XII ~ Break This Crown

She didn't make Ignis's escort duty easy. When he informed her that he was to drive her uphill to the mansion, Lightning immediately protested that she was perfectly capable of walking herself there. Of course, he was persistent about following his orders to the dot, barring her way when she tried side-stepping the provided car and corralling her into the passenger side after five very stubborn minutes. She didn't skip the opportunity to argue that in those five minutes, she could already be at the King's doorstep but, Ignis was determined not to hear her.

Although the drive was brief, the tension between them made it feel much longer. Ignis kept his gaze raptly fixed on the road once he was behind the steering wheel, avoiding her questioning, sideways glances with practiced indifference. The man was an iceberg: immovable and only showing what he wanted you to see. He was the dealer of their deck of cards, always holding all the secrets underneath his hands and never acting upon them. He simply parceled out the necessary pieces to the players and looked on in neutral complacency as the competition commenced. He wasn't unlike a fal'Cie in that regard, Lightning thought.

He pulled up to the base of the massive building and Lightning's blood cooled for a moment to analyze her situation. Here she was, about to enter the Caelum Manor, a place she'd only seen from a distance and in passing. Against the gray-white gloom of the overcast sky the mansion was a goliath shadow of skewering spires and knife-sharp edges. Knowing she was about to enter it made the silhouette that much more intimidating from the first, blustering night they'd crawled past it. Odin's stoic pulse in her pocket offered much needed encouragement, although she wasn't certain why she needed it so badly.

King or kingpin; prince or soldier; false gods or death goddess – titles made to permit a level of power didn't instill any amount of fearful subservience in her. She didn't acknowledge authority through name but through action. Although she wasn't afraid of Regis Caelum, that didn't explain away the tumor of anxiety festering in the pit of her stomach. Ignis exited the vehicle, a cue for her to do the same and follow suit. Squaring her shoulders like they bore plates of armor upon them and flexing her fingers as if wielding her gunblade, Lightning stepped out and up to the entrance, ready to face this new challenge whether her stomach agreed with her or not.

Ignis continued to lead her, infuriatingly quiet and collected, giving nothing away as to the true intentions behind her summons. Passing through the ornate doors of the mansion, Lightning was immediately attentive in her observations towards how different the place was compared to Noctis's sanctuary. If she'd thought the Prince's humbler abode had been the peak of opulence, then Lightning was certain she didn't know what opulence was. Caelum Manor was far from just a big house. It was a palace and the interior gave even more definition to that fact than the exterior.

They first stepped into a long, wide hall with a high, vaulted ceiling, illuminated by a row of huge, twinkling chandeliers. So far were they above Lightning's head that their glittering brilliance seemed as distant as starlight. The walls swirled with dark marble and rows of slick, onyx doors opened to spacious rooms on either side of the hall. Decorating the spacing between the doors were large, detailed portraits of whom Lightning assumed were great Caelum ancestors – or all the previous successors of the Guardian role. All were dark and severe looking people, men and women alike, with haunted eyes that pierced through passing guests just as sharply as if they were real.

Two pairs of tailored guards stood as sentinels at either end of the hall, just as straight-faced and impeccably still as Ignis. The pair by the doors acknowledged their entrance with hardly a flicker of the eyes and a twitch of a nod towards the valet. Ignis took her down the entire length of the hall, past the tortured frowns of the Caelum ghosts and all the sprawling, elegant rooms. The second pair of guards stood on either side of an arched entryway to a staircase with charcoal steps, carved with decorative symbols, and a navy blue carpet with silver trim rolled down the middle.

Yes, it was a beautiful and rich house, just the same in style as Noctis's. Yet, it lacked one thing from the smaller building down the hill, and that was sound. The languid crackle of flames in the study's fireplace, the distinct swell of music in the kitchen, and the muted thump of footsteps all around gave the place a heartbeat; a breath; gave it the rhythm of a true home. Ascending the stairs behind Ignis and hearing the hollow echo of his own footfalls slithering back to her made her feel like she was walking through a skeleton. The air was dead and crisp like the world outside. There was no warmth to be had in the clinically neat spaces and there was a soullessness from the walls that was mimicked in the hard stillness of the guards' eyes. It didn't help to ease her uncertain anxiety.

The stairway stopped to start another hall, this one with a lower ceiling but, no less long and no less covered in doors and antique portraits. Two sets of guards stood at either end again and the doors were mostly shut this time. Ignis strode down the hall, heading towards the further-most guards that stood at either side of a tall, closed doorway. Before they made it all the way, Ignis paused at the last door on the left of the hallway and made a sharp gesture for her to stay there while he continued on to the guards. Gritting her teeth and swallowing her pride like foul-tasting cough medicine, Lightning had no choice but to obey.

The men at the end door stood at attention as Ignis approached. He murmured strict and clear orders to them that she could not hear but, judging by the glances sent her way, she figured they were along the lines of "keep an eye on her." The two guards confirmed their understanding of the orders with identical, resolute nods and Ignis returned to her, looking like he was about to spout commands at her as well.

"I know the drill," she said, pre-empting him. "Don't touch the King, don't breathe on the King, don't look at the King unless it's with devout reverence…"

"That goes without saying," Ignis said, surprisingly unfazed by her mockery. "I expect you'll regard your host with the utmost respect. What I have to say to you has nothing to do with the King."

Lightning's brow rose, bemused by this admittance. She had been starting to think that the man didn't piss without running it by the King. Curious about the concentration in his expression – as if his implacable mask was just on the verge of breaking – Lightning folded her arms and listened. He spoke slowly and with a tight clasp of control over his voice that made every syllable seem shorter. It was like talking over a bleeding bullet-wound.

"I don't know if your intentions towards Noctis are malicious or not – or whether you even have any to begin with – but, whatever it is you're doing with him, just know that, if he ends up hurt because of you, Lord Regis won't be the most formidable enemy you make from it."

The glare he fixed her with was so cold that it started to burn. She'd guessed early on that Ignis's desire to protect Noctis ran much deeper than as a mere security guard. More than friends – more like brothers, both in arms and out. There was a history there that she didn't think anyone, other than the two of them, could fully understand. Although little could compare to the unique bonds between two people, she could easily relate. Many a time had she given such a scathing glare to anyone she suspected might do Serah wrong. For that reason alone, she was able to acknowledge and respect the warning, holding his stare, ice to ice.

"Noted."

They regarded each other in challenging silence for a moment longer, the emptiness of the palace placing more emphasis on the severity of the conversation. Without looking up, Ignis rapped his knuckles against the door they were standing in front of. A low, temperate voice responded.

"Enter."

Ignis squeezed the crystal knob and guided the door inward, arm extended to shepherd Lightning within. Letting her arms fall to her sides and opening herself up to whatever came next, Lightning passed over the threshold. The King's office was smaller than she might have expected but, it was filled with just as many valuable furnishings to make up for the size. Full bookcases leaned against the walls, wood stained dark and book spines kept neatly arranged. There was a massive globe in one corner – seas made of ivory and land molded through bronze. It spun on its axis without a single touch from outside. A long tapestry hung in another corner, woven with dark blues and silvers, depicting the names of all in the Caelum family tree – a lengthy and detailed lineage with space left for future generations.

The office was dimly lit by frosted sconces between the bookshelves and a matching lamp at the corner of a large, mahogany desk in the center of the room. Tossed with paper files and leather binders, it hardly reflected Lightning's pre-conceived idea of the rigidly organized man behind the desk. Regis Caelum stood with his back to them, looking out past the curtains of a tall window, the only one in the room. Lightning could barely glimpse the distant shadow of the house downhill between where Regis's hand lifted the curtain. The dark fabric slipped back into place as the King turned to greet her.

"Thank you for coming."

"Not like I had much of a choice," Lightning replied, slipping a cold glance towards Ignis.

Ignis didn't look to meet it, eyes fixed on the King although, not upon his face. Lightning noticed that his gaze remained strictly level with the other man's shoulders, even as he spoke.

