Originally posted to AO3 on July 18, 2021 as part of the Ignoct Reverse Big Bang

Whew... here it is. This behemoth fought me with every damn syllable, but I am so overjoyed to share the final product with all of y'all.
Participating in the Ignoct Reverse Big Bang has been tons of fun; it was my first time participating in a Bang-type event, and the mods really made sure that it went smoothly. I was pretty starstruck when I first got into the discord and saw all the amazing artists and authors I would be working alongside, haha!
But enough of my rambling.

Firmament

"Alright," Noctis boomed in his King's voice, and Ignis snapped to attention along with the rest of the Glaives.

It was a hot day, and, in the ruins of this abandoned Niff base, there wasn't exactly much shade to stand in. Impressively, though, Noct neither squinted against the harsh sunlight nor paused to wipe his brow. Not all of the Glaives showed the same restraint.

"We're here for water purifiers," Noctis continued once any idle chatter had ceased completely, "but any functioning technology we find would be useful. If you're not sure whether it's broken or not, or if you don't know what it is, get on comms and have Ignis or Pura come inspect it."

For a moment, Ignis forgot that this was a real speech, not a rehearsal where he could interject and offer advice, and he almost corrected, "Lord Scientia and Glaive Conchylium." At the last moment, he bit his tongue. It didn't much matter in any case―the Kingsglaive had never been an institution much fussed with formalities, and such things had seemed all but pointless in the wake of the Long Night.

If anything, after awaiting his return for ten brutal years, the Glaives likely appreciated the sense of camaraderie. Perhaps stiff formality would be a mistake.

"Don't risk dropping or breaking anything," Noct continued while Ignis navelgazed. "If it's too heavy for you to lift, make a note of where it is and we'll come back to it later." Then he very casually slipped in, "I'll handle the bunkers."

There was a general ripple of unease. Bunker duty was an unenviable job, after all. Once upon a time, one could hope to find survivors in the bunkers of a Niff base; now, one was likely to find either dead bodies or the unoccupied clothing where dead bodies should have been. Either way, it wouldn't be pleasant. It was rarely the type of job one volunteered for.

Of course Noctis would take the responsibility upon himself, noble git that he was. Ignis struggled not to sigh, and he had to try equally hard to repress a smile.

"Pura," His Majesty continued when there were no spoken objections. Glaive Conchylium, who was already standing at attention, straightened even further. "Take your team, plus Viridis, and check the MT hangers and storage areas. The rest of you, fan out, and don't walk underneath anything that could fall over."

Conchylium saluted in unison with the rest of her teammates, followed somewhat sluggishly by a very nervous-looking Glaive Viridis. "Yes, sir." Noctis had, as always, forgotten to formally dismiss them, but they were used to it by now and jumped into their duties regardless.

His Majesty nodded, mostly to himself, and then turned towards the direction of the bunkers. "Ignis," he tossed over his shoulder as an afterthought. "With me."

Of course.

This time, Ignis didn't bother quashing his smile.

Slipping through the dispersing Glaives, Ignis fell into step at Noct's side. "An excellent speech, Your Majesty," he said lightly, "although I'm sure I don't need to tell you―"

"―That it's Glaive Conchylium and Lord Scientia," Noct cut in, rolling his eyes heavenward very dramatically. "Yes, yes. If you're sure you don't need to say it, then don't."

Noct had matured into a truly magnificent King over the past decade and change, but it was times like these when Ignis saw a glimpse of the boy he'd first fallen in love with peeking through. "Fair enough," Ignis said, his amusement clear in his voice, "although I was actually going to say that bunker duty isn't exactly the kind of thing a King is usually saddled with."

A huff of laughter. "This from the guy who refuses to let me delegate my paperwork away?" Noct bumped his shoulder against Ignis lightly. "Doesn't feel right passing it off to anyone else. Especially since they're all so… young."

At last, he looked over at Ignis with a playful smile. "Besides," he said lightly, turning to face forward again, "I have you there to hold my hand if we find something scary, won't―?"

Noct stopped so abruptly that Ignis nearly collided with him.

"Umbra?"

Sure enough, peering out from behind the edge of the building about twenty feet away was the snout of a familiar black dog. Immediately, Noct began to jog across the clearing, and Ignis hastened to follow. It had been a long time since he'd last seen Umbra―to be completely honest, he'd almost assumed that the Messenger had returned to the heavens in the absence of a world to save.

Noct must have shared this belief, because he fell to his knees before Umbra with a sigh of relief. "Hey, boy," he breathed, reaching out to scratch behind the divine dog's ears―

―only for Umbra to bark sharply, turn around, and trot behind the building, out of sight.

"Hey," Noct said, somewhere between surprised and indignant, and Ignis stifled a laugh. Helping his King back to his feet, he glanced around the corner just in time to see Umbra vanish into the depths of the defunct facility.

There… shouldn't have been a door on this side of the building.

Frowning, Ignis followed Umbra's faint pawprints in the dirt.

Sure enough, on the far side of the building, sequestered away in a corner and mostly hidden behind a dilapidated storage shed, there was a door. Or, at least, there used to be a door; it had clearly been mauled by a daemon at some point, and it was now little more than a piece of scrap metal adorned with a smashed keycard reader.

"That's strange," Ignis muttered as they squeezed between the bunkers and the storage shed to get a closer look. "I've never seen a hidden door like this. Seems like a rather complicated setup for a temporary base."

"Seems complicated just to get to it," Noct added. He had to clutch his cloak tight to his body so that it wouldn't catch on anything, and his brace kept scraping across the side of the building by accident, screeching like nails on a chalkboard.

It was awkward in the tight space, but, between the two of them, they managed to pry the mangled door off of its crushed hinges, revealing a long, narrow hallway that seemed to run the length of the building. Broken light fixtures hung forlornly from the ceiling, and the walls were criss-crossed with deep, jagged gashes that could have only come from a daemon. It was dark and smelled strongly of mildew, but one of the light fixtures flickered periodically, despite hanging from a single frayed wire.

"This building still has power?" Noct muttered incredulously from behind him. "Where's it coming from?"

Ignis drummed his fingers against his leg. "An excellent question." Magitechnology, perhaps? But how had it lasted for ten years and then some? It was worth further investigation, without a doubt. If there was a power source in here that somehow survived the Night, then it would be absolutely indispensable in their rebuilding efforts.

And, either way, Umbra was clearly trying to lead them here. There must have been a reason for that. He glanced over his shoulder. "Shall we, Your Majesty?"

Noctis was grimacing into the dark, enclosed space. "Prompto would hate this place," he put in. With that, he squeezed past Ignis and chivalrously took point.

So much for royal protocol. Ignis rolled his eyes a bit and dutifully followed.

The hallway was only wide enough for them to walk single-file, unless they wanted to brush shoulders, which was inadvisable, given that they had both summoned their weapons preemptively. Better to be paranoid than caught off-guard, after all.

"Where's Umbra?" Noct muttered after a moment, and Ignis frowned, peering over Noct's shoulder. Indeed, the Messenger seemed to have vanished again.

"I'm… not sure," he said, and they both fell silent again.

It only lasted for a scant few steps. "Huh," Noct said suddenly, barely five seconds later. "There's no more daemon marks past here."

He was right. The walls, which had been nearly shredded up until this point, were suddenly untouched. It was as if the daemons got halfway through their job and then simply turned around and left.

Or something had repelled them. Perhaps these lights had once been daemon lights, and some of them had managed to stay on for the entire Night. Ignis glanced up at the light fixture above him, then down at his feet. Most Niff lights had fuse boxes either up against the wall or beneath a panel on the floor―

Wait.

Ignis clicked his flashlight off.

Immediately, Noct stopped walking. "Specs? What's up?"

"Perhaps nothing," Ignis responded. "I simply thought I saw―aha."

Even in the dark, it was almost too faint to see, but something beneath their feet was… glowing. Not the signature red of Magitek, but a soft, gentle blue. When Noct covered his own flashlight as well, Ignis was able to make it out a bit more clearly: there were small blue lights scattered across the floor. Some kind of Niff tech?

"Looks like this whole hallway still has power," Ignis remarked, gesturing to the strange lights. "Though I can't think of what the purpose of these would be. Perhaps they're status indicators for some other piece of equipment?"

"Like what? The floor?"

With a contemplative frown, Ignis knelt to examine the equipment. Both of his knees creaked loudly, and he had to place a hand on the wall to steady himself. Utterly ridiculous. "I'm only thirty-four," he muttered under his breath. Noct snickered traitorously.

Ignoring him, Ignis hunched over and rubbed his hand across the floor. Through the thick layer of mud and dust that coated the ground, the strange device was barely visible; all he could see was a faint glow. Unfortunately, his attempt to scrape at the dirt only managed to dirty his new gloves.

"You know what they are?" Noct called, even as he strode further down the passageway.

"Not yet," Ignis replied, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. "I can hardly make them out. Give me a moment."

Fortunately, the dirt came up easily enough when he scrubbed, although he could only clean a very small portion of the floor before his handkerchief became too filthy to continue. Good enough. Tucking the ruined handkerchief into his back pocket, Ignis squinted at the lights on the ground, which he could now see were not just lights, but symbols. They looked… eerily familiar, though he couldn't place where he'd seen them before.

Noct must have reached the end of the hallway, because he shouted, "Nothing down here," over his shoulder. "No Umbra, either." Then, under his breath, he added, "You better not have vanished again, boy."

Absurdly, that was what made everything click into place in Ignis's head.

The familiar symbols. The faint blue light. The guidance from the Oracle's pet. The utter lack of daemonic activity in an otherwise ravaged bunker.

Impossible.

"It can't be," he said aloud, though his voice came out as little more than a whisper. "The Oracle―" Is dead, he didn't have the heart to finish out loud, even though Noct probably couldn't hear him. The only Nox Fleuret remaining was Ravus, who had never been able to use the Oracle's magic, and who had no heirs, as far as Ignis was aware.

So how―?

"Ignis," Noct said breathlessly, his voice thick with something resembling horror, and Ignis tore his eyes away from the symbols at last.

Noct was crouched down a few meters away, angling his flashlight to slant across the ground. For a moment, Ignis didn't realize what he was looking at; then he saw a thin, almost imperceptible wisp of white smoke curl up from the ground.

Ignis leaped to his feet and hurried to join him, but Noctis didn't wait. Groping blindly, he slid both hands beneath the smoke, picking at the filthy floor. It only took a moment for his fingers to catch on something.

He paused. Gripped it more firmly. Pulled.

With a horrible, deafening creak, one of the floor tiles slid beneath the others, sending up a cloud of dust. A much larger plume of smoke rose from the new opening, drifting lazily up towards the ceiling. The light fixture above them flickered once more, casting it into stark relief for a brief second.

Stunned into silence, Ignis took a few hesitant steps forward. When he met Noct's eyes, the king looked just as bewildered as he felt. Then they both leaned forward and, as one, peered down the narrow hatch they'd discovered.

The rusty rungs of a ladder descended down one side of the chute. Instead of descending ominously into darkness, though, the ladder led down into what appeared to be a clean, well-lit room.

Right beneath the ladder was a flickering blue ring, unmistakably born of an Oracle's magic, with a thin column of smoke rising from its center.

