Lady Nox Fleuret's sitting room was not empty when they arrived. They were greeted, not only by the Oracle and her daughter, but by Lunafreya's sometimes companion, Gentiana. The woman had an air of divinity about her and an aura of power that he could feel from across the Citadel. Much like Pryna and Umbra, the pair of puppies that roamed the halls of his castle since Lunafreya's return, Gentiana was not what she appeared to be.
She was a Messenger.
As the Oracle was the Speaker of the people, so were the Messengers the mouthpieces of the gods. Given his current alliances and the state of his relationship with the Astrals in general, the fact that three Messengers now roamed free about his home made him all the more uneasy. Yet none of them had spoken openly to him. Until now.
"Your Majesty," Sylva said as they entered. "And Master Amicitia, Master Armaugh. Please join us. I believe you are all acquainted with my daughter and her Messenger companion."
They were seated and pleasantries exchanged, though the Messenger seemed unconstrained by the cultural norms of mortals. She fixed her unsettling gaze on Regis and never once seemed to blink. When the niceties that preceded true conversation had faded away, she spoke.
"The Father King. The Oracle claims you wish to negotiate with the Astrals."
The title gave him pause, distracting him from the subject at hand. Of all that he was, it seemed an uncannily fitting moniker. And yet, was it possible that the Astrals had given it? He had no notion that they were even aware of who he was, beyond the name that guarded the crystal for the current generation.
Regis managed to pull his thoughts from the name and fix them instead on the conversation. "Indeed I do. I hope to put an end not only to the suffering in Lucis, but the suffering that has ravaged all of Eos for thousands of years."
"This suffering is not yours to end. Only the Chosen King can destroy the darkness and bring back light to the world," Gentiana said.
"I do not believe that. My daughter has seen visions of a brighter future with no Caelum blood shed. For my part, I wish to see it come to fruition."
"Is this your true goal?" She asked. "Or do you seek only to weaken the Draconian and do the bidding of your dark companion?"
A conversation he had hoped not to have. But of course she would know. Somehow she would have found out about his conversations with Ardyn.
"Companion is too strong a word for our association," Regis said. "And I do no one's bidding."
A smile quirked her lips. "Not even the bidding of the Draconian."
"No," Regis agreed. And if they were going to air all the dirty laundry at once: "And I wish to see justice done where justice is deserved."
Here she fell quiet and the smile faded from her face. Her gaze drifted through him and past him. When she spoke, it was in a faraway voice, as if reciting:
"'Where once was light, bring dark; where once was life, bring death; where once was joy, bring suffering. These bonds we make to never break. Unto the wicked, the dread plague is served. This we swear, of six minds and souls."
When she focused on him again, sadness was in her eyes. "Justice you speak of. For the suffering The Six have wrought, it is redemption we crave."
She spoke as if she had been there. Truly, the Messengers may have been as perpetual as the Astrals, but in Ardyn's vision—and in her words as well—only the Six were implied to have been involved.
"If it is redemption you crave, then stand with me and aid me in ending this darkness," Regis said.
"To sway the Fulgarian, the Hydraean, and the Arcaean, the Father King will require a strong argument. This missing piece of the puzzle. The answer they already know but have not yet accepted. There is another way to end the Starscourge plague without the death of the Chosen King."
"And what is that way?" Regis asked.
Gentiana shook her head. "The Dreamer must tell you, Father King. If one of their own betrays them, they will only unite against you."
All this to be told, still, that his daughter held the answers. He had known that from the start, but the potential to Dream did not give her the ability to see what she wanted.
He bit back his frustration. "She has been trying to see a way through this for years to no avail. If you truly mean to help, then help us."
"Help has been granted," Gentiana said. "To see the truth, the Father King must do what he fears most. The answer has ever been within his grasp."
And that was the last he was able to wring from her.
They withdrew, feeling only slightly more well-informed and considerably more frustrated with the situation.
"It's like talking to an old woman in a hut in the middle of a swamp," Clarus said. "Do you think we should get her some eyeballs in glass jars, or a crystal ball to wave her hands over?"
Regis smiled grimly. "I suppose we should expect no better from a Messenger."
"If nothing else, we have some confirmation of our course," Weskham said. "Her words seem to imply that the Astrals can be reasoned with."
"True enough," Regis agreed. Though the information she had given them was patchy at best, she had confirmed that his idea was not so ridiculous as it might have seemed at first glance. Negotiate with the Gods. No small task. But perhaps not an impossible one.
Now he only needed to convince the Starscourge that the Gods could be reasoned with and learn the secret to negotiation from a little girl who could see the future.
When had his life become a bad fairytale?