"My Lord, are you quite certain that you don't require protection?"

"Yes, quite sure. That will be all, Ignis."

Ignis hesitated, eyes switching uncertainly between her and the King. Lightning blinked in mock shock. Was he refusing the dismissal? Was that even allowed? Regis smiled at him – a tired, phantom of a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"We're just having a friendly conversation. There's nothing to protect against."

Ignis remained wary but, under the risk of making his venerable leader repeat himself, he was forced to obey and exit the room. Lightning wasn't oblivious to the hot tongs of warning against her back as he closed the door, and she wouldn't be the least bit surprised if those guards he had spoken to would be re-positioned outside the office when she left that conference. For now, she was finally alone with Regis and he was gesturing for her to take a seat in the single, plush chair set up in front of his desk.

"I do hope Ignis wasn't in any way rough with you. I instructed him to be as tactful as possible when retrieving you."

"You picked the wrong man for that job," Lightning snorted, glancing suspiciously at the chair he was gesturing to. "Or maybe the right one since he seems to enjoy forcibly escorting people into unforeseen circumstances."

Regis smiled again, the same wisp of a smile that was leftover from a time before the war and only went on now as a place-holder for genuine amusement. He sat down behind his desk, body folding like a shuffling deck of cards, all the sharp corners falling into a specific place – elbows into the crook of the chair's arms, knees parallel to the floor, chin level above the top of the desk. The portrait of poise, just like his son. Already, Lightning was recalling the first night she'd met Noctis and how vulnerable she'd been to his enduring stare across the dining room table. Reminding herself of how she'd failed to remain unreadable then, Lightning started silently crafting the correct strategy for how to evade the unmoving Caelum stare once again.

"Ignis isn't your biggest fan," Regis said, eyes fixed on her and not the empty seat she refused to occupy. "Although, it's hard to tell with how much he never shuts up about you."

"How flattering."

Lightning assured herself that there wasn't much for Ignis to flap his gums about. He knew as much about what she was doing in Arcadia as she did but, it didn't comfort her to know she was being discussed by such dangerous people. Although she trusted Noctis, regardless of his heritage, she wasn't blind to the fact that he was dangerous. A man with that much power – economically, politically, magically – didn't keep it without risk, and Lightning knew his father was no different. She maintained her indifference towards his title yet, remained cautious, knowing that there were things he did to earn that title which were worth being wary about. Still uncertain as to the nature of why he wanted to see her, Lightning couldn't be sure whether he deemed her as a threat or not. If he did, she shifted her crossed arms in a way that would make summoning Odin swift and easy.

"Ignis has already stated, in no uncertain terms, that he thinks you have some cruel designs for my son."

"Is this the part where you banish me from the kingdom and forbid me from seeing your son like he's some damsel locked in a tower and I'm the roguish thief that wants to steal him away from a future of fortune, duty, and betrothal?"

"Might there be a reason I should?"

"Might there be a reason you think every woman that walks through his door is there to seduce him out of his every last cent?"

She didn't care if she sounded hostile. Although she didn't think much about other people's opinion of her, she was sick of hearing these assumptions. Did they really have to regard her like some street-hustler looking for an easy mark? Regis watched her a moment and if he was surprised or offended by her accusation, she'd never know. He dropped his gaze and it settled, as if on reflex, upon one of the picture-frames facing him on the desk. His forehead smoothed suddenly and his eyes softened as he reached out to draw the frame closer.

"You're right. I should know better than most men what the toll of unfair judgments can cost. My wife was subject to similar scrutiny."

Regis tilted the framed photo towards Lightning in offering and she was torn between wanting to accept it – thereby trusting the man's amiable manner as being genuine – and wanting to reject it as a show of respect towards Noctis's trust. This was about him after all, although Lightning wasn't sure what exactly it was about him. The system they'd built was working not because they weren't keeping secrets but, because they didn't need to know them. Whatever Regis wanted to discuss, Lightning already felt like her being in that mansion alone was an invasion of Noctis's privacy. She couldn't bring herself to look at the face of his potential mother, of whom he'd never spoken, for that reason alone. Her eyes lingered too long on the picture-frame though, giving away her curiosity nevertheless, and she found that she did desire to trust Regis – at least for the moment.

Whereas Noctis had read her through keen observation and subtle interrogatory techniques, Regis had a much more lethally accurate sense that had little to do with sight and all due to research. There was almost a pre-cognitive awareness to his voice when he lowered the photograph and stated exactly what she'd been thinking.

"He's never mentioned her."

There was resignation in his eyes, from the way they firmed at the edges and the way his irises toiled with a piece of Noctis's past that he'd hoped had already been shared with her. It seemed he didn't want to intrude on his son's reservations any more than she did. Yet, there was an insurmountable doubt to his expression that denied him the privilege of remaining impartial. She couldn't guess for sure what that doubt was but, he didn't keep her in suspense. He was surprisingly forthcoming with his concerns and Lightning was grateful. She'd about had enough of never-ending run-arounds.

"You'll have to forgive this old man his antiquated sense of paranoia. Contrary to Ignis's very persistent belief, I don't think you're some spy-sent assassin that means to murder my son. However, I also don't think you're the servant's cousin either."

"All sorts of word gets around here, huh?"

One brow curved up like a scythe, letting him know exactly how she felt towards the insinuation of being spied upon herself. He seemed to know an awful lot about her false life for a man she'd only seen once.

"It does," he replied, the smallest twitch of a smile raising one corner of his mouth. "Both Gladiolus and Prompto have to pass through here often and, I swear, you could hear that kid all the way from Paddra. You can imagine my surprise – after hearing the one-man jury of Ignis – when I heard how fondly those two spoke of Katrina's distant relative."

"And you don't buy it?"

"Noctis can compel his friends to accept anything he tells them. Their loyalty to him is unflinching and, though they might not always believe him, they trust him enough not to argue."

"You don't?"

Regis leaned back in his seat, one arm laid across the desk with the fingers still pressed against the photo-frame. If she had crossed a line, he did what few men ever could and didn't push her back over it. Whether that was because she'd struck some undeniable chord of truth or he was just calm enough not to react, she didn't know. Again, he answered that question for her himself.

"Noctis is his own man and, although he has a passionate heart, he is the master of his own emotions. He doesn't let his personal opinions threaten his logic and he's a great judge of character. I trust in him as much as any of his companions do but, the last time I left him to his own instincts, it was a situation he should have never gone into on his own. And it had been my responsibility to recognize that."

For a moment, he wasn't talking to Lightning. His eyes remained keen on the face in the photo, looking far away and back in time. Lightning couldn't fathom what relevance she had in this – whatever "this" was. A picture of a wife, a vision of blood in water, and a father with the saddest eyes she'd seen since the past… They were the clearest pieces to a puzzle she'd picked up yet but, was the picture they made part of the answer she sought? If it wasn't, would hearing this story Regis wanted told be worth breaching her limitations with Noctis?

Regis raised his gaze back to the present and gestured again to the empty chair left for her. "Please. I assure you that I don't wish to be alarming. I can tell you're hesitant to trust me and I respect that but, allow me the opportunity to explain. This will in no way impede upon your relationship with my son."

There he went again, talking as if she'd spoken her thoughts out loud. If she hadn't already experienced the clairvoyant Caelum perception, this could have been the point where she whipped out whatever weapon she had on her and made a run for it but, her instincts had evolved since waking up in Arcadia. She no longer saw soft-spoken generosity as dark ambition and, while she remembered Noctis being tense during Regis's visit, there was no malice to his father's expression that made her think he wanted to do badly by his son. Pursing her lips and glancing at the chair, it took a spiritual nudge from Odin to finally get her to sit down. Although her Eidolon remained vigilant towards any danger, her curiosity was mirrored in the petals of his crystal.

