Day 46:

He was waiting. Not because he didn't want to ask Reina about this plan Luna had come up with. Obviously. He was just waiting for a good time to call her. Wouldn't want to call and interrupt anything important or anything. She was trying to build an airship. She probably didn't have time to think about things like saving the world without dying.

Okay fine. He just wasn't ready to bring up that conversation yet. Sure, it sounded all great and perfect now, but somehow Rei would point out something he had never even considered and that would be that. And then what? Was he supposed to support Luna's plan? It was a good plan. At least, it sounded like a good plan. Maybe it wasn't actually and this was all a waste of time. Maybe he'd just missed something huge.

He paid less attention than he should have to his morning meetings while he tried to pick apart what Luna had said. Ignis wasn't around to scold him. When the council was finally done with him, it was a relief to everyone. No more dealing with the distracted prince for the councilors, no more pretending to pay attention for Noctis. Everyone wins.

But he could only use the excuse of waiting for a good time for so long before it didn't hold up anymore. Not that it mattered. He could have just made up some other excuse, but by then he was feeling a little bit responsible for the whole situation. If he didn't call Rei maybe he never had to face hope being crushed as she told him why this wouldn't work, but he would have to face Luna looking all sad and disappointed when he said he hadn't called yet. For some reason that bothered him a little bit. He wasn't sure why.

After lunch, when he scored a few moments alone by barricading himself in his office and putting Gladio and Prompto outside to guard the door, he made the call.

"Noctis."

"Hey, Rei. How's it going?"

"As well as can be expected. Cid seems to believe that the airship will fly again, despite all evidence to the contrary."

"Well that's good, right?"

"Provided that it flies all the way to Angelgard and not only halfway, yes."

"Right." He tried not to visualize that. "Listen, Rei, Luna came by this morning…"

He told her, as clearly and with as few pauses as he could manage, what Luna had said to him. Maybe if he didn't give her a chance to interrupt she wouldn't have anything bad to say about it.

Yeah. Right.

But he made it all the way through without her saying anything. In fact, even after he was finished she still didn't say anything.

"Rei?"

"I'm still here," she said. "Merely thinking."

"Planning to let me in on what you're thinking?"

"I don't think it will work."

And here they were.

"Why not?"

"For much the same reason why speaking with the late Emperor Aldercapt and explaining nicely that he was killing Lucians so could he kindly leave us alone would not have worked."

Right. Yeah. So. He had thought about that. But also kind of assumed that Luna knew what she was talking about.

"Yeah, but doesn't Luna have some sort of magic over them?"

"In connection with, not in control over," Reina said. "She can gain an audience with them and have her cares and concerns heard by the Astrals. But listening is not the same thing as caring. They have no reason to do as she asks. If you want them all to leave peacefully, you'll have to give them some motivation."

"What, you mean like threaten to kill them if they don't leave on their own?"

"Something to that effect," she said. "Though, again, they have no reason to believe we have such a capability. Perhaps if she killed one and asked the others nicely to leave or else. But in that vein, her words—if trustworthy—do provide us with a more foolproof way out of the situation."

"What way?"

"If the Starscourge ends when the Astrals are gone from Eos, we can simply kill them all."

Noctis stood staring at the wall for a moment, forgetting to pace. That was such a Reina solution to the problem. Yeah, sure, we could talk to them and see if maybe they would leave, but why not just kill them all instead? So much cleaner, without any of the mess of diplomacy.

"Holy hell, Rei. Look, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm honestly kind of glad you're not in charge of Lucis."

"So am I," she said flatly. "The choice is yours, Noct, and rightly so. I have given you my perspective and my assurance that, should you require them dead, I will make it so. I don't know what other advice I have to give."

"First of all, if we were going to kill all the Astrals, we would kill them, not just you. And second of all... You know what, I don't even have a second of all."

"Alright," she said levelly.

