Pain was the last thing Ardyn remembered.
No. He remembered the humiliation too.
He'd never thought of himself as a fuck-up before then. How could traveling Eos and purging it of the Starscourge possibly be the wrong choice? His method wasn't the most conventional, sure, but it worked. And yet, the day he was supposed to get access to the crystal's magic, he got burned. Literally. He couldn't even pick up the ring the crystal had spit out.
All he heard was Bahamut saying that he had become the Starscourge and therefore wasn't worthy of the crystal's magic.
It was pure bullshit, in his humble opinion.
But what else was he supposed to do? Watch people suffer when he knew a way to free them of the Starscourge?
Bahamut never did give him an answer to that question, not even when the newly formed Crownsguard (minus Gilgamesh for some reason) dragged him away from the crystal.
Not even when they tied him up.
Not even when they stripped him naked.
Not even when they beat him mercilessly.
Not even when he prayed for an answer.
Not even when he was suspended by his wrists, staring up at the lone source of light in the cave he'd been kidnapped to.
And certainly not when he looked Somnus in the eye right before his heart was pierced and ripped out.
No, Bahamut kept quiet through all of that.
It had been a strange thing, seeing his own heart skewered on the Oracle's trident, beating all the way up until it was unceremoniously flung to the ground at his feet.
As the world went dark, he knew this whole show was just to add insult to injury. He'd learned on his travels that if you really wanted someone dead, you beheaded them. Plain, simple, and effective. It sent a message. But this? This was just cruelty.
He was willing to let it go when the light hit him. There was a throne. Rose petals. His name on the finest tapestries, like the ones he saw in that ocean-side trading town. Ardyn Lucis Caelum I.
And then it was gone, the image almost purged from his mind.
Bahamut was there this time and he was flat-out banished from the Astral realm, too impure to even rest in peace.
Waking up after that could only be described as an ordeal. Ardyn tried to breathe but no air would come in; how could he breathe with no heart?
Better yet, why couldn't he just die?
The only thing that dulled the monotony of sleeping and struggling for breath that just wouldn't come were the few hours or so where the sun shined down into his prison. At least he was warm then.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he felt something like an itch in his chest. It got worse and worse, eventually blossoming into pain.
When he finally bothered opening his eyes, he was greeted with the sight of scourge pouring out of the hole in his chest.
What is this…?
It made horrible bubbling noises before dripping down his body, leaving icy trails its wake, but it didn't seem to do anything.
Well. He closed his eyes again. Unless the scourge would kill him, he wasn't interested. He didn't feel any closer to death so it could do whatever it wanted.
The real problem arose when he woke up gasping for breath. He felt his heart beating, his chest expanding. The hole was gone.
What the fuck.
He struggled against his chains for the first time since he was brought to this infernal place and they broke quite easily. But how…? They were made of a mythril and adamantoise alloy; there's no way anyone could break them barehanded unless they were old.
He knelt on the ground, right in front of where he knew his heart had been. There was nothing left but an ugly stain.
How long had he been here?
Ardyn looked around the cave. Empty, save for dim runes and an old satchel. The clothes inside were…his? They smelled stale and were probably a bit too big now. But where did they come from? He dumped out the satchel and looked for something, anything that would tell him who brought it here. But there was nothing. No note, no monogram. Nothing.
Maybe it was Gilgamesh. Ardyn hoped it was Gilgamesh, that at least one person out there understood what he was trying to do.
He got dressed, his limbs stiff and uncooperative the entire time, before trying to find a way out of the cave. He didn't remember how they brought him in and even if he had, he didn't have any way to clear a passage. The only way out was up.
How was that going to work…?
Ardyn paced around the cave. So he was alive. Not that he wanted to be, but he was. And now he was stuck in a cave.
The crystal's magic was of no use. It was…distant. Insurmountably distant. Maybe one day that thin thread of a connection to Bahamut's tainted magic would be useful but Ardyn needed magic he could use right now.
He needed to warp.
As he stared up at the hole in the ceiling, he felt something stir in his chest. It felt like magic but not quite. He drew on it anyway—what else did he really have to lose at this point?
It took quite a few tries to get this new power to work with him. He didn't like warping without an anchor of some sort so it took even longer. Eventually, he found himself under the night sky. The air smelled of ocean mist and rain, a nice change of pace from the stale air of his prison.
The moon outside was bright, though not so bright he couldn't see. He took in the lay of the land and let out a bitter laugh when he saw Angelgard Island in the distance.
How cute. Somnus even remembered to have him interred over Galdin Quay.
Ardyn knelt next to a puddle, not sure what he expected his reflection to tell him. He needed a shave quite badly but it didn't look like he'd gotten any older.
Everything seemed to be in working order. Whatever power he had, he would learn to use.
First, he needed to find Somnus.
Some weeks later, Ardyn found himself hunched over a pile books in an old Solheim library not too far from Ravatogh.
Of course Somnus was dead. Had been for a hundred years according to this book and the ten others he'd pulled from the shelves.
He slumped in his chair, idly leafing through one of the Cosmogony booklets some religious nut had forced him to take.
Several weeks of fishing and chocobo riding and camping and pretending he knew what people were talking about when they said, "It was only a few years back," and Somnus was dead.
No, Somnus wasn't dead. The Mystic, the Founder King—that's who was dead. Arrogant prick even in death, Ardyn thought. No wonder Bahamut chose him.
The scourge started to push its way to the surface—it always did when he was angry—and he forced it back down. The less attention he drew to himself, the better and his more…daemonic visage was sure to draw attention.
According to the teachings of Cosmogony, only the so-called Chosen King could rid Eos of the Starscourge. They were probably the only person who could kill Ardyn considering the scourge had rebuilt his body over the last century.
So he'd wait for them. Not like he had anything better to do.
He couldn't even go piss on Somnus' grave because the crystal wouldn't let him near the center of the Lucian kingdom. It was a crass and rather petty desire, sure, but it was only fair. Somnus saw fit to dump his naked, semi-lifeless body in a dingy cave by the coast with nothing but runes from the Oracle for company. A little piss on a grave paled in comparison to that.
But there were plenty of other things to get into. Anything that would mar Somnus' reputation and in turn hurt Lucis, he would participate in wholeheartedly. If Bahamut had a problem with it then he could go shove the Oracle's trident up his ass.
Ardyn pushed all the recent history books aside and focused on the thick tome that detailed the fall of Solheim. There were still remnants of the once great kingdom everywhere and better yet, there were people alive who wanted to recapture its glory.
Those bastard Astrals were thorough in destroying Solheim's technological advancements; no doubt that was why their war ravaged so much of Eos. It would take time for people to decipher the ruins and texts even with Ardyn's assistance but that was fine. He had nothing but time.
No matter what happened, if his plans to support a new Solheim failed or if the Chosen King was really just a myth, Bahamut would come to regret not letting Ardyn die. He'd make sure of that.
Inspired by the execution official artwork. Title from Shadow from the Tomb by Warbringer.
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