"Here's what I know," Regis started once she was settled, hands folding neatly on the desk. "And this is through mere observation alone. I know that you met Noctis during a dispatch a week or two ago, in the middle of that blizzard. I know that some volatile exchange occurred that forced you into a panic and eventually took you to the sanctuary's underground where Noctis had to drag you back upstairs, unconscious. I know that Noctis insisted you remain in his care, catering to any need he thought you might require. I know that something monumental happened before I arrived last week that shook Noctis badly, and I know that tonight, he voluntarily invited you back into the Crystal's sanctum where you both came out unscathed. That can only lead me to believe he's trusted the secret of the Caelums' powers to you.

'I know that Ignis doesn't trust you; I know that Gladiolus greatly enjoys your company; I know that Prompto is smitten but, is far, far out of his league. I know that Noctis has made you his priority, which has never changed since he got shoved into war politics. All this I know and I don't mind, so long as my son is safe and, dare I say, happy. The stories I hear and the glances I can catch from this window have painted me a picture of the boy I used to know that couldn't stop smiling no matter how much you tried to make him frown. That I know and am grateful for. What I don't know from these long weeks is why he would tell you – a stranger – about the most sacred family secret that has half the world at war; where you came from; or who exactly you are."

Lightning rifled through the cards he was laying on the table, surprised that he was willing to lay them all out at once in the first place. It was a tactic she imagined a man in his position might consider to be a suicide play, keeping nothing to use as a trump card in the event the conversation turned south. It was reckless, really – or, at least, it would have been for anyone else. Regis was a man that knew what he was doing even if it made no sense to the counter party involved. He was just as unpredictable as his son and she was just as stubborn.

"Why do you think I'm going to tell you that when I've hardly even told Noctis?"

"I don't expect you to tell me, especially not if you haven't told Noctis."

"If I'm not here for you to interrogate me, then why am I here?"

"For me to warn you."

Lightning's eyes slanted with suspicion, this possibility behind him calling her there both on the highest and lowest tiers of her list. As she'd already defied the "stay away from my son" scenario, the high priority idea was diminished. This least likely one – proven to be so by the haunted cadence to the man's voice – was not what she'd been expecting. She knew before he said anything that this warning wasn't directed towards her for the sake of Noctis but, for the sake of herself. And that notion was more terrifying to Lightning than any threat she knew he was capable of.

"Noctis didn't tell you everything about the Crystal," Regis said, asking for confirmation just as much as stating his own answer.

"I guess not," she said anyway. "You seem to know something I don't."

"I should, given what this curse has cost my family."

The subtlest shift in the shadows of his eyes exposed an amount of hidden rage towards the object that had brought him such prestige. The way Noctis had spoken of the Crystals, Lightning couldn't imagine a Guardian bearing them any ill will. It was like l'Cie going against their Focus: it simply wasn't done. Lighting had to resist the urge to smile. Perhaps she and Regis had more in common than just his son.

"I assume you know of our world's gods, Miss Lightning?"

"Do you think I'm an alien from another world that might not know?"

"Certainly not," he said, smiling at her remark but, not laughing; once upon a time, he might have. "So you know of Bhunivelze, Lindzei… Etro?"

The pause he placed before the Goddess of Death was deliberate and did not go unnoticed. She didn't know how to interpret it but, whatever it was intended as, it wasn't in any way reverent. There was a detachment to the way he said her name and something else. It almost sounded like resentment. She was starting to like this man even more.

"Did Noctis tell you about how our Crystal reflects the will of its Guardian?" he continued.

She nodded, silent.

"No other Crystal is so tightly linked to its Guardian. All other Crystals reflect a different will; the same will across each: and that is Etro's will. The Crystals are products of Chaos, the energy of the Unseen Realm where Etro resides. They serve as her eyes into our world. The only Crystal she cannot see through nor bend to her own desires is the one Noctis now commands."

"Why is that?"

"No one is certain. In all the long years that we Caelums have served it, there are still many questions it has failed to answer. All we know is that it is one of the oldest and strongest Crystals, and perhaps its power stems from its independence from Etro. We can only theorize."

He paused, eyes back on the photo, and Lightning knew the exposition was over and that the plot was about to begin. And from the way he closed his eyes to prepare for that story to be told, she knew she would be hearing a tragedy.

"Noctis was chosen by the Crystal at an unusually young age. The Crystal 'took a liking' to him earlier than it had any Guardian before. At first, I couldn't have been prouder knowing we'd raised a son so smart and so strong that the Crystal thought he was worthy, regardless of his age. His mother didn't share the same sentiments as I, and I wish I had shared hers instead."

Where once there would have been an inflection of sorrow-filled emotion, there only remained a hollow silhouette of grief in his voice. Lightning felt her heart weighing heavier and heavier in her chest the more he spoke. She didn't know where this story was going and she was afraid to even warrant a guess. That a king's throne was built on so much regret showed how much she knew about royalty.

"She was terrified for him. The life a Guardian leads is hardly without its dangers and she wasn't ready to see him put through the seclusion of having to live in that mausoleum of a house. The closest proximity is necessary for a Guardian to hone his new powers to the Crystal. The first years after being chosen are just… the loneliest. He was hardly a teenager yet – hardly had the chance to make his own decisions or make his own friends. I don't even know if he was aware of just how much responsibility came with being a Guardian.

'The next Guardian goes to the Crystal alone. It's a solitary, solemn act between successor and benefactor. Never have two humans been in the room simultaneously, lest the transfer of power be confused. Noctis wasn't hesitant to go for the Bestowment – the act of the Crystal sharing its power with its chosen host. My wife, however, couldn't accept it and intruded upon the sanctum to implore the Crystal to reconsider. I only know what happened as a result from what Noctis told me.

'She begged the Crystal to wait and if it couldn't, to instead allow her the burden of its powers in her son's stead. I myself don't believe that Crystals bear enough sentience to acknowledge a human's voice but, there are a lot of things I believe that might not be true. If the Crystal was tempted into reconsidering, it didn't get the chance to act upon its own will. It was a long while before I fully believed what Noctis told me: that the voice of Etro then interceded.

'It became apparent that the Crystal wasn't the only being that had decided a claim upon my son. The goddess was even more determined to have Noctis become a Guardian than our own Crystal was. Etro saw my wife as a threat to whatever destiny she'd pre-ordained for Noctis, and the Crystal, loyal to the Caelums as we are loyal to it, sought to protect the mother of its new Guardian. The way Noctis described it suggested the Crystal was battling for control over itself from Etro's command. Whoever won out, the resultant expense of power was too great for my wife to withstand, she not being of the Caelum bloodline and without resistance to the Crystal's potency. Noctis was granted the Crystal's power – whether by its will or Etro's will, only he knows – and my wife was killed in the process.

'By the time I reached the sanctum, sensing the Crystal's conflict through my own bond with it, it was too late to hope she could be saved. My son had to watch his mother bleed out into the water because of my blind faith in all of our divines. And that blindness allowed Etro to soil our most sacred ritual with bloodshed."

The air in the room grew thick with silence. For the majority of his recollection, Regis had maintained a clinical exposure, as if he recited the tale to himself in the mirror every night before he fell asleep – if sleep ever came to him. It was only towards the end that his indifference began to waver, and Lightning knew that the resentment she'd assumed earlier towards Etro was rightly supposed. Faith had never been high on Lightning's list of priorities, not to the point where there was enough worth being shaken by the story. It only confirmed for her what she already knew: that any being which claimed itself as a deity couldn't be trusted. It also instilled a familiar, painful feeling within her towards Noctis, and that was empathy.

"I'm telling you this because there's something about you that implies you've stared into the face of Death and she stared back with a promise. It could be because of the remnants of the Crystal still within me that can sense it but, nevertheless, I know that wherever you came from, it is by Etro's design. And I'm warning you not to trust her."

Lightning's throat tightened and her fingers dug into her crossed arms in an effort to keep herself grounded. She was far beyond questioning how he could know so much and even further beyond caring. Here was a man – not a king; not a mobster – who'd had his whole world stolen by the greed of a god. How could she even fathom turning against him when fal'Cie, masquerading as gods, had stolen the same thing from her?

