She kept her arms pinned to herself and still didn't take the controller. "I've… never played a videogame before." She hadn't allowed herself to enjoy these frivolous things when she was younger. She had to focus on protecting Serah and getting stronger in order to do so.
Noct's face grew aghast. "Wait, you haven't?" His determination to insist only increased. "Now is as perfect a time as any. I'll show you, it's easy really. If you can kill behemoths with one arm tied behind your back, you can do this piece of cake."
He didn't mean it as a challenge. His tone was daring, yes, but also playful and his smirk directed at her was kind.
"Um," Her first instinct was to get out of this, and anything she could have come up with right then and there would suffice; she had patrols to do, he should really see his father, email's to write…
Before she uttered a single one of them, Noctis scooted over on his empty couch to make room for her and petted the spot besides him. "Sit," He told her in an inquisitive manner. "It's not a very interactive game anyway. Point is only to aim and shoot to kill."
There was no logical reason in the world that she could tell you why she felt compelled to take a seat and actually accept his offer, but she did so, silently.
He handed her the controller when she managed to settle stiffly on the couch. She took it awkwardly. "You have to hold it like this." He mimicked with his own hands which Lightning followed his example. "Your index fingers a little bit up. You feel those buttons there? With the left one you aim, the right one you shoot." He continued to explain the basic technicalities of each buttons then pressed start. "Now just play a little. Discover what everything does yourself." When she kept staring at the controller instead of the tv, he chuckled. "Eyes on the screen."
She blinked at the flat screen, then at him. "I don't know what to do yet."
"You'll learn, and all too soon you'll know it blindly, but you should see what you're doing."
She did as he explained it to her and saw the camera move when she used one of the thumbsticks, and continued to walk around with her invisible avatar until the first enemy popped up. Lightning stopped moving and neither did the enemy on screen.
Lightning looked at the prince right next to her. "What now?"
Noctis hinted at the direction of her controller. "Now you aim and shoot." She did. Slowly and clunky, but the enemy went down in a spray of blood. Noctis cheered. "Your first virtual kill. This moments should be framed!"
Lightning made a noncommittal sound. "That could have gone better."
"Practice makes perfect." He shrugged, leaning back against the couch and pointing at the mini-map on screen. "You see that green dot? Make your way towards it and shoot everything what you come across."
"Sounds easy enough." But wasn't as easily done. Thankfully the enemies were basically the lowest of lowest level and she could take her time aiming and killing them. Once she got lucky, and shot one through the eye.
"Ouch, headshot!" The prince exclaimed cheerfully.
Lightning paused and glanced at him with wonder. "That's a good thing, right?"
He grinned at her naiveté. Who knew Lightning Farron, who could outwit them all, would know so little of gaming? "That's a good thing." He assured her, and she went on and tried to aim for headshots as much as she could.
It was a slow progress, but she tried, and she always desired to be one of the best in everything she did. Admittedly, she wasn't good at everything, much to her chagrin. The perfectionist in her didn't allow her to fail, so she wouldn't give up. She was going to get this gaming in full control. If not for her own enjoyment, then at the very least to rise to Noctis's expectations. He seemed to believe that she can do it, and for his sake – though she does not know why – she will.
The game led her to a point where she had to climb a ledge and she was at a loss at what to do.
"You have to press the blue button." Noctis pointed at the controller and she looked down at her hands to find said button. When she stared for a second too long, Noctis unthinkingly reached forward and gently moved her thumb to the destined spot.
The action startled Lightning to the point she froze up completely but try to shake off the strange feeling that ran up her arm.
He touched her. It was the first time he ever did that. He touched her and she… and she… she didn't mind.
Clearly it was all innocent to him; a passing movement where he only guided her where she needed to put her finger for the game, and nothing else to it, but Lightning being hyperaware of these things as she was, couldn't help but notice now that it happened. They hadn't had any physical contact before, except for the moment she punched him. That was different. This was personal. Albeit a platonic contact. It was still something new and she felt like a line was being crossed.
