III – Valse di Fantastica
By Chronic Guardian
Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Eleventh Hour, Week 3: Last Danceand Final Fantasy
WARNING! Spoilers for FFXV. If you do not know how the original game ends, specifically how the Starscourge is overcome, turn back now.
High noon and Eos was shrouded in darkness deep as midnight. Noctis blinked blearily up at the sky as Talcott drove down the familiar Galdin byway, trying to warm the truck cabin with small talk about how the world had warped in the past ten years. Ten years of his people picking up the pieces after he disappeared into the crystal…
Ten years for him to absorb the reality of his role in all this.
He would be leaving them again soon enough. The chosen king of Lucis had returned to offer his life in exchange for the world. On a cosmic scale, it was a token traded for a trove. On the personal scale, it was a price almost too steep to consider.
He could try to justify his hesitance with high words, that too many had already sacrificed for his life to throw it away now or that his father and fiancee would have wanted him to live, but the truth was simply selfish. Noctis loved the world, and his heart ached that he would have to leave it now.
Then again, if he didn't go through with this, then there wouldn't be much of a world to love anyway. He could either wait until every light went out and every face he loved was lost in darkness, or he could cut his time short and break the nightmarish spell over the land.
It was a hell of a deal to consider, but it was what they had on the table.
Noctis sighed and leaned back into the upholstry, trying to soak in the moment as best he could. The sweaty smells of tire rubber, succulents, and dust coming up from the desert roads; the feeling of paint flaking on the side of the truck like a shedding reptile skin. The things that probably would have irritated him when he first left the crown city were now strangely comforting as signs of a living world. He closed his eyes and imagined the sun that had beat down on him and his companions as they had pushed the Regalia to Hammerhead.
"Say, you remember Iris?" Talcott interrupted the reverie. "Gladio's little sister?"
"Yeah," Noctis breathed and tried to focus on the conversation. Of course he remembered Iris. He'd had to dance around her feelings ever since he'd found out she had a crush on him, finding some kind of healthy middleground between boundaries and still finding a some place in his life. He didn't dislike the girl, but her attentions had sometimes felt like she'd forgotten he was engaged.
If nothing else, it sounded from Talcott's tone that she'd survived the scourge. No need for mixed feelings on that front.
"Well, she's become a daemon slayer," the younger man said, admiration warming his voice. "She's really locked in with the crews on the Western front, anywhere from Meldacio to Ravatogh. But you know what? I heard she's headed out towards Liede recently on an EXINERIS power line survey. Who knows? We might even run into her at Hammerhead along with the guys."
"Oh," Noctis paused. He should feel happy at seeing a familiar face, but mostly he was so focused on the task ahead—on facing Ardyn and setting the world to rights—that it struck him more as an inconvenience. He bit back on saying so, thankfully, but that still left a beat of awkward silence before Talcott picked up the conversational slack again. With a sacrifice of such magnitude looming over them it felt kind of… well, frivolous to visit with family friends.
And yet, maybe there was still something left to say before he left them all behind.
He'd never been a great orator. He scraped by alright in debate class, but without Ignis prodding him through the editing process he'd never churned out anything better than half-decent.
That didn't mean he wouldn't try.
}{
By the time he made it to Hammerhead, he had a few ideas. It couldn't be too much time and it couldn't really be anything outside the facilities. No fishing, hiking, stargazing, riding… they'd be hard pressed to do more than a conversation. But if Iris was coming all this way out of her usual rotations, he knew she would be expecting something, and Gladio certainly wouldn't let him get away with a quick wave before heading into the fire.
More for his sake than mine, Noctis reflected, managing a small smile at the thought. The King's Shield was loyal and true, but he also pulled double duty as a doting older brother. No matter how the final battle ended, Gladio wouldn't let it start without making sure Iris was looked after first.
In a way, that was part of what he was fighting for: Silly little things that meant the world on a personal level. It was the kind of stuff that filled his days with his brothers in arms, forging memories in the lands of Lucis even in exile; browsing Prompto's photo shoots, sloppily chopping meats and veggies for Ignis' meals, and busting his butt to beat Gladio in a dawn-patrol footrace.
If it was something like that, then maybe he could justify it to himself a little more.
Slipping out of Talcott's truck, the crown prince thanked his make-do chauffeur and squinted at the sallow pools of streetlights doing what they could to reclaim the compound. Of course, as one of the last bastions of mankind in the face of the Starscourge, it looked great compared to the desolate surrounding landscape. Noctis shook his head at the blue-light tinted concrete and headed for the Pittstop while he waited for the others to show up.
He didn't get far before she found him.
"Noctis?" Her voice had settled in the intervening years, roughened a little around the edges, too. He turned to face the woman who had grown up in his absence. When he'd left, Iris was just a starstruck fifteen year old, still trying to navigate hunting monsters and articulate her big feelings without getting herself into trouble.