She finally saw herself in the dark-ringed eyes looking back at her. She saw her anger and despair of watching Serah turn to crystal because a fal'Cie demanded her life end to achieve her Focus. She saw her wrath against the pretend gods for daring to take the one thing she cherished in life; for using Serah to force Lightning into carrying out their deadly goals. She couldn't question Regis's warnings. She couldn't fear what it meant that he knew she was touched by the goddess. She couldn't even speak for that the magnitude of his revelation had rendered her speechless.

The same goddess who'd sent Lightning on her mission had murdered Noctis's mother. And she didn't believe in coincidences. Lightning found her voice as she was recounting the information, managing to ask one question.

"You said Noctis heard her voice. What did she say?"

Regis shook his head, eyes looking at her but, not seeing her. "Only Noctis knows. He's never told."

Lightning felt her pulse quicken with apprehension. Another unknowable prophecy? Surely it was no accident that Etro had dropped her at the feet of Noctis, another one of her chosen servants for some purpose even they themselves didn't know. Surely, there was some connection to her mission in Noctis's past. She couldn't put it all together there, sitting under the spectral stare of the Arcadian king and with Odin burning an urgent hole in her pocket. The Eidolon had been quiet as his master during the conference but, now that it was over, he was pushing as hard as he could to get her attention.

Lightning pulled herself to her feet and Regis remained still, eyes still looking ahead as if her face was still where it had just been a second ago. The distance in his gaze tugged at her just as hard as Odin was, and she felt obligated – by both her respect for what he'd lost and his trust towards warning her – to give him some small shred of reassurance.

"I don't know what the goddess has in store for any of us," she said. "But, I make my own fate. Always have, always will. Not even a god can convince me that my destiny isn't my own. I'll decide where this road's taking me, not Etro."

He raised his head to meet her gaze again, his reaction to her words hidden behind the complacent face of a tired king. It was a moment before he could find the words to respond, and they started with the smallest laugh.

"It's no wonder Noctis likes you. He's a rule-breaker too."

She smiled back, a tug at the corner of her lips. She liked Noctis for that too. Regis's face grew somber again and his hands squeezed together as if in prayer upon his desk.

"Whatever it is you have with Noctis, if it's real and you care about him… please, don't let her hurt him again."

If it was in her power to keep that promise, she vowed that she would. Back straightening and arms unfolding to her sides, Lightning offered the King the salute she'd given to her lieutenant a million times. He accepted it with a solemn nod and she took her leave.


He'd had this dream before. Once. A very, very long time ago. He hadn't known it was prophetic then until the night which followed, where all his nightmares were re-enacted in reality.

It started in the water. He awoke submerged, murky black depths stretched to infinity on all sides; placid and still like the eyes of a corpse. It was silence, the kind of silence he always wished for where no one had anything to ask of him and no one expected anything from him. Yet, this silence and this darkness was death. He knew that somehow. Always, he was floating in the unmoving ocean of death. He didn't know if he wanted that kind of silence.

When he realized this, that was when the cold came. He would breathe and instead of a cloud of bubbles came a cloud of frost. Small puffs of white air would drift up and up and up, and his eyes would follow until he saw the surface of the water overhead. There was something up there, there was always something up there that showed him there was a surface to be reached. It was never something he wanted to reach.

He knew that this was a dream. He knew that she was dead. He couldn't stop the drills of panic that pumped his arms forward either way. It was the same as the first time: the body laid against the water's surface so that Noctis couldn't see her face. Ringlets of black hair sprayed against the clear ceiling of the death he swam through to get to her and as he started getting closer, the blood began. It was so bright against her dress and it was so thick, pooling against that surface. He didn't know until he touched it that it was ice.

That it wasn't ice…

That it was crystal.

The space between them was paper thin. His hands touched her hair but, couldn't feel it, could only feel the cold sting of the crystal casing between them. He beat at it, he kicked at it, he rammed his shoulder into it; he slammed and scratched and screamed until there wasn't an inch of him that wasn't bruised; until the water grew darker with the blood from his fingers as they tried to reach her. He couldn't see her anymore through all the blood that spread above him. He couldn't scream for her because the water swallowed his voice but, he couldn't stop trying. His soundless, frantic breaths fogged the crystal white and his hands couldn't fracture it.

He was drowning now, choking on his own unheard pleas for her to "get up," for her to "please be alright." The crystal was white with his breaths, so white that it became blinding. It filled his vision and stilled his fighting body, taking him out of the water, out of the crystal, and into someplace new. When the light died, he was on his feet. He was standing in a world where there was air to breathe and when he did, a sweet fragrance filled his lungs.

He looked up to find he was surrounded by roses. Thorny, blossoming bushes coiled all around him, climbing trellises, curling over stones, reaching for the pathway he stood upon. Reds and pinks and whites and more, all waxy petals and spiraled faces. Ahead of him on the path, she stood with her back to him – the woman that fell out of the sky; that tore like a hurricane through a forest of armored soldiers with only her quick steps and a loaded gunblade, leaving thunder in her wake as well as in her name.

Will as hard-set as steel, resolve as sharp as the edge of glass, and a secret kindness as soft as the sound of his mother's old lullabies. As she turned to face him, he felt that completeness which he desired even more than the silence begin to lift the burden of his own heart in his chest. He could feel himself start to smile, his admiration and his fondness for her erasing the deathly prison of the water he'd just drowned in. She turned to him and her face was not a smile to match his own. The tempest blue of her gaze was dark and hooded, glinting like the flash of a knife beneath an assassin's robe. Her hand was outstretched to him and upon her palm sat a small white rose. He glanced between the rose and her face, the severe cut of her cold stare suggesting that he should somehow recognize it.

He made to step towards her, made to speak and ask her what it was but, as he did, her fingers clasped into a fist around the rose and he felt it over his own heart. His breath came in a gasp and he stumbled, barely staying on his feet as he clutched his chest where a deep throbbing began to constrict within him. When he looked back at her, a rustling started in the roses around them and their blooms began to shrink into themselves. The colors shriveled to brown and the plump moistness of the petals dried to blackened flecks. Lightning's hold on the rose grew tighter, crushing the dying flower to black ash. He couldn't breathe and his chest felt like it was aflame, strangled heart trying desperately to stay beating.

He collapsed to his knees, gasping for air but, finding none. He reached for her with tears prickling at the corners of his failing vision, trying to beg her to stop but, only succeeding at a croaking, garbled noise. When he looked at her, her eyes were red like the ones he saw in the mirror. The face of Lightning began to die with the garden of roses, skin flaking, hair lengthening and darkening, uniform blanching until the woman who stood over him with the dust left of his heart in her hand was the smiling Goddess of Death.

She recited to him the same curse she'd bellowed through the Crystal's sanctum, words which tormented him out of sleep every night since: "You, the courier of my demise, shall find solace only in death and death shall be whom so holds your loving heart."

She whispered his name. Over and over again she whispered his name, everything around him dying until the venomous cadence of her voice turned to frantic calling and the pain in his chest was hands shaking him awake.

Noctis bolted upright, gasping hard against the feeling of dead weight in his chest. Sweat plastered his dry change of clothes to his body so he was just as soaked through as he was after tripping into the sanctum's moat. Spasms of shock crawled through his body, the muscles shivering as if against an icy wind. The dying rose garden of his dream curled away at the edges of his vision until he recognized the stagnant familiarity of his own room. Dark corners, dim lights, all his worldly belongings stuffed carelessly in chests and dressers that had no uniform placement in the room's design. He recognized Katrina hovering over him, the hand she'd shaken him awake with still halfway from him in case he still needed her aid.

He took half a glance at her stricken face before turning away, dragging his feet to the floor and resting his elbows on his knees. Pressing his head against his knuckles, Noctis reminded himself how to breathe and as his body calmed back down into the rhythmic pulse, he recalled how he came to be there, cycling through the day's events in an effort to exorcise the dream from the forefront of his mind.