Ignis fumbled for his comm. "Glaive Conchylium, report to the bunkers," he ordered, his voice flat and uncompromising. "We may have found survivors."

He barely paid mind to her response; he was too busy tentatively lowering himself into the open hatch. The ladder held him well enough, though it was covered in so much dust that it was almost slippery. When he began to climb down, hands braced on either side of the trapdoor, Noct glanced down uneasily at his knee brace. "Ignis…"

"You shouldn't risk it on that knee," Ignis said gently, and Noct scowled in the way he did when Ignis told him something he didn't like that he nevertheless knew was right. "Besides, someone will have to direct Glaive Conchylium to the hidden door."

He carefully stepped down to the next rung, carefully watching his feet. Before he could descend any further, though, Noct's hand landed on his shoulder, and then the King stooped over and pressed a quick, clandestine kiss to his forehead.

"Don't do anything stupid," he said.

Ignis glanced away from his feet long enough to offer his King a reassuring smile. "I believe that's my line, Your Majesty."

With a scoff, Noct stood back, pulling the trapdoor the rest of the way open so that Ignis could more easily climb down. Ignis took the concession for what it was and stepped onto the next rung.

Once his head dipped below the door, Noct released it. With a terrible creaking and grinding, it slowly pushed itself shut.

Just as the Imperial technology they'd pilfered had kept Lestallum afloat during the Night, so too could it be used to sustain a small group of people barricaded within the bunkers of a defunct Niff base. Given how few human soldiers manned each base, it was feasible for the whole staff to survive. They had packaged rations and cloned meat; they had daemon-repellent lights; they had effective water purifiers, although very few were able to find a source of water without venturing outside.

That kind of technology required upkeep, though, and daemon-repellent lights weren't foolproof. As time passed, these groups of survivors dwindled. Those who weren't rescued by hunters within the first few years of the Night all perished before help could arrive.

None of them had actually managed to make it through the entire decade of darkness without succumbing to starvation, dehydration, daemons, or the Scourge.

Then again, none of those survivors had somehow found a way to replicate the blessings of the Oracle, as these ones apparently had.

Ignis skipped the last few rungs and dropped to the floor, wiping his now-filthy gloves off on his trousers. The room he found himself in was largely barren; just another corridor like the one he'd just left. Unlike that corridor, and unlike the ladder, it had fully-functioning lights running across the ceiling.

That was the least of his worries right now. If there really were survivors―which was seeming more and more likely―then he could ask them how they'd managed to retain power for so long once they were all aboveground. Right now, he just needed to find them.

They'd suffered here for long enough. He wouldn't make them wait a second longer.

Ignis dismissed his spelldaggers, unwilling to approach any potential allies with his weapon drawn. His appearance would already startle them enough without adding a knife into the equation.

At the end of the room was an automatic door that had been propped open with some kind of door jammer. Probably so that they wouldn't be trapped if they lost power, he supposed. Ignis stepped through the door and emerged into another large, startlingly clean room.

This one had some furniture―chairs; tables; cabinets. A few machines, some of which he recognized (a water purifier and part of a meat cloning machine) and some of which were alien to him. There were various objects scattered about that looked as if they'd been used recently; everything from a filthy fork to what looked like a syringe.

On either end of the room were two doors, plus another two along the far wall. These doors were all manual, and they were all closed.

Ignis only allowed himself to hesitate for a moment. The sheer size of this strange facility was somewhat troubling, but it didn't matter much either way. He would simply start with the closest door on his left and work his way around clockwise. He would have to find someone eventually.

He pushed his way through the first door, expecting to find another empty, strangely sterile room―

But he did not. Because there was a man inside.

Despite his haste, Ignis hadn't actually taken the time to brace himself for the sight of another person. He stopped dead in his tracks while the man in question whirled around, simultaneously frantic and sluggish, as if he had expected this day to come and yet was still entirely unprepared.

When he saw Ignis, his eyes bulged and his mouth dropped open. Ignis went still.

The man was clearly Niflheim-born, and he must have been rather old already when the Night began. His hair was thin and gray, barely clinging to his head in wisps; he was pale and drawn, with filthy, threadbare clothes that hung off of his skeletal frame.

He stared at Ignis with the shock of a man who had never expected to see another living human for the rest of his days.

Ignis opened his mouth to speak, and it seemed to snap the man out of his reverie. He scrambled back unsteadily until his back hit the machine behind him―this room was full of machines that Ignis didn't recognize.

There was also, unfortunately, a pistol laying innocuously on a nearby table.

"Out," the man gasped, and Ignis's eyes snapped back towards him. His voice scraped painfully on the way out, as if his throat was full of razors. He clutched his chest for a moment, then rocked forward as if to imitate a wild beast's lunge. "I said out, dog!"

With a wince, Ignis shuffled back a step, trying to appease the man. "Sir," he began.

"―She's mine," the survivor interrupted in a throaty growl. "She's mine. You can't―you can't just―break in here―" His eyes darted wildly from side to side. "You can't have her."

Ignis had met people who spent the first few years of the Long Night holed up somewhere with only themselves, or perhaps a few others, for company. They remained paranoid, jumpy, and socially isolated for years afterwards. He had never met someone who'd spent the entire decade alone, or close to it.

That didn't seem like the kind of trauma which would simply vanish at the first sign of rescue.

Slowly, he raised his hands above his head, spreading them wide to show that he was unarmed. "I am not your enemy," he enunciated slowly and clearly. "I am here to help."

"You're here to take her!" the survivor snarled, his raspy voice echoing along the walls. "You can't have her! She's mine!"

Another survivor? Or was he referring to the machinery? The latter seemed more likely, but Ignis allowed himself to hold out hope. "I don't want to take her from you," he said, feather-gentle. He risked a step forward, telegraphing his movements very obviously. "I am here to help you, and I will help her as w―"

"Do you think I'm stupid?!" the survivor demanded hysterically. With halting movements, he stumbled to the side; there was no other way for him to retreat, with a wall of machinery at his back.

Then, to Ignis's dismay, he reached behind him and groped for the pistol.

All Ignis could do was make an aborted move to summon his spelldaggers before the Niff snatched up the gun and leveled it at his chest, knocking a tray of what looked like surgical implements to the ground in the process. "Stay back!" he barked.

The situation was devolving, and it had been a bad situation from the start. Ignis kept his hands high. "Sir, please. I just want to make sure everyone is alright." It seemed obvious that this man was either unaware that Dawn had broken, or he didn't care. Either way, he wasn't likely to react well if Ignis mentioned it. "Surely you know that you cannot stay here forever," he said instead. "Insomnia or Lestallum are the safest places to be right now."

As he spoke, the survivor began to wildly shake his head. "I'm no fool," he said breathlessly. "They'll―when they see what I've done―what I've―created―" His voice cut off into a whimper, and he glanced fleetingly at the door over Ignis's shoulder. "They'll drag me before the Prince and―and―and then I'll be executed if I'm lucky!"

Ah. A Niff soldier, then. Or, more likely, judging by his poor firearm handling, a Niff scientist. Perhaps this man was one of the minds behind MTs, or even the machines that had crushed Insomnia. No wonder he'd been able to keep whatever generators he had running for so long.

"You won't be held accountable for your past," Ignis said with certainty. "The war is over. The Empire itself is no more. No one will judge you for what you did in service to your country."

Scoffing harshly, the Niff edged closer to the door. "You think I'll buy your fairy tales?" he sneered. "You think―you―you expect me to believe that?" He brandished the pistol again.

At the very least, he seemed to be remaining relatively coherent. Perhaps he could still be reasoned with. Ignis sidled away from the door the scientist was unsubtly glancing at. "Okay," he said appeasingly, trying to keep his face calm and open. "Look. You can go that way, and I'll stay right here. I won't follow you."

The survivor's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but a bit of the tension in his shoulders unwound. "You can't take her," he said, less desperate this time and more authoritative.

Good. Ignis was headed in the right direction. "I won't," he said in his most submissive voice. "I'm not going to touch any of your equipment," he added, just in case he was correct about this "her" not being a person. "I won't stray from this spot until―"

Hasty footsteps approached the door―the clomp of Glaive-issue boots alongside the soft tha-thump, tha-thump of an uneven gait and the distinctive click-whirr of His Majesty's brace―and Ignis's stomach flipped.

"Ignis?" Noct said. "Thought I heard someth―"

Too late to shout a code phrase that would stop him in his tracks; the survivor had already heard and begun to turn around. Too late to tell him to stay back; he was already turning the corner and stepping over the threshold. Too late to assure the Niff that this was just his friend; his eyes were already going wide, his jaw flopping open as he gasped out―

"You."

The terror that overtook his expression was visceral, practically palpable, as he swung the gun around―

In one smooth motion, Ignis summoned a spelldagger, stormbound it, and sent it hurtling into the Niff's shoulder.

With a choked cry, the survivor jerked, gun dropping from his hand and clattering across the floor to rest at Noct's feet. The instant he let go of the weapon, Ignis cut off the stream of magic to the dagger, trying to minimize the amount of damage done. Still, the Niff cried out as he collapsed, pain and fear and confusion all mingling together.

Startled, Noct jerked around to stare at him, wide-eyed. From behind him, Glaive Conchylium swept into the room, weapon leveled at the fallen Niff. "Ignis―?" Noct started.

"Hold fire," Ignis cut in before Glaive Conchylium could potentially hurt the poor man. Scooping up the gun beside Noct's boot, he banished it into the armiger with perhaps unnecessary vehemence. "There may be another survivor," he said breathlessly in lieu of any further explanation. "But he wasn't very coherent, so I'm not certain."

As if on cue, the survivor howled inarticulately, jerking in Conchylium's grip as she knelt to check him over. She jumped a bit, then hastened to restrain him. "Sir, please calm down," she said, but he only growled and thrashed against the floor.

"He's a former Niff scientist, I believe," Ignis cut in. "It's―he was hostile because he was confused and frightened; I think he's been here alone all this time. He might not even know that the Night is over."

Conchylium winced but tugged his arms behind his back, sympathy notwithstanding. "Sir, we will have no choice but to restrain you if you continue to fight," she said firmly, although she was already restraining him.

Ignis suspected that she might have given the man more leeway had he tried to shoot her or Ignis, rather than Noct.

More importantly, there was still the possibility that he could have comrades in this very bunker. You can't take her, he'd said.

"Noct," Ignis said, even as he strode purposefully back towards the door. "He mentioned a 'she', and I think he might be talking about his equipment, but―"

"―But maybe not," Noct finished, still looking somewhat perturbed. He shook his head harshly. "Right. Ignis, you keep looking for other survivors. I'll…" He grimaced, clearly coming to the conclusion that it would be foolish to join the search as well, since it would just divide Ignis's attention. "I'll stay here and see if I can't talk to this one."

That seemed unlikely, but Ignis just nodded and took off again. They'd caused quite the commotion―if there were other survivors here, he didn't want to give them the chance to either work themselves into a frenzy or potentially make a run for it and encounter the rest of the armed Glaives.

He only made it one step out of the doorway before he had to stop.

Umbra was back.

He was standing in the middle of the room with all the doors, watching Ignis with an almost somber look on his face. As Ignis stood there, stunned, Umbra tilted his head, as if to say, What are you waiting for?