Apparently her work had hardened her fashion sense. Moving beyond breezy skirts, she now wore dark, functional hunter's gear: a sleeveless vest for unrestricted arm movement and baggy, pocketed trousers that she'd tucked into her boots. She'd put on muscle in the intervening years, too, shaved off some of the babyfat that used to soften her profile, and her eyes had sharpened and deepened with the weariness of life.
Still, she smiled, and he smiled back.
"Hey there," he said evenly. Noctis wasn't one for gravity if he could help it. Even putting his lack of natural talent for the grandiose aside, the world was heavy enough without him playing along.
Iris laughed, but kept her distance. In older days, she might have rushed in for a hug, but something was holding her back now. "Gladio and the others should be here soon," she told him. "I… might've snuck ahead to clear the path."
"Yeah, power line survey, right?"
"Well…" she pursed her lips and tilted her head to either side. "Right up until I heard Talcott on the scanners, yeah."
He blinked. "Oh. So you… knew?"
"Suspected," she corrected quickly. "I… Well, if I said this was the first time I rushed after a hunch, I might, maybe, kinda be lying just a bit. It's just..."
"...It's been a while," he finished for her. The palpable awkwardness tempted him to look away, and a younger Noctis might have, but right now it felt important to see this through to the end. A thick, unresolved question hung in the air between them, a kind of wondering of where they stood with eachother, that he'd never taken the time to settle all those years ago.
Well, no time like the present, right?
"You're a good kid, Iris," he started, trying to focus on the positives for his opening. "Er… young lady, I guess."
Her face fell and he rushed to try to salvage the statement without quite knowing what was wrong. "You've always been there for us, cheering us on any way you could. Thanks for that. Even if it was just for a little while, I don't think the journey would have been the same without you."
"You'd probably have headed out for Altissia sooner," she murmured, glancing away. "If I hadn't asked for us to stop..."
"Are you kidding?" He waved it off, "I was grabbing any chance I could get to see the world beyond the walls. Even if you hadn't been there asking, we would have found a reason to check things out. With or without you, getting to Altissia on time was my call. It's..." he stopped short, wondering if he was assuming too much by putting things like this, then decided to trust his gut and just go for it, "It's not your fault I couldn't save Luna."
"...I was jealous of her."
So that was part of it… He took a deep breath, but kept his silence and just nodded. It still hurt to talk about the woman who had lost her life paving the way for his destiny, who had fallen without witness or reward. If he tried to say something, it would probably be stepping into the deep end of his own unresolved feelings on the matter.
"I know it's stupid," she went on, "I mean… I got to see you more than she did, and we even fought side by side, but I just… I admired you so much, and thought you were so cool, and I just… I wanted what she had."
Trying not to be offended on Luna's behalf, Noctis let the confession play out as Iris unburdened her soul. Maybe she also knew where this was all going, or somehow sensed this was her last chance at closure, but either way it wasn't a time to let tempers and pride get in the way.
"Anyway, I get that it's all just a fantasy," she finished after a while. Tears had formed, but she was fighting to hold them back as her lips balanced between a forced smile and a sobbing grimace, "I know that you and I can't be a thing. I love you a lot, Noctis, but I also know I'm..."
She lost the battle with her emotions and had to look away as she doubled over and tears leaked to the pavement.
Noctis, who had never been particularly good at reading people, ran through a few possibilities to try to fix the situation before he could rationally approach what needed to happen. The first option that came to mind was simply retreating and waiting for his retinue to show up, but that still left dealing with Gladio, who would then strong arm him into apologizing to Iris. So he kept thinking.
He could try denying what she'd just said, but then he'd be invalidating her feelings and also lying. A hug at this point would probably calm her down, but also further complicate things. He wanted to give her closure, but he wasn't just going to to play into her dream scenario to make her feel better. He'd already tried that. He needed to close the cycle, and it looked like the only way to make that happen would be to come clean.
"Iris," he began, subconsciously crossing his arms, "I'm going to stop Ardyn."
She nodded without looking up and choked out a reply. "I know. And I know this is so stupid to bring up now. But it's been ten years, Noct, and I thought so many times about… about what I'd say if I ever got to see you again, what I'd do if I could just get a moment alone with you."
"I'm sorry I can't be your plaything," he sighed, trying hard not to put on a harsh tone as he talked about the harsh realities she seemed to be running from. "Sometimes we can't have what we want, right? Sometimes, I guess, maybe we're not even supposed to have it. But it's a big world, Iris. And there is so much to have, and love, and wonder in. I'm not going to marry you or anything, but that doesn't mean you're nothing. Really. It was nice to have you as part of this journey. As part of…" His mouth twitched as he cast about for words. "Part of me," he said after a second.
That was it. The journey across Lucis had been more living than he'd done in the rest of his years combined, and every piece of it was precious. He'd thought he'd known who he was before, but it wasn't until those days and nights under the open skies that everything really came together.
And Iris, even if he didn't see her in the romantic light she wanted, had been part of that. She'd been someone to share it with alongside his brothers in arms. She would carry the memories of those times into the new day once Noctis broke Ardyn's eternal night. She was a part of the legacy he was leaving behind. Not a lover, not a footnote, but a worthy friend.