He'd shown Lightning his Crystal. He'd made a fool of himself by falling in the water. She'd said she wanted to have a date. He'd gone upstairs as if stepping on clouds, elated by the idea. He'd dried himself off, changed into some old sweats, and flopped onto the sheets of his bed. He'd fallen asleep grinning stupidly at the ceiling and woke up screaming. Eyes on the floor between his feet, he watched Katrina's shadow shift away from him, going to shut the bedroom door. His eyes traced her steps until she eased the sticky door closed with a grinding sound between the wood, clicking into place. She turned back to him and he forced himself to look back at her.

She raised a hand to her eyes, pointing near the irises and mouthed the words, "Your eyes." His heart gave a panicked thump in his chest and his gaze found the sole mirror in the room, mounted to the inside of the door beside her. His distant reflection showed him his garnet stare and the small, glimmering shifts of light where the edges of the Crystal's shield revolved around him. He'd lost control. He hadn't lost control since the early days where he was first learning to use his abilities; when the agony of his mother's death was still fresh and yet un-mourned in the haste to make him a Guardian. This shouldn't have been happening. Why was this happening again? Why now?

"Hey, just breathe Noct, remember?"

Katrina breezed back over to him, as far as she could get before the barrier stopped her. How long had it been up, he wondered. Had he really felt her hands on his chest, or had it been the residual pounding of her fists against the shield that he'd felt? Why wouldn't it let her in? Why didn't it let anyone in? Why did it force out all the people he wanted to protect within it? Why did he have these powers if he couldn't protect his friends? His family? Anyone he loved?

Katrina locked him in a keen stare, quiet as she needed to let him work through it. No one could stop him but himself and if he didn't stop, couldn't he hurt her? Any of them? The sheets against the edge of his bed were wrapped as tightly as tourniquets around his hands. Unless he wanted to lose them to lack of circulation, he had to rein himself in. He closed his eyes and breathed. He closed his eyes and saw the blood in the water, and commanded the Crystal to stop. He commanded it to stop hurting her, to stop listening to her, and to abide by his will and his will alone. Its powers were his birthright and he would have them in his control. The shimmering glow of the Crystal's light began to wane. The ripples in the water began to still. She got up and brushed the blood off her dress like it was dust.

He opened his eyes back to Katrina and she smiled encouragement, nodding that he was back to himself. He looked across the room to the mirror again anyway, hardly trusting himself to believe her. The air was empty and clear around him, and his eyes were blue again but, no less red around the edges from where deep lines of tears drained out.

Something soft was pressed to the side of his face and, at first, he flinched away as if his skin had been scraped raw and the lightest contact was like the sting of a needle. After a moment's hesitation where his body remembered that it was whole and uninjured, his shaking fingers fumbled around the proffered handkerchief and took it from Katrina's hand. Crying was for children. He thought he remembered saying that to her once and she'd never forgotten. Lest she injure his own stubborn sense of self-pride, she pretended not to notice the salty wetness on his cheeks but, at the same time didn't dismiss it. Her silence spared him ridicule but, her actions spared him the feeling of abandonment. He thought vaguely that he didn't pay her enough, and hastily cleared away the tracks of tears and whatever was sniffling out of his nose. He sniffed into the smell of the fresh linen and squeezed his eyes shut, willing whatever tears were left behind out to be dried away.

He chanced a glance back up at her, asking for silent confirmation that he'd left no trace behind. She smiled her best bedside smile and there marked the end of the crisis. She didn't ask and he didn't offer to explain, each of them keeping to their roles even in times of the greatest distress. Some days he was grateful for not being coerced into talking about it; other days he just wanted to scream the pain away at whoever would listen without labeling him a madman. He didn't know where today lay.

"Princess Fleuret is here," Katrina said, moving to his closet and thumbing through his somber wardrobe.

"We don't have a meeting scheduled for today," he replied, voice like gravel bruising the walls of his throat.

"She said she was here on a matter of 'grave urgency.' She needed to see you right away."

The relevance of Stella appearing unannounced didn't inspire as much haste in himself as it might have. He felt as if all the energy had been wrung out of him like a soggy dish rag. Imprints of pain still prickled in his chest as if the events within the walls of his mind had leaked out into reality. It made him wonder if he'd been right to assume that what he'd seen were mere manifestations of his own fears.

Once more, his chef-maid's dainty hands appeared in his view, this time bearing a neat collection of new clothes she'd selected from his closet. He stared at them a moment as if he didn't know what to do with them. It took Katrina gently opening his fingers and placing them around the edges for him to remember what they were for. He was drenched. His shirt was clamped to his chest like a second skin. He had to go meet Stella and he couldn't do it like this. He had to get up, had to make his legs move, had to put on his fake prince smile and pretend he and Stella hadn't been using each other for years.

He got up. He dragged himself to stand straight and enter the bedroom's adjoined bathroom, feet feeling like they were shackled to cinder-blocks. Peeling the sweaty clothes off and sponging away the lingering perspiration on his skin didn't make him feel any less heavy. Slipping into warm, dry clothes didn't offer him much comfort either. He splashed cold water on his face and in his eyes until any swollen redness was gone. He didn't linger on his reflection in the bathroom mirror but, the one by the bedroom door caught him again as he passed.

Katrina had lingered, like she always did, busying herself with tidying up the bed as a cover for her worrying over him. She was tiny in the mirror behind him, nearly eclipsed by the jagged sweep of his hair. It was a long while before she finally stopped flipping the same pillow over and over and over again, kneading it so much that it would probably melt like cotton candy the next time he laid his head against it. She stilled but, didn't turn to meet his gaze in the mirror. He wasn't really looking at her anyway. Although his eyes resembled that of a human being again, the darkness at their centers drowned him just as violently as the depths within the Crystal.

"What am I doing?"

He asked this of himself so many times with no one else near to hear. It was a question that encompassed nearly every sordid section of his life: What was he doing as a Guardian? What was he doing as the Prince of Arcadia? What was he doing as Regis Caelum's son? What was he doing as Lightning's ally?

"What's right."

"What's right or what I think is right?"

"Maybe they're the same thing."

A laugh came out of him but, it had no feeling. It was neither derisive nor amused, merely there. It was just something he knew he could put as a response; a place-holder for some emotion he didn't know how to express. He wasn't incorruptible. What was universally right and what he perceived as right, couldn't be the same thing. He was driven by desires too selfish to be considered as beneficial to the greater good, whatever that "good" might be. It was to end the war, wasn't it? And – by some miracle – end it peacefully. He was starting to lose sight of that. Talking to Stella would do well to remind him that there was a fight to be won outside of his own self-imposed trials.

He blinked at his reflection a few times more until the shuttering of his eyes showed him the appropriate face for greeting fellow members of royalty. The smile was brittle and strained, the eyelids shivering with the effort it took to keep them from drooping back down into despondency. There were corners of his face that were still swollen from discarded sobbing and his skin was paler than even he was accustomed to. Stella would see right through him but, he didn't have the conviction to care. He muttered an inaudible "thank you" to Katrina for providing her confidence and left the haunted sanctity of the bedroom to go face the Princess.

Noctis drew himself a straight line, pulled it taut into a tightrope, and set it above the chasm of his nightmares, putting one foot in front of the other with his eyes set on the platform at the other side. One thing at a time. Stella stood waiting to receive him, first in a long line of waiting hands upon that platform.

She was agitated when he joined her in the study – always his impromptu conference room. It was a quiet agitation, steady and contained, like the swirl of a storm stuffed within a glass jar. A glass jar wrapped in white silk, muting the motion to dim shadows churning underneath. If he hadn't known her since they were children, it would have been impossible for him to tell. Stella's feelings expressed themselves through the subtlest shifts in the tone of her posture, something she distracted people from noticing with her angelic smile. When she was happy, her weight went to stand at the balls of her feet, making her step bob as if on the gentle lap of sea-waves. When she was sad, her chin stayed slightly down-turned, her body knowing she'd rather be looking at her toes than into the eyes of a diplomat but, her decorum keeping them firmly in a held gaze. When she was angry her shoulders pulled back and lifted her ribcage into her chest, making her seem just a breadth taller than whomever might have offended her.

