[Original Tags:] POV You Are Ardyn | Bodyswap? | events are slightly canon divergent | premise is Obviously canon divergent | welcome to my twisted mind

When you came to your senses, there was nothing around you but open air. You probably should have felt more concerned about this, but it seemed natural, almost peaceful. You floated in the space as if in water, as if the air were a thick, but fully breathable jelly.

What was this place?

There were stars, but it didn't look like any photos of space you had ever seen-the sky was still deep, navy blue, and there was nothing else to be seen but distant stars.

No familiar sun, no moon.

No Eos.

That concerned you a bit more than your whereabouts did. Still, a lazy contentment settled over you. The only danger was boredom.

A light shined up ahead, drawing your attention. Perhaps it was because there was nothing else around, but you felt yourself drawing closer to it of your own will, half hovering, half swimming towards the curious light.

Your hand reached out, feeling somehow alien as you moved, to touch the light that was now within arm's length.

The moment your hand made contact, something intense pulled, starting at your hand, but quickly pulsing outwards to the rest of your body. The light grew much brighter, blinding you temporarily. You waved your hand, as if shooing away a cloud of smoke. When the light dissipated, you saw another figure across from you in your returning vision.

Your eyes were still unfocused, but you were slowly starting to make out your own features across from you, as a mirror image. It didn't fully occur to you that your movements as you stared at your reflection didn't fully match your own. The reflection placed a hand on its own chin, but you hadn't done the same. It seemed irrelevant to you.

The fog in your mind felt as though it was thinning, but you only just began to think that this might be the strangest dream you've ever had. It wasn't that strange, exactly, but that's what felt so unusual about it. There was nothing but you and your reflection, hovering in place. A feeling of disconnection flashed into your mind, but it was a comfortable one.

You turned your face away from your reflection, only looking through the corner of your eye. There was nothing wrong with your body, but you felt that distinct disconnection in the waking world as well. It brought you no joy. You took no pride in it, but it was yours. It might as well have been someone else's, it made no difference to you.

Just as these thoughts started running through your head, your reflection reached out its hand to you, a motion that caused you to freeze with anticipation. The reflection's right hand brushed yours, grasping it with a smug look. Its eyes flashed up to you, an otherworldly gold overtaking them before you blink and they were back to their normal color.

"Forgive me, but I believe I'll be borrowing this for a while," said your reflection. "But don't worry, I won't abandon you here. Hey, what say you to a trade? Oh, please say yes."

Before you could say anything at all, your reflection joined its other hand with your already clasped hands.

"Consider this a loan," it said, a lazy purr entering your voice.

An black ooze formed from your clasped hands that began to fully engulf your hand. It bubbled as it spread, covering your arm. Your mouth gaped, and you looked up at your twin with a confused expression, though you felt no cause for alarm. Despite the slime quickly enveloping you, you felt completely at peace.

"Keep it warm for me, dear, won't you?" asked your reflection, turning away from you.

The ooze tickled at your skin strangely, but it didn't hurt. Turning your hand over to inspect it, you held it up to your face. Something seemed to urge you on, to allow it to spread unhindered. You joined your hands together, meshing your fingers as it spread to the other.

Both hands fully covered, you dragged them down your face, smearing the substance across your skin and covering even your vision in an inky blackness.

And then everything was dark.

"-ve," a voice cut through the darkness, now replaced with a blinding light.

Your eyes shuttered open. The sudden change forced your eyes to adjust, but only enough that you could see figures rushing around you, past the light. Someone's hands grabbed at you - multiple hands? - and you felt yourself fall to the ground at last. What had been holding you up? Your aching wrists gave you a clue. Everything around you was pitch black, unlike the space in that quickly fading dream, but now you knew you were back in the real world, though nothing was familiar.

"Just as the ancient texts told," the voice laughed.

A groan left your lips as you were supported by two men on either side of you, the sound weaker and raspier than you expected. Your mouth was painfully dry.

"Don't... Don't touch me," you gasped, heaving your chest as if regaining the ability to breathe.

"Take him away," said the man before you, his face still concealed almost entirely by the shadows as you were forced to your feet.

You could see the night sky outside. Had the light truly just been the full moon all along? You had never seen a moon that bright before.

Your legs felt numb as the men on either side of you forced you to walk, each carrying one of your arms. Their armor rattled with each movement and gleaned in the moonlight, startling you even further. Where the hell were you? Who were these people?

The uniforms weren't familiar, and they weren't from Lucis. Their garb mimicked chainmail of old, similarly wearing huge bucket helmets with just a visor to see out of.

You passed your captor on shaking legs that threatened to give out, and moments later did , as the guards carrying you didn't seem to want to give you the chance to regain your own footing. Your legs dragged against the ground uselessly, too weak to struggle as you were still not fully awake despite your fear and confusion.

The only military force you knew of worth any mention was the Empire's own army, and admittedly you had never seen an Empire soldier up close before, but they rarely bothered Altissia, even though Accordo was really just a puppet state. Come to think of it... None of your surroundings looked anything like Altissia either.

The moon reflected off sandy blue crags surrounding you as you were pulled along, a buzzing in your ear too loud to make out much of the chatter of the soldiers around you.

"Ready the medical team for arrival."

That much you heard, but you realized quickly that you didn't care where you were, only where you were going, and when you tried to ask, a soldier trained a gun on you.