Then he turned around, nosed open the door directly across from Ignis, and pushed through.

Ignis followed, of course.

The door Umbra led him through opened into a long hallway which also had several doors along one side―this strange facility was much larger than Ignis would've assumed; it must have been in construction since long before Insomnia fell, if it was already this big at the beginning of the Long Night. Umbra walked down the hall at a sedate pace, and Ignis followed, looking around as he went.

This hall, too, was lined with Niff equipment that Ignis couldn't identify, though these looked much more familiar than the machine that the scientist had protected so fervently. He felt as if he had seen them before―perhaps in Gralea, or in the Magitek Production Lab? They should get some pictures of the ones that couldn't be transported; perhaps someone back in Insomnia or Lestallum would be able to identify―

Halfway down the hall, he heard a soft thump, followed immediately by a muffled gasp, and Ignis stopped dead in his tracks.

Distracted by the machinery on the walls, Ignis hadn't even noticed that Umbra had stopped walking. The Messenger was now sitting in front of a door not too far ahead of Ignis, pawing ineffectively at the latch. Turning to Ignis, he whimpered plaintively, nudging at the door with his head.

Ignis approached the door slowly and quietly. There was probably another survivor in there, and he couldn't risk accidentally antagonizing them as he had with the last. As he drew near, Umbra backed up to give him room, tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Ignis knocked. Behind the door, there was another choked gasp.

"Hello?" he called softly.

No response.

"My name is Ignis Scientia," he continued, "and I'm looking for survivors of the Long Night. I'm here to help them."

No response.

"You see, I live in Insomnia, which is much safer nowadays than this bunker is. I'm hoping that I can convince any survivors that I meet here to come with me back to Insomnia, where they'll be safe, too."

Still, nothing. Ignis offered the survivor a much longer window to respond this time, though he wasn't holding his breath.

When no response came, he sighed softly and placed his hand on the doorknob. "I'm going to open the door," he said, and then he turned the knob and began to pull painstakingly slowly, giving the survivor inside plenty of time to protest.

They didn't. He opened the door.

Inside, curled into a tight ball and huddled in the corner, was a tiny figure. A child. A child so small that Ignis's shadow, cast through the doorway by the bright fluorescents overhead, engulfed them entirely.

For a moment, Ignis' mind ceased to function entirely.

A child.

"You can't take her―she's mine," the scientist had said.

Her hair was a matted, tangled, filthy mess that clung tight to her scalp, but it might have been anywhere from platinum blonde to ash brown when it was clean. Two dirt-encrusted feet emerged from the bottom of a tattered, nearly Gladio-sized t-shirt that engulfed her tiny frame. She'd curled up inside of the excessively large shirt, wrapped both skeletal arms around her equally skeletal legs, and buried her face into her knees.

As Ignis stared, flabbergasted, she trembled violently. A low, quavering whimper escaped her.

Umbra, whose presence Ignis had entirely forgotten about, barked softly and squeezed between Ignis and the door frame. Trotting up to the poor child, he nosed at her fingers, white-knuckled on her shirt, and whined. She ignored him, save for the hitch in her breath. He barked and lay down with his head pressed against her hip.

Like all children who had been born during the Long Night, she was dreadfully pale and as scrawny as a starved animal, but Ignis had never seen a case this drastic before. Every color on her was muted and washed-out, giving her the look of a sepia photograph with the exposure set too high, or a watercolor painting that had been dropped into the sea before it could dry.

She was young―perhaps five or six, if Ignis was being incredibly generous in his estimations. Then again, malnutrition had a way of stunting a child's growth quite drastically, so he supposed she could feasibly be as old as eight.

Whatever her age, the noticeable protrusion of her ribs was extremely worrying. Though perhaps not as worrying as the half-sob, half-whimper that accompanied her every frantic breath.

Finally snapping out of his shock, Ignis took one tentative step into the closet, lowering himself to his knee. "Hello," he said again, and the girl flinched. "I'm sorry to have scared you. That wasn't my intention. I promise you; I'm not here to hurt you. I want to help."

He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. What could he possibly say that would sway her? This was a girl who may have grown up knowing only one other person, and no one else. That kind of isolation didn't exactly lend itself to trusting other people, once she was finally introduced to them.

Especially if she had heard the other survivor's scream.

Before Ignis could come up with something properly reassuring to say, Umbra lifted his head again, practically shoving it into the girls' side. He whimpered loudly, pawing at her leg.

There was a moment of silence. The girl took in a deep, shuddering breath. Then, with all the hopeless courage of a lone hunter staring down the maw of a bandersnatch, she clutched the hem of her shirt protectively, squared her trembling shoulders, and lifted her head.

Ignis's breath caught.

The child's face was oval-shaped and blotched with red, her gaunt cheeks glistening with tears. Her nose was long and shallow-sloped, her features soft, her blonde eyebrows barely visible against her sallow skin. There was fear in the wobble of her lip, but a startling, regal dignity in the set of her brow and in the clench of her jaw.

It was a face he had seen before. A face which had appeared on news programs; on magazine covers; on memorials. A face he had seen slack and bloodless, resting limp on the Tidemother's altar, glassy eyes yet locked onto Noctis. A face which now overlooked the ruins of Fenestala Manor, lovingly detailed in gorgeous white marble.

A face he knew, with one very notable difference.

Staring out at him from the spectral visage of Lady Lunafreya were the watery blue eyes of his King.

Unbidden, a slew of fresh, crisp memories rose to his mind. The unmistakable blue glow and white smoke of a Haven blessed by the Oracle. The bizarre technology and equipment which filled this laboratory, eerily similar to what he'd seen in the facility that produced Prompto. The Imperial scientist who feared for his life, who went mad with terror at the sight of a King he shouldn't have recognized, hissing, "When they see what I've done―what I've created―"

Numbly, Ignis raised a hand to his earpiece. "Noct," he said, "come here."

He could not muster up a single word of explanation beyond that.

Noct was picking through the contents of the fridge, trying to find something he could heat up for a quick breakfast without Ignis around, when he felt a tug on his cloak.

At once, he discarded the plastic container of cold macaroni back onto the shelf and turned around. "Yeah?" he said, making sure to smile down at the girl holding onto his raiment. "Do you want something?"

His daughter was standing quietly, as always, and looking up at him with big blue eyes; she had obediently changed out of her pajamas, but she had put her shirt on inside-out. He'd have to fix that before they left the house, or else Iris would never let him hear the end of it.

When she didn't respond, Noct turned around fully and crouched down to her level. His brace squealed. "Should I get your checklist?" he suggested, gesturing to the piece of paper on the counter. Sometimes it was easier for her to point at what was wrong on a pre-written list―hungry, thirsty, tired, et cetera―rather than trying to explain herself.

But she bit her lip, then slowly shook her head. "It's not written on there." Her voice was almost swallowed by the humming of the fridge.

"That's alright, too," Noct reassured, and he resigned himself to sitting down fully on the uncomfortable kitchen floor. At least Ignis had been kind enough to help him oil his brace not too long ago, so there wasn't much chance of getting stuck. As soon as he was seated, his daughter shuffled closer, still hanging onto the end of his cloak.

"Do you need help with your clothes?" Noct guessed. She shook her head. Well, damn―that had been basically his only theory. "Do you―?"

"Will you read to me before you go?" she blurted out.

At once, she looked mortified―whether because she had the audacity to ask for something that wasn't a necessity or because she'd unwittingly interrupted him, it was hard to say. Probably a combination of both. Either way, she let go of his cloak and took a step back, fisting her hands instead into the reversed fabric of her shirt.

She didn't run, though, or try to apologize, or pretend to change her mind. She simply stood there, bravely waiting for his response, with her eyes trained nervously on her pink-and-blue sneakers.

Nowadays, the rush of anger he felt when he remembered how difficult her life had been was almost always counterbalanced by an overwhelming wave of pride.

"Of course," Noct said―he could never refuse her a request―and his resolve was only strengthened when she visibly perked up. Cor could keep things running for another twenty minutes in his absence. "Would you like to pick out another fairy tale?"

"Yes, please," she said, and turned and hurried towards the living room without further ado.

Noct levered himself back onto his feet with only mild difficulty, no longer needing to force the smile on his face. Their favorite book of fairy tales was right where he'd left it the previous night―on the coffee table in front of the couch―and, when he followed her in, he found that she was already sitting in Noct's usual spot.

That was… unexpected. She preferred the armchair in the corner that used to be Ignis's until she'd claimed it for her own. "Is that where you wanna sit?" he double-checked, in case she had just gotten ahead of herself and sat down on the closest available surface.

She winced a little and wouldn't meet his eyes. "Actually," she said, "um…"

There was a long pause. Noct was getting better at distinguishing between the silences that meant she'd frozen up and the silences that meant she was just gathering her thoughts, and he was fairly certain that this was the latter, so he kept his mouth shut and waited patiently.

"I think," his daughter said at great length, gentle and unsure. She stopped. Bit her lip. "I think… I wanna try to read, too."

Noct had been trained to maintain an unruffled facade since birth, but his surprise must have shown on his face anyway, because she immediately winced and pushed herself off of the couch. "If―if that's okay," she amended, scuffing her shoe. It left a faint streak of dirt on the carpet that Ignis was definitely going to notice, but there was absolutely no way Noct was going to scold her right now.

"Of course it's okay," he said, crossing the living room in a few careful strides. She didn't back away when he drew close, though her eyes tracked the movement of his feet. "You want to try to follow along while I read out loud?"

Some of the tension drained from her shoulders. "Yes," she said, sounding relieved that she didn't have to explain herself.

"That's okay," he repeated, though he had his doubts about this. Her reading skills were very limited, and she, like Noct, tended to get frustrated when she couldn't keep up. He was endlessly grateful that Prompto and Iris had largely taken up the task of teaching her on days when Noct and Ignis were both busy.

Sidling between the couch and the coffee table, he lowered himself slowly onto the cushion furthest from her; she jumped back up onto his usual cushion, then passed him the book, which he accepted gratefully. "Thank you," he remembered to say at the last minute.

"You're welcome," she responded, and he shot her an approving smile. That was another thing she was getting better at.

Cracking the book open into his lap, he carefully separated the pages near the front that tended to stick together. "Alright, I'll read it to you, and you try to follow along as best you can," Noct said, hoping that he sounded a bit more confident than he was. "It's okay if you get lost. If you want me to stop or slow down, you can just tug on my sleeve."

"Okay," his daughter said, and she scooted across the couch until she was leaning lightly against his side.

He tried not to react and risk startling her, but his heart leaped in his chest, and, when he said, "Let's pick one out," his voice was a bit weaker than usual.

The first one he saw was "Allura", which he immediately skipped over with a grimace. That one hit a bit too close to home. He decided against "Julius and the Corn Stalk", too, for fear of her getting ideas in her head about climbing up into the sky. Noct had scared his attendants half to death when he, at age five, decided to climb the tallest tree in the courtyard so he could meet some giants.

How did that one saying go? "I hope one day you have children just like you"? Thanks for that, Dad.

He passed a few more before pausing on one that seemed appropriate. "How about… this one?" He angled the book towards her, showing off a lovely illustration of a woman lying asleep in a bed of roses. "It's called―" Wait. "Can you read that title for me, sweetie?"

