7 January, 760:

The Citadel hadn't been part of Insomnia, when the Crown City had belonged to him.

Well.

The last time that the Crown City had belonged to him.

Then again, two thousand years ago, the Crown City hadn't been much of a city, either. It had been little more than a collection of stone piles slapped with mortar and called buildings in what was now downtown Insomnia. Even the remnants of those old dwellings were gone, now. In their place stood towering skyscrapers of steel and glass.

Well.

Had stood.

Back then, the fact that Insomnia was built on an island had been a strategic advantage—limiting contact with outsiders meant limiting contact with the Starscourge—up until Ardyn had opened the doors (such as they were) to the ill and the outcast. Back then it hadn't been called Insomnia, either. That name dated back only as far as Somnus' timely death. Before that, it had been Saphena—when it was given a name at all—but most often it was just some variation of "the city" or "the seat." As in the Seat of the King. The Seat of the Sage.

Needless to say, very little about the capital city now resembled what it had been in Ardyn's time. Not that he would have had any qualms doing what he did if it still looked like home. Home. What a laughable concept.

Still, the view from atop the Citadel was lovely. Ten thousand daemons crawled, like a plague of little black insects, and everywhere they went, the darkness spread. It hung above the crumbling city—a cloud of miasma to hold back the light.

"Insomnia." Ardyn flung his arms wide and threw his voice across the empty city. "I name you… Locus Ludere. My playground."

There were worse places to spend a few years waiting for the Chosen King to awaken so he could have one final moment of excitement before his darkness swallowed all of Eos. The architecture was quite striking. That statue of Somnus, for instance, looked absolutely wonderful with its head crushed into a fine powder and blown across the street. The throne room was so airy and accessible with that hole torn in the side of it. And this tapestry depicting the Ascension of the Chosen King was a perfect place to practice his artistic talents—they still needed work, but there were more tapestries; he wasn't concerned.

Here were the skeletons of Lucis' Ruling Council. He strung them up and hung them from the treaty room ceiling with one hand raised so that they waved to him whenever he walked through—which he did, for expressly that purpose.

Here was the room where they had convened and agreed upon their doom. The table now sported a myriad of muddy boot prints, as he had discovered it made a perfect place to practice his waltz-and-turn.

Here was the room where the crystal had once powered the Wall. The corpses had all been outside when he founded it, but they looked much better inside: death spiraling out from the Heart of Eos.

And here was the little Dreamer's room.

She hadn't asked to see it when she came to visit, but that was just as well, as his redecorating efforts hadn't reached so high in the Citadel at that time. Now that he had made it up to the top floor, leaving vastly improved chambers all along the way, he sifted through her possessions and found he didn't much care to rearrange them.

She wouldn't have cared, anyway. That was the most disappointing thing about her; she just didn't give a shit, anymore.

Much like him.

Oh, she would have cared if he had vandalized her father's room or violated the skeleton that still lay beneath the treaty room in a pile of gold and rotting clothing, but he didnt much feel like doing that either. After all, he couldn't have her turning on him, now.

Obviously.

Why else would he care?

Her room was more or less what he expected: tidy—but she had had people to do that for her—and richly, but simply, furnished. The wardrobe was full of dresses, each one hand sewn and custom sized for her—never to be worn again.

"Maybe when your brother is dead and your people are daemons." Ardyn flicked his fingers over a black silk gown and turned away.

Here was her bed—was everything in Insomnia black and gold?—and here was… a stuffed chocobo?

He picked it up: a fat little plush, so old that some of the seams were re-sewn, the stuffing was well-compressed, and half the fabric was balding while the other half was matted. Everything else here he had expected from her. But this? Sentimentality, from a girl who led—no commanded—one hundred generations of her ancestors?

Ardyn laughed.

"How sweet. I should return it to her."

She would be ever so happy to have him visit Lestallum.


Everyone outside of the walls of a settlement was cleared by the Marshal or Monica. No one went outside on their own. No one went outside without proper training and equipment—or else an escort. Most people just didn't go out. Those who did were the Kingsglaive—tracking down resources, eliminating threats, and clearing supply lines—or the hunters who aided them.

No one went outside by themselves.

