A Dimmed Star

by Moonalight

Summary:

Noctis Lucis Caelum was innocent.

Eos finally believed him, but after ten long years of being falsely imprisoned, can he ever recover?

 

(I recommend reading the first part of this series, 'Lost Innocence', because it is the foundation for this part of the story.)

Chapter 1

~>---------<~

 

 Hope was not some bright, beautiful thing for victims to laugh over.

 Hope was broken on the floor, crying for the first time in years, trembling and undone because you never thought you’d be able to have it again. Hope was bruised and hope had broken bones and hope was scarred like no child could ever be. Like he, Noctis, could never be a child again. Hope hurt. And he took all of that hurt, like shards of glass, and shoved it deep down inside of himself lest he cut his son.

 With his father it’d been different. With his father, it had built up and collected for ten years. 

Ten years of isolation. 

Ten years of being spat and cursed at. 

Ten years of beatings.

 With his father, he hadn’t really cared if the man could handle his hurt or not.

 But Oriens was the sole innocent of all of this, so he kept his shattered soul tucked far, far away from the child. His child.

 Oriens was the only one he wouldn’t blame. 

The only one he never cursed in return.

 Hope hurt, and he let it hurt, as he wept. Hugged by a son he’d never been allowed to hold. Never been allowed to love. A son who’d been taught he was a bad man. A son who it’d taken years to even be allowed to know the name of. A son who believed his side of the story without question, without even hearing it, and where had that faith from his family been ten years ago? 

But Oriens was his innocent, innocent son who’d never asked to be born, and Noctis could finally hold him. And it hurt. Oh, not the hope. No. There was this fragile, flickering light within his chest that was a shadow of what once was happiness and it hurt so much he almost wanted to push Oriens away so he wouldn’t have to feel it anymore.

Oriens was…smaller than he’d imagined him being. Younger. 

Somewhere in the years of isolation, Noctis had begun to believe if he ever did meet his son, he would be fully grown. He would be glaring down at his dad as if he were some disgusting, caged monster he held no compassion for. Not…not this. Not this little boy, who hugged him just because he was crying without needing to know anything else. Not this little boy who took his hollowed-out weight and squeezed him tight and told him in a small, small voice that it was going to be okay.

Also, he looked so much like Noctis, it had mystified him that first moment the boy scampered into his childhood bedroom without a care.

And he’d acted so much like Noctis did as a child that it’d been like a slap to his face who the boy was, even without being able to sense the bright, bright, bright magic swirling around inside of him. So bright and brilliant and everything his used to be.

 Oriens Lucis Caelum.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum did not need to have been at his birth to love him with all his heart. 

 But Oriens was a betrayal that would burn forever. Because more than the convicted crown prince had ever wanted anything, had wanted to be royalty, had wanted to be a king, Noctis had wanted to one day be a father.

 And they’d taken that from him.

 He’d wanted to be a dad, like his dad, and now he was but he’d missed so much and Oriens was already growing and would he even want Noctis around? Would he even want anything to do with a formerly convicted monster? Was he a boogeyman they’d told his own son about so he’d behave? Or was he simply too damaged to stay next to such a kind, sweet child? 

 His child.

 It was too much to think about. It was more than the son of Regis and Aulea had allowed himself to think about in a long, long…long time.

 It wore him out. He sank helplessly into his son. Crying almost too great an endeavor for him. Everything hurt. Everything was a reminder of a windowless room and the dim light. The encroaching darkness. But Oriens was so small, and acting so strong as they wound around each other on the floor next to the bed. Everything was a reminder of how much effort it took for him to even be aware like this. But Oriens patted him on the back, and kept promising he’d help him, and Noctis never thought he could feel proud of a child so, so suddenly and intensely like this.

 He was a dying star, but Oriens was new and bright.

 And so brave; Noctis wrapped around him, aching and broken. Wanting to protect him from the whole world.

 It hurt.

 He wasn’t all there.

 There was a set of doors that were pushed open.

 Noctis had finally reacted. Reacted again. By burying his face in his son’s shoulder, so as not to see those who’d entered. Disconnecting, so as not to hear all of their apologies that just reminded him of everything he’d lived through when he didn’t even want to. Didn’t deserve to. He closed his eyes and he closed his ears, and he let the teardrops turn sticky on his cheeks.

 And he held his little dawn.

 He went away for a while. 

 

-----

 

 “Grandpa?” Ori asked him, so small and sounding so confused, and held by his dad for the first time in his life. Not even as a baby had Noctis been able to hold his son, and now Regis walked in and felt his heart skip a tragic beat at the sight of his baby boy wrapped around his baby boy as if he expected the whole world to try and take him away from him.

 Noctis was deadweight, wound around Oriens, while Ori’s bright blue eyes peeked over at his grandpa who had entered.

 Whose entering had caused his dad to go completely still and nonreactive, still clutching him tight, but otherwise unmoving. Face buried in the small of his neck.

 “Ori…” It came out as a wheeze, his grandson’s nickname, and it was meant to be his full name but he just couldn’t tear the whole thing out of his throat that had suddenly closed tight. How could he? What was he meant to do in this situation? Ori looked like he was going to cry. Noctis’ shoulders were shaking as if he was stopping himself from crying. The two looked so similar; a mirror Regis could barely bear to look into.

 An older son and a younger son.

 A broken son and a lost son.

 All of the lies and secrets of Ori’s life were laid out before everyone there; before Regis and the retinues of his and who should’ve been his son’s behind him in the doorway.

 “We - we should let him rest, Highness,” Clarus found his voice where his King could not, but it was strangled, wound tight around all the cracks in all their hearts. He offered a hand to Oriens, tilting his head towards the door, in a come along gesture that the boy stared at for several seconds too long before simply asking - 

 “Is this my dad?” 

 Astrals forgive them, they had no more tears to shed but the desire to fall to their knees and wail was there.

 Because Oriens had never looked at them like he didn’t trust them before.

He did now.

 Now with his short arms wrapped around Noctis’ shoulders, holding on tight as if he too expected the whole world to come for his father unfairly - which it had, it had, gods it had and the whole world would never be able to apologize enough. Oriens was a smart child. Whatever had occurred before Regis and the retinues could enter this old, unused bedroom had clearly been enough for the child to piece together a story he believed about his dad.

 A story carefully meant to be kept from him, when they thought Noctis was somebody who had done…things he hadn’t done.

 And with the truth revealed, they’d intended to reintroduce them slowly, but Ori was just so curious.

 Ori was just somebody Regis wouldn’t lie to now.

 “...Yes, Oriens,” he rasped, his voice breaking to see the distrust grow stronger in his second baby boy’s eyes right then and right there, “This is your father. Noctis Lucis Caelum. He…he’s been away for a long time, and he needs time to recover now that he’s here, so - “ 

 “Did you make him sad?” Oriens then demanded and his heart shuddered in his chest. He looked so much like Noctis had as a child in that moment, confronting Regis, instead of being that entirely happy and carefree child they were used to. Holding his dad like he meant to protect him, and this failure of a father wilted.

 “...Yes, Oriens.” 

 “Why?” 

 Yes, why. Why was the question. Why had the Astrals permitted this? Why had this been allowed to happen at all? Why had Bahamut not declared Noctis’ - the Chosen King’s - innocence the moment he was falsely accused? Or even just before he could be imprisoned? Or even sometime during the first of those ten years? How had they not known the Adagium was responsible for all of this? Why had they just allowed Noctis to suffer for a decade? 

 Why hadn’t Regis asked more questions? 

 Failing that, why hadn’t he simply believed his son? 

 Failing that, why hadn’t he just remembered that he was King and criminal or not he wouldn’t allow anyone to lock away his baby boy like that?

 Because…

 “I made a mistake I can never make amends for, Oriens,” he whispered, eyes burning, and he closed those burning eyes when his grandson looked panicked at the sight of his tears, “and I am so sorry. And I will spend the rest of my life trying anyways, even though it will never be enough.” 

 You can’t unbreak something as broken as his son.

 The tears, if nothing else, seemed to convince his sweetheart of a grandson that his father was safe with them - this time, this time but not the last, not when Noctis needed their safety the most - and slowly, very very slowly, Ori unwound his arms from around his dad’s shoulders. Looking between him sat there limp against the bed, and his family in the doorway all no doubt appearing heartbroken to his young gaze. 

 The broken man that was his son didn’t immediately collapse without his son holding him upright, but his hands lingered for a moment on Oriens’ shoulders. His boney fingers gave a faint squeeze Regis just barely saw, and then his grandson was walking towards him.

 Glancing back at the dad he’d finally been able to meet the whole way, clearly uncertain.

 Ori had his dad’s heart; fiercely protective and loving like nobody else in the world.

 Regis had always thought it a blessing, but now it tore like talons at his heart, as he reached out to hug his grandson to his leg for a moment, before nudging him towards Gladiolus and Ignis. To be taken back to his rooms and watched properly. They hardly minded. They were assigned to be Oriens’ guardians, after all.

 And also after all that had happened, they…couldn’t see Noctis without fracturing into a thousand pieces for the boy they were meant to be brothers to.

 Regis went to his son once the doors had closed, but he was back to being nonreactive.

 He did nothing besides breathe, slowly, but there were tear tracks slipping down his cheeks, disappearing into that beard of his, and Regis gently brushed them away. With Clarus’ help, he got his son back onto his bed. He grabbed the carbuncle plushie left there on the sheets to press into Noctis’ hands…and those boney, pale hands squeezed it tight to his chest.

 What words were there? What could be said, when his son had just met his son, who’d been created without his consent? Who he’d never gotten to hold before today? 

 What could be said? 

 Except another apology.

 “I will never be sorry enough, Noctis,” he swallowed, his tears finally found and falling again as he sat beside his terribly, terribly hurting son and pressed a kiss to his cheek, “Though I am sorry. And I will spend the rest of my life being so. But…that was Oriens, Noctis. Your son. And I am also sorry for how he came about, but…he is a child you would be proud of.” 

 The carbuncle plushie was squeezed even tighter; though with how little strength his child had it was more just a small amount of pressure that made the plushie waver.

 He couldn’t hear Noctis’ response because it was not spoken, but the jagged edges of his magic smoothed out for just one second in Regis’ presence.

 ‘I already am.’ 

 They had a very long way to go from here.

 

-----

 

 Nobody was able to get Noctis to react once Oriens was gone.

 

-----

 

 Noctis slept, a lot, but otherwise he just…wasn’t present in his own mind, oftentimes. 

 Regis cleared his schedule repeatedly and often, and nobody in all of Eos would dare blame him for doing so. Nobody in Eos could. Nobody in Eos could even look him in the eye for longer than a split second, before pity or shame or grief overcame them and they faltered before the shaken king. Shaken down to his very core. His soul. His magic, which had been his family’s birthright - 

 But hadn’t been enough for the Six to prove his son innocent when he needed the support of those who had made him their Chosen King.

 

-----

 

 There were no festivities. 

 Founder’s Day had devolved down to those few minutes of footage where the Adagium had made his appearance and his confession on the steps of the Citadel. To the moment a king and more importantly a father lashed out in horror and mourning, and even the news channels that usually sensationalized their stories were keeping their reports tame. To the point. 

 The whole world held their breaths because of what had been done to Noctis. To the boy rumored to be the Chosen King they had all waited centuries for.

 The whole world waited to see what would come next.

 Holding their breaths.

 

-----

 

 Taking a deep breath, then another, then a third, Ignis felt he’d never be ready to take this next step but step anyways he did. Unable to bring himself to make Noctis wait, either, for even another moment as he was given encouraging nods before entering the bedroom which had haunted him for a decade already. 

 There was a ghost in that bedroom. 

 He was pale, sickly, malnourished, with hollow eyes that had dark bags under them - 

And he wouldn’t look at anyone so Ignis didn’t expect him to do so now when he wheeled a meal cart in.

 Compared to meals he typically made, this one was nothing. Quite literally nothing. It was barely flavored soup, warm and light and probably all a starved man could stomach, and like every other moment since getting to see him - his Noct - again, Ignis’ heart withered a bit more at the sight of him.

 Of what the boy he’d all but raised had become, because of them.

 He tried for a smile, failed, then hoped the sunlight on his glasses hid the frailness reflected in his eyes as he wheeled the cart towards Noctis.

 “Hello there, Noct,” he said softly, the meal cart’s wheels squeaking as it stopped, and he was careful not to let the soup slosh. Focusing on dishing it up. On the ladle, on waving away the steam, on adding a few, just a few, seasonings to it. It was a broth; nothing more. There were no vegetables…

 He wouldn’t look at this husk of the boy he’d raised. He wouldn’t look at those boney, boney fingers that quivered no matter what Noctis was doing. Even just sitting still.

 He wouldn’t think about the state of that place Noctis had been held in for ten long years.

 He wouldn’t think about how this was his boy who never wanted to get up on time and whined about green bits in his food and stuck out his tongue but ate everything Ignis made anyways and thanked him afterwards, ‘It was delicious, Iggy - ‘ 

 Swallowing, Ignis kept his face. Had to. Had to, because it wasn’t fair to Noctis for him not to. It wasn’t fair for him to break down when he was the one who’d been living in a comfortable apartment for the last ten years. When he was the one sleeping in a real bed, eating three meals a day, tending to the son Noctis hadn’t consented to having - how dare he consider crumbling in front of his charge who he’d failed by believing he might actually be capable of - 

 He kept his face.

 He tried to smile again as he collected a spoonful of the light soup and lifted it towards Noctis’ lips.

 “Here, Noct. Don’t worry, there aren’t any vegetables,” his fingers twitched around the spoon, and he wanted to scold himself for making a joke about the hollowed-out man being a picky eater once upon time after not having proper meals for so long, but backpedaling would make it worse so he just waited.

 And waited.

 And waited.

 But Noctis never parted his cracked and peeling lips to accept the spoonful.

 “Does it feel too hot?” Ignis asked, this hopeless, helpless feeling beginning to build in his chest as he replaced the spoonful in its bowl and stirred it. Letting the steam settle a bit more before gathering another spoonful, “If you don’t think your stomach can handle it, that’s alright. It’s alright. How about a small taste, just to see?” 

 Another spoonful to his lips.

 Another spoonful Noctis never even reacted to.

 “Is the smell overpowering, darling?” His voice wasn’t shaking. It wasn’t, “I only added a small amount of seasoning, but I can get a fresh bowl if that’s it.” 

 Another spoonful. No reaction.

 Noctis had never refused to eat something that Ignis had cooked for him. 

Ever.

 “If you would like something else, there are other options that your stomach might be able to handle,” the spoon shook as he replaced that spoonful too, droplets of soup splashing onto the cloth laid over the cart, and Ignis swallowed hard. Had he messed up the recipe that badly? “Just tell me what you’d like, Noct? Or just do something so I know you’d rather not have this?” 

 The next spoonful was shaking so hard he couldn’t even move it away from the bowl because he’d make too much of a mess.

 “I can try different seasonings. Or none at all. How about something soft? Maybe something sweet, like a jello? Or a gruel? Would you rather that?”

 Strange. His glasses were smudged. His vision was all blurry.

 His voice was breaking.

 “Noct, darling, sweetheart, tell me what you’d like?” Another shaky spoonful, towards lips that had only thinned since his arrival, but this was his boy, this was his Noct, this was his everything, and - 

 And Noctis jerked his head to the side when he nearly pressed the spoon to his lips without them opening. Ignis gasped at the sudden movement. Not expecting it. Drops of soup spilled onto Noct’s pants, and the spoon clattered along the tiling of the floor for a few steps before going still.

 Ignis’ heart pounded, staring at that turned head and the now-clenched, boney fingers of his would-be charge.

 The boy he was supposed to stand beside forever.

 His glasses were really, really smudged, weren’t they? He couldn’t see.

 “I - I understand,” he stooped to gather the spoon, staring at the spilled soup, at another of his failures and - and straightened up, “I’ll have the kitchens send something, Noctis, darling. If you’re not hungry, that’s fine. That’s really fine. I’m sorry for the mess I made. I’ll have it cleaned - cleaned up - I…I have to - “ 

 He lost his face.

 He swept out of the bedroom he used to sweep into all the time because Noctis was just a boy who wouldn’t get out of bed. He was just a boy who’d rather play video games with his friend instead of doing paperwork. He was just a boy who’d read storybooks when he should be doing homework. He was just a boy - 

 “Ignis?” 

 “Your Majesty.” The doors to that boy were closed now, and he was faced with the man who had entrusted Noctis to him, but he couldn’t see him through the tears as he struggled to keep his voice even, “Did you struggle to get him to eat when you brought him broth before? Did he refuse or otherwise turn away from the food?” 

 Maybe it was a blessing that he couldn’t clearly see the pitying look his king leveled at him then and there.

 “No,” but he could still hear the depths of the grief in King Regis’ voice a moment later, and all at once Ignis wished to be deaf as well, “Noctis accepted me spoon-feeding him without complaint. He was able to stomach the broth as well, and never reacted negatively…or really at all, while eating.” 

 Noctis had never turned down the food Ignis had made with love.

 “Ignis, tell me, did he - ?” 

 “I have to go, Your Majesty.” It wasn’t proper, to dismiss yourself in the presence of royalty. It wasn’t proper to cut off your king. It wasn’t proper to rush off through the halls like a child running from a terrifying situation. Yet Ignis did. And he couldn’t bring himself to look back, because like them all? Ignis was broken by this.

Ignis’ recipes no longer reached Noctis.

There was soup spilled on the floor of a haunted bedroom.

 

-----

 

 Regis had no trouble spoon-feeding his son later.

 No trouble at all, because Noctis never reacted to him in any way other than to slowly open his mouth when coaxed to do so.

 

-----

 

  “Dad, please! I didn’t do this - I’m innocent! DAD!!!” 

 Closing his eyes to the sight of his son being dragged away, to the sound of him kicking and screaming and fighting this verdict, fists trembling as he clenched them tight, Clarus reached out. Placing a hand heavy on Regis’ shoulder.

 “You’re doing the right thing, Regis,” he said gravely.

 Regis Lucis Caelum shot up with a strangled cry, the screams of his son still echoing in his ears as he kicked at his bedsheets - for a moment unsure where he was and just needing to get to Noctis.

 But there was a picture frame on his bedside table. It was no longer hidden away like some terrible, dirty secret.

 Noctis was back.

 Noctis was, and had always been, innocent.

 And this king, this terrible, terrible king, swung his legs over the side of his bed. Dragging his hands down his face. Trying to shake the echoes from his mind. He reached for the bourbon nightcap he kept next to that picture of his son, stared at the two side by side for a second, and then switched intentions. He picked up the picture frame, and stared down at it. At that photo from a time when Noctis could still smile.

 Smile and laugh and sit, fishing happily for hours and hours. So bright. So sweet. So…innocent.

 Teardrops splattered across the picture frame’s glass.

 And this king bowed into himself, letting the sobs shake him, like they surely would for many, many nights to come.

 What he wouldn’t give for his little boy to be able to smile like that again.

 

-----

 

 It was late at night, and for the better part of the day Noctis had been left alone. That was fine. He was very used to that. Used to feeling relieved that he was left alone, because the presence of others just meant more pain for him to survive. There’d been bland broths, and a few soft words, and he thought he remembered a touch or two but sometimes he just wasn’t in his own head so he couldn’t be sure.

 The hollowed-out man didn’t think Ignis had ever come back.

 Mostly it was his father, and maybe his Shield. 

 Nobody else, which was fine.

 Noctis had just spent the day clinging to Carbuncle, not really there, marveling at how warm sunshine felt when it touched his skin even through the windows.

 

-----

 

 When the next day began, there was more sunshine he could actually feel for the first time in ten years, but Noctis still drifted in and out of his own head.

 He didn’t like having to be aware of his present. It hurt.

 

-----

 

 Gladiolus went, and the door closed behind him.

 Regis paced.

 Gladiolus came back less than an hour later, and the door again closed behind him.

 Regis stopped pacing to turn all of his hope onto his godson. 

 The man who was meant to become his son’s Shield…shook his head. Looked defeated. They all were. They all forever would be. They all wilted a little more, like when Ignis had tried and failed and he had been the better option out of the two. Gladiolus’ presence, they’d hoped, at least would make Noctis feel safer, but it seemed they’d hoped wrongly.

 “Was there any sign at all that it made a difference?” Clarus asked his son, clearly wanting the answer to be an affirmative, but in the few days that they had had Noctis back in Insomnia nothing had been that. So there was no surprise when Gladio squeezed his eyes shut. Shook his head. 

 “He didn’t react to anything, other than to…turn his head away when I tried to get into his line of sight properly. It’s like he’s - he’s not all there, or, or something - ”

 “Disassociation.” 

 The heads of a king and two Amicitia Shields turned towards Cor when he spoke up, tone carefully flat and arms crossed and staring at none of them as he repeated what the doctors had said multiple times.

 “He’s disassociating,” his Sword repeated, breathing out harshly through his nose in the only sign of Cor’s that he wasn’t as calm as he appeared. None of them were, “and we cannot blame him. What he’s been through…it’s worse than just about any of Lucis’ soldiers have endured as prisoners of war. Soldiers who were trained specifically for that possibility. While he - “

He was just a child.

“He won’t be all there. Even if he starts to recover, there will be times he is not present in his own mind.”

 That ‘if’ made Regis lean more on his cane.

 That ‘if’ made his heart palpitate, and all he could see behind his eyes was the empty gaze of his beloved son.

 And they had been the ones to do this to him.

 None of them were okay. Who could be? Regis had barely slept more than three or four hours since Founder’s Day. Clarus, he knew, was devoting all of his spare time to helping Cor weed out what had been allowed to happen in Mistveil Keep and investigating so many angles to Noctis’ false imprisonment that the vast amount made their king’s head spin. Cor had sent multiple Crownsguard home crying because of how rough he was while sparring the few sessions he’d tossed himself into. 

 There were dark shadows under all of their eyes, and they hadn’t accepted full meals from the kitchens either but had scolded Regis when he did the same. 

 There was too much, and it was too soon, and Regis’ soul hurt for his son, for that piece of himself and Aulea - 

 “I…need to be getting home,” Gladiolus finally said with a sharp sigh, hand running through his dark hair that was messier than normal, his short beard more scruffy than typical; those applied to all of them, really, “Cecilia needs help with the twins, and…I don’t know what I’m meant to do. With him, I mean. I mean, he doesn’t even know - “ 

 Cutting himself off, the would-be Shield sighed sharply for a second time.

 Then stared down for a long moment at the wedding band on his finger.

 “How is she?” Clarus asked softly, not quite in the happy tone he usually would, inquiring after his grandchildren, but, well, situation what it was, “The festival didn’t exactly turn out the way it was meant to, but she still deserves that break from the kids, son.” 

 “I know, Dad. I know. Iggy recommended a really good nanny. She’ll be here tomorrow, and hopefully then we can both adapt to…whatever this is going to become.”

 “Will you be introducing her to Noctis?” It was a pointless question from Regis, proved by the way Gladiolus’ whole expression pinched with pain, because Noctis should’ve been there the day he was married, Noctis should’ve been his children’s godfather as all retinues were family - 

 “I think it best to wait. He hasn’t even reacted to anyone besides Ori, so…yeah.” 

 While Oriens they had kept away from Noctis these last few days on the pretense that he needed his rest, due to…well. They weren’t really sure how Noctis would continue to react to the boy. His boy, his son, he hadn’t wanted and had only been told would exist but hadn’t even known the name of, Astrals above.

 But the Astrals, as ever, had been silent about this. All of this. Regis knew.

 He’d gone and screamed at the Crystal for hours, and had heard not one whisper from his gods.

 He’d even splintered a cane against the legendary source of his family’s magic in his rage…and nothing. Not even fury for his impudence. Did the Six truly have no response to their Chosen King being locked away for ten years and broken in such a way? Removed from even the line of becoming Lucis’ King?? Potentially never being capable of fulfilling the so-great and important prophecy they’d given to Regis when his child was just five years old??? 

 “Prompto should arrive by the day after tomorrow,” Cor spoke up, phone now in hand, taking solace not for the first time that day in the message he’d received from his quasi-adopted son already, “He’s breaking every speed law Duscae and Leide have doing so, and feels so guilty for being out of range now of all times, but he’s on his way.” 

 Yet another once-intended retinue member for them to try and reach Noctis with.

 Perhaps the one with the highest chance of doing so, considering he was the only one that had never fully thought Noctis was guilty.

 Or at least, had been of the opinion that he was not to blame, if it was Crystal Madness.

 But best not to get their hopes up. Again.

They’d just plummet for a third, a fourth, a fifth time by doing so.

 “Your Majesty?” Advisor Fareth approached, bowing deeply, interrupting anymore hopeless discussion as she handed her king a folder full of documents, “Your next meeting is in fifteen minutes. Also, the Citadel’s PR team is being swamped by countless requests for interviews, or at least a public statement on Prince Noctis’ well-being. The whole kingdom is beginning to buy into some sort of conspiracy about his imprisonment being a ploy to breed a new heir to the throne without contestment because of our silence on the matter.” 

 At the very idea, Regis blanched.

 Felt so sick he had to grip his cane. 

 Who would ever dare think of replacing his son? Of setting him up for the sole purpose of such a thing? The people were beginning to believe that so soon after Noctis returned to the Citadel? Astrals above.

 “Arrange a broadcast for between my fourth and fifth meeting today,” he rasped, no longer with the strength to flip through the documents she’d handed him as Clarus reached out to support him as he always did - but not always in the best of times, “I will speak. They will listen. But…I do not have much to tell them.” 

Noctis Lucis Caelum hadn’t really…come back to become Lucis’ Crown Prince, after all.

Right now, in the room behind them?

There was nothing more than a husk of that boy who’d bore a punishment for a crime he hadn’t committed.

 

-----

 

 Lucis had questions.

 None of the answers were kind.

 Even after Regis’ broadcast, there were more questions.

 Still, none of the answers were kind, and they wouldn’t be for a long, long time.

 

-----

 

 “They’re confessing, then?” 

 “All but throwing themselves at their inquisitors. Apologizing for everything and begging for mercy.” 

 “If only those here in Insomnia were the same.” 

 Both Clarus and Cor paused to sigh, frustrated and far too old to be dealing with the arrogance of people who were wrong and knew they were wrong but refused to admit to such based on something as stupid as mere pride. When it was their godson who’d suffered for it. When it was that, how could they allow such a defense to stand? They’d both started a witch hunt they intended to finish, and even without their king’s command to do so they would.

 It hadn’t been long since Noctis was freed from Mistveil Keep…although ‘freed’ was such an undeserving term, almost, for getting somebody out of there who hadn’t even seemed to care they were imprisoned anymore.

 And the moment Clarus and Cor had scented blood was the moment the royal doctors explained that Noctis showed signs of abuse from the last ten years.

 They began immediately, with full cooperation ordered by their king, and they had it.

 But most of it was out of guilt, shame, the realization that they’d tortured a boy who’d been just a child and innocent of everything he was convicted for. The broken bones, the scaring, the hurt - ten years of it. Ten years of guard reports to go through. Ten years of guard rotations to sort out. Ten years of neglect and abuse both carefully cataloged and at the same time covered up because they thought Noctis deserved it.

 And nobody was going to come along to save him. 

 Until somebody - they - had and all of that came to light.

 “We should’ve realized sooner,” Clarus rasped, staring at another report, one that had been unburied and the pictures published with it of Noctis small and bruised and only twenty years old at the time, and the pictures didn’t show his face or even his whole body but it was still too much when he thought about what if this was his son - ?

 But that was silly, because Noctis was all but his son already, his godson, his nephew, a child he watched grow, helped raise, loved as much as any child of his and he’d still congratulated Regis for going through with locking him away thinking him to have gone mad - 

 Six, forgive him. But he’d never deserve it.

 “We cannot go back and change the past, Clarus,” Cor said shortly, tugging him away from the spiral he’d fallen into with his sharp words, still trying to act like he wasn’t as broken as the rest of them by all of this, oh Cor, “We can ask for forgiveness, but we hardly deserve it. We can cry over what’s happened, but what will that do except bring more pain? More reminders? What we should do is finish finding out every person who denied him his rights while he was imprisoned and prosecute them to the fullest extent of Lucis’ court system. They deserve that.” 

 And worse, both of them thought privately, but they were both also retainers to their king and brother and couldn’t take punishments into their own hands.

 Not without tarnishing Regis’ name.

 No matter what Noctis Lucis Caelum had been convicted and imprisoned for, innocent or not, he’d had rights.

 Rights that conveniently vanished when it came to unethically forcing him to have a child.

But rights that were meant to still extend to the way he was treated while a prisoner in Mistveil Keep. 

 Things like the way the guards handled him, his quality of living, food, hygiene, his mental and physical states - all were meant to be managed regardless of his crimes. Crimes he’d never committed in the first place.

 But now they all discover he was abused and mistreated for the last ten years. Now they discover the only reason it slowed down was they got bored by his nonreactions. Now they discover they handed their Noctis over to people who wanted to punish him more than simply imprisoning him for life, who went against direct orders to do so, who were now begging for forgiveness and horrified to learn they’d tortured and abused a child who was innocent of everything.

And judging by some of the reports they would have to leave on their king’s desk sooner rather than later, they’d be breaking his heart again.

Because while some reports were vague, and became vaguer the more the years dragged on, the early ones were…

Detailed.

“I need a drink,” Clarus said gruffly, for not the first time that day, and Cor grunted in agreement.

The reports would still be there after they’d downed a bottle or two.

 Or three.

Their hearts could break more then.

 

-----

 

 A pile of papers, documentation, was set rather heavily down on Regis’ desk by two inebriated-looking retainers of his. He eyed it. Imagining the horrors it must contain to make both Clarus Amicitia and Cor Leonis look so utterly…hopeless. Or like the light had gone out of them. Like Noctis. Like their little Noctis.

 “I am not going to like what those papers say, am I?” It was a rhetorical question, said flatly, yet both of his brothers managed to look even more worn just from it.

 “Regis, we can handle - “ Clarus drew himself up to start to say, slurring slightly, definitely inebriated. 

 But his king simply raised a palm to stop him.

 “It is my son, Clarus,” he stated simply, cold, harsh self-damnation in his tone as he stared at the pile of papers that would again condemn him for how he’d failed that son. For ten years, “I would know…what my actions, my failures, wrought him. I would know how he was hurt, because if he must carry that for the rest of his life, I should as well. However much longer of a life I have left.”

Just as the burdens of the father are also the son’s, the burdens of a son are also the father’s. 

For a good father, at least. And at least once in his life he wanted to be that for his Noctis.

“The guards of Mistveil Keep, past and present, are under arrest and being transported to Insomnia as we speak,” Cor reported, as collected as ever despite his flushed face that gave away how much he’d drank prior to coming to his king’s study, “They are cooperating, and most if not all are claiming full responsibility for their actions.” 

 Regis Lucis Caelum snorted humorlessly at that.

 “If only the council and court were so cooperative,” he muttered, words from that day’s council meeting weighing on his shoulders as he slumped. The brothers of his magic and soul tensed, looking murderous, looking as if they were in the midst of a battlefield at that.

 “Will they truly deny their mistake?!” Clarus showed where his son got his anger issues from by slamming a fist down onto Regis’ desk, furious, so furious, as only a father can be on a child’s behalf and it only made his king’s shoulders slump more. 

 “‘We understand the unusual circumstance at play, Your Majesty,’” he repeated emptily, fists clenching beneath the desk the same as his brother’s atop it, “‘but the council and court cannot be held in contempt for this…unfortunate oversight. As you will see, we followed every protocol expected of us. By all rights, Prince Noctis WAS guilty of the crimes he was accused of - you yourself agreed at the’...at the time.” 

 Every ounce of fight drained out of the Father then, and he stared down at his hands in his lap, stared at them with their age spots and their wrinkles and their frailness and wondered what if he’d just said no? 

 What if he’d just defended his son? 

 Clarus huffed, and Cor was staring at some distant point through the walls of the study as if planning to put the court on trial himself, but Regis looked to the reports his brothers had brought him.

 He looked at what he could’ve saved Noctis from if he’d just defended him.

 He picked the topmost paper off of the daunting pile of things that had been buried for the last decade.

 He read.

 And he read.

 And he read.

 And around the year-long mark of his son’s imprisonment, he began to feel sick. The guards had gotten bolder then. More confident in their abuse. Less restrained. He read, and the paper crinkled in his grip, and his magic lurched looking for a target, and he tried to stay focused.

 But somewhere near the two years-long mark of his son’s imprisonment, Regis dropped a handful of papers that fluttered to the floor as he himself lurched for his garbage.

 He lost his meal then, there, with Clarus and Cor both making alarmed noises but he was stuck praying, praying to his gods who didn’t listen, praying to the ancestors of their family, praying that if only he could’ve taken Noctis’ place.

 If only he could’ve saved his son.

 When next the council tried to argue the right of due process, Regis’ magic was going to rip them to pieces, remembering the procession of abuse his precious son suffered.

 By the end of that night, the king was just as drunk as his brothers.

 

-----

 
 His grandpa was sort of…down, when Oriens shyly popped his head into his study to ask if he could finally visit his dad.

 Unaware that his grandpa was so fragile at that moment that he would say yes to absolutely anything that might make his son smile even one more time in this life.

 

-----

 

 “Hello, Dad. Can I talk to you? They said that I could, that you just might not hear me, so that’s…what I’m going to do! I think. If that’s okay.” 

 There had been two options, really.

Tell Oriens no, he could not see the dad he just found out was still around and who seemed to want to see him and then deal with the Lucian Prince sneaking out of his bedroom to see him anyways - 

 Or tell Oriens yes, but ensure there were adults present this time to actually ensure he was safe in case…just in case.

 His grandfather hadn’t the cruel, callous heart required to tell Oriens no, hadn’t wanted anything more than to maybe make his son smile someday, somehow, and so Oriens was allowed to see his dad for a second time. With two Crownsguard in tow, who had no relation to Noctis so as not to cause distress. Oriens was the only one Noctis had responded to in any way so far, after all, and they wanted Ori to have that.

 Especially after keeping them separated for so long, and after everything else.

 Noctis lifted his head slightly at the sound of his son’s voice; more attention than he’d given to anyone else. Anyone at all. And Ori kept on chatting.

 “I don’t really understand what they mean when they say you are only sometimes here with me, but if you’re sleepy that’s okay! I like naps too. Grandpa says I get that from you. That you would always take forever to wake up, and even miss out on your duties sometimes because you fell back asleep the second somebody left you to get out of bed on your own! I do that too sometimes.”

 And chatting.

 “They - well, they haven’t really told me a lot about you. Nobody really talks about you, actually. Grandpa always just said you went away, but I found the photo he kept of you hidden in his room! So I knew what you looked like. I, uh, I hope you don’t mind. That I don’t know a lot about you, I mean, Dad. But I want to. I really, really want to.”

 And letting Noctis soak up his innocence as he fidgeted with his shirt and just kept on shyly chatting. Too excited to stop now. 

 “They said you’re hurt. A lot. And that it’ll take a long time for you to feel better.” 

 This was his little dawn.

 “I can help! I mean, I’ve never really been hurt before, that’s what Uncle Gladdy is for, but I’m sure I can help! Somehow! I won’t get in the way. I promise.” 

 This was his everything.

 “Pops Cor said Uncle Prom was coming! I haven’t seen him in months, so that’s really cool, but you knew him, didn’t you, Dad? That’s what they said. Uncles Iggy, Gladdy, and Prom were all friends of yours before you went away! They’re really happy to have you back. Everyone is. So don’t worry about not feeling good enough to be up and about!” 

 Even the reminders didn’t hurt as badly when they came from Oriens. His son.

 “Um, maybe, oh - have you heard of King’s Knight 3? I play it all the time with Uncle Prom, even when he’s away, and - “ 

 Like the sun, it didn’t hurt as badly as he got used to it.

 

-----

 

 People entered his bedroom. That was fine. They’d done that before, they’d do that again. Usually it was because of food; bringing him light broths or supplements mixed into drinks. Vitamins. Medicine. Sometimes the maids came to take the pajamas he’d been changed out of, sometimes they remade his bed while he sat, empty-eyed on the sofa, not really there. 

 He didn’t like being there when people were around. Being there, as in, in his present.

 Usually that meant pain.

 Usually that meant things he wanted to forget. 

 So he never looked. He never let himself out enough to see. His magic coiled itself tight around his soul, and he became small like it did, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. For either to be left alone again or to be attacked. Typically it was the former that ended up happening, but sometimes it was something of the latter. Like when, when, when - 

 Iggy had come, and soup had been spilled.

 Gladio had come, and there’d been a hand on his knee, squeezing gently, words he didn’t listen to. Couldn’t. Then quiet again when he’d gone.

 This time, there were multiple people.

 The tap of a cane. 

 The purposeful steps of those in command. 

 Others.

 Boots. He saw boots. They kept walking when the others all stopped. They stopped only when they were closer. When there were only a few inches between the toe of them and Noctis’ pale, pale toes that curled on the cool tiling of his room.

 His gaze traveled up the boots caked in clay and dust. Up. And up. And up some more. Up a lean body, to find the one in front of him now was…

 Prompto?

 “Heya, Noct.” 

 His brain stalled. He…he looked different. Really, really different. But also he looked so much like the boy Noctis had known for years. His hair was tied back into a short, scruffy ponytail full of flyaways. His features were sharper. His eyes looked more violet, almost, than Noctis remembered them being in school. With flecks of gold that shone in the sunlight as he tilted his head, his smile there and soft and something shy.

 Or a smile that twisted, turning sardonic, and there was a weight to his whole body it seemed like. Even with Prompto just standing there, doing nothing special.

 He was weighed down anyways.

 He was tanner - like it looked as if he got a lot of sun on the daily. Easily a hundred more times the sun than pale, pale Noctis had gotten in years. His freckles were still splashed across his cheeks, stood out even more now, and there was the faint silvery mark of a scar across his cheek or down his neck or a more noticeable one across the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t had any scars when Noctis knew him.

 He looked like he’d grown up.

 They were supposed to grow up together.

 He was the first person, other than Oriens, that Noctis had dared to look at.

 He regretted looking.

 He wanted to take back the last several moments, minutes, however long of him staring at the boy who’d once been his best friend. Except he was a man now. Like Noctis. Prompto Argentum was a twenty-eight years old man, who’d lived a whole life away from his highschool best friend by now. It showed. It showed in everything that once-best friend saw and it hurt. It hurt so much more because he’d actually been stupid enough to let himself see it, and he couldn’t take that back now.

 They were two men, nearly in their thirties. 

 Except in Noctis’ mind, to survive those ten years, they’d never stopped being teenagers looking forward to walking together at graduation.

 They’d never stopped going to arcades, they’d never stopped playing King’s Knight together when they had homework to do instead, they’d never moved past planning each other’s solstice presents and judging people’s game builds on the internet and laughing at funny cat memes and crying over baby chocobo videos. 

 Noctis had never gotten to ask Prompto to be his Heart after graduation like he wanted to. He’d never gotten to be there the first time his best friend saw a chocobo in person. 

 Prompto had been an adult and living well for longer than they’d even been best friends.

 Noctis stared at him, at his smile that wasn’t as wide, at his eyes that weren’t the same blue they used to be, at this man who’d grown up while he was locked away.

 And he stared.

 And he stared through him. 

 And he didn’t see anymore.

 He wasn’t there anymore.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum was just a boy, worrying about his highschool exams and planning an afternoon at the arcade with his best friend, laughing together over the latest classroom drama while Noctis secretly planned to present a whole collection of chocobo plushies to the friend he had chosen for himself, planned to ask him to become his Heart, he was just that and nothing else because he couldn’t handle anything else - 

 “Noctis? Noctis, baby, no, no, stay here. Stay here with us. Noctis!” 

 He was just a boy. 

 He was innocent.

 

-----

 

 If he looked at everyone else, would they be grown up too? 

 

-----

 

 Noctis never wanted to look.

 

-----

 

 Alone. Again. The sunshine slowly began to fade from the sky, and Noctis’ pale, boney self felt so cold.

 

-----

 

 There had been no mirrors. Or, there had. When his father had helped bathe him when they first returned to the Citadel, that day. That day. In the bathroom, there had probably been mirrors. Noctis had just never looked in any. No mirrors, no glass, no reflections. He thought of Prompto’s face, aged, older, grown up - he wondered if he had grown up too.

 The last time he’d seen himself had been in pictures those guards had taken of him to mock him.

 To remind him how he’d looked when they were done with him. When they were having fun with him.

 That had been a long time ago, though. They got bored when Noctis started leaving his head behind to get away from them. What did he look like now? Wasn’t he still nineteen? His life had stopped when he was nineteen - wasn’t he still nineteen? 

 Nobody was there.

 So Noctis lifted spindly, trembling fingers to touch his face.

 There was a beard. He’d known that, distantly. It had been longer. It was shorter now, bushy, washed. Similar to his father’s beard. He had a beard. He had…wrinkles. His fingertips felt frozen and numb as he traced them, under his eyes, the bags. The crinkles. How his eyes felt droopy and just…down from touch alone. His hair was longer too, and he pinched it but he was so shaky he nearly tugged pieces out of his scalp.

 He dropped his hands back down onto his lap.

 That was enough of that. 

 He went back into his head.

 

-----

 

 If Prompto had grown up, that meant everybody else had grown up too, right?

 

-----

 

 What did they look like?

 

-----

 

 Noctis never wanted to have to know.

 

-----

 

 The magic of Noctis Lucis Caelum stirred, lazily swimming around inside of him. Lazy, like a predator of the waters might appear lazy while they were stalking their prey. Slow. Calm. Half a second away from lunging, of tearing apart the unfortunate one who was lower on the food chain than them without even breaking a sweat. His magic was stirred by being so close to Crystal again for the first time in ten years.

 So much rage was coiled up around his soul. So much rage was housed in his magic.

 It was broken glass lying all around him, and only Oriens could brush it away without being cut. Everyone else was simply learning to navigate it. Carefully.

 It still wanted to lash out more. 

Magic couldn’t atrophy like a body could. Like Noctis’ did. Magic collected. Magic festered. Magic pooled like slowly growing less and less drinkable groundwater, the memories of memories gathering together in a mess of knots and broken bits waiting to be released. And the longer one waited to release it? The more volatile that release would eventually be.

 It wanted to be volatile, and that made Noctis shake terribly as he sat, hunched at the end of his bed.

 Who would he direct all of that rage at, though? Who actually deserved it? 

 His father had said he was framed. His father had said he believed Noctis. 

 Why couldn’t he have believed him a decade ago when he was still young and innocent and believed in the promise of a future? When he wasn’t already disillusioned by this life, he lived, only because to die was to die a criminal that he wasn’t. To die was to surrender his final chance to make his family believe him. To believe that he was innocent.

 But…they believed him now.
 
 They believed him now, so why did he continue to avoid dying? His body certainly wanted to. It had been pushed past the bounds of ever recovering. He’d stopped being able to move his legs years and years ago. He’d stopped being able to feel anything below his waist around the same time. Over the years, he’d lost a lot of the feeling in his arms and hands and now they were simply numb. 

 Could he even speak anymore? He could, but did he care to? 

 He couldn’t look in a mirror, he couldn’t eat without being in pain, he couldn’t breathe without hurting - why would he want to live in a damaged husk? Why would living matter when it was finally known that he was, and always had been, innocent? 

 Why? 

 Was there something tying him to this world? Was there some belief he still held in? Was there any reason for him to continue enduring a life of pain and torment like he had for ten long years already? He may have been freed from Mistveil Keep, but Noctis was never going to be okay. Nothing was ever going to be okay. Not even his dawn was bright enough to make it so.

 Not when they’d all kept on living without him. 

 Nobody was there, so Noctis reached out. They’d left a wheelchair next to his bed, like when he was a child, like after the Marilith, because he couldn’t get around without it.

 Slowly, so slowly, his every bone creaking as he did, Noctis slid from the black sheets into the wheelchair, then stared down at his crooked legs for a long time. Unable to feel them. That, if nothing else, definitely didn’t make it feel like he’d grown up. That made him feel like he was eight again, with his back still freshly broken, somewhere in Tenebrae with people who were supposed to help him who were killed for it.

 He saw his hands, all bones and skin clinging to those bones and so pale they were practically translucent as the sun set, as his bedroom filled with a hundred colors from the sky.

 He put those hands on the wheels of his wheelchair, and with a lot of effort that left him quivering he managed to turn the wheels.
 
 He’d grown up.

 He wished he hadn’t.

 They’d grown up too.

 He wished they hadn’t.

 He wheeled himself, tiny bit by tiny bit, trembling, to the balcony doors. The sun was setting. He wanted to feel it on his skin. He wanted to feel warm. Not cold, not like this. He wanted to breathe air that wasn’t musty with age. He wanted…to be in the light. 

 His hand looked so, so pale on the golden handle of the balcony doors. He couldn’t get it to turn. He gritted his teeth a little, grunted, but…it wouldn’t move. His magic made it move by tearing the whole thing off and sending it clattering across the tiles of his old bedroom. 

 The door slowly swung in, towards him, and he managed to wheel out of the way enough to slip by. Onto the balcony that overlooked what was once his personal gardens. He wheeled himself out there just as the sun finished going down behind the skyscrapers of Insomnia. 

 The light faded fast around him. Too fast for him to enjoy.

 He was shrouded in darkness, and his hopes turned dim. He was still cold. 

 He slumped in his wheelchair. He sat there. He wheeled himself to the end of the balcony, looking down at his gardens multiple floors below that looked like they’d still been tended to in the last ten years despite him being gone. He slumped again. Hands shaky in his lap, again. Throat uncomfortably tight, and shoulders aching from the effort of just getting out there to be disappointed.

 He didn’t have the strength, or the willpower, to wheel himself back inside.

 He stayed there, Insomnia’s skyline ahead of him, a garden that had grown without him below him, a bedroom full of the memories of an innocent boy behind him, a sky growing dark and soon to fill with the faintest outline of stars above him. All around him; so much he couldn’t bear.

 For so long, Noctis had stayed strong.

 For so long, he’d withstood it all, believing one day he’d be believed. Clinging to that. Clinging to his trust for his gods, for his family, for the people of his kingdom. One day somebody would look back and realize Noctis would never do those things, and they’d seek out the true culprit.

 That one day had come.

 And gone.

 And Noctis didn’t feel better. It was worse. Being out. Being believed. Because it was a showcase of everything he should’ve had instead of being imprisoned for ten years. It was a display in the history museum of his life, detailing where everyone else ended up while he was stuck a stone statue at the entrance. Never changing. Never doing anything except chipping and cracking and eroding.

 He sat there in the gathering dark, and he didn’t want to be there.

 He didn’t want to live this life. He didn’t want to see how things had changed for everyone else, he didn’t want to see how everyone he’d loved and loved and loved had grown up, grown past him and what they’d shared. He didn’t want to hear them apologize to him a hundred more times, or see them shed a hundred more tears reminding him of all that had been done wrong to him.

 He didn’t want to live that life; the life of a victim. The life where he’d lost everything.

 Because he’d never get it back. Any of it.

 He didn’t want to live.

 So Noctis, shaky, fragile, broken Noctis, gathered all of the strength he had left in that one hopeless moment of his.

 So Noctis tugged himself up, onto the balcony’s railing, and let himself tip forward.

Down towards the gardens he used to walk hand-in-hand in with his father when he was just a child. 

 For one beautiful moment, he was weightless, and nothing hurt.

…

 And then somebody dared to catch him.

 He knew it wasn’t him hitting the ground, because it still didn’t - well, it hurt, but everything is on some level of hurting him anyways - the pain was so small. So careful. Like somebody was being mindful of how broken his body was. Wind whistled through his ears, and he heard a grunt from somebody, and then there was the tiniest of jolts as they landed. As his carrier landed and dropped easily into a crouch before either of them could really feel the sudden stop.

 The chime of a warp echoed. Faded.

 Noctis’ bare feet brushed over dewy grass, and he didn’t want to open his eyes.

 Didn’t want to see how he’d failed. Again.

 Then, the somebody who had caught him spoke. Said something in this rough-sounding second language that he only recognized the origins of but not the word itself. It was Galahdian. 

 He allowed his eyes to open when the word was said again, deeper and more desperately, and the hands on his shoulders gripped him tighter as if he’d fall out of their reach at any second. 

 Above him, his hero, was a man who hadn’t changed all that much in ten years. 

 Was the same man who had taught Noctis the best ways to warp as a teenager.

 Nyx Ulric held him, kneeling there in the gardens beneath his balcony, his eyes sparking as if full of lightning as he gave a sideways grin at the sight of Noctis’ eyes slowly opening. 

 “There you are, inlustris. There you are.” Again, that word, with the rolling dialect of Galahd so easy-sounding on Nyx’s tongue.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum did not speak. He did not speak. He did not owe this unrighteous world that, and if it asked it would receive only further silence. His hero - his unwanted hero - would receive the same. He peered up at Nyx; deadweight in the Glaive’s arms. Deadweight on his knees. Chilled by the breeze blowing through the gardens, and stuck under those eyes that belonged at the center of a storm despite how happy Nyx looked to have caught a falling prince.

 “What does…that mean?” Ah - it seemed he would speak anyways. Ask anyways.

 Softness filled those eyes of the storm.

 “It means starlight, princling.” 

 So it seemed Nyx had caught himself a falling star.

 Not another word would come from Noctis. He pressed his lips tight and swore he would not explain. Nobody in this world deserved it…other than Oriens. Oriens deserved an explanation. Oriens had probably deserved a letter laying it all out, promising he loved his son and that sometimes love wasn’t enough to keep somebody safe or close or anything of the sort, but, but - oh.

 Oh, Oriens.

 Suddenly Noctis regretted.

 And just as suddenly, Noctis dissolved into tears that soaked the t-shirt Nyx was wearing.

 But the Glaive just held him. Pressed a hand to the back of his head and held his face against his collarbone and let him cry. Let him weep. Let him regret his fall. Even if it was not his first fall, it was the worst, because now he had Oriens, and he had almost failed his son because of how broken he was. So he wept. And it was such a silent weeping. He was so used to keeping quiet that it was all caged up inside of him.

 Shaking him apart as he clung to Nyx’s t-shirt with boney hands.

 Ruining him.

 Even more than he already was.

 “Easy, inlustris, easy. I have you. I have you.” Nyx’s voice was now a low constant at the back of Noctis’ mind as he cried and he cried and he cried until his head ached and he felt dizzy. 

And he wasn't in his own head for a while.

A fallen star that had never struck the ground.

 

-----

 

When he was aware, he was curled up into a ball atop his bedsheets, hugging himself tight and weeping in silence. 

 

-----

 

Glaive Ulric was sitting at his bedside when he was aware again. The fallen star didn’t want him there, or didn’t want anyone there, or didn’t want to be aware ever again. Whatever the case, Nyx Ulric had dragged over a chair to sit at his bedside regardless, and was watching him carefully. Slouched over with his hands clasped between his knees. Stormy eyes so…so…not condemning. Not what Noctis had been expecting.

 But how could the Galahdian condemn him? From Nyx’s point of view? 

 His prince was a malnourished, broken man hugging himself tight in the center of a big bed, looking at him as if he expected to be struck for trying to end his life.

 How could he ever condemn that? 

 From Noctis’ point of view, fractured though it was, Nyx was…remarkably similar to the man he’d been ten years ago. Maybe because the difference between thirty and forty wasn’t as stark as the difference between twenty and thirty. Maybe something else. He might have a few more wrinkles, might have deeper smile and laugh lines, might have a few additions to the tattoos on his skin, might have somewhat longer hair, but he looked the same in all the ways that mattered.

