Greetings Everyone! I hit a burst of inspiration, so have another chapter ready to go. Hope the pace keeps up, but we will see. Thanks again for reading! Hope you enjoy!

Lux surveyed the queen before him, momentarily at a loss. The spacious accommodations of the Levelle suite suddenly seemed small and constricting. Even though he and Queen Luna had both lived in the Citadel, it was a big place. He had rarely interacted with her since she had become queen—she had been too immersed in her duties to have much time with him.

And that was before this Cosmos stuff. Should he ask her if she was one of them? But, then that would admit that he wasn't, and she may try to turn him like his mom had tried to. Where should he begin?

He jerked, startled as there was another knock on the door. His pizza this time. Should he ask the waiter for help? But then, was he in trouble? Was Queen Luna on his side or…

What would Ardyn do, popped into his head unbidden. He shied away from that—the last thing Lux wanted was to be like him. Lux may be the shady man's partial clone, but that didn't mean he had to be "him". But then, following Ardyn's philosophy of not trusting anyone and doing things on his own would probably be Lux's best option in this case. When it came down to it, he wasn't sure if he could trust the waiter either. His best bet, he realized, was to not involve the waiter and to stall as long as possible until Ardyn and Miss Eostre came back.

Don't press Queen Luna for questions outright, Lux thought. Here he'd have to again act like Ardyn, keeping his cards close to the chest as long as possible. But, how? Meaningless, oily small talk, Lux thought with a flash of inspiration—Ardyn always seemed to use that when fishing for stuff, usually with a sly joke or something with it. Lux couldn't handle the joke part, but aimless small talk should be easy.

"I got some pizza," he politely ventured to his regal guest. "Would you like some?"

Luna smiled serenely in response to his efforts to play host. "No thank you," she said. "I'm not hungry. Don't let me stop you though," she added, plopping down exhaustedly on the azure-striped sofa the hotel room offered.

She was tired, Lux realized, using the mundane activity of getting his late-night snack set up to get his bearings. Luna was venturing nothing either. Perhaps if he kept the silence going, his attempts to stall would be successful. The silence was proving awkward though.

"You picked a cool time to come to Altissia. They have a festival going on," he finally ventured with forced brightness, giving up in the game of silence and picking at his pizza to mask his nervous fidgeting. His appetite had left him though.

"I know. I, wish I could enjoy it, but…" she trailed off. "Where are Ardyn and Eostre," she asked, forcing Lux's hand to venture more information.

"Er, they went out to ah, see what is going on in the city," Lux replied, floundering despite his best efforts.

"Be honest with me, please Lux," Luna begged him. "Are you, yourself?"

Now she had asked him the question he had stalled on asking her, and it could well be a trap. "Er, I'm not sure what you mean," he said, stalling for time, more information, something, anything.

"Everyone has been acting strangely. Only Altissians have been behaving normally. Tenebrae was, not as I remember it," Luna said with a shudder.

Lux's shoulders sagged with relief. She was not yet corrupted by Cosmos.

"Oh, thank goodness," Lux stated his relief out loud. "I thought you were, one of them."

"Them," Luna returned questioningly.

"Oh, maybe you aren't in the loop after the Besaid thing. There's a new goddess around named Cosmos who is, hypnotizing everyone or something and making them do her bidding. Mom, and Ignis, Prompto, everyone I know are affected. Except us, and maybe the people here," Lux explained.

"Cosmos," Luna's face twisted a moment as though she were dredging up what she knew about her. "I keep hearing that name lately, but she can't be a goddess. Otherwise, as conduit to the Pantheon I would have known of her."

Lux shrugged. "Dunno what else to call her. The fact she can do this stuff is pretty powerful."

Luna looked pensive for a moment. "I, suppose it's possible given, what happened in Besaid."

"What happened? Where is King Noctis," Lux demanded, now sounding more like his abrupt, to-the-point mother than his obfuscating dad.

Luna went pale, even paler than her usual porcelain complexion, making her chalk-white. "It was, lovely at first," she began. "The people were kind and welcoming. Then, Noctis went to the shrine. He, came back changed. He insisted that he had to come back to step up to become the King of Light. That it was his destiny to serve alongside Cosmos. He sounded obsessed, driven. I encouraged him to rest, and we went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, he was gone. I asked the villagers if they'd seen him or could help me find him, and all they said was, 'let him fulfill his destiny.'"