She practically snapped to attention, sitting up ramrod straight and pressing herself more tightly to Noct's side. Then she leaned over his lap until her face was practically buried in the book, steadying herself by placing both hands on his leg.

He held his breath, terrified that the slightest movement might send her scampering.

"Sss… sleh…" she read out loud, each sound clumsy on her tongue, as if she were trying to speak a foreign language. "Sslehehpeenjh…"

It must have been obvious to her that that was wrong, because she paused, frowned deeply, and then shot Noct a doleful look. He tried to smile encouragingly rather than grin like a loon.

"Good, you're really close," he half-fibbed―and then, abruptly remembering part of Ignis's rant about reciprocating physical affection whenever she showed it, he risked a gentle, tentative pat on the back.

His palm barely grazed her, and she swayed from the force of it anyway. Still, her expression lightened.

"That word is 'sleeping'," he continued, and her face twisted itself into a confused grimace. He tried not to laugh. "Since there are two 'E's in a row, they make a long 'ee' sound, instead of 'eh'. And the 'I-N-G' at the end is pronounced like 'ing'."

For a moment, she looked frustrated, but, just as quickly, her face solidified into a determined glower. "Sleeping," she repeated firmly, as if drilling it into her own head. Then, under her breath, "Sleeping. S-L-E-P―no, no―S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G."

"Good! Very good," Noct said. Then, for the sake of time, he continued, "And the word after that is Oracle."

Her reaction was immediate. First, she flinched minutely―almost imperceptibly; nothing like the frantic way she used to jerk back whenever someone moved too quickly or spoke too loudly. Then she leaned away from him and wrapped both arms loosely around herself.

"Oracle," she repeated shakily under her breath.

The realization hit him belatedly. 'Damn it, Noctis, think!' His daughter had never been given a proper name; the man who'd "raised" her simply called her Oracle. Of course she would be uncomfortable reading a story about "The Oracle". It would only serve to stir up bad memories.

Backtracking hastily, he opened his mouth to "remember" that this one was too difficult and they should try something a little easier first, but she cut in before he could speak. "Oracle," she repeated, more firmly this time, and then she glanced up at him uncertainly. "That's… the type of person who's like me, right?"

Caught off-guard, Noct could do little more than nod his head as he tried to collect his thoughts. "Yes, an Oracle is a person who has the same magic as you," he agreed, a bit uncertainly.

'Get it together, Noctis; she doesn't need you to lose your cool right now.'

Clearing his throat, he carefully relaxed his grip on the book before she could pick up on his discomfort―she was more perceptive than he sometimes gave her credit for. "Do you remember what else I told you about Oracles? About how things used to be, before… your mother died?"

"Yes," she replied, frowning. As always, the mention of Luna didn't faze her as much as it confused her. It was to be expected, he supposed; she had only the barest concept of what it meant to have a mother, and she was conversely very familiar with the concept of death. "They were important people, and everyone wanted to protect them. Like you."

Noct had no control over the smile that crossed his face. "And you," he reminded her, and she frowned again, as if the idea of someone being protected made sense in theory, but not when applied to her.

"Right," she said. "And me."

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Noct was still waiting to see if she would have an adverse reaction to being reminded of her old moniker, and his daughter just sat and stared intently at the illustration beneath the title.

Eventually, Noct took in a deep, steadying breath. She seemed to be taking it well. Perhaps he simply wasn't giving her enough credit. "Do you want to read this one?" he asked hesitantly. "It's about an Oracle who falls asleep, so deeply that no one can figure out how to wake her up."

Once again, she cringed away from the word "Oracle," and Noct cursed his own folly. Then she slowly leaned into his side, inch by painstaking inch, until her head was resting against his arm.

"That sounds good," she mumbled, her eyes still fixed on the illustration.

"Okay." Noct held the book up for her. "We'll do this one, then."

He took a deep breath.

"Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful and kind Oracle," he read―then, in a sudden fit of inspiration, he added, "named Aurora."

Technically, she was only named Aurora in the movie adaptation; she didn't have a name in the original. Still, perhaps this could solve the problem of having to repeat a word that upset his daughter over and over again.

For her part, the daughter in question furrowed her brow. "Aurora," she repeated to herself. Glancing up at Noct, she tentatively asked, "Like Aurea?"

He blinked. "Aurea?"

At once, her expression turned from curious to exasperated, as if he was being purposefully dense. It was as close as she got to talking back, and Noct always felt a little thrill of pride when she was brave enough to make her displeasure known. "Aurea," she repeated. "Like your mom, right? Mr. Ignis told me."

Oh. "My mom's name was Aulea," he corrected gently. "But, yes, they're similar names." Ignis would have something to say about encouraging her to make connections between things in the stories and things in real life. Something something enrichment. He just thought it was cute when she made logical leaps that seemed so random to him, despite clearly making perfect sense to her.

For the sake of her poor unpaid spelling teachers, Noct added, "Her name isn't actually written down in this book, but it's spelled A-U-R-O-R-A. My mom's name was spelled A-U-L-E-A. So, even though they sound similar, they're actually written very differently."

His daughter nodded along with his explanation, but it didn't really seem to sink in. She was still staring at the illustration―the Oracle surrounded by flowers, peacefully asleep, with her hands clasped loosely over her chest. He wasn't the best at reading lips, but he thought was mouthing "A-U-R-O-R-A," to herself.

Slowly, Noct eased his left arm around her. She barely reacted, except to snuggle further into his side, so he left it there, hugging her loosely.

"Ready to keep reading?" he asked softly.

She nodded and refocused on the page. One of the hands in her lap drifted up to gently grip Noct's sleeve.

"Aurora had parents who loved her very much," Noct read, his heart swelling in his chest, "and she was a very happy and obedient child. But, when she was still young…"

Noct could recall, with near-perfect clarity, all of the moments in his life when he could feel everything crumbling around him.

Waking in a hospital in Tenebrae, his whole body wracked with pain, to see his Father crying openly at his bedside. Standing on a hill outside of Insomnia, watching his Kingdom burn on the horizon. Sprinting frantically through the halls of Zegnautus Keep, sliding to a stop on his knees, and cradling Ignis's wheezing, charred body―so certain, in that moment, that he had lost him.

And now, standing in the doorway of a Niff bunker, staring in horror and disbelief at the child that Ignis held in his arms, Noct could swear that he felt the floor physically collapse beneath his feet.

"Noct," Ignis said, his voice wavering. Never before had he sounded quite so… uncertain. He was carrying a girl, who looked startlingly small even for a child, against his hip; she clung to him with the tentative desperation of someone who was certain she would be dropped at any moment and wasn't entirely sure she wanted to be held in the first place.

Just as he couldn't tear his eyes away from her, she too stared unblinkingly back at him.

He could scarcely breathe.

She was the spitting image of a young Luna, with only minor differences―most of which were probably only due to the neglect she must have suffered. Beneath the grease and dust that dyed it the color of ash, her hair was clearly Tenebraen blonde, and her face would hopefully be less gaunt and jaundiced once she got a bit of sun and some proper nutrition.

He had no trouble picturing these changes in his head, because the rest of her features matched Luna's almost exactly―almost eerily so, even―right down to the slightest bulge at the bridge of her nose.

It was a feature that Ignis had, too, albeit more prominently, and Noct would never have noticed it on Luna had it not been pointed out to him. "For once, they didn't make me contour my nose out of existence," Luna had written to him once, having taped a publicity photo that showed her nose quite prominently into the notebook. "I happen to like my nose, thank you very much."

Noct remembered thinking something along the lines of, 'Doesn't Ignis have that, too?' and unsubtly examining Ignis's nose over dinner that night. Eventually, Ignis had sighed and pointedly asked if there was something on his face, so Noct had explained, and Ignis had said that it was a common feature among Tenebraens, similar to how Lucians tended to have larger, more angular eyebrows.

Ironically enough, the girl in Ignis's arms right now also had large, angular eyebrows, though they were much fairer and fainter than Noct's were.

Noct was trying not to cry like an infant.

He still hadn't mustered a single word by the time Ignis shifted uneasily and cleared his throat. "Our non-essential medical facilities have essentially fallen to the wayside," he whispered hoarsely, "but I'm certain we could find someone capable of performing a DNA test. To… confirm her origins."

Noctis almost succumbed to the urge to laugh. Confirm her origins? She'd been made from Noct and Luna's DNA, using some kind of creepy, fucked-up Niflheim tech. It couldn't have been clearer if there was a sign reading "UNETHICAL CHILD CREATION LAB" on the front door.

The fact that she had been mistreated couldn't have been clearer, either. It was writ in every trembling finger that clutched Ignis's jacket and every stark vein that stood out against her nearly translucent skin; crystal clear in the way she bit down hard on her lip while she stared at Noct with huge, frightened eyes.

He managed to mostly restrain a hysterical snarl, but whatever small part of it slipped through his facade was enough to make the girl cringe and hide her face in Ignis's shirt.

Just like that, all of the fire left him. There was nowhere for it to go, after all. For once, there was no mad chancellor to duel in the sky above the Citadel; no army of tin soldiers to battle; no villain he could simply cut down to make everything better.

There was only him, Ignis, and the girl whose life was about to be put into his hands.

Just him, his beloved, and his daughter.

Shiva above.

Deep breaths, he told himself, and he slowly let the tension leak out of his hunched shoulders. Stay calm. Stay quiet. Don't frighten her. Swallowing thickly, he took a few measured steps forward until there was only about a foot of space between them.

"Hello," Noct said softly, and the girl flinched. "My name is Noctis. It's nice to meet you." She wasn't looking at him anymore, but he summoned up a smile for her benefit anyway. "Can you tell me your name?"

Despite her fear, she didn't hesitate for more than a moment before prying her face free of Ignis's shoulder just long enough to mumble, "Ora… Oracle."

Her voice was almost too quiet for Noct to understand, and it was extremely rough, presumably from dehydration and disuse. It was almost enough to distract Noct from the actual, horrifying contents of her reply.

Ignis sucked in a discreet but sharp breath. Behind his back, Noct dug his thumbnail into the meat of his palm. "Your name is Oracle?" he asked with a calm he didn't feel.

She must have somehow sensed that this answer was unsatisfactory, because she pulled her face out of Ignis's shoulder just to glance between the two of them fretfully. "Uh. Um. Yes. B-but," she continued, apparently emboldened by the lack of anger, "the other sirs called me girl or kid. But Sir always told them not to. But the other sirs didn't stop, they still called me that. But they all died, though."

Her rant was delivered with all the stuttering, false starts, and slurring together of words that characterized the speech of a young child with not much more than a basic grasp on the language. The end result was barely comprehensible. Still, Noct gathered that she'd known other people besides the lone Niff scientist, that those people had also never bothered to give her a name, and that she spoke about their deaths far too matter-of-factly.

Mind you, if the "other sirs" had still been alive, Noct would probably be in the process of murdering them himself right now, so perhaps it was for the best.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. He was Noctis Lucis Caelum; he who ushered in the Dawn; the King of Light spoken of in prophecy for centuries; the man who Ignis thought was worthy enough to stand by his side. He would not lose his cool in front of a petrified child who clearly thought he was a monster there to devour her.