 He looked like the man that had taught Noctis to warp, while teasing and joking and never judging him for his stilted magic. He just…now, he looked so sad at Noctis’ bedside. 

 So sad that Noctis felt the urge to apologize. 

 “...Sorr…y.” It was a croak, and he was hidden by the fringe of his hair falling into his eyes, but it was more than just about anyone else had gotten out of him.

 Nyx had a wry smile for him that was almost deceptive enough to reach the Glaive’s eyes as he settled back in his chair, getting comfortable, saying easily, “Seems like you needed it, Highness, so no apologies. Just glad I was there.” 

 Shame prickled at Noctis’ skin like nothing had been able to for a long, long time. Mostly because in his mind, he pictured Oriens. He pictured poor, small, happy to have just met his dad Oriens learning that that dad had thrown himself to his death, and not being able to understand. Not knowing why. He thought of Oriens visiting him, so excited, excited enough to get past his shyness, so much like the boy Noctis once was, and he regretted - 

 And he was also glad that Nyx had been there.

 “Th…anks.” Was the most the Galahdian Glaive was going to get out of him, though, because his throat felt like he’d swallowed shards of glass. His whole body felt like he’d bounced off of another balcony on the way down. He just - he hurt. Every bit of him. And even hugging himself as he laid curled there, tears sticky and dry on his cheeks hurt. Delicate was something that had broken once before. Delicate all the more when he’d been broken and broken and broken. 

 “So, you wanna talk about it?” Blinking, Noctis absorbed Nyx’s rather serious offer, then just blinked at him again, then turned his face fully into the bedsheets.

 Because there was this undercurrent to Nyx’s calmness. A clarity in the eyes of his storm. There was the simple, sad understanding in Nyx that nothing could fix the Chosen King. Like all of Lucis, all of Eos by now, he knew where Noctis had been, knew what had happened to him, knew what he’d gone through for something he hadn’t even done, and now Noctis stared at him and wondered if his hero had condemned him ten years ago.

 It was an utterly exhausting line of thought, so he went away.

 He went away into his own head, to Nyx’s quiet sigh, and a hand brushing his bangs from his eyes.

 Staring into the dull blue of his irises, so sad, so forlorn. 

 “Inlustris, you are so, so strong,” he said softly to the prince gone from his own head, brushing away his dried tears too with a lopsided smile that did not reach his eyes, “And you have been so, so wronged. We weep for you. We mourn for you. We endure for you. Ramuh’s blessed, we are yours, and we are sorry, and we will be here. So please continue to be strong. If not for yourself, then for the son they say you love despite never having known him.” 

 Oriens was asleep and unawares in his bedroom. Unaware that his dad had tried to throw himself to his death as he slept.

 “This is Glaive Ulric,” Nyc said, still softly, touching his com to access the Citadel’s line of communications as those dull, dull eyes stared straight through him like he wasn’t even there, “Please connect me…to King Regis.” 

 There was a pause, the crackle-pop of a reply, and then, “You do not have authorization for that line, Glaive Ulric.” 

 “Connect me to King Regis,” he repeated, more firmly, because he was looking at the king’s son who’d just tried to commit suicide and Ramuh be damned he was going to be brushed aside based on something as stupid as clearance level, “It concerns Prince Noctis. Connect me now.” 

 There was the crack-pop of the coms, a lengthy pause…and then the end of that white noise buzzing in his ear.

 “Hello?” Came through low but clear, and Nyx straightened up at the voice of his sworn king. A little anxious to be making this report, but, well, that anxiety had nothing on the way his heart had plummeted when he’d just been taking a smoke break and seen his prince throwing himself off of a balcony who he’d had to warp after in half a second flat, “Glaive Ulric, I’m told you have something urgent to report?” 

 “I - I don’t know how to say this, Majesty,” he confessed bluntly because again, he was looking right at the man’s son, but this wasn’t his first time dealing with this sort of situation. He was a soldier. Soldiers saw this often…enough. And right now Prince Noctis needed his strength, “so I’m just going to say it.” 

 “Glaive?” 

 “Prince Noctis tried to end his own life tonight. I prevented it, but he’s now…not seeing me? Or anything. Sir.” 

 A sharp intake of breath crackled across the coms line, followed by the fuzz of other people speaking in the background of wherever His Majesty was and the clattering of maybe a chair going to the floor, before there was, “Where is he?!”

 “His bedroom, Your Majesty.” 

 “I will be right there. Do not let him go anywhere, Glaive Ulric, I will be right there!” 

 So Nyx Ulric sat tight beside his fallen star, and was even bold enough to reach out and take one the prince’s hands in his. Clasping it tight. Even if he wasn’t in his own head at the moment, he shouldn't have to feel alone. He squeezed. He felt the sharpness of bones, and weakness of his hands, and he was wounded by it. But he kept clasping it tight, to the tune of panic across the Citadel’s coms. 

“Stay strong, inlustris. Stay strong.”

 

~> ---------- <~

Chapter 2

~>----------<~

 

 Many times, more than ten years ago, had Regis stood at his son’s bedside. 

 After his birth.

After the Marilith.

After Tenebrae.

Many times.

 Many times when he was unsure if his son would survive. If he would be one of the Lucis Caelums to live longer than a few days. If he would wake from his coma. If he would be able to walk again. So many times, unsure.

 None of those times compared to standing at his son’s bedside now, breathless, on the verge of tears a king is not meant to shed in the presence of others. Staring down at that son of his. That son he loved so very dearly. That son he’d failed so terribly. That son, his Noctis, who had tried to end his own life that very night. Regis’ knee twinged with pain. He’d rushed to Noctis’ rooms without a care for it, and he’d pay the price for that, but all that mattered now was his child.

 Who lay curled up, hugging himself, his eyes fixed on a horizon none could see but himself.

 His eyes rimmed red as if he’d been crying, and that was enough to bring Regis to his knees at Noctis’ bedside. His knee brace was loud in doing so, but he didn’t care. He clasped his son’s hand over the black bedsheets that had soaked up his tears, and he pressed his forehead to Noctis’ frail fingers as he struggled not to weep. What tears did he deserve to shed? None. 

None at all.

 Clarus and Cor had rushed after him upon receiving the news, and were panting and wide-eyed a few steps behind their king, and…

 And Regis thanked the ever-silent Astrals by reflex, kissing his son’s pale fingertips, because there was no sign of injury on him. Not this time. There were the signs that he’d been crying, and his dissociation, and how shaky he was, but that was all better than they’d feared finding of his state when Glaive Ulric made his report.

 Speaking of, Glaive Ulric was standing at attention. Head bowed, hands behind his back, wearing training clothes and looking unbloodied so Regis prayed that meant his son’s attempt hadn’t been…close to succeeding.

 “Glaive Ulric,” he rasped, barely able to find enough of his voice for the Galahdian man to hear him, but find it he somehow did with his son’s pulse beneath his fingers, “please report.” 

 Please tell me how I nearly lost my son this night.

 There was hesitation in the pause that followed his request. He knew this Glaive. Of course he did. This was one of Drautos’ lieutenants. One of his more well-known ones. A Galahdian warrior who wasn’t afraid to dismiss orders for the sake of others. In his youth it earned him the moniker of ‘Hero’ and a reputation for being brash. Hotheaded. Disobedient. But that disobedience only ever saved the lives of his comrades. Only ever was for the good of the men and women who fought alongside him. 

Regis himself had rewarded Ulric with a handful of medals and awards for his military service, had trusted him enough to train his son years ago - 

 But that was not enough for him to know the man, or entirely be comfortable in allowing him near Noctis after the reveal of how his son had been treated in Mistveil Keep.

 Even heroes could be cruel for the sake of justice. In the name of bloody glory.

 “Report, Glaive!” His patience was worn so thin, it was a line frayed and ready to snap, and Ulric jolted at his demand. Looked pained.

 But he reported.

 “Majesty. Reporting. I was taking a smoke break from training with the mages in the magic hall on the ground floor. I wanted some air after all the fireballs that were thrown around, so I went out into the gardens to light a cig, when I heard a strange noise. Like…metal? Being thrown. I looked up and there on the balcony was His Highness, wheeling himself out. He looked…upset, Majesty. Really upset. I felt like something was wrong so I watched. I wasn’t expecting him to - “ 

 Glaive Ulric’s voice wavered, and he glanced to the side. Expression truly pained. Pained like Regis’ heart hearing his son had been upset, hearing how his attempt could’ve been so easily missed. 

 A smoke break was all that had saved him.

 He kissed Noctis’ fingertips again, still to no reaction, and nodded for the Glaive to continue as he stared at his boy’s pale, tear-flushed face. Still so pale. Even flushed. Even so, so…lifeless. 

 “His Highness pulled himself up onto the balcony railing, and I realized what he was going to do, almost too late - “ Ulric swallowed, and Regis closed his eyes, heart sinking, “He threw himself off the balcony, Your Majesty. I managed to warp just in time to catch him, but it was a close thing. Any closer and…I called it in, a short while after. He was very distressed, and I wanted him to calm down before I suddenly surrounded him with people, but then he went all fog-eyed and gone.” 
 
 “Dissociated.” Cor corrected sharply, understandably.

 None of them wanted to think about Noctis being gone. Not now.

 And this wasn't even the first time.

 Ulric winced and inclined his head, amending what he had said, and then he stood still. Waiting for orders or for a dismissal or for something. To which Regis looked between him, and Noctis, and him, and Noctis…and then hobbled to this warrior sworn to him. Ulric tensed when he got close, as if expecting to be reprimanded, but instead what he got was a heavy hand upon his shoulder and an even heavier, “Thank you, Nyx Ulric. You saved my son’s life today. I will see you rewarded.” 

 When the man looked up at him fast, as if in shock, Regis was struck by his eyes that were so fierce. So expressive.

 So similar to Noctis’ when he was younger. Then the man swallowed, hesitated, and seemed to gather his strength to ask while Regis tilted his head, “Your Majesty, if I could, can I remain here? As a guard for him? I know the Crownsguard are on assignment, but…” 

 So similar.

 Even grieving, the Father softened, and agreed.

 “Cor, please let Drautos know that Glaive Ulric will be assigned to be one of Noctis’ guards for the foreseeable future and his work will have to be delegated.” 

 “Your Majesty,” both Cor and Ulric intoned, one in acknowledgement and one in gratitude, and then Regis spent a long, long time by his son’s side. Waiting for him to come back to himself. Though he doubted he would. Or if he did, it would not be in any state to discuss what had happened. Still, the tears his son had apparently shed were heart-wrenching…but they held a promise. 

 The promise that Noctis still felt. That Noctis could still react. That Noctis could come out of his shell, bit by bit, if they were just patient.

 So patient would be what Regis was. All throughout the night.

 He only left come morning because his son had long-since closed his eyes and fallen into a still, uneasy sleep. And because he thought he’d finally worked up the strength to do something he considered doing sooner but that might break his heart all the more. What was a bit more heartbreak, though? What was a bit more broken of a father who had failed his son? 

 Regis Lucis Caelum went to review the security cameras that overlooked Noctis’ gardens. His brothers insisted he didn’t want to see this. He insisted he did. He ordered that he would. He did. 

 He saw his son fall, and saw one of his Glaives catch him, and saw his son finally react.

 And he strained his cane from how hard he gripped it, trying not to shed tears in the presence of others, because his son had tried to kill himself. Had sought death over life. Had thought that better than being free, and Regis couldn’t even blame him because he was beginning to know the torture his son had endured. But he had his hope. Because they had Oriens, and they all knew Noctis didn’t want to leave his son…if nothing else.

 If nothing else.

 Regis still cried later, in the privacy of being held by Clarus, cried like he was sure Gladiolus and Ignis were after the news reached them too.

 But what could they do? In this, at least, it was so understandable. 

 In this, could they really fight Noctis? 

 In this, the only sounds they made were to cry, and to thank gods they weren’t quite sure they believed in anymore that he hadn’t succeeded.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Do we just…wait?” Ignis whispered, hopelessly.

 “What else can we do?”

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Grandpa, why is Nyx watching my dad now?” Oriens asked shyly, half-hidden behind his grandfather’s pant leg.

 “Because Glaive Ulric knew your dad when he was younger, Ori, and is worried about him too.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Carbuncle’s fur was soft…and such a dreamy blue shade. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 The sun was warm.

 Oriens was there.

 His dawn had come.

 The smaller, raven-haired boy was chattering at him. Like he had done…a couple times? Already? If he maybe remembered? Overcoming his shyness to talk about anything and everything at length, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt and bouncing a bit on his toes, blue-blue eyes flickering up at his dad then down at the tiles then up at his dad then down at the tiles then - 

 This time, his dad’s eyes had soul in them when he looked up at them, and Oriens stopped mid-babble about some silly story involving a nobleman falling into a pond that he didn’t even remember because, “Dad? Dad, are you - are you here? Um, with me?” 

 Are you with me? 

‘Are you with me?’ 

It echoed inside of Noctis’ head like it was said inside of some great hall or a grand cathedral, and it was hard to hold down, to hold onto, but he wanted to because that voice was his son, his Oriens, and he had so much to apologize for that he couldn’t let it slip away. Not again. Not this time. So he grabbed onto that question with all of his withered strength and dragged himself into his own head enough that he was aware. He was there. He was present.

 He was weak, and shaken, and laying in bed a bit hollow-eyed and hollow-headed, but Oriens was standing at his bedside. Was actually hopping up and down in hope. Hands going from gripping his shirt’s buttons tight to grabbing handfuls of the black sheets next to Noctis’ hands, and back to his buttons.

 His eyes were so bright, and shone with all of the hope he was feeling.

 There was sunlight wreathing around his son.

 It was all so beautiful.

 Noctis shifted, and his nose was buried in his pillow…and in his carbuncle plushie’s fur, because it was hugged to his chest. He stared down into its big, reassuring eyes, able to hear the chirping of the dream guardian echoing in the halls of his head too. Encouragement. ‘Go on, Noctis!’ Carbuncle encouraged him. So he shifted a little bit more, found a little bit more of his strength. Focused a little bit more on his son, who was visiting him, who looked like he wanted to reach for him - 

 Not alone. Ori wasn’t alone. Wasn’t usually. But instead of Crownsguard accompanying him? 

 There was a familiar Glaive standing several steps away, grinning at the elder raven-haired one as he awoke.

 Oriens had all of his attention though. All of his will to have attention. And he very, very shakily pushed himself upwards enough to sit. Balling into himself, maybe, but he was up. And Oriens looked proud of him and the feeling that came from that was so warm within Noctis that it took his breath away for a moment. He stared at his son. His son in simple but princely clothes, eyes big and bright and sweet with worry, like looking in a mirror with just a few differences - his nose was a different shape, wasn’t it - ?

 This was his son, and this was his hope, and this was his aspirations and all of his everything bundled up into Oriens Lucis Caelum.

 And Noctis had nearly abandoned him in his selfishness.

 Noctis had failed his son already.

 “Or…” His - 

 “Dad?”

 “Ori…” His - 

 Big, blue eyes…and then Oriens put his small hands on Noctis’ hand that was also small, and as pale as snow, and as thin as a twig. He squeezed gently.

 “Oriens.” 

 It was the very first time he’d ever addressed his son by his name.

 

 He’d begged to know it, you know. His name. He’d begged until his throat was raw. Until he’d practically scraped it with sandpaper for how hurt it was. He’d known when Oriens was born, back in Mistveil Keep. He’d overheard the guards discussing his birth - had known he would exist because he’d been told they would create a child from him, but none of them said his name, only said there was a new prince - 

 Noctis had begged. He’d been desperate. He’d clawed at the door to his cell, back when it still held up against him, until his nails bled and splinters had gotten beneath the beds of them. He’d pounded at the door. He’d screamed, begging, begging, “Tell me his name! Tell me his name! Tell me his name!!!” 

 Until they’d gotten annoyed with him.

 They’d barged in and they’d thrown him to the ground and they’d beat him terribly.

 But all throughout it, the punches and the kicks and even losing one of his teeth, he’d begged, “JUST TELL ME HIS NAME!!!”

 Even when it’d gone from screaming to a hoarse whisper, he kept repeating it. They left laughing at him, him a bloodied ball trembling on the floor, thinking about how somewhere out there he had a child and he’d never be able to hold him. He had a child. He had a son, “Just…tell me his name…please…”

 A single guard had taken pity on him. Not enough pity to stop the beating. Not enough to even tend to his wounds or pick him up off the floor.

 But enough to stare at him like he was some disgusting, worthless thing for a moment before he closed the door to Prince Noctis’ cell.

 Saying, “The new prince’s name is Oriens.” 

 The door had been locked with a rusty key, with a hollow click, but that had been enough to keep Noctis sealed where he was. Bruised. Broken. But with a name engraved on his heart. So when he managed to push himself up even a little, he hugged his knees to his chest, and he rocked back and forth, and he kept whispering, “Oriens. Oriens. Oriens. Oriens. Ori - “ 

 A son he had who he could not hold.

 “Ple-ase….keep him safe, Dad. Please. Ple-ase. Don’t let them do this to him too…”

 

 Oriens Lucis Caelum. Ori, it seemed he was called as a nickname. His son. A son he had who he could…hold. He could hold him. He could. So Noctis…Noctis dared to. He did. He did. He blinked, he brought himself back from the brink for his beloved son, and he extended his right arm. Slowly. So slowly. And he couldn’t raise it far. And it hurt, so much, like his ribs were scraping against his organs and his shoulder was chipped somewhere inside.

 But it was worth it, for how Ori’s eyes widened, and how he hopped up to sit on the bed’s edge, and how he went all in to snuggle under his dad’s arm.

 Ducking his head shyly, and sniffling a bit, hugging Noctis’ boney hips with an unsure sort of grip maybe but…

 But it was - Noctis closed his arm around Oriens and it was - he was holding his son. 

 “Ori-ens,” he rasped, the name breaking because his voice was weak, but it was his son’s name so he said it anyways, “Or…iens. Oriens. Oriens.”

 “I’m here, Dad.” 

 Here he was. Here they were. Here they finally were, and Noctis had nearly thrown that away? Had nearly thrown himself away from his little dawnlight? How dare he? Tears pricked at his eyes and he pressed his mouth to Ori’s hair, and he struggled to take deep breaths. Oriens was sniffling against his shirt. How lucky was he that his son was so willing to get to know him? That his son believed in him? 

That he wanted this closeness too? 

 In the halls of his mind he hoped and he hoped and he hoped that Oriens hadn’t grown up as isolated and lonely as he had. He hoped his family had done better with him. Learnt from their mistakes. He hoped they’d protected Ori like they hadn’t protected him.

 A tear slipped free, and this man now old, so old, shifted his gaze to the only other presence in the room. To Nyx. Still standing there, silently. Eyes shifted towards the door as if to try and give the father and son privacy, for which Noctis was grateful, but.

 But.

 His magic had forgotten how to be gentle. The most it could do was subdue itself, like it did for Oriens, but it tried to be gentle when it reached for Nyx.

 It tried to be tender about touching the man’s magic.

 Noctis hoped it succeeded, seeing the man who had caught this falling star stiffen in surprise. Hand going to clutch the fabric over his chest. His uniform’s metal clinking with the movement. Those stormy eyes flicking to Noctis, wide, but soft. Soft was good. Soft meant he’d managed to not hurt. To not hurt his hero.

 The one who’d stopped him from making a mistake he could never take back.

 He saw it in those soft eyes; Nyx knew what he wanted to thank him for.

 So, message delivered, Noctis closed his tired eyes and sank into his son, struggling but managing to stroke his hair, struggling but managing to hold him, finally. Even if it was ten years too late. He wasn’t bruised or broken this time. Or at least, his broken bits weren’t as sharp around the edges when Ori was with him. So he was able to hold him the way he’d dreamt of doing for a decade.

 And he dozed off, holding his son close to his heart.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Your Majesty,” Glaive Ulric said lightly in warning, a hand up, motioning for quiet when his King and his retinue entered the rooms of his son. Where his grandson had gone to and not yet returned from. They slowed and they blinked at the Glaive motioning for them to be quiet, and then they glanced past the Galahdian.

 And there, on the bed, Noctis and Oriens lay.

 Ori had his head resting on his dad’s chest, and his legs around his hips in a weird position that put as little pressure on Noctis’ weak body as possible, and the father and son were snoring heavily. 

 Noctis’ face was buried in Ori’s hair, and Ori was listening to Noctis’ heartbeat it looked like - 

 And there was a carbuncle plushie they were both clutching between themselves.

 And there was the hope everyone else had been afraid had gone out. Right in front of them, a splash of sunlight shining down on their afternoon nap.

 “I think…we’d best return later,” the Father declared, very quietly, and nodded to Ulric as he went. Weak-kneed in utter relief. Smiling when he saw Clarus sneak a few steps closer to the bed as he was leaving, phone up and snapping away a few photos, all of them finally, finally smiling for what felt like the first time since Founder’s Day.

 It was a small improvement, but it was an improvement. And they’d take that greedily.

 For Noctis and Oriens Lucis Caelum both.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “You want us to just…ignore it? Pretend it never happened?” 

 “Yes.” 

 Such a simple answer. For such a non-simple issue.

Clarus and Cor exchanged glances. Equal parts unwilling to question their ruler, and unwilling to question their brother who finally seemed to have some sort of hope he could cling desperately to in light of all…the darkness that had overshadowed Lucis ever since Founder’s Day. Ever since what had happened on the steps of the Citadel. 

 How could they take that from him? How could they push the issue?

Thankfully Regis continued before either had to gather the willpower to do so.

 “Let us be honest here. Noctis is not - not well enough to even speak at length in any shape or form,” heads bowed at that sad, sad reminder, and some of the hope dimmed in Regis’ gaze, and no. No. They could not bear to take that from their brother. They would not push. “How would we expect him to speak to some form of therapist? How would we expect him to benefit from opening up to a professional, if not somebody personally known to him, when he so clearly cannot?” 

 So they would ignore it.

 The fact that his son had attempted to throw himself to his death. They would ignore it.

 The security footage of the moment. They would catalog it, but otherwise they would ignore it.

 That Noctis Lucis Caelum had finally acted of his own free will, in this, this terrible moment - they would ignore it. 

 Because it was so clear that he regretted that moment. And they were so hopeful it would never happen again. But also, there were now three guards constantly on a patrol rotation in the gardens under Noctis’ rooms. As well as two at the door, and Glaive Nyx had personally volunteered to watch over him elsewise.

 What more could be done without forcing Noctis to do things he was uncomfortable with?

 So they would ignore it, as says the King of Lucis. 

 They had other important matters to sort out in the meanwhile. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Recovery was not a linear path. Like any road, there are bumps and turns and sometimes detours. Sometimes you had to move back to go forward again, and sometimes you had to do a u-turn to take a different, branching road in the end. Sometimes it was frustrating and sometimes it was sad and a lot of the time it hurt but…well, for Noctis at least, the hurt was an improvement. 

 At least he felt something. For so long, there’d been just hollowness.

 Emptiness.

 Nothingness.

 For so long until Oriens, until his son filled him with love, he had sat an empty husk. So empty he was boring even to his abusers. Even now though. The love he felt for his son was but a drop where once there was an ocean. Because Noctis had once loved. Loved like few folk could, let alone a royal could. He had been so sweet, so expressive. He was the brightness in so many lives. He gave his heart to all, and he just kept giving and giving and giving no matter the cost to himself oftentimes. 

 In the end it was that incredible love that became his shackles. Because no matter how twisted his magic became in neglect, Noctis himself could never bring himself to hate the ones who had imprisoned him. He loved too much to try and escape. He loved too much to cause trouble. He loved so much that he believed one day he would be believed.

 Be set free.

 He was.

 He did. They did. He was free, but still the shackles were shadows around his wrists, shadows under his sallow eyes, shadows in his magic which had learnt to hate. Shadows he rigorously kept far away from Oriens. And shadows that lashed out at others, but never at his son. Free? Was he such a thing? Well…

 He could feel the sun on his skin.

 He wasn’t just allowed to. It wasn’t some allowance made by jailors. It wasn’t some bribe or reward. It was his right. It was something he could do as he wished to. So he did, and so he was startled to realize how much he’d missed the warmth of sunshine touching his skin. Each time his wheelchair was rolled into a ray of sunshine, he would swallow hard and he would go still and he would stare at the god rays shining down on his hands.

 He would stay that way for a long while. It became routine, after his…attempt. In addition to the light meals, and the shifting him around to avoid bedsores, and his father helping him bathe though he never reacted, and Oriens visiting him every night for at least a few minutes seeming so much like he cared - 

 When nobody was around except…Nyx, Noctis would slowly transfer himself to his wheelchair, and seek the sunlight.

 Sometimes he’d go out onto the balcony to truly revel in it, as much as he could revel in anything when it was hard to be inside of his own head.

 Nyx’s pinched, worrisome expressions were understandable each time he did this.

 He let the man lean against the railing closeby with his arms crossed. He let his ‘hero’ watch him. Day to day. That was the only way he could take it. Day to day. Recovery was not a linear path. Like any road, there are bumps and turns and sometimes detours. Sometimes Noctis couldn’t quite get himself into his wheelchair. Sometimes Noctis couldn’t quite come out of his head. 

 Sometimes he couldn’t quite see or hear Oriens, and sometimes he jerked awake in the middle of the night, hurting so badly, and Nyx was sleeping on the sofa with his boots still on, and Noctis would stare at the sleeping Glaive until his heart ceased pounding. 

 Sometimes he winced away from Crownsguard uniforms, but never from Kingsglaive uniforms.

 Sometimes he panicked when he didn’t have his carbuncle plushie.

 Sometimes he shut down. 

 Sometimes he managed to actually look at people who were speaking to him, but never anyone he’d known because - because they’d grown up.

 How dare they? 

 How dare he? 

 Recovery wasn’t a linear path. Reciting that helped him take a breath sometimes. And sometimes reciting that reminded Noctis Lucis Caelum that he wanted to recover. But then he’d rest his hands on his lap and he couldn’t feel his legs, or his fingers felt completely numb when he tried to pick something up, and he started spiraling. He went away. Sometimes he’d open his eyes in his childhood bedroom and think he was safe. Think he was nineteen years old. 

 But then he’d feel his beard rub at his pillow as he shifted, and feel his whole body light up with pains and discomforts, and he’d become a shell again. The Noctis that was molded by Mistveil Keep liked to hide in that shell. It was the only way he’d survived. He stared emptily, and he sat there, still as a corpse, and the world would keep going without him like it had for a decade.

 Time passing? What did it matter to somebody who had already lost ten years? 

 Time passing was marked by Nyx Ulric’s shadow of a beard becoming scruffier and more in need of a shave, and Noctis wondering if the man had even gone home since he’d caught a fallen star.

 Time passing was the different outfits Oriens came to see him in. 

 Time passing wasn’t linear, like recovery wasn’t linear, at least to Noctis. 

 He was fine with that. Because on some level, he was still in Mistveil Keep.

 And on some level, he was going to be wrongfully imprisoned for the rest of his life.

 But then? On some level, the raven-haired prince - because he was the Crown Prince of Lucis once, he was, they may have erased him but he was - would hear Oriens’ shy voice calling out to him. So he would crawl out of his shell, and take that next step forward to be present for the son he loved despite never knowing before his ninth year. His son who never knew of what he’d tried to do. His son who loved him in turn.

 With each passage of this non-linear life, Nyx became less worried seeing him on the balcony. And Oriens’ voice became easier to hear. And Noctis thought he maybe was making it further down the road than he ever expected to just…a couple weeks ago? 

 He was here and sometimes he was there and a lot of the time he was nowhere.

 But that was what the start of recovery is, for somebody who’d gone through all he had.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Wheeling his way away from the great, arching windows of his childhood bedroom, Noctis was small and safe and fine.

 And then Carbuncle, his plushie having been balanced in his lap, toppled off to the floor. And he went tense and not small and not sure and not safe and - 

 And Nyx was there. He was there a lot these days. Kneeling slowly, so slowly, beside Noctis’ wheelchair to pick up Carbuncle. To brush off his blue fur the shade of dreams, and to set him back on the princling’s lap with a smirk and a, “There you go, inlustris. No harm done.” 

 Small and safe and fine again.

 And some days were just like that, as Noctis picked up Carbuncle to bury his face in his downy fur and breathe deeply, thankful to the Glaive. Thankful enough to voice as much quietly. A rarity. Truly, a rarity.

 A ‘thank you’ that seemed to make Nyx’s day if his broad smile was anything to go by. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens, he learned one evening as his son sat on the edge of the bed kicking his feet and giggling about the mayhem a cat getting into the kitchens had caused, didn’t like vegetables.

 He wondered if his family had always seen his ghost hovering over his son.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Recovery was not a linear path, but Noctis made more steps forward than he made back these days.

 

 

-----

 

 
 “Another beautiful day. Have you been outside yet, Noctis?” Asking, despite knowing there would be no response or even a reaction was getting easier for Regis, and he let himself feel the sun warm on his face until he had the strength to turn around and approach his son lying motionless on his bed.

 It wasn’t so different as when he was in a coma. Wasn’t so different at all.

“Glaive Ulric tells me you…enjoy the sunshine. I’m glad to hear it,” even if he could not see it for himself, “The weather will only be warmer in the coming weeks. Summer is here fully now, and I hear there will be some festivals set up near King’s Crossing and Little Galahd. Perhaps you would - “ 

 The silvering king cut himself off.

 Noctis would hardly want to go to a big, bustling festival where people would gawk and stare and judge him for being so…out of his mind, at the moment.

 “Perhaps you would like something from one?” Regis suggested lightly instead, lowering himself to sit on the edge of the bed. Letting it dip beneath his weight. Rubbing the top of his cane, thinking, of a time when his son smiled at such festivals, holding his pinky finger so they wouldn’t be separated in the crowds.

 Never mind that they were always surrounded by guards so that wasn’t truly a risk.

 It had made his Noctis happy, and so he’d always done it anyways.

 “Something from Little Galahd,” he mused, then chuckled, and risked reaching out to brush some of Noctis’ dark bangs away from where they’d fallen in front of his eyes as he laid there, “I’d imagine Glaive Ulric will be bringing you such a thing. If he goes home long enough to even attend the festival. It seems he is rather attached to you now, my Noctis.” 

 Noctis’ nostrils flared as he kept gently, gently brushing his overgrown bangs to the side.

 Regis paused.

 Unsure what had made his heart flutter, and waiting didn’t give him an answer.

 The sun cast soft shades of gold across his son’s pale, pale face. His hair tangled and falling whatever way it would as he laid curled up in his bed at midday. His cheeks were maybe not as prominent as when he’d been brought back from Mistveil Keep, and that was a victory Regis must count for himself to stay sane, but he could still do with more substantial meals. The doctors said he could start stomaching solid foods soon, but he really just wanted to bring his own feasts-for-meals to Noctis and feed him himself.

 At least for a little while, in the sunlight, he could pretend he wasn’t as pale as he truly was under fluorescent lights.

 But he could never pretend that his baby boy hadn’t grown up, with his scruffy beard and wrinkles.

 Still, if he could give Noctis back his childhood…if he could, he - 

 He caressed his son’s cheek.

 Noctis’ nostrils flared again.

 And King Regis went absolutely still when those blue eyes of his son’s blinked, and so painfully slowly shifted.

 Towards his hand, held right next to his face.

 “N…Noctis?” 

…

 Ever since he could remember, his dad had worn a specific scent of cologne.

 When…Noctis asked, once, just a small child, his dad told him it was the scent his mother had loved smelling on him the most. He never changed it. Even when he was sent expensive, sometimes more appealing-smelling colognes as gifts. Even when it was commented on. Even when Uncle Clarus hinted he could try a new cologne just once. His dad never changed it.

 A dab on his neck and a dab on his wrists, each and every morning.

 Like he used to do when he had his queen.

 Like a cat, a tired, tired cat, Noctis had been sunbathing. Lost inside of his own head. Aware only of the warmth of the sunlight shining down on his bed, and the softness of his bedsheets, and the fact that he wasn’t alone. But that last one was a distant thing. As if it didn’t apply to him whatsoever. Why need to know? Why think of it? So he didn’t. Because it didn’t. 

 And then he smelled that cologne.

 It wafted past his nose, and his mind instantly sharpened like he hated letting it do. Ensnared by it. By that smell. 

 By the memories of it.

 Because he smelled it, and his face was tucked in his dad’s neck. He was dozing. He was so small. His dad could hold him with one arm. Loved to. His dad would embrace him, and Noctis would whine and push his face away; his beard was so itchy! Dad! He was sleeeepy. Stoooop it. He was sleepy. He was - 

 And he was small, and he was scared of the daemons under his bed, and he was rushing off to his dad’s wing. His dad’s bedroom. Slipping in and hopping up onto the big, grand bed of a king and waking him in a hushed voice. Trusting that his dad would protect him from the daemons always - 

 And he was a child, and they were holding hands, walking in the gardens together like they weren’t a king and a prince for just a moment.

 And he was a child, and he was running to hug his dad’s leg because he hadn’t seen him for hours!

 And he was a child - 

 And he thought his dad would always be there for him.

 That nothing in the world would ever convince his dad to leave him. That there would never come a day when he forgot the scent of his cologne. The cologne his mother had loved. And maybe he was a bit older, and maybe he was a rebellious teenager, and maybe he couldn’t bear to watch the silver hairs continue to color his dad’s hair, and maybe he moved out.

 But he still smelled that cologne every week, when they had meals together. And he still smelled that cologne every week, because sometimes Ignis would bring his dad’s spare suits by his apartment on the way to meeting His Majesty. And he still smelled that cologne every week, because Noctis had bought a small bottle in secret to just smell when he was missing his dad.

 How long had it been since he smelled - ?

 Begging, screaming, wanting to hug his dad as he was dragged away. 

 It was hard to breathe, and Noctis was within his own head now. Aware now. His nose inches away from a hand, dotted by age spots and the wear of that age. Those years. He stared at it. He stared at the Ring of Lucii wrapped loosely around the ring finger. A ring finger that seemed almost too small and thin to bear such a curse. He sniffed.

 “N…Noctis?” 

 “You smell…like my dad.” 

 A sharp intake of breath. 

 He shifted his cheek against his bedsheets, all black, always black. His beard still felt strange against the fabric - he’d gone so long sleeping on hard floors, too weak to drag himself up onto that lie of a ‘bed’. It, there, what - where was the dust? Where was the darkness? Where was the cell he was used to? That cologne - ?

 Dad - ?

 “That - that’s because I am your dad, Noctis. Baby.” 

 Noctis finally looked, really looked, up at the man who’d been…who’d been…who’d been there. For him. Ever since. Getting out. It was a lot. A great endeavor. That aged hand, to the cufflinks he wore of little gold skulls, to his pinstripe suit, to a cane leaning against his hip, to - to a beard. Peppered more silver than black. Hair the same. Small curls flying away from the neatness of the rest of it all being slicked back.

 Such kind eyes.

 The sort of green you’d see in a garden you walked in with your son once upon a time.

 The sort of green that watched Noctis grow up. The sort of green that always shone with love when on him, no matter the trouble he caused. The sort of green that shone with love now. The sort of green that had darkened with grief as he was dragged away. His daddy’s sort of green.

 “Noctis?” His dad asked.

 “...Dad.” He said as if it were a shed tear.

 He’d gotten older too.

 Suddenly he couldn’t see that though. He could only see a closeup of that pinstripe suit, choking a bit from the pain of being grabbed and tugged up into a hug. But his face was pressed right next to the suit’s collar. Right next to his dad’s neck. And all he could smell was that cologne. And he was small again. And he was safe?

 He was just a child, and his dad was holding him tight.

 Pressing kisses into his hair, and to his cheeks, and to his temple, and whispering again and again and again, “I love you, Noctis. I love you, I love you, I love you.” 

 It was better than, ‘I’m sorry.’

 Noctis liked it better than an apology. It - it was his dad. It was his dad. And his dad was hugging him. Embracing him as if he were something precious that he’d lost and finally gotten back. And for a moment it was all just a nightmare. Ten years were wiped away just like that as he finally got all he’d ever wanted as a scared child locked away. His heart felt healed. He felt full of the love that burst like a balloon inside of him, filled too much. So full. So full.

 For a beautiful moment it didn’t hurt.

 And this time, he wasn’t dying.

 Dad was just hugging him. And it was all he’d ever needed.

 And one more thing.

 “Daddy…I didn’t do it.” 

 “I know, Noctis. I know.” 

 “I didn’t do it, Daddy.” 

 “I know, baby. I know that. I believe you. I believe you.” 

 Dad believed him. 

 It was all he needed, and Noctis Lucis Caelum dozed off with his face buried in his dad’s neck. His beard was still ticklish. He didn’t push his face away this time though. He let his dad pepper him in kisses, let him grip him tight, let himself be buried in the love he feared he’d never know again. Feared he could never accept again. But Dad still wore the same cologne.

 And his hugs were still as great as ever too.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Dad finally believed him.

 

 

------

 

 

 Heart still beating fast from the joy of having Noctis recognize him, Regis stayed at his son’s side until he went away inside of his own head, and then dozed off too. 

 Then he was tugged away as duty was oft to do.

 So much duty. As was the weight a Lucis Caelum was intended to carry. Though not for as long as Regis had. Ordinarily? His son, his heir, would’ve claimed the throne sometime around his twentieth birthday and Regis would’ve been left to a retirement few Lucis Caelums lived to experience in recent generations. Instead he spent an additional ten years wielding the Ring of the Lucii and upholding the Wall, because he would never give such weights to Oriens when he was just a child, and Noctis was…unavailable.

 Now, he wasn’t quite sure he could ever even dream of Noctis taking on those weights, even proven innocent as he’d been. Simply because his son deserved better.

 For however many years as Regis must uphold the Wall and rule, he would. 

 Even if it was just to give his boys one more day of freedom from those things, he would.

 The council may suggest otherwise, and may balk at his staunch refusal to even entertain otherwise - like those foolhardy enough to suggest marrying Oriens off by fourteen to beget heirs from him - but they couldn’t do anything to change his mind.

At least…so long as his mind and body remained sound, they couldn’t. 

He prayed they would hold long enough that the council couldn’t overrule him in a weakened state.

“I hear things with Noctis went…well,” was what dear Ignis commented, tone just hedging on this side of hopeful for the first time in many, many days, when Regis all but did his version of skipping with a cane up to the advisor and his retinue, on their way to the throne room for a meeting.

And of course word had already reached Ignis. He was as vigilante as his late uncle had always been.

“I would like to think so,” he said, hedging honesty himself, leaning a little less on his cane today, so light and happy was he and still able to feel Noctis hugging him, “He recognized me. He recognized me. And he - he hugged me. And he seemed calm and relaxed, in a way I haven’t seen him yet. Sad, maybe, but his magic wasn’t lashing out.” 

For the first time since Noctis had been back in his arms again, his magic hadn’t rejected him.

It was incredible.

“That is very good news,” Clarus said warmly in an instant, the smile he cast both Regis and Ignis’ way was reassuring, and just like that old faith Regis had in his Shield he was reassured. He walked taller in faith with his retinue. With his son’s would-be same.

“The kitchens say his meals are getting heavier,” Ignis added, the hope growing, hidden in his voice as he skipped a pace or two, then visibly ruffled himself and fell back into step amongst them, “and that he is managing to eat more each time.” 

“The doctors say there may be hope for his legs and arms too,” Cor tossed in his two cents, though they were all wearier about the health side of matters, “Just…it’ll probably involve several different surgeries. And lots of time. Potentially years.” 

 Ten years of imprisonment took its toll.

 Still, day by day. Regis reminded himself of that, day by day. They would take it each day at a time. Each hint of improvement at a time.

 And they would be thankful for each and every one of those hints. 

 “That will be something for the future,” the weary king reminded them all, picking himself back up and advancing still, even if his voice had gone softer now with the throne room’s grand doors in his sight, “For now, we must focus on the side of these things Noctis and Oriens have no part in. Politics.” 

 Yes, the joys of ruling. Oh, how much he’d rather be at his son’s bedside still. But this was important. The council’s messages to him were getting more and more scattered and harebrained, and he really had to get a lid on things before something was said or done that truly got out of hand.

 So the doors to the throne room opened for its ruler.

 And the King of Lucis limped in, flanked by all of his and his son’s best.

 It was a familiar song and dance by now, years and years into it. The sideyes at his cane, at his limp. The whispers skillfully hidden by just slightly turned cheeks, and behind sleeves, and all the - ah, what did dear Prompto call them? Oh yes, cliques - of the council separated nicely out before the dais of the throne.

 It was a grand and imposing room, and yet it felt more and more like over the years it lost its majesty in the eyes of Regis’ council.

 And made him more and more worn down, each time he had to ascend the staircase to his family’s throne.

 Yet he did so. Time and time again, he did so. And Clarus followed ever beside him, to stand at his right hand, and Cor followed to stand on the dais below, and Ignis stood faithfully beside Gladiolus at the foot of the stairs facing the council that would see them torn apart if only they could. More and more it felt like they faced a pack of starved dogs when they did this song and dance.

 He sat heavily in the throne of his forefathers, the throne Noctis had never been able to sit in, and stared down at his council.

 Not a single one failed to meet his eyes in easy, easy challenge.

 It was normal.

 And yet, on this day, this time? Regis’ old magic curled a bit at it. Like a piece of paper set aflame. Blackening and curling and burning up so slowly. 

 He took a deep breath, and Advisor Fareth at the foot of stairs did likewise to start this meeting with the proper accords needed for court records -

 But before she could even do that much, one of Lucis’ so esteemed lords dared to speak out.

 Speak up at his ruler so rudely.

 “King Regis, the council would like to know when you intend to come to a decision about the prince, Noctis.” 

 Stillness came over the air. Advisor Fareth exhaled loudly at the lord’s expense, but not a single other member of the council there seemed disturbed by this outspokenness and breach in manners. Nay, they seemed as if they all had planned for this. As if they’d orchestrated this question, this interruption, this grab at attention and a demand - for it was a demand. 

 And the page curled ever-blacker as Regis gripped his cane’s handle tight to try and control himself.

 It did not escape Regis that they used his son’s title like it was optional; had been doing so ever since he returned because they argued he’d still been removed from the line of succession, was still supposedly stricken from the family, could they even still call him a prince of theirs - ?

 Ever-blacker.

 Patience wearing thin for the first time in ten years.

 “...Lord Oriole, I assure you, that decision will come when the time is appropriate - “ 

 His son was not some object they must decide whether to keep or to sell - ! And Regis felt like he was on the end of a rope that had been tugged on and tugged on and tugged on and all at once he was sure he was going to snap if he was tugged on one. More. Time.

 And right on cue, another lord spoke up and actually interrupted Regis to speak. 

 “The time is past appropriate. Have you not seen what the news and papers are saying about the Lucian government?” No ‘Your Majesty’ there. “Have you not seen what they claim of us?” He’d been interrupted before, he was sure. “They are making a mockery of this council! Of the judgment of our court, that you still try to hold in contempt!” He’d let it go each time because he was so worn down, “This must be dealt with immediately, send him away, ostensibly to let him heal, before the news blackens this council further in the name of that disgraced - “ 

 Did they truly want to be blackened?

 They would be, because he was about to call his son disgraced, had implied the council wished to hide his child away after he’d finally been brought back home, and all at once in the blink of the Lucian Council’s eyes their King stood from his throne.

 His magic sharp shards of crystal in the air surrounding him. Blades shimmering in and out of sight and it was a reminder and a condemnation to them as Regis Lucis Caelum remembered he had finally been able to hug his son properly for the first time in ten years.

 And he wasn’t willing to take this anymore.

 The council all went pale and still as he raised himself up as a king ought and bellowed.

 “This council has forgotten its place!!!”

 Strange. They looked so small all at once before him, before his family’s throne, and he thought of his son or his grandson having to stand up for themselves like this one day and he decided to be the one to put his foot down. Now. Here. Like this, because it struck Regis all at once in light of his son’s light slightly showing itself that he was still a ruler and he had children who would one day follow after him.

 And he wouldn’t give them a council like this to help them rule.

 “This council has forgotten its place!” He repeated, drawn up and drawn out and Lucis’ King and so he would be listened to, “Its intended role! It has grabbed at power, and forgotten just who it is meant to serve! Who it is meant to be loyal to! You scheme and snap like greedy dogs at one another, making up excuses, lying and deceiving while my son lays barely sane after what you helped do to him!!! And no, I do not hold this court in contempt for its judgment when it was truly believed to be the truth at that time, ten years ago, but I do hold it in contempt for refusing to show remorse for what my child has gone through because of its judgment. You take no responsibility! You deny everything and anything! You speak of him like he is a scourge amongst us, when my Noctis was the best and brightest prince Lucis could’ve ever asked for!!!!!! You ask me to hide him away! You demand it of me!? DEMAND!?!? You speak as if he is a shame but he is my greatest pride and my utmost joy AND ALL I EVER TRULY WANTED TO PROTECT BEFORE THE ADAGIUM STAGED HIS PLAY AND MADE US ALL HIS PAWNS FOR A DECADE!!!!!!! And you - “ 

 Out of breath, wheezing, Regis gritted his teeth and gripped his cane’s handle so hard the metal dented out of shape.

 His magic was shattering and reforming and shattering again in the air around him.

 And the council cowered.

 And he found his voice to continue in but a whisper, but a whisper that was heard clearly in his family’s throne room.  

 For the Lucis Caelums commanded all.

 “You do not…claim a shred of remorse for yourselves. And you stand here, demanding I hide away my beloved child, who has spent the last ten years wrongfully imprisoned and abused and isolated, because it damages your pride? Your pride? Who gives a damn about your pride?” 

 He should’ve done this long ago.

 “You have forgotten your place and your role in Lucis, council of my council. And I, Regis Lucis Caelum, the Father, your King, hereby declares this court in anarchy. And demands a recasting of the families. A reclaim to power. Hear me and obey.” 

 They were too terrified to even voice displeasure over this command. 

 They were pale, and they were reminded just who were their Kings.

 And on that day, those Kings reclaimed their power over Lucis.

 Regis reclaimed power for his son and his grandson, so that they might never know the trials of a council let off its leash that snapped at power and abandoned its intended purpose. He would be the last Lucis Caelum to know such foolishness. Such disgrace. He would be the mocked one history remembered, so his child and his child’s child could be remembered in a kinder light.

 So says, Regis Lucis Caelum of the throne of Lucis.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “That was…”

 “Indeed, I must say that was…” 

 Clarus Amicitia and Ignis Scientia glanced at one another, eyes equally wide, failing to find the words in a throne room cleared of council members who had been declared under home arrest and investigation and renewment for the first time in generations. But thankfully Cor found the words for them. Stomping up the steps to his king with his arms in the air and shouting - 

 “Fucking finally!!!” At the top of his lungs, like he’d been wanting to get that out for a very long time.

 Regis laughed at his Sword.

 Then laughed at his Shield and dear Ignis’ speechlessness.

 Then laughed at the dents in his cane and how its wooden length had splintered from the force of his magic’s pressure during that…outburst of his.

 “This will be a very, very long few weeks I imagine,” Ignis pushed his glasses up, but despite pointing that out he looked happier than he had in a very long time at the idea of this paperwork they would indeed be sorting out for weeks, “Please, direct as much of it as you can towards me, Your Majesty. I may or may not already have a fully compiled set of documents sorting out the keepers from the…less eligible councilmembers.” 

 Gladiolus snorted, “And how long have you been sitting on those documents, Iggy?” 

 Ignis sniffed, still smiling, not deigning to answer.

 The atmosphere was relieved in the throne room, for the first time in too long.

 And Regis took a deep breath of that relief before standing. Finding his skip back in his step as he summoned his spare cane to take the place of his splintered one, and thought curiously about a life ruling without a backstabbing council always trying to grab at power. Oh, this would change so much. So very much. The council had effectively been a governmental body for Lucis for nearly thirty kings by now.

 Long overdue for an overturning, it seemed.

 “I believe I will take my dinner with my son and grandson tonight,” the silvered king said softly, smiling up at at the god rays shining down upon his family’s throne, and for once not thanking the gods for his strength, but thanking his son and his son’s son, and looking forward to tomorrow in a way he hadn’t in far too long as well, “If you need anything of me, don’t ask. I will be busy until tomorrow at the earliest.” 

 Busy spending time with his child who was slowly coming home, piece by piece of his heart.

 And finding more of his brightness with every piece too.

 “And so, I’m off!” 

 Off indeed went the King of Lucis.

 To find his son once more, and lean in, and press a kiss to his temple and stay. Having dinner with his Noctis and his Oriens, and for once so unsure of what the future would be.

 But so sure that he was okay with that.

 

~>----------<~

Notes:

Being tricked into going to the dentist gave me the necessary angst to get this out so here you go! One more scoop of Noctis sadness and Regis being and Awesome Dad TM. <3

Chapter 3

~>----------<~

 

 In the Citadel of Insomnia, something integral had changed. 

 Did Noctis know this? He felt as if he did. He felt it. The change. From somewhere deep inside of him. He wasn’t sure what had changed, only that something had. And that it was important. Integral to the Citadel he’d grown up in. Been convicted in. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing - or maybe the change was a better thing.

 Either way, Noctis Lucis Caelum felt something had changed in the air. In the people.

 In his dad, who was there for him. Who was real.

 Who had grown up, but who hadn’t left him behind.

 Who sat at his bedside, despite there being a kingdom for him to run, smiling softly and laughing and leading Noctis into doing this or that. All but having a one-sided conversation. He didn’t seem to mind though. His dad just kept on doing what he was doing, holding Noctis’ hand and petting his carbuncle plushie and telling him about matters that went in one ear and out the other.

 What had changed? 

 Not his dad’s cologne, that was for sure.

 Noctis was getting better at listening. At being more than an empty husk, lacking attention or emotion. He blinked, sometimes. He nodded. He shifted, this way or that, or even looked at whoever was talking. Sometimes, sometimes, rarely, Noctis spoke too. Only Oriens could get him to say more than a couple of words, but his dad got a handful every now and then.

 He - he was working his way up to looking at the others who visited his bedroom.

For now, he was doing enough.

 Wasn’t he? 

 There was a quiet in the air. In his father’s magic. In Oriens’ magic. In all the magic of the Citadel. As if unrest had been put to rest. As if some great wrong had begun to be righted. The Crystal sang it so. His soul sang back. Noctis felt safer crawling outside of his shell more and more frequently. 

 Poking his head out here or there to interact with the world without feeling awful.

 His dad made him feel like a kid again.

 Oriens made him feel like a father who had something to live for.

 Nyx - who still so rarely seemed to go home - made him feel safe. 

 Bit by bit. They were simply taking it bit by bit, and day by day. Noctis was. The rest were following his lead. And they were being patient about it. And there was talk of paperwork, and exhausted tone of voices, and sidelong glances sent in his direction, and yes something had changed and he got the feeling it was his own fault.

 But it didn’t feel bad.

 It didn’t feel bad at all, so Noctis let it be.

 And just took it day by day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A wheel of his wheelchair squeaked as he turned it, and Noctis flinched at the noise. Reminded of a certain…door. How its hinges would creak and squeak in complaints when the guards entered. When they came to hurt him. It was a tiny noise, and an even tinier moment. 

 But it was enough to petrify him in a patch of sunlight. Staring at nothing.

 Seeing only that door from Mistveil Keep.

 When a hand entered his field of view, he flinched again, blinking at it and then blinking at the telltale black of the uniform worn and flinching again and - 

 “Easy, inlustris.”

