Screams in the dark.
Ignis hadn't woken in that fashion since they were all quite small. As he understood it, Princess Reina's Dreams had grown less intense with age. Or at least less terrifying. But tonight she had Dreamed as she had not for years and she would wake for none but the king.
When she did, it was as a disparate woman. Only yesterday, she had been homesick, stricken with grief at leaving her father behind, and reticent well beyond her usual reservations. She had awoken resolute, focused, and authoritative. It was similar to the passion with which she took charge when His Majesty's health faltered, but intensified several times over.
She issued orders with a practiced confidence that left no space for alternative: "Get in the car." Of course they went. One did not stare down a coeurl and suggest that she might, perhaps, prefer not to electrocute and eat them.
Reina halted him with one hand on his arm. She took his glasses, reducing the world to a foggy haze; only her face was clear. Doubtless he hallucinated the rest: her fingers soft against his cheeks, tracing lines beneath his eyes. She stared at him as if she had never seen him before—or hadn't expected to again. He couldn't breathe, much less compose a response or a question. Here he had thought she was the only one meant to have such vivid dreams.
She told him his eyes were beautiful.
The way she looked at him was an impossibility he had never allowed himself to consider. He had thought—Reina and Gladio, surely. And yet, it was Ignis whom she pulled aside, Ignis whom she spoke to in that voice—low and intimate and holding so much more than childhood friendship—and it was Ignis whose face she had touched with such familiarity.
Hallucination was the most reasonable explanation.
Had he been a better man, he would have articulated an eloquent response. Instead he found himself wishing his brain would turn to soup in that instant. At least he knew what to do with soup.
He did say something. Doubtless he made a fool of himself, but later he could not remember a single word that spilled from his mouth.
She turned and left him standing, wide-eyed, for what must have been a full minute.
Noct punched his arm. Hallucinations were not meant to hurt. "Come on, lover boy. You driving or what?"
Ignis recalled his mind to his body. "Ah—yes."
Driving. Yes. To Insomnia. As the princess ordered, so it would be.
Ignis stepped one foot before the other all the way down the slope to the Regalia and climbed into the driver's seat. Even with his glasses returned to the bridge of his nose, the world seemed blurry. A glance in the mirror granted him a glimpse of Reina's face, but no further insight on their exchange.
Ignis started the car and pulled onto the road. A few moments of silence ensued, before Noctis put into words what they were all wondering.
"So… you gonna tell us what's going on?"
"I wouldn't know where to start," Reina said.
"Maybe with… why are we going back to Insomnia, even though Dad said not to?"
"Because the empire is coming. And not for peace."
"What?" Noct asked. "You mean they're going to—what—try and take over Insomnia?"
"In a word, yes."
So the treaty was mere pretense. Yet Ignis could not believe that King Regis had been entirely deceived by the ruse, which left but one possibility.
"Your Highness." Ignis eased off the accelerator and the Regalia slowed in response. "Forgive me, but if the Crown City is in danger, is it not possible that the king sent you away expressly to keep you safe?"
"Of course he did," she said. "My father has always suspected that Niflheim meant nothing but ill to come of this treaty. He has only allowed us to believe otherwise to avoid exerting his will overmuch."
"Then I cannot, in good conscience, drive the two of you into danger when His Majesty has forbidden this."
Unless she gave him an excellent reason.
She leaned forward in her seat, half-standing so her face was level with his. The look she gave him might have bored holes in his skull.
And she gave him many.
"If we do not return to Insomnia in time, the entire city falls—our father, Gladio's father, your uncle, and a quarter of the civilians will be dead in forty-eight hours. Niflheim takes over Lucis, but that means very little in the long run. Luna dies in Altissia a few months later." She glanced at Noct. "You never have the chance to speak with her."
Then back to Ignis— "You put on the Ring of the Lucii to save Noct's life. They take your eyes for that and you never see again. You spend years struggling to adapt. Noctis disappears. The sun sets and never rises again—eight years of darkness follow. And in the middle of all of it, just when you think we might make it through, I push you away. I break your heart. In ten years time, when Noct returns, you'll wonder if I'm even human anymore—you'll be right to wonder."
Ignis struggled to keep pace with the stream of information. All of this she had Dreamed in one night? Years of darkness and hints of a relationship between the two of them. He burned to know the full truth but feared to learn it. Even now she wasn't through.
"And when everything is finally over, when we've salvaged what little can be saved of Eos, when less than ten percent of the world's population still lives, when every tree, every plant, every wild animal is dead, I will take Noctis' place and spill Caelum blood to pay for the dawn. By that time the only thing I will feel is the cold ache of exhaustion and an overwhelming desire to just sleep."
Her gaze burned on him throughout. The others gawked at her; even Ignis pulled his eyes from the road more often than was prudent.