"Alright," he said. "Thank you. That's very helpful. We're going to take you someplace safe now, alright? Do you… need food, or water, or to use the bathroom?"

"No," she said immediately.

Noct would have felt much better about it if it didn't sound as if she thought "no" was the answer that would make him happy, rather than the answer that was true. Still, now probably wasn't the time to push it. "Okay," he said again. "Thank you. We're going to bring you outside now, okay?" Did she even know what "outside" meant? "Somewhere safe."

He made fleeting eye contact with Ignis, who looked just as disturbed as he felt, and then looked back down at her. "It will take a while to get to the safe place," he said. "If you need anything, like food or water, or to use the restroom, just ask. And you can… if you're tired, you can go to sleep. If you want. That would be fine."

For a moment, she just stared at him, wide-eyed and uncomprehending. She wasn't crying currently, but he could very clearly see the tracks that the tears had traced down her cheeks, cutting faint lines in the thin layer of dirt that coated her every visible inch of skin.

She nodded, muttered a shaky little "Okay," and turned to bury her face back into Ignis, just as tense as she'd been before.

That was probably the best he was going to get.

"Your Majesty," Ignis said softly. "Noct." He cast a helpless glance at the child still cradled in his arms, as if he had no idea how she had ended up there. Then he looked around at all the machinery surrounding them―the weird Niff shit that Noct recognized very little of―before blanching noticeably and averting his eyes.

"What now?" he asked, looking truly lost for the first time in Noct's memory. In his careful grasp, Noct's daughter whimpered quietly, pressing herself more closely into his side.

Noctis took one final deep breath.

"Now," he said with confidence he didn't feel, "we take her home."

"Hey, Ignis?"

Ignis paused mid-slice with the edge of the knife only halfway through the clove. He hadn't heard her come in over the obnoxious beeping of the oven declaring itself preheated.

Surreptitiously, he reached across the stove to turn off the burner. The he rolled his shoulders and went back to mincing the garlic, a bit more slowly than normal―fast knife work made her anxious.

"Yes, darling?"

She shuffled noisily behind him, her new shoes squeaking a bit on the tile floor, but didn't speak again for a while. He scraped the garlic off of the cutting board and into the pan, then moved on to the parsley―Shiva, it had really been too long since he'd had fresh parsley to work with. Thank the Astrals for Sania and the crop science degree she'd pulled out of nowhere once the Night ended.

Halfway through the parsley, he heard the familiar sound of one of the kitchen chairs being pulled out from beneath the dining table, its legs scraping against the floor. She pulled herself into it with a grunt and immediately began swinging her legs, her shoes thumping softly against the chair with each swing.

"What, um… what are you making?" she eventually asked, although the question was meek and clearly improvised.

"Garulessa steaks."

"Oh." Her disappointment was tangible, and Ignis smiled into the oregano. "Just… just that?"

The urge to tease her was definitely there, but Ignis ultimately decided against it. "We're also having some pasta with that sauce you like," he reassured, and she audibly sighed in relief. He waited a moment to let her get excited for the pasta―one of her favorites―before tossing out an offhanded, "But only if you eat all of your asparagus first."

"Mm-hmm," she hummed dreamily, clearly still distracted by the notion of cheese, garlic, and butter.

The best part about raising a girl who didn't technically share his blood was that he didn't have to come up with new tricks. Everything that used to work on Noct could now be turned onto his daughter. Smirking quietly to himself, Ignis scraped the spices into the pan.

"Was that all, or was there something you wanted to say?" he asked mildly, retrieving the cheese grater from its place of honor above the stove.

For a moment, she didn't respond. "Yeah," she said just as Ignis set to work on the block of cheese. "I, uh, wanted to ask you something."

Ignis paused. She sounded more nervous than usual―at least, more nervous than she usually was around him. Typically, she was only this anxious when they had a conversation about something that she didn't understand or when she was forced to meet new people. Or when Monica or Cor were in the room; she was still incredibly intimidated by them.

Assuming that the Immortal hadn't snuck into his kitchen while his back was turned, this probably meant that her question was a serious one.

Ignis set the grater down, wiped his hands on the towel hanging over the oven handle, and joined her at the table.

She'd taken her usual chair, directly left of where Noct usually sat, so Ignis availed himself of Noct's seat in his absence. "What did you want to ask?" he prompted, crossing his legs in the most casual way he could manage.

As usual, the poor thing wilted somewhat under his scrutiny, no matter how much he tried to be unimposing. "Um." She wrung her hands―an unfortunate habit that she'd, admittedly, probably picked up from Ignis himself―and glanced from side to side. "Um… how long until dinner?"

Ignis raised an eyebrow at the obvious diversion, and she squirmed guiltily in her chair. He softened at once. "It should be ready by the time your father gets home, unless he's early."

She scoffed. "Isn't he more likely to be late than early?"

"Perhaps," Ignis agreed, smiling faintly, "but I don't think that will be the case today." He'd only taken a cursory glance at the paperwork on His Majesty's desk yesterday evening, but he knew for certain that it was as dry as it got. Noct would be looking to escape as soon as he feasibly could, and Monica had today off, which meant there was no one there to stop him if he abandoned any papers half-done.

"More importantly," he said, steering the conversation back on track, and she hunched her shoulders yet again. "I doubt that was all you wanted to ask. Please, feel free."

She stared off at some distant point over his shoulder, nibbling on her lip, for another minute or so. Then she looked down, took a deep breath, and said, "I've been, uh… thinking about… a name. Recently."

That caught him off-guard. "A name," he repeated neutrally, trying to sound neither skeptical nor overly excited, so as not to put too much pressure on her. "You mean, one you would like to choose for yourself?"

"Yeah."

Ignis drummed his fingers slowly across the surface of the table. "That's wonderful news," he said when she didn't continue. "I'm very glad to hear it. Is there something related to this name that you'd like to ask me about?"

"Uh, yeah," she said quickly, and then fell silent once again. Ignis let her take her time and made a show out of getting comfortable in his seat. He had a feeling he might be in for the long haul here.

"Miss Iris says that I can pick any name," she said after a moment, though it came out as more of a question than anything. "She says, as long as I like it, you'll give it to me. If I ask."

Ignis would have to remember to pick out a nice, vintage bottle to give Iris the next time he visited Noct's inherited wine cellar. She really had been indispensable in building this girl's self-esteem.

"Yes," he said, "she's correct. I can't think of any name that I would forbid you from choosing."

She paused. Rocked back and forth in her seat for a moment. "So, even if I chose… Kitchen? Or, um… Steak?"

That might have given Ignis pause, were it not so abundantly clear that she was just listing things she thought might give him pause. "Those would certainly both be unconventional names, but I see no reason to disallow it," he replied, amused.

The tension in her shoulders hadn't been obvious, but it was very obvious when she relaxed. "Oh," she said, scratching the back of her head and looking anywhere but at him. "Cool."

A pause that stretched just barely into the territory of awkward silences.

She coughed quietly, then hopped off of her chair. "Thanks, Ignis. That's all I wanted to ask."

Doubtful, but he didn't want to push her. "Of course," he said instead, smiling genuinely as he, too, rose to his feet. "Any time at all, darling."

Crackling his knuckles absently, he returned to his task. With the unexpected delay taken into account, it was no longer looking like he would have dinner done by the time Noct returned, but that was fine. A slightly late dinner wouldn't kill him. Still, Ignis picked up the cheese grater immediately and set back to work.

This time, he was well aware that she hadn't left the room, but her second "Hey, Ignis?" still took him by surprise.

"Yes?" he answered, pleasantly surprised. It was rare for her to end a conversation and then willingly pick it back up again. Perhaps she'd found her courage, after all.

"Can I…" She bounced on her toes; it made a very distinctive thwack-thwack-thwack sound. "Can I watch you cook? Or would I… be in the way?"

"You would not be, and you most certainly may," Ignis said, smiling privately to himself. He found it hard to believe that she actually wanted to watch so much as she wanted to be close by, with Ignis right there to talk to if she worked up her nerve again. Either way, though, the answer was the same. "Here―"

Abandoning his work briefly yet again, he grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and dragged it up next to the counter, a cautious distance away from the stove. "You may stand on this, so long as you promise not to lean over," he said sternly.

With a hasty nod, she made to clamber onto the chair; he held up a hand to forestall her. "Allow me," he said, and he hooked his hands under her armpits, hefting her up onto the seat.

She giggled a bit, grinning widely, and his heart melted like butter. "I could've climbed up," she said.

"I know. But I was more than happy to assist." Ignis shot her a slightly distracted smile, then turned back to the cheese. "Right now, I'm working on the sauce for the pasta."

"Ooh," she said, and he chuckled.

"Yes, I'm well aware that it's your favorite. I've already minced the garlic and added the spices; right now I'm just grating some cheese. It typically comes in packages, already shredded, but that's a bit less common now, since the Long Night."

With a hum of acknowledgement, she looked over the counter, examining the other ingredients lined up. Ignis wondered if she noticed that almost everything came whole and unpackaged, or if that wouldn't register to her.

The Long Night still didn't really mean much to her, as a concept, since she'd never been outside to see its effects, but she understood what they meant when they referenced it, at least. She was quite a fast learner. Still, her upbringing hadn't had much in the way of normality, so it could be difficult to tell whether certain things flagged as strange to her or not.

"Hey, Ignis?"

He sprinkled salt liberally over the pan. "Yes, darling?"

The chair wobbled slightly as she shifted her weight. "If I… knew my name," she said, very slowly, "I could… tell you. Right?"

"Of course," Ignis said without a second's hesitation. "I would be honored if you did."

"Oh," she said. She toyed with the set of measuring spoons on the counter near her. He picked up a tablespoon, but didn't actually measure anything out with it. Instead, he simply waited.

The wait wasn't long. "Hey, Ignis?" she whispered, as if afraid that someone would overhear. "I… I think I know my name."

That much had been predictable, but Ignis's chest still swelled with an intense, irrepressible excitement. "Oh?" he whispered back, trying to match her tone so that she wouldn't feel silly. Putting down his implements, he turned around to face her, determined to treat the moment with the gravity it deserved.

"Well, then," he said, "may I ask your name, darling?"

For a moment, she chewed on her lip, staring fretfully down at her dangling feet. Then a familiar, steely expression crossed her face, and she craned her head back, stretching up towards Ignis's head. He dutifully ducked down until she could cup her hand around her mouth and speak directly into his ear.

"Aurora."

Ignis did not consider himself a particularly dramatic man. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he wasn't the type of man to blow things out of proportion. He generally preferred to take things at face value, rather than assign arbitrary meaning where it simply didn't belong.

With that said, the moment he heard her name, Ignis felt as if everything had fallen into place.

He was no longer standing next to a young, mistreated girl who shared Noct's blood; no longer cooking for his paramour and his paramour's daughter. He was standing with Aurora Lucis Caelum and preparing dinner for his family.

Or perhaps he was merely being overly sentimental.

"Hello, Aurora," he found himself whispering right back to her. She was staring up at him with big, starry eyes. "I'm very pleased to meet you."