And Noctis Lucis Caelum was no longer imprisoned. He was…in his childhood bedroom. In his wheelchair. In a patch of sunlight, because there were windows here that he was allowed to look out of. A patch of sunlight that shone down on him and on the Kingsglaive kneeling in front of him. Nyx. The man gazing up at him, patiently waiting to be seen as who he was and not as a ghost of abuse.

 He was seen.

 And the raven-haired man let out all of the breath he’d held in a giant gust, his ribs aching from the force of it. 

 “You see me?” Nyx asked in his usual low, patient tone, as if he were talking to a skittish animal and yet Noctis never ever grew frustrated with that approach. He nodded. Slowly. “Good. You hear me?” He nodded again. Slower. “Good. What is it? Can you tell me?” 

 Whenever his dad carved out time to see him, he felt like he was treated like a small child usually.

 Whenever Nyx did a lot of the same things his dad did, he just felt…like Nyx wanted to help him, without viewing him as a helpless child. The Glaive treated him more like an equal.

 That sense of equality, of respect that Noctis had believed lost to him, was the reason he usually found the strength needed to actually respond to Nyx Ulric. 

 “...the wheel…” 

 Mayhaps his responses were…lacking, but Nyx never gave him the feeling that he’d let him down by being so mundane. So slow. Nyx never hit him for it. He simply looked at the wheel of his wheelchair, having heard the squeak for himself, and nodded. He never touched it. He never touched Noctis without asking permission. But he still sought a solution. 

 “I’ll let somebody know to oil the wheels, mkay?” A simple solution, but it made Noctis feel understood. So he nodded. And he shied away from Nyx’s bright grin. 

 He was only just getting used to the sunshine, he couldn’t handle a smile that brilliant so soon.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Carbuncle’s fur was the same dreamy-blue as ever. 

 Carbuncle was the same as ever.

 Carbuncle had never stopped visiting Noctis' dreams, but eventually Noctis had simply stopped dreaming during the decade he was locked away. He had been the one to stop visiting Carbuncle, not the other way around. And now that he was free? Now that he was innocent? Noctis had let himself dream again.

 Carbuncle had been waiting for him right where he’d left him, in his dreamscape.

 With his fluffy blue fur, and ruby horn, and big eyes. His tail big and floofy and wagging, bounding towards Noctis, chirping his name. So excited to see him and - and - 

 And Noctis woke up with the carbuncle plushie his dad had once won him at a festival tucked up in his arms…and a carbuncle figurine that had been taken from him resting on his pillow next to his nose. Looking no worse for wear than it had ten years ago. And his dad was sleeping, slumped against the headboard of his bed, looking exhausted, but practically falling on Noctis because he was as close as he could get to him without touching as they both slept.

 He must’ve just come from a meeting; rumpled suit and askew crown and all.

 And he’d brought Noctis’ carbuncle figurine back to him.
 
 He’d brought Carbuncle fully back to him.

 Very, very shakily, the disavowed prince reached for that figurine. He took it in his fingers - his numb fingers that couldn’t feel anything - and he stared at its faded blue paint. Its jagged shape. A figure cut by his father himself, to protect Noctis from nightmares during his coma after the Marilith.

 He squeezed it in his fist, with practically no strength but it was something.

 And in the pale shafts of moonlight, he finally, finally smiled up at his father.

 Feeling something akin to safety. Something almost, almost akin to…

 He set the carbuncle figurine back on his pillow, then reached for his dad. He tugged and pulled, trying to be delicate, but it was a lot of effort for him who had very little muscle strength. Eventually he managed to get his dad to topple properly onto the bed. The King of Lucis snorted, blinked, woke slightly at the way he bounced when he fell onto the pillows next to his son.

 A familiar figurine between them.

 “Noctis - ?” He asked sleepily, sounding barely awake but still worried, reaching for him but holding back.

 Looking into Noctis’ eyes that shone a tiny bit brighter in the blue light of the moon.

 “...Dad, sleep,” his son rasped, patting the bedsheets between them in demonstration, hoping that was enough of a message. It seemed to be. Since his dad reached up to pluck the pointy and askew crown from his hair, and they both listened to the metallic sound of it falling off the bed onto the floor tiles below.

 And his dad shifted around to get comfy. And he loosened his tie. And he yawned.

 And he reached out to brush his knuckles ever-so faintly along Noctis’ cheekbone, smiling softly at him, making Noctis feel like a little boy again.

 “Goodnight, baby. May Carbuncle…grant…you happy dreams.” His dad sounded so exhausted wishing him a goodnight, and in a heartbeat his eyes were falling shut and he was falling asleep, and Noctis? Noctis was still smiling. Still feeling safe. Still feeling young. He went back to sleep, and back to Carbuncle too, whom he cuddled with in his dreams for a very long time. 

 Trying to make up for ten years of being too afraid to ever feel safe.

 By morning, his dad was gone, but Oriens was playing a handheld game down by his legs, breakfast on a cart next to the bed. Waiting on him. 

 And Noctis managed to smile as he told his son good morning.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Dad, what do you think about this character? Because I say he’d make a good tank, but Uncle Prom says I should level him as a healer using the restoration buff, even though he’s clearly built like Uncle Gladio! It wouldn’t make much sense for Uncle Gladdy to be a healer, now would it? But Uncle Prom says - “ The brightness of a phone screen was a bit much for Noctis to stare at most days.

 But with Oriens so worked up over character builds in King’s Knight 3…it was…a good distraction, from how sore his body was that day.

 So he let his son babble on about the game without pause, nodding along slowly and squinting at his phone screen - and wow, phones had gotten bigger, but also flatter? And the graphics were practically on par with console graphics back when Noctis was a kid.

 He felt honored; Oriens rarely devolved to his shy self around him anymore.

 Not now that he’d had weeks to adjust to Noctis and how odd he was.

 Although, Ori never lingered overly long on talk of his ‘uncles’.

 And he never asked why his dad flinched slightly at the mention of any of them. He’d work his way up to seeing them. Eventually. Just, now wasn’t the time. And…he still…felt a little off-kilter, thinking about how his would-be retinue had raised his child in his absence while he was -

 Hm.

 Still, when Oriens asked? 

 He had to agree with what…Prompto said. So Ori sighed and gave it some serious thought, before nodding. Healer it was. They built the character together, with Oriens showing him how the mechanics had been updated in the last ten years - 

 And Noctis managed to pretend for his own sake that messages from Ori’s ‘Uncle Prom’ weren’t constantly showing up in the inbox, looking remarkably like the messages they used to send to one another when they were teenagers. 

 It was easier some times than it was others.

 When Oriens scampered off, off to an etiquette lesson, the displaced prince was the one left sitting there, body useless, mind and heart scarred, staring at figments of his imagination and wondering what if they’d tried to save him so his son could have a father? 

 It was just his imagination because they never had tried, had they? 

 That was when Nyx stepped in, to silently push his carbuncle plushie into his hands and smile at him, looking tired but content.

 Noctis had to go away for a while after that. But he’d be back.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Paperwork, paperwork, more paperwork. Oh, and more! And there was some more! By the Six, Ignis may have preplanned overthrowing that rotten council years ago, usually as a drunken aside after they’d convicted…Noct…but, it seemed his paperwork was nothing more than a few days-worth of a head start. A few days that had been invaluable, but only a few days nonetheless.

 Obviously, the second news had broken - been leaked, strategically, by the Citadel’s PR team - of the royal council being removed from power and evaluated? 

 Questions had equally broken out from the Lucian people. Not just the Lucian people - Queen Lunafreya of Tenebrae and Empress Stella of Niflheim had both sent messages by week’s end. 

 Inquiring behind their reason.

 For few kingdoms will completely overthrow their governing body for peaceful reasons, although Lucis had peace treaties with both the recovered kingdom of the Oracles and the Empire, it was cause of concern for both women.

 Regis had answered those messages promptly and personally.

 It was imperative they not seem as though they were gearing up to send Lucis to war, especially not in the perilous situation of finally having another…’able-bodied’ Lucis Caelum available. Not to mention the complications of Prince Oriens’ part in the treaties they’d already fostered. While all of Eos was aware of Noct’s false imprisonment and new freedom, they had kept a very tight lid on actual information about his current state.

 Even from Queen Lunafreya, who had sent multiple messengers in the hopes of hearing from him.

 While he was in the state that he was…no. No, there would be no messengers that could bring back word from Noctis. He couldn’t even - he hadn’t even - Ignis hadn’t even…nor had Gladio. Or his Uncles Clarus and Cor. The only people he had responded well to thus far had been Oriens - understandable - and his father - also understandable - and Nyx Ulric, a Kingsglaive - less so, honestly stinging, but Ignis wouldn’t jeopardize Noctis’ feeling of safety for petty pride - and until he improved further? 

 They’d be keeping Noctis very strictly out of the public eye.

 Even though they had news reporters flocking at and around the Citadel day in and day out, hoping for a glimpse of their returned prince, it wouldn’t be happening.

 Most definitely not in light of tossing out the trash as they had. That council. That council that had taken power after a Lucis Caelum generations ago had been too young to claim his throne and so nobles had stepped up.

 And they had never stepped down again, clawing at more and more power over the generations until they had enough power to even overrule their own king.

 King Regis had grown complacent and weak to their demands. 
 
 Ignis was not ashamed to admit he had been disappointed by His Majesty more than once or twice, most ardently since Noctis’ imprisonment. Even if he too had believed him…guilty. Due to Crystal Madness if nothing else. But now he was reclaiming his role as Lucis’ King and reclaiming his honor and dignity with it by putting the council back in its place.

 The paperwork had been a start; sorting out lineages and roles and the actual profits assigned to each councilmember.

 But from there it had branched into in-depth investigations on each council family, and evaluations, and suffice it to say? 

 In a week’s time, they’d discovered three families involved in embezzlement and bribery.

 One family was tied to Niflheim spy networks.

 And one family was purposefully harassing the refugee district, the Burrow, and then charging those poor refugees for protection from their own harassment. All to add to their own pockets and increase the crime rate in such areas, to make refugees look worse for their propositions. 

 Not to mention the sheer number of councilmembers families that coasted by practically on wealth and lineage, proving through a series of tests that they really had no useful skills that could be dedicated to leading a kingdom.

 How Lucis was still standing, they found themselves asking as they cleaned house as it was, they had no clue.

 Ignis was frenzied. He was collected, but he was frenzied.

 He scarcely had time to do up his hair these days, he forewent his glasses more than he wore them now, and he had needed to call in emergency tutors to take over Prince Oriens’ lessons because he was juggling a recasting of the royal council. 

 It was a good distraction from the knowledge that Noctis was right under his nose in the Citadel, and he could go see him - 

 But could he survive being rejected again by him? 

 So Ignis had tossed himself head-first into his work, and the only ones who could drag him out were His Majesty himself, Oriens, or Gladiolus.

 It seemed Gladiolus had been sent to do just that, since the man appeared at his office’s door with a light knock and a crooked grin. Pushing his way in just to whistle appreciatively at the mounds and mounds of paperwork stacked nearly on Ignis’ desk. Ever the one to leave the paperwork to others. 

 Thankfully for the Shield, his wife was very organized. She had earned the Ignis stamp of approval years ago.

 “Heya, Iggy. Have you eaten?” 

 “I can eat when I’m dead, Gladio,” he said flatly, squinting at another, yet another, piece of paperwork and turning that squint into a glare when the words blurred, “What is it? Please, tell me another councilmember wasn’t arrested because I’m still sorting out the arrest reports for Lord Oriole - “ 

 “Nah.” Thank the Astrals - or rather, screw them, what had they actually done for them? What had they done for Noct? “And also, I’m pretty sure you can’t eat when you’re dead, Iggy. Also also, His Majesty’s orders. You get a break.” 

 Huffing, Ignis finally looked up from his paperwork nightmare to glare at Gladiolus.

 Who simply rolled his eyes and waved a hand in a ‘come on’ gesture that took all the wind out of Ignis’ sails.

 “Oh, very well,” he sighed, surrendering. Work was harder on an empty stomach, he supposed. Standing. Carefully, carefully, using paperweights to keep all of his mounds of paperwork in place and circling his desk to join Gladiolus with another sigh. So very put-upon, “This had better not be another offer for dinner, only for you to offer me Cup Noodles, Gladio.” 

 “Who? Me?” Gladiolus snorted, then wilted a bit under the blonde’s very serious stare, “No - just come on. I’m serious about you eating. The kitchen staff haven’t seen you around in a while and it’s freaking them out. Usually you’d go on a baking binge right about now or something.” 

 A wince, barely perceptible, twinged at Ignis’ shoulders.

 He knew his companion had seen it as they left his office together, because Gladiolus’ eyes narrowed, but he pretended it hadn’t happened at all.

 It was simply…a little difficult. To bring himself to cook or bake or even…be in a kitchen, after what had happened with Noctis and the soup he’d made for him.

 It wasn’t a big deal at all.

 “I have far too much to apply myself to to be dalliancing around in the kitchens, Gladio,” he said primly, going to push his glasses up, only to realize too late he still wasn’t wearing them.

 He settled for running his fingers through his hair, and keeping his eyes ahead instead of on Gladio.

 Gladio, who so softly then said, “You know, Iggy, he’s…getting better.” 

 Ignis hadn’t a response for that.

 “And he’s going to get better after that.” 

 Or that.

 “And eventually, he’s going to let us in. He’s already let Uncle Regis back in.” 

 Pausing in the middle of a hall, too dark, and Ignis hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, he stared down at the shining tiles below his feet. At his shoes. At Gladio’s shoes stopped beside his, and he just - he wanted…to believe that. It hurt a lot to realize he maybe didn’t. 

 “When did you become the mature one between us, Gladiolus?” He asked, valiantly pretending his tone hadn’t gone thick with emotion, and thank goodness his old friend played along. Shrugging. Smirking.

 “Probably around the time Cecilia insisted I get anger management if I wanted her to stick around with the kids? Come on. Let’s go get that meal. You need it.” 

 So off they went. And oh, there was so much work to be done.

 For now though, they had to work on caring for themselves just a bit, so eventually they could care for Noctis again. Like they used to. Like they’d dreamt of doing again for years. Like they’d used Oriens to pretend they were. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “You have to give him time, Prompto.” 

 “I know that. I really do,” not that knowing made it any easier, “But - he reacted so badly to me. To all of us! What if…Cor, what if we’re the ones he can never forgive?”

 What if Noctis could never heal past his would-be retinue failing him the way he had? 

 “Then he never forgives you,” Cor Leonis said simply, staring straight at Prompto unflinching and both of them went still. Waited a moment. Just for the Marshal to sigh and wilt a bit, shaking his head, “Prompto, the honest truth is that you’ve all grown up. You’ve all moved on. If he cannot forgive you, how much will that really affect your life?” 

 “I - “ 

 “A life that you don’t even live inside of Insomnia?” 

 The words died in Prompto’s throat. He strangled them himself. Wilting as well, and staring down at his hands that were a far cry from the highschooler’s hands they’d been when Noct and him were separated ten years prior. He hated that Cor had a point.

 “Prompto,” but Cor still tried to be kind for the boy he’d practically raised as a son of his own, tried to lessen this truth, a truth they all would have to accept sooner rather than later, “you already live out in Leide. You left the city behind years ago, and you did it for your own health and happiness. If Noctis cannot heal past what was done to him, I wouldn’t blame him. And you shouldn’t either.” 

 Curling his fingers into fists, Prompto closed his eyes.

 Thinking about how petrified he’d been when he received the call about Noct’s innocence.

 “You’ll have to move on, if he can’t let you back in. And you can do so again this time knowing Noct is safe here, with us, with his son.” 

 They were best friends. He - he should’ve been there.

 “I know…I’ll have to let him go, Dad. I just don’t know if I can survive doing it a second time.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens stared. At his Uncle Prom. Who was hovering, without really looking at the King’s Knight 3 build him and his dad had come up with, even though that was what he’d asked about. It was more like he was staring through his phone screen, brows pinched in this sort of…sad way, that wasn’t like Uncle Prom at all!

 Not that it was unusual for the Citadel. Not now.

 They wouldn’t tell Oriens exactly what had happened, but he knew the council was in trouble because he hadn’t had the usual councilmembers flocking around him trying to ‘gain favor’ as Uncle Iggy always called it.

 He hadn’t seen any of the councilmembers actually.

 And Uncle Iggy had been really, really busy the last week or so! Whenever he visited Ori, he didn’t bring the usual snacks! Or even scold him to eat his vegetables! He just pressed a kiss to Ori’s head and then rushed off again.

 Ducking in and out of offices, carrying so much paperwork some of the piles were taller than Oriens!

 So, something had happened. And ever since that something, the guards had been whispering. His family had been overworked. His grandpa had made extra time for him though - 

 And also had had meals with him and Dad a few times, and Dad was really responding to his grandpa now so…so whatever happened must’ve been good, right? The council was annoying anyways. The little Highness didn’t mind them being gone. They liked to yell, and smile sweetly at him while mocking him behind his back. He knew! He’d heard them while sneaking around, talking about how he was ‘too much like his father’.

 Now that he’d met his dad though, he didn’t really understand what they meant.

 His dad was really, really great! And he liked hugs, and he liked to listen to Ori talk longer than anyone else.

 He even let the princling take naps in his bed, and play video games instead of doing his tutor work. 

 Anyways, whatever had happened that everyone was keeping wrapped up tight and away from Oriens, was that why his Uncle Prom seemed so sad? Usually Uncle Prom smiled the most out of all of his uncles! And he had lots of uncles. They also said he used to be the closest to his dad, so Ori wasn’t exactly sure why he hadn’t been around to visit him very often.

 Well, straight to the point.

 “Uncle Prom, are you sad?” 

 “What?” His uncle jolted a bit, violet eyes going wide and smiling almost as if by reflex to offset Ori’s question, and Oriens knew people! And he knew something was definitely wrong with his uncle now, “No! Ori, what makes you think I’m sad? I’m great! I mean really, I’m - “ 

 “Don’t lie to me, Uncle Prom,” the raven-haired prince, Noctis’ son said petulantly. He really, really didn’t like liars. His family wasn’t supposed to be liars.

 His uncle dulled a bit, his smile fading, and yeah. He definitely seemed sad.

 “Oh, Ori, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie,” that at least seemed to be the truth, but Ori still crossed his arms and huffed and turned his nose away because lies weren’t allowed in his bedroom! And his uncle knew that, “I really, really didn’t! Come on. Look at me.” 

 He looked, reluctantly, because he didn’t want to make Uncle Prom more sad.

 His hunter-uncle looked worn down and weary, and was fiddling with his hunter tags, but maybe he looked more resigned than sad? Like politicians looked when they knew they were going to lose a vote.

 Oriens Lucis Caelum hated seeing that expression on those closest to him.

 “Your…dad,” was where he started. Then stopped. Then sighed and ran his hands down his face with a big groan, “Okay, Oriens, you know, maybe I’m a little sad. Just a little,” his next smile was small and sad and yeah, it made Oriens feel a little sad too, seeing, “I just wish your dad was feeling well enough to see me, is all. Remember what we said? About him sometimes not being all there? Well, he isn’t usually there when I visit him, so…” 

 “Oh.” Sometimes Dad wasn’t there when Oriens visited him too, but he always came back to him eventually.

 Did he not do that for Uncle Prom?

 “Maybe we can go together next time?” He offered shyly, fidgeting with his shirt, to the amusement of Prompto - so much like his dad.

 “That sounds nice, kiddo. Thanks for inviting me.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

“Just foist them all,” Cor muttered, tossing the papers into the waste bin as if as an example, and Clarus groaned.

This was why they didn’t ask advice from their firebrand younger brother.

“Cor, disavowed or not, they were the royal council for generations. I can’t just - “ 

It was a long few nights for them. And then a few more on top of that.

 

 

-----

 

 

Oriens clutched his chocobo plushie close to his chest. It was a long night. A late night. The little princling stood in the hallway outside of his grandfather’s rooms. The royal bedchambers of the King. In his pajamas of black silk. His bare toes wiggling on the cool tiles, and out of sight for the moment because he’d snuck past the guards…but. But. Well, his grandpa had looked so tired lately!

 And shouldn’t Ori be old enough to be able to handle nightmares on his own? He was already nine years old!

 Then again…what if those clawed hands really did reach up from under his bed? 

 Squeezing his poor chocobo so tight he probably ruffled its feathers good, Oriens made an unhappy whining noise in his throat. Feeling close to tears as he stood debating at the doors to his grandpa’s bedroom. To knock or not to knock. That was the question. To be a big boy…or a kid. 

 He was being silly - he knew he was being silly! There was no big, shadowy monster underneath his bed. Uncle Gladdy checked for him before nighttime! But…maybe it snuck under there while his uncle’s back was turned. Maybe it could hide somehow, from all the adults! Maybe it wasn’t actually under his bed, but stalking him right that very moment - !

 “Mvph!” Ori hugged his chocobo plushie for dear life, squeezing his eyes shut and freezing like prey under a predator’s gaze right then and there. Sure a monster was about to leap out and tear him apart at any moment!

 Something squeaked.

 Oriens eeped - accidentally phasing several steps to the side in a burst of blue crystals, and his tears of fear fell. He sniffled and sobbed and spun around to face the monster - 

 And…it was his dad? 

 “D-D-Dad?” He sniffled? Sobbed in relief. It was Dad. It was Dad in his wheelchair, glaring at one of the wheels that apparently needed to be oiled and looking exhausted but - but he was outside of his rooms. He had left his rooms. And Glaive Ulric was several steps behind him, but his dad had left that bedroom he’d stayed in for weeks, and he was here, and if he was here the monster couldn’t get to Oriens!

 “Ori,” his dad rasped, looking stricken in the shafts of moonlight shining down around them, he wheeled himself forward to fill the space between him and his sobbing son, “what…happened?” 

  “I…I had a nightmare.” 

 A look of understanding came over his dad’s face. He didn’t seem as if he’d mock Ori for thinking the monsters were after him. He didn’t seem that way at all. 

 His dad simply closed the distance between them, and reached out. Letting Oriens fling himself into his lap on his wheelchair. Hugging him with all the power that he had. Shaking from his sobs. 

 Prince or not, he was still a child. A child with fears. A child who knew more of the world than most.

 But he was also a child who finally had his dad back these last few weeks, and felt so grateful to be able to be held by him when he needed his comfort. For the first time in his life, Oriens had his dad to hold him instead of his grandpa. And his dad was lean, and bony, and quiet, but he hugged Ori back as tightly as his grandpa never had the strength to do because he was older. 

 His dad hugged him like his uncles did.

 As if he was afraid to ever let him go.

 Oriens sobbed into his dad’s shoulder for longer than he meant to. Turning the fabric of his shirt wet and snotty. Exhausting himself. His chocobo plushie squished between their bodies. On and on and on. And finally he had dwindled down to sniffling alone, rubbing his leaky nose and apologizing for just jumping on his dad like that - they all kept on reminding him that his dad wasn’t very healthy right now, and he’d just - 

 But his dad wrapped him up tight in his arms when he tried to pull back, carding his hand through Ori’s raven-black hair and shushing him. And Ori honestly didn’t want to go anywhere.

 He yawned. Feeling worn out.

 When he rested his head on his dad’s shoulder, though, was when he realized - or remembered, rather - where they were. And that they weren’t alone. And what was his dad even doing out at this hour? But also, his grandpa was standing over his dad’s shoulder. Dressed in his pajamas too and looking disheveled and worried, and that was Ori’s fault.

 “S…sorry,” he whispered, all small and quiet.

 But his grandpa and his dad both just smiled softly. 

 “No apologies, Ori. How about you two join me? We may sleep better that way,” Grandpa Regis said, sounding tired but interested in why his grandson was sobbing at his door in the middle of the night, “Nothing could get to you if you had two Lucis Caelums watching over you at night, my boy.” 

 That’s right! If Dad and Grandpa protected him, then he’d be perfectly safe!
   
 If, also, perfectly tired. Like he was after sobbing as he had.

 Yawning again, Oriens slowly disentangled from his dad. Sleepy and swaying, he flushed a bit because princes do not have such outbursts according to his tutors. But he had. But nobody seemed disappointed in him? No disappointment at all. There was just his grandpa, shushing him softly, and offering him the hand he wasn’t leaning on his cane with. 

 He took it, and hugged Grandpa Regis’ leg as he turned them around to head into his rooms. Dim and unoccupied and a little imposing - especially in the dark. But Grandpa led him straight through the lounge and the living space and towards his bedroom.

 Glancing over his shoulder at the sound of a small squeak, Ori relaxed to find his dad following them in. 

 The carpets gave his wheelchair some trouble, but he wasn’t leaving.

 “There you are, Oriens. Up you go.” He let himself be plucked up by his grandpa and placed on the edge of his big, big, big bed of black sheets. With the curtains drawn in and tied to four posts. It was a bed Ori had slept in before, when he was younger. And it was the first time his dad was also there. 

 Wheeling his way close to the bed as well, and sharing a few words with his grandpa that were too hushed for Oriens to overhear. 

 Dad nodded, looking determined in a way, and then he wheeled his wheelchair right up to the edge of the bed. Staring at it. An expression passing over his face not even Oriens could discern; a rarity. It looked sad, somehow. But also something else.

 But his dad shook himself out and then braced his arms on the mattress and dragged himself up onto the bed. Leaving behind his wheelchair. His legs limp as he dragged them up separately afterwards. Huffing. Looking a lot worn out and a little pained and Ori felt guilty all at once for that.

 For dragging his dad out of bed. 

 So he reached out with his small hand to form a fist around his dad’s sleeve. Clenching it tight. His head falling so his hair hid his eyes as he said so, so softly, “Sor’y…Dad.” 

 The response he got was a boney hand ruffling his hair. 

 He lifted his head to find his dad’s eyes looking brighter than they had in a long time, fixed solely on him, and smiling more true than he might’ve seen him do before.

 “It’s alright, Oriens. I used…to have nightmares too.” 

 It took a bit of shuffling, but they ended up more in the center of the bedspread, and Ori eagerly snuggled under his dad’s arms as the lights were turned off. And there was the clicking of his grandpa’s cane on tiles as he came to rejoin them too. Setting aside said cane, and crawling into his bed.

 Regis ended up curled along Oriens’ back. A second shield to protect him from the world. The first was his father. They lay together, protecting him. The one innocent left. The last son. Regis wrapped his arms not only around Ori, but around Noctis too. He hugged both of his boys tight. 

 And he refused to give them up. To anybody. 

 And Noctis was hugging Oriens just as tightly. Finally able to be there when his child needed him, for the first time in his life. So he grabbed on and he swore he’d never let go. And at the same time? He had his dad there for him too. 

 The three Lucis Caelums fell asleep just like that.

 More connected than they’d been in a very, very long time.

 

 

-----

 

 Noctis sort of ached from his nighttime visit to check on his son in the days after, but at least he was feeling something. 

 He was grateful to Carbuncle for getting him out of bed. 

 Nyx had also seemed happy at how present he was in his own mind.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Not that it was Noctis’ business to know this, but there were riots in Insomnia’s streets as more and more of the Citadel’s corruption was leaked to the public. The people were rallying behind their falsely imprisoned prince. And they were crying loud and proud at long last for his innocence and for retribution.

 And wondering, just like their king, why the Astrals hadn’t done anything to free him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Prompto went to visit Noctis with Oriens, just like he promised he would. He did not get a response. He only made his childhood best friend withdraw completely, and made the princling more curious about why all of his dad’s old friends only hurt him now.

 Prompto left to go spar with Cor afterwards, needing to hit something, and to be hit.

 Gladio and Ignis joined them for that very same reason later.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Life at the Citadel was looking extremely different now than it had a mere month or two ago. The government of Lucis had changed drastically. The people of Lucis too. The King and the Crown Prince most of all had changed. And it was all because of the family member they’d gotten back. One of them hadn't even known he was lost.

 The other had given up hope of ever seeing his baby boy again.

 But they had him back. They had Noctis back. And his health was steadily improving day by day by day. He could eat semi-proper meals. He had gained back some weight. His skin was no longer so pale as to seem translucent. 

 Regis helped him bathe, true, but he had started to scrub himself. And his hair and his beard, still as raven-black as his son’s, was kept neat and trim these days. He looked disheveled, and like he’d been on a long journey, but it was getting easier and easier to not feel completely heartbroken at the sight of his child. 

 Noctis’ magic still raged.

 But both Regis and Oriens were exempt from its lashes. 

 They visited him often. They had meals in his bedroom, and they made time between meetings, and Ori would visit his dad whenever he had something to share with him, and whenever he had a nightmare he started going to either his dad, or his dad and then his grandpa and they’d all sleep together in the bed of the king. 

 Carbuncle was flashes of hope, of dreamy-blue fur, in the corner of Noctis’ vision. Was chirps leading him to get in his wheelchair and go. Like Ori’s big, blue eyes were the encouragement he needed to do the stretches the doctors had given him for his arms and legs. 

 Nyx would help him. Why was the Glaive so obsessed with him? Noctis scarcely knew. He just knew he was there, day and night, and hadn’t shaved in a week, and looked tired but somehow so proud of Noctis - why did he care so much? 

 What sort of bond did his hero seek to share with him? 

 A bond enough that Noctis let him touch his legs. Let him give him the massages the doctor’s recommended, let Nyx hurt him for the sake of recovery. 

 He felt like it was worth it, a bit, when the Galahdian would throw him a toothy grin after every session and tell him how well he was doing. Never expecting an answer.

 Recovery was not a linear thing, but it felt like Noctis was taking more steps forward than he was back these days.

 And then? 
 
 One day, they decided to take a walk - and roll, considering Noctis’ wheelchair - through the garden as a family. The weather was nice. The Citadel was more secure than it’d been in several decades. There were guards posted on every balcony, at every window and wall and door. And Noctis would’ve maybe once called it overkill in his teenage years…but now that he had a son of his own? 

 It somehow still felt like not enough.

 It was strange. Being outside of his bedroom.

 Aside from being taken to the hospital wing once or twice immediately after coming home to the Citadel, Noctis hadn’t really done that. The breeze felt nice. He could smell the pollen in the air, and the freshly trimmed grass, and he could listen to Oriens laugh without it echoing like it did in his bedroom with its tall ceiling.

 His wheelchair moved as well along the garden path as it had when he was a child. The flowers were the same. The benches were the same. 

 The small tree he’d snapped in half by trying to climb it as a child was the same. It was now just a very big, very ambitious bush.

 It was nice.

 He smiled once or twice. Maybe even three times.

 Oriens skipped along, chattering and giggling. Growing shy whenever he remembered all the eyes on them. But he was young enough that he bounced back over and over again, and went back to chattering in no time. The young prince seemed really happy to be able to spend time like this with his dad and grandpa. 

 Noctis wished it could’ve always been like this.

 Dad seemed to too, since he kept stepping close to Noctis to rest a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. Smiling softly down at him. 

 A father with a cane, a son in a wheelchair, and another son who could run ahead and kept waiting for them to catch up. So was the Lucis Caelum line. 

 Oriens got super excited to see the roses in bloom. They ended up pausing there. Plucking a few from their vines. Smelling them, and making a bouquet that an attendant came to take away. To put in a vase for Oriens. An idea that made the boy beam like the sun itself, and Noctis was…happy. So happy.

 To be able to have this moment where his son was shining. 

 His little dawnlight. 

 “Oh no, Dad!” Oriens’ sudden distress stole all of his attention. He gave it to his son. Frowning. Confused as to why he was so suddenly distressed. And distressed over him, it seemed. Noctis’ frown only deepened when his son closed the distance between them, fidgeting, looking anxious.

 Reaching for Ori - 

 Noctis finally realized what had caused his child distress. What he couldn’t realize without help.

 He’d cut his index finger on one of the rose’s thorns. 

 The tips of his fingers were the most numb of his arms; he couldn’t feel anything from them. Simple contact. A touch. A tap. The sting of having cut one open. Noctis watched a droplet of ruby blood slip down his finger, wincing more from the memories it brought than anything since, again, he couldn’t even feel it. 

 It was just another wound to add onto his thousands of them. 

 But this was a wound he found the willpower required to smile through, bearing it for his son who looked so upset and was hovering like a worried nanny, while his own father made a sympathetic noise behind him and mentioned somebody would fetch a med kit - 

 It was fine.

 And then it wasn’t.

 “I can do it!” Oriens gasped, as if abruptly remembering he could - could do what? Noctis furrowed his brows and was ready to tell him he needn’t worry. He would’ve. He’d found his voice if it was for his dawn. He’d found it in himself to give an indulgent smile when Ori reached out to catch his hand in his smaller, squeezing ones. 

 He lost those things when Oriens Lucis Caelum squeezed his eyes shut.

 And his hands began to glow with golden light.

 “Blessed be the stars,” his small son said, unknowingly breaking his heart, “and blessed be the Six. Please, hear my prayer.” 

 That golden light faded away.

 So too did so much of Noctis Lucis Caelum’s strength as he sagged into his wheelchair, staring unseeing down at his hand as Oriens released it. No longer cut. Not a drop of blood in sight. It was so small. It was so small. He was so small. His son - 

 His son.

 And whose? 

 “Oriens,” his dad spoke up then, because Ori was beaming at him all proud and happy, as if waiting for praise, and Noctis had none. Had nothing. Could do nothing except stare at his healed finger with his heart breaking, “why don’t you go with your attendants now? Hm?” 

 It sounded like his dad was panicking. 

 Terrible. He was a terrible father. A terrible one. Because he never even looked up as Ori made a confused sound and was led away. Herded, more like. Looking back at Noctis like he still wanted to spend time with him. Like he was wondering if he’d done something wrong. But, oh, no. Baby, no. He’d done no wrong. This wasn’t on him. It was the fact that he healed Noctis - that was wrong. That was so very wrong.

 They hadn’t really…had they? 

 “Noctis?” When Regis said his name, he was rasping. He sounded so sorry.

 And Noctis sounded on the verge of shattering again when he hollowly, finally, asked - 

 “Who is Oriens’ mother?” 

“...Queen Lunafreya Nox Fleuret of Tenebrae.”

 Noctis went away.

 A few steps forward, several steps back. 

 Because he couldn’t bear anymore betrayals.

 

~>----------<~

Notes:

Mwhahahahahaha -

So now you see why Luna is a complicated subject~

Chapter 4

~>----------<~

 

 “Noctis? Noctis, sweetheart, please? Please?” 

 Calling the name of his son was futile. Regis called it and he called it and he called it. He laid his hand on Noctis’ boney one. He dropped awkwardly and painfully down onto one knee to bring himself eye to eye with his son. He tried, he really did, this frail old man tried. But none of his calls reached Noctis. 

 Those blue-blue eyes had gone dim. Dead. His gaze distant.

 He’d gone away.

 Of course he had. Of course he had. There had been no other response they’d expected from him once he learned…of that final truth. Regis had stomped it so deep down and so small that he’d hoped, prayed, it may never even be a question Noctis asked. But he hadn’t stopped Oriens from using his healing magic in time.

 And now they were in the gardens, and his son had completely crumbled, and…and.

 All Regis could do was sigh and let him be taken back to his bedroom.

 Because he understood, and it had been the council’s decision, not his.

 But that would never make him blameless. Because he could’ve said no. And he hadn’t. Because on some level, he’d always hoped Noctis and Lunafreya would discover happiness and safety in one another. And it had been a foolish, broken old king’s way of trying to cling to what few strings of control he felt he had ten years ago.

 In the end, it had only hurt Noctis, right when he was beginning to heal.

 Another weight for this tired king to bear.

 Just another and another and another; the guilt was mounting. How would he hold out? 

 “Regis, we have a problem.” 

 Was not what King Regis wished to hear after hours of sitting beside his dim-eyed son’s bedside. Holding Noctis’ frail hand, he squeezed it. So very gently. Never tearing his eyes from his son’s non-reactive face. So blank. So empty. It was as if they’d gone back to the very day they’d taken him out of Mistveil Keep. Not even Carbuncle had managed to get through to him this time.

 So Regis had stayed, because he wasn’t quite sure he could handle Noctis coming around to himself and not being there. Not this time.

 “Regis.” Still, Cor was very insistent and sounded very serious so he responded.

 “What is it?” Never tearing his eyes from Noctis.

 Never expecting, either, the report his Sword had to give him in a grim tone of voice. 

 “Photos of all of you were taken in the garden by a journalist that managed to sneak into the Citadel. He leaked them to the media…and the people are panicking over the state of Noctis.” 

 Tearing his eyes from Noctis, it was Regis’ turn to utterly panic. Because they’d been keeping his son’s state private for a reason.

 For Noctis’ sake, for Oriens’ sake, for Lucis’ sake - for Eos’ sake.

 Cor winced somewhat, under the force of Regis’ magic bristling, well and truly pushed to its brink in too many ways. But he didn’t hesitate to step forward and offer his king a tablet. A tablet open to a news article - to multiple news articles. That he scrolled through quickly. Getting more and more bristly with every swipe.

 He wished the photos they’d gotten had been of the happier moments, of them picking flowers and basking in the sunshine together and Regis and Noctis chasing after a playful prince. 
 
In spite of Regis’ wishes, it seemed the photos were of the worst moment they possibly could've been. Whether that meant there were no other pictures that had been taken of their time in the garden, or the media was running wild with these worst ones possible, he knew not. All he knew was that he was staring at pictures of his son that lacked all of the progress he and Oriens had gotten out of him in recent weeks.

Pictures of the moments after Noctis had learned who his son's mother was. Pictures of Noctis sat in his wheelchair looking too pale and too broken, hollow cheeks with even hollower eyes shadowing them, limp and lifeless and staring at absolutely nothing while Regis knelt next to him with a pleading, grieving expression. Hand on his.

It was perhaps the most vulnerable moment Noctis had had in a while.

And of course that was the moment being printed and displayed all across Eos.

Oh, his boy…

For a split second, the Lucian King actually reconsidered his former council's demands in a different light. They'd wanted to send Noctis away again to protect the image of the Citadel's ‘finest’.

Maybe sending Noctis away to protect him would be best.

Maybe Lucis didn’t deserve their Chosen King still, even after a decade.

 If he sent his son away, somewhere he’d be safe, somewhere none could reach him, or harm him, or so much as bother him whilst he healed…but no. Because what about sweet Oriens? And what about Regis’ heart that couldn’t bear letting his child go for a second time? How selfish of him. But how could he send Noctis away, ever? How could he part them again? 

 He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

…

 What the Lucian King could do, was buy out all of the news stations and papers and bankrupt them overnight.

 Yes. He could do that quite nicely. Those vultures couldn’t run stories based around his son’s hurt and harm if they had no jobs at all.

 “Regis?” Ah. Clarus had his ye’ old, ‘ Will I have to clean up the mess you intend to make?’ Voice primed and ready to go. His Shield knew him only too well. Although this was more a mess that would be left to poor Ignis and the Citadel’s PR department. 

 “Cor,” he said with a grimly satisfied tone of voice, since he knew his younger brother wouldn’t try to stop him with arguments of morals and maturity and freedom of speech - that nonsense was reserved for Clarus who had put his face in his hands and surrendered, “If you’d please help me in ruining a few businesses? Say, scorched earth?” 

 “Of course.” 

 Cor’s own tone clearly said, ‘You need to ask?’ But then his spitfire Sword was off, a goal in mind and a forcefulness in his steps, and Clarus rushed after him to try and mitigate the trouble his brothers intended to cause. Somewhat. Since he also, also, loved Noctis. So how could they not do this much? 

 Sighing, he set the tablet down on the black sheets of his son’s bed. 

 The headline stared up at him like a brand on Noctis’ homecoming.

 ‘Our Prince Broken For A Second Time?’

 For shame on them. For shame. Tears pricked at Regis’ eyes, and truly for shame. He reached out to brush some of the dark bangs from his son’s cheek. Staring at the blank, hollowed face of his child who had been through too much and who would be put through more yet. Just to be able to come home properly. Because coming home meant facing his people because he was a Lucis Caelum.

 Still, how dare they? Sensationalize his son’s trauma? Regis would see them pay. Just as he tried to do so long ago, after the Marilith. The council had restrained him then.

 They would not restrain him now.

 Footsteps came closer, and closer, and closer to his son’s bedside. And he knew it was not one of his brothers or one of Noctis’ would-be brothers because the steps were too faint. Too light. Like their owner wanted not to disturb.

 Looking over his shoulder, he found a now-familiar face, a few steps away. A face always within reach of his son these days it seemed.

 A Kingsglaive, Nyx Ulric. The one who had saved his baby’s life.

 Still, still, so many weeks later, he continued to keep guard over Noctis day and night.

 That gave Regis something so very dangerous.

 Hope.

 “Glaive Ulric,” he addressed the Galahdian man quietly, taking Noctis’ boney hand in his and squeezing as he spoke, no longer facing this Glaive who seemed to have sworn himself to his son out of the blue, “you have been diligent in watching my son. I hear you’ve yet to return to your regular duties with Captain Drautos. I also hear you rarely go home even to take care of yourself.” 

 A shuffle. Guilt? Embarrassment? Without looking, this ruler wouldn’t know, and yet he couldn’t look away from Noctis. Not again.

 “I thank you,” but he could find the words, “So much, I thank you. But also I worry you are not taking care of yourself, and that will not help Noctis. It may even distress him on some level. Do you understand what I am saying to you?” 

 Words he kept soft, and kind, because Nyx’s loyalty was the kind the Lucis Caelums were blessed to have.

 “I understand, Your Majesty.”

 Regis recalled this Glaive had been the one to help train Noctis. Had their bond been stronger than he’d known? Had they had a friendship? Had they trusted each really so much so that Ulric was one of the only people Noctis could bring himself to react to when he couldn’t even face his uncles or his would-be retinue? His acts, and his devotion, moved this king. And King Regis wanted to know that Ulric would be able to continue keeping guard over his son.

 He’d heard plenty of reports claiming the man was even sleeping in his son’s rooms; that was how serious he’d been taking his duty. And the man certainly looked unkempt and tired.

 Loyalty had its prices. On both sides.

 “Thank you, again,” Glaive was thanked by his King. 

 And left on soft feet again, while Regis continued to guard Noctis’ body, absent of his mind. 

 Waiting for his little night sky to wake up again.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Waiting.

 

 

-----

 

 

 And waiting.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It went without saying that they kept Oriens from seeing the news about his father. Just like they kept him from seeing the photos, and just like they had kept Noctis a secret before his innocence was confirmed. Another secret to keep from the little princling. 

 Another secret for them to keep to protect a Lucis Caelum’s innocence.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Nyx, I just - “ There was a long, long sigh on the other end of the phone as Nyx lit up his second cigarette of the day, “I just don’t understand. And I ain’t going to, am I? I stopped being able to make sense of your mind years ago. Do what you want. You want to treat that crippled dastard better than your own people? Go ahead. See if I care.” 

 The worst part of this conversation that Nyx had been dreading wasn’t the anger. Because there wasn’t any.

 It'd been a long time since Libertus had sounded angry. Nowadays his sworn brother just sounded bitter.

 “Libs, come on, you know I - “ 

 “No. No, I don’t know you, Nyx,” another long sigh, followed by a fading voice as Libertus moved to hang up the phone, “Not anymore. I told you - lose this number.” 

 The dial tone interrupted his next attempt to talk, and it was Nyx’s turn to sigh. Defeated. Throwing down his cigarette he hadn’t even smoked yet and grinding its filter beneath the toe of his boot. By Ramuh. Why was it that every time he took a step forward, he eventually ended up taking several steps back as punishment? How long would Libertus blame him for what had happened? 

 Staring down at the smear of ashes that had been his fresh cigarette down on the cement, the Glaive realized it was probably for the best.

 He’d been trying to quit. It seemed as if His Highness didn’t much like the smell; always wrinkled his nose whenever Nyx got too close to him after a smoke break. The last thing he wanted was to upset inlustris. Libertus though. Libertus was going to get upset no matter what he did. 

 Nyx could already imagine his old friend slamming his phone down as he hung up, then reaching under his bar for a bottle of something strong to drown his bitterness in alcohol, alcohol, and more alcohol.

 Tilting his head back, he reached up to trace his braids and his beads rather than to smoke, and stared at the skies a perfect, stormy promise above him.

 His Majesty had given him an order, and yet he was left with nowhere to go other than to work on picking up his own slack for Captain Drautos. Counting down the moments until he might be told it’d been long enough and he could go back to Prince Noctis. He whom he had renewed his vows to. He whom Nyx had taken up new beads for. He whom Ramuh himself had wept for - 

 It was his sworn duty now, and Nyx wanted precious little besides to fulfill it.

 Libertus couldn’t understand because he’d surrendered years ago.

 After they’d lost Crowe.

 But Nyx would keep fighting, until the day he died, because that was the oath he’d made as the Ulric Clan’s Chieftain when he swore his clan to King Regis almost three decades ago.

 He was just counting down the moments until he could go back to his life’s purpose. Just a few more moments.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Lunafreya Nox Fleuret being the mother of Oriens - well, Regis hardly wanted to say he’d forgotten that she was, but it was just one of those things one doesn’t think about anymore once its relevance had dwindled. Was that awful of him? It left him feeling awful now, spending so much time cooped up in his kingly office dealing with the unrest of his kingdom. Unrest his son being innocent had caused. The riots had settled a bit after the media released those leaks and secret photos.

 Of course, the media also lost a lot of branches and were slapped with more than twenty different lawsuits by the crown, so there was that.

 So much paperwork.

 And Noctis hadn’t come back to himself yet.

 And also, was Lunafreya being Oriens’ mother something Regis would have to make lots of amends for? It was odd; not being sure of that. Almost ten years ago the queen - then Tenebrae’s Crown Princess - had volunteered to carry on the Lucis Caelum bloodline as part of an ongoing peace treaty agreement with the Empire, so soon after Noctis’ imprisonment too. They’d thought it was a Niflheim plot. They’d expected a trick, or some sort of deception, but in accepting Lunafreya’s offer?

 All went precisely as they’d organized. The doctors had inseminated her with Noctis’ DNA, and the princess had spent ten months in Lucis carrying its next heir.

 It was only two years later that Tenebrae broke free of the Empire’s occupation, following Emperor Aldercapt’s sudden death.

 And then followed the new queen proposing many, many treaties with Lucis. For everything Tenebrae needed in light of its new freedom; trade, protection, peace. Lunafreya had treated her ties to Oriens like a bargaining chip during those times. Like a way to remind the Lucian Royal Council that she’d done their kingdom a great favor and expected recompense. As any queen should.

 …Really, Lunafreya had treated herself more like a surrogate than a mother, never bonding with Oriens and never even claiming him as her own; leaving Lucis the week he was born, and acting almost as if carrying Noctis’ child was a matter of duty and pride instead of personal or emotional in any way.

 Regis, for a second time in his life, had ended up being both a mother and father to a child of his.

 His child’s child.

 Common sense had told him eventually, eventually, Noctis would learn of Oriens’ other parent. But it hadn’t seemed important in the grand scheme of things. Especially with his son so untethered. The sheer devastation seeing Oriens wield the magic of the Oracles caused had been a shock to Regis, and in his shock he hadn’t handled it well, and - 

 Well, he was still a tad confused. Ashamed. Guilty. But also confused.

 Because he’d thought Noctis and Lunafreya had an excellent relationship. They’d kept in contact ever since Tenebrae was invaded, Noctis had always spoken of their exchanges fondly, he’d called the Tenebraean Princess his friend, there’d even been talk of the two being engaged after his son had come of age and Noctis had never seemed against the idea.

 To summarize, Noctis was stuck inside of his own head again, Queen Lunafreya was now a touchy subject of the highest degree, Oriens was worried about his dad, and Regis was confused.

 He sighed and slapped down another stack of papers. Feeling the urge to collapse on it and not think about anything for at least a week.

 “Haven’t seen you so ready to kiss your paperwork in a while,” Cor snorted, entering and closing the doors behind him. Getting his king to lift his head, if nothing else, “I’ve got those final Mistveil reports for you. All accused will be questioned, and then prosecuted in about two weeks’ time.” 

 “Hello to you too, Cor. Two weeks?”

 “Can’t make it any sooner than that,” his youngest retinue brother huffed, crossing his arms, arching a brow at Regis, “We are in the middle of reevaluating your entire council, in case you’ve forgotten. Which includes Lucis’ higher judicial system. Especially the judicial system. And there are a lot of accused.” 

 “Yes, well,” it was a necessary expense of time and manpower, it really was, “how likely is it that they will face proper punishment?”

 And if Regis’ voice dropped low and dark when asking that, that was also as necessary.

 “Half and half. Half of the guard actively mistreated and abused him in Mistveil Keep, and half simply looked the other way. The worst of them are up for the sentence of execution, Your Majesty. And the rest…vary. From lifetime sentences of imprisonment, to only a handful of years, to less for those who looked the other way.” 

 “They are still guilty.” Crystals fractured around the furious father, his tone final, and Cor recognized it for the order and condemnation it was. 

 “They are. But…it will be hard to convince anyone to execute more than a hundred members of the Crownsguard, Regis. We’ve only just begun to refill our ranks in the last five years. The same goes for giving that many trained, honored ‘Guards lifetime sentences - “ 

 For once in a gods-forsaken life, Regis lost his patience and slammed his fist down onto his desk.

 Papers fell.

 His magic sneered at those gods who never listened.

 “Cor, do not call them ‘honored’ when they spent the last ten years torturing and abusing my son. And they will be sentenced, because so too was my son when he’d done nothing.” 

 His Sword bowed in deference to him, always to him. 

 “I shall see it done myself, Your Majesty.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens wondered if he’d done something wrong.  

 He’d only been trying to help!

 But ever since that day in the garden, ever since his grandfather told him to go with his attendants, his dad had been gone whenever he visited. And the whole Citadel felt weird! Like…it was humming. It made him shiver when he listened to it for too long. It felt angry. It felt like that humming was coming from his dad. It quieted whenever he was closeby, so he spent a lot of the next few days at his dad’s bedside, even if he didn’t hear him or see him.

 Was he not supposed to show his dad his healing magic? Nobody had ever mentioned that to him. Shouldn’t his dad have known that he could heal? He got it from Queen Lunafreya, after all. That wasn’t a secret.

 Was it his fault?

 Sometimes, sometimes, Oriens just felt so…small. And stupid. And sometimes it felt like when people stared at him too much or too hard it made him smaller. And sometimes the adults would say things that weren’t meant to make him feel small but they did it by accident anyways. And sometimes Oriens wondered if he really was going to be the King of Lucis one day, because…

 He didn’t feel like the crown would fit him, sometimes.

 Uncle Prom kept coming to visit him while his dad was away in his head, and Uncle Iggy made time to finally bake him some treats again.

 And Uncle Gladdy brought the twins to the Citadel so Ori got to play with them and Aunt Cecilia! 

 Everyone though, including Pops Clarus and Cor, were carrying stacks and stacks of paperwork all of the time. Grandpa was too busy to see him too, it felt like. 

 In his bedroom, little Prince Oriens hugged his chocobo plushie tight.

 Asking the small, blue dream spirit to help guide his dad back to him soon, so that he could apologize for whatever he’d done. Having decided it was his fault. He would take responsibility! Because that was what royalty does, his grandpa had always said. 

 Hopefully Dad would forgive him for being the way he was.

 Ori had only just gotten his dad, after all! And…he really didn’t want to lose him so soon.

