I'm back and have to admit something: This chapter has been sitting on my computer for ages. It was finished and I was quite happy with it, yet as I'm still unsure of the exact pacing of the story (some of you have complained about it being too slow and that they didn't care for the politics), I don't exactly know if the next few chapters are good as they are right now. This story relies heavily on politics and pacing will remain slow for a while. After all, Noctis would want to ensure that his father wasn't simply killed yet again as soon as he left Insomnia. Yet I do appreciate your reviews so far and if you think the story should progress faster and with less detail, I'll try and change the chapters accordingly.
Alternative title of this chapter: Throw Patience out the Window
Oh, that could have been bad! Noctis knew that he'd only scanned the faces of the Council out of habit, had unconsciously looked for Drautos because he'd thought him creepy as a child. Back then, when Noctis had been little more than ten years old, he'd made it a habit of always knowing just where in the room the man with these cold, angry eyes stood; a habit that he'd never quite shaken off, apparently. Had Drautos actually been present….Noctis didn't want to think about it. He just knew it could have gotten really ugly, really quickly…
'It still could get ugly, love,' Luna was quick to remind him. 'Undoubtedly everyone not present for this meeting will receive a report of just what transpired. The ones that were present will also be eager to talk about your newly-found confidence. Drautos will be informed about everything that was said by the end of the day, if not sooner.'
The noise Noctis made was very much like the one a wounded animal might produce. His hair stood on end and by the feeling of electricity rippling through him he knew his eyes must be glowing with the presence of Ramuh. A presence that his father felt as well, if the way his spine straightened was any indication.
"Son?" Noctis swallowed, his throat uncomfortably tight all of a sudden.
"Sorry...I just...remembered something."
"Anything I should know about?"
"Yea, probably."
"Something the crystal showed you?" Noctis wheezed, trying to get sufficient air into his lungs to answer. The more morbid part of his brain wondered, meanwhile, whether he actually still needed air to survive or if he'd simply drop unconscious any second now. Finally, with a painful cough, the pressure on his lungs eased a bit.
"Sort of. It's about Drautos. I think I've fucked up a bit…"
"Son, I know I sound like a particularly old man right now when I remind you to please mind your language, but in the light of recent events and your new status as Champion...just...please mind your language."
"You are right, you do sound old when you talk like that. Let the poor boy curse if he wants to." Cor had climbed the stairs three steps at a time and now had the audacity to look not even the slightest bit winded. Clarus at least had the decency to take a few quick breaths after finishing his ascent.
"You requested our presence, your highness?" Cor snorted at the tone Clarus' voice had adopted.
"Oh, it's your highness now, is it?" he mocked. Clarus merely gave the swordsman a disdainful look that was betrayed by the twitching of his own mouth, obviously fighting not to smile.
"Well, he already fired his entire Council today, you can't really fault me for trying to keep my job"
"If you two are quite finished," Regis interjected and the two men straightened almost unconsciously into a proper stance, "I'd like to get on with this. There is much to discuss, a lot that needs our immediate attention. I've already informed you two about Noctis having been announced as next Oracle. Now, there have appeared a few more complications."
Clarus sighed, throwing Noctis a fond, but tired look.
"You couldn't just have gone through puberty like a normal person, could you? Normally, parents have to worry about their kid trying drugs or taking the car without permission, not about their child becoming the next new Astral Being."
"Sorry?" Noctis tried. Clarus just shook his head.
"Don't worry about it, Noct. You'll get my psychiatrist's bill in the mail."
Noctis raised an eyebrow at the banter.
"I don't think my allowance covers your medical bills." Cor snorted.
"I'm sure they don't, but then again, the entirety of Insomnia couldn't pay for Clarus' mental health."
"Most likely," Regis interrupted once again, yet still with a clear hint of fondness in his tone. "Still, my son informed me that the Crystal granted him a vision and what he saw apparently wasn't at all positive. But more about that in a second. We first have to discuss how to deal with the repercussions of the recent actions."
"You mean you firing our entire Council at the drop of a hat?" Regis sent Cor a withering stare.
"Yes. I mean the dismissal of my Council. People will try to vent their anger on Noctis, undoubtedly, seeing as he's the easier target out of the two of us. We will have to -"
"Ignis and my son should be able to handle the situation," Clarus interrupted. Apparently the idea that Regis thought that Gladiolus might need help protecting the Crown Prince didn't sit well with him.
"Noctis will be under supervision all day. I want someone inside the apartment at all times."
