"What was that about Noct?"

"Letting Dave know up front about who we are to a degree and to tell him to prepare for possible trouble including the ten years of darkness, though I didn't state that outright, now then we're trying to prevent those ten years but they still might happen despite our best efforts so he needs to start preparing now, plus I let him know about one, possibly two intermediaries once they themselves are informed"

"Who?"

"Iris and Luna, Gladio I know you want to protect your sister but you also know how strong she gets in the future and besides that I'll make sure that she never goes alone until she's properly trained up"

"And what about Luna?"

"Gentiana"

"Oh...that makes sense actually"

"So...Lestallum"

"Yeah, Lestallum, and Ardyn seeing as how I need to reforge those covenants"

"Right, we don't trust him one moment of our time together"

"Agreed, we also don't try and kill him right off because that would give us away"

"So...when?"

"I'll let you know guys, by the way tell Luna or not? I know for a fact that we haven't decided on that yet"

"Let's wait until we get closer to Altissia"

"Fine"

While on the way to Lestallum Noctis naturally fell asleep and while asleep was told that he was to make allies with Ravus as soon as he could because it was part of how to save Lunafreya from her fate though the Astrals didn't tell him how that would work. Once he was awake he had Ignis stop at a campsite that they had discovered by accident all those years ago

"What is it Noct?"

"When we meet Ravus we have to find a way to slip him a note to tell him to meet at the nearby Haven at the base where the Regalia is going to be held"

"What for?"

"The Astrals told me that Ravus is part of how Lunafreya's fate is changed, though they didn't exactly give me the particulars on how that's possible"

"Right, in the meantime though we need to get to Lestallum"

"Right, and then the full story regarding Vyv guys, I need to know to help you guys"

"We know"

"Indeed, we've given you parts of the story but to understand just how affected we are when we'll see Vyv you do indeed need to know the full story, especially since like we said we found out what happened to Cor shortly after we thought Vyv was gone"

And so the group eventually reaches Lestallum and meets up with Iris as well as discussing what they were going to do the rest of the day. That night they were in their hotel rooms privately having already told Iris and Talcott (who they had to keep themselves under control for due to the fact that Talcott's grandfather was still alive) that they wanted to be alone

"Okay guys, we need to talk"

"Right...the story you need regarding Vyv"

"Yeah, the story I need to know regarding Vyv, you've given me bits and pieces of the story, like the fact you found out about how Cor died shortly after thinking you guys lost Vyv, and how he was thought dead for three years, I also summarized that his loss was during the third year of the ten years of darkness and declared dead in the fifth year"

"Yeah...Vyv...Vyv was a harder loss than Dino, though you wouldn't have expected that to be the case what with Dino being a Hunter more than Vyv actually, like we said Dino actually turned out to be a half way decent Hunter and his sacrifice was going to be honored once everything was taken care of and we were properly ready to remember those lost during those ten years. Anyways that third year of the years of darkness was one of the harshest years we had, partly because of the amount of loss we had in regards to life and partly because we were beginning to realize that within ten years we would be forced to...take measures to ensure that people didn't have as many children as before or any children at all because food was beginning to be a problem and sacrifices were starting to be made so that children didn't go hungry as often as the adults. Vyv as a reporter, and yes Dino was one as well but Vyv and Dino weren't really in the same category, but Vyv as a reporter and through us thought that some pictures might be a good idea to try and see if there were any locations that might be a good place for a small and I do mean very small settlement that would grow food for Lestallum and Hammerhead since that was where everyone basically was. He...he was out on a photo shoot when we heard that he had come across some refugees that he was going to do his best to bring back to Hammerhead as the closest safest location that he knew about, fortunately Iggy here was close by as well and was trusted amongst the Hunters by that point to be able to take care of himself in a fight despite his blindness, and was the first person sent in"

"I got into the fight as soon as I arrived and I told Vyv to let me take care of the daemon while he continued the evacuation of the refugees, the last thing I heard him say personally and I am quoting him 'okay Scientia, I trust you with this, I'll inform whichever Hunter I come across next your location and situation as I knew it and will make sure that these civilians get to safety, good luck and you can count on me to complete the mission' and with that the group was gone and I fought for about an hour all on my own, and was honestly at the end of my strength when backup arrived and finished what I had started"

"Vyv succeeded in his mission, got the refugees to Hammerhead, but there was no Vyv, the refugees telling us that Vyv held the line for them to get the last little bit of the journey to Hammerhead over with in safety, Iggy was brought to Hammerhead unconscious three hours after the refugees arrived with the Hunters saying that they didn't know where Vyv was, that was the first day of three long years of thinking him gone, granted we had that policy in place by then so we didn't give up hope too quickly and then his time limit hit, that...that was hard for all of us when it happened because we were also getting over the loss of Dino too when Vyv was officially declared dead, two months later we got closure on Cor"

"The next three years were hard for everyone, there was a lot more deaths and also a lot more struggles with getting food for everyone, more and more sacrifices were being made for the children, children who didn't remember the sun were starting to think some people were crazy talking about a sun returning not realizing just what was going on in the minds of the adults and the teenagers who remembered a life before the darkness. We almost lost Dave several times during the years of darkness too but he managed to survive to the end surprisingly enough, and he was with us the day we found out Vyv had survived all those years ago, and as one of the initial searchers he was one of the most surprised to find that out. It wasn't one of our better days, there had been three different fights already so when the proximity alarm sounded for a fourth time that day everyone was tired and naturally not happy about needing to fight again after only fifteen minutes of rest but everyone gathered themselves and went outside ready to face the threat naturally we staggered the defense line but that was ultimately unneeded it turned out. Prompto and I were part of the first line of defense while Iggy was part of the last line of defense this time around, when we saw Vyv..."