 

-----

 

 

 The riots on Insomnia’s streets weren’t stopped because the people were satisfied, or because they felt their work was done, or even because the problem was at an end. The riots stopped because it became all too clear to the Lucian people that them clamoring for things to change when they were already changing only complicated matters, so they temporarily laid down their signs.

 And they criticized the media that invaded their returned-prince’s privacy to try and get a scoop.

 And they cheered when it was revealed the crown would be suing those people who cared more for a paycheck than the safety of a man wronged.

 And they listened, and they watched, and they whispered. Gathered in groups online and on the streets. There were those that burned their cosmology books in light of the Astrals’ silence. There were those that preached for understanding towards the Six, filling the city’s cathedrals enmasse. There were those that made up conspiracy theories getting more and more outlandish, and there were those who simply sent their prayers and wishes to the royal family who had already been through too much.

 And there were those in support.

 And those against.

 And there were the shadows of a war hanging over Eos, as many nations wondered if the return of the supposed ‘Chosen King’ would change anything. Because the war had only ended when he’d been convicted. Wrongfully or not.

 And a new Queen sat Tenebrae’s throne.

 And a new Empress sat the Empire’s throne too.

 And the heir to Lucis and Tenebrae was growing up in Insomnia.

 And the Astrals’ Chosen had returned, if broken.

 Again.

 Eos’ powers were shifting, and so the riots went silent because everybody was waiting to see who would step out on top in this end.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It took Noctis Lucis Caelum a week to wake up to himself. To his own mind. It was startling; going back to that state after all he’d managed to recover of himself. Going back to being a hollow husk. Staring blankly at everyone and everything. Hearing nothing. Lashing out with his magic when any dared near him.

 Hollow, and then not.

 Noctis simply woke up. 

 There was no specific trigger. Nothing to stir him besides the fading chirps of Carbuncle. His bedroom was shadowed and moonlit all at once in the night, and he lay in a perfect patch of blue and white moonlight on his bedsheets. Bedsheets he ran his fingers over. Letting the fluidity of the silk be his first sensation after coming back to himself. Bit by bit. He reminded himself; bit by bit.

 Slowly. Take it slowly. Feel the bedsheets. Feel the feather-soft pillow his head lay upon. Feel the pajamas he wore. Feel the strange sense of moonlight on his skin. 

 Listen to the movements of him lifting his ear from the fabric. Listen to the way his blankets rustled as he slowly, unsteadily, sat himself up. Listen to the soft tap of his bare feet touching cold, cold floor tiles after he’d dragged his lifeless legs over the edge of the bed.

 Listen to the quiet snores of another person in his bedroom.

 Noctis lifted his head, after a beat too long. Feeling like everything was on a delay for him. He existed in an echo. He was still waking up. He looked for the source of the snores - he pushed forward without thinking because he was only nineteen and his legs still worked - 

 And the once-Chosen King crumbled. 

 Like a puppet with cut strings, he hit the cold tiles of his bedroom floor in one incredibly cruel slip of his mind.

 He was used to keeping silent when he was being hurt so he didn’t make a sound. It hurt. He kept silent. His legs were folded under him at a completely wrong angle, and he’d knocked his chin against the tiles when his elbows gave in instead of catching him, and he felt dizzy from the sudden change in orientation.

 And he was completely silent anyways. 

 Because even if he cried out, who would ever save him? 

 Lying on the floor beside his bed in a limp, twisted shape, suddenly hidden from the moonlight - Noctis stared at his pale hands he was keeping curled up next to his chest because numb or not? They hurt from that fall.

 Noctis stared at his pale hands and he remembered why he’d gone away.

 There had been a bead of blood on his fingertip then. Like a small, ruby jewel. And it had been harmless. And he’d been happy. And then Oriens - Oriens had - and Dad has said -

…

 Never, not ever, could he regret Oriens’ existence. That was his little dawnlight and he could never. No matter what came of him being the heir to Lucis, no matter the reason he had to be created in the first place, Noctis would defend his last light until his final breath because that was his son. That was his baby boy, as he was his father’s.

 Yet. 

 Lunafreya was the last woman he’d ever want to be his mother. 

 Lunafreya was complicated. So complicated he couldn’t handle the idea of her right then.

 Thankfully the stringless puppet was distracted by a snort. A sudden silence in lieu of the soft snores that had filled his bedroom until then. He blinked. He heard the sound of somebody shuffling around, then the squeaking of a sofa’s springs, so Noctis lifted his head. His dull blue eyes catching what moonlight could be found down on the floor. And there, there, on his sofa, a familiar sight.

 A Glaive. Waking up in the middle of the night. He watched as his outline shifted, watched him stretch his arms above his head and listened as he let out a tiny groan and then he twisted as if to crack his back while sitting there on the sofa.

 Nyx’s stormy eyes locked with his dull ones in the moonlight.

 The Glaive froze.

 Stared.
 
 Then inhaled sharply and was on his feet in a heartbeat, and at Noctis’ side even faster. The sparkle of crystals, of a warp, left chiming in the air as he knelt beside the crippled royal.

 “Starlight - are you okay, starlight?” A Galahdian curse Noctis had never learned followed, then another, and the man’s hands hovered but never touched. As though waiting permission. Checking the young man - man, since he wasn’t young anymore - over in every other way he could, looking one wince away from calling for the Citadel’s doctors.

Not wanting that, and honestly not even that hurt, Noctis found it in himself to nod.

To even speak.

“‘M fine…Nyx.” The man didn’t exactly look like he believed his reassurance. Reaching up to grab at and rub some of the beads in his braids as he knelt there, shifting, shifting, and Noctis realized he probably wanted to help him up. Probably a bit late.

 Still, he held out a frail hand, and found the strength of Nyx’s grip anchoring. A hand in his. Another down around his waist. Supporting him as he was lifted up, up, to sit back against his bed. Feeling dizzy again from being moved around like a doll. But Nyx was so gentle with it.

 “Easy, inlustris. Do you need me to call somebody?” 

 “...No…thanks.” 

 Nyx had shaved. Had he gone home? His braids were rebraided and his beads looked polished; reflecting the moonlight. And his eyes looked a little bit brighter. That made Noctis glad in the most odd of ways. His heart did a weird flop when Nyx cupped his elbow to help him stay sitting up straight. Usually it only did that when he was afraid he was about to be hurt.

 But, somehow, he’d never really thought Nyx Ulric would hurt him.

 “Can I do anything?” There was the Nyx Ulric he knew. Always offering and offering and offering. 

 An old piece of familiarity that Noctis was willing to take out and dust off. A piece of himself when he was young and Nyx was younger. A piece of his teenage years when Nyx was the one teaching him how to warp without throwing up. A piece of another time. A time where he hadn’t known the hurt of Mistveil Keep yet. A time where he hadn’t been locked away.

 And a time when he knew what sunlight felt like, and could never imagine forgetting that.

 Nyx was earnest. Kept his hand cupping Noctis’ elbow as the shaky royal sat against his bed. Sat there beside him, with a loppy smile and stormy eyes and Noctis had always loved summer storms. Summer days turned dark, with rolling cloudfronts and rumbling thunder and lightning strikes that arced off of the Wall.

 That’s what the Galahdian reminded him of.

 That…might help.

 So with the encouragement of Carbuncle’s chirping on his mind, the raven-haired man simply asked, “Tell me…a story? Of…storms?”

 Only one of them was a smoker, but despite never touching a cigarette Noctis’ voice was by far the raspier of their two. Years of not speaking left its mark. Not enough to silence him, but enough to stilt him, but Nyx heard him. 

 And he smirked.

 “A story? I can do a story,” he tipped his head to the side consideringly, and in so doing rested his head on Noctis’ shoulder and hummed and Noctis felt that, and his heart flopped weirdly again. Was there something wrong with him? “Let’s see…how about, the story of the Shrike and the Wolf?”

 So Nyx told him a story.

 And when that story ended, he told him another.

 And then another.

 And he lifted his head from Noctis’ shoulder somewhere in all of that, to stretch his arms above his head and groan as he did so, and urge the younger man to do so too since he couldn’t quite feel when his body began to grow stiff because of all of the nerve damage he bore. He tossed Noctis this crooked smile that was full of teeth, and with how close they were it felt so…

 Nyx had lots of wrinkles around his eyes. Like he smiled a lot. 

 He told him another story, this time the two of them faced each other, resting their heads on the edge of the royalty-worthy mattress Noctis had fell out of earlier. And he spoke in this low, low way that was really just so nice to hear. 

 The moonlight turned pale and disappeared behind clouds, but there was no dulling those eyes that were storms Noctis chose to get lost in.

 Nyx seemed content to be telling his star Galahdian children stories as the moon began to fall and dawn crept closer.

 Sleepier and sleepier, eventually Noctis ended up being the one to rest his head on the Glaive’s shoulder. A very sturdy shoulder that sank down so he was more comfortable. Practically folding Nyx around him as the children stories slowed. Which meant his attention wandered. Wandered until it ended up latching onto the braids right next to his nose, with so many beads of so many shapes and colors.

 Where his attention had ended up was noticed, and Nyx chuckled.

 “Curious?”
 
 “...Mm…” 

 Nyx took his hand to lead it to his braids, and helped him feel his way down the first strand. Now it definitely felt…intimate. Noctis may not know all of Galahdian culture, but he knew their braids were precious to every individual. He knew that they weren’t to be disrespected, let alone touched by a stranger in this way. The fact that Nyx was trusting him to do this when his magic still toiled - 

 “For being the first son of my parents,” so Nyx started telling Noctis the story of his beads, “For being educated by the wisewoman of my clan. For being born under the sigil of storms. For being a respectful child. For completing my first hunt. For offering my first sacrifice to my god.”

 It was a lovely story.

 “For being blooded. For being an oath-keeper. A protector. A warrior,” his hand was worn, weathered…and warm, as he helped Noctis slide his fingers from bead to bead, speaking in that low tone of voice all the while, “For being a chieftain of the Ulric Clan. For being a storykeeper. For being a vassal of our Stormbringer, Ramuh. For being an ocean child.” 

 On and on and on, the meanings of the different colored beads continued, with the titles slowly turning more and more personal.

 “For my bravery. For my loyalty. For my lighthearted nature that was lost.” 

 More and more personal.

 “For the childhood I lost. For the home I lost. For the home I now fight for.” 

 Nyx slid his fingers over to another braid, thicker and full of darker beads than the others. Beads that did not reflect the moonlight so easily. Beads that seemed…sadder. As strange as that sounded.

 “My mourning braid. For the friends I buried. For the bodies I never found. For my mother. For my sister. For all that I have grieved in my life, and all that I will one day grieve too, and when my time comes to join the Great Storm it will be burned so my grief can be released and I won’t carry it with me to the beyond that awaits me.” 

 Noctis held his breath as Nyx took his fingertips to draw them along the thin, simple tattoo of purely black ink that circled his neck, that dotted his cheeks.

 Teardrops forever falling from his eyes despite how often he smiled.

 “My call for the rain. For strength. For courage. For the blessings of my forefathers, so I might fight as fiercely as the black coeurls at Father Ramuh’s side,” stormy eyes right above them, gazing into Noctis’ soul without apologies, “For hearth and home.” 

 For hearth and home, everything.

 “Do you understand me better now, princling?” And suddenly his heart being kept in his home made sense, because his heart pounded in his chest as he stared at those eyes of the storm that wouldn’t flinch back from his dulled soul. His stinging magic. It was strange - why? He wasn’t afraid, so why was his heart pounding? 

 It felt like his heartbeat was stuck in his throat. He couldn’t speak.

 “Would you like me to tell you more stories of Galahd, inlustris?” 

 Starlight.

 Noctis nodded, mutely.

 And they ended up staying awake for hours longer. Noctis listened, and learned, the stories of Galahd from a storyteller of the Storm Islands. They were his bedtime stories. In the moonlight, he was the starlight in Nyx’s opinion, and Nyx was so delicate with him. Laying an arm over his shoulder and holding them together and telling him story after story after story with such flourish that the bad thoughts couldn’t get to Noctis.

 And he fell asleep shortly before morning came, his head resting on the Glaive’s shoulder, calloused fingers carding through his hair, and another story entering his heart.

 Learning why the Galahdians called for rain, as the fears in him were finally quenched like flames drowned in a downpour.

 Noctis fell asleep.

 Carbuncle was waiting to show him more of Galahd in his dreams when he did.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Come morning, as ever in spite of the dizzying amount of meetings on his calendar, Regis came to see his son first and foremost. Weary. So very weary. And leaning on his cane more than usual. And just so very tired. Clarus seemed extra worried for him that day, no matter his reassurances or how many times he waved off his Shield offering him an arm. There had…been a lot to handle lately. That was all.

 Hopefully Ori would be available for dinner; he was missing his grandson terribly after a week of being buried in the mess the media had made by simply leaking a picture.

 Upon entering his son’s still bedroom though, as he’d done all week long, Regis looked to the sofa where Glaive Ulric would likely still be sleeping - devoted to a worrying degree, honestly, at this point - but found the sofa empty save a set of boots unlaced and left beside it.

 So he turned his eyes to the bed.

 And blinked when he found Nyx instead sat on the floor beside it, with his son laying as close as he could come to the edge of the mattress. So close that one shift would result in him tumbling over that edge. And not just onto the harsh tiles below, but onto Glaive Ulric whom he was practically wound around the head of.

 Sleeping with his face pressed into his hair, and one arm draped down over the man’s shoulder.

 It was a surprising sight. It was a hopeful sight.

 One tap of his cane had Nyx’s eyes fluttering open, fixing on him with all the perception of the Galahdian hunter that he was. They softened when the man realized there was no threat. He didn’t bother moving once he seemed to realize the position he was in. He just dipped his chin slightly in greeting to his king.

 “Majesty.” 

 “Glaive Ulric.” How is it that you manage to bring Noctis out of his shell the way that you do? “Tell me, did my son - ?” 

 “He came back to himself last night, Majesty.” Narrowed eyes that flicked down, then back up, and Nyx added slightly awkwardly, “He, uh, fell out of bed. It woke me. It might be best if somebody checks him over for bruises or sprains when he’s awake again.” 

 Regis’ breath caught, and he was helpless to his need to get to Noctis. To hobble to him and look him over despite seeing no sign of any injuries on him as he lay there, snoring shallowly.

 The idea of his son falling like that, when he couldn’t even use his legs now…

 “Thank you, Glaive,” he reached out to run his hand down Noctis’ cheek, feeling fragile in how fragile his child was. His heart couldn’t take much more of this. “Did he say anything to you? Did he seem fully aware?” 

 “He seemed that way, yes,” it was clear the Galahdian warrior was measuring his words as he spoke, and Regis in equal parts wanted to respect his privacy and demand to know everything that involved his son, so he settled for simply staring down at the man his son was wrapped around as he slept, “He didn’t exactly say much, Your Majesty. He asked me to tell him a few stories until he fell asleep, actually.” 

 Well that was certainly a kinder image to keep in Regis’ mind than his son lying crippled and with sightless eyes on the floor of his bedroom.
 
 Yes. He would keep that image in mind for the day.

 “Will you send for me when he wakes? Don’t mind any of my scheduled meetings, just have somebody fetch me.” 

 “Yeah, I can do that.” 

 Finally, another step forward. Regis kissed Noctis’ head before he left. Keeping in mind kinder thoughts, now that he had hope. He didn’t lean so much on his cane now either.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis woke up, eventually, drooling on Nyx’s shoulder.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The gardens were nice. The weather was nice. The flowers and their pollen were very…invigorating. Or as invigorating as anything could be when you had as much damage to your body as Noctis did. Nyx tried to steer him into staying in his bedroom after he woke up. He insisted on going to the gardens because he wanted to clear his head. They compromised.

 They went out to the gardens only after Nyx had sent out the call that he was awake.

 The flowery smells and the breeze did Noctis good. Like dusting the cobwebs off of his mind. Like oiling the wheels of his wheelchair. The smaller version of him that darted into the garden, shortly after, clearly running from his attendants? Did him even better.

 “Oriens.”

 “Hey, Dad. Are you…doing okay? Better?” His son shuffled a bit, then a bit more, looking so full of concern that Noctis felt horrible.

 Now that he was looking for it, he could see the similarities between Oriens and Luna…freya.

 The slope of his nose. The rounder shape of his jaw. His slighter shoulders, his thinner eyebrows. He had Noctis’ hair, and the same eyes that Noctis had inherited from his own mother, but otherwise? He looked a lot like he’d grow up to resemble the Nox Fleuret family line too. Like the magic he could wield; a tie between him and Tenebrae that was forever. All because of who his mother had ended up being.

 And his father hadn’t known. Hadn’t even asked the question because Oriens’ existence had been a shock enough. The amount of love he felt for his little dawnlight was shock enough. And now he saw in Ori’s face the face of a woman who had been like an elder sister to him.

 And it was strange. It was uncomfortable.

 It was his son and he loved him endlessly anyway.

 “Ori…I am doing…better.” Better, as opposed to being a hollowed-out husk trapped by the knowledge that a friend of his had been complicit in something that hurt him so terribly. But the way his answer made his child, his son, light up? Meant he’d never take it back. Never. Not ever. Because Ori’s happiness had so swiftly become all that mattered to Noctis.

 So he opened his arms a bit, regretting that he’d worried this innocent child for a whole week, regretting the time together they’d missed as a result, and he felt relief for the way his shy Ori didn’t even hesitate.

 He just threw himself across the garden’s path to hug his dad.

 Nyx, like always, made a worried sort of sound in his throat when the princling clambered up onto Noctis’ lap and sat there, hugging him tight.

 Noctis waved away the worry, because nothing mattered more than his son’s hugs.

 “Ori,” the displaced prince asked in the span that followed, “what do you think about your mother?” 

 Because he had to know.

 Oriens’ nose, in response, wrinkled. Quite a bit. And he found himself surprised by the way his son hesitated to answer, picking at threads of Noctis’ simple shirt, averting his eyes. Finally he just shrugged and sounded so awkward in saying, “Queen Lunafreya?” 

 He didn’t even address her as his mother, and that was weird to realize then.

 “She’s…fine, I guess? A strong queen for Tenebrae,” still picking at the threads of his dad’s shirt, fraying them, he sounded uninterested, curious as to why his dad wanted to know, awkward still too…but nothing about Oriens at that moment said he had ever been made unhappy by Lunafreya, or that they’d had a significant relationship at all, “Grandpa praises her sometimes. Uncle Iggy too. I know she gave birth to me, but I haven't seen her since I was too small to remember. Unless you count on TV, because then I’ve seen her since, but, you know, not in person.” 

 The small copy of Noctis shrugged his shoulders, snuggling into his dad’s shoulder in favor over talking more about his ‘mother’, and that was when something else struck the would-be Chosen King.

 His son hadn’t had a mother either.

 Somehow, after learning he’d had a son in Mistveil Keep, Noctis had thought whomever was chosen to mother him, to carry that son of his - Noctis had thought they’d actually be a parent to Oriens. Maybe they’d even take up the throne as Lucis’ Regent until his heir came of age. Maybe they were a good person, approved by his own dad, and maybe his son would at least have a happier home life than he did.

 Instead, Oriens Lucis Caelum had been the spare prince, born in an emergency all because Lucis needed an heir.

 And his mother - Lunafreya - had had him only for political purposes, before leaving him behind in Lucis? 

 And his own dad had been running a kingdom in distress, so had his son really had a better family life than him? 

 Noctis hugged his son back just as tightly.

 Because it felt like he’d failed Oriens in that moment, so he clung to him and wanted to change the world for him. But all he had were his weak, weak arms. And the ability to hold his child. So hold his child, he did. That was all Noctis was capable of doing right now.

 

 

-----

 

 

 In all honesty, and knowing full-well what he deserved, Regis answered the news that his son was awake by going straight to his rooms and expecting a reaction of…disdain? Bitterness? Betrayal? Hurt, first and foremost. He was expecting to need to pick his son back up a little again, and apologize a hundred times more, and chip away at his heart sliver by sliver to give his beloved son the pieces he needed to survive on.

 But what he wasn’t expecting when he cleared his schedule for the day and went straight to Noctis’ rooms, was for Noctis to not be there.

 But Clarus was informed over the Citadel's coms that that was because his son was spending time with Ori. In his gardens. Which was such a relief to hear that Regis didn’t mind waiting. And waiting and waiting.

 He went out to the balcony to do his waiting, and as such he was actually able to watch his boys.

 Watch Oriens sit in his dad’s lap as Glaive Ulric wheeled his wheelchair up and down the paths, the two of them speaking to each other quietly, the sight so heartwarming that it took years-worth of stress off of the elderly king that was Regis.

 When Noctis wheeled himself and Ori up to his rooms again, Regis sat on the sofa and tried to appear as open as he could. 

 Prepared to bear the anger of his and Aulea’s son for something he definitely deserved.

 But their son simply wheeled his way in with a son in his lap, with bags under his eyes, with a grateful glance to the Glaive ever at his side these days…and there was no big, bad reaction. Was that because Oriens was dozing in his lap? Was that because his son wasn’t all there to be angry? Not even his magic had lashed out, so why - ? 

 His darling Noctis simply rolled over to the sofa, and locked the wheels of his wheelchair, to bask in a patch of bright sunlight next to Regis. A patch of sunlight that Ori also seemed to enjoy, snuggling down into his dad. Comfy as could be.

 It was wonderful.

 It was confusing.

 It was a good day for their little family.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis didn’t ask, because the answers wouldn’t help him or his dad.

 And right now, they all really needed all the help they could get.

 

~>------------<~

Notes:

Nyx keeps sneaking in even though he wasn't supposed to really have a role yet in this story. Bad Glaive.

Chapter 5

Notes:

*Saunters up.*

*Drops a box of situationships at your feet.*

*Leaves.*

*Snaps fingers and comes back because I forgot something.*

*Drops another box of no happy ending for Promptis at your feet.*

*Leaves flashing a peace sign.*

.

~>------------<~

 

 Glasses.

Noctis needed glasses now, to see clearly. Due to the damage caused by living for a decade without sunlight…or moonlight. Or starlight. Or any light at all. A decade of living in the dark, in only artificial, dim light. He’d forgotten that he’d heard the doctors mention something about that during some of his checkups. He was just so used to the hazy dimness, that the blur he seemed to see around everything had gone unnoticed.

 So he was startled when a pair of glasses were actually given to him by his dad, who held up the simple, thin-wired things to let Noctis look at them.

 They were simple. They reminded him of somebody else.

A ghost’s glasses.

Dull and square and not suited to him at all.

 When he wrinkled his nose at that pair, his dad only laughed softly and put them back in their case. Then pulled out another pair. Another pair that Noctis examined then shook his head at. Then a third. Then a fourth. The fifth pair of glasses were…okay. It was still weird needing glasses, but they didn’t remind Noctis of - 

Of Oriens' Uncle Iggy.

 They were square, but wider. With thicker, black rims. And they rested on his nose rather nicely when he actually tried this pair on. He looked at his dad - he saw his wrinkles and the lines when he smiled and the whole of it without any blurriness. 

 He decided to keep that pair. 

 He needed glasses now. That was something he could work through. Something that wasn’t as difficult to work through, since it was a change he was…present for? It was a change to himself that he was present of mind for. A change he saw happen personally, when his dad held up a small handheld mirror for him.

Still, Noctis pulled his new glasses off. Then put them back on. Then pulled them off. Then put them back on.

His world switching from blurry to clear to blurry to clear again. Another change for him. How long had it been since he’d last seen so clearly? Six, seven years? Sometime in the middle of that decade he’d spent in Mistveil Keep. It had been hard to even tell when his eyesight turned so abysmal because he’d spent so much time in darkness. It was gradual.

 Maybe he only noticed back then because when the guards swung their fists at him the movements started to blur together? 

 Or maybe that was just the start of him going away into his own head to protect himself from the hurt.

 “How handsome.” 

Blinking, he was brought back to the then and there - sat on the edge of his bed, a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose - by his dad’s quiet…compliment? It certainly sounded like a compliment. And when he focused, vision so clear, his dad had an expression like quiet satisfaction on his face.

 A small, childish part of Noctis fidgeted and ducked his head at that. Feeling out of place being called handsome.

 Regis refused to push. He always refused to push. Really, truly, his son had grown up to become quite handsome. In the same heartbeat that it made him happy it made him terribly, terribly sad. This son he loved so had grown up to have his mother’s eyes, his mother’s slightly slimmer features and jaw, but he also had Regis’ nose. And cheekbones. And mouth. And he was handsome, in a rugged way, with his hair left loose and slightly long. With that scruffy beard of his.

 Every week since Noctis had been brought home from Mistveil Keep, he gained a teensy bit more weight. Not enough. Never enough for ten years of missed, royal feasts. But he wasn’t so hollowed-out now. And his skin was slowly gaining a pink tint to it that made Regis so very glad.

 The glasses really did suit his son. And the pair he picked were clearly his personal taste; bigger and less professional-looking.

 Oh, and Regis loved them.

 Loved seeing the way his son curiously started turning his head this way and that, looking around his bedroom. Nose twitching as he got used to the feeling of the glasses resting on it. Clearly taken off guard by the difference in his vision now that he had a prescription to match his damaged eyes.

 If only - 

 But no. No. Clarus had said, had told him, ‘Do not linger on the what-ifs, Regis. You’ll only be hurting Noctis if you do. What’s done is done. Now let us make the wrong pay and help Noctis as the wronged.’

 It was no use, no use at all, to think about what if the Adagium had never framed Noctis for the whole of Eos to believe him guilty. Noctis may have still, eventually, someday grown up to need glasses regardless. This wasn’t that odd of an occurrence.

 ‘Right now he does not need a king, Regis,’ his Shield had told him firmly in that tone only a father of a son could have, ‘he needs his dad. That’s all he needs. So be that. And leave the rest to me and Cor.’

 Seeing his son now, now slowly sliding the glasses up and down and peeking at specific things with and without the lens to see what sort of difference there was, it was so young and sweet of a thing to see and Regis just had this giant bundle of tightness knotted up in his chest like he constantly wanted to weep every time he laid eyes on his baby boy.

 But he held it in, because Noctis needed him to be strong. For a little while longer.

 It was the other side-effects ten years of imprisonment had wrought on his little nightlight that were harder to fully accept. 

 Losing his legs for a second time seemed to have not hit his son as hard as it did when he was eight, emotionally or physically. Or maybe it just hadn’t hit him yet. Or maybe it hit him hard while he was still in Mistveil and he’d adjusted since then. Either way, being wheelchair-bound for a second time? Well, the doctors thought it might be permanent this time.

 And the things some of those online articles had dared say after those pictures were leaked, about his son in a wheelchair again - !

 Losing the feeling in his arms and hands due to prolonged deficiencies was also something the doctors thought unlikely to improve, even with time. They thought the nerve damage permanent. Which explained why his son often held his carbuncle plushie up to his cheek where he could actually feel the fur, rather than simply petting it like he used to.

His hair was thinner than it ought to be too. He had a bald patch behind one ear. He had another bald patch along the back of his head hidden by the rest of his hair - although that patch was from a scar Mistveil gave him, not from deficiencies or stress.

 His spine was also a bit crooked from spending so long hunched over and unable to walk. The doctors believed it to be onset scoliosis due to his paralysis and the terrible damage to his spinal cord. 

 Not to mention the dentist had had to pull seven of Noctis’ teeth that had rotted, and he had to get a false set instead - 

 “Dad?” 

 Blinking, Regis reoriented himself and refocused on Noctis with a soft smile. Hiding his grief behind the gentler expression. “Yes,” he said easily, less saddened already by the relaxed way his son’s shoulders lay and his cautious expression, “What is it, sweetheart?”

 As relaxed as he’d been in a while. Today was a good day, it seemed, for his Noctis’ mind.

 “Will Oriens be joining us?” 

 “Yes. After he finishes his public speaking lessons for the day, I believe.” His boy’s nose scrunched up a bit in response to that, probably remembering how little he liked his own public speaking lessons as a small child, and then he turned thoughtful.

 “We should…probably send for a snack. For after. And…his chocobo plush.” 

 “A very good idea, Son,” Regis reached out, and what a wonder it was that he could finally again pat his darling Noctis on the head and now even watch him lean into the touch absent-mindedly as he thought, rather than seeing him flinch away, “I’ll send for his favorite immediately. We can have coffee and cakes out in the gardens together.” 

 He would do absolutely anything, anything in the world, to see Noctis perk up like that again.

 Days like this, where the darkness couldn’t hurt them, Regis treasured.

 It had been so long since he’d last known these days.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx ‘tested’ Noctis’ new glasses by plucking them off of the bridge of his nose and being silly. Peering into them. Bending the temples back and forth. Making a big show of it and humming noises that actually got Noctis to laugh at the Glaive’s antics.

 Nyx then placed the glasses back on the bridge of his nose with such care, and nodded.

 “They suit you, starlight.” 

 Weird. Who knew glasses could make your cheeks all warm like that?

 

 

-----

 

 

 There were quiet days and there were loud days. There were days when there was screaming in Noctis’ head, and other days where it was so silent it drowned out all other sounds. There were days where his body was like a cage he’d been locked inside. His mind a prison, a maze with no end, endlessly stumbling around and around and around in the screams and in the silence.

 There were days where he stepped in and out of that cage multiple times. Days where he held the key, or days where Oriens or his dad held the key.

 Days he spent inside his dreams with Carbuncle, existing in a world of dream-blue fur as soft as flower petals.

 Days he left his room, and days he didn’t.

 Days that people visited him and days he didn’t remember if they did or not.

 There were days where the memories got to him. Like a coeurl trap laid along a trail by hunters. He stepped straight into the trap, sometimes with his eyes wide open and sometimes with them closed and sometimes the trap was covered with leaves so he didn’t see it until it was too late. Crownsguard triggered him the worst. They no longer watched him at all. It was Nyx…and Nyx, mostly. He never learned the names of the other Glaives that sometimes stood outside his doors.

 Sometimes it was a dull thump that shoved him back into the cage and locked it.

 Sometimes it was the wrong turn of phrase, or just a glimpse of seeing something that wasn’t really there, or sometimes he simply thought too hard on something. Like Lunafreya. 

 After learning what he had, he had more than one moment where he looked at his son and saw his mother in him, and went a little sideways inside his own head. But Oriens always took it in stride and just kept on chattering until he came back.

 Oriens’ key worked the best. Always.

 Noctis tried to take it in just as much of a stride. Because recovery was not a linear thing. 

 Sometimes there were going to be steps he had to take back. 

 But sometimes there would be leaps he just had to take on faith too.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was a silent sort of day, and Noctis Lucis Caelum was locked away in the cage of his own body and mind. 

 And somebody started singing softly.

“I wanna ride my chocobo all day~”

 That song.

“I wanna see them run - “

 Noctis…knew that song.

“I wanna see them ride and play! Hey!”

 In his heart, he knew that song.

“I wanna ride my chocobo all day - “

 That song was bright, and that song was sunny, and that song was accompanied by laughter.

“I wanna join in on the fun!” 

 That song was late nights where they should’ve been studying, and instead they ordered pizza and watched cheesy horror and romance movies cuddled up together on the couch in Noctis’ apartment. That song was game nights where they ate so much junk food that Iggy grounded him for a week. That song was a piece of his Heart’s heart.

“Fifty gil I’ll gladly pay! Yay!” 

 That song was being sung softly, and suddenly Noctis was nineteen years old again. Suddenly he was small, and suddenly he was free from his own mind’s chains that it thought safer to wrap around him but it wasn’t. It wasn’t safe. He didn’t need those chains. He didn’t need those chains because that song meant - 

 Meant…

 His Heart was here.

 Lifting his chin, just so slightly, so slightly dazed too - Noctis’ dull blue eyes found his Heart. A halo of sunshine around him. He was there. Five, six steps away from the man’s wheelchair. His blonde hair aglow in the light, bent over the back of the sofa, tapping away at his phone as he kept humming that lighthearted tune.

 His back was facing Noctis, and there were freckles splattered across his shoulders and his tank top was ratty and punk like always, and he had pins on the back pockets of his pants but also a gun strapped to either thigh and - 

The magic of the Lucis Caelums sang.

Because here stood one of the Chosen King’s retinue. Finally recognized by him.

“I wanna ride my chocobo all day,
do do do do do doooo, do do do do doooo~”

The wheels of his wheelchair turned, with a modicum of help, carrying Noctis that step, those two steps, those three steps closer until half of the distance between them had been closed. It was weird. His heart was slamming into his eardrums. So loud it deafened him. It was like he couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to. Didn’t want to wake up if this was a dream.

This was - 

“Prom?” 

  They were nineteen years old and had their whole lives ahead of them.

 A twenty-eight years old man straightened up in surprise at the sound of his raspy, raspy voice and twisted around so fast that Noctis stopped short. Tilting his head curiously. Blind to the age of his once-best friend. Blind to the desperate hope burning bright in those violet and golden eyes. 

 “...Noct?” He said his nickname as if he were a feral chocobo.

 As if he were about to run away, despite being wheelchair-bound. As if this was a dream to him too. 

 “Please, don’t go away?” Prompto pleaded, hands still palm up as if he were facing a feral thing, or an unbridled chocobo that’d gotten away from its flock, step by step by step approaching Noctis so very slowly, “Noct? Please? Talk to me? Say something? Anything.” 

 So very slowly, and yet it was sudden. Prompto standing right in front of his wheelchair. Prompto lowering himself down to one knee. Hands still up between them, as though reaching, as though holding back, as though wanting to touch and being too terrified to do so - so they just stayed there. 

Held between them. 

 Between the Noctis of now…and the Prompto of now.

 And they were no longer teenagers.

 Dulled blue eyes dropped down, to focus on Prompto’s chin instead of his aged facial features, and he struggled to take a deep breath. Gripping the arms of his wheelchair. Except, no, no, there was a silver-thin scar going down Prompto’s chin now so he shifted his gaze down to his collarbone. His collarbone was sort of safe. No scars. Still tanner than he remembered, but - 

 Oh.

 He was wearing their matching phone charms from highschool on a cord around his neck.

 A little golden chibi sheep, and a little black chibi sheep. A sun sheep and a moon sheep.

 Noctis had bought them as a silly gift for Prompto’s sixteenth birthday. 

 His fingertips touched the charms so, so gingerly. Nervous over the idea of them simply…evaporating? If he laid his hand on them. It felt like a dream. It felt so much like a dream. Carbuncle, was it a dream? There was no chirp. There was no dream-blue fur. There was just him, and there was just his best friend, his baby brother, his Heart - 

 And an old gift.

 That hadn’t been thrown away.

 “You…kept them?” He rasped, fingers still so gingerly just laid on those charms that used to swing from their phones as they played King’s Knight together. So many nights of his life. Swinging. As they giggled and they laughed and they just existed with one another. Together. Ever at one another’s side.

 “What, like I’d throw them away?” 

 Forever, one another’s.

 “Like I’d throw you away?”

 “Everyone else did.” 

 Everyone had thrown him away even as he screamed, pleaded, begged for them to realize he was innocent. That he would never commit the crimes he was accused of. Never so much as think about doing so. Everyone had heard him screaming, pleading, begging.

 And everyone had turned away from him. They had tossed him to the darkness like a dirty little secret Lucis wanted to forget. They had thrown him away.

 The anger of that truth would never, ever leave Noctis. It was always there. A silent threat lurking beneath the surface of his skin, of his soul. The fury of the wronged that had been damned. And now that he was staring at a memory of what he had that had been stolen from him - ten years stolen - it kept trying to breach the surface.

 Prompto, Prompto, Prompto older and grown and scarred and aged in ways only living life to the fullest could do, sucked in a breath.

 Wheezed a little.

 Eyes all misty and bright and violet, flecked by gold, as he was choked a bit by the fury that now made a home in who was once his best friend.

 But he smiled anyways. Beamed. Grinned. Even as he choked. 

 So happy to just have Noctis’ attention again, he didn’t mind dying if Noct’s eyes were on him when he did.

 It was as simple a truth as that, and it slapped Noctis across the face, and it stung, and it was what he needed to shove that fiercely bitter fury back down under the surface.

 “...Prom.” This was his Prom. This was his Heart. This was the boy, the man, who he’d wanted to make Retinue and family after they’d walked together at graduation. 

 This was his best friend who loved to smile at him and at his camera and at him and at him - at Noct.

 His best friend. His one true connection that had never been tied to the crown he was born to wear.

 Pausing. Pausing. Pausing. They were like game sprites that had frozen. Their console was crashing. They were staring at one another. Stuck with that nickname in the air. More than a small part of Noctis wanted to hide away in his mind where nobody but Oriens could call him out; afraid. Or rather, terrified. To be facing this. To be facing one of his ghosts like this.

 His fingers fell from the phone charms, and he jumped when Prompto caught his hand before he could pull it back.

 Held it. Just held it. Right there, in his lap. Still staring up at him like he’d received a revelation from the gods on his knees there. Nothing about the way Prompto was acting…could make Noctis possibly think that he had thrown him away.

 But if he was wrong about Prom, his Prom, throwing him away, then who else was he wrong about? 

 “Why didn’t you stand by me?” 

 The flinch Prompto flinched then was quite literally visceral. He gripped the hand he held, truly gripped it, enough to hurt Noctis’ bones.

 And a tear slipped down his cheek. Following a trail of freckles to his chin. And then there was another, and another, and another, but they were so very silent.

 Noctis knew how to keep silent when he cried, when it hurt, but when did Prompto - Prompto who cried and hiccupped and sobbed, and was so noisy when he did so that Noctis would do anything to help stop it - learn to do the same? 

 Whenever that had been, he had missed it. 

 “I would’ve. Noct, I would’ve,” Prompto reached out with his other hand. There were all sorts of small scars covering it. And he was still wearing that leather bracelet with chocobo charms that Noctis had gotten him as a gift when he turned seventeen, and he really would’ve, Noctis realized then, “Noct, they took you away, and I never got the chance, but I would’ve.” 

 He hadn’t realized he was crying too until his tears were being brushed away by Prom’s thumbs.

 He cried silently too, so it wasn’t always easy to tell.

 Suddenly, it wasn’t hard at all to let Prompto in.

 “I missed you, Prom.” 

 I missed our innocence, and our childhood, and the life we planned out together during sleepovers and hangouts. 

 I missed your smile, and I missed your life, and sometimes I heard the click of a camera in the silence, and sometimes I wondered if you’d finally gotten to see a chocobo, and sometimes I pretended you were there to give me a hug, and sometimes I pretended that I hadn’t waited, that I hadn’t been late to see you that day, that I’d just not gotten my head stuck in the clouds that day.

 “I missed you too, Noct. I’m sorry.” 

 Prom’s hand fell from his cheek still wet with tears, and it and his other wound around Noctis’ waist. Behind his back. Hugging him as he sat there in his wheelchair trembling, as the blonde man surrendered to simply kneeling before his childhood friend and hugging him. Face pressed into his stomach.

 Still silent as he cried. As they both cried.

 Speaking muffled words into Noctis’ shirt as it was stained with the tears of regret they had.

 “Oh, Noct…after you were…everything changed.” All of Eos changed with the imprisonment of their prophesied Chosen King, and Prompto had been right there at the heart of it, “Even after you were convicted, imprisoned, there were calls to have you executed. None of us understood why any of it had happened. It felt like the trial stretched on for weeks, but it was only those few days and then you were gone, and I never got to say goodbye and nobody had any explanations - !” 

 Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, he kept his eyes averted from the vulnerability in Noct’s because he didn’t deserve that vulnerability.

 He was a mess, but he’d always been that, really.

Noct had held him dear anyways.

 “Everyone was asking questions. Everyone was demanding things. Everything had been upturned, nobody would answer any of my phone calls, and every time I went outside I was hounded by the press and by people who recognized me as your best friend - shouting questions in my face and getting every photo they could of me, of everything, publicizing everything - “ 

 Six, why was he here complaining when Noct deserved anything but? Everything but.

 The memories, of camera flashes and those echoes of their questions and the feel of his fist against more than one nose all those years ago - it rushed into his mind and then he shoved it back behind a wall to keep it away.

 If it weren’t for Cor, he probably would’ve been arrested for assault back then.

 If it weren’t for Cor, he actually probably wouldn’t have made it out of Insomnia alive at all.

 “Did…they hurt you?” Noct tugged him right back behind that wall, to days with bruises turning his freckled skin black and blue, days of slurs being screeched at him, days of having to sleep at Cor’s apartment to make sure nobody broke into his own and hurt him - 

 “...Yeah. Yeah, Noct. They hurt me.” 

 He tilted his head up, cheeks wet and sticky and eyes red. Just to see more tears well up in his best friend's blue-blue eyes, and Prompto cared for him too much - with all his heart - to not instantly perch himself on Noct’s wheelchair and wrap him up in his arms and rock him as he started to shake. Stopping just short of sobs because they probably hurt his throat too much. Hurt his body too much.

“Don’t apologize,” was all he could say, finally able to hug Noct tight after ten years of dreaming of doing so, “Don’t apologize, please don’t apologize, Noct, Noct, it’s okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.” 

“Why?” 

Why had they hurt him?

“There were folks who thought…I might’ve influenced you to do the things you were accused of,” saying that, now, even after ten years, made him want to throw up. So he buried his face in Noct’s hair and kept rocking him when his dreaming prince let out a long, hurting keen from somewhere deep inside of himself and kept shaking, “because I was a refugee, because I was a Nif, some of the public sort of turned on me. On all refugees, really, after what happened. It wasn’t safe for me in the city after that, so Cor got me out. Took me to Leide. To train me and protect me, and he sort of adopted me, and then I just - I didn’t really end up coming back to Insomnia.” 

Couldn’t.

“I couldn’t come back to Insomnia,” he corrected himself softly, staring up at the sun shining through Noct’s windows and feeling the warmth on his face, but it wasn’t Leide’s hot, beating sun. And somehow it really hurt in that moment to realize it wasn’t home’s sun, even with Noctis back in his arms finally, “There were too many memories. Too many things I would miss about the world I found outside of the city. I became a hunter. And a mechanic. And a rancher, eventually. And I had my diploma shipped to me to start working out there.” 

 Noct had gone really, really quiet in his arms.

 And still.
 
 He wasn’t sure if those were good things, so he kept on babbling because he was really good at doing that when his nerves got frayed.

 “Moved into a small cabin near Galdin Quay. Got myself a bike to get around, and I do work for this garage outside of the city - Hammerhead. Owned by Cid. You know, from your dad’s old retinue. He’s got something of a relationship with Cor, so he introduced us and I pretty much became a grandson to him - well I would’ve anyways, even without Cor,  since Cindy and I - ah.” 

 His teeth clicked shut.

 He was the one shaking now. 

 “Noct?” Whispering after all of his gushing felt weird, but the buzz under his skin felt weirder and he still wasn’t sure any of this was real, “Noct, say something. Come on buddy. Need you to give me a few words. Something. Anything. Please, don’t leave me again?” 

 “...ed.” 

 “What?” 

 “Tir-ed,” voice croaking, Noct slumped into him a bit. Nuzzled his cheek against Prompto’s ratty shirt a bit too. Sniffled. Reached up to sort of press his pale, bone-sharp hands to his eyes a bit, to wipe away whatever tears had turned them all swollen and reddish. And Prompto let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in his lungs, then squeezed his best friend. Gently.

 But he squeezed him.

 “Sorry. Guess I exhausted you.” 

 “No…it’s fine…keep talking?” 

 Blinking, Prompto shifted uncertainly, “You sure? I won’t stop if you get me talking now.” 

 Then, to the chocobo rancher’s utter delight, Noct wheeled his chair forward. A bit. And a bit more. And Prompto hopped off because it was probably really hard to turn those wheels with a second weight sat atop him, and he watched in breathless hope as Noct went to the sofa. Patted the sofa. Got Prompto to sit down mechanically, still holding himself so carefully with his hope, as Noct sat too.

Then adjusted his legs up on the cushion, wiggled around, and started to sort of slide down fully onto the cushions with his wiggling. 

 Sliding down until he was laying his head on Prompto’s thigh.

 And staring up at him with tired, red-rimmed eyes like Prompto was his sun in the sky.

 “Yeah. Talk, Prom.”

 Talk? Talking, Prompto could do. Prompto could do that for ages. Forever. Until his voice went out. He’d waited ten years to be able to talk to Noct again, at times thinking he’d never be able to at all, and he wasn’t about to let this chance go after more than a month of just silence between them. He talked. And talked. And talked. 

 And the sensible side of the blonde said not to overwhelm him, while the emotional side wanted to share every single second of the last ten years, while a side that was a blend of the both of those played mediator. 

 What came out was a little messy, a lot disorganized, and more than a little babble without proper context.

 But Noct kept his head on his thigh, and wrapped his hands around his knee, and held onto him all the while, so Prompto was perfectly fine being a mess.

 Noct wouldn’t judge.

 “...missed you.” Was said so, so softly under Noct’s breath somewhere in there.

 Prompto pretended he hadn’t heard even as his heart ping-ponged around his ribcage like a cheerleader at a winning game.

 His heart had waited ten years for this.

 And he’d finally gotten what he wished for.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Better believe that Prompto burst through the doors to the King’s Study with a grin bright on his face, because he did! He most definitely did. Gosh, he probably hadn’t smiled so wide since Beauty had her rainbow chick. Now that was a fun day at Wiz’s place. But, like, would anybody blame him? No way!

 Case and point, ‘anyone’ being all the eyes that turned to look at him stroll in, practically skipping, and happier than he’d been in a while.

 Which they all naturally picked up on.

 “Did your visit to Noct go…well?” Ignis was the first, and fastest, to ask, so clearly reluctant to risk getting his hopes up. Again. But they all held their breath for an answer too.

 And well was, well, an understatement.

 “He talked to me!” Prompto burst out with, and whoops. He’d meant to mention it more calmly, maybe take them through it, but his heart had gained golden wings and he was just so happy he fist pumped the air - 

 And then leapt without looking at Cor, who caught him like he’d known he would with a quiet chuckle.

 “Got a few words out of him?” Gladio huffed, crossing his arms, trying and failing to look unaffected because he was grinning like a goof just as much as Prompto was at the mere idea, “Good for you.” 

 “Got three hours of talking out of him, Gladio.” 

 There was wheezing. And more than one set of eyebrows climbing. And more than a tiny bit of hope shining in the eyes of King and retinues as they took that in.

 The stack of papers Ignis had been sorting slipped from his fingers and he all but staggered around the edge of the table, reaching for Prompto, “Truly? How? What did you do? What did you say? Do you think he’d be open to…” 

 Trailing off, the advisor shuffled a bit, and some of the hope had a lid put on it for the moment.

 Prompto’s grin dimmed a little too. Suddenly feeling real guilty for all but bragging about Noct talking to him when he’d known Ignis and Gladio had been trying for weeks to be acknowledged. To just be seen.

 But - no. No, that wasn’t on him. Noctis had chosen to speak to him, finally, and he shouldn’t ruin it for himself just because others weren’t given the same opportunities.

He deserved better than that.

 “Did he seem present, all the while?” Noct’s dad stepped in kindly to take the attention off of a wilted Ignis, green eyes sparkling with a gladness that made Prompto feel better all at once, “Did he react well? Badly?”

 “There was a few minutes near the beginning where he seemed to be…coming to terms?” Prompto had no better way to put it, “With me being older, like? He had a hard time looking right at me. And then he saw, well, these,” he held up his and Noct’s old phone charms that he’d never ever been able to get rid of and couldn’t help his happy smile as he stared at the pieces of their past that had finally brought his best friend back to him, “and it was like it clicked in his head. Who I was. And how much time had passed. And he - we…we talked about a lot.” 

 Nobody commented on the way his voice had gone all thick with emotions.

 Which was majorly appreciated.

 “Gosh, my therapist is going to have to book a double session for me after this,” the Heart that had never been claimed whispered, thankful for the way Cor took his weight easily when he leaned into his adoptive father, “He just - he was there. He was really there. He’s getting better.” 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum had a heart that was healing.

 And a Heart who wanted to be there for him every step of the way. Ever at his side.

 “Maybe…reminders of our past relationships with him will help him get past that mental block he’s put up to protect himself?” Gladio’s dad suggested, and it was a suggestion that seemed to bring some of the wind back to Gladio and Ignis’ sails. They exchanged this look that at any other time would make Prompto feel unwelcome.

 Make him feel like the outsider he’d always been to them.

 But now it just made him feel sympathetic, and supportive of the two that had been there before him. That he’d always assumed would be there after him too. 

 “It’s worth a try.” Gladio urged Ignis, who looked like he’d swallowed something sour, and the Heart-to-be had to agree.

 Everything was worth a try, if it was for Noct. 

 His best friend.

 And maybe, once, they could’ve been something more too.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “I could try cooking for him,” Ignis suggested weakly, later, Gladio’s hands a big, heavy weight that he appreciated on his shoulder as he stared down at his mounds of paperwork without really reading the lines of print. 

 He steadfastly refused to let in the thoughts about what had happened the last time he cooked up something for Noct.

 Or those thoughts about how he’d avoided a kitchen for weeks in the aftermath.

 “It’ll be a good start, Iggy,” nodding encouragingly, Gladio began rubbing circles into the blonde’s back to help him steady his breathing that had gone all choppy, “And if it turns out that’s not enough to bring him back to you just yet, you have other options on what to share with Noct. You two spent your whole lives tied together since you were children. Prompto was just the first one to find a tie back to him - you’ll be the fastest to do so.” 

 Astrals, he prayed his old friend was right.

 He wasn’t sure if he could bear it if he wasn’t.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “There’s one thing I still don’t understand.” 

 Clarus blinked, glancing up over his reading glasses to where Cor was standing over him like a grumpy gargoyle, arms crossed and looking annoyed as usual. Well, so long as Prompto wasn’t in the room - as usual. 

 “And what’s that?” 

 “How was there the DNA of a Lucis Caelum at the crime scene if Noctis and Regis weren’t there?” Ah. Huh. Clarus adjusted his glasses and adopted a similarly crossed-armed position to his younger brother who was watching and waiting for his reaction to…well, a very good point, “The court presented it as evidence, Clarus. Damning evidence that was one of the final nails in convicting him.” 

 That was very true. Clarus had been so busy untangling the mess that was trying to convict over a hundred government-employed men and women that he hadn’t even thought - 

 “You can’t fake the DNA of the royal family. The magical signatures in their blood can’t be replicated. There isn’t even the chance of a mix-up. Meaning either somebody planted contaminated DNA from Noctis and Regis, or - “

 “Or the council faked evidence to condemn him,” the head of the Amicitia family finished darkly, glaring down the bridge of his glasses at his desk. At the papers scattered there. Papers he wanted to send flying all at once with the sudden anger that rushed hot through him.

 Because that was something far different than following the logical steps somebody had set for them to frame Noctis of the crimes he was accused of.

 “Should we bring our suspicions to Regis?” Cor asked, cautious, and with the same undertone of anger that Clarus was feeling.

 “...We need more information,” was where he ended that angry rush of emotions, because emotions only compromised investigations as serious as theirs, and Clarus had been emotional enough these last months, “Cor, see if you can find those DNA records. Probe, but do so quietly. The former council is in enough of a situation with all their crimes coming to light. We do not want to deal with them being backed into even more of a corner against us.”

 If somebody on the Lucian Royal Council had framed his godson - 

 Well, not even the fucking Six would save them from a Shield’s fury.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis was on plushie-sitting duty.

 Meaning? The King of Lucis sat on a bench in the flowering gardens, with a chocobo plushie on his right and a carbuncle plushie on his left, watching them and watching Noctis spend time with son at the same time. 