Perhaps he should have waited for Ardyn and Miss Eostre to come back before starting this discussion, Lux thought. This was info that would be useful to them. But, he didn't want to discourage Luna either. The words were pouring out of her as though she needed to talk to make sense of them herself. Lux merely nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"Then," Luna added to her story, "they began talking about how I should fulfill mine and fully surrender myself to the will of light. I already devote myself to the light, but I think they wanted more—something, different. Their tone of voice and expressions terrified me. It, reminded me of a, zombie movie, or something."

"Wow! I didn't know you watched those too," Lux replied, momentarily distracted by the presence of another movie fan.

"Er, Noctis was the one who wanted to see it," Luna returned, before returning to the business at hand. "I, saw the villagers coming towards me with a coil of rope. I know they were going to restrain me with it, so I used my blinding light magic and ran towards the docks and onto a ship just leaving. From there I went to Tenebrae to enlist my brother's aid. I found him in the same sort of thrall. His hatred towards Altissia gave me hope that it was still safe."

"Hearing you were also here terrified me," Luna continued. "I thought you, Eostre, and Ardyn were in on this too, and were corrupting Altissia. I'm so relieved that isn't the case," she said fervently.

"No way," Lux said. "We're here to get away from Cosmos ourselves. You can hang out here with Ardyn, Miss Eostre, and I, and we can figure this out together. They went out to find other people who can help us, but they should be back soon."

"I'd like that," Luna said fervently. "But, I think it's best I attempt to commune with Leviathan. She may know more about Cosmos and can help us. I can't delay any longer," she said, rising from the sofa with her usual grace.

"Wait, now? In the middle of the night," Lux asked incredulously.

"We are in a crisis. We don't have time to waste," Luna replied firmly.

Lux remembered Ardyn's comments to both him and Miss Eostre about the dangers of the streets, er canals. "We have more to contend with than just Cosmos and her minions," Ardyn had drawled in his affable yet implacable tones. "We also have run of the mill cutthroats and thieves. Do your dear protector a favor and stay indoors, won't you?"

The fact that Queen Luna was venturing out into an environment even Ardyn thought was unsafe all by herself was dangerous.

"Wait! I will go with you," Lux said. "I, know I can't do much, but there may be some baddies out there that will leave us alone if there are two of us. Safety in numbers," he stated logically.

Luna gave a gentle smile in response to Lux's attempted chivalry. "I, appreciate that very much Lux, but it's too dangerous."

Lux remembered the danger he had already been in, alone in the care of a sadistic fire God, having to pretend to do his will alongside protecting others. "I've been through worse," Lux stated flatly. "I'm coming with."

Luna stopped arguing the point and merely shook her head resignedly. "Very well, if you insist, Young Knight. Let us visit the Hydrean."

Both Luna and Lux tensed at the guard loitering in the hallway outside the hotel room. The tension turned to full on alarm as the guard detached himself from the wall and came towards them. "Please return to your room. It's not safe," he stated firmly.

"But," Lux began, only to wince as a sudden bright light illuminated the corridor. The guard grunted in discomfort, covering his now reflexively closed eyes.

"Run," Luna said, clutching Lux's hand and hurrying towards the main stairwell.

"Did you do that," Lux asked his companion in amazement.

"Holy powers aren't that good in a fight outside of healing, but they can sure disorient foes," Luna replied calmly, beginning to descend the stairs.

"Wait," Lux called out. "There may be other guards downstairs."

Luna jerked to a halt, nearly tripping down the stairs with the abrupt change in speed. "You're right, but what should we do?"

Lux didn't have to ask himself what would Ardyn do. He already knew. "We go up," he said, taking Luna's hand again and tugging her up the stairs to the roof above.

To his relief, the Levelle wasn't an insanely tall building like the Citadel was. His plan should be doable.

Luna was already a step ahead of him though. She activated her float spell and glided across the short gap to the next rooftop. It was a spell Lux had seen her use only once before to reach Ifrit in their battle last year. He was glad she could still use it. "Can you make it, Lux," she called out from across the canal.

Lux couldn't warp all the way down from the Citadel roof, but this was easy. In response, he warped to stand beside her.