Stepping forward, he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. She hiccuped a sob, then embraced him. He hugged her back, holding her fast in the drifting darkness of the current world, and thought of the first time they'd met. She'd gotten lost trying to track one of his escapades getting out of the castle. By the time he found her and brought her home, it had started to rain and she'd taken a nasty fall down a park slope. He took responsibility for it then and had paid dearly with his freedom for years to come, but it had been the right thing to do. Part of her now reminded him of that same scared little kid who had just needed someone to hold her hand.
Maybe there was one last thing he could do for her.
"Hey," he patted her head and scanned the distance, making sure he wasn't about to make a scene. He could see hunters moving about in the Pittstop and bits of mechanical noise drifted out from the garage, but otherwise it was still just them. "You remember growing up in the city?"
She nodded her head into his chest and he took it as a sign to keep going. So he continued, "They taught us so many things that don't seem to matter so much now."
That got a half-chuckle to break the intermittent tears. "Yeah, like world literature," she agreed, "or macroeconomics, or—"
"Those things will be important again once Ardyn's gone, once we begin to rebuild," he cut in gently. He paused a beat before getting to the point. "Did you ever take any classes in dance?"
"I...uh…" She lifted her head and blinked up at him, seeming to catch on. "Yeah?"
"Good. You'll get to use it again," he told her with a smile. "But for me… I don't think I get to come back from this one."
She gasped and pushed half an arm's length away to regard him with a frown. "What? But you have to defeat Ardyn. If you don't—"
"Oh, I'm going to defeat him," he assured her. "But part of that is going to be… well, things like saving the world don't come cheap, I guess."
"Oh." Her eyes flicked to the Ring of the Lucii on his finger as full realization settled on her. "I… okay, got it."
"So would you do me a favor?" he went on, adjusting to a formal starting position and offering a small bow. "Just for once, would you let those lessons in ballroom not go to waste?"
For a second, she just studied him. "As friends?" she asked.
"As two leftovers from the old world," he said, "And yeah, as friends."
She gave him a suspicious look, but still took he hand. They stumbled their way through the basics without any music. Noctis ended up counting off the steps, but after a while, they slipped back into the old grooves of societal discipline from the ruined halls he now looked to redeem.
It was awkward and stilted, but they smoothed it down to the practiced perfection it had used to be and finished their time with a triumphant spinning flourish. They parted and laughed, sharing the small, light triumph in the midst of the endless night.
She smiled, hands on her hips, and shook her head. For a moment, it looked like she wanted to say something else, but she ended up only letting out a long, satisfied breath and looking down.
"Thanks, Noct."
"Yeah," he smiled back. "It's worth doing this for."
They couldn't get out any words beyond that, but it was enough.
Ten steps after they parted ways, Noctis found himself in a familiar headlock and held against a chuckling chest.
"Kept us waiting, huh?" Gladio said as the crown prince squirmed his way out of the hold.
"Oh, shut up," Noctis muttered, "You'd have me keep your sister waiting instead?"
"Nah..." the king's shield smirked and punched him in the shoulder. "But when do we all get our turn, huh?"
"Oh, it'll be quite the dance in crown city," Ignis put in dryly, coming alongside them as Prompto appeared on the other side. "Just of a different flavor. More the variety you taught him."
"You mean the kind where you're trying to leave your partner in a bruised heap?" Prompto offered ruefully. "Yeah, not gonna miss that when we're done here."
"Iggy's right," Noctis shrugged, letting himself get swept up in the banter. "I saved the last dance for you guys. Hope you brought the right shoes."
Prompto raised his eyebrows. "Curb stomping cleats?"
Gladio grinned wide. "Wouldn't leave home without 'em."
"Good," the prince squared his shoulders, preparing to ascend the throne. The ache from earlier had eased. It didn't feel so sharp with his brothers at his side. "Then let's do this."
-[End – III]-
A/N: So I know I am a day late for posting day, but this fic was in even worse shape yesterday. So… probably still isn't perfect, but I can't really put off the deadline any longer.
Final Fantasy XV, while controversial with some of the fandom, is my personal favorite of the series. One aspect of that was the focus on non-romantic relationships such as Noctis and the Chocobros, and it bothered me that there wasn't a clear platonic resolution for Iris, who really shouldn't be pursuing a romantic relationship with Noctis. Maybe you're of the opinion that you can't non-romantically dance with someone, and I can understand that because it's a very physical, close activity that takes a lot of vulnerability to learn and practice alongside someone. And I'm not saying there's nothing to dancing, just that, much like Noctis' friendship with Iris, it doesn't have to be in romantic terms. With the right people, it's okay to be vulnerable without things going that direction.
Or I could just make this a cop-out and say the prompt made me do it, but that feels weak.
Anyway, it's another week down in the Twelve Shots of Summer Challenge! I hope you found something enjoyable in this one-shot and, if so, I would encourage you to check out other Twelve Shots of Summer or even write your own to add to the collection.
Here's to friendship and restoration,
-CG
[6-17-2024]