APPENDIX: EPISODE ARDYN

CHAPTER 1 – DARKNESS AWAKENS

Cursed to live as an immortal monster, Ardyn was dubbed Adaguim, and imprisoned on the isle of Angelgard, where his enmity for the royal family grew stronger with each passing year…

Yet in all accounts of Lucian history, the name Ardyn Lucis Caelum is nowhere to be found.

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A warm breeze shook the wheat field in that pleasant summer afternoon.

"Oh, Ardyn," Aera laughed. "You can't expect me to believe that!"

"Oh, but I do! You have my word."

She laughed, her whole body shaking with the motion. He lay with his head on her lap, looking up at her face. The light filtering through the tree's leaves made her golden hair shine like a halo. Then he closed his eyes, basking in the feeling of her delicate fingers playing with his overgrown mane.

"Well, in that case…" she giggled.

Ardyn sighed, contended and at peace.

"You look exhausted, my love," he heard her saying. "Are you all right?"

"I am," he said, sitting up and looking at her. "The gods blessed me with a power and a purpose: to cure people of what ails them. I must see their will be done."

"Your devotion shall not go unnoticed. The gods will doubtless be watching over you," she smiled, leaning closer. "Just as I shall be watching over you every step of the way."

Then she straightened her back. How beautiful she looked that day.

"It seems to me the cure for your exhaustion is comprised of two things, one of which is rest."

"Oh? And the other…?" he asked playfully, gazing into her dark-blue eyes.

She blushed, lowering her head a bit.

"The other is me."

They laughed together. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, burying his fingers in her hair. There was nothing in the world Ardyn loved more than feeling her soft lips, and the warmth of her body against his.

"Oh, Aera," he whispered in her lips. "Pray be with me always."

A bang made him open his eyes with a jolt.

Then the grating of rock against rock resonated in the cavern. How much time had passed since that door had been blocked? Days? Years? It was hard to tell in that dark cell. But it was unmistakable, the sound of people at the other side, laboring to retire the rock. It came through muffled, but it was so loud to his ears he grimaced in pain.

He did not hunger, nor was he thirsty. The weapons they had impaled him with now were part of his body. His regenerative powers had closed the wounds around them, fusing his flesh to the steel. Whatever might have happened to his innards, he didn't want to know.

But Ardyn didn't feel any pain anymore. The wounds had stopped bleeding, if bleeding was what he did. The black ichor his body oozed had dripped heavily to the rocky ground, scaring many of the soldiers charged with his chaining. Later, after they had blocked the entrance and darkness engulfed the cell, he sensed the slimy substance creeping back to his body and fusing with it.

He wept at first, and screamed, not for his guards to free him, but for the gods to strike him and deliver him from his suffering. He pleaded and prayed aloud, and raved until his throat was sore and his voice was but a whisper.

But the gods had turned their backs to him.

Then the ghosts came.

Bereft of his senses, his mind began to create what it couldn't perceive. As days stretched into weeks, and the weeks into years, he began to see things and hear voices that weren't there. He knew they couldn't be real: Aera had died in his arms, and Somnus hadn't deigned himself to move from the Palace, merely sending his underlings to carry out the sentence.

He knew the Somnus and the Aera he saw so often weren't real, and yet they came to visit him. There were times when he was too weak to resist, and he indulged on memories of the woman he had loved. Other times, however, he screamed at the visions to leave him be.

Armored feet thundered inside his cell with a ruckus that pierced his eardrums. Now a blinding light hurt his eyes. He tried to grunt, but his throat was parched, and only a faint sound came out.

"He's alive!" a man marveled as he approached him. Ardyn's eyes took their time to adjust, and he saw a young man with silver hair slicked backwards. His was a cruel smile and a cruel laugh. "Just as the ancient texts told!"

Ancient texts? How much time had passed?

"Take him away!" he ordered.

Soldiers surrounded him, prying at his chains. They wore strange livery and even stranger weapons. Did they not use swords anymore?

His confused thoughts were interrupted when they dislodged the weapons out of his body. He tried to scream, but his voice failed him. Two soldiers hauled him by the arms and walked him out of his cell.

Trying to move his legs was pure agony, after not sensing them for so long. He finally found his voice and whimpered, and begged them to stop, but no one would listen to him.

When they stepped out, he saw that it was night time, and the moon was high on the sky. Other soldiers escorted them on their way down that slope, through the rocky.

"Don't touch me…" he murmured, but no one would heed his pleas.

He heard disembodied voices, telling each other that everything was fine, and they talked something about a medical team.

Suddenly the voices cut and the soldiers started screaming and use their strange weapons. He fell to the ground when the soldiers carrying him were killed.

Other soldiers, these ones dressed in black, attacked them.

"Adagium sighted!" screamed one of them.

"Get it back in the cell," screamed other. "No matter what! We can't let that thing off this island!"

They were talking about him. One of them lunged at him with a long sword and cut Ardyn on the stomach. He doubled up in pain, but the wound closed.

"Stop," he begged. "Cease this…"

The strange soldier cut him again.

"Cease this at once!"

Black mist erupted from his body as rage boiled inside him. A dark-clad soldier warped towards him, much like he and his brother could do thanks to the gods' powers. Ardyn's hands were bare, but he deflected the soldier and sent him flying.

He felt the rain now pattering on his naked back. It was cold, and made the rocky ground slippery. He wanted to go back to his tomb. Why did they disturb him? What did they want from him?

Extending his hand, he willed his old sword, and it appeared with a red flash of light.

More soldiers came and he fought them, killing every single one. His uniforms were strange, and Ardyn couldn't identify them, but he no longer cared.

The last enemy stood in front of him. He didn't last long before Ardyn wounded him, yet he didn't kill the soldier right away. While the man was on the ground, Ardyn pinned him with his bare hands.

"For what sins must I atone!?" he screamed to his face.

But from his hands black mist surged and enveloped the soldier, who screamed in pain and terror as the miasma consumed him.

Images flashed in Ardyn's mind: A city of crystal and steel; strange roads which were black and soft; people, many people coming and going, all clad in strange clothes; a row of soldiers standing at attention before their king.

And, along with the images, names appeared and became part of his memory: Insomnia, Lucis, Mors Lucis Caelum, 112th descendant of the Founder King, Somnus Lucis Caelum.

"These memories are not my own… could they be his?"

When he opened his eyes the soldier was a blackened, formless mass, with particles swirling over him. He looked at his hands in horror. He had spent his life absorbing the Scourge, now he bestowed it.

How could this happen?

More importantly, what world had he been thrust in?

Descendants. Somnus. Founder King.

"Incredible!" someone exulted behind him.

Ardyn turned around, to see the silver haired man gazing at him with a euphoric expression.

"His power's unbelievable!"

He felt a surge of terror towards that man. No one should react that way before the Scourge. The glint on those blue eyes was all too familiar to Ardyn: That man burned with covetousness for his powers.

Ardyn had seen that expression before, in his own flesh and blood, when he showed how he could cure the Scourge.

He tried to move, but the world sun around him before darkness took him.

"Hey!" he heard the man screaming through his fading senses.