Luna beamed. "Glad you're still with me, friend," she said.

Lux smiled at getting praise from the Queen of Insomnia, and followed her to the fire escape leading to the quay below. They should be clear from the guards that wanted to pen them in. Now the only problem was hoping that Leviathan would talk to them, and not hurt them.

It was the rocking that awoke her. Eostre opened her eyes, blinking at the dim bobbing light, the same bobbing/rocking that had first reached her awareness. She heard the slosh of water, and realized she was in a gondola. Uncomfortably in a gondola. She was lying on the floor between the seats, with her head awkwardly resting on the seat behind her and her feet propped on the seat across. Maybe that was why her neck was stiff.

It certainly couldn't have come from standing on the balcony with Ardyn. But then, why wasn't she still there…

She sat up sharply, only to fall back as she realized she was tied up and couldn't move. The movement was still enough to jostle the gondola.

"If you move again, I'll knock you back out," a low rasping voice growled from the prow of the gondola.

She squinted in the darkness at the source. She couldn't see him well as he was only illuminated by the bobbing lantern at the prow with him. She knew it was a "him" based on the voice, but besides that, she couldn't tell much. He was a black silhouette standing at the prow, rowing the gondola down the canal.

"Wouldn't knocking an already incapacitated person unconscious go against the will of Cosmos," Eostre replied with some asperity.

"No idea, but I'll do it if I have to," her captor replied gruffly. "Unless you like pain, shut up and don't move."

The words and tone were chillingly ominous.

"Just, tell me who you are, and where you are taking me, and that's all I'll say," Eostre said quickly, already bracing herself as she saw the man raise the oar like a bludgeon to knock her unconscious like he had threatened.

Something changed his mind. He returned the oar to the water and kept rowing. "Mystios. You will know where we're going when you get there," he said tersely.

Eostre dared not risk prying for more information, even though this Mystios person had told her nothing. Who was he? Why had he abducted her? Had he, done anything to her while she was unconscious, she wondered with icy dread?

The latter she could find out for herself. She took stock of her physical well-being. She already knew her neck was sore from its awkward placement on the gondola seat. She felt the rough bite of the rope around her arms, ankles, and waist. She was trussed up like a roast for the oven, arms flush against her sides with the rope tied all the way around her body. Her ankles were tied together as well. He had evidently had to go beneath her skirts to do that, but she was still fully dressed in the same gown she had been wearing.

Other than the pins and needles from the bondage, she appeared to be unharmed. That was one relief, she supposed.

However, the fact that he had been able to meticulously tie her up and load her into a gondola all while she was asleep was immensely disturbing. Although, it wasn't a natural sleep she had been in—that woman Ardyn had been chatting up had hit her with some kind of spell that left her totally senseless. That bitch, Eostre thought with a flash of fury. Was Mystios in cahoots with her somehow? It's not like she could ask him.

They were still in the city somewhere—the buildings and quays were drifting by them. If she saw somebody on the shore she could scream for help. In fact, even if the quay was totally empty, if she started screaming, would the people in the nearby buildings hear her and come to her aid? She'd probably only get one scream though before Mystios bashed her with the oar. Would a single scream be enough? She seriously doubted it. It wasn't worth the risk.

The light became brighter as they passed a streetlight, and she had her first real glimpse of her captor. No wonder he had just been a silhouette. He was garbed all black, a blue black that would be even harder to spot in the dark of the night. Boots, trousers, tunic, cowl were all the same unrelenting night black. He looked like he stepped out of one of those ninja films Lux loved to watch, she thought with a (much suppressed) urge to laugh hysterically.

He wasn't the type to cross lightly—that much she could tell even if she couldn't see his face. It was in his cold, clipped words and in the precision of his movements. But she would have to if she wanted to escape. She couldn't rely on rescue. It's not like Ardyn would waste his time coming to her rescue, if he even knew she was gone or where she was going. Not even she knew where she was going let alone any potential help. Lux was Ardyn's priority, as it should be. That is, if he wasn't cavorting with that woman instead, she thought with some asperity.