"But we can save them all, Ignis." When next he looked, she had drawn closer. "I know what to do. Insomnia need never fall. No one has to die. But I need your help."
Ignis pressed his foot to the floor.
They were two hours from Insomnia. They made it in seventy-five minutes, give or take. The ride was silent as each of them mulled over thoughts of the dark future Reina had glimpsed.
Had she really Dreamed years of time? It seemed impossible. She had scarcely spoken of her Dreams in his presence, but Noct had once explained she struggled to distinguish reality from Dream, and that the memories formed of the future were not fleeting, as from any mundane dream. These memories were much the same as waking recollections.
And so she had experienced ten years of time, which would hopefully never occur, and she would never forget.
Small wonder she was different.
The gates of the Crown City loomed ahead. Closed, as they always were. Ignis slowed the Regalia to a halt, and a gate guard advanced with one hand raised.
"Apologies, Your Highnesses," said the guard, "But we have been given explicit instructions from the king, himself, not to allow you entry into the city. You'll have to turn back."
Reina heaved a sigh. "He's as stubborn as I am."
Like Father like daughter. Never could it be said that Reina had not inherited King Regis' legendary stubbornness. As such, the chances of her accepting this dismissal and walking away seemed slim to none. Ignis turned in his seat to look at her.
She held her hand out to Noctis. "Noct, I need you."
"Uh—" He took it after a millisecond of hesitation.
Blue-white light burst from their clasped hands and a hundred strands of magic reached out from Noctis to wrap around Reina. His magic bound to her more intensely than it had to Ignis or any of the others that Noctis had shared his power with.
"Thank you." She released his hand and leaned forward to give him a hasty hug. Then she stood and let herself out over the boot of the Regalia.
Ignis gripped the steering wheel hard. He should have been at her side, but if she had wanted aid she would have asked for it. Even so, he could not fathom how she thought to walk past them. Under the king's orders, they were certain to stop her, regardless of their misgivings about manhandling the princess.
One of the guards lifted his hand as she approached. "Princess Reina, I must insist that you rejoin the others and be on your way. We cannot allow you to pass."
"I wasn't going to ask for permission, but I will give you a choice: step aside and let me drive into the Citadel like a princess, or I will take myself there like a Caelum."
The guard glanced at his companion, brow furrowed.
"I don't believe you can do that, Your Highness." It was almost a question.
"Of course you don't. I always was the well-behaved one." Reina sighed. She glanced back at the car. "I'll have them let you through as soon as I talk some sense into Father."
"Rei—what are you gonna do?" Noct was standing up in his seat.
"What I should have done ten years ago." She turned back around and strode straight toward the guards.
"Your Highness—" Both stood with hands lifted, blocking her path.
One step she was outside of the gate. The next she wasn't. A trail of blue shadows traced the path she hadn't walked, straight through the guards. A frozen second passed before both guards spun around. By then it was much too late. Reina warped again, leaving a vertical blue trail that climbed the gates and vanished inside the Wall; before any of the dozen guards in the vicinity could take a single step toward her she was thirty feet away.
Prompto whistled.
"Damn." Gladio stood in his seat and leaned over Prompto's. "Thought she couldn't warp."
"She couldn't…" Noctis said.
The four of them watched—half shocked and half in awe—as blue streaks cut across the Insomnia skyline, up to the overpass, and straight toward the Citadel.
Ignis cleared his throat. "Over-unders on fifteen minutes?"
AN: Forgot to mention we're back on Monday-only updates. Sorry about that; I know you all got used to the twice-weekly ones. Even though this story is finished and pretty much edited, it ends in a place that begs a sequel and... I don't... have a sequel written and I can't start until I finished Onus 3. I might be able to finish Onus and get Shattered Dreams 4 started in the time it would take to post this story at a Mon/Fri pace, but I'm going to err on the side of caution here. I figure you'd rather have these weekly chapters and no break between Restored and part 4 than have bi-weekly chapters and an indefinite gap between Restored and part 4. If I get all caught up and a nice head start on the next story, then I'll go back to the Mon/Fri schedule. Until then, Mondays only. Sorry about that. They are shorter chapters, too, so I apologize, but I was more focused on breaking where it made sense than worrying about length.
So, yes. That's Shattered Dreams part 4 confirmed. No title yet, but there's a long time before anyone needs to worry about that.
Also, if you haven't checked it out, already, go listen to the Fractured audio drama! You can find it here: -HNAqYus5pw (you know the drill: copy-paste, delete the spaces, and sacrifice a goat to the ffn link-bots). It's 50 minutes long and covers approximately the first 14 chapters of Fractured. A bunch of talented volunteer voice actors put in a lot of work to make this a thing (and let's not talk about the time I spent figuring out how to actually edit audio and perusing sound effects on YouTube), so go listen! It's excellent! (And I don't just say that because I wrote it, I swear.)