 Oriens was, again, seated primly in his dad’s lap as he wheeled them slowly up and down the paths of the garden. Chattering away. 

 Honestly, it was as if all of dear Ori’s shyness fell away, to make room for love and pure excitement whenever his dad could spend time with him. Watching the two interact was the best medicine for Regis’ wounded heart. Watching the two interact was like a new wound on his heart. Because they could’ve had nine whole years together, on one hand.

 On the other, would Oriens even exist if Noctis hadn’t been wrongfully imprisoned? 

 Complicated, were the whims of fate. Wily and twisted. Like the intentions of the Astrals themselves. Astrals who still had yet to answer any of Regis’ prayers, or questions, or outright accusations. His respect for his lands’ gods had dwindled so much so that he was practically a blasphemer at this point, and so too was swiftly becoming his lands.

There’d been another mass cosmology book burning in front of Insomnia’s Grand Cathedral the day before.

The people were screaming out for their gods to hear them, and where were they? 

Silent, still, and deaf to the screams.

Even if the law dictated burning religious books to be a punishable offense, Regis was personally going to ensure those involved weren’t punished too severely. He could understand them better than he understood the will of Lord Bahamut himself. 

Shaking away those more dour and downed thoughts, the Father refocused. On Oriens tucking a honeysuckle blossom behind his dad’s ear and giggling.

On Noctis’ smile.

Regis resolved himself. And he pet the plushies at his side, ignoring the painful twinges in his knee, as he waited for his boys to wheel their way back to him.

It was a truly beautiful day in those flowering gardens.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Prompto had unburied a ton of his old albums that he’d buried in his bedroom closet in Cor’s apartment. When he’d buried them…the photos had hurt. Too much to handle. He remembered spending hours and hours and hours staring at photos of him and Noct smiling, playing games, having sleepovers, doing normal teenager things and being so happy - 

 And he remembered wondering, asking, begging to know why it had to be Noct.

 If nothing else, Prompto had been of the persuasion back then who believed Noctis Lucis Caelum was afflicted by Crystal Madness. Most wanted to believe that out of sheer desperation. Sheer shock. 

 The photographer, hunter, rancher - he’d believed it because he knew Noct. He knew his best friend. He knew his best friend’s quirks, his best friend’s likes, dislikes, he knew his best friend’s magic.

 He knew his best friend’s heart.

 Because he had that heart. He was that heart.

 And Prompto Argentum had been right, all along. And nowadays he remembered plenty the time Cor had stumbled in on him trying to steal the blueprints for Mistveil Keep from his office, and the way he’d simply sighed and taken those blueprints as Prompto tried to explain. Ended up sobbing instead. The way Cor had hugged him tight, and that had been the final straw that got his dad to take him out of Insomnia. To get help. To get away.

 To heal, little by little, year by year.

 Cor and him had already sat down and had a few drinks and spoken quietly about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t stopped Prompto that day. Now that they all knew Noct had been innocent, it hit so much harder. Harder than a behemoth.

 But what was done was done, and Prompto had finally gotten back into Noct’s heart after more than a month of reaching out.

 So he’d gone and unburied those photo albums from his highschool days, and he’d brought them with him when Ori invited him to see his dad again.

 They all were sat or laying on the sofa, flipping through his many, many, many photos - gods, he suddenly felt all embarrassed by the sheer number of them - while Oriens oooh and aaah-ed at each one. Bouncing from cushion to cushion to see them all just like a little kid should. It was nice. Prompto had always wanted to show Ori pictures of his dad.

 That hadn’t been allowed before. Nobody had wanted to acknowledge that Noct had ever existed, let alone let him have any influence on the new prince. 

 Now? Oriens was free to look at every photo without reservation, giggling at the silly ones and showing his dad and asking, “What was this? What is this? When was this? Is this really the two of you? Dad, you look like such a dork!” 

 Noctis talked more than probably anyone but Oriens had heard in the last few weeks.

 Answering every question. Slowly, of course. Really slowly. Some of the photos he lingered on, some of them he put back sooner than others, some of them he’d look to Prompto to make sure he remembering things correctly.

 He spoke to Prompto.

 He looked at Prompto.

 He remembered Prompto.

 Sure - sometimes his gaze went a tiny bit cloudy. And sometimes he drifted off. But he came back. And sometimes he had to adjust his new glasses to see the details better, and Prompto had worn his own glasses just in case Noct felt weird about having some of his own now - 

 But it was all, just, really good.

 “Do you remember this, Uncle Prom?!” Ori was just so excited, it was so adorable, Prompto wanted to stay with them there like that forever - and Ori showed him a picture. Flapped it around so it took a second for him to actually see it. And when he did? Prompto broke into a grin and a few giggles, because he remembered exactly how he’d felt when he’d taken that photo.

 A photo at one of the arcades he and Noct used to frequent. He had Noct at his shoulder, looking red and embarrassed-but-trying-to-look-casual while Prompto held up the chocobo plushie his best friend had won for him in a victory sort of pose. Fuck, they looked so young. Like kids.

 They had been just kids.

 “That’s from the old Shield’s Plaza Arcade. It was tore down a couple of years ago,” he explained to his nephew indulgently, his grin slimming to a soft smile as he stared at that Noct so expressive and so him, and missed the innocence they’d both had back then in this one moment of selfishness before he shook it off, “Your dad won me that chocobo plush. It was part of this whole set based off of King’s Knight - the first one. We were visiting all of the arcades in the city trying to collect them all.” 

 Feeling eyes - eyes still so blue, even if everybody else called them dull now - on him, Prompto shifted his gaze from the photo to those eyes.

 Noct’s eyes.

 Yeah. Still so blue.

 Both of them were smiling softly, but it was bittersweet.

 “You know,” Prompto tried to say it casually then, but it turned into a whisper anyways as if this were some risky secret he could barely stand to tell anyone lest it cost him something, looking only at Noct, “I found the rest.” 

 When Noct tipped his head in confusion, his hair fell to one side, and yeah they were both older but that was still his best friend there.

 “The rest of the collection. Here, in your room. I found it after, well, you know, after you went away,” after you were taken away, and Prompto tried not to let his eyes get all misty as he remembered finding them and breaking down, “I found the letter too.” 

 Well, there goes the whole ‘not letting his eyes go misty’ thing.

 “Thanks,” he whispered, pretending it wasn’t a word that cracked apart in his throat and came out in pieces, as Noct ducked his head, “I still have the whole collection. I…I talked to it, whenever I missed you.” 

 He’d kept the letter too. 

 Kept it folded up in his bandanna, as a reminder.

 “You're welcome…Prom.” 

 Noct pretended too.

 And Oriens obviously had no idea why his dad and uncle had gone all misty-eyed and softly sad, but he snuggled into his dad’s side anyways. Giving him a hug and a gentle squeeze and a, “It’s okay, Dad. Whatever it is, Uncle Prom can make it better! With his guns!” 

 Which was said so enthusiastically that the both of them snorted, started giggling like silly children, and for a moment they were just children again. And Ori crawled over the sofa cushions and photo albums to give Prompto a hug and more forceful squeeze too. There were more photos for them to pick through.

 But Noct and Prompto both already had a favorite that he set aside to have copied and framed.

 There weren’t any tears this time, but there were hearts in their throats.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Later that day, Oriens was walking to his next etiquette lesson hand in hand with Uncle Gladdy...and something had been bothering him. This small niggle in the back of his brain. That ‘intuition’ of his that Grandpa always praised. It’d been niggling on and on ever since he looked at photos with Dad and Uncle Prom. 

 But when he looked up at his Uncle Gladdy? Then down at that hand he was holding, the golden wedding ring there? It hit him what that niggle was saying.

 “Uncle Gladdy!” He piped up, curious as only children can really be when his uncle glanced down at him with an encouraging smile as only fathers could, and asked a question that made his uncle's steps falter, “Was Uncle Prom going to marry my dad? Like you and Aunt Cecilia?” 

 A very, very complicated array of emotions flitted across his uncle’s face then.

 He actually stopped, right there in the hallway, swinging their joint hands slowly.

 “What made you ask that, squirt?” 

 “Because Uncle Prom looks at Dad the way Pops Clarus looks at Auntie Maria’s grave.” 

 Uncle Prom looked at his dad like they were husbands and they’d lost each other.

 His Uncle Gladdy stayed silent for a moment, and this small part of Ori started to feel guilty for bringing up his mom and dad, his mom’s grave, but then his uncle let out a quiet sigh.

 “Yeah. You shouldn’t mention it, Ori, but your dad and Prompto - they liked it each other before your dad went away. Liked, liked.” Dropping his hand and dropping down to crouch next to the princling, his uncle gave him a slightly sad smile that was so much like his dad’s and Uncle Prom’s, “Do you get what I’m saying?” 

 Uncle Gladdy was saying…Uncle Prom was almost his second dad! But - ?

 “Why can’t I say anything?” 

 “Because it’ll make them sad, kiddo. Really sad.”

 Oriens swore not to say a word about his dad and uncle being in love when they were kids. He never wanted to make either of them sad. It was like, what Grandpa said whenever the councilmembers got into big, big fights with their wives and husbands! Affairs. It was a secret kept to make everyone else happy!

 Nodding very seriously, Ori mimed zipping his lips shut and turning a key to lock them shut, then he theatrically threw the key far, far, far away!

 Uncle Gladdy laughed and ruffled his hair, then they kept on going to his etiquette lesson.

 But…can uncles and dads be together? Wasn’t that supposed to be bad? Ori was still confused.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Good to see you smiling, inlustris.” Nyx beamed up at his starlight from where he was kneeling down, adding a few dabs of oil to his wheelchair’s wheels, and yeah. He was smiling. He seemed - maybe it was presumptuous to assume - happier. Gladder. Brighter. Not as dim as those first weeks where he was a ghost haunting his childhood bedroom. He’d gained some color, some weight, a pair of glasses and a chocobo plush he sometimes babysat for Prince Oriens.

 The days had been bright. Summer had been kind upon Insomnia, like it’d been kind upon Little Galahd and Galahd.

 And, privately, for only himself, Nyx had a new bead in his hair that Noctis noticed.

 Stared at.

 Reached out to touch as Nyx beamed up at him, stilling the Glaive’s hands, still smearing oil on the axle of his wheels.

 “Inlustris?” Noctis touched his twined hair only after Nyx tilted his head in invitation. Knowing the importance of getting permission first to touch a Galahdian’s braids. The new bead wasn’t very big, but it was on his oaths strand. It was round. It was the bluest cut of gem he could find. And it shimmered like the night sky when it caught the light.

 “This one’s…new.” Those blue-blue eyes looked into his and asked the question clearly, ‘What does it mean?’

 His beaming grin widened as he answered.

 “It means star catcher. I made it myself.” 

 Noctis laughed. And Nyx felt accomplished.

 His mourning was quiet, for the first time in a long time.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “You’re overthinking this, Iggy. You just have to take it slow. And if it goes bad, try again.” 

 “Please do not remind me that it may ‘go bad’, Gladiolus.” 

 Okay, perhaps, perhaps, Ignis was overthinking things. Just slightly. It’d been multiple days already since Noct had begun to let his former friend close - had acknowledged any of their presences, and okay perhaps it had stung a little that again it wasn’t Ignis he’d let in, but he was just…trying to be prepared. And there was nothing wrong with a little bit of preparation. Cooking required lots of it.

 As any decent tactician would, Ignis was discerning his odds, and trying to tip them further into his favor than they were, which, admittedly, they weren’t.

 And maybe this was actually a terrible idea. An awful idea. 

 A truly, truly awful idea. He should do something else. Anything else. He should - 

 “Iggy. The oven.” 

 “Oh.” That was quite a bit of smoke, wasn’t it? And quite black too. Oh. Dear. Oh.

 Ignis Scientia just went still right there in the middle of his smoky kitchen, giving Gladiolus his most helpless stare possible. The fire alarm sounded. And the sprinklers went off. And Ignis’ glasses were covered in drops of water as he slumped and sighed. Not even looking at all of the pans of a specific Tenebrae dessert that were melting under the onslaught of the sprinklers.

  Since he was cooking in the Citadel’s kitchens, the response to the fire alarm sounding was nearly instant. 

 And Ignis just stayed staring at the floor tiles as Gladio carefully dropped his jacket over his head to keep him a little dry, and tugged him aside so the emergency response workers could do their duty. 

 “Gladio.” 

 “I know, Iggy. I know.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 What was Gladio to do? Hell if he knew. Blondie, Prompto, had gotten through to Noct with phone charms of all things. Before that? His Majesty had gotten through to him with cologne, that Glaive had gotten through to him by saving his life, Iggy seemed set on getting to him through his stomach - all of that made sense in some sort of way. All of it was important in some way. Something each of them shared with Noct.

 What did Gladio share with Noct? 

 When his wife asked him that, goddess that she was and the Six knew he adored that woman, she had placed her hands on his hips and waited for him to give her a response that mattered.

 Training. 

 When that had been his instant response, Cecilia had just huffed and waited for a different one. But, well, that was his and Noct’s relationship for the most part. His prince had only been nineteen. Neither of them had fought in battles together yet. Noct hadn’t even had all that many princely duties to attend to. If they saw each other, even after all the years they’d known one another, it was usually for training. Either at the Citadel or the Amicitia Manor.

 Not that that’s all that Noct was to him; a trainee. Noct was…is his little brother. Always had been. Always would be. They’d just grown up a bit separated.

 Was he supposed to point out the scar slit into his face and tell Noct about the time he protected him from a drunk with a broken bottle? 

 Was he supposed to tell him about all the times he shoved him? All the times he shouted at him for not taking his role as Lucis’ Prince serious enough? All the times he bullied him? 

 And yeah, thanks to the therapy Cecilia got him into years ago he recognized real well now that he was a bully. An asshole. He pushed Noct around and he liked it, and how fucked up had that been? 

 But…but, with years of therapy behind him, and Cecilia, and his kids, he’d like to think he had improved. 

 So how did he get through to his Noct? His little brother, who he was supposed to shield and had failed in so many ways? 

 Looking around, thoughtfully, Gladio’s gaze landed on the kitchen table. And the vase of flowers in its center. 

 He had an idea, and his goddess of a wife thankfully approved.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When there was a knock at his doors, even half-dazed as he was because it was one of those days, Noctis was expecting Oriens. Or his dad. Or Prompto.

 Nyx answered the doors for him.

 He came back with a bouquet of flowers clasped in his hands so carefully.

 “For you,” the Glaive said with a smirk, a nod too, as he handed the bouquet of gladioli over.

 Well…that was rather…pointed.

 That was so much like the Gladio that Noctis remembered that he snorted, and sneezed on the pollen as a result, then laughed a little as he pressed his nose into the flowers to smell them. Maybe he wasn’t ready yet. Maybe he wouldn’t be for a while. But meeting Prom again hadn’t been terrible. It had hurt. They all would though. It was the staying apart that would hurt more if he let it fester.

 When he was ready. When he was ready, he would let his big brothers back in.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ever since returning to the Citadel, to Insomnia, to Lucis proper? Noctis’ range of exploration had been rather limited. By choice. And by wheelchair. He could count the amount of places he’d risked venturing on his own two hands. 

 Bedroom, bathroom, gardens, halls, his dad’s room, and the royal infirmary. 

 So when Nyx suggested he get out a tad more, go see the Citadel more, stretch his…wheels a bit more - the Glaive had apologized for that turn of phrase but Noctis hadn’t minded - Noctis knew he didn’t want to go anywhere he’d be seen.

 There wasn’t any part of the royal that wanted to be under eyes he didn’t trust.

 Which was why when Nyx wheeled him to the elevator and waved goodbye, he picked the ground floor.

 And a hallway where only the Citadel’s housestaff worked.

 Where very few would see him, because it was already late in the evening and most of them should’ve gone home by then.

 Noctis wheeled his way into the kitchen. It looked like nothing had changed since his childhood in there. Even the pans looked the same; polished and neatly put away as ever. He remembered sneaking down there for snacks when he was small. He remembered dragging the stools over to the counter because he was too short to reach the cabinets that held his favorite snacks.

 He remembered Ignis coming along and scolding him, but letting him take his snacks with when they left anyways. After he’d picked up after Noctis.

 He remembered…Iggy’s hand around his, leading him through the moonlit hallways, swearing they wouldn’t get caught when Noctis got scared because he didn’t want to get in trouble.

 Wheeling his way over to the counter now, he could reach easily for whatever he wanted. Except for the taller cabinets. He couldn’t reach those when he couldn’t stand.

 A snack sounded nice, right about then.

 And there was a pan on the counter.

 Full of small cakes. Pastries? With puffs of cream on top and berries with their juices drizzled over the dough. His stomach growled. His stomach curled up his throat, wanting those desserts. And the smell - fruity and sweet. Sugar and cream and berries. It made his stomach growl again.

 It smelled familiar, almost.

 Wanting one, Noctis almost reached for one. 

 But he stopped and put his hands back in his lap, thinking about how much trouble he’d get in if he ate food without asking.

 The guards in Mistveil had always enjoyed making him wait, and wait, and wait. Even with the food right under his nose. If he gave in, he got beat.

 So the raven-haired man sat.

 So he waited. And waited. And waited some more. Fidgeting his hands in his lap for a while. Then fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. Then sort of glancing around waiting for somebody, anybody, to come into the kitchen so he could ask. He must’ve sat there, waiting, for almost an hour and was getting stiff and sore from not moving around before his traitorous brain formed an alliance with his stomach and started whispering all sorts of things.

 That the cook wouldn’t miss one cake. That he’d waited plenty long enough. That he’d earned it after sitting there for long. That clearly they were free to take if nobody was coming back to cover them up or move them to the fridge.

 He stared at the cakes, still mesmerized by their sugary sweet berry-licious flavor. Still reminded of something that was right there on the tip of his tongue, but -

 Weren’t those berries from Tenebrae? That occurred to him far too late. And distracted Noctis so much so that he never heard somebody finally entering the kitchen.

 “That took far too long.” A sigh. And Noctis perked up hesitantly at not being alone and hopefully having the cook back, “Now, where was - “ 

 Spinning his wheelchair around with a bit of effort, he was asking before he even faced the cook.

 “Excuse me. Can I…have one?” 

 A cook with blonde hair the shade of ocean-touched sand. And square glasses. And green, green eyes that Noctis used to love seeing without those glasses lenses hiding them because seeing him dressed down was like a little secret all for him. And for Iggy.

 Ignis was standing right there.

In the doorway. Mid-motion brushing his shirt off and fixing his tie. Staring at Noctis like he’d just wandered into a ghost he hadn’t expected to be haunted by.

 The image blurred. The princling dropped his gaze.

Reached out on auto pilot to grab a spatula from beside the pan, and a dish, and a spoon, and a napkin like he was taught. He got one of the small cakes with berries onto that dish. It took a little bit of effort. But then Noctis stared at it for several seconds before looking back up at the man silently watching him.

 Stuck between the past and the present, because Ignis had been so much of his past.

 “May I?” He asked, feeling small. Small like a child. Small like when he first met his Iggy. Small like he’d felt safe to feel as a kid because he knew he could trust Iggy to be the big one between them.

 “Be - be my guest!” And now Ignis said that so wide-eyed so rushed, Noctis wasn’t sure if his former advisor was breathing at the moment or not, but the smell was enough of a distraction for him to use as an excuse instead of dwelling on that.

 Ignis stared at Noct as he gathered a big, big spoonful up and shoved the whole thing into his mouth with gusto. The cook stayed still, right there, terrified to move as Noct chewed slowly. Tasting the dessert. Evaluating. And then let out a very long and drawn-out hum of approval and shoveled another spoonful into his mouth. And then another. And then another.

 There was cream lining his top lip, and all Ignis could possibly do was stand there, still as a statue.

 Thinking that surely if he moved, Noctis would disappear.

 So the Hand did not move.

 And his Noct did not disappear.

 As if they’d both been transported ten years into the past, Noct simply sat there, devouring the dessert Ignis had made for him with love.

 Polishing off his plate with a final, happy hum of approval.

 The spoon was set so carefully down next to its plate. And Noct placed his hands back in his lap. And looked - looked, actually looked - at Ignis. Not in the eye. Not right away. He started somewhere around his chest, staring through him, then traveled upwards. His neck, his chin, his mouth, his nose, stopping at his eyes at the very end with a hesitant sort of squirming.

 But they got there. Eventually. 

 And finally Noct spoke to him.

 “Thanks, Iggy. It was really good.” 

 That was all it took for Ignis to break down into sobs. Shoulders shaking with them. He stared down resolutely at the toes of his shoes, not wanting to do something so shameful when Noctis had finally paid attention to him but he couldn’t stop it either, so he ended up just standing there, putting his face in his hands and sobbing.

 Because those were all the words he’d been waiting for for ten years.

 There were a couple of muted squeaks as the wheels of Noct’s wheelchair turned. As he wheeled himself away from the countertop and presumably away from Ignis who was being so foolish, so shameful, a disgrace, yanking off his glasses to rub his eyes and cry and cry and cry. 

 He thought Noctis had gone, somewhere around the time he started hiccupping.

 But then a small, pale hand clasped onto the bottom of his dress shirt, and his sobs redoubled.

 Noctis never said another word to him. He’d already said enough.

 He just kept his hand on Ignis so, so sparingly, a silent anchor that was all the advisor had begged the gods for for a decade, so much like his son, oh his little Noct, who he’d been beside all his life, all the parts of his life that had mattered back then, he sobbed and he sobbed and he thought, deliriously, that he must be shedding ten years-worth of tears right there in that dim kitchen.

 It ended with him crumpling, down onto the tiles, rubbing his tears and snot away with his sleeves and shaking from the force of his crying, and Noctis’ hand had moved to his head.

 He was gently, just, running his hand through his hair.

 Ignis looked at his Noct with a splotchy face, full of tears and snot and a mess.

 And Noct leaned forward just enough to press a kiss to his forehead.

 There were footsteps from outside of the kitchen. And Ignis was still staring at his boy like he were a gift from the heavens when the telltale sound of Gladio’s footsteps - rushed and panicked and probably urged on by the sounds of him crying - reached him. 

 The Shield came to check on the Hand. He froze, or his steps froze, when he saw Noctis there. Saw him pat Ignis’ head one more time, so tenderly, eyes distant but on him.

 Before he seemed to deem Gladio’s presence to mean he no longer needed to stay.

 And both Ignis and Gladio, Hand and Shield, watched in awed silence as he wheeled his way out of the kitchen expressionlessly. 

 After the sound of those wheels turning faded, Ignis was stuck just staring down at the tiles and invigorated.

 “He liked it,” he rasped, still in awe, shaking from it, staring at his hands then, hugging himself then, so relieved he could die happy there, "He liked it. He ate it. He liked it. Gladio, he - “

 “I hear ya, Iggy. I hear ya.” 

 Noctis was eating his cooking, or baking, again.

 Ignis found his will to live in an empty plate and a lone spoon.

 

 

-----

 

 

 After his kitchen trip, Noctis curled up in bed and refused to leave its safety for two days. He remembered that dessert. He remembered eating it when he was tiny and injured and healing in Tenebrae after the Marilith. He remembered years and years of Iggy trying to recreate the recipe from scratch after he described it to him just that once. 

 When had he figured out the recipe? 

 It had been really good.

 He cried whenever he thought about the taste again, and wondered if Oriens had grown up eating that specific dessert when he wasn’t there.

 Because that meant he had been there. In the smallest way. Always in Iggy’s heart.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When he asked later, so softly, Oriens perked up and said - 

 “Oh, the ulwaat berry cakes? Uncle Iggy makes them for me all the time! Do you want one, Dad? I’m sure he’d love to bake some for you!”

 When Ori asked, he said yes. So later that day, there was a platter of the cakes with cream puffs and berries delivered to his room that he and his son devoured together.

 It really was good.

 Iggy had remembered, even when he was gone.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The week hadn’t been bad, necessarily. Had it been a week? He was pretty sure it had been a week. A week since Prom sang to him. A week where he was left flowers by a Shield he couldn’t yet face, and where he ate pastries he hadn’t had since he was a child. How long had it been? Twenty years? 

 The week hadn’t been bad.

 It had just been a lot for him to handle. 

 Half of Noctis felt as if it’d all been a dream Carbuncle offered to him. A dream he’d accepted. The other half thought he’d spent a week living a nightmare where he’d lost ten years of his life, and that was - 

 Too much to handle. Yeah.

 Trying not to linger on any of it, he’d kept things easy with Prom and distant with Gladio and quiet with Ignis. 

 Once upon a time, the prince had loved all three of them so dearly.

 Now they were the ghosts that he was to them, and it was hard being haunted by them in the same breath that it was such a joy to have them back.

 Conflicted, after a week of that, Noctis awoke in the middle of the night. Moonlight shining down around him. The room quiet, still, with only the soft snores of Nyx on his sofa. Nyx, who had asked he be woken if Noctis wakes up in the middle of the night. Nyx who worried he’d fall out of bed again. Nyx who deserved his rest. 

 Noctis’ sleep schedule was a mess either way. He either slept all day, some days, or slept all night. Sometimes he fell asleep while the sun was still up while sitting in his wheelchair, sometimes he woke up while the moon was high in the night sky and couldn’t call back sleep to take him once more.

 Tonight was the latter of the two.

So he slid into his wheelchair silently, and wheeled over to the sofa, and tucked Carbuncle into the Glaive's arms. Then he wheeled his way away. A goal in mind. A goal with a few minor obstacles, like Glaives awake outside of his door, who froze and stared at him like they were witnessing a cryptid in action.

And then the elevator took a while to get to him. Seriously, who was up at this ungodly hour? Pot meet kettle.

And then in the King's Wing, there were Crownsguard. Patrolling. Crownsguard in their black uniforms with their medals and their cruel, gloating faces, and their arrogance and their anger, and Noctis wheeled past them as fast as he could to get to where he was going.

 Noctis stared at the two grand doors stopping him. They stared back. They didn’t do anything. They were just doors, after all. He could hear the slight shuffling of uncertain guards somewhere at his back and knowing they were there and dressed in black had his shoulders climbing towards his ears -

 Crownsguard. You couldn’t trust them.

He knocked.

 Thank all that just as he was starting to slip away into his own head, the doorknob he was eye-level to turned.

 One of the two doors opened. Swung inward.

 His dad was there for him.

 “Noctis? Sweetheart?” His dad was there, dressed in his silky down pajamas that were rumpled, with messy hair and hazy eyes, but those eyes sharpened significantly when he saw it was Noctis sat outside his rooms, “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?” 

 His dad didn’t turn away from him this time. 

 “Where’s Nyx?” The tired man then asked, searching around Noctis, as if Nyx were hiding behind his wheelchair when he didn’t see him immediately. But his son - Noctis - Noctis just had this rush of emotions flooding inside of him and filling him up to the brim and it was stuck in his throat for that second where he still felt the eyes of those who hurt him on his back and he let out this petrified whine from his throat that was all that escaped the tightness in his chest and -

 “Daddy?” 

 There was magic in that hallway that moonlit night, and it was not Noctis’. Noctis’ stung. Noctis’ magic had grown twisted and gained thorns during his imprisonment and laid festering and poisoned for too long. It was not his magic because he knew to keep it contained so he never accidentally lashed out at Oriens. His son. His little dawnlight.

 The magic that turned the hallway thick with threats that night was not his magic. 

 It was the Father’s. Because his son was asking for help even if he couldn’t find the words to do so.

 And Regis knew how to lash out too. People forgot that because he was known to be such a peaceful, restrained king.

 But he was still his father’s son. And his son’s father.

 And the Crownsguard in that hallway held no blame, but that scarcely mattered to the Father’s magic when his son was scared - when it showed in his eyes, so scared - and his magic smothered the air around those Crownsguard. Making it clear. They were not welcome. Making them flee, stumbling and choking, to a place where neither Lucis Caelum could see them.

 Leaving just Regis, and just Noctis who never felt a thing from his dad’s magic, and just the moonlight pale around them.

 His baby boy instantly started to relax and breathe again, with the Crownsguard and their black uniforms gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Noctis started muttering that softly under each breath, gripping the arms of his wheelchair too tight for how thin his fingers and wrists were so Regis reached forward and wrapped his hand so gently around one.

 The squeezing stopped. The mutterings too. His son sucked in a great, big, greedy breath. He let it out slowly. Then he looked up at Regis with eyes he’d so very much gotten from his mother.

 “Dad…can I…sleep with you, tonight?” 

 As if he needed to ask.

 “Of course you can, my son. Come here.” 

 In spite of that ‘come here’, it was Regis who jankily lowered himself down onto one knee after dismissing his cane to the Armiger to bring himself low enough to give his son a hug. A hug he melted into. After a second of holding his breath, that is. A breath he let out that was warm against Regis’ cheek right before he melted, and clung to his dad, and his dad clung back because Regis had waited ten years to be there for his child.

 He finally could be, and he wouldn’t be restrained by anything. Any restraints there were, he would break, because he wanted his Noctis to be happy.

 With some help, some nudging from his Noctis, Regis managed to rise again after. And they together went into his rooms. To his bedroom. Where his bedcovers were still thrown aside, the bedside table lamp on. Where he hobbled on over and helped Noctis adjust his legs onto the bed after he’d dragged himself up there, and turned off the lamp before sitting down too.

 He didn’t bother waiting for Noctis to make the first move, and wrapped his precious son up in his arms so he could press a kiss to his forehead. Then another. And one on his cheek. And one on the crown of his head too.

 Noctis nuzzled into him like he was a small child again, and maybe in his head at that moment that was exactly what he was, and Regis didn’t mind in the least.

 He just tugged the covers up, over them. And hummed as he hugged his boy tight.

 “Do you want to talk about anything, Noctis?” The old man, he was so old now, and yet he felt like he was again in his twenties with how his little boy was hugging him like this again, asked. Because if Noctis was here, had something happened? 

 But his little nightlight simply gave a small shake of his head. Hiding in the hollow of Regis’ neck.

 “No, Dad. It’s just…hard.” 

 It was all just hard. And it was going to continue to be hard. And Regis knew that all too well, so he hugged Noctis even tighter. Never wanting to have to let him go.

 “I have you, Noctis. I’m never letting you go again. Rest,” for the first time in ten years, please feel safe while you rest, “I’ll be here when you wake up.” 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum fell asleep. 

 He felt safe in his dad’s arms.

 

~>------------<~

Notes:

I just *gestures at story* and this came out.

These babies got me feeling complicated. I need Ignis to be neurotic and break down and I need Gladio to be a stable, non-bullying adult and I need Prompto to gain his own confidence in a life without Noctis and I need Regis to be the adoring father he always deserved to be.

I need Cor and Clarus to be the tired detective dads in the background too.

Ori, just keep eating your cake my little dude. Love you so much.

Please accept this tribute. <3

Chapter 6

Notes:

Time for more trauma healing~

.

~>----------<~

 

The strangest thing…

Being back in the Citadel, and realizing more than two months had passed. 

A part of Noctis Lucis Caelum, a far too large a part, would always be locked away in Mistveil Keep he feared. No matter how far he came. No matter what changed. No matter how he healed, that place, that dark place, had taken and kept a piece of soul during his decade of being imprisoned there. And that piece was no longer his. It was singularly Mistveil’s.

It was the piece of him that had been brutally abused and tormented for ten years straight.

It wasn’t a piece he wanted back.

But it was a piece that still wanted him, and tried to drag him back some days. So Noctis clung desperately to whatever shreds of normalcy he could. Rebuilding himself. Day by day. One step forward after another. He would never be able to fully cut away the part of himself that expected to be dragged back to Mistveil Keep..

But he could still pretend, for his own sake, that it might be possible eventually.

 

 

-----

 

 

Noctis had always enjoyed a good bath. As royalty, was it any surprise that he had his own private bathroom? Not the typical, everyday bathroom that many would imagine. He had a bathroom that had a bath the size of a small swimming pool, with fountains and unlimited hot water, and lazing in those steaming waters had always been a treat for the young prince ten years ago.

In Mistveil, the most he’d gotten was a bucket and a rag when the guards were feeling generous.

Or when there was too much blood and it was beginning to give off a rotting smell because of some infection or another.

Or when they wanted to erase evidence of some of the ways they abused him.

Nearing the end of those ten years of imprisonment - or rather, after five years of hopelessness, Noctis was a hollow doll for them to abuse and grow bored of. And around then was when he also lost the will at times to even take advantage of that bucket and rag. Regis’ son had forgotten what it felt like to be clean. He’d had lice multiple times, and they’d hacked off his hair time and time again. They’d cut his jaw shaving his beard too many times to count - 

A few of those times the razor had danced across his neck, as they whispered about how nobody would miss him if they just slit his throat open right then and there.

Nobody would even notice.

It was a sad truth. But it was a truth nonetheless.

Those first few days after Noctis had been brought back to Insomnia, to the Citadel, he’d gotten to experience being clean again. He’d been still too numb to really feel it, or remember it, but he remembered times after. Of his dad gently scrubbing at his body, such great care in the way he helped him wash up. Whispering encouragements and smiling for his son’s sake and no other reason.

It had taken weeks for Noctis to be able to bathe without a ton of assistance. 

But he still enjoyed bathing, he found. That hadn’t changed. Not in a decade.

It was one of the very few things that had not. So he clung to it at times. When he needed normalcy or peace, he’d decide to bathe. His dad would help, if he was available. If not? Nyx would help him undress and set him in the steaming waters. He was always so polite and kind about the whole ordeal too. 

Keeping his eyes away from the scars, the bones visible with how thin his prince was…the nudity Noctis had forgotten was a thing to feel self-conscious about, but Nyx still was conscious of.

But Noctis would sit as long as he pleased in hot water, the steam making him sleepy, the soap smelling like so many pleasant things he was draped in it, relaxing. Relaxing. Relaxing…

Yeah, he still liked baths.

And when he was finished, Nyx or someone else was there to towel him off and help him into dry clothes and give him his carbuncle plushie so he could relax. 

It was a small thing you never realized you missed so much until you had it back.

 

 

-----

 

 

A small thing like the softness of bedsheets. Or the mattress he got to sleep on every night that was almost too cushiony to be comfortable, after years of hard surfaces supporting a broken body.

A small thing like being able to feel the breeze outside, because he was allowed to go outside whenever he wished.

A small thing like having permission to speak without being struck.

Small things.

That mattered so much to him, because he hadn’t even had the small things for such a long time.

 

 

-----

 

 

“…No ring?” 

Opening his mouth in surprise, Prompto followed Noctis’ confusion to his left hand’s ring finger. Where, yeah, there was no wedding ring. The laugh he laughed then was short and self-conscious, and he reached up to rub at the back of his neck even as he also reached under his shirt. Tugged free a second chain from the collar.

There was the one with their old phone charms.

And there was the one with his hunter tags and a golden wedding band dangling beside them.

“Yeah, uh, Cindy and I actually both work a lot with our hands,” he shrugged, his shoulders as freckled as his cheeks and Noctis found himself following the movement so he wouldn’t have to look at the slightly awkward grin crooked on his friend’s face, “Like, a lot. So we agreed, you know, keep them out of the way! Nothing is worse than losing a ring in a car engine, or out in the chocobo pastures.”

A golden wedding band for Prompto.

Probably a silver one for Cindy.

Noctis…had thought about having golden rings. Back then. 

“Sorry, Noct.” Prom’s voice had gone all thin and frayed and soft and why? There was no reason for him to feel sorry. Being married - you weren’t supposed to feel sorry about that. And Prompto clearly lo-loved Cindy, so…

So.

So.

…

“Inlustris?” Nyx’s name for him. Star. Light. Starlight. Nyx was there. Prompto was gone. Noctis wasn’t entirely aware of when his would-be Heart had gone, but he just wasn’t there anymore. Had he gone away into his own head? Had he pulled the cage’s door shut behind him? Had he locked it up tight until his best friend of the past had left? 

He must’ve.

He didn’t remember.

Noctis plucked at tiny pieces of lint on his soft pants, staring down at his lap. Distracting himself from Nyx. Nyx who was coming closer. Nyx who took a knee next to his wheelchair. Nyx who reached out to gently lay his hand atop his, stopping him from plucking more and more and more away. Fraying more. Falling apart more.

He…wasn’t talking about the soft pants anymore, was he? 

“Can you tell me?” Do you know how to tell me? Nyx’s questions were usually two-sided. And usually one side at least held the answer.

Noctis had his answer.

He didn’t feel any better voicing it.

“I loved him…once,” he rasped, a ghost of the boy who'd held that love dearer than anything in the world, a shell of the prince who’d overflowed with compassion and care who Prompto also -

“He…loved me too,” Nyx brushed his thumb so tenderly across the broken, displaced prince’s knuckles, and Noctis distracted himself with that then to pretend his eyes weren’t stinging from tears that were long-past the point of being platonic, “I wanted to tell him. After graduation, I wa-nted…” 

Noctis Lucis Caelum wanted that love to fit in right alongside Prompto Argentum being his Heart.

He wanted them to walk at graduation, to celebrate, and then to sneak a small bottle of wine from Uncle Cor’s office and sneak out and go to his apartment. Have a night to themselves to talk. A night to ask. To give him the rest of the chocobo plushies he’d collected, and the letter he’d written, and fold Prompto into his soul forevermore as Retinue.

He wanted to have that tiny modicum of choice when it came to at least one person in his life.

He’d lost all of that alongside the rest of his life when he was falsely accused.

“I wanted to be his,” Noctis whispered, to the falling sun and to the Glaive ever at his side these days, ever his comfort and his compass, finally a confession, “and I wanted him to be mine. Forever. And…I lost that.” 

Black were his eyelashes, dark and thick and black, and yet they somehow seemed even darker as he closed his eyes and let them turn shiny with the tears he really did have to shed.

Tears he shed, when his eyes fluttered open to the feeling of a hand cupping his cheek. 

“I am so sorry, inlustris. You should’ve been able to have that.”

He grieved. Held by the one who had caught him after he had already fallen.

 

 

-----

 

 

Prompto wasn’t one of his visitors for a while.

A while.

After all…he had a wife to get home to, nowadays.

 

 

-----

 

 

They were never going to get back that time. And they were never going to go back to the boys they used to be, breezing through highschool and still managing to stay so innocent in the middle of a war that had more history than either of them. Noctis never got to confess. Noctis never even got share a kiss with Prompto, the boy he’d loved for years, before - before Mistveil, before - 

The things done to him there.

And now, Prompto had found new love during those years of his abuse. Had moved on, married a woman who made him happy.

They had been right for each other, once.

It had just been the wrong time for it to work out.

 

 

-----

 

 

Noctis isolated himself for a few days, to let the grief roll through him without accidentally lashing out at anybody. Nyx was there. Ori came to see him a few times; such an intuitive son of his. Always able to read the room. Far better than his dad could at his age, at least. He knew when the best thing to do was to rest his head on his dad’s lap and tell him silly stories about his tutors and his favorite shows.

Regis, Dad, he came to see him too. He did not apologize, but he was apologetic.

There had been enough ‘I’m sorry’s between the two of them. 

In the end, Noctis and Prompto…hadn’t ever been in a romantic relationship. And the time where such a thing was possible had passed. All Noctis got was regrets, and all Prompto got was a letter that was the most heartfelt confession he could’ve ever dreamt of receiving from his best friend. After he’d been imprisoned.

Theirs was a relationship of broken dreams and shattered hopes.

And a love that was as much of a ghost as Noctis Lucis Caelum could be some days.

Full of phantom pains.

 

 

-----

 

 

So many phantom pains.

 

 

-----

 

 

Odd. Really, it was odd. Trying to consciously remember what it was like to have feeling in his legs. It’d been years. Years since his own legs stopped working. Since he stopped trying to force them to work in that dim, dingy room that was his cell for a decade. Some distant part of him still remembered the struggle of being eight and being told he may never walk again. Still remembered the months, the years of physical therapy.

The anger. The hurt.

The bitterness that kept crawling up his throat in the form of curses as he lashed out at anyone who pushed him because they didn’t understand.

It was odd. Because that distant part of him still remembered the desperation of wanting to be able to use his legs again. Still remembered the way his shoulders would climb whenever anyone saw him in his wheelchair. Helpless. Crippled, the news kept on calling him back then. Worthless, the whispers behind his back said. He’d hated it, hated it so much, hated it more than anything.

And now, that hate was the smallest drop in a sea of rightful hate after what he’d gone through.

And now, he was just…too tired to summon up that old anger and drive, maybe. It took so much energy to feel self-conscious and small. Energy he no longer had. He had aged. 

And that aging had cost him a lot.

His legs too, maybe.

What did it matter if the news called him crippled anymore, when Noctis Lucis Caelum was no longer an official member of the royal family? Had been struck from the records, due to his crimes - 

The process of officiating him back into the family and the line of succession was far too tedious for them to be concerned about right now, so it hadn’t. So what did it matter if the raven-haired man actually used the wheelchair he needed for a second time in his life? 

Noctis just never really thought about walking again. He’d settled into his wheelchair without complaint after returning home. Home. To the Citadel. To his dad and the son he’d never met. At first because he was barely in his own head enough to complain, and then because he just wasn’t bothered.

He saw so few of people that mattered - why would he care about what they had to say? Why would he care if they thought him weak or worthless for help he rightly needed after what had been done to him? So he’d taken to his wheelchair like he never did as a kid. And it so very much helped that his dad didn’t look at it like it was the enemy anymore. Or like he wanted to break down every time he saw it.

They’d all adjusted according to what they knew Noctis really needed. And they’d had greater tragedies to weep over than him simply losing his legs for a second time.

Noctis really had grown up. And it stung a little, like a bee loose in his ribcage, to realize he just didn’t really consider regaining his legs a possibility or a reasonable goal.

The doctors had mentioned it. Which had brought on his whole, retrospective.

Pondering on when he’d had his legs, and lost them, and had them again.

Noctis sat in his wheelchair, in a nice patch of sunlight to bask like he so loved to do some days, pondering. Staring at his legs. Poking them once or twice. Taking his glasses off and putting them back on and taking them off. Really feeling his age in the creaks of his joints and the beard shadowing his jaw when he rubbed at it in thought.

Ugh, he felt like his dad.

The idea made him snort a little.

“Sounds like you’re thinking about something funny.” Nyx, always somewhere, somewhere close Noctis could trust, said casually. In the middle of relacing his uniform boots in a nearby patch of sunlight on the tiles just like his charge. They both liked having quiet time together like that. 

Dad would chuckle about how they both liked basking like cats, but that was neither here nor there.

“Just realized I’m a lot like my dad,” the princling mumbled, feeling a little self-conscious over that, because he’d really never grown past being a boy who loved his dad in some ways.

It helped that Nyx just nodded understandably and gave a snort of his own.

“Woah, really? Never realized, starlight. Do you mean your charming silver fox appearance, or your downright cheery personality inclined towards chaos?” 

That got Noctis to genuinely bark with laughter. One, sharp, clear bark. That fell into quiet chuckles that shook his shoulders.

Nyx smiled triumphantly anyways, like he’d just won something.

And the two of them went back to their basking in the quiet for a while longer.

Yeah. Noctis really didn’t mind it as much.

Legs were overrated when he had a Glaive willing to carry him everywhere he went anyways.

 

 

-----

 

 

Another encounter.

A lot of those had happened lately, it felt like. For a few hours, Noctis was napping. It was the middle of the day, but who cared? It being the middle of the day was the best part. The sunshine on his bed was so warm. He was curled up with Carbuncle cuddled under his cheek, so comfy, so safe, cocooned in black, thin blankets and the walls of his own mind.

And then there was a murmuring.

And Noctis wasn’t sure if it was the tone, or that some frustratingly vague part of his mind recognized the voice that was murmuring, or if he’d simply finished his nap.

But he slowly blinked his eyes, face scrunching up unhappily to be awake.

And glared at the one responsible.

“U’cle Corrrrr.” 

Otherwise known as Cor Leonis, fiercest of King Regis’ Retinue, Sword of multiple Lucis Caelums and unshakeable bastard across all accounts - 

And also Noctis’ favorite uncle. 

Who was in his bedroom, in the middle of offering a startled-looking Nyx a whole mound of papers and looking his typical gruff self. A gruff self that dissolved like sugar in water as he jumped at Noctis groaning his name, nearly dropped those papers and left Nyx cursing and scrambling to catch them, turning towards the bed where his godson and nephew was stretching and had seen him.

And really, Noctis seeing somebody had a whole other meaning that it did for other people.

“...Noctis.” He said it stiffly, in that way anyone else would think was uncaring but Noctis knew his Uncle Cor, and knew he cared a whole lot more than most people would think. 

Knew that that look in his eyes was him trying to stay collected as he took a step, then another, closer to Noctis’ bed.

“You woke me up.” 

Knew his hesitant smirk was real, then, when he cocked his hip and reached down to ruffle Noctis’ hair like he was still a boy being trained by his dad’s youngest brother who understood him better than any of the others. 

“Sorry, kiddo. You can go back to sleep.” There was a quiet awe in his voice.

And Uncle Cor had gotten older, but…it didn’t hurt. As much. Recognizing that, now. 

“Missed you.” 

“I missed you too, Noctis. So much.” 

The sun was still nice and warm and Noctis still had his cocoon of black fabric to swath himself in and forget the world existed for a while. So that was what he did. With Uncle Cor’s hands coming back to card through his hair until he had fully slipped back into sleep. It was nice.

Remembering, and being okay with that. It was nice.

 

 

-----

 

 

Note to Noctis’ self.

It is not fun to fall asleep wearing your glasses.

Glasses are the enemy of spontaneous naps. 

 

 

-----

 

 

Ignis’ menu remained rather light, considering Noct still couldn’t handle anything too rich. Or with too much flavor. Or certain ingredients. His body had…adapted. To take the bare minimum, and it barely knew how to accept anything else. So none of the meals he’d been cooking up had been anything of real worth to a cook of his caliber.

But Noct was letting him cook for him.

So they were the best meals Ignis had ever had the pleasure of dishing up. His once-charge even allowed him to eat with him and Ori at times. It was everything to Ignis.

It was everything.

 

 

-----

 

 

Noctis needed to learn to remember to take off his glasses before spontaneous naptimes. Really. He kept waking up because they were pinching, or waking up with the frames imprinted on his face.

His dad had laughed heartily the first time he’d seen that. Had even slapped his good knee and ruffled Noctis’ hair.

Still, he was getting better. And Nyx would occasionally notice and take his glasses off as he napped for him.

They’d get there. Eventually.

 

 

-----

 

 

Alright. So, did Gladiolus Amicitia hover for almost five hours around Prince Noctis’ old rooms? New rooms? Rooms again his, since he’d come home? Six, yes, he had. He wasn’t hiding. No. He was an Amicitia. An honorable Shield of the Lucis Caelum royal family. He didn’t hide from things like reunions and feelings - not anymore, at least. Again he thanked his awesome wife for getting him into therapy and putting up with him until he had his head on straight.

But he wasn’t hiding.

He was just…awkwardly nodding to the Kingsglaive every time he passed those rooms. Trying and failing to look casual. Crossing his arms. Uncrossing his arms. Staring at his phone as said awesome wife of his sent him pep talks for all of three hours.

Before Cecilia also got exasperated with him and started trying to kick his ass in gear too.

But hey, being big and muscly didn’t mean Gladio couldn’t have a thing. About emotions. And about anxiety. Towards what would happen when he finally got to talk to Noct face to face - because, fuck, it’d been months since he came back and they still hadn’t really managed more than being in the same room as one another.

He knew their relationship had mostly been business. Trainer and trainee. Brothers who grew up separately.

But always knew they’d have each others’ backs without question.

Geeze. Why was this so hard? Gladio had taken to communicating the way his mother used to. Sending flowers. Lots of flowers. Way too many flowers, probably, starting with his own namesakes and most recently ending with a big greetings bouquet to try and kick off the conversation of actually meeting Noct again. The right way.

Without tears, hopefully, but if there were tears that wouldn’t be the worst as long as they were happy tears.

Again. Hovering.

Big, burly daddy bear hovering and awkwardly trying to look like he wasn’t about to rush off to the training halls to make use of some of their punching bags. His reputation was totally going to lose some of its cool points after this. The Glaives kept snickering at him.

But Noct was worth losing a few cool points.

Noct was worth everything to his Shield who’d never gotten to do his duty right.

Here he was. A mess. Always a mess, so that was nothing new. Gladiolus Amicitia, leaning awkwardly against a wall down the hall from Noct’s rooms, waiting for the time they were supposed to meet to come. Maybe he’d shown up a bit early. Just a few hours. Cecilia was right. He was an adorable idiot. With muscles. Ah.

A big sigh, and Gladio lifted his head at the sound of footsteps.

Coming down the halls was Nyx Ulric. Looking right at home in the royal wing; his coat stuffed under one arm, chatting away with his phone up to his ear and a crooked smirk on his face. Nodding. Nodding. His kukris knives on his belt as always. Still half in uniform, half not - the Glaive everybody was whispering about practically becoming their returned-prince’s Shield.

It had stung. 

Gladio had accepted it.

Nyx was a war hero. Respected to all hell. A good man and established public figure on top of all of that. Gladio had accepted that.

Still, seeing him so easily strolling for Noct’s rooms the way he was, while Gladio was waiting around like a stranger or a stray dog hoping to be thrown a bone, still stung a little. He remembered his breathing exercises. He practiced them. He nodded respectfully to the Galahdian man as he passed.

Nyx Ulric stopped. Right there, in his tracks. Tilting his head. Looking straight at the would-be Shield. Arching a brow, even. Not even trying to hide his expression. 

And fuck, Gladio knew that expression as a mentor himself.

It was a, ‘this dumbass kid needs talking to,’ expression.

“I’ll call you back, Pelna,” the Glaive said simply into his phone, then swiped at the screen and lowered it. His smirk still there and growing more crooked when Gladio sighed in response. Accepted his fate. And nodded again to the man who decided to lean against the wall beside him. Looking way more at ease than him.

It was weird. It was exasperating. Ulric had this overwhelmingly charismatic air to him, and even if they really only knew each other professionally every time he was around he made Gladio feel like a kid-brother.

Maybe it was exactly what he needed.

“So.” Nyx tilted his head down the hall, so open. So casual. It helped some of the tension in Gladio’s shoulders loosen, “Today’s the day, huh?” 

“Yep.” 

The day he would reunite with the royal who he was meant to be sworn to. The royal he’d failed to protect.

“You know, he has all of your bouquets in vases around his rooms,” more of the tension loosened, and Gladio cast his eyes towards Nyx. But Nyx wasn’t looking at him. The older soldier - because that’s what they both were - was tapping away at his phone. And Gladio really appreciated how casual the whole encounter really was being treated, “Ran out of vases like eight bouquets ago. He started snagging them from other rooms. When we ran out of surfaces to put the vases, he had me snag like six side tables too. The maids keep wondering where they’re all coming from.” 

So maybe there’d been a few too many flowers involved in their communications.

But his mother’s gardens were the talk of Insomnia’s botanical-admirers, so they were definitely decent flowers. More than. 

“Don’t stress it.” Nyx nudged him, and that nudge got him to take a breath, and this man nodded in approval that was way too unfairly rewarding for Gladio to see, “He misses you. He loves the flowers. He’s gotten a lot better with seeing new, old faces. Just don’t snap. Don’t raise your voice. Be careful where you put your hands, and...maybe avoid touching him without actually advertising that you’re going to, actually. And remember he knows how to use his own wheelchair, so don’t just assume he’s helpless.” 

If Gladio was still young and dumb and twenty-something years old? 