"Preferably someone that isn't some creepy stalker," Noctis mumbled under his breath to Luna. And while it had the desired effect of making Luna laugh, it also caused everything around him to become terribly quiet. When Noctis looked up from his comfortable position on the floor next to his father's leg, he saw that the men around him had fallen silent. Cor had adopted a particularly impressive expression that, had it been directed at Noctis, would have actually intimidated the ancient king. When Noctis craned his head over his shoulder to see his father, he saw that while Cor's expression promised a slow and painful demise to the unlucky fool that had snuck into Noctis' apartment, Regis had grown still and unreadable.
"Since when do you know of this stalker, as you've called it?" Cor asked. Noctis shrugged.
"I don't know since when the guy steals into my apartment," Noctis was interrupted by small but fairly distressed noises reaching his ears. "but my neighbor told me about it this morning. She thought it was one of my friends, apparently the guy looks a bit like Prompto but bigger. And with glasses. I actually told her that I'd ask you, Cor, whether you'd hired someone new to keep an eye on the apartment, just to calm her down."
"So you do listen sometimes," Cor mused before turning to Regis. "I'll inform Drautos that I require two of his-"
"No!" Noctis interrupted. The men turned their attention back to him. "I mean, Drautos can't know."
"And why is that?" asked Clarus. Noctis blinked owlishly at the man, unsure how to explain that he'd entrusted Drautos with his father's life, only for the head of the Kingsglaive to quite literally stab him in the back. He didn't know if it would be very wise to tell them that, while it hadn't actually happened yet, Noctis wanted to see Drautos die a messy and painful death.
"Noctis, you can tell us. Nothing that you say will leave these halls. You will be safe."
Noctis suppressed the urge to laugh. It wasn't his safety he was particularly worried about.
"I know Drautos is the spy your Council accused me to be today. I know that he's under direct orders of Niflheim, though they know him as General Glauca. You can look through his things, you should find plenty of mails that will seem dubious enough, although I doubt that he's quite stupid enough to leave anything seriously incriminating behind."
"Is that what you've seen; what the crystal has shown you?"
"Oh, you don't want to know just what I've seen. I'm summarising. Drautos is Glauca, here to betray us as soon as Niflheim is through the shield."
"Nothing can penetrate the shield," Clarus said indignantly. "As long as the king lives."
"I'm aware, Clarus!" Noctis snapped, jumping to his feet. Silence fell once more as the last of Noctis' words echoed through the spacious room. "Believe me, Clarus, I've listened to the lectures you all gave me and contrary to popular belief, I'm not stupid."
"Nobody thinks you're stupid, Noctis," Regis tried to placate.
"Well, apparently they do, if I'm told things that every child knows by heart. The Shield remains strong as long as the blood of Lucis persists. I know that. And I know what it means to see the Shield fall. To see Insomnia overrun by deamons. Why do you think I'm suddenly so interested in politics? I'm going to singlehandedly corrupt and destroy Niflheim's political infrastructure if necessary. Everything the crystal has shown me, everything I've seen will not come to pass as long as I -"
"Noctis, calm down. We are not your enemies here. Tell us exactly what you've seen inside the crystal."
Noctis breathed deeply, trying to calm himself down and prevent himself from accidentally summoning one of the Astrals, after all.
"I've seen Insomnia negotiating with Niflheim, Glauca stabbing the king in the back and Insomnia overrun by deamons. I've seen everyone dead and the world swallowed in darkness. I've seen one of my best friends blinded and traumatised and myself too incompetent to act upon it. A jester on a bloodstained throne and his puppets, strangled on their own strings, dangling above our heads."
'You are aware that you just doomed yourself to a year of constant therapy?'
They needed to know though, Noctis thought, or they'd never get anywhere.
"If any of this is true and you've really seen all these things happening...we would need to act immediately. A spy in our midst and holding such an important position at that…," Cor sighed heavily, raking a hand over his short, bristly hair. "Something like that could have devastating results during an attempted coup d'état...or even during a simple negotiation, as you said."
"Noctis," his father finally mused, the first thing he'd spoken in quite a while, Noctis now noticed. "Do you swear that all of these things you said are true and you've seen them happen through the crystal?" Had he been any younger, Noctis knew that he would have been offended at the notion of his father accusing him of being a liar. But as it happened, Noctis wasn't young and naive anymore and he realised that his father had to ask, had to make sure before acting. Accusations such as high treason were by no means to be taken lightly; on neither side of the accusation.
So instead of throwing a fit like the moody teenager he was supposed to be, Noctis nodded.
"I swear that I've told you the truth about what I've seen and that I've acted, to the best of my knowledge, in the best interest of Insomnia by telling you." His father nodded, although the worry never left his tired blue eyes. Cor simply used the moment of silence to step forward, back straight and a hand on the hilt of his katana.
"Asking for permission to apprehend the traitor, my king?" While Clarus gave Cor an unamused look for being an absolute hypocrite, Regis just bowed his head.