Lightning swallowed and focused hard on the screen. She was making a big deal out of nothing. It was nothing to Noctis, who pointed out quickly that there was an enemy behind her. It was a just a touch, a simple innocent touch with no ulterior intent or purpose to it. She breathed in and then out and effortlessly killed the next three enemies with headshots.
"Look at you go. You're truly getting the hang of this." The prince complimented.
And it was so silly, for Lightning to be satisfied with achieving success in something so immature and irrelevant as playing a videogame.
"These enemies are kinda slow, so it just seem easy." Lightning argued, to which Noctis debated her answer.
"Alright." Noctis reasoned, easing the controller out of her grip, which she wasn't happy with since she was in the middle of a session. "I'm just going to raise the level so it's a bit more of a challenge." He said to her sour expression. "You learn quickly."
Lightning pursed her lips and waited almost impatiently until Noctis was done.
She caught herself in that split second.
She was impatient to continue playing a videogame? One of the prince's no less. What kind of strange situation did she find herself in? One where she wouldn't have thought that in any world she would actually enjoy this.
"Here we go, let's see you beat this level as fast." Noctis gave her back the controller and Lightning prepared herself as if she wwas going into a real live battle. She could do this. She only needed to focus, rely on her quick eye-to-hand coordination and she could rub her flawless victory in the Caelum's face.
She surprised herself with how playfully she meant those intentions. She couldn't believe herself that she would come to a point she'd be comfortable enough with Noctis Caelum to tease him. To laugh with him. To enjoy something with him. Together.
She shook the thoughts from her mind and proceeded with shooting her way through the game. She figured out herself how to duck for cover since the prince failed to show her that maneuver. "You could have told me I could do that." She cursed him and would have punched him in the arm had she been able to let go of the controller.
"Hey, you're such an expert." He chuckled with sarcasm, hands in the air. "You figured it out fast enough."
"Yeah, no thanks to you."
He relaxed in his seat beside her, falling into the rhythm of watching gameplay and commenting here and there. She eased her way through some light parkour and once she fell off a ledge due to the first person point of view angle of the camera. It caused him to laugh, which she grumbled a 'shut up' at him. The last part of this particular level meant wave after waves of enemies that he hoped she managed to gather enough ammo for.
All went well until an intermission brought civilians into the mix and Lightning blindly killed a man that was running from the chaos she was heading into.
"Shit," Noctis sputtered after another laugh. The situation of itself wasn't actually funny but the way the man went down after she coldly shot him between the eyes was comical. "You're not supposed to kill the innocents too!"
Lightning's screen blinked red at her accident kill. "How am I supposed to know? You told me to shoot everything that moves!"
"Heh, I obviously meant only your targets." He shook his head smiling. "Look, civilians are colored blue on your mini-map." He elaborated further by pointing at said map in the corner of the screen.
"I get that now." With a snort she went on with her game to encounter her first boss battle and went on with dying three times in a row. She grunted in frustration.
"Don't you dare rage and quit." Noctis encouraged. "You'll get it eventually."
"Argh, I keep losing!" The words game over blinked at them for the fifth time. She glared down at the controller as if it was its fault she kept dying. Noctis found it incredible how cute the action was. On a most platonic term of course. In the same sense that Prompto looks cute after he ruined a shot for a picture. "How do you find this in any way relaxing?" She spit between her teeth, restarting the same boss battle.
Noctis sat without care next to the Cocoonian soldier who was slowly getting more agitated with each death. "Why wouldn't I like it? Gaming gives me a sense of normalcy. It reminds me that getting annoyed at boss battles is something a guy my age should be doing, and not have the weight of an entire kingdom resting on my shoulders and dealing with dire consequences of a war I helped ending. The simplicity is what is relaxing; I get to hang out with my friends, and forget the millions of troubles and responsibilities I have, even if it is for a few hours. It's my escape, my sense of surrealism, just for a little while."
A short time where he could pretend he wasn't a prince of royal blood, and heir apparent to a throne and a magical crystal that is the giver of life or death, either way. He would be a regular 23 year old with his best friends. Drinking booze and eating pizza, and not be the prophesied one, the chosen one for Etro or the other gods, and savior of the world.