He would’ve been pissed off to hear somebody else tell him about Noct’s triggers and treat him like a ticking time bomb that would cause an explosion without meaning to.

But he wasn’t young and he tried not to be dumb and he was in his thirties now. 

He was a dad, and a husband, and had served in a war and had spent a decade thinking about what he’d do and say if he could just have Noct back.

He appreciated how much care Nyx was showing in making sure his Noct was treated right.

“I got it. Anything else?” 

“Be yourself?” Nyx threw out there, with a small laugh and a wave of his hand and considering the guy’s impressive list of accomplishments in his life, his medals, his honors, it was always so strange talking to him and realizing he was just that. A guy. And he was so easy-going usually too. He laid a hand on Gladio’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, “Don’t treat him that differently. Don’t immediately heap on the apologies. Let him lead the conversation if things get rocky. And if he goes into his own head, don’t stress it. He’ll come back to us when he’s up to it.” 

Geeze. Seriously, geeze.

“How’d you do it, Ulric?” He couldn’t help asking, couldn’t help feeling young and inexperienced in the face of this hero, a hero who was just like anybody else, but also a hero that had been the first besides Ori to break through Noct’s walls when he’d come back, “How’d you get him to open up to you so fast? How’d you get him so damn comfortable with you that you literally sleep in his bedroom most nights? That you’re all but an attendant of his? That you got moved from Drautos’ lieutenant to seeing to him day and night and - “ 

He stopped. He evaluated. Had he sounded like he was challenging Ulric? That hadn’t been what he meant to do, but his therapist had helped him realize he came off a lot more aggressive than he meant to sometimes.

But Nyx put those worries to rest with a carefree laugh and a nod.

“Didn’t do anything special.” Nothing special…but Gladiolus saw this something. This something in the Glaive’s eyes that couldn’t be anything else. Special. “I saved him once? I treated him like an equal. Like I would any of my comrades who went through hell and back beside me. I…sometimes treat him like a child of Ramuh. I sometimes treat him like a prince. I sometimes treat him like a friend, and sometimes like a commander, and sometimes like a brother who has fought at my side.” 

So special.

“I don’t know,” Nyx Ulric confessed finally, head falling back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling like the ornate molding would give him his answers, “I really don’t, kid. But he…he’s something so important to me. I just try to treat him the way he needs to be treated, to feel alive. To want to live. I just try to be there for him, because I care, and…”

Finally the casualness had fallen away.

And what do you know? Nyx was even more of just a normal, ordinary man than ever before.

…Maybe a man in love, at that, if the Amicitia’s romance expertise had anything to say about it.

Before anything more could be said, down the hall those two Glaives watching the rooms called for him. Waved at him. Meaning they’d been given the go-ahead to let Gladio in. Meaning it was time for him to be with Noct again. Noct. Noctis. His little brother. His would-be royal who he would’ve sworn himself and his life and his bloodline to. The prince stole from them all by lies.

By false accusations.

Noct.

“Thanks, Ulric,” he said quietly, a Shield going to his King, “I owe you.” 

“No you don’t, Gladiolus. Just treat him right.” 

Treat him right. From the Armiger, Gladiolus Amicitia pulled out another bouquet of flowers to the sound of Nyx chortling behind him. And there, in those rooms from ten years ago and again now, Noct was sitting by the window in his wheelchair. He turned it around when he heard him enter. 

So Gladio dropped down into a crouch like he would do for his kids, and he offered the bouquet to Noct personally this time.

“Hey, Noct,” he said finally and was heard, “I missed you. I’m really proud of you. Welcome back, sleepyhead.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

About three hours later, Gladio left those rooms with a grin so wide his cheeks hurt.

And also with a bouquet of his own, courtesy of his little brother.

Roughly, it meant - 

‘I love.’

And - 

‘Thank you.’

 

 

-----

 

 

In some ways, Noctis Lucis Caelum had a retinue again.

He had a Heart whom he’d loved, a Hand whom he’d relied on, and a Shield whom he’d never trusted more.

And maybe, some part of him recognized he might have a Sword as well now. Whenever Nyx sat beside him after dark to tell him stories of his culture and of Greater Lucis and of the beloved Stormbringer, Father Ramuh.

He wasn’t alone. And they may not have been sworn in as Retinue in front of the Crystal, but the bonds were there. The start of them being rebuilt, at least.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Yes, yes, I hear you, mane. I hear you.” 

Tipping his head to the side at the sound of Nyx’s first language rolling off of his tongue, the Galahdian tongue, Noctis was curious. As to what he was calling his son so affectionately. If he was called starlight, what nickname had been thought up for Oriens? 

So it turned out, his son had met Nyx a number of times in the past. Not the most surprising thing. A very respected Kingsglaive with a position to match right alongside Captain Titus Drautos - what were the chances of him never meeting the prince at some point? Especially when there’d been talk of Nyx being a possible successor to the aging Captain of the Kingsglaive?

There had also been talks for him to train the new Crown Prince of Lucis just as he’d trained the former.

What a relief that they got along so well. Nyx was incredible with children. He claimed that was because of his late kid-sister. Whenever he mentioned her - Selena, he told Noctis, her name was Selena - he got quiet and serious. Ori brought him out of those moods. Noctis loved to watch his son run circles around his Glaive. And loved to watch the ways Nyx would playfully manage to keep up with his little dawnlight. Making a game out of everything.

When his son had to go, when duty called, Noctis turned his curiosity to Nyx naturally.

“What does…ma-ne mean?” The roll of the words was not nearly as smooth from the raven-haired man’s mouth, but it brought such a bright grin to Nyx’s face that he didn’t feel awkward about it at all.

Not at all, as Nyx answered him kindly.

“It means morning, my inlustris.” 

Morning. His little dawnlight, Oriens.

“Would you like me to teach you more of the Storm Islands’ language?”

 

 

-----

 

 

The state of Lucis was a complicated one. If Lucis were a thread, it had been tossed into the fray with many other threads and tangled up so terribly that it might seem impossible to untangle it. Founder’s Day? Had been the catalyst. One broadcast to the whole of Eos, and that had expedited everything that had happened after. 

That man. The one who could change his shape at will - had this been his plan all along? Had he chosen to reveal himself as he had specifically because it would lead to a house of cards crumbling? The Citadel was a glass house, and Clarus didn’t like how many people had guns pointed at it while he scrambled to fix things.

He’d been scrambling for weeks now. Weeks. 

Almost three months.

Three months, and despite all of Eos in agreement that the stranger with auburn hair and amber eyes from that day was an enemy of their star, on the lookout for him - nobody had found anything.

Empress Stella had sent tentative news from Niflheim that he resembled a court member from the previous Imperial Council. From before Emperor Aldercapt died. Died bloody and mad and screaming because he’d been fool enough to try and steal a power gifted by the Astrals themselves to the Lucis Caelums.

Not that that meant much, when the Astrals were still the biggest sore point in all of this.

For all of the nothing they knew about that stranger who had framed Noctis, who Regis called ‘Adagium’, the Astrals were nearly on par with him. 

They were not answering the call of their Kings now. Nor the call of the Lucii, according to His Majesty. They were silent, they watched, and they did not answer.

Because they thought themselves above the need to answer? 

Or because they had lost the script too; same as every little mortal scrambling for reasons this had all happened? 

Clarus Amicitia wasn’t entirely sure what answer would be more comforting to him. To trust his gods knew of what was happening? To lose that trust and lose his faith alongside it? He was too old for this. Six, he was too old for this. He was sixty-six years old. He was an old man, too old to be fighting demigods and legends, but he would hold.

He would hold for his King. He would hold for his Brother.

He would hold for Regis, and for Noctis. For his family.

But he…missed Maria. He missed her so dearly. His late wife was on his mind more often than not these days, despite it having been years since he’d lost her. Clarus spent a long, long time staring at the wedding photo of theirs that he had framed on his desk. He’d done so drunk, he’d done so sober, he’d avoided going home because he didn’t want to bring that sort of angst to the family manor.

Gladio kept stopping by. Checking on him. 

Had thrown away the few bottles of alcohol he kept hidden in the drawers of his desk, without a word.

Had brought by the twins a few times, and Cecilia, his daughter-in-law, had stopped by too to deliver homecooked meals for him. They were indulging him. This old man past his prime. Whose worth these days laid more in managerial duties than picking up his sword to fight. Clarus had helped run the kingdom of Lucis for almost forty years.

A ghost or two wasn’t about to be what broke him at his age.

But to call the situation tense was…an understatement. Clarus had gone through so much paperwork these last months that he was pretty sure he kept signing random surfaces with his signature out of reflex. He’d fallen asleep on his office’s couch far too many times of late, considering he wasn’t that young man he used to be when he did that after King Mors’ death. 

Lucis had held its breath.

Then Lucis had screamed.

Then Lucis had held its breath again.

The kingdom was beginning to make noise. Again. The shock after learning their Chosen King was innocent had rendered them deaf and silenced. Then the anger had flared up and had been directed in every which-way. An anger thrown eventually at the feet of the council being replaced and reevaluated. A PR nightmare - the sheer number of councilmembers they found to be guilty of crimes themselves had left Clarus dizzy at times, and the people distrustful of who was running their kingdom.

It had been the beginning of a bitter cycle, beginning with Noctis still being secreted away within the Citadel, then there were those photos leaked to the news, and then there was more holding their breaths after seeing how hurt the man was. 

After seeing he was a man.

Because like…all of them, Clarus might imagine, the image of Noctis had remained unaged and unchanging in their minds until they finally saw him again.

It had spurred a revolution of the government, of Lucis’ religion, of the people’s trust in those that ruled them. 

Dealing with that revolution for months - even if it was a revolution thus far without bloodshed - wore on a person. The fact that the commonfolk seemed to be gaining more and more information by the day was bad enough; he had a mole to dig out of the Citadel. A mole who had spilled that Noctis had been abused while imprisoned. Who had stirred up the people so badly that they were calling for immediate executions for all involved.

It was such a complicated situation.

And Clarus was cynical enough to wonder how many of those people would still bother to remember this righteous fury of theirs once the publicity died down. Or would they just let the whole situation fade from their thoughts, and somewhere down the line - in a month or two or three or a year - stumble across a news article and think, ‘That’s still going on?’

…Damnit. 

Clarus was so tired.

Worse still, there’d been a break-in at Mistveil Keep. Civilians. Who’d gotten in and gotten away, and Clarus wasn’t sure if that was a terrible thing or not.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure at all. 

“Uncle Clarus?” And all of that redundant tiredness was swept away, just like that, when he lifted his gaze swiftly to his office’s door. Where a head was poking in. Staring at him with open worry that just brightened an old man’s heart like warm moonlight. He smiled. A newer development he was still adjusting to. Him.

“Noctis,” he addressed his godson, so relieved to see him, relieved enough to forget about everything else and rise from his desk scattered in papers and go to him. And go to Oriens as well, it seemed, since father and son were both at his door. Ori sat in his dad’s lap. A balm for his heart, “Oriens. Hello. What can I do for you boys?” 

“Dad’s having a small lunch in the gardens with everyone,” Ori chirped, a miniature version of the dad whose lap he loved to sit in, and his big, big blue eyes clearly demanding that Pops Clarus attend. 

No words were needed, but Noctis still added them.

And what a blessing that was.

“If you have time,” he croaked, even as he ran his fingers through Oriens’ hair and the tiny princling leaned back into his chest happily, “you can join us, Uncle?”

“I would be honored.” 

Family, first. Always.

And sure, Noctis’ smile was a bit shy and a bit more crooked and a lot hesitant, still dropping his eyes sooner than needed from Clarus to his happy, happy son. But they were working on it. They had come such a very long way from three months ago when Noctis was a dead-eyed shell of Regis’ son in Mistveil Keep. Noctis had always been a fighter. Had always been willing to crawl his way through anything for his family.

They were so proud of him. So Clarus ruffled his nephew’s mess of raven-black hair, and grinned at the way he squeaked, and nodded along.

Lunch it was.

 

 

-----

 

 

That lunch was simply…magical.

A dream come true for everyone in attendance. 

Prompto filled a whole new photo album from that afternoon alone.

 

 

-----

 

 

Lucis dug deeper.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Uncle Cor, what actually happened to Emperor Aldercapt?” A simple question. It had been tugging at Noctis’ mind for a while, considering…well, nobody had explained. About that, or about Lucis no longer being embroiled in the war against the Empire it had been losing ten years ago, or about what had become of the Empire after. A war that had been ongoing through his grandfather and his father’s lifetimes. 

The Lucis Caelums versus the Aldercapts.

Aside from a mention here or there of a new Empress sat on the Empire’s throne, there had been nothing else said.

So it was a simple question.

But considering the way his Uncle Cor immediately pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily, it had a less-than simple answer. Why was that always the case? 

“...Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt died mad and screaming in the Crystal Chamber,” his father’s Sword said without another moment of hesitation, and - well, that wasn’t…what Noctis had been expecting to be told. So he tensed up and he stared and he thought, ‘Mad and screaming is something I understand’. Lost a little in the bluntness of that answer.

Found again, when his uncle lightly laid his hand on his shoulder to lead him back.

“In the Crystal Chamber?” Noctis repeated, rasping, and not just because of the disuse of his throat but because that meant the Emperor had been within the walls of the Citadel, within the walls of his home, within the walls of the most protected place in Lucis.

And his mind had trouble imagining that ever happening.

Because Insomnia was supposed to be safe.

Where else was he meant to feel safe if not in the boundaries of the Citadel he’d been raised in? 

“After you were gone,” a wince, nearly unnoticeable, but Noctis saw it anyways as his uncle leaned back against the sofa to explain things to him. Because Uncle Cor had always treated him like an equal, and not a child, and right now he needed to know, “obviously the war efforts crumbled. Morale was lower than it had been in a generation. Lucis had lost hope, and the Empire had gained an advantage to bludgeon us with.” 

Lucis deserved to lose hope, was what a cruel, bitter bit of Noctis’ heart hissed.

“Emperor Aldercapt decimated many of our forces in a few deciding battles,” memories of war and those battles flashed in his uncle’s eyes, and then Uncle Cor closed his eyes so his godson need not see the ghosts of what horrors had been reflected in them, “We had no chance. We had lost. And we had accepted that. And then, so kindly, the Emperor offered us a ceasefire. And a peace treaty to sign.” 

Wait -

Had the Empire won the war? 

“Part of that treaty was the conception of Oriens through, ah - “ An uncomfortable look passed over Cor’s face, he shifted, he averted his eyes and Noctis knew he meant how Oriens was conceived with Lunafreya, and he also avoided thinking about that, “Well, you know about that. That was done. And we held a peace treaty signing here, in Insomnia. Emperor Aldercapt had demanded part of the treaty be that Niflheim gain full access and use of the Crystal, of course, that had always been his goal with the war.” 

The Crystal. A gift from Lord Bahamut, from the Astrals, blessing the Lucis Caelums to rule wise and well over Lucis. Their birthright. Their source of magic. Their greatest treasure. To the Empire? A power source. A limitless source of power, and the opportunity to add magic to their machinery. In the end, the Crystal brought war down upon Lucis.

And in the end? 

“None of us expected it, but when Emperor Aldercapt went to see the Crystal himself…when he touched it, there was some sort of burst. Of magic.” Punishment. Of the divine sort, “He fell. Laughing, screaming, mad and bleeding, with magic pouring out of every pore of his body.” 

Just like that? The greedy Emperor died just like that? At the very moment he finally got what he’d fought generations for? 

Noctis felt a little hollow, hearing that.

“As near as we’ve ever been able to tell, and as much as the Six have been willing to share with your father,” Cor sighed, shifting his hips against the sofa again, and his nephew was struck by how old he was now, and how much more his uncle showed his age in the small things, “the Six chose to kill him for daring to covet the Crystal. It was divine retribution.”

Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt had been struck down by the gods themselves.

Right when he finally had everything he’d ever dreamt of right in his grasp.

It felt like one of those Galahdian children stories Nyx kept telling him; centered around a lesson or moral that children are meant to learn from hearing them. A man who sought it all. A man who was never satisfied. A man who finally reached too far, and was finally punished for it.

A man who was only mortal, in the end.

“Did Lucis - ?” Did Lucis celebrate in the streets that day? That was where Noctis’ thoughts went, when he remembered how hated the elderly Emperor had been. Cor took it another way.

“Lucis wasn’t attacked outright for it,” he told the royal who had been locked away in a tower at the time, shrugging, casual now, as if he weren’t talking about a complete shift in political forces throughout Eos, “Niflheim’s most esteemed were in the Crystal Chamber as well, and seeing what became of their Emperor? Well,” Cor snorted, “we’re all pretty sure they finally believed what they’d been told for decades about how only Lucis Caelums were welcomed to wield its power.” 

Emperor Aldercapt had always declared that it was the Lucis Caelums that coveted the Crystal, that they kept it hidden away because they didn’t want to see it stolen.

But the truth was the Crystal truly was only a Lucis Caelum’s to wield and to be cursed by.

And he had learned that, in the end, they told the truth. Too late.

“The Empire withdrew. The treaty was obviously tossed out, but your son was already conceived so Tenebrae drew up its own treaty. For months, our reports from Niflheim and the Empire’s lands were a mess. Accordo had firmly locked Empire-affiliated delegates out of their territories, Tenebrae rose up in a revolution to reclaim themselves while the Empire was weakened, we - of course - also took advantage to drive back their forces from our borders.” 

All it had taken was the death of one man who thought he was infallible to see his whole dynasty crumble.

That was how rotten and scourge-ridden that empire had been.

“Any time anyone tried to reestablish an actual line of power in the Empire?” Cor shook his head and pushed off of the sofa, looking annoyed at just having to remember how big of a mess it had all been back then, “A scandal. A family overthrown. There were so many assassination plots in the following year that Iedolas’ granddaughter, Stella, actually took refuge with Queen Lunafreya in Tenebrae while her agents worked on reclaiming the throne. But not without it costing Niflheim most of its old families, most of its military power and influence, and the whole of the war.” 

“Did Dad fight in those final battles?” The idea of his dad, Dad who needed a cane and Dad who got tired when he had to take too many staircases to and from meetings and Dad who - 

The heart of this son hurt thinking about it.

“Noctis,” well, if that tone wasn’t complicated, Noctis wasn’t sure what was, “your father…fought. Yes. He was very angry, and he channeled that anger into those remaining months of the war.” 

“Wasn’t he angry before?” Noctis asked because he knew his dad had hated the war, hated what it turned his grandfather into, hated it, he knew it, so -

“No. Noctis…” Uncle Cor sighed, sighed like he used to when he wanted a cigarette, and something foreboding crawled up Noctis’ spine when his uncle knelt beside his wheelchair and placed a hand on his knee to tell him, “What I mean, is that your father didn’t care if he lived through the battles he threw himself into after you were imprisoned. It was only Oriens’ birth that finally gave him something to live for.”

Such a gentle way to tell Noctis something that was a slap across the face.

His dad had wanted to die after he was imprisoned? 

 

 

-----

 

 

When his sweet son showed up at his study’s door, as red in the face as he could get when he was still so frightfully pale, expression a crumbling one, looking as though he were about to break down completely - 

Of course Regis swept aside every bit of paperwork he’d been managing in favor of lifting his son from his wheelchair and hobbling them both over to his study’s sofa. Forgetting entirely about his need for a cane or his weak knee, and all but collapsing there on the cushions with his child who was hurt, who was hurt.

The tears leaking down his son’s cheeks a second later stole his breath away, and he hugged him tight, and he hugged him and he hugged him, his baby boy, his child - 

And after an explanation told between hiccups, he swore to his and Aulea’s son in every way possible that he hadn’t wanted to die.

He’d just been lost.

Hurting.

Frightened about his son’s fate.

A mistake. A mistake borne of mourning, of losing his child and at the time believing it to be a permanent loss. A depression had taken him so deep he’d felt like he’d never know light again. Never smile nor laugh again. And then Oriens had been born. Oriens had been his dawn at the end of a long night too. Regis had no longer wanted the pain to stop because he had Noctis’ son to raise and protect.

So many reassurances. And in spite of them all, of Clarus and Cor’s added reassurances as well, Noctis cried. Quietly.

Hiccupped.

And then out of nowhere, he started really crying.

And it hadn’t really occurred to Regis until that moment but Noctis never made sounds when he shed tears. His cries were always, always silent. Always shaking shoulders and teardrops but not a sound shed with his grief. He always kept it locked up tight and collected inside of him. But not this time. This time, his son clung back to him and started bawling as though he were a toddler again, with a runny nose and red-rimmed eyes and full-body tremors as he wailed.

Hugging Regis right back, like he thought his father would disappear if he let go for even a second.

A fear the Father understood all too well.

So he hugged him tight, and he let him get it out, whispering promises into his baby boy’s hair and pressing kisses across his wet face and rocking them back and forth and back and forth -

Noctis cried himself to exhaustion.

To sleep, still hugging his dad.

With his Uncle Clarus rubbing circles into his back, and his Uncle Cor keeping a strong hand on his knee, all of them holding onto the prince they’d loved and raised together as a family.

Even breaking down could be healing, and Regis Lucis Caelum was so proud of his boy for coming to him instead of bottling it all up until it cut at his soul from within.

So proud.

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Poor Noctis deserved the chance to break down like a kid.

Look at that though. Gladio's being healthy! Therapy did him good. They all need therapy. All of them.

Chapter 7

Notes:

Documentaries are weird to try and write, but enjoy!

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 Regis Lucis Caelum had wanted to die.

 But he couldn’t tell his son that as he wept and wailed and begged him to tell him otherwise, so he told him otherwise. There was no reason for his sweet Noctis to ever know just how genuinely he’d wanted his life to be snuffed out in the months after his imprisonment. Tossing himself into every battle, into every assassin’s crosshairs, had had a purpose.

 A means to an end. His end. So he wouldn’t have to spend years potentially knowing his son was never going to live freely again.

 He’d meant it. It hadn’t been a mistake.

 It had been a wish he wanted granted from the bottom of his heart. Because he’d failed his boy. Whether it was Crystal Madness or he’d snapped mentally or something else - Noctis, his darling Noctis, was too loving a child to spend his life locked away. Too pure. Too kind. He was Regis’ everything. The only thing keeping him from leaping off of some edge as the years laid heavier and heavier upon his shoulders alongside his crown.

 The Crystal took, took, and took. Shedding years from his lifespan, tearing the strength from his body, shortening how long he would have with his son regardless of any prophecy.

 And in some way, every way, Regis had failed to protect his baby boy.

His baby boy, his night sky, his Noctis.

 The day he first cradled Oriens in his arms was the day he stopped wishing to die, realizing he needed to raise his grandson in Noctis’ stead. He could only thank his family and retinue for keeping him alive long enough for him to reach that point.

 Nine years later, all of those feelings were unburied by his son collapsed in his arms, begging him not to want to die. 

 Regis’ hands shook long after he’d hushed Noctis to sleep.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He smoothed a palm down his son’s cheek to make him look his way, make those shiny, bright blue eyes of his mother’s full of tears look his way.

 He swore he didn’t want to die anymore.

 They had breakfast tucked up together in Regis’ royal bed that morning, and they had a tiny Oriens sneak in to join them and their cuddling too.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis’ eyes dulled for a day. Two. Three. Four. 

 So the Father sought out his beloved son time after time, every chance he had between meetings and work requiring his attention, no matter how many times Advisor Fareth clucked her tongue at him and tapped their daily agenda.

 He knew he was making business difficult for a lot of people. But he’d decided long ago already that Noctis came first, even above the kingdom. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 They managed to reestablish a baseline. 

 Noctis still reached for his hand every single time they were in the same room though, as if he believed he’d simply disappear like he once wished he would if they weren’t physically touching.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Carbuncle was Noctis’ partner in crime when it came to the princling’s dreams, as he’d been ever since Noctis was a small child. So, so small. So innocent. Cuter than a button. Sweeter than pie. Beloved little Crown Prince of Lucis. Before…everything. And Carbuncle was still there.

 Like nothing had changed.

 Noctis closed his eyes to sleep, and he was always welcomed by that familiar chirp-chirp-chirp-Noctis!

 Full of joy to see him.

 Dream-blue fur, a fluffy fox as small as a cat with a ruby horn on his forehead; protector of the dreams of children. What did it say about the once-Chosen King that Carbuncle still protected his dreams? Silly, Carbuncle would trill, you’re still a child of mine, even if your body has grown!

 Another night, after another dinner where Oriens laid on his belly on Noctis’ bed and chattered at him for hours. And hours and hours, until Gladio was stepping forward with a laugh as the princling whined, “Uncle Gladdyyyyyyy! ‘M not…sleepy!” 

 “Whatever you say, kiddo. Still bedtime for you though. Say goodnight to your daddy.” 

 A brilliant, innocent smile.

 “Night night, Daddy!” 

 His son, who he hadn’t been allowed to watch grow up.

 His son, who he hadn’t even been allowed to hold until he was nine years old.

 In dreams, it hurt to remember stuff like that, so he tried not to. And usually Carbuncle kept the sadder memories at bay. Giving him bright, happy memories as gifts. Memories of when the world seemed pastel, and soft, and still like something Noctis could love instead of feeling bitter towards. Dreams were his escape.

 Tonight, as he thought of Oriens’, as he thought of his son, his dream took shape. Noctis was expecting a replay of one of their days together. In the gardens maybe, playing. Or a quiet time when Oriens laid his head on his dad’s chest and let him run his fingers through his hair and simply be. Or maybe a family meal on repeat, where he could examine each and every smile and listen to each and every laugh over and over and over.

 Soothing the way his heart had been scalded by life.

 But no. Instead, a room took shape around him that he did not…recognize. It had the grandeur appearance of the Citadel. The domed ceilings. The crown molding in gold, the walls and tiles of stone, marble, solid materials either black or pale or bronzen-gold and nothing in-between. Lucian colors. 

 It was a room remarkably bare, save one thing.

 Noctis’ feet touched the floor, and he stood there on his own two legs. Because this was just a dream.

 But he still stared in shock at the bassinet in the center of the room.

 “Carbuncle…” He rasped, swallowing so hard his throat clicked as he took the most hesitant step forward he’d ever taken in his life, “Carbuncle, what is - ?” 

 A chirp, a glimpse of dream-blue fur flashing past his peripheral, then him. Alone. With the bassinet, in a room blurring around the edges because dreams were always just that. Blurry. Like an old memory. And Noctis took a step forward, then another, then another. 

 Hesitant, until the tiniest hand in the world appeared over the rim of the bassinet.

 Followed by baby babble.

 He was there. Leaning over the bassinet in an instant. Breath stuck in his throat. Eyes stinging. There was a mobile of stars going around and around beside him, and there was a tiny carbuncle carving he recognized tucked into the cushions of the bassinet, and there were big, blue eyes blinking up at Noctis. He’d never seen any so blue. He’d never seen any so wide. With these chubby, pinked cheeks and a big, open smile on his face.

 Happy babbling.

 It echoed around the empty room.

 It echoed around Noctis’ heart; a heart stuck inside of his throat as he reached for the infant smiling up at him. Tufts of dark hair on his head. Squirming. Squealing. Arms so short and so stubby reaching right back for him.

 “Ori,” he choked, and took his baby boy into his arms.

 Allowed by Carbuncle to hold his son as an infant, just this once, in his dreams.

 Cradling the baby - his baby - in his arms, he suddenly felt far too big and bulky to be, to be, “Oh,” he laughed and it was wet and he snuggled the suddenly content baby closer to his chest, “he’s small!” 

 Noctis laughed.

 And that laughter steadily turned to sobs that shook his shoulders, as he bowed his head over his innocent son to cry. And rock him. And shush him. And cry. Because he was so, so small. And when he was this small, Noctis was locked away in a dark, evil place expecting to never see the sky again. Expecting to never meet his child at all. However Oriens had come to be, he’d come to love him a million times as much.

 The teardrops slipped down his cheeks to his chin, and fell, and he sobbed loud and broken when Oriens’ so tiny of hands reached up to babble at him and try to touch his cheeks.

 Still smiling, like he’d not known a single evil thing in this world.

 “I love you, Oriens,” he hiccupped, hugging his child as tightly as he dared as he kept shaking apart with sobs he’d held in for so long, “Daddy loves you. Daddy loves you so much. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” 

 He kissed his little, round, potato-shaped head with those tufts of black and felt the blur of this dream fading away even as he did. Carbuncle’s trills turning sad and apologetic as it all fell away from him.

 “I always wanted to be a dad, Ori. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” 

 Dreams always dissolve eventually, like sugar in water. When it dissolved, his arms were suddenly empty and Noctis couldn’t bear that. Bear the absence of his son, bear the end of a life where he might’ve been able to hold his newborn son. He whimpered at the empty feeling, and hugged his chest tight. Pretending he was still hugging Oriens. Pretending, because if he didn’t he was going to tear himself apart with his magic in his grief.

 Because if he didn’t, he was going to go far, far away and his nine-year old son didn’t deserve that.

 The sheets of his bed clung to his wet cheeks, the waking world too harsh and too bright to open his eyes to, so he just kept hugging his baby boy and crying. Curled into a ball. 

 He’d wanted Oriens, before he’d ever known him.

 He’d loved Oriens, when he thought they’d never meet.

 Was it selfish that even now, he still wanted more? 

 “Easy, inlustris, easy. I’m going to call your dad, okay?”

Throbbing. His head, his hands - they were throbbing. He clung tighter to Oriens. Hiding him from the voice who might steal him away. His magic a pit of hissing snakes set on keeping everyone away. He wasn’t going to give Oriens up. Never. Not for anything. The whole world could burn for all he cared; nobody was taking his son from him.

 Noctis cried himself to exhaustion.

 To the point of hiccupping on every breath. 

 Until there was a hand running through his hair, and a familiar cologne wafting in the air around him. That he pressed into. Pleading with his dad to help him protect his son. Just like he always protected Noctis.

 “Nobody is going to take Oriens from you, my Noctis,” his dad swore, and Noctis believed him, “and if they try? I will tear them to pieces myself.” 

 He believed in his dad, so he let the exhaustion take him. Because he’d gotten what he wanted. He’d gotten to hold his baby boy. Finally.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...Your Majesty?” 

 “Thank you for calling me, Glaive Ulric. Please continue to do so if he gets distressed like this. Disregard my schedule. No meeting is more important than this, understand?” 

 “Yes, Your Majesty.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 When the exhausted man eventually woke up, it was to Oriens. Strewn across his legs like an octopus, playing on one of his handheld consoles. Nuzzling his cheek against Noctis’ hip, looking so tired. And when his dad placed his hand on his head? 

 Oriens tossed aside his game to hug his dad tight.

 “Grandpa said this might help!” He explained with the biggest smile.

 It most definitely did. Noctis hugged him back just as tight. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Certain days were just going to be like that. With more tears than others. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis had been sluggish for a while, recovering from a good dream that had drained him for his happiness and grief of what he could never have back. He’d gotten plenty of visitors. Oriens especially. And Nyx - he kept waking up in the night to Nyx next to his bed, watching him, as if expecting him to wake up sobbing again and hugging an invisible baby to his chest.

 But it was just another step in his recovery, and they were doing their best.

 Like his visitors did their best to distract him.

The first hint that something was different about Noctis’ visitor today was the way Nyx glanced towards the door without concern when it opened, turned back to watch Noctis try writing in Galahdian script with patience, and then snapped his gaze back towards the door. 

 The second hint was him immediately shoving off of where he’d been leaning against Noctis’ desk to stand at attention.

 Respect sharp in his eyes when he nodded to this visitor. More respect than he’d shown anyone.

 Even the King.

 So naturally, Noctis straightened up. Turning his own gaze to this visitor who had all of his Glaive’s attention. The answer of why obvious immediately. 

 It was only due course that a Kingsglaive stand at attention for the Captain of the Kingsglaive, Titus Drautos. A man who had not outwardly changed in the last ten years from the returned-royal’s perspective. It was enough to make him do a double take. The man looked the same. Truly. Maybe he had a few more wrinkles around his eyes, but everything else remained as uniform as it always was. 

 If Noctis didn’t know any better, he’d think Titus Drautos had stepped straight out of the past. Had been plucked from the timestream itself. But, that was ridiculous. And a closer look as Noctis wheeled his wheelchair around his desk to greet him showed there were changes.

 This Titus Drautos of ten years later looked so very exhausted.

 It was just the air surrounding him seemed drowsy. Downtrodden. A man worn down to the point he wasn’t sure how he was still going. Noctis understood that. Noctis understood that so well it stung.

 The Captain knelt.

 Took a knee, and took Noctis’ hand from his wheelchair’s handle with silent permission, and bowed his head to him. A far more regal welcome than he’d gotten from anybody else.

 “Your Highness. I am glad to finally see you with my own two eyes.” 

 Drautos may not have been as close to Noctis as his other uncles were growing up, but he was still a brother of his father. A potential retinue member. If Regis Lucis Caelum had not taken a full retinue before meeting the man, he would’ve been Retinue. And most likely would’ve been considered as a Heart or Shield, seeing as those were the roles he embodied best. 

 As unofficial as it was, Drautos, Uncle Drautos - he was family. And another face and life that had aged for Noctis to tuck into his heart now that he was home.

 “Drautos,” with what strength he could, he squeezed the man’s hand that was still as firm and sure as he remembered it being when he was a child expecting the Captain to protect him in his father’s absence, “it is good to see you…as well.” 

 A crease of concern between his brows when he heard his voice - everyone did it. Did that. Looked concerned to hear how raspy his throat made him. 

 How the disuse lingered, even months later. Sometimes it was hard to string words together in a clean sentence.

 “I apologize for not coming to see you in person sooner.” There was something there, something in those eyes that came to the surface then was buried and it looked so soft, but it was also gone before Noctis could be sure if he’d imagined it or not, “I was told you may not react to…unexpected visitors well.” 

 He meant that Noctis might shut down completely and become a hollow shell full of ocean echoes if anybody talked to him wrong.

 Thankfully, that wasn’t the case as much now.

 “I’d like to say I’m…doing better,” he cleared his throat, and Drautos dropped the pale, frail thing of a hand he’d been holding until then. Gaze switching over to the Glaive who stood at the shoulder of Lucis’ once-Crown Prince. Looking just shy of fond of the man.

 “I trust Nyx hasn’t caused you too much trouble, Your Highness?” Sounding just shy of teasing too, “I haven’t received any reports about him causing a diplomatic incident, a blood feud, or any unexplained explosions since he’s taken to you. It’s a new record. The Kingsglaive are just holding their breaths now.” 

 A snort, and Noctis covered half his face with his palm to try and disguise the sound as clearing his throat again.

 “Com’on, Captain,” Nyx outright whined, sounding more like a teenager than a soldier in his forties and making Noctis snort again. This time one he failed to hide for sure, “That’s unfair. I totally caused complete chaos in the last few weeks! You’re underestimating me. You just haven’t gotten the reports. Yet.” 

 The Head of the Kingsglaive simply arched a brow at the well-known hero and his Lieutenant, which reduced Nyx to grumbling.

It was nice to see Nyx interact with somebody that wasn’t just him. Somebody he definitely didn’t hold back with.

 He deserved more of that, after spending months stuck by Noctis’ side.

 “Thank you,” he said, turning shy under the attention of them both as they seemed to remember he was there, “For Nyx. Thank you. He’s been...good to me. For me.” 

 For a second time Uncle Drautos arched a brow at the well-known hero and his Lieutenant, but this time Nyx didn’t seemed to have a response to that.

 “Well, I guess I can let you keep Nyx a while longer, Your Highness. He’s a good man to have at your side. Trust me. I’d know.”

Decades of fighting side by side inspired something in people.

It was a something that made their eyes go soft when they gazed at one another over Noctis’ shoulder, and a something that made his heart go softer as he watched. So grateful for Nyx he hadn’t the words. Who else had been there? Practically twenty-four-seven? Day, night, during clear skies and during storms, when he was in his right mind and he wasn’t, who else had been so willing to give him their everything? Not even his old retinue could give him that much now.

 Nyx had. And Drautos had allowed him to, despite him having so many duties as a Kingsglaive.

 So he was grateful to the both of them. The both of them who stayed a while. To chat. Because that was something Noctis could handle now. Thanks to Nyx. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Better. The Citadel had been feeling better, the unrest in Lucis had softened as the months dragged on and it seemed like the scandals were settling down, and Noctis had a routine full of lighter subjects than most of them had dreamed of him ever being able to have again. 

 Breakfast with his dad and Oriens most days, other meals with Iggy, Gladio stopping by, Prompto sending messages through his Uncle Cor.

 Carbuncle remaining a staunch protector of his dreams, refusing to let the worst nightmares through. 

 Days in the sun.

 Nights in the moon.

 Good things.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Of course, all good things had to show the bad eventually. 

 The Father, Regis, wasn’t aware that that was what he was walking into when he received a request from Clarus to meet in his office. He was in such a good mood. Great, even. He barely felt he needed his cane, walking with his head high and a smile stuck to his face as he thought about how his lunch with Noctis and Oriens had gone. Both of his sweet boys. Making such a mess with equally sweet cupcakes.

 He hadn’t laughed like that in too long.

 Noctis surely hadn’t either. His son had almost seemed surprised by himself; laughing. Laughing until he was out of breath. Because Ori had tried to offer him a cupcake at the same time as he’d been leaning forward to say something and the two had - met. In the middle. As in, a cupcake smooshed across Noctis’ nose and lips and frosting in his beard. Oriens had had one moment where he froze and looked so mortified - 

 And then Noctis had thrown back his head and laughed and oh - 

 Oh, Aulea, their son. Their son.

 How wonderful his laugh still was. How Regis had missed it with all his heart.

 So when he’d left, left to Ori mortified but happy and trying to help wipe away the frosting, left to Glaive Ulric trying to do the very same as he too laughed, left to answer the summons of his Shield? Regis had been on top of his little world. 

 Then, he’d entered Clarus’ office. A neat little place. Lots of paperwork. He’d spent so much time in it that he shouldn’t have felt it was off at all. But Clarus was standing by his desk. Speaking to Cor, who the royal hadn’t realized was going to be there too. He’d been about to greet the both of them when he felt that - that sense of things being off.

 And they’d both turned guilty eyes to him, cringing at however his expression dropped, and that guilt only grew.

 And the good withered a bit, as Regis realized this wasn’t going to be a pleasant meeting with his brothers after all.

 “What has happened?” Tone flat, so many possibilities raced through Regis’ mind in that second. Of what could have his retinue so guilty. Something to ruin his good mood, surely. So surely something bad. Something he didn’t want to hear. Weskham? Cid? His old Heart had been having health issues lately. Was this the call they’d all been dreading for months now? 

 But neither of them went to speak. Instead Clarus waved him closer, and Cor circled back around the office to close the door and lock it. Looking very Cor-like. Which wasn’t usually a good thing. It usually meant he was more Marshal Leonis than little brother at the moment, which usually meant business. Bad business.

 His Shield stepped forward.

 “I am sorry, Regis. But you need to see this.” 

 What an alarming way to start off.

 Clarus then cast that guilty look over Regis’ shoulder to Cor as the door’s lock slid into place, leaving Regis feeling like a stone had dropped to the bottom in his stomach. And sat there heavy and cold. Like this - whatever this was - was about to get worse and he knew it. 

 His oldest friend fiddled with the computer on his desk for a moment, then fiddled with a remote, and suddenly the image from the computer was cast up to his fullscreen TV for simplicity purposes.

 An image that was a picture of Noctis, taken when he was still attending highschool, mid-laugh and grinning and Regis’ breath caught. 

There were words overlapping the picture. They read?

‘Lost Innocence’. A Noctis Lucis Caelum Documentary.

 “What is this?” The Father’s voice sounded faint to his own ears, as if he’d suddenly been dragged below a surface of water.

 His heart doubled its beats per minute.

 Nobody answered him, so he repeated far more loudly so it echoed in his muffled ears - 

 “What is this?!”

 “...The Senior Project of a group of seniors from Insomnia’s School of Film.” Cor Leonis answered him; brave of him. And Regis heard a strangled wheezing sound at his next words, “It was released for the public to see sometime around midnight. The media team failed to see it until this morning, because they didn’t think there was anything different about it from all the other conspiracy and documentaries cropping up regarding Prince Noctis.” 

 That wheezing sound was coming from himself.

 Hands wrinkled with age or not, Regis’ cane creaked in complaint against how hard he gripped it, “Is it? Different?” 

 Hadn’t they sensationalized his baby boy’s trauma enough already? 

 “Regis,” Clarus picked up the responsibility of explaining, even though his king couldn’t take his eyes off of that picture of his son smiling, “they gathered all of the facts. There probably hasn’t been a more in-depth and thorough timeline of what happened to Noctis for the public to access. They somehow got their hands on some of the records regarding his abuse, and some of the court records as well, and…” 

 “And - ?” 

 Hadn’t his son been put through enough? 

 “They broke into Mistveil Keep,” his Shield said softly, wincing when Regis actually swayed at that, hating, hating, hating that place. More than anywhere in the world. More than anybody should be capable of hating a location. Regis hated Mistveil Keep. It was a part of his nightmares, it was his greatest regret, it was a fate worth than death, a fate his sweet son had survived, and - 

 “Just, watch?” Clarus suggested, coming around his desk to lean on one edge. Lifting his remote, “I’ll skip the start of it, because it’s mostly just exposition. We won’t watch the whole thing. But, well, you’ll get the idea.” 

 Regis didn’t want to get the idea.

 Regis needed to know what sort of information was being leaked regarding his child.

 So he grew stiff and stood there and waited.

 A click as the video started.

 And he watched.

…

 The document started a couple of minutes into its hour-long runtime.

 “Sneaking into Mistveil Keep wasn’t as hard as one would think.” An off-screen voice said, the background full of the sound of footsteps scuffing over stone floors, “We were prepared to evade Kingsglaive, or even Crownsguard, but neither were anywhere in sight. Mistveil Keep was left completely empty in light of Crown Prince Noctis being proven innocent and released. The halls of the keep echo with what once was, and some of our discoveries here will haunt us forever. I warn you. The following documentary contents may be…disturbing.” 

 Flashes of images followed.

 The camera sweeping through shadowy halls that looked medieval almost.

 A dungeon with shackles and chains lying in cells, waiting to be used once more.

 A stained glass window depicting Lord Bahamut, cracked, with shards lying in its shadow.

 And the briefest glimpse of a door. One. Specific. Door.

 Then blackness for a moment, as the narrator continued.

 “Mistveil Keep. Constructed in the year M.E. 605, following the agreement to an alliance between the nations of Lucis and Accordo in opposition to the Empire. Mistveil Keep was meant to hold off Imperial advancement from the south, during the Empire’s outreach in the 600s. It stood alone, imposing, at the heart of the southern mountain ranges of Lucis.” 

 A panning camera shot from the ground, starting at the keep’s stairs and slowly rising up, up, up to the towering spires of it far above. 

 Shadowed even then by the jagged mountains at its back. Truly a foreboding sight.

 “Only a year later, in M.E. 606, the Lucian-Accordian coalition was overwhelmed by the Empire’s magitek army. Lucis’ Accordian allies were forced to surrender, while our Lucian King was forced to fall back and raise the Wall. Holding strong against the Imperials’ onslaught for years thereafter. Falling back eventually led to the formation of the Crownsguard, but also to Mistveil Keep being abandoned for almost a century.” 

 A shot of a small cathedral with overturned pews from within the keep’s chantry.

 A shot of the altar covered in broken glass from beer bottles.

 “A century later, King Mors’ son, our own King Regis Lucis Caelum, was born. A century later, and King Mors had forwarded efforts against the Empire once again. A century later, and Mistveil Keep saw use once more as a bastion and outpost to the south, between the kingdom of Lucis, the Outwilds, and the Storm Islands.” 

 A shot of the documentary crew picking their ways across the overgrown courtyards of the keep with somber expressions.

 A shot of one of the crew silently crying as she sits on the stairs of the keep, looking anguished.

 “But we all know the story of the war. Of the Empire’s rise to power. Of their fall. Their follies. Their fools, with once-Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt the greatest fool of them all. He who was warned that only Lucis Caelums could wield the magic of the Crystal gifted to Lucis by Lord Bahamut himself - “ 

 Another, lingering shot of the stained glass window, broken, cracked, depicting Lord Bahamut with his wings and his blades.

 “He who died because he thought he could force the hands of the Astrals themselves.” 

 A black screen. 

 “We’re not here for that story. We’re here for another’s story. For the story of Noctis Lucis Caelum. Crown Prince of Lucis, born in the year M.E. 735, son of the Father, Regis Lucis Caelum and Queen Aulea Lucis Caelum. Set to become the 114th King of Lucis with his crowning, Noctis Lucis Caelum is a name all of Lucis should know. If not for the rumors claiming him to be the fated Chosen King meant to rid our star of the Starscourge and daemons, then for the fate that befell him.” 

 Pictures, videos, and clips of Noctis throughout the years played. Ranging from public appearances to even a few private peeks at his life inside of the Citadel or in Insomnia Central Highschool.

 So many pictures and videos of him smiling or ducking his head shyly. Or playing with children at charity events. Or hanging out with Prompto; both of them grinning so wide they looked like nothing more than teenagers. Children. Which they were.

 But the lighthearted pictures paired with the dark tone the narrator had taken up made it far less cheerful to see. Made it, almost…frightening.

 “Noctis Lucis Caelum grew up beloved by the people. From a young age it was evident that he was a shy, earnest child. With so much love to share. He was seen frequently with his father, King Regis, who had to raise the infant prince alone following the passing of Queen Aulea while their son was still so young. They were always seen to have a close, loving relationship. Freely showing their affections with one another, even as the prince grew up.” 

 The narrator started listing out small facts and details regarding Noctis that really fleshed out his person, relevant pictures and videos playing all the while.

 Truly portraying Noctis Lucis Caelum to be a sweet, beloved prince of the people.

 Because he had been.

 Sweet and beloved.

 “All seemed well,” the narrator went on in that flat, droning voice that made documentaries such easy background noise, “and the whole of Lucis was expecting its crown prince to soon graduate from highschool. And from there? To begin taking on the proper duties expected of royalty, gaining a true seat on the royal council and a sense of regency as the reigns of Lucis’ power were slowly transferred from King Regis unto him.” 

 A sudden black screen.

 And the sudden absence of white noise in the background you hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone. Leaving it eerily silent.

 The next words of the narrator were highlighted and underlined on screen.

 “October 18th, M.E. 754. Noctis Lucis Caelum is accused of the crimes of abuse, rape, and murder of several Insomnia citizens.”

…

 “October 23rd, M.E. 754. Noctis Lucis Caelum is declared guilty by the High Courts of Lucis, and sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment in Mistveil Keep.” 

 A click. Regis sucked in a deep breath, praying that sound meant it was over. But all it was was Clarus wincing guiltily and fast-forwarding the video. Fast-forwarding through the section that outlined the events of the accusation, the trial, and the conviction. He’d probably noticed that Regis wasn’t breathing. He’d probably seen the trembling in his king’s hands. The fractals of crystal in the air around him, shattering, shattering, shattering.

 Like his heart would, should he have to watch the worst mistake of his life be made again.

 The images flew by on screen. Words written then unwritten. Underlined then highlighted then gone. Regis saw video clips of himself. Ten years ago. All dressed up, and dour, and leaning so heavily on his cane he looked ready to collapse. On his way to the court where his son would be held on trial. The hopelessness in his eyes - it was so evident.

 It hurt to see now. That he’d given up on his baby boy, and now he knew ten years later so surely that Noctis was innocent.

 A click. The video continued on at a normal speed.

 A crackle. A pop. A mic being tapped, and then noise. Or silence. Loud silence, for a moment. The camera’s image blurred, then - 

 A hauntingly familiar winding staircase filled the screen.

This part of the video was clearly shot by hand by the crew exploring Mistveil Keep.

 “In the last century, Noctis Lucis Caelum is the sole prisoner deemed dangerous enough to need to be imprisoned in such a medieval way,” the narration was placed over the handcam footage, as a small crew started to ascend the winding staircase up to one of the keep’s towers, brushing away cobwebs with their hands and carrying flashlights to see because there were no windows, “His magic supposedly warranted this inhuman treatment. The courts argued him to be too dangerous to be kept in a normal prison, and so a cell was set for him in Mistveil Keep. Under guard twenty-four-seven by Crownsguard trusted by the crown.” 

 More of the winding steps.

 “Public opinion of the prince had drastically changed since his conviction, and much of Lucis agreed that a mad royal deserved to be treated however harshly as was necessary to ‘protect’ the kingdom,” one could practically hear the air quotes around that one word, “so very little assurance was actually put into Prince Noctis surviving any length of time imprisoned.”

 More of the winding steps.

 “But survive, he did. For a decade. Ten long years, as a prisoner of this very keep. Much of which the general public wasn’t even sure if he was alive or not, considering there was an absolutely zero acceptance policy for even mention of the disavowed crown prince in Lucis’ media.”

 More.

 “A decade that, surviving? Meant freedom. But nobody could’ve known that. May 29th, M.E. 765. Founder’s Day,” more, “an unknown stranger with unknown magic made an Eos-wide appearance on live television during King’s Regis’ address to Lucis. Claiming responsibility for the crimes accused of Noctis Lucis Caelum.” And more, and more, “His identity? Still a mystery. But during this live broadcast he showed himself capable of fully transforming his appearance even to that of the accused prince, and seemed to relish in the horror of our King Regis who attacked him upon his confession.” 

 The end of the stairs. 

 A small, lightless hall.

 “Our King Regis who immediately made haste to Mistveil Keep, to release his son from his ten year-long sentence of imprisonment.” 

 A door.

 That door.

 “An imprisonment spent right here,” the door grew closer, and closer, and closer. And nobody had bothered to close it since it was last left swinging as a father and son left Mistveil Keep finally together -

“Right here, in this. Very. Cell.” 

 A hand reached into the camera frame, and faintly pushed that accursed door. It swung all the way open on hinges that creaked, and you could hear the creaking because the video’s sound had been cut back in to take the place of the narration. There was a chorus of gasps. Flashlight beams traveling across the tower’s room - Noctis’ cell.

 That dim, flickering light was no longer on, so it was simply a dark room cast in shadows without a single window to see through. The walls were splattered in old, browned stains that looked years old. The floorboards were chipped and covered in cuts and more stains - so many more stains - and even nail marks. 

 And there were chains connected to the wall that hadn’t been used in a few years but were still there and rusted and worn at one point. With rusty-red smears lining the shackles.

 And there was that sorry excuse for a bed, nothing more than a nest for lice and rats, flatter than if one laid on the ground with ratty blankets full of holes and nothing more, half-falling off of its frame.

 In the sway of the flashlights, it looked so much worse than anybody had had it in themselves to notice when they were getting Noctis the hell out of there.

 It was - it looked - it - 

 Click.

 The screen froze on the image of that…that room. Cell. Hellhole, really. And Clarus had maybe hit the pause button too hard. Gripped the remote too tightly. Because its plastic was cracked now, the edges sharp under his fingers, and he used that sharpness to ground himself. To take a breath. And another. And he didn’t throw the remote too much when he tossed it down onto the desk.

 But it did clatter to the floor once it had slid too far, and nobody bothered to pick it up.

 “How did we not know about this?” When Regis asked that, in a terse, tight voice, it felt a lot like an accusation. One that Clarus bowed to. Leaning over his desk. Shaking his head. Feeling his age -

 “We received reports that civilians broke into Mistveil Keep two weeks ago,” he reported diligently, because that is what a Shield does, but his tone was flat, and Clarus felt so ashamed, “The Kingsglaive now guarding the keep told me that they left without complaint once they were caught, hours after they’d broken in, and it was written down as thrill seekers doing as they do. Seeking thrills. It should’ve been checked that they hadn’t recorded anything. Regis, I’m sorry.” 