"You have it. Have two of your most trusted men search through Drautos' possessions. His mail, his phone, his computer, I want everything looked through with a critical eye. Tell them that this is of the highest priority and failure to find anything could have dire consequences for Insomnia. Clarus!"
"Yes, my king?"
"Tell someone to shadow my son's apartment. I want everyone entering and leaving his floor accounted for, as well as the apartments directly below or above it. Both of you will also go through the members of the Kingsglaive, choosing two of your most trusted, and most competent to be assigned the task of joining Noctis' personal Kingsguard. Permanently. He will need all the trustworthy people he can get at his back when the time comes for him to become the new Oracle."
With nearly synchronized bows, Cor and Clarus left the throne room, leaving the doors wide open in their wake. Noctis watched as his father raised an eyebrow.
"You have them rather worried, I see. Clarus at the very least usually closes the doors on his way out. I'd almost feel sorry for Drautos...alas, I only worry about the state I'll find him in, once he's brought before me. Cor will probably see to it that Drautos tries to flee, just to be able to give chase. Cor can be scary like that, at times...still, you did well today, Noctis. I can't imagine retelling events like these to be easy."
'Did I ever mention that your father deserves an award for excellent parenting?'
'You did not,' Noctis mentally mused, 'but I agree. He may not always have done the right thing but he always tried to do what's best for me. I think he always did that, but truly became fixated on keeping me safe when the daemon attacked me. The Spirit of the Crystal telling him that I was the Chosen King, the one to die by my father's sword to defeat the darkness...I think that was too much for him. All he wanted for me was to be alive and happy.'
'And we will see to it that we can fulfill his wish, this time around. We will bring an end to the Darkness and you live to see the pride in his 'll see to that.'
'Not just me. This time I want all to live; I want to save as many as possible.'
As it turned out, saving everyone wasn't nearly as easy as Noctis might have thought. While Drautos was quickly apprehended, he'd had enough time to send word to Niflheim about Noctis' newly found political prowess, as well as his plan to make Loqi and Ravus spies within the Niflheim troops. Unsure just how far Noctis had gotten with his plans, Niflheim found itself backed further into a problematic situation than it might have liked. Within a week, word reached Insomnia that Niflheim had publicly executed Loqi, with no remorse on the political and military repercussions that such an action might bring. Niflheim made it clear that it had more than enough able manpower for a single man to be easily replaceable the moment they drew the ire of Iedolas.
The only good thing about the whole situation was that it forced Cor and Clarus to finally settle on the two Glaives that would be responsible for protecting Noctis alongside Gladiolus and Ignis. Nyx Ulric had been chosen by Noctis himself, a request that his father immediately granted, probably thinking that this was part of Noctis' grand plan-in-the-making, when in reality it had been a favor for Luna. She didn't want to see someone that had once saved her life fall in the battle for Insomnia all over again. Nyx had agreed on this new position almost immediately, especially once he knew that he wouldn't simply abandon his best friend and fellow Kingsglaive member. Libertus Ostium, his childhood friend had taken up the role as new Captain of the Glaive, training under Cor until he would be able to manage to deal with the responsibilities on his own.
The other member of the Glaive that had been chosen to become part of Noctis guard, was Crowe Altius, a quirky young woman with an immense talent for magic, surpassing even Noctis in the field with that combined package of talent and motivation to prove herself. To be honest, there were times Noctis was almost scared of her, when she cast spells that wove through rows of training-dummies without so much as touching them before exploding in a fiery ball of death on the target. He'd sent a video of it to Prompto, along with the words not to worry about him and that, no, he wasn't dead, nor had he forgotten his blond friend but that he might require saving from this madwoman some time soon.
Prompto's reaction was both immediate and to be expected: Proclaiming his undying love for Noctis' new Guard. Amused, Noctis had handed the phone to Crowe, who'd laughed and given the phone over to Nyx who, after asking for permission from Noctis, typed a reply to Prompto that he in fact felt quite flattered at the confession but unfortunately, Prompto wasn't at all his type.
The banter helped to ease the anxiety Noctis felt about not being able to leave the Citadel anymore. The reports of the Glaive members stationed stated that they'd seen multiple people on Noctis' floor, either tenants with apartments on the floor, visiting relatives or workers, there to fix some of the multiple issues inside the building. The only consistent visitor of the floor without their own apartment had been, according to the reports, the person Noctis had told them about. Yet no matter how much they dug, the Prompto-lookalike remained a John Doe with no actual information to his person. Yet so far, the person had been clever enough not to enter Noctis apartment anymore and they couldn't simply arrest a civilian for mere loitering, no matter what nuisance as he was.