Noct shook his head, even though she couldn't see him. She was going to be that shadowy figure behind his throne who never really showed up to council meetings, but always said the same damn thing whenever she did: 'I could just kill them for you.' Solved a lot of problems, sure, but maybe not the way he wanted to solve them.

"I'll let you go," he said. "Good luck with the airship. Say hi to everyone for me. Except Cid."

Because, honestly, Cid would probably just be offended that someone had said something to him.

They hung up, leaving Noct with more things to think about than he had expected. He took advantage of the quiet and paced the length of his too-short office for a bit longer. Someone needed to find him a bigger room. Dad never had trouble finding space to walk in. Just that people yelled at him when he did it—well, not anymore. But whatever.

So Reina's only objection was that it probably wouldn't work. Well maybe it wouldn't. But that was a bad reason not to try something. Like. It probably wouldn't work when they took on the whole empire in defense of Lucis, but they had done it anyway and somehow they had come out on top anyway.

"Right," Noct said to no one in particular.

He pulled his office door open. Outside, Prompto stumbled back a step and nearly collided with Noct.

"Why would you lean on a door that you knew was going to be opened?" Noctis asked.

"I expected some warning!"

"Right. Whatever. Look, I'm going to see my dad. You guys can cover my trail." Honestly Gladio did more of that than Shielding, these days. He was probably sick of it, but oh well.

They ended up following Noct all the way down the hall where, by some stroke of luck, his dad was actually in his office and not in the middle of a meeting. Crowds cleared for Noct. Anyone else waiting to see the king stepped aside and the few people standing around in his office already hurried off when Noct was admitted. Nice.

His dad set aside a packet of papers and folded his hands on top of his desk. "You are looking harried, my son."

Straight to the point. No 'nice to see you, Noct. How are you doing?' Just 'you look like shit.'

"If I was ever a bit of an ass to you for missing stuff when we were kids, I'm sorry," Noct said.

"If? Noctis, I cannot recall a time when you ever offered me a sliver of understanding." He was laughing at Noctis, underneath all of that… face.

"Yeah, well," Noct said, as if this were an excuse. He dropped into one of the lounge chairs. "So I talked to Luna, like you said…"

He filled in the story—though his dad knew half of it already—right up to and including his conversation with Reina. Dad's face didn't really change throughout and he didn't offer up any advice right away.

"Should I go through with it?" Noctis asked, when his dad said nothing.

"I suspect you have already come to a conclusion for yourself about that."

Dad seemed so much smarter when Noct was facing him on his own playing field every day. He'd always been a genius, obviously, and he could always tell when they were lying. But somehow, when they were talking about politics, he knew everything else also without ever trying.

"Yeah, maybe." Noctis pulled at his hair. "I guess I was just hoping someone would tell me it wasn't a bad idea."

"They seldom will. And when they do, you will find yourself wondering what their motivations are." Dad smiled. "But you must press on, regardless. And in this case, at least, I will tell you I agree."

"But Reina doesn't."

"Your sister is a woman of many skills and once she would have made a wonderful queen. I fear those days are past us."

His eyes drifted. Was that regret on his face?

"It just feels like choosing Luna over Rei," Noctis said.

"I doubt Reina will see it that way."

Who knew what Reina would think about anything, anymore.

"I suspect," Dad said, "That your reluctance comes not from this supposed abandoning of your sister, but from a lingering distrust in Lunafreya."

Noctis shrugged and ruffled his hair. "I guess."

"Often, when we build an event up in our minds, our expectations become greater than reality could ever meet. And sometimes those we knew in a past life—even a recently past life—become vastly different people when perceived through a different light."

"You think she changed?" Noctis asked.

"Since Tenebrae? I note she has grown up, but up until recently I saw in her much the same self-assured young woman that she was at twelve years of age. Now she does endeavor to change. You, however, have undoubtedly changed."

"I guess."

"In Tenebrae you were a child still; a boy who had recently been torn from an otherwise content childhood into a harsher world where many people wished him dead and the others would place unbearable responsibility on his shoulders. To that boy, Lunafreya was a font of knowledge and wisdom.