When she was stressed, a deathly stillness swept through her, holding her frame in statuesque place. She stood with her legs pressed straight together and her arms wrapped snug beneath her chest. Her back was to him as he entered and it was wrought with hard edges beneath the fabric of her cardigan. Her gaze was set on the dying sun hidden behind a film of clouds outside the study window. The weak, murky light made the shadowy gold of her hair that much darker. He cleared his throat to alert her to his presence, and the slight lift of her shoulders suggested to him that she'd already known he was there but, was just delaying the inevitability of turning to face him. She spun around with mechanical slowness, like a plastic figurine trapped on a music box axis. She didn't put up the smokescreen of her smile for him, her expression grave and solemn. However, once she met his gaze her brow wrinkled with immediate concern.

"What's wrong?"

"You first."

He was tired of smiling smiles that didn't mean anything but, he did it anyway because that was what princes did. They smiled empty smiles, laughed empty laughs, and spoke empty words. That's what princesses did, too, when they each weren't together. He dropped the smile and she dropped the question, and they both moved to sit down by the blackened bits of the cold fireplace. Another strain passed through Stella as she tried to sit, as if a weight was on her shoulders, trying to push her into a slump. Ever the master of her own body though, she alighted into her seat with a straight back, knees together and hands folded upon them. Noctis went ahead and slumped all he wanted, tumbling into his favorite chair with a heavy sigh.

"You look terrible," she said to him, the corners of her lips twitching into a wry smile.

"And you still look beautiful," he replied with an amused snort. "Even when you feel terrible."

The mirth in her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared and her gaze tilted downwards to the placement of her hands. The severe cut to her jaw resumed, hardening her delicate features and subduing the dainty illusion of her girlhood she latched onto in the hopes of escaping how the war had changed her. They'd both tried to keep the softness of childhood within them when they talked, to try and pretend they were still playing hide-and-seek through the palace gardens, and that the smoke in the sky was from a legendary dragon instead of the shells of bombs.

"I apologize for arriving without making previous arrangements but, as you can guess, this isn't a social call," she said, drawing her eyes up to meet his.

"Have they ever been?"

Her gaze didn't flinch against the accusation. They'd both been complicit in the exchange of Tenebrae's secrets and, although they'd each denied it to themselves, they always knew that there was more to Stella's visits than just maintaining their friendship. Noctis hadn't been forced to acknowledge it until his father reminded him that Stella spoke in double meanings just as much as Noctis did.

"You and me was the one thing I thought the war would never change," he said. "But, I suppose that was just the wish of an idiot boy."

"And of an idiot girl."

The sadness that weighed in her eyes weighed heavier on his heart. Although they sat only mere feet apart, oceans length of time churned between them. To have the same goals yet, to be so far on different sides was the cruelest irony of this war.

"It has to end, Noctis," she said, voice low and steely. "For our countries' freedom to be restored, for our families' bond to be reforged, and for our friendship to be reclaimed, Arcadia has to be victorious. You know this."

"I don't know if I do anymore."

"Please don't say that!" she implored him, voice rising. "Now is not the time to start giving up, Noctis. We both need to be the strongest we've ever had to be now."

His eyes slanted to bring Stella more into focus. The dark azure of her eyes was bright with what he now recognized to be panic, not the raw emotion of longing for times past. His understanding of the suddenness with which she'd arrived became more acute.

"Something's changed," he observed, inviting her to explain.

"Idola's growing impatient," she said. "I don't know how or when but, he's planning an attack."

Idola Eldercapt was the leader of Tenebrae's forces, allied with the Fleurets to utilize their resources in funding and strengthening his army. Noctis had never officially met him but, he'd borne witness to his madness from over Regis's shoulder many times. Where some men grew wiser and solemner in age, others grew greedier and crazier. Part of the reason the war had lasted so long was because Idola couldn't be reasoned with. He was power-mad and determined to possess all that the Caelums had built. The history of the man's hatred for them went back far and was stained with deep bitterness. Each side had contributed to the rivalry, just as each side now contributed to the war. No one could remember who started it.

"What's the target?" Noctis asked, pulling himself up in his chair.

"Regis and his stronghold, of course. He thinks somehow that he can infiltrate the manor. It could just be delusion or it could not. Either way, I wouldn't take his threats lightly. Be wary of whom you trust."

"If I mistrusted every person I met I'd be fighting this war by myself," he said, smiling crookedly to try and lighten the mood.

She smiled back only to placate him, not to be amused, and asked, "Where is your new house guest – although, I suppose I should really stop saying 'new.'"

"Have you been talking to Ignis?" Noctis asked, noticing the wary shift of her eyes as if she suspected Lightning to be eavesdropping around any corner.

"I take it he doesn't approve?"

"He never does."

Stella's laugh was short but, in agreement. Ignis's thorough dedication to his job was practically known throughout all of Pulse. Stella glanced back up at Noctis, this time her gaze skewing a little to better analyze him.

"You don't think she's dangerous?"

"Of course I do. But, I think you're just as dangerous, and that doesn't stop me from keeping my doors open to you, does it?"

Stella surveyed him a moment longer, hearing every word and every intonation behind them. She heard his fondness, his respect, and his trust for both women in how he spoke. After the briefest of calculations, she smiled a non-stressed smile, folded one leg over the other, and let her shoulders sink back into the chair.

"As dangerous as me, eh?"

"I think you may find yourself an even match against her."

"Since the goddess knows you're no match for me."

Noctis chuckled, unable to deny it. She'd always excelled beyond him in swordsmanship and he owed most of his own skills to her tutelage when they had the opportunity to practice. Those opportunities were few and far between, just as the opportunities for gentle teasing were, as evidenced by how quickly their words died back into seriousness.

"What are you going to do about Idola's threats?" Stella asked, lips collapsed back into a stoic line.

"Warn my father. Have Ignis increase security. Short of retaliating by hitting him before he can hit us, there's not much I can do."

"And you still wouldn't do that? Retaliate by killing him first?"

"You know I don't think that adding another grave to the ones we've already dug will make this feud end any sooner. Even if that grave is Idola's."

"You're offering him more than he deserves. You know that, don't you?"

Noctis nodded, hands folded between his knees and eyes on his interlaced thumbs. War had no patience for pacifism, yet he thought non-violence was the only way to break the endless cycle of bloodshed. Shooting at each other from above barbed wire fences had yet to yield any success.

"Keep trusting your instincts Noctis," Stella told him. "They have yet to lead you astray."

As she said so, Katrina – in an uncommon exercise of "breaking protocol" – scurried into the study, worry lines prominent on her face despite her best efforts to hide them in front of company.

"Pardon the intrusion," she said, hastily bowing in apology.

"It's never an intrusion," Stella quickly replied. "Please, come in."

Katrina's grateful smile was uneven in response and she crossed over to the arm of Noctis's chair with more immediacy than might have been necessary. Crouching down to his ear, she quickly whispered, "I don't know if this is cause for alarm but, Lightning's gone."


She'd made a terrible mistake. If she'd thought the layout of Caelum Manor was so straightforward so as she couldn't possibly get lost, then she'd made a colossal error in judgment. She was too content with her freedom to wander unmonitored to turn back and ask for an escort out though. As she'd suspected, that pair of guards Ignis had whispered to had materialized outside of Regis's office before she'd left. It took a great amount of careful coercion from the King himself to convince them that she could be trusted to see herself out. She would have walked out just fine too, if she hadn't swerved to avoid Ignis as she was going downstairs.

He was on his way back up – no doubt to pound at the door and make sure she hadn't murdered Regis Caelum. She was too sick of his incessant interrogating and too exhausted by all that Regis had told her to feel confident about baiting him. So, she hurried into a side passage along the main staircase before he lifted his gaze to see her and continued that way. She would have been better off suffering his borderline possessive paranoia. Enduring his rants was starting to sound much more appealing than making a fool of herself, sulking through the unfamiliar halls like the tourists she used to give directions to on the boardwalk.