That, combined with the events of Loqi's execution, gave Regis enough reason to permanently pull Noctis from school without remorse, even going so far as to put the young prince under house-arrest until the situation was less of a safety hazard both to his mental and Noctis' actual health. And so it became Prompto's duty to keep track of the syllabus of each class and bring Noctis worksheets, test papers and homework twice a week. Ignis then would go over everything with the two boys, making sure both of them understood the content. While Noctis was amused at how serious his friend took the task of teaching the future of Insomnia everything he could, it was terribly frustrating not to simply throw his poor Chamberlain for a loop, each time it was time for a test. With the combined forces of both his ancient knowledge and Luna's neverending wisdom, they were more than capable to fulfill the high expectations of their Chamberlain. Yet with the danger of word getting out to Niflheim yet again that Noctis was apparently more of a danger than previously evaluated, both Noctis and Luna decided that it would be the best to play the normal, only partially-motivated teenage-prince, doing well enough for Regis to be satisfied with the results (not Ignis though, as his Chamberlain only ever was truly satisfied with perfection, no matter the task), yet not well enough for anyone to question his sudden knowledge of the history of Lucis.
It was during one of these tests, with Ignis trying and failing to explain Prompto just why the boy would need integral calculus as future member of Noctis' Kingsguard, when the message reached the kingdom that Magitek Troopers had attacked Ravus in an attempt to rid Niflheim of yet another possible spy. The man, while still alive, had suffered rather extensive burns and was in dire need of medical attention.
Before Noctis had fully registered the words, his body was already moving, Luna having taken control in her panic. If not for the endless trust he put in his wife, he might have screamed when Luna suddenly opened a window and jumped out, neatly warping down to the training ground of the new Glaives. Ignis, however, seemed to put less trust in Noctis' abilities, if his distressed shout was anything to go by. But Luna did not look back and instead sprinted over to where Libertus stood with Cor. The rain that by now was a near daily companion for Insomnia made the whole ordeal a bit more difficult, Noctis' bare feet slipping on the smooth stone that covered the area. Both men turned around as the noise of Noctis sprinting closer.
"How is he?" Nocis found himself asking, breathless and panicked, as soon as he stood in front of Libertus. The man looked visibly startled that the Crown Prince not only came to an admittedly impressive, skidding halt in front of him, but didn't seem to be the least bit affected by the 50 foot drop out of his window. Cor on the other hand, looked affected enough for the both of them, quite concerned and more than a little bit angry.
"And just why is our Crown Prince standing in front of us, outside, in the rain, barefoot, in the middle of November, without at least one member of his Kingsguard with him to keep him protected?"
"Ravus," Luna replied for Noctis. "Is he alright? How is his condition? Where did they bring him?" The two men seemed confused at Noctis sudden interest in the white haired man, yet Luna wouldn't be deterred now. She was on a mission.
"I've just been informed that Ravus was injured due to my and Drautos' actions. Seeing as he was attacked as an ally of Lucis, I assumed you're bringing him somewhere where you can assure his safety. Seeing as areas like these are rather rare for us at the moment, I assumed that you'd bring him here." Luna explained her train of thoughts deliberately slow. Cor sighed in irritation. One hand on the hilt of his sword and the other raking through the bristles of his short hair, he regarded Luna with a weary expression.
"I don't even know what you've been told...or by whom, seeing as I didn't dispatch anyone to actually inform you just yet while we still weren't sure of the situation...see here, your highness, Ravus was attacked on Niflheim territory. We can hardly march into there and risk a preemptive war for one person, no matter who it might be. I don't how you actually know him or what your relationship with him is...but it could take a while before we can act."
"But he's safe?" Luna asked, fear making her borrowed voice waver. Cor sighed.
"He's been brought to one of our outposts that we still have behind enemy lines. He's as safe as a person can be at a place like that. But...just for the record, it will take a while until he might reach Insomnia."
Luna did not take these news well. Within moments, Noctis was thrust back into control of his body and mind, with Luna having retreated so far back inside his consciousness that he almost couldn't make out her presence anymore.
"Now that we've cleared that up, I'd usually go with reprimanding you for standing before me as you are, with neither shoes nor Shield, but I believe latter's already on his way to do precisely that," Cor mused, looking over Noctis' shoulder into the distance in clear amusement. "And while Gladiolus still has a lot to learn in the way of both temper and swordsmanship, he'll be perfectly capable of reminding you just why your father just issued you two more personal guards…"
Noctis was about to reply when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.
"So, you wanna tell me why Iggy just called me about our royal Highness jumping out of the window?"
Noctis looked up over his shoulder to see his Shield towering over him. His expression was calm, yet Noctis could see the storm brewing in Gladio's eyes. Noctis didn't have to be a millennium old to know that he was in deep trouble.