But then, Ardyn never behaved like she thought he would. Just like on the balcony. She had expected mockery, condemnation as she had bared her dark soul to him. Instead, he had offered her comfort. Showing her the barest glimpse of the gentle healer he had once been. Until that treacherous awareness of him had seeped in, making her want him to…

She broke off those thoughts. Now wasn't the time to dwell on potential kisses like some boy-crazy teenager. She still couldn't bank on any sort of rescue. Unless she wanted to accept whatever mysterious, likely dire, fate that Mystios had planned for her, she'd have to escape, somehow. She gingerly tried her bonds. The ropes were brutally tight. There was no way she could get her arms or legs loose. And the more she struggled, the more the flimsy boat would move, again resulting in the oar to her head.

However, if she could somehow manage to overturn the boat, Mystios might fall into the water too. It would potentially incapacitate him enough to give her some kind of advantage. But falling into the water fully tied up, especially with the full skirts of her gown, would make her sink right to the bottom, never to be seen again.

For now, she had no choice—she had to do just as he said, stay quiet and unmoving. And it was galling.

Even as that thought crossed her mind, she heard a squeaking sound, followed by the sound of scrabbling feet. A rat was crawling across the seats facing her. She could see its eyes glittering in the dark. She wasn't the type to jump up onto a table and scream when she saw a rat, but that didn't mean she was comfortable with one this close to her feet, especially when she was already helpless.

She felt the chill of horror as the rat climbed up onto her shoe.

She broke out into a cold sweat as she heard the rasping of claws on the fabric of her skirt.

She began gasping in terror as she felt the weight of the rat on her leg.

She had no choice. She had to kick out and/or scream.

Quick as lightening her captor reached out with unerring instinct, grabbed the rat by the tail, and tossed it overboard. The creature's distressed squeaking was abruptly cut off and an ominous crunching took over.

"Canal Piranhas," Mystios stated, evidently done with his terse silence, at least for the moment. "They can devour a rat in seconds when they want to," he continued coldly. "It takes a bit longer to devour a human, but I've seen them do it. Nothing is left but the bones. Very convenient for body disposal. You're lucky my employer wants you alive—or else you would find yourself flesh to teeth with them."

Eostre's blood went cold. It was a good thing she had opted against the gondola tipping. Not only would she have been drowned but also swarmed by piranhas. Although, Mystios would have been too. If she went out, at least he would have gone with her. But all things considered, she'd rather stay alive.

"Er, since you mentioned it," Eostre began hesitantly, voice hoarse as though she had been screaming for hours, "who hired you?"

"You'll know soon enough," Mystios replied darkly.

Eostre had more thinking to do. Who had hired Mystios? Why? What did they want with her? Mystios evidently wasn't in league with Cosmos. He hadn't reacted when she had mentioned her. Also, Eostre couldn't see someone on Comsos's side callously tossing a defenseless rat into a canal to be eaten by piranhas. These tidbits of information left more questions than answers though. At this point, she'd be forced to figure it out for herself firsthand. For now, escape was totally impossible.

The buildings of Altissia abruptly disappeared, indicating the gondola was now in the open lagoon. Immediately, the stronger currents began buffeting the gondola, tilting it ominously. Eostre tensed, wondering if she would throw up or be tossed overboard first. She could only lay rigid, keeping the not-recently-eaten contents of her stomach down by sheer will, and keeping herself from feeling the cold, briny water sloshing over the side to soak her skirts.

Just when she thought she would lose the fight, she felt a thud as the gondola struck something. A dock, she realized as Mystios got out to expertly tie the gondola to the pier, before returning to stand over her. She still couldn't see his face as he was wearing a blue/black mask over the lower half of his face, leaving just his eyes visible—it was too dark to tell their color. Not that she cared about that at this point. With the gondola ride over, the status quo had changed. What was he going to do to her now?

Evidently coming to a decision, he knelt down and untied the ropes around her ankles. Eostre didn't like him touching her, not one bit. But, she had had no issues with Ardyn touching her, she thought in appalled surprise. In fact, she had been ready for him to kiss her…

"You're too heavy to carry," Mystios said, cold clipped tones making the fact sound even more like an insult. "We're going to walk in. Everything else will stay tied up. But make no mistake, if you try to run, I will catch you and drag you to my employer by that pretty pink hair of yours. Do you understand me?"

Out of all the awful things that had just come out of his mask-covered mouth, "pretty pink" was by far the most disturbing. Eostre merely gulped and nodded. Keep whatever status quo she could. And look for an opportunity to run.