While she tried to regain her bearings and find a way out, Odin continued to persistently vie for her attention. Since Regis had finished relating his tale, the Eidolon had writhed restlessly within the confines of his crystal. Lightning had never felt him in such a state of agitation and the fervency of his pulse against her chest grew more alarming the longer she tried to ignore him. She couldn't summon him here, she told him. He had to wait until she got them out of there. He wasn't having it thought, his aura pressing too hot against her skin for her to hold out against him much longer. Cursing under her breath at his stubbornness, Lightning ground to a halt in a dimly-lit and empty hall, a high ceiling suspended overhead by lines of pillars set in parallel rows down the length. She did a quick sweep of the cavernous space before fishing Odin out of her pocket.

She went on hesitating to release him in Caelum Manor of all places – she doubted Regis's confidence in her stretched so far as to be comfortable with her conjuring a legendary, spiritual entity in his dining room – or wherever she was. With Odin's aura pounding to blinding proportions against his crystal casing, he left her little to no choice in the matter of letting him out. Growling in annoyance, Lightning pelted the eidolith into the nearest wall, being without her gunblade to break the seal. The crystal shattered and Odin unfurled from his resting place, keeping the flower and lights show to a minimum. At least he had some tact.

"What is it?" she hissed through her teeth at him, eyes darting to every dark corner of the hall. "This couldn't wait?"

Evidently not since Odin folded down to her level, preparing to "speak" to her. The Eidolon was just about back to his old self, armor gleaming, joints no longer groaning with rust as he moved. The edges to his blade were no longer dull, the effects of his magic were nearly restored back to full strength, and his transformations had been growing more effortless through their practice in Noctis's back courtyard. The only thing that had yet to improve was his memory and as he raised his finger to touch Lightning's forehead in order to share thoughts, it was made clear to her why this matter couldn't wait. Somehow, Odin was remembering the Eidolon Wars.

It started out in a clutter of confused flashes, then gradually evened out to form a coherent picture. It first depicted the day where the l'Cie saved Cocoon from plummeting into Gran Pulse and they were spared from crystalstasis, losing their brands in the process. She watched herself awaken from the slumber through Odin's eyes, which were watching from far above Gran Pulse. The Eidolons had been separated from their masters through the removal of their brands and were in the midst of ascending to that mysterious plane within the Unseen Realm which they hailed from.

Odin blinked and when his eyes next opened he was in Valhalla. Lightning didn't recognize it herself but, her mind was filled with Odin's, and the things he knew and was familiar with became one with her own thoughts. She knew the names of things she shouldn't have, knew the nature of Chaos and the complexities of time, how time didn't pass through Valhalla. She knew that Etro's throne sat at the peak of this realm and that the souls of the dead were ferried to the shores of her palace. She knew that Valhalla was where the Eidolons were forged from the energy of those souls.

Odin's memory went on to pass through centuries of time that couldn't be measured in the timeless city. It went on to show her the changing nature of Chaos, how the result of Cocoon failing to fall had disrupted the flow of fate. L'Cie became a dead breed in the new world and the Eidolons were left without a purpose. Abandoned to Valhalla and the churning conflict beginning within the Chaos, the intentions of the Eidolons began to warp. Unable to deliver judgment or aid to l'Cie anymore, they began directing their wrath upon each other.

In-fighting ensued, Eidolons pitting themselves against Eidolons to try and somehow reaffirm the purpose to their own existence. The war had started in Valhalla but, ended on Gran Pulse. The force of the Eidolons' battling threatened the stability of Etro's Gate, the portal between the realms of the living and the dead – it kept the Chaos from filtering into the world and distorting human time. In a fury, Etro banished the Eidolons to the face of Gran Pulse and onto New Bodhum, where the fighting resumed without regard for the people that lived there. It was the most careless gesture Lightning thought a god could make, and she wasn't sure if that was her mind talking or Odin's. Either way, they were in agreement that the goddess wasn't as benevolent as most were lead to believe.

The Eidolon Wars lasted for what Odin felt was an eternity. Time in the Living World passed in such abundance, and it had seemed like the changes between day and night never ceased. After an amount of time he couldn't collect, the screams of the people died and the clashing of divine weaponry faded into echoes. The dust and smoke thinned, and Odin was left standing alone in the middle of what remained in New Bodhum. Triumph was not what filled the Eidolon upon achieving victory. Instead, he cast his ancient gaze upon the remains of his corrupted brethren and the innocent humans, and felt. It was a sensation he was unfamiliar with and had no experience to describe. He'd "felt" only once before, many, many centuries of unmarked time before.

Lightning saw herself appear in the past of Odin's mind. She saw the anger, the fear, and the resolve that he remembered of her spirit, all the things he remembered that had first called him to her. He'd remembered that the strength of her unbidden emotion had stirred the same feeling of something within him then as it did in the aftermath of the Eidolon Wars. He tried to recall the humans' words for it – Sad? Sad's not strong enough. Hurt? He felt no such thing as pain. Despair? Yes, it had been despair that sent him to his master. Despair was what needed judgment. His purpose had been to cleanse despair from the forlorn l'Cie, and now he was feeling the one thing he'd been built to combat. And he couldn't pass judgment upon himself.

The voice of the goddess didn't return to him. She didn't present the sought-after judgment upon him. No one did. He was alone in a smoldering graveyard and no one came to cleanse the despair. He thought of his final master, a woman of honor and integrity that valued the few debts she owed. He hadn't felt she owed him anything for him simply carrying out his purpose. However, in the vulnerable nights sitting vigil while her companions slept in the wilds of the Pulsian mountains, she'd promised him that she would repay his service towards her.

He couldn't comprehend time. He couldn't understand that his human master couldn't live for an eternity like he could. He couldn't grasp that his falling into slumber upon the battleground may never end. If his master honored her debts, then she would awaken him and cleanse his despair as he had done for her. Odin waited. Odin woke up.

The memory ended and the vast infinitum of the Eidolon's mind slipped out of Lightning's. When she opened her eyes, the eidolith had reformed and sat in its place within the cradle of her palms, its light soft and content, aura warm against her clammy skin. Sweat was cooling in the creases of her hands and against the edges of her forehead from the vision's intensity. The raw heat of Odin's emotion left pinpricks behind in the pores of her skin, leaving it feeling as grainy and jumbled as the look of static. Lightning's fingers curled around the eidolith as she looked into the resting aura. The contented thumping of the ethereal heartbeat in her hands did little to hint at the magnitude of guilt he'd been carrying, and Lightning wondered if she'd already unwittingly spoken whatever balm he'd thought he needed. "The war's over?"

"Despair like that never really goes away," she murmured to the crystal. "You'll always have to carry it but, having a partner to help lift the weight does make it a little easier."

The rose's light surged and died in what might have been a relieved sigh from the sound of the smile in her voice. The burdens her Eidolon had carried were in part hers now, as hers were in part his. Lightning returned the sleeping eidolith to the safety of her breast-pocket and was then forced to confront the new issue brought up by Odin's memory. That made two stories which warned her against Etro today. She hadn't accepted the goddess's proposal on blind faith. She'd awoken in Arcadia with her eyes wide open to a prophecy filled with dark corners she couldn't see into, and now she was getting spotlights shown into those corners.

If she'd thought Etro hadn't told her the whole story before, it was becoming clear that there was much, much more the goddess had failed to share. She'd put her mark on Noctis long before Lightning had arrived and she was finding it hard to believe that coincidence had brought two people with ties to the goddess together. There was something at work there, something Lightning feared would jeopardize all that effort they'd put into trusting one another. Then, there was the new fact that it had been Etro's doing that turned New Bodhum into ruins. How could the goddess who had made humankind from her own blood be so nonchalant with their lives by relocating a divine war to their front doors? Or was that decision somehow linked with her and Noctis too? Was there even a link or was Lightning clutching red herrings to her chest from how desperate she was for a clue as to what she was doing? Maybe it all really was a coincidence.

