Disclaimer: I'm just a fucking nerd trying to calm my nerves during this decade. So, y'know, don't sue me. I don't have any money.
Ashes of Lucis
Chapter 27: What You've Always Wanted
Noctis. Open your eyes.
No. No, he doesn't want to. He'd rather lie here, still and in the encompassing dark for a while longer. He aches from all the running, anyway. From the fighting. It hadn't all been done with a sword in hand, but within his own mind, urging himself to get up and make it this far and take control of his life.
So no, Noctis decides, he isn't going to follow instructions. Not from anyone. Not anymore.
It isn't until hands take hold of him, hard and fast, that he jolts awake, thrashing to escape his attacker. With jaw set in determination, he at last manages to shake them off, pulls himself up from wherever it is that he'd been resting, and creates distance between himself and his assailant.
His own hands rise to the stretched collar of his shirt, fingers curling into fabric as he seeks to catch his breath. After a few minutes he manages to steady himself, steeled for another scuffle, this time prepared with dominant hand outstretched, seeking to call forth a weapon.
But try as he might, it refuses to heed his call.
Noctis growls, teeth clenched as he lifts his head, hot anger flashing across his face as he lays eyes on the last person he'd wanted to see.
"What the hell are you doing here?!"
There's genuine surprise written into the chancellor's face, unlike anything Noctis has ever seen on him before. He finds it unnerving.
"What a thing to say," he replies, head canted to one side. "Noctis, you are the one who called me here."
Noctis scowls, turns his head this way and that, at last settling back on his haunches in an act of bitter resignation.
Of course he can't summon his weapons here. He's once more wandered into the realm of the Crystal he'd seen in Insomnia, or someplace eerily similar. Regardless, it begs the question as to what Ardyn is doing in such a place, let alone that he's not behaving as his usual serpentine self.
"You're not... really here, are you?"
There's the pull of a smile, one that settles somewhere on the spectrum of amusement. Noctis recognizes that look all too well, recalling too many times where it had set his skin alight with anticipation and fear. But when that feeling doesn't come, he finds himself relaxing some, though still eyeing the other with a hint of suspicion.
"No," he says, voice quiet, even gentle. "Then again, neither are you."
Even face to face like this, no tension between them, they can't quite seem to communicate clearly. Ardyn is as vague here as he is in the real world, albeit much more tolerable.
"So who are you actually?"
"Hm. What an absurd question. You already know the answer though, don't you, Noct?"
He's uncertain, wondering why and how Ardyn could be here with him while the pair of them are more than an ocean removed from one another. Noctis lifts his head, eyes widening slightly.
"Are you telling me this is a dream?" He swallows around his words, doubt again rising to the surface. "Or is this... something else?"
"Well... it's not quite a dream. Not in the way you might expect."
"Then what is it? Where am I, and why are you here?!"
Ardyn sighs heavily, mirroring the man that Noctis had known as a child – the one with some measure of patience, even concern for what manner of mischief the boy had always managed to find. Had he ever really existed, that man, or had he been but another one of the many faces conjured and worn by the infamous Chancellor Izunia?
"This is a place that is, and is not. For now, it exists in your mind alone."
So he's crazy, is that it? Noctis snorts. How helpful.
"Fine, whatever," he snaps in return, dismissively waving a hand. He catches himself in the moment, flicks his eyes to meet the other man's gaze, noting the hint of a smile. "What?"
"You always did imitate your idols, Noct."
Yeah, so? It's become apparent lately that one of those whom he'd placed upon a pedestal had no business being admired in the first place. So he'd picked up a habit or two under Ardyn's wing. Big deal. This was his journey now, his life to live, and he'd be damned if this bastard – be he a figment of his imagination or not – was going to stand in the way.
"So... this is some kind of dream, or vision, or- or fucking hallucination. But that doesn't explain what happened in the swamp or why... why I've been seeing things since Insomnia." Noctis frowns, bites into his lip. Hard. "Or why, all of a sudden, you're so damn approachable."
The other man smirks, too reminiscent of his living counterpart, and shakes his head. It's only for a second, but in that moment, a hand rests atop his head, and Noctis is no longer a grown man, but a child staring up at his uncle with a heart full of longing.
"You really don't understand. What you're seeing, Noctis – imagining – is what you've always wanted."
There's little use for a tent by the time they return to camp, sopping wet and chilled to the bone. Prompto enters ahead of the others, shoving sleeping bags and belongings aside to make room for the three of them plus the man slung haphazardly over Gladio's broad shoulder.
"Careful now, watch his head."
The gunman looks on with discomfort and even dread as their rescue is deposited on the floor, a blanket thrown over top of him for a hopeful bit of warmth. It was a freak accident that they'd stumbled upon his bout with the cockatrice when they had, just in time to see lightning wind its way up a tree and send him plummeting to the ground. He'd won in the end, but almost at the cost of his life.
"Don't ya think he looks kinda... y'know, dead?"
He receives no answer for what seems like the longest time, staring down at the toes of his boots as the others seek to towel off with whatever happens to be in reach. His vision goes blank for a moment as Gladio tosses a shirt in his face.
"Can't be dead, bonehead," he says, and shakes his head like a dog. How fortunate that most of the rainwater seems to have been swallowed up by a pair of stray shorts he's used to dry off. Gladio looks at him pointedly, gestures to the man. "See that? He's still breathing."
"Point made." The small cloth Ignis withdraws from a breast pocket is thoroughly soaked and discarded, a pinched look on his face. "Now, if we could just get there without the name-calling, we would all be in excellent shape."
Even with stray droplets running down the length of his spine, Prompto can't help but grin.
"Yeah, dumbass. You heard the man."
"Uh, he was talkin' to you, too."
"Enough of the quarreling, please."
Any chance at lighthearted banter dies with Ignis' insistence, and the three of them sit together in relative silence, the only voice to be heard coming from the raging sky above.
Perhaps it's for the best. A man nearly died in these wilds, after all, and they'd been there to see it. Hell, he still could die after sustaining a fall like that and having effectively electrocuted himself in the midst of a rainstorm. Either way, from Prompto's perspective, his odds for survival aren't exactly great.
With the shirt still lingering atop his head, he sighs, blue eyes fixated on the steadily breathing figure of the stranger. How funny. Something in him longs to reach out to this man, dry his hair as if he's an old friend rather than someone that he and his companions had just dragged in out of the rain. But he doesn't, instead pulls knees to his chest, hands clasped in front.
"Is... Is he gonna die?"
The rain itself seems to still at the utterance of those words, and when the seconds tick by without a response, Prompto lifts his gaze from the floor.
Both Ignis and Gladio appear stone still, their eyes unmoving and fixated on the man who so unknowingly occupies their space. There's open dread etched into their faces, perhaps even the same longing the gunman himself had felt only moments ago.
Why?
"What aren't you telling me?" he says, a slight edge to his voice. Even being welcomed into the Crownsguard by Cor, by these his newfound friends, people he'd admired since boyhood, he can't shake the feeling of being on the outside of things, of being purposefully left out of the loop. "Who is this guy, Ignis?"
The pause is unsettling, but even had it lasted days or even weeks, Prompto doubts that he could have been at all prepared for the answer:
"This man, Prompto... is Prince Noctis of Lucis."