Lightning finished off her boss battle, if barely, but she managed to kill it still. She said nothing in response to Noctis's explanation. One she could relate to all too much. All she wanted was a normal safe life for her sister, but instead the world took everything from Lightning in return. She had lost all she held dear, got used as a pawn by the Fal'Cie, hunted down by a corrupted government, got manipulated for the whims of gods… she had bled and cried and fought to have her life back the way it was, and that happened only by the grace of Etro. She may have her sister back and gained a mixed matched family for her trouble, but it never should have been this unfair, this difficult or life up-rooting in the first place. Wounds heal but scars remain forever. She understood it. She understood him and where he was coming from. And she didn't blame him.
Her voice was quiet. "Your friends aren't here with you now." Like she wasn't with her own.
Noctis looked at her. "It doesn't matter." And she looked at him. "I still had fun."
They smiled at each other.
~§~
Lightning woke up to the sound of a loud squeal. At least, she thought it was a squeal. When she raised her head from her pillow and tuned her hearing, there was nothing. It remained quiet when she poked her head quickly out of her room and into the empty hallway. Having been up already, she prepared herself to be ready for the day and keeping her wardrobe without too much accessory knowing the weather finally permitted it.
It was the very end of their trial, it would seem. It was nearing April when Cor declared that all rebels within the city were uprooted and the royal family's house arrest was lifted. After three weeks of being stuck within the castle walls, it meant that they were finally free to leave it. As long as Cor advised for both the king and his heir apparent to remain in the safety of the Caelum's ancient keep any lords and ladies who either Regis or the prince had to meet, were ushered to visit the royal palace themselves or reschedule their appointment. It turns out that more than enough visitors were inclined to see either royalty and they were practically standing in line from dawn to dusk to see their intended. Not in the literal sense, mind you. Regis would never allow something so crass as a queue of nobles filing from his house.
Noctis seemed solemn the more he was glued inside, but the very day after Cor gave the okay to be out and about, Noctis seemed much more elated. It was prince Noctis who knocked on her room's door the following day, dressed casually and in all black.
"I'm gonna train a little." He told her with a not-quite-there-yet smirk, that seemed too slick for his own good. "You coming with?"
She nodded, grabbed her own gunblade and headed out with him. She couldn't put her finger on it, but his usual self the prince wasn't. For all intents and purposes, he still went about his way as usual, but on their way to the underground base, he kept throwing glances in her direction that was all strange. It wasn't a bad notion per se. Her instincts told her that there was something off that usually wasn't. She could sense it in the air, even though the prince went about his way like nothing was amiss. But she knew better than not to trust her instincts, so she kept her eye sharp and her hand near her weapon, though nothing alarmed her that something bad was going to happen.
Once there, he spent his time stretching and warming up, and still looked at her here and again. When she couldn't take it anymore and was about to ask what his problem was, he came forth and asked, "So, you've got any plans these next two weeks?"
What kind of a question was that? If she had plans? "Besides watching over your ass? No." Since when did he ask her if she had any plans? What's going on?
He nodded his head, as if it solidify something in his head. "That means you're completely free? Good. Alright."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Why?"
He grinned boyishly. "Nothing." He warped ahead, a spun of swords and crystal around him and left Lightning before she could question him more.
His 'little training' turned into hours, but the worst part of it all was that he wasn't even training excessively. He was mostly just hanging around, lazily throwing his swords that always hit the mark, but there wasn't an urgency to it as most would when actually training. He continued to mess with his swords, and when he tried to spell his own name with them, Lightning had enough.
"What are you doing?" She hissed. She wasn't in the mood to stick with him down here if he was only playing around.
That smirk, teasing as it was, never left his face. He turned to her, trying to look innocent with his actions. "Training."
"No you don't! Since when does making stick figures with your weapons count as training?" She pointed at his phantom swords in the air, that were depicting a man walking his dog.
"What, this?" He jerked his thumb at the floating picture like he had no idea that it was there. "It is decent training. I'm trying to see if I have tight control on them telepathically."
That was a load of bull if she ever heard one. "You can control them well enough." She has seen him so many times with his swords by now, she knew he needn't any such training. "And that figure looks ridiculous."