"You have since had time to face not only the people and entities that call for your death, but the throne and your supposed destiny as well. For all you complain about it, you have taken the reins of this kingdom better than I could have hoped for. And through this new perspective on life you see Lunafreya not as an infallible, all-knowing persona, but as merely another person. One who can make mistakes and believe in falsehoods. One who, perhaps, has been led—and in turn led you—to believe in the inescapability of so-called fate.

"And to learn that one you thought you knew so well can be wrong and is, in fact, a human underneath it all, is jarring experience. Seeing our idols fall and muddy themselves is an experience we all must trudge through eventually."

Noctis tapped his fingers on the arm of the chaise. Last time he'd had a talk like this with Dad had been… probably never. Not that Noct could remember.

Before two months ago he could have counted on one hand the number of times he'd even seen Dad in the last year. Now he saw him every day. Not just in passing like they'd happened to walk through the same hall at the same time, but like they sat and actually talked about what was going on in Insomnia and outside.

He'd never really understood how Rei could get so wrapped up in this stuff. But there was something comfortable about sitting down at the end of the day with Dad or Gladio and Prompto and Ignis. Yeah, it sucked while he was getting stalked by Dad's councilors. But when he stopped running away it was nice to look back and feel like he'd done something that day.

"I know you have had your fill of being advised for the day," his dad said, "But I will do so nevertheless: try to understand it is not a fault of hers that has led you to turn away from her. Beliefs thrust upon her in her childhood are difficult to overcome, and yet she has done so. Rather, what you are sensing is your own change in perspective and disappointment at the realization that she is not so perfect as you would have liked to believe."

"Yeah…"

"No one ever is."

Noctis gave a dry laugh. "Funny. I had a talk with Rei the day after she woke up—after Daemonfire. She talked about you. Didn't understand what she meant until now, but I think she was saying the same thing. That somewhere in that Dream she learned you weren't a god. Just a person."

"Or she discovered that our gods are failable," Dad said. "And when they do fail the results are catastrophic."

"But she still loves you more than anything," Noct said.

His dad smiled tightly. "Reina has done even more growing up than you have."

Not all of it in a good direction. But she was trying. Just like Luna was trying to be redeemable and forgivable. Maybe she deserved one more shot at it.

"Right." Noctis sat, tapping the side of his shoe for a bit before he stood up and went to the door.

Before he pulled it open, his dad said, "I have a friend in Altissia. I have already asked him, and he will help Lunafreya gain an audience with the First Secretary."

Noct stopped with his hand on the handle. "You called him before I even came in to ask you about this?"

The slight arc of one eyebrow said yes.

"You knew I was going to say yes even before she talked to me."

And that enigmatic little smile.

Noct sighed. "You're a bad man."

"The same has been uttered the world over, I am certain."

Noctis wrenched the door open. "Prompto!"

He was standing outside, along with Gladio, Noct's attendant, Dad's attendant, a couple Crownsguards, and half a dozen people waiting to see the king. No rest for the wicked.

"I need someone to get a boat ready," Noctis said. "Not for us. For Luna. See what you can do."

"Sure thing, Noct!" Prompto took off down the hall.

Noctis looked at his attendant. "I also need to see Luna, so bring her to my office."

"Your Highness, you have a meeting with—"

"Well then postpone that and get Luna for me," Noctis said.

"Yes, Your Highness." She bowed and hurried off in the opposite direction.

Prompto reappeared. "Uh. Hey Noct?"

"Yeah?"

"Where do we even have boats?"

Noctis sighed and looked at Gladio. "Maybe you should go with him."

Gladio left with Prompto, leaving Noct standing in the hallway and tugging at his hair. They were getting better. Honestly. All three of them. They just didn't seem like it at first glance.

But hey. Maybe someday they would all be responsible enough to entrust the kingdom to.

Yeah. Right.