Lightning couldn't wrangle with the incoherent mosaic of her mission for long. A noise in the vacant hall distracted her from her musings, a noise that hadn't come from her. It had been a low thump, like a door closing somewhere further off. Silence quickly resumed long enough for Lightning to assume that it may have been a sound carried down from the upper levels of the manor, but then the clicking started. It was a steady and heavy tap, like nails against glass, that started somewhere off to her left. They were footfalls, she could tell that much right away. As they became louder and thereby closer, she deducted further that they weren't human footsteps. There were additional steps that didn't match the two-point rhythm of upright walkers.

The darkness to her side began to move with the nearness of the creature, the shadows clinging to broad, sinking shoulders and parting around glinting bared teeth. Long claws scratched against the tiled floor, their clicking now accompanied by the hot, heaving breaths coming from the animal's snout. It wasn't exactly the same as the ones she'd seen. The massive razors that had been on their heads were replaced on this one's with a stiff mane of crimson fur. The carnivorous rage in its eyes was the same though.

The behemoth's paws thudded like war drums on the ground, prowling for fresh meat. Lighting's breath halted in her chest, recalling to mind the various impromptu survival lessons Fang and Vanille had organized for their non-native brethren. Questions like how there could be a behemoth loose in the bowels of Caelum Manor didn't come to mind. The only questions she asked herself were how she was getting out of this alive. Her options were limited. She had no weapons on her, no magic to wield, and an out-of-commission Eidolon in her pocket. Even if she was properly equipped for the situation, in the past it had taken three of their l'Cie group to take down a behemoth on its own. None of them, especially the ones from Cocoon, had gone solo if they happened across one without back up.

So, she held her breath, standing as still as she could manage in her cluster of shadows, watching the hulking beast scout its way through the hall. The creature sniffed at the air as it went, wet, snarling whiffs. Lightning felt Odin rouse himself once he felt the quickening of her heartbeat and panic burst through the crystal once he realized he was incapacitated by his own "cool-down period." The initial conjuring of an Eidolon expended enough energy as it was, and that was without the magic they used once they were in battle with their masters. She couldn't summon him again for a good few hours and he cursed his own stupidity for wasting a Summon just for conversation. Lightning did her best to try and calm him but, it was difficult when her own heart was beating so loud she felt like the whole house could hear it.

Maybe it could, because the behemoth suddenly paused in its loping trek, lifted its head to sniff at the air, and swiveled in her direction. Bright yellow canine eyes glared through the gloom, connecting with hers as the beast's nose connected the line of her scent. She hardly had a second's worth of reaction time before the guttural roar bellowed out of the behemoth's jaws and forced her to make a run for it.

Her boots hit the tile hard, bolting down the length of the hall, the sound of her feet quickly overcome by the weighty gait of the behemoth giving chase. Her eyes darted quickly from side to side, squinting through the dimness in search of a narrow passage in the walls that she could fit through but the behemoth couldn't. She kept her eyes strictly forward, listening to the pounding gallop of the beast behind her to measure its closeness. She didn't have a good lead. She heard a change in the rhythm of its run as it lifted a foreleg to make a swipe for her. Lightning dove forward into a roll to dodge it, the claws carving into a pillar as it missed.

She came out of the roll and kept running, a furious howl following her as she whipped around a corner at the end of the hall. She cursed loudly when the turn didn't bring her into a narrow space but, into an even wider and open area. She hardly had half a breath to survey the area, finding chairs and tables neatly stacked along the walls, unlit chandeliers above covered in white sheets, and a corner bar at the far end. Fixed with all the trappings, Lightning guessed that this could be a ballroom. There were double doors closed at the far end and whether they led outdoors, she couldn't tell but, it was her only exit out of there. The challenge was trying to make it across such a spacious area without the behemoth catching up.

There were no tight corners she could duck around and no obstacles she could dump in its way to slow it down. Growling in frustration, she had no other choice but to run as hard and fast as she could. She didn't have time to form a plan with the giant creature right at her heels. As she charged across the massive room, she could feel the acrid heat of its breath against her back. Its deep grunts were deafening in her ears and the ground quaked beneath her feet with the force of its steps. It was going to get her, she thought in the brief moment where she heard its foreleg leave the ground again.

She braced herself for impact and the paw struck her in the side, throwing her off her feet and into the air like a cat toy. The room swept by in a blur of colored lines before she crashed into a stack of chairs, wood cracking beneath her and collapsing to the floor on top of her. She had just enough time to shield her head with her arms and waited for the avalanche of furniture to cease. When it stopped, she quickly assessed the damage to her body. Nothing vital seemed to be hit from the crash but, she was going to be so black and blue she'd make Noctis's wardrobe jealous. Her ribs where the behemoth had struck her were a different story.

Her whole right side screamed in protest as she struggled to dig herself out of the net of broken table legs. This was not a good position to be in. She had no means of defense, no foothold in the environment around her, and no chance at outrunning the behemoth now. Gritting her teeth as she braced an arm on the corner of a fallen table, Lightning squinted through the mess of splintered wood. The behemoth was pacing a few steps ahead of her, waiting to see if its prey had survived. Its trek cut between her and the doors to escape. If she could distract it somehow, she might be able to make it. Thinking fast and thinking recklessly, Lightning drew up a sloppy idea, snapping a chair leg off of its base to use as a weapon, the broken end as sharp as a spear if she needed it to be.

She crawled out of the wreckage, ignoring the pain shooting through her side and stumbling back out to confront the behemoth. It halted in its pacing, a low snarl rumbling up from its throat. Lightning's chest felt like a hunk of lead strapped to her shoulders, every breath coming in heaving gasps. Regardless, she made herself stand firm in her stance, gripping her makeshift weapon in hand. If she could get in close, she could blind the creature with the stake, distracting it long enough to make it to the doors. She would have to be fast, perhaps too fast for her body to achieve in its current state but, she had to try anyway. She wasn't dying like this.

"Come on then," she taunted the creature. "You want a taste?"

The behemoth growled, shoulders crunching together and pressing into a pounce. Lightning watched the muscles coil, waiting for the moment they sprung into a lunge, measuring her labored breaths and counting the spaces between them, calculating when to make her move. The behemoth surged forward and Lightning readied her weapon, heels digging into the floor. Then, just as she was about to raise her arm and strike down, a gust of frosty air blew through the room and a jagged chunk of ice came drilling into the behemoth's side, catapulting it out of Lightning's range. A splash of blood followed the monster's body where it landed, speared through and dead at the foot of the ballroom doors. The icy air clung to Lightning's screaming lungs and cooled the hot pain in her side just long enough for her to look around unhindered.

"C'mon, Light! I know it's been a while but, I didn't think you'd gotten that rusty."

She laughed in spite of herself, too relieved and too astounded to give much thought to her embarrassing lack of preparedness.

"Rusty? How 'bout you come over here and see if my fist in your face feels 'rusty'?"

"Nuh uh, twice was more than enough times for me, thanks."

He crossed the room to meet her, all bounding steps and goofy smiles with a glowing joy in his bright blue eyes that she doubted any expanse of time could ever dull.

"So, you've been hiding out here all this time? Ya'know, you hurt Serah's feelings by just up and disappearing like that. Cruel joke, Light."

"We can all laugh about it later. For now, how in the hell did you get here Snow?"


A/N: (Wrote out this whole big a/n and friggin LOST IT GDI)

Alternate titles for this chapter: Taken Tremendous Liberties; Ignis the Jealous Ex-Boyfriend; That Escalated Quickly.

It's long to make up for the long wait. Yeah. Lots of ground covered, lots of prophecies and visions semi-explained. Next chapter will be the tying up loose ends chapter, prepping for the Big Cheese (as I am referring to it). You'll know it when you see it, give it a couple chapters. Shit's happening, hooray! Review if you can! Love hearing from you guys! :)