Noctis sniggered under his breath. "It looks fantastic, if I do say so myself."
Whatever. She wasn't here for him to fool around. She could be doing something more useful than stand here and watch Noctis play with his toys. "Noctis." It was a warning, her patience running thin.
And he liked the way she made his name sound. "Don't worry I'm almost done." He made his swords into the picture of an angel, just to annoy her. "Sort of." Grinning, he turned away from her huffing frown and pretended to roll around and wave his weapons around at dummies half-heartedly.
It was almost dinner time when Noctis felt he underwent enough of her throwing needles with her stare and stretched out his muscles again that he barely worked with. "I guess that's enough for today." He looked over at Lightning again, who was probably fuming. The telltale of her eyes hardening into blue icicles was a obvious sign.
"You didn't even do anything."
He shrugged, like he didn't even care that she knew he was just playing around. "I'm hungry." He rubbed his stomach through his crumpled shirt. "I think my dad wanted to see me for dinner."
She raised an eyebrow, like he was trying through his teeth. "No, he didn't." She couldn't remember Regis giving out such a summon. She usually heard such things when around the prince. This invitation came out of the blue.
"Oh, like you know every appointment I have with my father?"
She knew more than he thought she did. "Are you going somewhere without me knowing?" She wasn't going to buy this 'daddy asked me to eat with him' excuse he was trying to sell her. Although it has been quite some time since he wanted her off his back, maybe he was getting tired of her presence around him again.
"Maybe." Lightning noticed a lie. "But I couldn't slip passed you if I tried." He said with a secretive smirk that got her riled up for no particular reason.
She had no idea what he was planning, or why he was acting this way, but she quietly followed him back to his chambers. Not trusting him to run out when she wasn't looking, she kept post outside his rooms for the time being. The old pipes in the old walls groaned, telling her he was in his bathroom taking a shower from the hardly physical training he underwent. He came out some times later, handsomely dressed in a black suit that was too formal for a dinner with his father but too casual for any official meeting. The jacket of his suit remained open, the top buttons of his dress shirt was undone in a manner that would have made Gladiolus proud, and his hair was less messy than it had been earlier.
She looked at him from his toe clad in Altissian shoes to his raven hair and didn't know whether to frown or allow herself to appreciate the image of him. She frowned. "And where do you think you're going?"
He fixed his jacket like it needed any fixing. "Nowhere particular."
Her eyes still racked over him. "Then why you are you so cleaned up?"
"You'll know soon enough."
She didn't want to know soon. She wanted to know, now. If there was anything she hated, it was secrets. Her sister didn't tell her she was a L'Cie until it was too late. Secrets brought her nothing good. But he walked out of his chambers and nodded Lightning to follow him. Not that she wasn't going to let him go anywhere out of her sight.
He was walking through the hallways without direction, or at least one Lightning couldn't specify. "You sure you have nothing coming up these days?" He asked, looking over his shoulder at her.
She squinted her eyes up towards him. "Alright, Noctis, enough of these games. Tell me what's going on?"
He stopped in front of a random door, that led to neither a ballroom, halls nor his privy chambers. The smile on his face was sly and sneaking and teasing, but there was amusement in his eyes. "Wouldn't you want to see for yourself?"
He opened the door and her eyes first connected with the silver hues of Hope Estheim's orbs. Hope?!
"Lightning!" The young man yelled out joyfully and rushed over to her to hug her. He was taller than her now.
"Hope?" The bodyguard sputtered, completely taken unaware. She didn't expect him here. In Lucis. In the Caelum's castle.
"Ah, there's Sunshine!"
Lightning looked up and saw all of them. Her beloved sister Serah whom she missed so much was with Snow, who was sitting behind her and had Dajh on his broad shoulders. Vanille was near the window, a grin spreading from ear to ear. It was her she heard squealing that morning, Lightning was sure. She could recognize Vanille's high squeak from anywhere. And Fang was half sitting on the table, chewing on a cookie that Sazh had brought, who stood right next to her.
They were here. They were all here.
Lightning blinked once, then twice. They didn't disappear. "What are you guys doing here?!" She couldn't believe it, but she asked her question happier than she had been in months.
