Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm just a fucking nerd trying to calm my nerves during this trash fire of a year. So, y'know, don't sue me. I don't have any money.
Ashes of Lucis
Chapter 13: The Light, The Truth, The Way Forward
Note: This took me much too long to write. The next one probably will, too. Oops.
There is nothing the least bit believable about what it is he has seen. All the same, Noctis finds himself once more in the chamber of the Crystal, sinking to his knees, broken wrist falling limply at his side. He feels empty, hollow, perhaps even betrayed by the revelation — if one can go so far as to call it such. The woman in black remains, still poised between Noctis and the humming mass of the stone. His eyes flick to her face, jaw slack, breaths staggered as though he has to remind himself to inhale. Dark hair hangs across his sweat slicked brow, shifting forward and back as he shakes his head.
"Tell me... tell me it isn't true... please."
It is on the marble floor that this messenger now joins him, both his hands clasped between her own, blue eyes brimming with regret. She need not say a word for Noctis to know that he has witnessed the truth. He feels faint a moment, warm fingers catching the underside of his chin.
"You, Noctis, are the future of this star, just as Ardyn is its past."
But a moment is spent on reflection, cuts of time spinning through his mind with the intensity of a hurricane. His jaw sets to keep from trembling, and the stark contrast between the man he's seen and the one he knows is akin to the twisting of a knife in his gut. The chamber itself seems to decrease in temperature, hands tingling from a lack of warmth, stuttering breaths emerging in hot puffs of smoke. He wants to turn away from the spirit, to run, throw himself against Ardyn as he had when he was a boy, fearful of nightmares conjured by his own traitorous mind. But it is somewhere deep within that Noctis knows that the man he wants to usher this all away may very well have never existed.
He directs his gaze to that of the woman in black, good hand rising to graze her cheek with frigid fingertips, shaking all the while. There is comfort to be found here with her, even in this unnatural chill, in his crippling unease. Tracing the outline of her face, her features, builds in him a strange sense of safety, and Noctis longs to understand why.
"Who are you?" he says, tone heavy with fatigue and a reverence that is so unbefitting of an assassin sworn to Niflheim.
Yes, he has sought to ask her once already, but the importance of the revelation bestowed upon him had clearly taken precedence, perhaps at the Crystal's behest. Warmth floods through Noctis' bones as the soft palms of both her hands frame his face. She leans in close, a kiss pressed to his cheek before she lays her forehead against his, staring into his eyes with those which he finds utterly captivating.
"Noctis. My prince. My son."
Electricity shakes him then, his body a lightning rod for what feels like an obscene amount of force. Even having never met her, he should have known by way of the peace her voice imparted upon him, her gentle touch, her eyes and face and smile. This woman who kneels before him – be she real or but a conjuration by the Crystal itself – is his mother.
He accepts this fact with little resistance — for what good has so futile a thing ever done to serve him these many long years? — somehow content that, if fate had seen fit to tear him from his father's arms in Tenebrae, present him with the true nature of his raiser, why could this not be truth as well?
Breath stops cold in Noctis' throat, jaw clenched in a fierce grimace as another image appears before his eyes: the Lucian council chambers, now plagued by throngs of Imperial soldiers, the chancellor circling the king with a look that could kill in and of itself. As the vision again gives way to the chamber of the Crystal, Noctis finds nails biting into the calloused flesh of his palms, the damage done to his wrist but a dull ache pushed to the back of his mind.
"Ardyn is..." The man's name suddenly tastes perverse in his mouth, and he sets his lips in a firm line as he swallows. "He's going to kill the king, isn't he?"
The woman of the Crystal — no, his mother — gives him nothing in reply, but it is a knowing flicker in her kind blue eyes that sets him to rights, the distance between them growing greater with each hurried step he takes towards the stairs.
Noctis does not hesitate, taking the steps two or three at a time, chest heaving as he forces himself to move. The soles of his boots touch down upon the checkered tile of the too-familiar Citadel hallways, and it is then that he realizes he'd not seen fit to ask for her name. But he has no time to turn back, hurried gait breaking out into a full-on sprint, his heavy steps and haggard breathing echoing through the empty corridor as though he charges through the den of a daemon. In a sense, the parallel is frighteningly accurate.