Perhaps when he had been born into a royal family sworn to protect a magic crystal. Or when his son had been the Chosen King.
She said he must do what he feared most. And what was that? Endangering his children? Surely he had done enough of that lately.
The upper levels held no comforts for him, when he sought solitude and refuge there. What he found, instead, was chaos.
Reina stood in the midst of the storm while servants flowed around her, transporting bits and pieces of her room down the hall. "That's my pillow."
"It is not! You never use it!"
"Only because you always put your stinky butt on it to play video games!"
Noctis threw down the pillow in question—a long, U-shaped pillow of grey fleece—and sat on it. "Well my stinky butt's on it now! Still want it?"
Reina huffed and stomped her foot. Her eyes lighted on Regis. "Father! Noctis is stealing my things!"
And to think this was the same young woman on whom the fate of Lucis—no, all of Eos—rode. So she was a preteen girl underneath after all. While that was comforting on a superficial level, it did nothing to solve the conundrum he found himself in. He had unwittingly walked into a warzone and reinforcements were nowhere in sight.
What would Crea have done?
"My dear ones, as there has previously been questionable distinction between some possessions, you shall simply have to make do with the ancient art of negotiation. If no agreement can be reached, neither of you will keep the object in question," Regis said.
Reina and Noctis stared at him, then at each other.
"So if Rei says she doesn't want the pillow, it's mine?" Noctis lifted partway off the pillow and rubbed his butt across it.
Regis sighed. "Where is Miss Crea?"
"You mean Mom?" Noctis asked.
They never should have had that conversation. If Noctis and Reina were heard calling Crea 'Mother' before the engagement was even announced…
"She's been pulled away for a dress fitting," Reina said. "For the press conference."
A dress for the press conference.
Not for the first time in his life, Regis was pleased to have precisely one variety of clothing in his closet. He could count on one hand the number of times someone had come to him and insisted he needed a new suit for an event. And why not? The old ones looked precisely the same when all was said and done.
"Then I fear you shall have to settle your disagreements without mediation until she returns," Regis said.
Perhaps it made him a poor father. Or at least a highly preoccupied one. But he left them to practice the important royal family skill of negotiation on their own and withdrew to his own quarters. He had to pass by a small army of servants transporting belongings and furniture in order to do so. But he found his rooms blissfully quiet and well looked after.
In the cold damp, a fire was most welcoming.
"It's a lovely place you have here."
A voice from behind the door made him turn. And there stood Ardyn Izunia. No. Ardyn Lucis Caelum. Let him have his proper name within Regis' mind, if nowhere else.
"Have you always been able to walk, unmolested, into my home?"
"Anywhere there is darkness, I roam freely."
Regis lowered into an armchair by the fire and invited Ardyn do the same. There was a cadence to his stride that suggested he walked to a tune only audible to his own ears.
Ardyn sprawled in the chair across from him. "Perhaps that is the reason I find it so easy to walk in your dreams at night."
A discomforting thought, but not an inaccurate one.
"And what is it that brings you to my dark rooms this afternoon?"
"I want your kingdom," he said unceremoniously. "You've said yourself: I am the rightful king of Lucis. Isn't it your duty, as an honorable man, to pass it back to my hands?"
Bargaining with Ardyn was like playing with a loaded gun. With a hair trigger. Which was sometimes set off by things other than pulling the trigger.
Regis pursed his lips. "Sanity must temper my honor, as you well know."
Ardyn sighed. "Then however do you intend to keep me well-behaved in our little arrangement? You have yet to pay on your promises."
"That is also false. Need I remind you that you came to me for this arrangement?"
"That's true. And you did leave your little princess all unguarded at my behest." He rose from his chair and Regis was reminded sharply of another restless and manic man, whose loss of love had sent him spiraling into a pit of madness Regis could never pull him out of.
He hadn't been able to save Spero. Nor would he be able to save Ardyn. That knowledge needed to temper his actions.
"Why, I could simply take her," Ardyn said.
And with no more warning than that, a great cloud of blackness rose up around him, eating away his form until he was swallowed by it. Regis leapt to his feet. But before he could cross the room, the miasma had dissipated. And Ardyn was gone.
Damn him. What was Regis to do with a man who had more machinations and hidden motivations than the entire empire put together? He couldn't simply be put aside in the hopes that his mischief was non-destructive. He couldn't be cast out. He had to be kept close. Just like a certain member of Regis' council, who couldn't be trusted while left to his own devices.
Ardyn and Hamon. Why not throw them in one room and hope that, if they didn't destroy each other first, whatever came out of their twisted minds was more beneficial than harmful?
Gods. It was such a terrible idea.
The sort that was so absurd that it might just work.