She―Aurora―laughed, reaching up to cover her smile with one hand (another habit she had picked up from him). "We've already met," she said in a soft, amused voice, as if he were the child saying something ridiculous and she was the adult deciding to indulge him.

With an almost overwhelming warmth in his chest, Ignis reached down to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "So we have," he said. "Still, it was nice to meet you, regardless."

Aurora smiled, leaning into his hand when it lingered against her cheek. "Hey, Ignis?" she said yet again.

"Yes, Aurora, darling?"

She glanced away for a moment, almost bashfully, before meeting his eyes yet again. The expression on her face was open and hopeful.

"Can I call you Dad?"

Ignis's breath caught harshly in his throat.

He was well aware that he was gaping like a fool, yet found himself incapable of regaining his composure. Never in a hundred years had he hoped―well, yes, hoped, perhaps, but never had he expected― for a child with such a tragic origin and such a noteworthy father, such a noteworthy mother, to come to see him as―

"I―" he said. "I would―if you want―then―"

'Get ahold of yourself,' said a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Noct. 'I mean, come on. You didn't really think she would keep calling you Ignis forever, did you?'

No, perhaps not.

Ignis took a deep, shuddering breath. "If you would like to call me Dad," he said haltingly, "then I would be honored beyond words. I… already think of you as my own daughter, regardless. As long as we're being honest."

At that, Aurora brightened, reaching up to take his hand in both of hers. "Okay," she said. "That's good. I'm glad." She gently bumped her forehead into his palm; not quite a nuzzle, but equally as affectionate. "Thanks, Dad."

With that, she bounded off, vibrating with energy as she went, leaving Ignis speechless in her wake. Behind him, the oven beeped indignantly, demanding to know why it had been turned on if he wasn't going to use it.

"Any time," he said faintly into the already empty kitchen. "Any time at all."

Most of the ride back to Insomnia was made in stony silence.

They'd emptied out one of the transport trucks for the drive back to Insomnia, since there were no windows in the back and the sunlight was far too bright for the poor child's eyes. Glaive Viridis, who'd generously donated an old pair of sunglasses that now rested crookedly on the girl's nose, was driving; Noct sat in the passenger's seat for the sake of his knee, which had endured enough today; and Ignis sat in the back, the malnourished child held securely in his lap and Umbra's snout resting in hers.

Exhausted by the excitement of the past few hours, the girl quickly drifted into a restless sleep, finally relaxing into Ignis's arms. Noct, on the other hand, remained rigid and awake in the front, from what little of him Ignis could see.

Incapable of comforting him properly with a child asleep in his lap and Glaive Viridis sitting right there, Ignis simply stretched a hand over the seat to rub his shoulder soothingly. Noct had no visible reaction other than a soft exhale. Guilty at his own incompetence, Ignis removed his hand and settled back against the wall of the truck.

The road was uneven beneath them and tossed the truck relentlessly about. He tightened his grip on the girl.

Umbra whined, squirming closer so that he could rest his upper body in the girl's lap and his head on Ignis's thigh. With a sigh, Ignis obligingly scratched behind his ears. His tongue lolled out.

At last, after hours and hours, Noct's head slumped back against the seat. Bothered by his inability to see Noct's face for himself, Ignis shifted slightly―his legs were both asleep by now―and murmured, "Is he asleep?"

Glaive Viridis glanced away from the road, hopefully only for a moment. "Yes, sir," he responded quietly.

Good. His Majesty needed his rest if he was going to wake up tomorrow to find himself a single father.

(Shiva, just thinking that sentence warranted a stiff drink.)

Then the girl jerked awake in his lap with a startled gasp, and Ignis's brief moment of respite came to an abrupt end.

"Hello," he said at once, his voice scarcely louder than an ordinary exhale. She jumped again, and he carefully loosened his hold, giving her the chance to pull away if she wished. Unfortunately, she seemed to be too busy quaking like a leaf to move at all.

Ignis pressed his lips firmly together, restraining his instinctive urge to embrace her. "Do you remember who I am?" he asked instead, feather-gentle.

For a moment, it seemed as if the child would shake to pieces right there in his arms. Then Umbra licked her chin, pawing insistently at her knuckles, and she reached up robotically to place both her trembling hands on his head.

"Yes," she croaked as Umbra panted happily into her stomach.

Ignis smiled, even though he was fairly certain she couldn't see his face in her current position. "Good. Do you remember where we are?"

This one gave her pause, but she eventually ducked her head, sunglasses slipping perilously down her nose, and murmured, "We're going somewhere safe. Where… where you and the other one live."

In less dire circumstances, he might have laughed aloud to hear His Majesty referred to as simply "the other one". As it was, Ignis just hummed softly. "Yes, that's right. Very good. Thank you for listening so attentively."

Running her hands absently through Umbra's soft fur, she glanced around the back of the truck. "It was too bright for you outside, remember?" he continued when she didn't say anything else. "So we brought you in here, and this machine is going to take us to the safe place."

For a moment, the girl just sat quietly, her fingers still quivering minutely where they were buried in Umbra's side. "Can Bitey really come with us?" she asked tentatively, with a wary hope, as if she was afraid to ask because it might make him realize that the answer was no.

He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "Bitey?"

In response, she simply stroked Umbra's back; he butted his head affectionately against her hip.

So she knew Umbra―quite well, it seemed―and had come up with a nickname for him. Some of the pieces were beginning to put themselves together in his brain, now. "Of course he can come with us," he reassured her, and the girl practically deflated in relief. "Why do you call him Bitey?"

At once, the girl went stiff, and a small, startled noise escaped from her mouth. Before Ignis could backtrack, she whirled around in his lap, turning so that they were facing one another―and unseating Umbra quite rudely in the process.

"It―just a couple times," she stammered. "He―he just doesn't like it when Sir yells and he got scared. He won't do it again. I promise."

Ignis highly doubted that a Messenger of the Gods was scared of an old man; he was probably protecting the girl, not himself. He wondered whether it was a form of blasphemy to give a Messenger of the Gods a dog treat. Noct would probably know.

"It's okay," he soothed. "I know he won't bite again. I won't take him from you."

This time, the force of her relief physically knocked her down, and she slumped forward into his chest. Ignis tried not to move, knowing full well that she was only getting this close because she had no sense of her own boundaries, not because she actually trusted him or looked to him for comfort. Rubbing her back would likely only scare the poor thing.

Fed up with being excluded, Umbra huffed and pushed his way between them, depositing himself back into the girl's lap. She smiled, slightly tearfully, and buried her face into his neck.

Ignis bit his lip. Somehow, he doubted that being forced to hold a conversation would make her feel any better right now, even if he somehow could find the right thing to say. Still, he wanted to do something to put her more at ease.

He turned to glance over his shoulder. Through the slightly dusty windshield, he found an excellent view of the sun as it set over the horizon.

Perfect.

"It's a bit darker now," Ignis said in the same whisper of a voice that seemed to have soothed her before. The girl glanced up at him questioningly. "If you would like to look, I would encourage you―" Don't confuse the poor thing, Scientia; she's spoken to less than five people in her life― "You can look out the window if you want to. You don't have to, but it's very pretty out there, and I think you might like to see it. Just… Do you remember the big light you saw earlier? Up in the sk―on the big ceiling?"

Clearly enticed by the colors reflecting off the frames of his spectacles, the girl nodded quickly. Behind the tinted lenses, her wide eyes darted up to the window for an instant before hastily refocusing on Ignis.

"Good. I'm impressed that you remember," Ignis said, rather than letting himself get angry that she was afraid to even look away from him without permission. "It will appear smaller and closer to the ground, and a different color. It's still very bright, so try not to look at it for more than a moment. Alright?"

"Okay," she said at once.

With a smile, Ignis shuffled them around. He wasn't quite willing to let go of her just yet―he was afraid that she would be knocked over by the bumpy road beneath them―but he pulled his back off of the wall and sat facing the back of the truck, so that she could see the window over his shoulder.

"Go ahead," he said.

Ignis felt sick with rage every time he thought of the life she must have led―a confined, lonesome life that knew only dark, musty corridors and blinding artificial lights. The fact that she was more comfortable with him than with her own father, who she should know would never hurt her, was almost the greatest tragedy of all.

Yet now, as the girl hesitantly peeked over his shoulder and gasped so deeply that it nearly toppled her, he saw one benefit of this horrific situation. He had the privilege of standing witness as she saw her first sunset.

Nothing, objectively speaking, betrayed the beauty of nature quite like the sight of Duscae just before dusk. Vivid colors painting every inch of sky; scintillating light flickering off the surface of Alstor Slough; the shadowed peaks of Taelpar Crag and the Disk of Cauthess jutting up from the horizon―it was a sight that featured on many a postcard.

The child's eyes went as wide as the sun itself behind their protective lenses, and, an instant later, she removed the glasses entirely to get a better look. Probably unwise, but he hadn't the heart to stop her. Not when her sallow, splotchy face was bathed in a uniform scarlet light, making her look so much more alive than she had in the sterile light of the laboratory.

Mouthing wordlessly, she scanned the horizon. It may have been overwhelming to her, seeing so much of a word she didn't know, but she couldn't seem to focus on any one thing long enough to wonder about it.

Her eyes were always drawn helplessly back up to the red and orange and pink that streaked the sky. Ignis hadn't taken the time to marvel properly, but he knew from his previous glance that the sight was breathtaking―that it looked as if the firmament itself was ablaze.

He couldn't bring himself to look again, though.

Objectively, it may have been the most brilliant view known to man, but Ignis couldn't tear his eyes away from its reflection in the child's enormous, awestruck eyes, surrounded by a halo of wispy hairs which also seemed to be set ablaze by the setting sun.

The girl's resemblance to Lady Lunafreya was striking, but this look was all Noctis. Of this, he was certain, because he had committed that expression to memory more than a decade ago―when Noct himself saw the infamous Duscaen sunset for the first time.

Ignis had ignored that sunset, too, in favor of watching its reflection in Noct's eyes.

Some things, he supposed, never change.

Noct's knuckles had barely brushed the door before Aurora yanked it open and barrelled into his legs.

"Whoa," he coughed, stumbling a bit before he could catch himself on his cane. Even so, he couldn't help but laugh incredulously. "Easy there, kiddo!"

With a snort, Gladio ambled up the threshold and leaned against the doorframe. "Good luck with that," he said, sounding even more smug than he usually sounded when Aurora gave him trouble. "She's hyper today."

"Oh no," Noct mock-whispered, his voice thick with feigned horror, and Aurora cackled into his trousers. Gladio rolled his eyes fondly and vanished back into his rooms with little more than an offhanded wave.

Without waiting for him, Aurora turned and began to scramble down the hall towards their quarters. "Just hang on a second," Noct called after her, and she turned around to run back. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, kid."

"I'm not gonna get lost," Aurora protested, but, when Noct held out his hand, she grabbed it without a second of hesitation.

Noct started to walk at a much more sedate pace. "I know you aren't. Can't a man just walk home hand-in-hand with his daughter?"

She smiled and followed along beside him without a word.

For a while, they made their way down the halls of the Citadel in silence. What few Glaives they passed all bowed briefly to Noct, who nodded in return, and then waved at Aurora, who cheerfully waved back.

"Is Dad home yet?" Aurora asked once they were almost home, skipping along beside him and swinging their joined hands.