You eyed the rifle somewhat blearily, but you said nothing more as you passed them. Your voice scarcely worked, and there was nothing worth saying worth risking your life for before you even had a chance to understand what was happening.

A shout was heard ahead of you, and new figures arrived on the scene, though these ones dressed head to toe in black with double rows of brass buttons, with some kind of head covering that hid their faces. They were all armed, though they carried different weapons to each other, which manifested in their hands as if by magic.

Kingsglaive...? The soldiers at your sides dropped you suddenly, your face slamming against the dirt as you fell. You lifted your head weakly, suddenly aware of how chilly it was outside now that your face and arms were covered in scrapes. You pulled your hands to your sides, afraid as the soldiers and the Kingsglaives fought, they might not be so careful where they stepped.

The soldiers were no match for the magically enhanced Kingsglaive, and when you pushed yourself to your feet, you were the only one standing. And the Kingsglaives had their weapons pointed at you.

This was, perhaps, a bad time to notice that your hands were not the ones you knew, and the reason you were so cold was because you were completely shirtless, and your torso didn't look anymore familiar to you than anything else around you. "What...?"

"Adagium sighted!" one of the glaives shouted, just before advancing at you with their sword drawn.

You didn't know what Adagium was, but you threw yourself back to the ground before any harm could come to you, forcing yourself to roll to one side to avoid the boot of the glaive standing over you.

The others started to move in as you tried to pull yourself back to your feet, a nausea building in your stomach.

You were too slow.

As you rose to your feet, something had pierced your side, itching as though you had nicked your finger with a kitchen knife, rather than a sword buried in your skin.

The realization of the sword embedded in your body sent you over the edge. You roared from pain and rage, a cracking, but guttural sound that caused the previously cocky glaive to stumble back from you, swordless.

You grabbed the hilt of the sword, against your better judgement, acting just on instinct to remove the weapon at all costs. No sooner did the tip of the blade exit your wound, the sword vanished from your grasp and returned to its owner. But looking down, your wound had also vanished before a single drop of blood could be spilled. You touched the place tenderly, ignoring the hardened feeling of this midsection that was attached to you as you searched for the entry point of the sword. There was nothing, not even a scar, though it was obvious the flesh had been marred before. A similar tingling was taking place now in your leg as you became aware of another Glaive shooting at you.

Enraged, and empowered as you swiveled around to glare at the one with the crossbow (the guard shrank back in fear at the sight of you), you lunged at them, throwing your weight at them with wildly swinging arms until they collapsed. It felt like something was unleashed in you, and the soldier with the sword started to scamper away from your grasp.

Something lodged itself in your thigh before you could pursue the crossbow, a lance, which you gripped so tightly that it seemed to evaporate, but what you felt was another story. No, rather than disappearing back to its wielder or even being destroyed, you could feel it within you, somehow. Something raw told you to try and summon it yourself, and as you did, the lance reappeared in your hand, the pain in your leg already gone.

It wasn't as though you knew how to use a lance, and your body was still recovering, but that rush of adrenaline was back, fueling you entirely as you skewered the Kingsglaive in front of you. The motion, these feelings didn't feel like yourself, but they did feel good. Something in you felt satisfied as you acted, overcoming your initial fear.

The body hit the ground with a thud, and you used your foot to hold them down while you removed the lance, swinging it at the other two remaining guards next.

You closed the distance between yourself and the enemy before you even realized you had moved, and one by one they fell. Even as two more arrived, they fell more easily than the first three. For whatever reason, you were their only concern.

"I'm not letting you leave this island, Adagium ," spat a new voice.

You turned, and looking towards the new arrival, one with a long, mean looking sword, you saw the sea. You were unsure where that left you, but it was indeed an island. But that no longer concerned you.

Another cry from your throat, and you threw aside the lance, charging at full speed towards the man with the sword, your feet once again carrying you faster than you expected as you slipped behind him. You swung with your right arm at him from behind, beating him until he staggered on his feet. And then you did something that stopped you long enough to be shocking, even in your frenzy.

You placed your hands on the man, one gripping his shoulder, the other on his chest, forcing him to stumble to the ground. Power bubbled up from somewhere inside you, and began to eb from your hands, while something else flowed back into you. The man was dying, giving his life freely to you, and his body began to seize, spitting and snarling ferally as he pitched his fit, but you didn't release him.

No, before your eyes, you could see the city of Insomnia, a place you had only been to once before, but now could see as clearly as day. In the back of your mind, you recognized these to be the man's memories, though how you knew that, you weren't sure.

Before you, the man went still. A black smoke had covered him, and your vision returned just in time to begin swimming instead. The human form was gone, oozing some kind of black slime that seemed to replace his very being. Your head felt foggy, and without warning, so incredibly heavy. Was this... A daemon ? Had you done that to him? You'd seen them once or twice, they were afraid of the light and stayed away from the city, but there had been increasing numbers of sightings, photos. Attacks were only uncommon because people stayed out of the streets at night.

Here in the pale moon, you had created one.

You looked at your hands, strangely long and rougher than you remembered.

The man who ordered you captured earlier spoke again. Was he still here?

"Incredible!" he said in disbelief, but with a laugh. "This power is unbelievable!"

You could only make out his face for a moment before you lost yourself again, falling against the dust and into unconsciousness once more. The power, and your energy had faded, leaving you with nothing.

[Original A/N] Hello everyone, I'm inebriated at the time of posting. Not sure what possessed me to write this, or to what end, but I'm still going apparently! Too bad for you.