He cannot seem to shake the visions of the Crystal: Ardyn, confronted by the faceless man in black, bowed hopelessly over the lifeless remains of the Oracle, the point of a blade pressed to the hollow of his throat. There had been defiance in his eyes as the other man, his own brother, had placed all of his weight against the hilt in an attempt to kill him. It was all terribly unsettling, but the worst of it all had been the true nature of the Starscourge, the very power pulsing in Noctis' own veins. He's seen it but a time or two, darkening the chancellor's eyes and changing him to appear as something utterly inhuman. It has only ever manifested in moments of overwhelming strain, and he has always been startled by the sheer effort it had taken Ardyn to force it back beneath the surface.
A part of him hopes that none of it is true, though it is a pinprick of light deep within Noctis' heart that insists otherwise.
For the future of this Star, walk tall, my son.
"I'll not let you take my son again."
Why is it that, when faced with the inevitable, those so terribly disadvantaged seek to state the impossible? Ardyn finds it aggravating, rubbing unceremoniously at his eyes with a hand. From behind, the general's heavy footfalls echo with each advance until, at last, the imposing beast of a man stands at the chancellor's side, eyeing the king through the glassy slits of his helm. Not a word is exchanged between the two, the general's blade rising to rest at the tip of Regis' sternum.
It is brief, but Ardyn appears rather bored in that moment, drawing the monarch's staunch disapproval. The Accursed merely sighs.
"I would so hate to kill you, Majesty," he says, gaze turned to Glauca, nose wrinkling at the man's abysmal choice in attire. "Your death would, at the very least, throw a wrench in the plans I have for both your son and kingdom. Would you be so cruel as to force a man to rethink the entirety of this match?"
The king's eyes narrow in response, and while Ardyn had not truly expected His Majesty to sympathize with the plight, he had anticipated at least some manner of biting retort, if not an attempt at negotiation from the venerable ruler. Even faced with certain death, Regis is nothing if not reasonable. His first venture into the Crown City had taught him at least that much.
He takes several steps back, attention shifting to the council members now peppering the circumference of the room. Each of them is flanked by armed soldiers, and the gravity of the situation has staked its claim within each of them, though some still radiate hatred.
Ardyn scoffs, nods to the door, and it is wordlessly that the soldiers march the entirety of the council across the chambers' threshold and out into the hall. He has left their fates to the discretion of a capable captain, and turns once more to regard general and king with a satisfied smile that is all too eager. Adagium draws close to Regis, this time taking hold of the man's hand – the one bearing the ring. Eyes narrow incrementally at the fixture adorning the king's finger. With power sealed, his precious guard and council dismissed, His Majesty has little recourse left but to comply with any and all demands.
"You know I'll not ask for the ring, Majesty," he says, and a low sound emerges from beneath the general's helm, too easily betraying his impatience with the chancellor's game.
The king jerks from out of Ardyn's grasp, looking as though he's just tasted something sour, but it is of no use. Even with a brave face, this man knows he has reached the end of his time upon the Star. How fitting that he's been granted chance to see the son he failed — if only as a tool in service to he who would burn Lucis to the ground.
As Adagium steps readily away, Glauca pushes forward, the point of his blade dropping to pierce the king's chest with a vulgar sound. It is one that, as men of war, all are terribly familiar with — the merciless rending of soft, mortal flesh, breaking bones, and the inevitable gasp of impending death that quickly follows. Rather in vain does Regis take hold of the general's arm, piercing blue eyes staring into the slits of the man's helm, recognition dawning upon the king as his knees begin to buckle. Whether or not the truth of Glauca's identity has been determined is of little importance to the chancellor. He sighs, having grown rather tired of his own game, moving only to push the bloodied body of the king to the floor with the heel of a boot.