Noct had to double his pace to keep up. "Not yet, but―slow down a little, sweetie―not yet, but he'll be finished soon. Unless the mean old councilmen give him more work."

"They'd better not!" she declared with all the righteous anger of a child hearing about injustice for the first time. "They already did that yesterday! And the day before! You should tell them to stop, Dad."

Chuckling to himself, Noct gave her hand a little squeeze. "I'll be sure to do that," he promised, although he very much doubted that his word would change much. Returning to political stability was very important, he knew, but sometimes he longed for the days when it was just him, Ignis, Cor, and Monica making all the decisions. None of them would dare encroach on Aurora's Designated Dad Time.

When they reached their door, Aurora let go of his hand to run ahead and pull it open for him. "Why, thank you, Your Highness," he said, bowing deeply, and she curtsied with a flourish.

Sure enough, the lights were off and Ignis was nowhere to be found. Even though he'd predicted this, Noct found himself frowning into the empty sitting room. They'd had so few nights together as a family; not just recently, but in general. They should be making up for lost time, not losing even more.

"Hey," Aurora said suddenly, snapping him out of his reverie. "Will you read me a story? Please?"

Let it never be said that Noct was capable of denying his daughter anything. "I don't see why not," he said, and she cheered, bouncing enthusiastically on her toes. "Why don't you go take your shoes and socks off, and meet me in the living room?"

"Okay!"

She must have been feeling particularly impatient today, because she made it to her room and back out again, now freshly barefoot, in the time it took for him to reach his own door. "I'll be there in a sec," he tossed over his shoulder as she zoomed back into the living room.

He changed quickly, peeling off his raiment and digging some clean comfortable clothes out from the bottom of his dresser. Nothing was a bigger sign that Ignis had been overworked lately than the state of the overflowing laundry basket. Noct resolved to put a load in once they'd gone through the first story―because she almost always wanted a second and third, these days―and maybe see about actually getting the council off Ignis's back.

By the time he made it back to the living room, Aurora was already sitting on the couch, both of her arms wrapped around her favorite book of fairy tales. Noct sank onto the cushion next to her and accepted the book with a huff when she practically thrust it into his arms. "So impatient," he chided lightly.

His leg had been bothering him today, but not so much that he couldn't pat it invitingly. Beaming, Aurora scrambled into his lap and rested the side of her head against his chest. He lowered the book so that she would be able to read along; her literacy was technically still a work in progress, but, if nothing else, she could at least appreciate the illustrations.

Pictures had certainly been Noct's favorite part of books when he was a kid. He used to trace the constellations in Ignis's astronomy book with his finger, marvelling at the detailed drawings of what the lines were supposed to represent. Then, when he and Ignis snuck out at night to stargaze, he would point out every constellation he recognized and explain their stories.

At the time, he hadn't questioned why Ignis acted as if Noct was actually teaching him something he hadn't known, and yet always seemed to be able to finish the story if Noct forgot how it ended.

Smiling fondly to himself, Noct let the book flop open, its worn spine sagging in his hands.

"Alright, kiddo," he said, "which one are we feeling today? 'Titan and the Adamantoise'? 'The Golden Chocobo'? 'Cinisella'?"

As he spoke, Aurora wrinkled her forehead in concentration, mulling over her options. He paused to let her think. After a long moment, she reached up to stroke her chin thoughtfully with her thumb and forefinger, looking so very much like a tiny Ignis that Noct nearly melted right out of his seat.

"Mmm… no," she decided at length. "Those ones are boring. I already know all of them."

"Not sure there's a fairy tale in all of Lucis that we haven't read yet, sweetie," Noctis said, amused, but he dutifully flipped past the classics. It was true that they'd gone through the front of this book dozens of times. "How about one that we've only read once or twice? We could do… 'Little Red and the Clever Sabertusk'."

Aurora's nose wrinkled. Right―she didn't like that one. Too scary, she said. Noct kept looking. "Or how about…" As always, he skipped over 'Sleeping Oracle', which Noct himself had grown tired of long ago. "How about 'Nix Alba and the Seven Moogles'?"

She seemed to consider that one more closely, but she ultimately shook her head. "I want a new one, Daddy," she begged, pressing her head into his shoulder. "Pleeeeease?"

"Aw, sweetheart," he sighed. "You're not playing fair."

Drumming his fingers against his leg, Noct stared down at the book in his lap. They'd gone through it so many times by now that it was beginning to fall apart; he feared the day Aurora started to handle it herself and ended up tearing a page. He honestly didn't think there was a single story in here that they hadn't read.

With… one exception.

Noct flipped through to the very first fairy tale in the book, right after the Table of Contents. He took in a slow, slightly shaky inhale, then let it out.

He had to let go of his worries eventually. Aurora had been doing so well lately; she'd even been able to socialize properly with some of the other kids in Insomnia the other day. Granted, those kids had also been raised during the Long Night, so they weren't exactly untraumatized themselves, but being able to carry a conversation with anyone, much less another child, was an enormous step for her.

If she could handle chasing Umbra through the gardens―and being playfully chased by Gladio and Prompto when she refused to go home with Noct at the end of the day―then she could handle a fairy tale with a passing resemblance to her own story.

"How about this one, kid?" he suggested, his voice a bit more uncertain than he'd intended, as he angled the book towards her. She tilted her head to the side, curious. "It's called 'Allura.' I don't think you've heard it yet."

"I haven't!" she agreed enthusiastically. Stretching out a hand, she touched the slightly faded illustration beneath the title: a tall tower with a single window at the very top. A young girl was leaning out of the window, chin in her hands. The tip of Aurora's finger traced the long twist of the girl's braid as it cascaded down the tower to the ground below.

Aurora grinned from ear to ear. "Let's do this one," she said decisively. Luckily, she seemed to be too excited to question why he'd never read this one to her, even though they'd gone through the rest of the book at least three times over. She just examined the picture one last time, then leaned back into Noct's chest and made herself comfortable.

Right. Time to get over himself and give her the credit she deserved.

Noct shifted a bit until he was sitting comfortably, since he didn't want to have to pause the story to stretch later. Already, Aurora had begun to bounce excitedly, shaking his leg and making his brace rattle slightly. A helpless grin tugged at his mouth. The day she outgrew sitting in his lap would be a day of great mourning, indeed.

"Calm down, calm down," he said lightly, placing a hand on her head to hold her still. She brushed him off with a laugh. "I haven't even started yet."

"I knowww," she moaned. "Why haven't you? I wanna start!"

With a little laugh, Noct bowed deeply. "Your wish is my command, Your Highness." Then, as she rolled her eyes, he smoothed the pages out, placed his finger beneath the first line to help her keep pace, and cleared his throat.

"Once upon a time," Noct began, "there was a very poor man with a very hungry wife."

Aurora gasped softly. "Oh no," she whispered. "What will she eat?"

Despite himself, Noct smiled fondly. Talking during stories was a habit that he was in no particular rush to make her break. It bothered Gladio, but Noct just thought it was cute.

"You see," he explained, "the wife was pregnant, and she needed to eat enough for herself…" Removing his spare hand from her hip, he instead poked her lightly on the nose; she went cross-eyed. "…and her child."

She giggled and swatted his hand away.

"The poor man did everything he could to try to keep his wife full and happy, but they simply didn't have enough money to go around," Noct continued. The next paragraph of the story went into more detail about what dire straits they were in, but Aurora was already looking worried, so he skipped ahead a bit. "And then, one day, the wife looked into the garden of the evil witch who lived next door."

"If she was an evil witch," Aurora blurted out, "then why did they live next door to her? Shouldn't they move somewhere safer?"

As always, Noct was helpless to do anything but indulge her. "Ah, you're right, but, you see, they were too poor to get a different house. They were only able to afford this one because the witch lived next door, so no one else wanted to live there, and they could get it for cheap."

Aurora considered this gravely and ultimately decided that his logic held. "So, what did the witch do?"

"Well," Noct said, hastily trying to find his place in the actual story, "one day, the wife looked into the witch's garden, and she spied a patch of home-grown vegetables that looked absolutely irresistible." At Aurora's disgusted grimace, he added, "I know, right?" in a conspiratorial murmur. "But these vegetables were grown in a witch's garden, so even they could be delicious."

"Wow," Aurora mouthed, awestruck.

"So she beseeched her husband―that means begged―to go and barter with the witch for some of those vegetables," Noct carried on. "'I need them,' she cried. 'Nothing else could possibly sate me now!' However, what her husband hadn't told her was that they had just spent their very last gil that very day. Now, they had no money, much less anything with which to barter."

"Oh no!"

Noct turned the page. "Still, the husband loved his wife with all of his heart, and he would do anything if it would make her healthy and happy. So he decided to sneak into the witch's garden and steal the vegetables from right beneath her nose."

Aurora gasped. "Steal them? But what if he got caught?"

"He did," Noct said solemnly, and Aurora gasped again. "That very night, once midnight had fallen, beneath the silver light of the moon, he crept over the wall which surrounded the garden, praying that the witch was still asleep. He hastened to the patch of vegetables that his wife had seen and began to uproot the plumpest, ripest, most delicious-looking of the bunch."

Judging by the look on her face, she couldn't picture a vegetable looking "delicious" either, but Noct pressed on.

"So absorbed was he in his task―" Aurora was holding her breath― "that he didn't notice the witch peering out of her window. But she noticed him, and, the moment she realized what he was doing, she―"

Noct lurched forward suddenly, voice rising into a near yell. "―leaped into the garden with a crash of lightning!" Aurora squeaked. "The husband scrambled to escape, but he was far too slow; the witch gripped his arms and threw him up against the wall he'd climbed. In a shrill, furious voice, the witch spoke."

Oh, boy. This was gonna be rough. He cleared his throat.

"You rotten thief!" he shrieked, and Aurora dissolved into laughter at once. Fair enough. "How dare you steal from my garden! Did you think I wouldn't catch you? Why, I ought to turn you into stone for this!"

"Oh no," Aurora said through giggles.

"Trembling in fear, the husband fell to his knees and tried to explain. 'Fair maiden,' he said, 'please, it was never my desire to steal from you. My wife is with child, and I promised her I would buy some of the greens from your garden, as they looked so delicious, she simply could not live without them. But I have no money and surely none of my meager possessions would interest such a successful woman as yourself.'"

"She's not very fair at all, if she won't even share," Aurora grumbled.

Noct snorted. "True, but fair can also mean beautiful, remember?"

"Well, I doubt she's that, either."

"Do you want me to keep reading, or not?"

She did, as it turned out, so Noct went on to describe the witch's horrible, wicked plan; how she offered to let the man go if he gave her something in return: his child, once they were born. How, in his desperation, the man agreed and scurried back home to his wife. How the wife devoured the vegetables gratefully, not knowing the cost.

How, at last, the day came when their beautiful child arrived―and how, just as the man had forgotten about his deal entirely, the witch knocked on their door.

"The man begged and pleaded for the witch to leave them be," Noct said solemnly, "but she would not be turned away. 'I will either leave with the child you promised me,' she said, 'or I'll cast a curse upon your wife and child both.'"

Aurora's eyes were wide and worried. "Oh no," she said yet again, much more seriously this time. She worried the hem of her dress between her fingers. "What… what did they do?"