"SURPRISE!" They all yelled simultaneously and they didn't hesitate to run over to her to crowd around her and hug her all at the same time.
Group hugs. Lightning could honestly say she missed group hugs.
~§~
…I saw your reflection in me…
Fin l'auteur note
I realized that I needed to solidify a friendship between Noctis and Lightning. I hope I succeeded in that department with these last two chapters. Don't worry, it doesn't mean they are head over heels in love with each other, though I cannot wait to get there, and I hope you saw some hints of it already. These two need to find some solid ground before they get there that isn't done with the same trope that says jealousy leads to love. I once heard a fellow Lightis shipper say that platonic love is romantic by itself, and I don't disagree. Noctis and Lightning will only find more friendship in another before that blooms into romance. It's important. I don't want lust to be the only drive between these two. I, just like you guys, want to see them fall in love, like truly, that is not based solely on the physical stuff. True love. The kind that always preaches to fall for your best friend.
But we will get there, my loves. NoctLight will reign for chapters on end. 8D
I really hope you guys liked this. I tried my hardest to make it seem naturally between these two. I figured that characters as complex as Lightning (and eventually) Noctis, things wouldn't go entirely smooth all the time, with Noctis going against Lightning during the attacks, and Lightning chewing him out for not following her orders. Or even that Noctis is completely over his Stella angst, which he isn't. But Noctis is maturing I like to believe, and Lightning is seeing a brighter side to him.
And of course, the XIII family is in Lucis! You can guess who did it and why, though it isn't the hardest of cases to crack! XD I have been dying to get to this point, where the XIII cast meets up with XV (Versus XIII) and everything just will seem upbeat from now on. We'll see more of Lucis itself, and major revelations for Noctis about Lightning will ensue. It's going to be a mile pole. The first turning point in NokuRai's relationship.
Leave a review. Lemme know your thoughts and whether or not you squealed half as much as I did at the prospect of these two or if I fell flat on that. I will try even better then on the next chapter. Idk, you tell me! Feedback is always appreciated!
Ciao, my baes.
p.s. I know my Caelum history was long and winded, but I am such a sucker for lore and legend, or history in general, and with a long dynasty as the Caelums have had, I couldn't resist messing with it.
I want to thank the following reviewers:
The Punch Lord
DamagesReality
mauveshadows
261
queen stark: Between this update and FFXV demo update, I'm not too sure which I'm more glad for seeing. This is perhaps one of my favorite pieces of Light and Noct fanfiction, so bless your soul for updating.
Too lazy to log in. Looking forward to the next one, o great one. .
Thanks for the review bro! You're too kind! You be blessed too. And All hail the Queens in the North!
BlackShadowClaws: This was an amazing chapter! I hope you update soon because I am so hyped for the next chapter! You are such a talented writer and I never lost interest in your story. This is probably the most amazing fanfiction I have ever read in my life! Keep up your amazing talent at writing and I will be checking for chapter 9!
Thank YOU for writing this beautiful work!
No, thank YOU for reviewing! You're the best. I am happy you like my trash though, so you have my gratitude!
loveheartdream
skyserpent14: I'm so happy with how this chapter ended. That Noctis took Lightning's advice and learned from her wisdom. Personally, that is how I would imagine their relationship would go in terms of decisions. I can't wait for the next chapter! So excited!
I'm happy you liked it! The two could work wonders together. *wink wink* Thank you for reviewing, love.
pinkstars55
The Clawed Butterfly
'Guest': This is too good to be abandoned. Please don't left this uncontinued. Best FFXIII versus fanfic so far.
I can assure you dear Anonymous-san, I will never abandon this until this story is completely finished. I love it too much to let it incomplete. Don't worry, you have my word as a 5ever NokuRai shipper!
Silver
Cicer Caelo
Lightning317
zoechan588
AzureGhost: It's nice to see that Noctis and Lightning have some sort of understanding of one another now. I anticipate your next chapter.
I hoped you liked this chapter even better during Noct and Light's interactions. Either way, thank you soooo much for your review.
chiquita-gurlie
.Dog.04
X We choose our own destiny. X
X – XI - MMXV