 The tightness loosened, just the slightest amount, from his king’s shoulders and Regis hobbled forward to lay a hand on Clarus’ shoulder.

 Squeezing it firmly, his voice just as firm, “Do not blame yourself, Clarus. You and Cor have both been miracles these last months, as you have always been, and you couldn’t have known they would - they would make a documentary about…”

 About Noctis Lucis Caelum’s false imprisonment.

 Even if it was a historical event, even if it was a valid subject to look into, facing it…felt worse than facing Gilgamesh had. More frightening.

 Because public opinion and representation was a monster Clarus couldn’t simply take his blade to.

 For a long moment the King and Shield stayed that way, hand on shoulder, on brother, keeping each other upright. And then the Sword had to speak up.

 “This isn’t honestly the worst thing, though, Regis.” 

 Both of them turned incredulous looks to where Cor still stood, staring resolutely at the TV. At that damned room. Expression closed, unhappy, sure. But he sighed and put his hands on his hips and he had an explanation for them.

 “As much as an invasion of privacy as this is,” Marshal Leonis started, shifting to cross his arms, still staring at that room, “it is also a show of support for Noctis. Of sorts. They are trying to prevent the government from covering up what happened to him, and so they’re tracking down evidence and compiling it and making it public, for anyone to view. Their facts are correct. And what isn’t is close enough to the truth. They won’t let this simply be forgotten. That is the purpose of this documentary.” 

 “Cover it up - ?” Regis sounded horrified by the mere idea, but all of them understood.

 “Regis, it was only a short time ago that you finally set your council straight, and only following years of them overstepping,” Clarus reminded his old friend gently, seeing where Cor was going with this, “While we know it wasn’t a possibility during the war, due to their power, the people don’t have all of those details. All they see is that you removed your entire governing body for corruption, and that more than half of that body was promptly arrested for crimes after they lost their immunity.” 

 Most, if not all, of the council’s families that had lasted multiple centuries were now going to have to be replaced. 

 It…was another workload to focus on after all the other workloads they had to juggle at the moment.

 “Naturally, people might start to think some of those conspiracy theories they’ve read online are right,” Cor took over for him again, “and dig deeper. Is it really such a stretch to believe a corrupt government would try to cover up the fact that they falsely imprisoned somebody as beloved as their own young prince? Either in a bid for power or control?”

 A long time ago now, had Clarus and Cor gotten used to seeing their king lean on his cane.

 But even so, when he slumped hopelessly over the thing, it broke their hearts every time.

 “...So we should…keep, this documentary, in the public eye?” 

 “Yes.” 

 “Absolutely.” 

 Looking between two brothers, two of his retinue, Shield and Sword, his - Regis Lucis Caelum’s hands shook a little. So he slumped moreso over his cane. Resting his hip against the desk, and therefore leaning a bit on Clarus. But his oldest friend said nothing and simply turned to let him lean better on him. His hand coming up to rest on the small of his king’s back.

 “...I do not want Noctis to see it,” he confessed in a fearful whisper, closing his eyes to the simple idea of his baby boy having to watch a documentary about the ways he was mistreated.

 “We’ll set up a few precautions. He’s hardly looking at the news every day,” taking out his phone, Cor started tap-tap-tapping away with a small frown on his face, “but if we ban the search results on his personal electronics, it should keep his head turned for as long as needed until the buzz dies down.” 

 But what if Noctis or Oriens did see it? 

 Even if, somehow, it was understandable to make such a documentary as this, and even if it did portray Noctis in a most favorable light, what sort of harm would it do to his healing process to see it? To see Mistveil Keep delved so deep into firsthand? To hear the records of how he was mistreated read out for all to hear? Even if Clarus had spared Regis from all of the worst, most in-depth parts of the documentary, they were still a part of it and could one day be seen, by accident…

 “Put a media ban on it for any and all news and radio stations,” it was the last compromise Regis could come up with, “and tell the media team to keep the link contained to smaller sources. Like Kwitter and Kwehtoo. Do not let Moogleflix offer those students a deal. I do not want it officiated or licensed. This is Noctis’ life.”

 It was not simply some fairytale to tell to others, and it was likely there were parts of the documentary that delved into Oriens’ life as well.

 Was it a little harsh to interfere in the students’ senior project? No. 

 This was his little night sky he was protecting, so nothing crossed the line of being too harsh.

 Turning his gaze to that image on the TV, that room - his baby’s cell for ten years, Regis slumped fully into Clarus’ shoulder and sighed, “And get me some bourbon. Please.” 

 The three capped their night off with a nightcap, and it was a night that dragged on and on and on.

 A night that was worth it, to ensure that the documentary didn’t reach Noctis or Oriens.

 A night that ended with Regis and Cor asleep on the couches in Clarus’ office, and Clarus Amicitia himself snoring in one of the armchairs, arms crossed and still tense in sleep. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t meant to be, maybe. It was work. And they were all used to work’s discomfort. 

 And they bore it proudly when it was for the sake of Noctis and Oriens Lucis Caelum.

 

 

-----

 

 

‘Lost Innocence’.

801,567 views.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...Can we actually censor a Senior Project?” Clarus mumbled, wondering if ethics should have some sort of role here.

 And then, there was his littlest brother.

 “Yes.” Cor said without hesitation, without even glancing up from where he was probably trying to procure warrants for those college students that had started this mess, expression annoyed, “Kids are stupid. I’d know. I was one. They didn’t consider the potential damages their documentary might cause, and besides that the Lucian government has been censuring its people and history for generations. Smacking a few idiot kids with NDAs is practically using kid gloves on them.” 

 Pinching the bridge of his nose, Clarus still wondered if he should maybe be having a moral dilemma over this.

 “Dammit.” Cor muttered, glaring at whatever email he’d just gotten and looking ready to shake his computer for receiving it in the first place, “Is it too much to ask for just a few days in jail? It’s not like I’m throwing them in the dungeons and sentencing them to execution.” 

 “Cor!”

“It worked for me whenever Mors was trying to straighten me out!”  

 

 

-----

 

 

 ‘Lost Innocence’.

1.2 million views.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Isn’t this getting out of hand?”

Glaring at the computer, at that documentary’s existence, Gladio crossed his arms and counted to ten. Then backwards from ten. Then took a deep breath. Some of his furiousness fizzled out, and he got a proud sort of hum from his dad in response to remembering his exercises - he was always so proud of Gladio for overcoming his anger issues. But his anger issues weren't what was getting out of hand.

 The fact that that documentary’s view count kept rising was.

 “Just a few days in jail,” his Uncle Cor grumbled somewhere behind him in the middle of a shit ton more paperwork and emails than Gladio could ever handle, followed by the sound of him maybe slapping his keyboard in frustration, “Just a few. A couple. I wasn’t asking for that much, but no. And now look where we are? This is going to take weeks to sort out - “ 

 The Marshal’s grumbling continued, and probably would have any Crownsguard who heard him quivering in their boots because an angry Cor Leonis was a lethal Cor Leonis.

 Gladio could hardly blame his uncle, though.

 This was a mess.

 In less than two days, that documentary had gone viral and was racking up views at an alarming rate. Even when restricted to social media. Kept off of the mainstream services. Oh, it meant that public support of Noctis had grown exponentially, sure. 

 But it also had smaller side effects. Like keeping Ori off of his electronics near-constantly, like Iris calling Gladio in tears in the middle of the night despite being on a hunt, like Ignis going catatonic after sitting through the whole thing and just…weeping later. 

 He was beginning to worry his friend was having some sort of mental break, but Ignis knew exactly what answers a psychiatrist would want to hear, so getting him diagnosed was a struggle.

 If he’d just accept that he wasn’t handling Noct’s return well, they could - 

 His dad cursed, and Gladio returned his attention to the head of his family.

 “We’re going to have to increase the budget for both the Citadel’s local PR team and media team,” pinching his nose, his dad sort of just groaned, and Gladio knew things were getting bad-bad, “somehow. Plus there’s still the resolution of the royal council. And the riots. And the prosecution of Noctis’ abusers - “ 

 Which had been pushed way too far back on their calendars due to the mess the Lucian government was at the moment.

 This was all just - 

 A knock came at the door to his dad’s office. The office of the King’s Shield. Both Amictias turned their heads to it, while Cor just grabbed a random water bottle off of the coffee table and chucked it at the door. Which the knocker seemed to take as permission to enter, since he did. Enter. A Crownsguard looking nervous. Beyond nervous when he was fixed by his Marshal’s glare that was fierce enough to turn a coeurl into a kitten.

 “Report!” 

 “Sir,” the ‘Guard stood at attention, but still sounded like he had a dry mouth when he stammered out, “the communications department picked up chatter from Tenebrae that they thought you’d best know, they - that is, Tenebrae, or rather - “

 Uncle Cor narrowed his eyes, and the ‘Guard rushed out the rest in a final gush of breath.

 “Queen Lunafreya of Tenebrae wishes to come to Lucis to see Prince Noctis!” 

…

 “Motherfucker.” 

 For once, his dad didn’t scold Gladiolus for his language. Would’ve been rather hypocritical of him too. Since Clarus Amicitia immediately let out a string of curses far, far inventive than anything his son had said. And slumped over his desk. And let out a groan. A few pages of paperwork scattering as Gladio reached over to rub his dad’s back. 

 ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’ was not a phrase Cor put any stock in, since he grabbed a second water bottle and chucked it at the ‘Guard still standing there. It bounced harmlessly off of the man, but the intentions were clear. That man fucking fled.

 And the three of them left behind in the office all felt defeated.

 How the hell were they meant to handle this? 

 

 

-----

 

 

 ‘Lost Innocence’.

3.8 million views.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Throwing his hands up in the air, Cor knew raising his voice wasn’t about to help matters but he still shouted, “Say no, Regis! That’s all you have to do!” 

 “I cannot simply turn away a fellow ruler, especially when she has her ties to Oriens to yank us around by - “ 

 “I’m sending a message telling her no.” 

 “Cor, no - “ 

 “You can’t stop me!” 

 “You’re too much like your son - Cor, no!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 ‘Lost Innocence’.

7.9 million views.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Uncle Gladdy?” 

 “Yeah, squirt?” 

 “Is Queen Lunafreya…coming to take me away?” 

 “Fuck.” 

 “That’s a dollar for the swear jar, Uncle Gladdy!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 ‘Lost Innocence’.

10 million views.

 

 

-----

 

 

'Queen Lunafreya, whilst I understand your desire to visit Lucis, to see Prince Noctis again, Lucis will have to politely decline your request to come to Insomnia at this time.'

"...Seems like a fancy way of saying no to me, Your Majesty," Cor grumbled, going off to probably spar, and send several of his 'Guards to the infirmary while he was at it.

"Cor, please."

 

 

-----

 

 

 It had been a week since that documentary was released to the public by Insomnia’s School of Film. Thank the Astrals - not - that they’d managed to keep it from both Noctis and Oriens. Noctis was a nonplus. He hadn’t even gotten a phone since coming back to the Citadel, so they hadn’t needed to do much to keep it from him. And Oriens understood sometimes his electronics had to be taken away for his own mental health and safety, so his week had been media-free essentially.

 A week instead full of meals with his dad and grandpa, in the gardens or in their rooms.

 A week full of playdates with his baby cousins. 

 A week full of fun baking sprees with Uncle Iggy because he seemed a little down, and full of bookclub with Uncle Gladdy, and - well, Uncle Prom was out of the city at the moment but he’d sent a letter. Like, a real, paper letter. It was so weird! 

 Regis was handling each crock of mayhem that popped up as best he could, and Clarus had thrown away the remaining alcohol he kept in his office before he developed a bad habit, and Cor had sent maybe a few ‘Guards to the hospital.

 They were the Crownsguard accused of turning the other way while Noctis was abused in Mistveil Keep, however, so he had no remorse or mercy for them.

 Lucis, Insomnia, the Citadel were all still a mess, but they thought they had a handle on it.

 What none of them had considered was that even with all of their precautions, rumors had begun flying about Queen Lunafreya’s request to visit Lucis being politely refused for the time being, citing the messes as reason to refuse. Rumors that twisted deeper and deeper into conspiracy waters; that Queen Lunafreya had a hand in Prince Noctis’ false imprisonment, that she intended to arrange a marriage between herself and Prince Noctis finally, that she intended to take Crown Prince Oriens back to Tenebrae with her - 

 Rumors that had sent Ori into a bit of a spiral.

 And so the mess began again. Neverending as it had been for months now.

 Not that they’d ever trade Noctis’ return to get rid of it.

 Ori understood he wasn’t to mention Queen Lunafreya around his father, so it really, really was a good thing he’d gone to Gladiolus instead. If he had gone to his father? None of them wanted to think about the reaction Noctis might’ve had to his son’s fears about being stolen away by the woman who birthed him. 

It surely would’ve started a war. 

 So it was a week of general mayhem. Of that documentary rising in popularity, of a few organized protests in Insomnia’s streets, of Regis getting very, very little sleep trying to balance a kingdom yet again on the brink of rioting in his son’s name.

 It was a week that left him so very tired.

 But it was a week that needed to happen, one way or another, so they just tried to get through it. As best they could.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “A week has passed since the release of ‘Lost Innocence’ - a documentary taking Eos by storm. While King Regis of Lucis has elected not to speak on its existence, one might argue his subsequent ban of the documentary in every official capacity is a statement in and of itself, and is that statement one that the people of Lucis can support? Today, we - “

 Click.

 A heavy groan, and then Regis dragged his hands down his face after switching the radio off. With so much force it might’ve broken Clarus’ stereo, but he couldn’t care about that at the moment. It was late. Very late. The lights of Insomnia’s highrise district flitted by, and a light rain was also falling today. A rainy night in the city. He hoped his boys were both sleeping well, if they were actually in bed at this hour.

 Noctis, at least, seemed to sleep whenever he deemed he wanted to, without any care of it being day or night.

 His father minded not. How could he? His son being so exhausted was beyond understandable, and besides that it was better that he rest instead of pushing himself.

 Still, the thought that one of his boys may not be able to sleep that night, listening to the raindrops splattering against their windows, made Regis really wish he was in the Citadel instead of heading back from a pointless dinner with a pointless publicist at the insistence of his PR team. The king had always hated meetings with reporters the most.

 It was a necessary evil, however.

 While Lucian media wasn’t supposed to speak on the documentary, Tenebrae, Niflheim, and Accordo weren’t under any such restrictions.

 And the documentary had spread far beyond Lucian borders by now. 

 It had gone viral, in spite of their attempts to limit its reach. And that meant that their lack of a comment on it had spread like wildfire too alongside it. Ergo, the dinner. With the reporter. Leading to Clarus driving him home to the Citadel at such a late hour in the rain. And the radio, when set to an Accordian station, discussing that documentary as well. 

 Regis was so tired.

 His eyelids started to droop, so he gave his head a shake and straightened up. Stifling a yawn. Aware that Clarus was watching him out of the corner of his eye. Always. As was the duty of a Shield of the Amicitia family, but also as was the duty of an older brother to his younger. And it was certainly a night where he’d needed his older brother.

 “Do…you believe I’m doing this all wrong, Clarus?” Breaking the silence that was the rumble of the car and the noise of the city, the question was yanked out of Regis. By his hurting heart.

 Maybe that reporter’s questions had hit a bit closer to home than he’d let on.

 “In what sense?” 

 “Noctis is back,” and still, even after months of that being true, the Father failed to keep the awe out of his voice and the small smile off of his face as he said as much. Before slumping, going on, “Noctis is back, Oriens has a father finally, and even if we are not at war any longer…I have replaced my whole council at a very tempestus time. I am also quite literally holding off a queen at the moment, and endangering relations between Lucis and Tenebrae, and all for - “

 “All for Noctis,” Clarus interrupted his spiel, with a no-nonsense tone and a stern shake of his own head now, gripping the steering wheel tighter, “and all for Oriens. Neither of which you’d regret, would you?” 

 “Of course not.” Never, “They are my boys. Noctis, my son, and Oriens…I still raised him, whatever other circumstances surround that. I would do anything for them.” 

 “Even go to war?” The Shield of the King asked, ready and willing to go to war in a heartbeat to follow his royal brother.

 “If war is required to keep them happy and safe, then yes.” A few fractals of crystal shattered in and out of existence around Regis with that uncompromising statement, and his shoulders relaxed.

 He was doing right by his boys, he knew now.

 If that be his reason, Regis Lucis Caelum would go to war against the whole of Eos without hesitation. Because he knew what it was to lose a child. He may have gotten his sweet Noctis back, but he would still be willing to ruin his star for all others in order to keep him; keep him from the masses, keep him from fellow kings and queens, keep him from the gods themselves. 

 It would be a reckoning if any came for his baby boy again. It would be a bloodbath. And he would not regret a single drop of blood he did bleed from others for it. 

 That was his truth; the one he couldn’t have published in the papers.

 “Get some rest, Regis,” his oldest friend suggested, reaching across the center console to pat his good knee, eyes on the ever-shifting lights of Insomnia’s streets ahead of him, and the raindrops sliding down the windshield, “You can check on the boys in their rooms when we get back, but it’ll be another forty minutes. The road’s still down from that riot last week.” 

 “...As you say.”

 So the King of Lucis leaned back, tipped his head towards the cool glass of the passenger-side window, and let his heavy eyelids fall shut. The lights of the streets and the shades of the rain lighting up the back of his eyes. He slipped off to an uneasy doze. Daring the gods to try and take Noctis. 

 The Astrals had nothing on the power of an angry father. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens woke to a hand in his hair. Ruffling it a bit. Bringing him out of an uneasy slumber.

 So he yawned, and he whined when the hand receded, and he snuggled happily down into his chocobo plushie-for-a-pillow when the hand returned. To ruffle his hair some more. Making it into a real mess of bedhead. But he didn’t mind. Dad’s bed was so soft, and Dad was still wrapped around him asleep, and the hand - 

 “It’s alright, Ori,” Grandpa’s gentle voice told him, his hand just as gently stopping the princling from sleepily rubbing his eyes and waking up further, “it’s alright. Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I just came to check on you two.” 

 Grandpa’s voice was safe.

 So Ori did was he said, and snuggled back into his Mr. Feathers the Chocobo to fall back asleep.

 Safe and sound.

…

 “Glaive Ulric?” Regis made sure his voice was hushed, since he’d not meant to wake Oriens in the first place, and the Kingsglaive let out a noise of affirmation, stepping closer, “All is well?”

 “Prince Oriens had a bad dream,” the man ever-present at his son’s side these days told him, nodding down at the small boy nestled up in his father’s arms on the bed, “so he came looking for comfort from His Highness. It wasn’t anything too worrying from the sound of things. Just, dreams about being alone. Poor mane.” 

 Dreams about being alone, is it? The idea tore at Regis’ heart somewhat. The idea of his grandson waking up scared and alone, and going in search of his father because he finally had a father that wasn’t just…his grandfather.

 Stepping into shoes that failed to fit him. 

 His son and his grandson. Noctis and Oriens. The pair looked so comfortable in a nest of black sheets in Noctis’ big bed. When he’d gone to Ori’s rooms only to be told he’d gone to his father’s rooms, Regis had been worried. 

But now, seeing Noctis wrapped protectively around his son, hugging him close in sleep, both of them with their plushies and with a familiar carbuncle carving on the pillow beside their heads? 

Regis was singularly relieved.

Carbuncle would guard his boys’ dreams.

Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to have a carving made for Oriens as well. When he was younger still, Regis had placed Noctis’ near his cradle and crib, but he could do with one solely for himself if he was starting to have such bad dreams, no? Another thing to add to the neverending list of matters for Lucis’ King to deal with. 

Although, any matter involving his boys had priority.

In thought, in love, the aged father brushed his hand down each of his boys’ cheeks. Then bent over to kiss each of them goodnight. 

Oriens sighed happily and snuggled moreso with his chocobo, while his Noctis’ nostrils flared. And he twitched. And he relaxed, murmuring, “Dad…” 

It seemed he still recognized Regis’ cologne. Even asleep. 

“I love you both,” he told his sleeping children, pretending with valiance that his voice wasn’t cracking apart from the emotions of his heart, “so much. Sweet dreams. Sleep well.” 

Straightening up, the only witness to a king’s weakness was the Glaive who’d backed away to give them a sense of privacy. Who stood at attention, eyes on the tiles beneath his boots. Who seemed to have made some sort of oath to his son, on his son, since Regis could still not understand Nyx Ulric’s utter devotion to Noctis since his return.

He was a hero, and he was an honorable one at that, and he had the respect of this king but for what reason did he devote himself to a royal removed from the line of succession? 

For what reason did he bring the best out of Noctis, at the worst of times? 

“Glaive Ulric,” Regis settled on saying, leaning on his cane as he left his son’s bedside, a curious lilt to him as he gained all of his Glaive’s attention, “have you been resting properly? Taking care of yourself properly?” 

 The Galahdian man looked far less disheveled than when Regis had all but had to order him to go home and rest for a while; shaven and with his hair down in its traditionally neat braids and wearing comfortable, casual clothing rather than his uniform - 

 So at home in his son’s rooms. The sofa had a permanent imprint in it now from the man sleeping there most nights. And a small bag leaned against it too, full of Nyx’s clothes. And Regis suspected that if he checked Noctis’ bathrooms that there would be the Glaive’s toiletries to find as well. 

 It was something more than simply an extension of loyalty from Regis to Noctis, wasn’t it?

 The way he looked to Noctis, slumbering, curled around his son before even answering his King - 

 It was.

 “I’ve made it a point to go back to my apartment at least every other day, Your Majesty.” Insomnia’s hero, as some called Nyx, reported. Oblivious to the new eyes that his ruler was seeing him through, “You were right. It distressed Prince Noctis for me to not take care of myself, and he is doing far better now than he was weeks ago, so I’m not needed as much.” 

 “Oh, I’m sure ‘not needed’ is the wrong choice of words,” Regis said mildly, a hint of a smile taking his lips as he noticed the new braids and beads in Nyx’s hair, coss-referencing them in the dim light of the room against what he knew of Galahdian culture, “Aside from Oriens, you were the first to bring Noctis out of his shell. You have been here doing more than double duty for weeks now, Nyx Ulric, and you have been going out of your way to take care of Noctis far more than any Kingsglaive even has a responsibility to.” 

 Regis may be older now, with silvered hair and wrinkles and age spots, but he remembered what it was like to be young. Or, younger.

 Nyx Ulric was, what, forty-two? His file had said. Naturally Regis had taken new interest in the very prominent Glaive after he’d stepped forward with such gusto to place himself beside his son. There was nothing in his history that arose concern. There was also no hint of a reason for him to latch onto Noctis as he healed the way that he had.

 Excluding three possible reasons.

 One, that Noctis perhaps reminded him of the younger sibling his file said he lost when Galahd was razed by the Empire.

 Two, that he felt somehow responsible and duty-bound to go above and beyond not just as a Glaive, but as a Chieftain of the Ulric Clan directly sworn to Regis’ family during the war.

 Or three, for otherwise personal reasons. He’d thought maybe, maybe their bonds had been stronger than he realized from when Noctis was younger - 

 But, yes, he had eyes. 

 And it seemed to him that Nyx had eyes for his son, even if the Glaive hadn’t realized it yet.

 “Again, I thank you,” Regis told this Glaive who he trusted with his son, and maybe more importantly his son’s heart - delicate and barely stitched together as it was. Shaking himself out and moving on before the moment might become awkward, “and again, I want to remind you to keep looking after yourself. But also, extend my thanks to Captain Drautos for accepting your prolonged absence. It means a lot. To me, and to my son.” 

 So long as the rumors of Nyx Ulric being a heartbreaker in the past stayed in the past, Regis would not interfere. And so long as Noctis wasn’t hurt in some way by the man’s…attentions. And so long as he respected whatever relationship his dear boy was willing to have, never taking advantage of his currently vulnerable state. And - 

 Ah, well. He might just have to put Nyx in an oath or death situation before the Crystal if he stuck around for much longer. He wasn’t taking any risks with his nightlight.

 His beloved Noctis.

 “Good night, Glaive Ulric.” 

 “Goodnight, Your, uh, Majesty.”

 Whoops, he may have unnerved the man. Oh well. 

Best he learns sooner rather than later and learns well that Regis Lucis Caelum would not ever tolerate him half-assing anything involving his and Aulea’s child. He was done holding back when he defends his family. And there is a reason the Lucis Caelum dynasty has lasted as many centuries as it had.

 Because when it comes to family, they are willing to sacrifice thousands for the sake of one.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The days had been quiet, of late. 

 Noctis thought he’d been doing…decently. Fewer falls back into the dark, numbness of his mind. Fewer flashbacks. Fewer stretches of missing time, here then there then how did he get here? Meals with family. Venturing outside of his rooms once or twice to stretch his wheels. Letting whoever wanted to see him close for an hour or two. Or three. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

 His dad visited whenever he could, and their relationship had maybe never been better.

All it took was ten years of trauma.

 Ori was always eager to run from his attendants, to come find his dad. Usually with a toy or a game or a story to share. In exchange for a hug. His son liked hugs. Noctis liked to give him as many as he possibly could.

 Uncle Clarus and Uncle Cor came to see him too, sometimes. Uncle Drautos too. 

 Ignis brought him meals most days, staying to chat at his once-charge while he ate. Gladio came by to tend to the many vases of flowers now scattered all over Noctis’ rooms, filling them with the scent of pollen and petals. They talked. Sometimes. Gladio had changed a lot, from the prince’s perspective. He was quieter. Calmer. More relaxed.

 Quiet day after quiet day, things like that.

 Today was another quiet day. With a nice summer breeze, and bright sunshine, and the aroma of flowers surrounding Noctis. So sweet he shut his eyes and basked in it. The raven-haired man was in the gardens. His gardens. In a warm patch of sunlight, by a bushel of hydrangeas buzzing with bumblebees. That summer breeze was wound around his neck, was a dream come true.

 A noose he’d love to hang to.

 Ten years. Ten years of never even seeing the outdoors, let alone experiencing it. Noctis had become a very, very outdoorsy person since being proven innocent. The balcony doors in his bedroom were nearly always ajar. The garden only an elevator and a few spins of his wheels away. If he wanted to go outside, nobody prevented him from doing so. He imagined it had become something of an unspoken rule.

 Progress had been made, he was sure.

 They were willing to leave him alone to enjoy the gardens, with no minders or babysitters whatsoever. Just a quiet day, with quiet time all to himself.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum had come to love the feeling of sunshine warm on his skin more than a whole lot of other things he loved.

 He loved feeling the breaths of wind, or the smallest puffs of a breeze. He loved smelling grass - and he’d never realized how strongly grass smelled until he’d spent ten years never smelling it in the slightest. He loved hearing birdsong. They’d set up several birdfeeders in his garden since his return, showing they’d realized that too. He loved - 

 He loved being free.

 He loved being able to go outside.

 He loved being aware of being alive again, instead of simply regretting that aliveness.

 He loved the feel of clean clothes. And he loved the feel of a clean body too. He loved the feeling of being fed, the lack of those hunger pangs he’d adjusted to so long ago they’d simply been something he lived with. He loved that he could choose where to go. He loved not being hit. He loved not being insulted. He still felt somehow like all of this may just be a gift from Carbuncle, a dream - 

 But he heard Carbuncle’s chirps, reassurances, and knew it was real.

 So he sat and enjoyed his quiet day.

 …And there was the sound of hiccupping squeaks? 

 Noctis straightened up. Tilting his head towards the sound. The squeaks that had broken this quiet day up a bit. He turned his face from the sunshine. The sound he heard - it was so soft. Barely loud enough for his ears to pick up. It sounded…it sounded like…

 Turning his wheelchair, he wheeled himself along the path. Following the fading squeaks of, distress? Distress. His heart upsetted by the sound. Down the path. Towards the edge of the garden. Towards a flowering bush. White flowers. The squeaks were far more audible as he neared, as he wheeled himself off of the garden path and into the grass.

 Tipping his head to the side, further, further, further - sitting, he couldn’t lean far enough down to see what was making the pitiful sounds.

 So Noctis hesitated a second, before shifting his weight to go forward as well. Adjusting his legs. Cringing at the strain it put on muscles unused to that, as he slipped sort of awkwardly and sort of flopped out of his wheelchair. Oof-ing as he sat himself in the grass, shoving his wheelchair away to give him more space to work.

 Finally able to lean over far enough to see.

 The so very tiny bundle of white fur curled up under the bush. As small as his hand.

 Maybe smaller. Making those hiccupping squeaky noises, as if it were calling out for help.

 Noctis blinked at the bundle, then reached under the bush’s branches without really thinking twice about it to grab the dew-soaked furball. Whose squeaks gained a pitch in panic when he touched it. He shushed it. So, so carefully lifting it out from its dark, cold place where it didn’t know the warmth of the sun.

 The squeaks quieted down after he got it tucked up against his chest, after he started petting its damp fur in a soothing way.

 It was a kitten. A white kitten. Its eyes still swollen shut. A newborn. It looked too small. Even for a newborn, it was smaller than Noctis’ palm and it kept making sad, searching noises. As if it were calling out for its mother. It was the only one underneath the bush. There was no sign of another cat anywhere nearby. It wasn’t even struggling. 

 A fiercely protective feeling bubbled up inside of Noctis. Maybe it was being a father. Maybe it was the fact that he’d always loved cats as a child.

 But he wanted to help.

 The chime of magic, and suddenly there was a potion bottle sitting in his lap. Courtesy of the Armiger that Noctis had rarely dared try to use since coming back to Insomnia. Sometimes, reaching for even a little magic meant a lot of magic slipping out and somebody getting hurt, but it was just the potion bottle.

 So Noctis grabbed it and gently tapped it against the trembling kitten he had held to his chest. It shattered. Was used. And some of the sweet thing’s noises really quieted. Had it been sick? 

 If it had been sick, did that mean the mama cat wasn’t coming back? 

 “Noctis!” His name was called. His name was called and that call sounded alarmed, so Noctis shifted back and peered around his wheelchair that he’d been leaning against.

 His dad was in the gardens too. With Uncle Clarus and Ori and Nyx on his heels. Rushing towards him as fast as he could with his cane, expression panicked, and it took the ground-bound royal a second to reason why he was showing so much alarm.

 Then he remembered, seeing a wheelchair-bound man sat on the ground when he definitely wasn’t prone to doing so was probably an alarming thing.

 “It’s okay!” He called back, as much as he could call with his damaged voice.

 Uncle Clarus and Ori, at least, relaxed minutely and slowed their pace.

 His dad and Nyx never did, however, and rushed up to him sat in the grass. Making concerned noises. Rushed up to find him perfectly fine. Perfectly unbothered, other than the worry he had for his new child. A fluffy child. A small child. But a child nonetheless. Carbuncle’s trilling laughter was in his ears as both his dad and Glaive stopped to stare at the white bundle he had hugged to his chest.

 While Noct had only one question for his dad as he smiled in shy hope up at him.

 “Can I keep it?” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was a she.

 And her name would be Aurora.

 Noctis had his very first pet, because Regis couldn’t say no to anything his son asked of him when he was smiling.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Aurora,” Nyx chuckled, watching over prince and kit and wondering if pet-sitter would now be one of his duties, “You named her dawn.” 

 “She and Oriens are siblings, obviously.” he thought if Noctis wasn’t so distracted with cuddling the white kitten while Oriens made happy noises at the proclamation, he might’ve clicked his tongue at Nyx and by Ramuh did he want Noctis feel comfortable enough to start doing things like that again, “I - I’m remembering right? Aurora?” 

 A Galahdian word as a name. It was an honor.

 “Yes. And your pronunciation is perfect too.” As the one who was teaching the man the Galahdian tongue, he was proud, “What do you think, mane?” 

 “I love kittens!” Oriens gushed, cooing at the kitten now suckling on a bottle of milk in his dad’s arms, courtesy of the kitchens, “Grandpa always said I could get one when I was old enough to take care of it responsibly! They’re so small and fluffy and cuddly and - “ 

 Nyx Ulric was an observer in this. 

 In a father and son snuggled up together, tending to an abandoned kitten together, worrying over her together. The kitten made tiny rumbling noises as it was finally fed. The sun was soft washing over them on the sofa. The scene was one of innocence, like Nyx had seen too rarely of late. The scene was one that inspired him to pull out his phone and snap a few photos.

 Staring down at the screen as he took another photo, blue eyes flicked up to him.

 Another photo, and he paused. Looking up from his phone’s screen to meet those blue-blue eyes, that seemed to get brighter with every week that passed.

 Noctis was smiling.

 Was so strong, it humbled Nyx. He had a power in him few mortals ever cultivated. Not that magic. That magic of the Crystal, that magic of the Lucis Caelums. His heart. His soul. Both were so bright, so resilient, somehow still able to recover after the hells he’d lived through. Ramuh had wept for this man who was just a boy when he lost it all. Ramuh had declared him loved. Ramuh had declared him protected.

 But Nyx was no longer just doing this for Father Ramuh…he didn’t think.

 He stared into those blue eyes finally brightening, and…it wasn’t just for his god.

 Oriens tugged on his dad’s sleeve, taking those eyes like a night sky off of Nyx, letting him finally breathe again. And he put the phone away. Watching in silence as the father and son cooed over such an innocent thing.

 This was what he sought to protect.

 This was what he’d oppose the Storm for.

 This was his path.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

The Tired Dads TM is my favorite trinity ever.

Regis, Clarus, and Cor deserve more exhausted working dad moments.

Also, I cannot properly articulate how much the Lucis Caelums are just something I love. LOVE love. They are my Roman Empire. Them and the Rosfields from FFXVI - these two families and their history and their regalness and their grace. I love them so much and I want to give them both the biggest of hugs. I want more material on them. I want people to make those aesthetic boards and tiktoks about them. But until then, gonna keep on writing about them all being tired messes for human beings. <3333

Chapter 8

~>-----------<~

 

 

The trials for those accused of abusing Noctis Lucis Caelum, of abetting those who had, and of covering up what was happening in Mistveil Keep, were put off by several weeks. 

Because it was extremely, extremely hard to get trials and convictions done with when Lucis’ High Court was being reevaluated. When the royal council had been reworked from its foundations up. When several of the most esteemed families in Insomnia were being outed and arrested and tried for crimes ranging from embezzlement to espionage. When all of that was happening? 

They ended up with just, nearly, a hundred Crownsguard kept either in the Citadel’s dungeons or under house arrest, awaiting trial.

The fact that those ‘Guard, that Noctis’ tormentors, were in his very home to some capacity? That they weren’t being held accountable for their actions? That justice had not been swift and right and done with? It weighed on them all. To the point that more than one had drunkenly considered simply going down to those dungeons and…correcting the oversight.

Executing the lot of them.

If it wouldn’t go against several of the humanitarian laws that Lucis had imposed in recent times, Regis probably would’ve allowed it. Those people did not deserve their lives.

Old bonds and new were strained by their mere existences.

…

Those old bonds though…were just that. They were old.

Like leather, left to age without care, they had cracked and dried out. They’d become a thing of the past, that maybe could recover with proper attention and focus on them. Maybe. But they’d never be brand new again. And besides that, Noctis wasn’t in the right headspace to focus entirely on rebuilding old relationships.

They would’ve been Retinue. They would’ve been his brothers.

But those relationships had withered during his ten years in Mistveil Keep.

Of all of them, Gladio was the one he was now closest to. The most connected to. And that was because Gladio had changed. His once-Shield wasn’t the same man Noctis had known as a child. He no longer had that temper, nor that pride that led to him lashing out. Saying things to hurt. Finding the soft spots in a person to prod at the second he became frustrated. Noctis could say it clearly now - Gladio had been a bully.

But he wasn’t that any longer. He’d gotten help. He’d admitted he’d had to choose between therapy and keeping his family - because he’d gotten married and had had children and Noctis’ heart quailed to learn that - or losing that family. And he had. Chosen therapy, chosen his family.

Gladio came to see him with soft smiles, and softer flowers arranged into bouquets that bore messages, and tended to the flowers in Noctis’ rooms while they chatted about everything and nothing and it was the easiest bond to let smooth out.

Ignis was harder.

Ignis had been the one he trusted implicitly, with everything. The one by his side since he was three years old. The one who had practically raised Noctis in so many ways because his father wasn’t always available and he had no mother in his life. Ignis believing that Noctis was capable of the crimes he was accused of had broken him.

And now Ignis was a respectable, established advisor to his father, who looked at Noctis every time he spoke with pure reverence.

As if he worshiped him and his every word. It was unnerving. It made Noctis’ skin crawl sometimes, seeing the awe in those eyes. He felt like an idol placed on an altar when he was in the presence of Ignis Scientia, so…their relationship had become impersonal, in a lot of ways. It stung. A lot.

Prompto - 

Well. Prompto was his center, once. His cornerstone. Now? Prompto was an old love of his heart. A ghost of what they’d been, what he’d wanted, what he’d cherished above all and lost to Mistveil. Prompto visited him the least. Which was hardly his fault - he didn’t even live in Insomnia these days. He lived in Leide. And really, whenever they did see each other, their meetings had a mist of melancholy hanging over it. Memories. Too many memories.

They were like highschool sweethearts who’d lost touch as they grew up. With all the memories, and all of the baggage, but none of the closure.

In essence, they’d all grown up.

Grown away from one another.

It had been a terrifying realization, back when he’d first returned to the Citadel. Been brought back, really. Nothing would ever be as it once was. Nothing could turn back the clock. It had been what drove Noctis to throw himself off of a balcony in his despair. It had been what nearly cost him his second chance at living as a free man.

They all had lives. Loved ones. A whole decade of life events that didn’t include him.

They’d all accepted that they’d never see their prince again, and the wound that that was had healed and scarred over long ago.

Their bonds would never be what they once were. Personally or magically. 

The once-Chosen King was beginning to suspect it was part of the reason he found it easier to interact with people he hadn’t had the closest relationship to before his imprisonment. Like Nyx. People with no old bonds to agitate with new discoveries. Like Gladio being married, having twins. Like Ignis being his father’s advisor. Like Prompto being married and no longer having all that much of a life in Insomnia since Noctis had been imprisoned.

The bonds that were still new, young, sprouts - they hurt less. So he fostered them more. Nyx, and one or two of the Kingsglaive who guarded his rooms. Learning about new things as well, things he hadn’t learned about as Lucis’ Crown Prince, it kept his mind off of things.

It was slow going, but all things were with recovery.

Sometimes there were bright, sunshine days for Noctis.

And sometimes…

 

 

-----

 

 

It was always dark in Mistveil Keep. Darker than dark. The sort of dark that makes your eyes ache and strain. The sort of dark that makes your ears buzz. The sort of dark that feels like a writhing, physical thing. That hooks under your skin and would rather gouge into it over letting you go. The sort of dark that leaves scars. Scars that still hurt sometimes.

There were no windows in Mistveil Keep. If there was light, it was dim and flickering, and accompanied by the high-pitched whining of electricity. 

So dark and so quiet was Mistveil Keep that sometimes…Noctis swore he heard voices.

Or rather, a voice.

A man’s voice. Low, smooth, almost musical, if he’d listened to music at all for a decade. Which he hadn’t. An amused voice. Commenting on anything and everything, appearing at his worst moments. Laughing over them. Teasing him. He couldn’t tell anybody about that. They’d think him mad. 

‘Oh, well isn’t this familiar.’ The voice would taunt.

‘Lucis really has a dirty little habit of locking its dirty little secrets away in the dark, doesn’t it?’ It would whisper in his ear.

‘You’re not special, you know? You’re not the first. This fate is just another you stole. This fate is just another way the Astrals have mocked us. Mocked me.’ It would hiss.

‘Years upon years of being imprisoned. Beaten and raped and ruined. My, it’s almost poetic! And I barely had to do anything more than play around a little.’ Sometimes the voice seemed to be a physical, ruining thing. Sometimes it felt like somebody grabbed him by the hair and forced him to look up but there was only darkness to be seen. Sometimes nailmarks would bleed his skin. Sometimes handprints appeared around his wrists as he was dragged around.

The voice always so musical in those first years.

But dissociating meant the imprisoned prince was barely aware of any of it, as time went on, and that had always made the voice huff. Tone going all playful and also…also…Noctis would get shudders. Up his spine. 

Breath on the back of his neck.

‘It’s no fun if you go on vacation in your own mind, my dear Noct.’ 

And then there’d be this sting, and then he’d be aware and being aware was the worst possible fate in Mistveil and he’d flinch and he’d scream and he’d beg but the Crownsguard would come in their black uniforms with their jeers and their bloodied knuckles and they’d leave him bruised and broken and sobbing on those floors - 

His nailmarks scored across the wood, his screams echoing and raspy and the last of his voice he had left there, bleeding, begging, crying until he lost himself to his exhaustion.

And then went back into his mind.

The sting came less and less over the years. The voice too. Its tone rapidly growing bored those last one, two, three? Years. 

‘This isn’t even fun anymore. Sweetheart? Come now, come here. How am I supposed to take out my suffering on you if you’re incapable of being aware of said suffering? That is really quite rude of you.’

The voice was gone for a long while, months and months, before Noctis was proven innocent.

And set free.

That voice. That voice. Carbuncle kept it out of his dreams. Carbuncle hissed and spat and fluffed up to three times his normal size whenever he so much as sensed his Noct thinking about it. 

The shadow in the darkness that haunted him.

Carbuncle couldn’t keep all of his nightmares at bay, however. Even if he focused extra hard to keep the voice gone, gone, gone. Even so, sometimes his little ruby horn would falter, fail to glow, and his dreams would twist and contort. Misshapen and darkening. Darker and darker and darker until Noctis’ dreams had turned into night terrors, dragging himself across the floor of his cell in Mistveil, screaming, begging, cowering from the Crownsguard advancing on him.

They didn’t stop, they never stopped. They just laughed and laughed and laughed like the demented daemon cries of the night. They hit and they spat and they fucked him until he was crying on the floor, trying to hold onto whatever pieces of himself and his heart that weren’t broken.

They may break his bones, and they may cover his skin in bitemarks and the blacks and blues of their bruises, they may have taken his voice and they may have taken his body and they may have shattered the magic of his soul and whatever innocence Noctis Lucis Caelum once had - 

But he’d survived. And he’d been proven innocent.

And he’d still forget about that completely when his mind dragged him back to Mistveil Keep.

He’d wake up, tangled in the black sheets of his bed, them clinging to the returned-prince because he was covered in sweat and panting and trying to figure out where he was because they didn’t take him out of the cell even to rape him in a place more comfortable for them - 

It was always a mess. Anything else was a trick.

Hands reaching for him, touching him, hurting him, and he’d scream, and his magic would send the hands away from him. There would be the sound of somebody slamming into a wall and a pained grunt and Noctis would fall off of his bed trying to find somewhere small and dark to stuff his broken body.

Forgetting that he was no longer in Mistveil Keep.

Forgetting that he could ever possibly be anywhere else, because his life was taken from him and he wasn’t even dead yet.

And it would hurt, it would hurt, being alive would hurt and he’d curl up underneath the big bed he woke in and he’d sob there in the shadowy place, wanting the feelings, the awareness, to go away.

“Patch me through to His Majesty’s rooms. I know it’s the middle of the night - patch me through to his rooms!”

 Go away.

“Your Majesty, we need you here. For His Highness - Noctis. He seems to be having an attack? PTSD or a flashback…No…No…He doesn’t want me to touch him, his magic is - is stinging me - ? And I don’t think Prince Oriens should be called to see this. Inlustris wouldn’t want that.” 

Go. Away.

Noctis forgot he ever left Mistveil Keep. Forgot that he’d ever been proven innocent. Forgot that the hurt had ever stopped. Forgot that he didn’t deserve it. He forgot.

And the darkness purred. 

Staying there, staying there in a tiny ball that seemed too small to be a grown man, curled up under the bed, waiting for his mind to stop working and the whole world to leave him be. Leave him to his trauma. His torment. His punishment for his crimes - those crimes he never committed but nobody ever believed him. Nobody ever believed him and he was dragged away from his home, nobody ever believed him and he was locked away, nobody ever believed him and he was erased, nobody believed him and they took his chance at fatherhood and stole it from him without hesitation - 

It was cold and it was dark and the floor was hard and there was dust in his nose, his cheeks were wet, his eyes stung, he shuddered and shuddered and shuddered. Kept company only by the dark.

For who knew how long. 

He certainly didn’t. He, Lucian Prince erased from his family. He, Noctis Lucian Caelum stolen from his own life. He - 

A rapid click-clack-click noise. A cane. 

A person - that cologne - Dad, Dad help me, Daddy - 

Make it stop.

Awake.

And not.

Awake.

And not.

…

Aware.

And not.

Aware.

And not.

Not.

 

 

-----

 

 

Regis, roused from his bed by a frantic call from Glaive Ulric, no longer sleepy in the least but still wearing his robe. He held his child close to his chest. A firm, physical connection to ground his nightlight to the here. The now. The here that was Noctis’ dim, moonlit bedroom and the now that was ten years too late. He held Noctis’ ear to his heart and hoped desperately that his heartbeat drowned out whatever horrors he believed himself to be hearing instead.

To even imagine what sort of things his sweet son had been told in Mistveil - what repeated in his ears during his nightmares - !

It was a kinder fate, he hoped so desperately, to listen instead to his father’s heartbeat. To Regis humming a completely random and just as desperate melody. Rocking his baby boy who was in tatters on his bedroom floor. Who he’d had to urge out from underneath his bed where he’d been curled up and hyperventilating and weeping.

So silent, but weeping.

These were the times that he felt his failure the greatest.

The times when he could do nothing. When he could only hold Noctis as dear and near as humanly possible with only two arms, two hands, peppering him in soft, featherlight kisses and shushing him.

Barely keeping his own tears at bay.

Cor was crouched down by Nyx across the room; the Glaive speaking softly to a medic who’d been called after his head snapped back too hard against the wall - it wasn’t Noctis’ fault. He insisted. Again and again and again.

Despite it being his son’s magic that struck the Glaive for startling him. For simply being there.

The bloody smear on the dark wall would be gone by morning, like all the others of recent weeks, and Glaive Ulric would never hold it against Noctis.

Noctis wouldn’t even remember.

Clarus was his support, if he was to be his son’s. Clarus was the one with a hand gingerly set on his shoulder. Grounding him. Eyes so, so sad like they’d not been since he lost Maria as he stared at Noctis sobbing silently into Regis’ chest. Shield of him, of his son. Shield sworn and dutiful.

These nights were the worst.

Because as much progress as they made, they could not rip away the nightmares Noctis had.

Because they also could not rip away the memories. Ten years-worth.

So they were left with midnight hours like this.

 

 

-----

 

 

And days of staring blankly at nothing, absent of his own mind, locked away to protect himself from the horrors of what he’d gone through.

Noctis’ own mind was one of their greatest enemies now.

 

 

-----

 

 

‘Before Mistveil.’ A phrase they all had heard, and a phrase they all dreaded to the depths of their soul. Hated, even, was probably a better word than dreaded. Despised. Before Mistveil this. Before Mistveil that. Everyone used it. Because there was the before, and there was the after. Every time Noctis was brought up in conversation practically, it was ‘before Mistveil’.

Practically every time.

It made them angry. It made them remember. Reports and photographs that had been buried for ten years.

It brought out the worst in Noctis Lucis Caelum’s family, all because of their protectiveness towards him.

They all had their own ways to handle it. And had gotten better at it in those last months since they’d gotten Noctis back, but sometimes…

There was Regis needing a new cane, because he kept on breaking his time and time again.

There was Clarus slamming his fists on desks.

There was Cor summoning the accused Crownsguard from their cells in the Citadel’s dungeons, and sending them back with bruises and black eyes courtesy of a less-than friendly spar with their Marshal.

There was Gladio. Letting his anger issues out just that once, twice, however many times he went down to the dungeons to see them. Those who had spent a decade abusing his prince, or simply hiding the abuse and turning to look the other way. They’d beg. They’d cower, from this furious Shield, but he’d just roar, “Did you stop when he begged? When you were raping and beating a child and he begged, did you stop?!”

Ignis would pay the dungeons a visit too. 

Noctis’ would-be Hand had gotten quite adept at elemancy in the last ten years. Especially ice elemancy.

And those ‘Guards didn’t exactly need their fingers or their toes to stand trial, did they? Hypothermia was quite capable of loosening tongues in order to collect confessions in a timely manner.

The longer it took to get those Crownsguard to stand proper trial and be convicted, the less likely it was that they’d be standing trial with all their limbs attached and full mental faculties.

But it was only what they deserved, in the eyes of the House of Caelum.

 

 

-----

 

 

You know, Ori didn’t really get it? But his dad had a distant glaze to his eyes when he visited the last two days. The rest of the family seemed unsure about even letting him see his dad. And the Kingsglaive who usually stood at attention on the other side of the door were inside of Dad’s bedroom and watching them. It was odd. Ori knew he’d missed something, but he wasn’t sure what.

Odder still, Dad kept sitting him in his lap.

Whenever Oriens got close, he’d make grabbing motions. And Ori would go to him because - he never wanted to make his dad sad! And Dad would sit him in his lap. Would slump over him. Would run his fingers through Ori’s raven-black hair the same shade as his, and press kisses to his cheeks, and just keep him tucked there. Under his chin. In his arms.

The littler Lucian Prince was content to stay that way. Really! Tapping away at his phone, and playing a few rounds of KK3 with Uncle Prom in the meanwhile.

Oriens had never felt safer than he did when his dad had him in his arms.

Of course, there was the weirdness of Dad’s magic being like…a swarm of angry bees? Ori wasn’t sure how to describe it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt Grandpa’s - or anyone’s - magic acting the same way. It was as though it was waiting to lash out. Like Oriens was the honey in the beehive, and anybody who got close was going to get stung.

He never felt for a single second that he would be the one stung.

But the Kingsglaive at the doors looked progressively paler and paler the longer they stood guard.

Even Nyx was a little pale, and standing a little further away than he usually would.

So Oriens’ intuition obviously kept complaining that something had happened, and they were keeping it secret from him as usual, because he was a kid. He was small. He was too young, they would say. ‘When you’re older.’ They would say. But…if what his dad needed was somebody small, and somebody young, then Oriens didn’t mind it as much.

Dad wouldn’t eat unless he was the one offering him spoonfuls of the sort of bland soup Uncle Iggy brought him.

Dad wouldn’t let him go at first either, but let him eventually so Oriens could move, wiggle. and fidget. And be a child.

And even though Noctis’ son got this feeling from his intuition that something sad had happened, he kept smiling.

Because that made his dad happy.

 

 

-----

 

 

‘Queen Lunafreya, again, while I understand your desire to visit Lucis for yourself, to see the Crystal and Prince Noctis once more, I will have to politely decline your request to come to Insomnia at this time. Please, wait until things have settled more.’

Truthfully, Regis was surprised that Queen Lunafreya so quickly sent a second request after she was refused the first time. Granted, he’d never really refused the Queen of Tenebrae before. All of her previous requests of Lucis he’d allowed. Mostly due to her being Oriens’ mother. And they had not been big requests. Though she had not visited Insomnia in years.

There had been a time when the Lucian King made multiple requests of her. To visit. To see Oriens. 