"The only thing they could do," Noct said. "Even as his wife sobbed and cried, the man tearfully placed a kiss on his child's forehead, prayed to the Astrals for her protection, and handed her over to the witch."

"No," Aurora breathed.

With a somber nod, Noct turned the page. "The child was a beautiful baby girl, and she grew into a beautiful young woman, with hair that shone like gold and eyes that glistened like jewels," he said. "And, since the rarest and most expensive of the vegetables that had been stolen from her was a cluster of allural shallots, the witch decided to name the child… Allura."

Aurora mulled over this for a moment. "What are allural shallots?"

"They're kind of like onions."

"Ew."

"Yep."

Settling back into his side, Aurora placed a finger on the page and slowly traced the word "Allura". She hummed thoughtfully. "I wouldn't want to be named after a vegetable," she declared at length, "but Allura is a pretty name." Then, as an afterthought, she added, "I still like 'Aurora' better, though."

Noct chuckled. "Yeah. Me too, kid."

Aurora listened attentively as Noct laid out the rest of the tale. How the witch kept her stolen child locked away in a tower far too high for any man to reach. How the only way in was to call, "Allura, let down your hair," so that Allura could toss her braid down as a rope and let the witch climb up. How she lived many long years alone with only the nasty, abusive witch for company, not even knowing that she had parents out there who missed her dearly.

How, one day, a Prince rode by and saw the tower just as the witch was entering. How he waited for her to leave, then called for Allura's hair and climbed up himself. How he and Allura fell deeply in love and conspired to run away together.

How the witch discovered their plan.

Aurora was speechless with horror as he described the witch's cruelty. She burned with indignation for Allura, who was stolen away and abandoned deep in a wasteland, with no hope of ever finding her way back to her love. She wilted with sympathy for the Prince who believed his beloved to be dead and was flung into a patch of thorns, which blinded him.

But, when Noct began to describe how the Prince wandered through the wastelands, having given up on ever seeing his darling again, Aurora's eyes went wide. "Yes, yes, yes," she began to chant under her breath while Noct explained how he began to hear a familiar voice echoing through the wastes and followed the sound.

"He moved faster and faster," Noct said in a low voice, trying to keep the tension high, "as he grew closer and closer to the sounds. He was stumbling over roots and crashing through low-hanging branches, but he did not care. At last, he came upon a clearing, and he pushed his way through the shrubbery, where he found his beloved Allura. They embraced one another at once, sobbing helplessly in their joy, and…"

Aurora was leaning forward in anticipation. "Yeah?" she breathed.

Noct dropped the book unceremoniously into his lap, abandoning it altogether. "And then," he said, "the witch appeared out of nowhere! She'd been spying on them, waiting for them to find one another!"

"No!" Aurora cried, reeling back in horror.

"But little did the witch know," Noct went on, "that neither the blind Prince nor her stolen daughter were as helpless as they seemed. As she lurched towards them, Allura drew a sword from her skirts, and the Prince removed a dagger from his belt, and they moved forward to attack the witch as one!"

"Yes!" Aurora shrieked.

Noct was now gesticulating wildly with both arms. "The witch flung her evil spells and curses at the couple, but she couldn't stop them. Wham!" He slammed a fist into his open palm. "The blind Prince followed the sound of her spells and tackled her to the ground, knocking her magic staff from her hands!"

Aurora pumped both fists in the air. "Go, Prince!"

"Then," he said breathlessly, "as the witch scrambled for her staff and the Prince snatched it away from her, Allura came up from behind―" He began to lift both hands over his head― "and brought up her sword, and then, with a mighty yell, she―!"

"I'm fairly certain that's not how it goes," Ignis said from somewhere behind him, and Noct jumped with an undignified yelp.

When he twisted to look over his shoulder, Ignis was leaning against the doorframe that led into the hallway, already dressed down, with his arms crossed loosely over his chest. "Specs!" Noct said, hastily snatching the book back up from where it lay discarded. "I was just, uh, reading Aurora a fairy tale! …How long have you been there?"

Ignis smirked. "Since around the time you began. You were already so invested―it seemed a shame to interrupt you."

Wincing, Noct scratched the back of his head sheepishly. Luckily, he wasn't forced to come up with a suitable explanation for giving their daughter's bedtime story a climax straight out of an action movie, because Aurora chose that moment to throw her head back dramatically.

"Da-aaaaad," she whined, "you interrupted the story! I wanna know what Allura did to the witch!"

With a shake of his head, Ignis pushed off of the wall and crossed the room to stand at the back of the couch. "I have concerns," he muttered, bending down to rest his chin on Noct's shoulder, "about the kinds of messages you're sending our young, impressionable daughter."

Ignis's hand came to rest at his shoulder and side in a half-hug, and Noct grinned at him cheekily. "What, you don't think Princes should fight off evil sorcerers with their significant others? Never took you for a hypocrite, Specs."

"Perhaps you should finish the actual story, now, love," Ignis said, "or our poor daughter may die of anticipation."

Noct opened his mouth to say something along the lines of, I think she wants to hear the end of my version, actually, but he never got the chance.

"With each teardrop that fell against his face," Aurora said abruptly, pulling their attention away from each other, "the Prince's scars became more and more faint. At last, he opened his eyes to find that his sight had been re-sto-red, and he was able to look upon his be-lov-ed once more." She had taken the book out of Noct's lap while he was distracted, and her eyes were now slowly scouring the final paragraph. "They re-turn-ed to his kingdom to-ge-ther, where they were wed that very spring, and they lived―" Here, she looked away from the page to smile triumphantly up at Noct― "Happily Ever After!"

She closed the book with a snap.

For a moment, Noct just stared at her, dumbstruck. Was this the same girl who had been struggling with every single word not too long ago at all?

"Very good," Ignis said from over his shoulder when he failed to respond, although Ignis sounded just as surprised. Either way, Aurora preened at the praise. "You've certainly improved quickly!"

"Uncle Gladio has been helping me," Aurora chirped, practically vibrating with excitement. "I wanted to surprise you!"

A bark of laughter punched out of Noct's chest. "Well, I was definitely surprised!" he said honestly, and Aurora beamed so widely that her eyes were forced almost entirely shut.

Not that he could judge. Even if he wanted to, Noct wouldn't have been able to stifle the huge, dopey smile on his face. Not in a million years. Luckily, he didn't have to―not here, in his own home, surrounded by his loved ones.

Taking the book from her and lowering it onto the coffee table, he placed his hand atop Aurora's head; she leaned into the touch. "You get that big ol' brain of yours from your father," he muttered, ruffling her hair.

Aurora wrinkled her nose. "Nuh-uh," she said confidently, "Uncle Gladio says you're dumb and I should listen to him instead."

That startled a laugh out of Ignis―not just a chuckle, but a full-on laugh, loud enough to make him drop his head into Noct's shoulder. With a scandalized gasp, Noct cuffed them each playfully over the head. "Such cruelty," he whined with much melodrama, placing a hand on his chest with false grandeur. "And from my own family."

"We have to be honest with you, Your Majesty," Ignis said through chuckles, "or else you'll never improve."

Noct feigned yet another over-the-top indignant noise. Giggling, Aurora butted the top of her head into Noct's arm, then reached up for Ignis's hand. He relinquished it to her willingly, curling his fingers loosely around her tiny palm.

"Hello, darling," he whispered. "Did you have a good day today?"

Aurora pressed her forehead against his knuckles, as she was wont to do. "Mm-hmm. Dad found a new story in the book."

"So I see," Ignis replied, shooting Noct a meaningful look that could have been anywhere from curious to proud. He was well aware that Noct had been putting this one off for a reason.

Noct couldn't really articulate the combination of realizations that had changed his mind, nor did he want to talk about it at all in front of Aurora, so he just smiled in a "what can you do?" kind of way.

Ignis raised an eyebrow―a distinctly "we will continue this discussion later" kind of eyebrow―but dropped the subject easily enough. "Well," he said, turning back to their daughter, "It's a bit late to cook, so we should finish up those leftovers in the fridge."

Aurora perked up.

"Yes, you may have the rest of your fruit salad."

"Yesss!" she cried, letting go of Ignis's hand and pushing herself off of Noct's lap. Halfway to the kitchen, she stopped dead in her tracks and turned sharply on her heel. "Ooh, Dad, are there allura shallahs in fruit salad?"

Ignis's poker face was nigh perfect, but certain mentions of certain foods had a way of cracking his facade. "There… aren't," he said carefully, failing to hide the way his eyebrows climbed up his forehead when she sagged in defeat. "Allu-ral shal-lots―" (Aurora mouthed the correction silently to herself―) "are best when cooked in a meal with other foods, rather than eaten raw."

Aurora looked ludicrously downtrodden for a moment. Then an idea audibly popped into her brain. "Can you cook something with allu-ral shal-lots in it tomorrow, then?" she asked, looking at Ignis with big, glistening blue eyes. "Please please pleeeease?"

Ignis adjusted his glasses. "No need to beg," he said after a slightly suspicious amount of time had elapsed. "If I can find some in the market tomorrow, then yes, I will cook them up for dinner, but that isn't a guarantee."

Aurora cheered like a girl who'd just won the lottery. Noct, who had once heard a drunk Ignis go on for twenty minutes about how it should be illegal to put a shallot in a meal unless you could write an essay explaining why you weren't just using an onion―and who was fairly certain that this grudge stemmed from that one time they'd trekked through Daurell Caverns in search of wild shallots because the markets were all out and Ignis was determined to make green curry soup for Prompto's birthday―didn't laugh. By sheer force of will.

"For now," Ignis said firmly, "finish up that fruit salad." As Aurora turned around and skipped away, he hastily added, "And don't try adding anything else. We don't have shallots, and you wouldn't like them raw even if we did."

"Okay, I won't," she called back, very unconvincingly, as she vanished into the depths of the kitchen. Noct snorted.

Shaking his head, Ignis leaned down onto Noct's shoulder again with a heavy sigh. "She doesn't get her taste from you any more than she gets her intellect," he teased, flicking Noct's ear.

There was a joke in there somewhere―something about being beset on all sides, or maybe a snide "at least she got my sense of humor"―but Noct wasn't a good enough actor to keep the gooey feeling in his chest off of his face. "Sure she doesn't," he said softly instead, tilting his head until it knocked lightly against Ignis's. "But just so you know, I was actually talking about you."

For the briefest of moments, Ignis's eyes widened, and he mouthed a silent "Oh." Then, at last, his expression melted to match Noct's.

"Her pursuit of knowledge, perhaps, had something to do with me," he said, his hand terribly tender where it stroked the side of Noctis's face, "but I do believe her tenacity couldn't have come from anywhere but you."

Noct twisted to shoot a smirk over his shoulder. "Calling me stubborn, Specs?"

Ignis didn't take the bait. He just smiled, leaned over to press a clandestine kiss to Noct's forehead, and corrected, "Strong." Then, with a roll of his eyes; "And perhaps a bit stubborn, too."

From the kitchen, Aurora loudly searched through the cupboards, presumably in search of some hidden shallots that Ignis may have forgotten about. Noct laughed softly, hiding his grin in Ignis's hand.

"Can't argue with that."