"I almost shot him right away while another person, who was actually a rookie all things considered went stupid route and rushed Vyv, forgetting the possibility of him being infected, ultimately that turned out not to be the case, and as for Vyv he gave out the correct message for an old answer/challenge code that had been established seeing as how the code had changed during his time away. Once it was confirmed as him and non-infected he told us his story of his years away from the group"

"Turns out he deliberately stayed away the entire time so as to not lead any daemons to us, became a halfway decent Hunter during that time going between Lestallum and Hammerhead doing what he could to keep the routes safe, staying at Havens whenever possible and making sure not to get infected, though even he admitted that he was surprised at just how well he had managed to do so"

"Once he was back, like we said he never left someone's sight for very long for a year, he chaffed at that but he also initially understood though eventually we managed to get down to weekly phone calls"

"You guys mentioned having a celebration at his return"

"Oh man did we ever, it lasted for what? I think a week Iggy?"

"About yes Prompto, it certainly ran for a straight twenty-four hours before beginning the wind down process for a couple of hours at a time with the time gradually extending until it was over with completely"

"And now you guys are back and he hasn't been missing for several years...how did he look anyways when he returned?"

Okay just for clarification I am not taking what is said here as a statement against people with weight issues, this is just my theory for an in game character in regards to him losing weight during the ten years of darkness in my head, if this section offends you then skip it and I won't be offended. Again do realize that I haven't really played the game or really read any bios on any of the characters so this is just me thinking about a scenario and going with it

"Lost a lot of weight, gained plenty of muscle and his eyes...they held new shadows that no one felt they could ask questions about"

"I see...this is going to be hard for you guys, worse than with Dave, or even Dino"

"Yeah, Dave never went missing and Dino had a body, Vyv...well until his return we were never too sure about his fate, always thought he had turned and been killed up to that point in all honesty"

"Guess I'm main contact point then until you say otherwise, now to get the ball rolling and meet Ardyn again so that I can get the contract with Titan"

"Right...by the way what are we going to do to keep the timeline the same since we don't have to hunt for the Royal Arms?"

"Guess we're simply going to have to take up extra hunts to fill in the time we have"

"Though first off is dealing with Dead-eye once we lose the car"

"Yep, and we're not going after the car immediately either for complicated reasons"

"Noct?"

"Partly the time filling that needs done, but also...there's something I want to take care of before we get the car back that might be easier with Chocobos instead of the Regalia"

"Right, though I think actually you need a better description about Vyv after his return"

"What do you mean Gladio?"

Gladio gives out a heavy sigh

"Iggy and Prompto never knew about this, Iggy because of his literal blindness and Prompto because of the fact that Vyv wasn't really comfortable about taking clothes off around a lot of people, but Vyv didn't just naturally lose the weight during his disappearance, though he had already started to lose weight during the initial period of darkness due to the fact that he deliberately skipped meals for those that needed it more, like young children or nursing and expectant mothers. He told me one night that he had practically been disemboweled by a normal creature that was fighting for it's own survival, he had to take care of that injury on his own and it took him months to regain his strength, almost starved to death according to him during that time, his stomach area was littered in scars and I could tell he had stitched himself back up several times, the muscles everyone saw...those were just his arms and legs that gained muscle never his cor area. He also had issues with certain types of food that never went away and actually made eating hard for him at times because those foods were all that were available, had to hold him up while he was bringing everything he had eaten back up more than once during the first six months of his return. He also...there's a reason he gave his camera up Prompto, his eyes were permanently damaged during his time away and he was half blind by his return, he admitted to me in private once that he was surprised he even made it to Hammerhead in the first place once he decided to return to civilization. The reason why you need to know about this Noct even though we're in the past is because quite frankly you need to be careful about how you handle any of his requests to us and the fact that he wants to do more for the magazine he works on but physically can't go to some places because of his health"

"Gladio, what did his stomach looking like it did have to do with his rapid loss of weight?, though what you described about his being physically ill at times helps me understand his difficulties coming back to any sort of healthy weight as I was told he managed to get to"

"He lost part of his stomach Iggy, add in that for the first year of his recovery he apparently had trouble keeping anything down and had to build back up to what he could eat and the amounts he could eat as well, he wasn't joking when he said he almost starved to death during his initial recovery period which was about seven months by his estimate"

"He couldn't eat?"

"Not initially, and his wounds kept reopening because he couldn't stay at Havens for too long a period at any given time so he also got sick with infection a few times, though he managed to figure out which plants would help him with those issues"

"What does that have to do with this timeline?"

"Just understand why we're doing these assignments instead of him, and...if he should ever request our help for a particular assignment be extremely careful and sensitive when asking him further details, and while I am not going to get into the specifics about the assignment you'll figure it out soon enough I'm sure"

"Understood, so...shall we get this started then?"

"Indeed, this isn't going to be easy for any of us"

"No kidding, we hate Ardyn, have zero trust in him, know who he really is this time around, know what he is, and still have to be around him and act like we're ignorant fools"

"We'll just have to deal guys, for now though it's time to get sleep"

"Right, this is going to get interesting"

"No kidding"

"Well we'll just simply have to deal with it as we come across him, and...if we lose the car he's really our only way to safety"

"Good point, okay no trying to kill him the moment we see him again"

"Agreed, we did well at Galdin Quay, so we'll just have to keep that up"

"Guess so"

"For now though it's time to get some sleep"

"Right"

That night all of them would have a PTSD episode and wake up with weapons in their hands and it didn't help that they were in separate rooms that night despite the rooms being designed for two people at a time