No one walked up to Lestallum's gates without a weapon in hand, without a light source, without some prior notice.

But a man was standing outside, anyway.

At first Gutsco thought it was a daemon. Some walked on two legs like that, still maintaining some semblance of humanity. But it was always clear that they were daemons. This one… looked like a man.

"Who goes there?" He leveled his crossbow over the top of the wall and took aim. No one outside on their own in the dark was good news. That much he knew.

"A man of no consequence." The stranger removed his hat and performed a sweeping bow, as if this was an introduction. "Be a good lad and fetch your queen for me, will you?"

Whatever he had been expecting—and he still wasn't sure what that was—it wasn't a request to see Her Majesty.

No one walked up to Lestallum, unarmed and in the dark, and asked to see the queen.

He must have been hallucinating.

Too many thirty-six hour shifts.

"Run along, now," said the man—man?—of no consequence.

Somehow, he found himself obeying.


And so the good little peasant went and fetched his betters. All of them, from the looks of things. Heads appeared along the upper line of Lestallum's wall—once makeshift and cobbled together, but secured and rebuilt throughout the years until Ardyn could almost believe it was meant to be there. He could only see silhouettes; all their lights pointed out. For some reason.

Still, it was an awful lot of heads to just be the princess. She only had one. Last he checked. It was that one, second from the right, if he wasn't quite mistaken.

"Ardyn." Her voice confirmed his guess. "To what do we owe the honor?"

"Can't a doting uncle visit his favorite niece?" His only niece? The only one living, anyway. "I've brought you a present."

"It had better not be a corpse."

How highly she thought of him. "Why don't you come down and see?"

"Your Highness, this is not a good idea." That was one of her little minions. The one who always looked grumpy—like he had spent too much time frowning as a child and now his face was stuck that way permanently.

She vaulted over the edge of the wall, but never hit the ground. A blue outline of her falling figure marked the space where she disappeared; a flash marked the place where she reappeared. She rolled once and rose to her full—admittedly diminutive—height. The little Dreamer, apparently, didn't think much of her grumpy minion's advice.

Once she was out of the light he could see her face—painted all over with pale lines like a spider's web. She had been making good use of the ring, hadn't she? Ardyn smiled. He produced the stuffed chocobo from within his coat and held it out to her.

Usually, she looked a bit like someone had carved out her heart and left nothing in that space. Sometimes, when no one was looking, something melancholy showed through. But he couldn't remember ever having seen this look on her face. It was… surprise—a disappointingly uncommon one, for her—and reminiscence and hope. It was as if, just for a minute, she had remembered what it felt like to be alive.

He was the only one who saw it.

"Chika…" She grasped the chocobo in both hands and rubbed her thumbs over its little balding head. Probably the reason it was balding in the first place.

"Chika the Chocobo. How adorable!"

Now, as she pulled her eyes from the chocobo and looked up at him, she tried to hide amusement behind exasperation. It didn't work out very well for her.

"Thank you," she said.

"When you say it like that, I almost believe you mean it."

That look again. It was a good day for looks.

"Now then, won't you give your favorite uncle—" Only uncle "—a great big hug for all my hard work?" He leaned closer, dropping his voice, and added: "That is, if you still want them to despise you."

A pause.

He hadn't actually expected her to do it.

Why the hell would anyone hug him? She was madder than he was.

After a stiff moment, he gathered up what remained of his wits, stuffed them back under his hat, and kick-started his brain. He returned the hug, patting her back in what he judged to be an affectionate manner. Might as well make it believable.

"You know," he said, as she pulled away, "Most politicians do not run smear campaigns against themselves. It is simply not done."

"What are they going to do? Elect someone else? It's a hereditary monarchy."

"Right up until some higher power gives the crown to your brother—oh wait—!" He stepped back, putting his hand to his chest in mock contrition. "How insensitive of me!"

There it was again. The amused exasperation. It was such a nice look. It had taken him at least two hundred years to get his sense of humor back. Maybe she would manage after all.

"Thank you for the chocobo." She waved Chika as she walked away.

"Tuesday for tea, then?" Ardyn called after her as a blue shadow lept over the wall once more. "I'll bake cake!"

She didn't respond. He was betting she was still wearing that look, though.