"In these your last moments, pray grant this old heretic the honor of a small favor, Majesty." As Regis lies trembling on the floor, there is loathing and regret in those eyes as Adagium speaks, only ever clouded in regards to his only beloved son. The ring is plucked from a bloodied hand, tucked away within the chancellor's coat. ❝Do let my dear brother know I have not yet forgotten him.❞
It means little to her, the china which strikes the floor, spilling its hot contents across both tile and the front of her dress. A pair of strong hands come to rest upon her trembling shoulders, the lady's own fingers rising to clutch the breast of her gown. Something deep within her burns like fire, the striking ache of loss that she has felt time and time again. The first time had been the loss of her father when she was very young. The second, that of her mother and her kingdom stolen by the Empire, and the supposed death of the young prince some few months later. Each time following had been that of her own helplessness amidst this war, in the face of the scourge, towns and villages wiped clean off the face of the Star for the fact that the Oracle had not been swift enough to arrive.
But this twinge within her chest, this twist of the proverbial knife, wraps all of those dreaded instances into one, and Lunafreya is numb to what goes on around her even as Ravus plucks her from the floor to cradle her in his arms. She is there and not, aware more of what goes on a world away than the words her brother whispers in her ear.
For years, she has been privy to visions, and they have since become a part of her. She bears witness now to the sight of warm blood dripping down a set of stairs, the edges of the room in which she stands hazy and dark. A light hangs high above her head from the windows, but it seems as nothing when compared to the air of darkness that has fallen across the chamber.
She spots him then, the chancellor, and the too familiar shape of the man in fearsome armor, his blade again dripping red with the life of the victim he has chosen. Between them, she knows, lies the one who fell by the general's blade A table stands in her way, obscuring the Oracle's sight of the dead. It is hesitantly that she moves to one side, circling around behind high-backed chairs, almost fearful of drawing too close. The armored man turns, the glassy slits of his helm directed at her, though she knows that he looks straight through. Lunafreya does not yet have chance to take in the identity of the deceased when a cry reaches her ears, her attention turned towards the chamber doors.
Noctis pushes his way forward, looking gaunt and terrified, a strange blackness having swallowed up his eyes. A knife appears in his hand and he throws it, lurching forward across the length of the room to fall at the armored general's feet. The weapon goes skittering across tile as the prince's hands graze pools of red, the chancellor looking nothing short of livid, though he remains stone still. Noctis looks to him, then to the general, a bloodied palm pressed fast against his mouth to still the trembling of his voice.
Lunafreya ventures forward once again, shaking as she spots the Empire's victim, clad in black with red staining his silvery hair.
King Regis, she finds, has been slain.
She startles as he moves, almost a hurricane, the chancellor's hand taking hold of Noctis' arm with a ferocity she's not seen from the man. He is certainly not her friend, being employed by the Empire as he is, but this strange patchwork of a man has shown her much kindness in the wake of her mother's death, and so it serves to frighten Lunafreya to find that he does, indeed, house a temper behind that smile.
Noctis jerks away from him, bloodied hands falling against the man's chest, leaving dark and vulgar stains. He throws himself at the side of the king again, cradling that lifeless body in his arms as he rocks himself forward and back.
The blackness in the prince's eyes gives way to tears then, dark and muddied, and — as she seeks to reach for him, offer comfort — Lunafreya finds herself being pulled away, the room spinning her right back to Tenebrae where she had begun.
"Lunafreya!"
It is Ravus that calls her, fear carved into his face so often made to look like stone, and a finger grazes her cheek, sweeping away a tear. Her chest aches, limbs tingling as feeling returns, and her cheeks grow flush as hot, fresh tears trickle down the planes of her gentle face. She sniffs, blinks away those tears that have yet to fall, and stares up into the mismatched eyes of her beloved brother as he takes her hand.
He swallows audibly, a wash of relief coming over him as she moves to entwine their fingers.
"Are you—?"
"Ravus," she says, and her voice is hoarse, throat stinging as though it had been she who had screamed herself raw. The stain upon her dress remains, a disorganized mark painted across her belly, reminiscent of blood. "Brother, I fear... something terrible has happened."