She’d refused them all in the name of still settling Tenebrae after they’d broken free of being one of Niflheim’s vassal-nations. And what could he say to that? No, put this child you bore for a treaty first, over Tenebrae itself? 

The fact that she was so determined to visit Insomnia now, that she risked sounding impolite was…unlike the Lunafreya that Regis thought he’d known.

“...Something’s off,” Cor, standing, leaning over his shoulder really, muttered. In that tone that just said without the words that he didn’t trust something.

And, well, after all of these years? 

Regis didn’t doubt his Sword’s instincts.

Together they looked at the messages from Tenebrae. From Queen Lunafreya. And together, even if Regis was more reluctant to admit it, they found it odd. Off. An abnormality. And they didn’t like it. Neither of them.

“Why’s she so suddenly desperate to come to Insomnia, to see Noctis, even when we made it clear to her that it would cause more harm to him than good?” It was a rhetorical question. Cor scoffing with it and already tapping away at his phone. Probably ordering an in-depth investigation from his most trusted ‘Guard, and Regis opened his mouth to tell him that wasn’t necessary. They were already dealing with so much.

But a single, stony glare from his youngest brother had his mouth shutting again without a word.

“Regis, Queen Lunafreya isn’t that little girl you knew thirty-something years ago,” he told his king flatly, and a familiar shame and pain stole away Regis’ breath, closing his eyes, thinking of his old friend Sylva, “Let us treat her the way she has earned. With suspicion and wariness, because an innocent little girl isn’t what survives Niflheim occupation for twenty years. A ruthless manipulator, on the other hand…” 

So it was.

Suspicion and wariness laid on a queen, who so obviously had intentions for his son.

 

 

-----

 

 

Meanwhile, more suspicions later shared between two retinue members.

“...Any progress in the investigation of that Lucis Caelum DNA used to convict Noctis?” 

“None whatsoever,” Cor hissed a long breath out between his teeth, feeling as though his fingers were glued to his phone these days with how much he had to manage between multiple departments all across Lucis, “The records are clean, those that did the DNA analysis confirm again and again that it is genuine, and it was submitted properly. Either there was no foul play and somehow…somehow a Lucis Caelum was involved, or they covered their tracks real fucking well.” 

There was a very heavy silence that dragged out between the two of them, and when Cor glanced up?

It was to a very understandable dread dawning in Clarus’ eyes as he stood there frozen. Finally, fragilely, rasping - 

“Please tell me you don’t believe we might have a Lucis Caelum bastard somewhere out there mixed up in this.” 

It wasn’t a question.

And Cor didn’t have an answer he’d like to hear.

The royal line of Lucis Caelums was an extremely carefully monitored one. Because every sprouting branch was a potential threat. A snake in the grass. In the first few hundreds of years of Lucis, it was common for multiple houses to have Lucis Caelum blood. But the uprisings that sprouted from that caused those extra branches to be culled.

From then on, lineage and affairs and secret children were so carefully controlled that bastards were rare. Even moreso since it was an outlier for Lucis Caelums to have more than a single child per family, due to the effect their magic had on the mothers who didn’t carry the bloodline. Many died in childbirth, many more had to go through several miscarriages just to have a single child.

Bastards - it simply wasn’t something that they had to watch out for. And surely if Regis thought there was even a possibility, he would’ve mentioned it?

…King Mors, on the other hand.

“I’m going to start digging for any rumors involving undocumented magic usage in the last ten to twenty years,” Cor said simply; that being his answer.

And Clarus buried his face in his hands and groaned at the mere idea. If there was a Lucis Caelum running about undocumented…? 

Well, if there was and they’d helped frame Noctis, a Shield and Sword would see that branch culled personally.

 

 

-----

 

 

Although it was a small, mostly healed cut along his hairline, such a simple thing, so easy to ignore and pass off as a training injury - the prince noticed it. Rather quickly, after he found it in himself to come back. Those blue-blue eyes that always seemed to capture Nyx’s soul drifted towards it, then didn’t look away. 

And Noctis’ face pinched, pale, unsure.

Guilty, then.

“I did this.” It was not a question. It was a statement. A flat one, full of this quiet note of panic that most wouldn’t notice. But Nyx had spent months at Noctis’ side now. He noticed, and he instantly went to the royal’s bedside to kneel. To let him see the cut fully, see how it had healed, how he was okay, how it was nothing.

It had been an accident, and like the handful of other times Noctis’ magic had lashed out at Nyx during nightmares and dissociating episodes, it was so minor. This time, though - 

This time, inlustris recognized that he had been the one to cause it. Unintentionally. Even so.

“I should not have tried to touch you.” Was Nyx’s even response. Because he shouldn’t have, should’ve realized, when Noctis was flinching and whimpering and trying to hide himself away - touching was the worst idea and yet he’d tried to do so anyways. He’d earned being slammed into that wall, and a potion and concussion-check later? He was found fine.

That fact seemed to soothe Noctis little though, still sitting there, staring at the barely-there cut as though it was fresh and weeping blood.

Eyes haunted. 

Not that any of them didn’t understand. There was a question there, to himself, and his horror was warranted.

‘What if it had been Prince Oriens?’

“Easy there. Stay with me.” Taking a bit of a risk, he slowly got off of one knee to instead sit himself on the bed’s edge as well. Hands clasped tight between his knees. Hunching his shoulders. Trying to appear as small as possible, even as he met those blue-blue eyes and hoped to see them shine bright with laughter again as soon as possible.

“Are…you…”

Still so flat. Eyes so dull. His prince reached for him, with shaky hands, and Nyx immediately bowed his head to them. Let him run his trembling fingers over the fading mark. It was barely more than that. The potion the Marshal had given him had ensured it. 

The touch lingered. 

Running back and forth over the ridges of what had been a cut. A nightmare, with consequences. Consequences in the waking world, as Noctis now learned.

“I am alright, inlustris.” 

A strangled sound got out of the prince’s throat, he swallowed, and his fingertips gently trailed down the edge of Nyx’s face. Away from the healing cut. Tracing the stubble of his beard, going for the simple black tattoo inked beneath one eye. Staying there as he stared into the eyes of the storm.

Nyx’s eyes. On him.

Always on him.

“I am sorry,” he offered, in his softest voice. His most heartfelt. Which Nyx heard, and Nyx gave him a toothy grin for.

“I know. And I forgive you, my star.” 

When the former-crown prince went away into his head again, he was leaning against the Galahdian’s shoulder. Having counted his beads until he slipped away, fingers on his braids, so delicate, such care, whispering what Galahdian words and phrases he knew that applied to each one. Such a show of trust. Such a show of faith.

Such a show of care, that it left Nyx wondering if his prince knew better than he claimed of the culture of Galahd.

And just how much trust and faith and care the Ulric Chieftain had already shown him.

Things he would not risk.

Not even as his heart pounded in response to the raven-haired man dozing on his shoulder, surrendering everything to Nyx Ulric without hesitation. It was a show of everything. And he would honor it as such. Defending his prince until his last breath, if that was simply asked of him.

By Ifrit’s fires - he would do it even if inlustris wasn’t a prince at all.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Are you sure? I can get there by this evening, Dad - you know I can.”

Violet eyes stared at a random thread of his blanket that he started to pluck at, as Prompto listened to Cor’s voice through his phone’s speaker, squeezing the electronic device, letting go, squeezing, letting go - 

“ - have it handled,” the man who’d taken him in and saved him said, as if his frankly exhausted voice wasn’t that, “Prompto, you said you were coming back this Friday. You don’t have to come sooner. This isn’t really a thing we can help. You know that.” 

Knowing that, being aware of that, changed nothing. 

Knowing that they could do absolutely nothing to help Noct, being aware of that, just made his old friend furious and frustrated.

He gripped the phone tight again.

And a hand laid itself over his heart.

“Steady there, pumpkin. Ain’t no reason for ya ta head back ta Insomnia now; ya heard the man.” Cindy hummed a bit, pressing her cheek between his shoulderblades, her arms over his shoulders, her accent thrumming pleasantly along his spine as he listened to Cor continue on and on, “Breathe, sweetheart. Like that. Yeah. Just like that. See? Ya’ve got it. Easier than tightening a bolt.” 

The Leide sun of morning was bright through their bedroom’s window, shining down in shafts that shifted and swayed with dust and dirt particles. Because this was Leide. And nothing was free of grime here. But Cindy’s pressing got Prompto to lay back down, at least.

His girl rested her head on his chest, bouncy gold curls tickling his chin, both of them undressed from a fun night together and from not expecting this call come morning, but they were a part of a world bigger than their bed and bedroom. So they listened.

And Cor Leonis reassured his son that all would be well with time.

And Prompto Leonis-Aurum didn’t really believe him but acted as if he did.

And Cindy Aurum used her cuddly husband’s chest as her pillow until the conversation ended with the muted click of a phone hanging up.

She felt the sigh that rushed out of her boy like a great gust of hot desert air underneath her ear, felt him reach for her, felt his hand run soothingly down her nude body. Eyes on her. Apologetic eyes. Gosh - what’d she need apologies like that for? 

“None of that there, sweetpea,” she drawled, easy and simple and just how she liked things. Just how they liked things, “Ya loved him. Ya lost him. Ya still want that, worry ‘bout him, and I ain’t gonna get jealous of my own husband when ya’re perfectly capable of making yer own decisions.” 

“I feel like I need to go to him.”

They wound their fingers together, wedding bands glinting in the bright morning light.

“I can’t.” 

“Oh, snickerdoodle,” Cindy shifted, further up their sun-warmed bed with its thin blankets and the smell of motor oil and dust all over, to hug her hubby’s head to her chest and just hold him a while. What happened to them was unfair. All of Eos knew it. But all of Eos wasn’t her, and the man she’d married, holed up like sleepy gophers in their bedroom and dealing with it personally-like, “Just keep bein’ strong. S’all ya can do.”

There’d never been any delusions for her. Not a single one.

Prompto Leonis had loved Noctis Lucis Caelum when she met him, that dusty, scorching hot day when he came to Hammerhead with his pa. 

Had loved that prince when they talked, had loved that prince when they slowly fell for each other, and had loved that prince ‘til the day they married. Still loved him.

Cindy had no complaints about the pyramid of chocobo plushes piled on a shelf in their bedroom, no complaints about the various gifts from said prince scattered around their home, no complaints about the letter she sometimes caught her hubby reading with regret.

Hearts were big enough for more than one love.

If things surrounding…all of this were different, why, she’d be right there shoving her husband proper towards the prince after he returned. 

But what they’d had was lost. And it wasn’t ever coming back. 

So instead she shoved her husband into the bed and smothered him in her chest, and they laid like that. Long-past time for them to be up and getting Hammerhead in tip-top shape. 

Couldn’t fix a darn thing if you weren’t also in tip-top shape.

Cindy loved maintenance, so it wasn’t no trouble to her if her boy needed it.

 

 

-----

 

 

Clarus glanced up from his mound of paperwork, a familiar sight for any and all of them of late, just as Cor finished his phone call. Hanging up. Looking exasperated. In that fond dad way that the man could definitely relate to, considering his own two children and two grandchildren.

“The kid?” 

“The kid.” Youngest of his brothers, Cor, confirmed. Shaking his head. And waving around his phone too, getting all grumpy and huffy as he started to rant at Clarus, “He and Cindy are doing good. Cid’s doing good. Hammerhead’s doing good. All good - and here he is, trying to be all adult and offering to give that up and come here. I swear sometimes I passed on my worst traits to him.” 

“Well, he is an adult, Cor,” Clarus pointed out semi-cautiously, snorting at the way Cor’s nose immediately scrunched up as if the idea offended him.

But, point being, fact being - Prompto Leonis-Aurum was an adult. A twenty-eight years old adult-adult. And as much as his baby brother would huff and puff and argue that fact, it wasn’t about to change. Cor adopting the kid hadn’t been the biggest surprise for any of the retinue. The biggest surprise had been how darn clingy the Marshal of the Crownsguard was. He was a downright doting dad, and sometimes seemed the best out of all of them.

Even if he hadn’t adopted Prompto properly until he was in his twenties. 

Either way, they all were aware that the situation was even messier for Noctis and Prompto’s reunion. That it had gotten awkward fast. That the kid had gone home to Leide and his wife for a while to give Noctis his space. It was an adjustment for all of them. But maybe for those two most of all, considering what could have been.

“...I’m going to have Cid give him a project. Keep him busy. Keep his mind off of things.” 

“...Cor,” Clarus said seriously after a second, narrowing his eyes even as the Sword started tapping away at his phone, “the last time you said that, he sent the kid on a bandersnatch hunt by himself.” 

Cor blinked at him.

“Yes. So? I trained him.” 

Clarus sighed. His younger brothers were going to do him in one of these days, he still couldn’t understand how Cid handled them all during their roadtrip, “Sweet Six, you definitely passed your worst traits onto that kid.” 

The youngest brother made a very obviously offended noise at that, just as the number he’d dialed clicked as somebody picked up the phone. 

“Cid!” Cor complained, glaring straight at him, “Tell Clarus that Prompto is a fucking delight!” 

All he got for that was a very exasperated and very done sigh from the other end of the line, and then a muted click as Cid hung up on him. Meanwhile the two very adult, very esteemed and high-standing members of King Regis Lucis Caelum’s court started flinging paperwork piles at one another. The papers flew, and they tackled each other, and it was this scene that Regis would walk in on looking for advice from his very, very adult brothers. With day jobs. And children. One of which was a grandparent. 

Wrestling on the floor with their paperwork fluttering through the air.

“I can come back later,” their king chuckled, and the door closed. And they never noticed.

 

 

-----

 

 

“We have got to get him a hobby.” Regis tap-tap-tapped away at his cane, shifting his weight from foot to foot, thoughtful as the floor indicator of the elevator ting-ed with every one it passed, “Something to keep his mind off of things. Or something to clear his mind, when those things get to be too much. “

“What, like knitting? You want somebody to teach Noctis how to knit?” Clarus sounded plainly amused as he suggested it. Then stopped, and turned to stare at his king who had a considering look on his face, “No. Regis, no. You’re not having somebody teach Noctis how to knit.” 

“Knitting is a very noble hobby, Clarus.” 

“It also involves knitting needles. Which may not…” 

Both King and Shield cringed at the concept of Noctis panicking or otherwise going away while holding what equated to sharp sticks. 

Maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe it was a baseless concern. But baseless or not, they’d rather be cautious and be fools than not be cautious and lose that sweet boy for a second time.

“He has Aurora,” Clarus continued, after clearing his throat and resting a heavy hand on his brother’s shoulder, the ting-ing of the elevator still in the background, and the hum of machinery there too in their sudden silence, “Taking care of another living creature has been good for him. She keeps him grounded. Distracted. Give her another month of growing up and we could have her trained as an emotional support animal if need be.”

It was rare to see Noctis napping without that white kitten right there next to him. Both of them basking in sun and moonlight every chance they got.

“Yes, but what about the next time he has a flashback so bad that he lashes out?” Neither of them tried to think about blood smeared on the walls, wiped away before Noctis could see, but they did, “What if the next time he lashes out at somebody or something that doesn’t get back up?” 

There was a sudden lack of machine-like humming, and then a ding. The elevator doors opened. 

They stepped out, still tossing ideas back and forth.

“Oriens - “ 

“It is not fair of us to place so much on him, Clarus.” 

“Carbuncle - “ 

“Isn’t as reliable when he’s awake.”

“Nyx - “ 

“Yes, sir?” The two of them turned their heads. To said Glaive. There as though summoned by his name being spoken, leaning against the hallway wall outside of Noctis’ rooms, looking casual and comfy and curious. Really curious. And moreso, when his king and said king’s Shield failed to immediately explain why he’d come up in their conversation.

Finally Clarus just sighed and surrendered and said, “We were just discussing the possibility of Noctis learning a new hobby. Something to help ground him. No luck so far, it seems.” 

There had to be something. 

It needn’t be something dignified. Or manly or simple or complex even. It just had to be something to take Noctis’ mind off of what he’d gone through. If only for a minute. A single minute every single day. Small, big, expensive, cheap, common, rare. Something. Anything. And there was almost too many options to pick from, especially not knowing what Noctis might want to pursue - 

“I could teach him how to weave,” was what Glaive Ulric offered them, instantly earning their full attention. Under which he didn’t even flinch. He’d really gotten used to being around Lucis’ most esteemed citizens and council, hadn’t he? 

“Weave, Glaive Ulric?” Regis sounded polite enough, inquiring, but Clarus could hear the hope under his king’s tone. And he too could admit to sharing it.

Because it felt like, these days, nobody knew Noctis Lucis Caelum more than the Kingsglaive that shadowed him.

“Galahdians - or, specific clans, actually, they specialize in many arts and crafts. Weaving is one the Aranahe Clan specialize in, and I happen to have learned how,” he explained carefully, reaching up sub-consciously or not to hold one of his braids that indeed had more vibrantly dyed threads braided into it than the others, “It is very relaxing busywork. And very fulfilling. He could enjoy it, given the chance.” 

Two brothers shared a look.

And by day’s end, Nyx was setting a small basket of thread down next to Noctis’ wheelchair, smiling with all of his teeth as he asked, “How would you like to learn to weave, inlustris?”

Baby steps. A hobby for a displaced prince.

 

 

-----

 

 

“I appreciate your concern, Gladio, however - “ 

“Come on, Iggy. Don’t ‘however’ me.” Ignis averted his eyes when Gladio rounded his desk, looking away from those eyes dark with concern that always led to him caving, “You aren’t handling this…the best. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But you aren’t sleeping. You aren’t taking breaks. You spend all of your time either obsessing over your work or obsessing over Noct. A therapist could - “

“Not all of us need help to manage basic emotions, Gladiolus.” 

That came out more biting than he’d honestly intended.

The old Gladiolus Amicitia, the Gladiolus Amicitia he’d grown up alongside, the Gladiolus Amicitia he’d known for years would’ve given up with that. Would’ve withdrawn. Gotten angry. Snapped back at him, maybe stormed out slamming the door shut as he went. It had simply been something Ignis was used to. He hadn’t realized how bad it was until Cecilia was threatening to take Gladio’s children and leave if he didn’t change.

But he had changed. And this changed Gladiolus - it wasn’t fair how off-footed he often left Ignis.  

This changed Gladiolus Amicitia simply sighed at his biting remark, and reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. Squeezing. Reminding him that he was there. That he wasn’t angry. That it was okay.

The words on his paperwork blurred as he stared down at them resolutely, eyes burning. 

He was handling this the best that he could, wasn’t he? His Noct was home. His Noct was innocent. Was eating the meals he made him again, was talking to him sometimes, and what was really wrong with putting effort towards his actual duties as an advisor to King Regis? Really, Gladio was wrong. 

He was fine.

“Iggy,” he was just shaking a bit, “it’s alright,” and his eyes were burning a bit, “I can get you a good therapist,” what was wrong with him, “You know I know a fair few now. And I know one that you could probably benefit from seeing. It’s not a failing. It’s not something to feel ashamed about. You just need a little help sometimes, like anyone. You’re only human.” 

Teardrops splattered on paper.

And Gladio gently tugged him up from his chair to hug him.

…Maybe he needed help, Ignis was willing to realize, somewhat, as he started sobbing into his old friend’s chest.

 

 

-----

 

 

“It’s not really therapy. It’s just, seeking a second opinion outside of my own.” 

“Sure, Iggy. Whatever you need to hear.”

 

 

-----

 

 

Noctis hadn’t planned on learning to weave. Who did? Who woke up one random morning, especially him, and thought, ‘Today I will learn a whole new craft.’ Nobody, he’d bet. He hadn’t. But there Nyx had been, carrying a basket full of threads and small tools, offering to teach him the basics of weaving.

A basic, lap-held loom later and some more basic explanations? 

And Noctis had learned how to weave the simplest scraps of cloth. It…wasn’t the worst. 

Nyx would tell him stories as they worked together. The Glaive occasionally switching between sewing, spinning thread, and actually weaving with a more sturdy loom of his own. It was the strangest thing. Noctis was almost in awe of how they ended up passing time together. Nyx regaling him with stories of the Aranahe Clan of Galahd, and Aurora sitting beside them in a sunbeam mewling.

Huh.

Maybe he’d become a crazy cat lady. Or the start of one. 

And the former-crown prince didn’t even mind.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Dad, look.” 

A lump formed in Regis’ throat as Noctis held up a few rectangles of cloth to show off to him, made by him with his loom. His son looked so shy. Blinking up at him with these big eyes, with thread fibers all over his pants, with vibrant bits of cloth scattered around him and his wheelchair and he - he just looked so much like his baby boy in elementary school shyly showing him his school project.

His baby boy was smiling.

So Regis got himself to laugh, and nod, and ask Noctis about his new hobby. Silently swearing Nyx Ulric would be receiving a very, very, very hefty bonus. 

They never really thought they’d get here, but they had.

So Lucis’ King was going to grab hold with all of his strength and keep his son safe, as he’d sworn the same for his son’s son.

 

 

-----

 

 

Clarus blinked. Cor hardly reacted. Regis’ lips went thin and flat.

Kingsglaive Nyx Ulric glanced between all three of Lucis’ arguably most powerful men, looking rather determined. 

Unafraid.

“You want to take Noctis outside of the Citadel,” Clarus repeated, despite wanting to pretend he hadn’t heard that at all. His king’s lips went flatter. Another cane nearly splintered under his grip at the mere idea. Cor hummed. This felt like - like some comedy routine.

And here the Glaive was, at-attention but casually, nodding at them.

“Look, I get why you haven’t…done that, yet,” he said, still looking far too determined. And far too much like he’d forgotten how he used to defer to the men in front of him. But they supposed that was what happened when he spent all of his time seeing them at some of their most vulnerable moments. Most human moments, “but His Highness could use an outlet outside of the Citadel.” 

Outside, in that dangerous cityscape he hadn’t navigated in a decade? 

All three of them kept their mouths shut, sharing looks, debating how best to say no. Because what other response did they have? The Wall no longer surrounded the whole of Insomnia like it had ten years ago. With no war, it had been pulled back to only surround the Citadel. To lessen the toll it took on Regis, and to ensure Oriens’ protection in his own home.

If Noctis went outside of the Citadel, he’d be leaving the Wall. And anything could happen.

“His Highness has been enjoying learning how to weave,” and there went Glaive Ulric, proving again he no longer feared any of them by rolling straight through their silent debate, “He’s got a routine of it now, this last week. I can teach him the basics but there are members of the Aranahe Clan in Little Galahd he could learn from.” 

Clarus could see Regis’ resolve wavering.

“He’s expressed an interest in dying threads too, and I could show him the dye shops in Little Galahd. A short visit. Plenty of guards. One of the safest spots in the city.” 

Clarus could see Regis’ resolve crumbling under the concept of Noctis having an interest in something. Anything.

All waited.

And?

“Give…it another few weeks, Glaive Ulric. Please.” Regis was less a ruler and more a tired, worried father in asking that. Which was probably the only reason the Glaive’s eyes softened and he bowed immediately. Giving in. 

They were working on it. Bit by bit.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

I fell into a hyperfixation for the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora game so this one's a little shorter.

But also, it's giving me GREAT inspiration for Galahdian culture so win-win.

Chapter 9

Notes:

Welcome to the Murder Uncles Show!

I promised comfort. I went into this planning that, and then it turned a little more humorous because Cor is just a giant toddler when he's tired. Enjoy~ <3

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

You stand accused.

‘You stand accused.’

You stand accused.

You are declared guilty.

‘You are declared guilty.’

You are declared guilty.

…

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‘Are you sure?’ Taunted the voice.

Noctis shot upright in bed. Breathing so hard he thought his lungs might burst, heart in his throat, heart pounding like a drumbeat in his ears. Sick, sick, he felt sick, he felt - 

Movement. Out of the corner of his eye. Movement, a person, in black, his magic hissed and spat and its thorns bristled in threat but that had never stopped them before, never saved him, never, never, never, never - 

“Inlustris?”

He hadn’t realized the darkness’ voice had been laughing all the while until it went so suddenly silent with that one word. 

The voice, silent. The laughter, silent. The dreams? Covered up soundly by the soothing chirps of Carbuncle on the edges of his mind. Cleaning up the tatters. Sweeping away the memories with his fluffy, fluffy tail. Chirp-chip-chirp. A purr wound around his neck. An anchor. One he grabbed onto mentally and cuddled, while staring at the black - at the - at Nyx.

Sat up on the sofa, hair all sticking to one side and shirt rucked up, staring back at him in concern.

“You’re safe.” He declared it. Left no room for lies. Voice so firm, so low, sleepy but present because Noctis needed him, because - Noctis needed him to be that. 

And the declaration crashed over him. Left him to exhale shakily and hug his carbuncle plushie so, so tightly he was probably squishing its stuffing but Carbuncle wouldn’t mind. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Like he’d been taught. To calm himself down, like he’d been taught. Deep breaths. And footsteps.

Nyx’s footsteps, so he only flinched a tiny bit.

The Glaive moved slowly. Smoothly. Body language screaming - magic screaming concern-care-comfort-I’m-here-I’m-here-I’m-here and Noctis could feel it. Down to his bones. The magic of the Crystal housed in Nyx. Coiled up. His center. A center devoted solely to protecting, so much so that it stole his breath whenever he focused on it, and his own magic stopped bristling.

Reached out unsurely to meet the magic that was concerned for him.

Nyx made himself smaller. Crouched down next to the bed.

Set something on the rumpled sheets.

Carbuncle. The carving of Carbuncle. He’d left it on the sofa, hadn’t he? He’d been telling Nyx about how his dad carved it for him. How Carbuncle was nearly a forgotten Messenger but that he was real. He was his guardian. He was the one who kept away bad dreams.

He’d had a bad dream.

“You’re safe, starlight. I swear.” There was…Nyx’s voice. Low. Rough from sleep, from being woken up, but kind. There was no other voice. There was no other. No laughter. No taunting. No mockery. The darkness in the Citadel; not so thick that it was loud. The darkness here was chased away by moonlight. The darkness here was not ten-years deep and immovable. 

The darkness here would not harm him, would not beat him, would not rape him.

He could trust the black if Nyx was the one wearing it.

“Bad dream?” There was a twist there, to his lips, a shadow of a grin because grinning was just reflexive for the Galahdian. Noctis knew that. Noctis didn’t see Nyx’s grin and think it was vicious. Or cruel. It was simply him trying to be kind. So his vision swayed. He’d nodded. “Want to tell me about it?” 

His vision swayed. He’d shaken his head. 

More swaying. He’d nodded. Changed his mind.

Or - he shifted. Shrugged. Unsure. Not wanting to linger on the bad dream.

“Tell me a small thing?” Nyx suggested, still crouching beside the bed, still keeping his distance, still with the shadow of a reassuring grin fixed to his face. But no matter how fake it was, the earnestness in those stormy eyes was real. Was what Noctis really trusted. One small thing. One small thing. Just one small thing.

“Sometimes…I hear voices.” 

When he fell asleep, it was because Nyx had pulled out his tablet to play Galahdian music using its speakers. Lullabies. And it was because he’d fluffed up his carbuncle plushie, and it was because the carving from his dad was set on his pillow properly this time, and it was because Nyx stayed sitting on the floor by his bedside, holding onto the tips of his fingers so he knew he wasn’t alone in Mistveil anymore.

When he woke up, it was because he smelled his dad’s cologne, and there was a hand running gently through his hair.

And Nyx never treated him like he was mad. Never even looked at him like he wanted to hide Noctis away in Mistveil Keep for a second time. Nyx just sat by him. And the closest he came to acknowledging the confession was his haunted eyes and a quiet whisper of his own.

“Sometimes I hear voices too, inlustris. We all have our ghosts.” 

The nightmares would never really be banished completely from Noctis’ mind.

But they could be softened, by kind words and kind eyes and the gentle hands of a tired king.

 

 

-----

 

 

And there were those they could take those nightmares out on, in the dungeons below the Citadel.

At least for a while longer.

 

 

-----

 

 

Cor knew Regis never, not for a moment, blamed him for what took place in Mistveil Keep.

But he blamed himself.

As Marshal of the Crownsguard, he’d been given the express orders to assign good, trusted Crownsguard to guard Noctis during his imprisonment. However long, however many years, it lasted. And he’d sworn to do just that. Had thought he’d done just that.

Only for so many to turn out as either abusers or complicit in the abuse, ten years after the fact.

Cor Leonis blamed himself. Because he was the one giving assignments. And he was the only one out of them all receiving reports directly from the keep for the last decade. Whatever the reason, the excuses, he couldn’t deny that. Even if he wasn’t there, he should’ve been able to tell something was off. That they were emitting details. That some were just a bit too eager to be stationed out in the middle of nowhere on duty.

He knew it was his fault, because he’d been the one that petitioned Regis to lower the requirements to be accepted into the Crownsguard years ago. They’d needed fighters. They’d been in the middle of a war and they had far too few of numbers to withstand the Empire. So he had been the one to loosen the rope. To be more lenient on things like background checks and personality evaluations. 

Maybe if he hadn’t done that, some of those sickos wouldn’t have ever been given Lucian-blacks to wear.

Maybe if he hadn’t done that, Noctis, his godson his nephew one of his kids, would’ve been spared some of the horrors he’d survived.

The Marshal had been ruthless in the investigation since they’d taken nearly a hundred of his ‘Guard into custody. Old and new. ‘Guard from King Mors’ time, and ‘Guard who hadn’t even fought a lick in the war against the Empire. There were guilty parties in every department, he was discovering, and he was tearing the Crownsguard of Lucis up by their roots to dispose of all of those weeds.

Some were willing to confess outright, showing horror at the truth of Noctis being innocent. At what they’d done to him.

So, it was only okay if he had been guilty? Cor gave them no leniency for honesty.

There were excuses. So many excuses. In the interrogation rooms, he shouted so loud you could hear him through the triply-reinforced walls meant to keep sound in. Tables were flipped. The accused left with black and blue faces and Cor stood there in a torrent of his own creation with bleeding knuckles. 

Innocent, was Noctis Lucis Caelum.

But he’d been accused of multiple crimes that took away some of his humanity in the eyes of other people. He’d been accused and wrongly found guilty on accounts of abuse and murder and rape and torture of Lucian citizens. One or two of the accused Crownsguard were relatives to those who had been killed by the Adagium to frame Noctis, and had used their station to take it out on Noctis.

That, those background checks that hadn’t been thorough enough, were on Cor.

Several others had simply thought karma was in their hands, so they’d delivered it on the innocent prince.

Others had genuinely, simply, wanted to abuse Noctis. 

Sentiments towards the royal family hadn’t been kind for years during the war, beginning with King Mors pulling back the wall to solely Insomnia. Regis had made his own mistakes. His own choices that led to unrest. Noctis had been beloved, but he’d also been accessible. A blue-blooded royal with that damned magic for the Crownsguard to take out their frustrations on, so they had.

One of the younger, hot-blooded, sleazy accused ‘Guards had the gall to stand in front of Cor and spit that he’d done nothing wrong and that royal brat deserved it.

By the time the Citadel’s doctors got to him, his brain had been without oxygen for five minutes.

Cor walked away with bloody knuckles, and his handprints around a man’s throat.

That Crownsguard, one of his Crownsguard, was saddled with brain damage for the rest of his life for that one comment. And the Marshal felt no regret. No shame. Not even when handing the report of that ‘interrogation’ to Regis, who read it through and then simply had him file it without a word.

None of them would grieve if all of the accused simply dropped dead one day.

But Cor Leonis would never stop thinking it was his fault.

 

 

-----

 

 

When Cor woke up, his knuckles were bandaged. 

The blood had been dabbed away. There was a cup of water set on the table next to the cot. The cot he kept in his office’s backroom at the Citadel to pass out on whenever he had too much to do to go home. The cot he had passed out on. 

Somebody had closed the shades to the only window, but there was a faint golden glow piercing through them that told the Marshal that it was morning. Past that, actually.

He dragged a hand down his face with a guttural groan, really just wanting to roll over and pass the fuck out again.

But instead, because he was an adult as Regis loved to remind him, with a job and with an investigation to further? Cor slammed his face into his flat, spare pillow once before tossing  it at a wall to remove its temptation and slowly sliding off of his stomach. Sitting himself on the edge of the cot and reaching for the water. 

Under that cup of water was a small note.

‘Hey Dad. Dropped by and you were sleeping. Didn’t want to wake you, so I left you this. There’s also a banana and a PB&J on your desk if you can make it into the other room when you wake up. If not, call me! 

~Prompto XOXOXO’

Cor snorted. Then grunted. Rolling his shoulders - shoulders he must’ve strained flipping tables. Fuck, what sort of parent was he that he had his kid looking out for him like this? He’d sworn years ago that they wouldn’t reach this point again. Once in a blue moon, fine. Fine. This was fine. 

But the last thing he wanted was a repeat of those years where he and his kid were working themselves to death and being the only things keeping each other afloat.

Cid would put a bullet in him himself if he went back to those days.

So despite feeling like something that had been stepped on and squashed and had its guts wiped off of the bottom of a person’s boot, the Marshal of the Crownsguard downed that cup of water and pushed his way onto his feet. 

Pocketing the note, like he’d done every single one from Prompto throughout the years. He had a little album full of them. They were…nice. To reread, when he forgot he had somebody to take care of himself for.

And off he went.

There was a sandwich with his name on it, that his son had made for him.

 

 

-----

 

 

The sandwich was good.

Hearing that Prompto was spending the morning playing games with Prince Oriens was better, because he got to hear their mingled laughter when he popped by His Highness’ rooms to say hello to the both of them. He loved those kiddos. 

But damn, was he exhausted.

 

 

-----

 

 

“...So, is that vodka or coffee?”

Very, very tired eyes slowly shifted from the steaming mug he’d been sipping out of, up to his nemesis. Cor glared. A glare that would have any of his Crownsguard quivering and shaking and trying to crawl away from his line of sight immediately. Curling a second hand protectively around his mug. But all his glare got was a huff of laughter from Drautos.

Which immediately made Cor prickly.

“It’s steaming, isn’t it?” He bitched, taking another sip of sweet, sweet salvation after his long night. Promising Prompto a brand new set of revolvers for having a coffee sent up to him from the kitchens. He loved that kid.

“Huh. I wasn’t aware you could heat up vodka.” 

Not at all in the mood for this, it was too early to deal with Drautos - Cor resorted to the tried and true method he had to get rid of the Captain of the Kingsglaive when he was disrupting his mornings.

Shoving him off of a high place.

Thank those stupid Six that they were standing on top of one of the Citadel’s grand staircases in the Crownsguard wing. They were steep. And freshly polished. Slippery. So all it took was one, big shove. He didn’t even spill his coffee. And he took another sip as he watched Drautos topple over the edge with a sharp curse. 

Heads turned as the Kingsglaive Captain tumbled down two steps. Three. Four.

Then, there was the tell-tale chiming of crystal magic. King’s Magic. And a flash of blue shards that hung in the air, still chiming. Drautos reappeared at the bottom of the steps, stumbling, shaking off the few stairs he had hit and turning to glare up at Cor still standing there.

Still sipping his coffee.

And flipping him off for good measure.

Another sip of his coffee.

“Cor!” Not even Regis limping into view, looking downright exasperated as he frowned up at him, could ruin his sweet coffee.

He took another sip.

“I regret nothing,” he declared, to King and Shield and Captain and the several other onlookers who’d been startled by his failed attempt at murder, before turning about-face and marching off to find Dustin and Monica. Maybe if he asked really, really, really nicely, they’d be willing to have the security camera footage scrubbed for him.

It was a lot harder for Regis to try and make him feel guilty about his feud with Drautos when he erased the evidence, after all.

He kept sipping his coffee.

Drautos may not be as much of a doorknob as he’d been years ago, but he still rubbed Cor the wrong way. It always felt like he was operating on different information, but he wouldn’t share that information, meaning he had every reason to slightly attempt murder when the man frustrated him.

It wasn’t a big deal. He knew how to warp. 

The day Drautos couldn’t warp was going to be the day Cor admitted that he was getting old too.

So, never.

 

 

-----

 

 

A massive, massive, massive stack of papers was slammed down on his desk, and Cor sputtered.

Drautos grinned oh-so innocently at him around that impossibly huge stack of paper that looked a single strong sigh from toppling over, and said, “His Majesty said that since I am feeling slightly weakened by my fall down those steps this morning, you can handle the Kingsglaive final budgeting report for this month. Thank you so much, Lord Marshal.” 

“Fuck you!” Cor snapped, standing and reaching for the stack because all he could imagine was them all falling and scattering and so much more work to do, he began dismantling the pile into smaller stacks as Drautos cackled and stalked out of his office.

But not before the King’s Sword grabbed a brass paperweight off of his desk and threw it at the back of his head.

It hit the door instead. Leaving a noticeable dent in the wood. 

Was the satisfaction of his earlier attempted murder really worth this? 

Of course it fucking was, he just needed to tie the bastard’s arms behind his back before he shoved him off the top of the Citadel next time.

 

 

-----

 

 

The Marshal hadn’t bothered to go and pick up that paperweight, so Dustin unfortunately stubbed his toe on it when bringing him his reports.

He apologized to him at least, because without Dustin and Monica…

Oh, Astrals who never listen, he didn’t want to imagine how horrifying his life would be without those two and their sensible heads around to keep him in check.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Prompto, kiddo, do you still have that itching powder you used on those ‘Guards who were bothering you a while back?” Cor was going for casual.

He was pretty sure, judging by the unimpressed way his kid stared at him, that he came across more as homicidal but who cared? Prompto was used to him having his unhinged, off days. He was his kid, after all.

“Dad, I don’t want to get on Captain Drautos’ bad side. He likes me.” 

And Prompto, it turned out, also liked his Uncle Drautos. Which was more than eighty percent of the reason their rivalry had turned so serious since Cor had adopted the kid. How dare Drautos use his own son to annoy him by being nice to him? 

Too bad he had the added benefit of being the dad between the two of them.

“I’ll buy you that rainbow chocobo tack you said you wanted.”

“Deal. I don’t have the itching powder with me, but I know where to buy some. Give me an hour.” 

He knew there was a reason he loved that kid. Besides him being his son, he means.

 

 

-----

 

 

“COR LEONIS.”

The whole Citadel heard the shouting of an itchy Kingsglaive Captain.

“Well done. Your rainbow chocobo tack will be arriving in Hammerhead in two days.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Dad. Now I’m going to go hide from Uncle Drautos - bye!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

Plenty of the Citadel was also witness to the Kingsglaive Captain chasing the Crownsguard Marshal down while scratching at his neck and his arms and his legs and everything - looking as if some sort of powder bottle had exploded all over him. There were swords involved. And a lot of language not appropriate for the ears of children. 

But there was also them running through a hall that Noctis happened to be wheeling through.

Who stopped. Stared.

And then broke into baffled giggles at the sight they made for, running past.

So Regis, who stopped to stare at Noctis; hand over his mouth to muffle his giggles, flushing because he couldn’t stop laughing, eyes dancing with amusement - Regis didn’t punish them at all. He just sat there taking in what his precious son looked like when he was free of all worries and horrors. 

It was a sight he treasured.

 

 

-----

 

 

To keep up appearances? 

Regis did have to act as King and scold those two very esteemed, very grown up, very respectable retainers of his. Somewhat. Somewhat scold. Somebody had to be the adult between them all, and Regis did wear the crown. But they had given his son the gift of giggles. So he went very, very easy on them.

What he got for his attempt at adulting was Cor huffing and Drautos very easily apologizing as if he weren’t itching red nailmarks into both of his arms and wearing only the undershirt half of his uniform. Itching powder was henceforth banned in the Citadel. A right and fair consequence, their king thought.

Drautos’ easy apology was met by Cor scoffing. And crossing his arms. And glaring at the Kingsglaive Captain, clearly annoyed.

After a solid several seconds of that, he had to admit.

Glaring a hole into the side of Drautos’ head didn’t do anything.

Fine. Time for Cor’s backup plan.

Homicide.

“Cor no!” 

It was just a tiny stabbing. Honestly, they’d all seen Drautos survive worse. They were being really dramatic about it when they all knew Titus Drautos had probably earned ‘the Immortal’ title more than Cor.

The amount of battles he’d walked away from was impressive. The amount of ambushes and assassinations he’d avoided was ridiculous. There was no doubt in his strength as a soldier nor his strength of character, ever-loyal, a brother, a member of their retinue that didn’t even need the official bonds to be that. Titus Drautos had survived even more than Cor ever had.

Even when it would’ve made more sense for him to not.

They’d really, really thought they’d lost him during that final siege from the Empire, after all, when the Emperor had gotten to the Crystal.

And he’d still stumbled home to them afterwards.

So really, what was a little stabbing between brothers? 

 

 

-----

 

 

It wasn’t fair.

Cor had realized a long time ago, all the way back when they were both recruits, that Drautos played at being the bigger person just to piss him off, but nobody had ever believed him! Instead he was the one stuck with even more paperwork for a little bit of stabbing between brothers. 

Prompto, though, proved why he was his favorite - and only - kid by visiting with his camera in-hand. 

Mysteriously, pictures of the Captain of the Kingsglaive running around, uniform half-undone and scratching himself to high hells were posted all over the Citadel’s Kwitter by the end of the day. Cor had won. That was what mattered. And they couldn’t prove he was involved with those pictures being posted at all because he’d taught his kid well.

In the Kingsglaive breakroom, another bet between the Glaives and the ‘Guards was settled.

And they waited for another dispute to break out between their bosses with eager pockets.

 

 

-----

 

 

…Yes, Drautos had successfully taken his mind off of the accused Crownsguard in the dungeons.

Fuck you for asking.

He needed a nap.

 

 

-----

 

 

Quiet days were the best. Noctis knew he hadn’t gotten a lot of them when he was Lucis’ Crown Prince, knew they were manufactured quiet days meant to keep him calm. Contained. In his own head. That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the days so carefully curated for him. It didn’t even sting that they were treating him like something fragile that could break if he was breathed on wrong.

He was something fragile.

And dropping him from a high place wasn’t required to break him.

So he got his quiet days. And those quiet days often included Aurora now too. His tiny white kitten who had gained gangly legs to stumble around on, mewling up a storm when she wanted anything and everything.

She’d also gotten a pretty, bubblegum-pink cat bed in the perfect spot of sunshine in the center of his room. Because she deserved all things good and she was just the cutest.

Quiet days involved Aurora purring as she napped in her ray of sunshine, involved a loom propped up on the royal’s knees, and involved Nyx in the background. Either telling stories of Galahd, of Lucis, or humming weaving songs he’d learned from the Aranahe Clan.

During one of their quiet days, there was the sound of the door opening.

Closing.

And then the patter of small feet, that Noctis instinctively smiled at.

“Whatcha doing?” Ori asked, leaning on the arm of his dad’s wheelchair, curious, so curious. So not shy. It was a great honor to his father that he’d so quickly gotten past that shyness. He wasn’t afraid to simply barrel into Noctis’ life and moments now. Which was perfect. Which was exactly how it was meant to be.

And this was the first time Oriens had seen his dad weaving cloth, so his curiosity was natural.

“Weaving,” Noctis told his sweet son diligently, tilting the loom towards him a bit so he could see how he was stringing the threads together to make a vibrant square of cloth. Simple, beginner stuff, but it looked imposing from the perspective of somebody who’d never done it before. Or, it had when Nyx had leaned over his shoulder to show him the basics by taking his hands and leading him through the movements.

It had gotten his heart pounding, had made him fumble, that weight pressing down on his shoulders, the words spoke straight into his ear.

Hobbies could be imposing. Who knew.

“Can I learn how?” Ori chirped after a second of staring at his dad’s hands working slowly on his loom, and Noctis shifted. Hesitant.

He’d only just begun to learn how to weave, how could…

Blue-blue eyes drifted over to Nyx. Asking for help. And the Glaive smiled easily, just as easily delivering.

“I think you’d enjoy braiding more, mane,” he took all of the princling’s attention with that, waving him close and accepting his curiosity like he spent plenty of time doing so, “Here, I have some good threads. Want to try?” 

Sure enough, out of that wicker basket he carried his crafting materials in he pulled out a set of vibrantly dyed threads.

And sure enough, Oriens nodded his head so fast he probably got dizzy, hopping up onto the sofa beside Nyx and leaning into his space. Asking question after question after question - more than Noctis could’ve kept up with.

But he could keep up with this.

The image that was Oriens snuggling his way under one of Nyx’s arms, and watching the way he braided a shorter set of threads with big, blue eyes. Babbling through his questions. Excited to try for himself, directing questions up to the Galahdian and in general just content. As a child deserves to be. Eager to learn something new. Something he could do with his dad.

Noctis was overwhelmed by the image, in some way.

In a heart swelling up with happiness sort of way.

 

 

-----

 

‘Dad, look.’

“Dad, look!” Lifting his gaze from his loom to Oriens - Oriens bouncing on his feet, Oriens holding out what he’d made to show it off with a proud sort of shyness, Noctis paused. 

Then beamed at his son. Which made Ori bounce more. Clearly taking it as an invitation to crawl into his dad’s lap, despite that meaning his loom being set aside. Noctis didn’t mind. He never could. He simply brought a hand up to the small of his sweet son’s back to stabilize him as he balanced on his dead legs, and let him chatter away about his hobby of all of an hour. 

As if his dad hadn’t been watching him learn from the corner of his eye the entire time.

A braid. A thick, more complex braid than most would put in their hair. Made of vibrantly dyed threads, blues and violets and thinner threads of gold that made it look like a night sky. 

As Oriens proudly showed off his craft, blue-blue eyes not so dull anymore flicked up to Nyx. 

Still sat on the sofa, with thread fibers all over his Kingsglaive uniform, grinning and gazing at father and son. His shoulders drew up a bit when he saw he was being watched. But then that grin was solely for Noctis, who hugged his little dawnlight to his chest and pressed a kiss down onto the top of his head.

“Show me,” he urged Ori, and Ori did.

It was something they could share.

 

 

-----

 

 

Regis Lucis Caelum had sworn upon Aulea’s soul that he would visit Oriens every single day without fail…after losing their son. A combination of knowing he had not been present enough in Noctis’ life, and fear of his grandson growing up without anybody to consider a parent because Queen Lunafreya had all but abandoned him. 

His oath had been hard to keep at times, but he’d managed it. Even if it meant frustrating his council.

Then, that oath had grown to include Noctis. Visiting his son every day, like he once should’ve been doing regardless. Instead of letting his duties drag him away from his son. Instead of allowing him to move out of the Citadel and into the city, for Six’s sake. A deep regret of his that he tried to correct nowadays.

Today, when he visited his son, his grandson was spending time there as well. 

Laid out on his tummy on the sofa, tongue between his teeth and concentrating as he braided threads together. 

When his presence was noticed, Ori rushed to him, practically hopping, showing off the small braids he’d made and telling his grandfather all about what Nyx had taught him, and Nyx was so amazing, and have you ever braided something before, and I can teach you, Grandpa! 

Taking Regis by the hand and urging the chuckling Father to join them. Join the family, for family time. 

Once, he would’ve prayed to the Astrals to have something like this. Just once. No longer.

Now, he had it without any merit to those gods who never listened to his pleas. He had his grandson who had blossomed beautifully since gaining a father - a proper father. And he had his own nightlight back, who leaned a little over his wheelchair’s arm to likewise show Regis how he wove patches of colorful cloth together. A son of his on either side. 

And so many colorful threads connecting them all.

It was all Regis had ever dreamt of having, and he was willing to thank only Carbuncle for him having it now.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Is that…a string?” Clarus’ brow went arch-shaped, staring at the deep, deep blue ring on his king’s finger. His king who laughed at the question.

Who lifted his hand to gaze at the ring so fondly.

“It is a gift from my boys,” Regis declared, proud as any father might ever be, a ring of blue tied onto his finger, “and I love it and adore it and will not hear anything negative about it, Clarus.” 

A fond sort of quirk came to his old friend’s lips at that, as well, and the Shield of course bowed, “As you say, Your Majesty.” 

It was a dream come true for all of the House of Caelum.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Considering how viral that documentary turned out, I’m almost shocked it hasn’t reached Noct or Ori at all,” Gladio grunted, glaring at the screen, arms crossed. Muscles tensing and untensing. And his father got it. Really. They all felt that way whenever that documentary was brought up. A public retelling of Noctis’ torment. An expose on how horribly they’d failed the boy, the child, they’d loved for years.

Ten years too late. Every bit of it was ten years too late.

But it mattered. And it had definitely, definitively, swung support towards Noctis Lucis Caelum, wrongfully convicted and imprisoned former-Prince of Lucis.

There’d been the leaked photos before that, and there’d been whispers wondering just how sane the now twenty-nine years old royal might be. But those whispers had all turned understanding and sympathetic with an hour-long documentary that laid out just how thoroughly tormentive ten years in Mistveil Keep had been. Thank those damned Six that those students hadn’t gotten a hold of all of the unburied reports.

Or they had, and they’d simply decided to, ah, suggest that things like rape had happened as well. 

Clarus had watched through the whole documentary, and not once had the students made it expressly clear that the most violating abuses had happened. Whether they hadn’t uncovered that or they were sparing Noctis that being confirmed for the public, it had been points in those students’ favors.

Students now under the weight of NDAs. As many as the crown could slap onto them without actually arresting them. And they were cooperating, so there was that.

But regardless of any of that, the documentary had been viewed millions and millions of times since its release, across all of Eos. It had been translated into multiple languages, and reported on far more thoroughly outside of Lucis since there was no embargo to restrict it from being mainstream news outside of the kingdom’s borders.

And it had turned most of the mood towards Noctis Lucis Caelum extremely sympathetic. 

Pair that with the likewise public arrests and revamping of Lucis’ royal council?

With the evaluation of the High Court?

With the pending punishments of those Crownsguard who had forsaken their oaths?

And the Lucian people weren't rioting in the streets as much. There weren’t roads being closed down because blockades had been set up by the citizens of Insomnia, there weren’t mass cosmology book burnings in front of the cathedrals of the Six anymore, and there weren’t reporters hounding the Citadel’s PR department to get a statement or two.

Regis shutting down and suing all of the news companies that had run those leaked pictures of Lucis probably helped with that, but regardless.

Clarus and Gladiolus, as Amicitias, as Shields, had their responsibilities. To protect their Lucis Caelums from threat. Even threats that went against their character or their reputation.

Even if Gladio’s Lucis Caelum was Prince Oriens now, and not Noctis.

There was a certain Glaive they’d been entrusting him to.

And there were still peaceful protests to keep their eyes on. There was the fact that Queen Lunafreya had made four separate requests to visit Insomnia in less than four weeks, there was the more polite and understanding communications with Empress Stella - and since when was the Empress more understanding than the Oracle? It was leaving them so very wrongfooted and uneasy - and there were also the offers of sympathy and support from Accordo who thankfully were at least staying on their side of the sea.

All of which was theirs to manage.

All of which was worth it, because what they handled their Lucis Caelums wouldn’t have to.

“Come to dinner tonight, Dad,” Gladio said suddenly over new reports they’d been sorting, “Cecilia’s making your favorite. And the kids miss their grandpa. Things here will hold steady for a single night - just the one. Iris is going to be video calling from Gralea too, so she’d love to see you. Hear from you. Come on.”

His son threw in a charming smile and big, puppy dog eyes that Clarus had hardened his heart against long ago. Had to have, unless he wanted his children to walk all over him.

But…Gladiolus was right. There was no harm in taking a single night to spend with his family.

Amicitia Manor was his preference to his rooms in the Citadel, and it had been a while.

“I suppose I have no choice, if your sister wishes to see me,” he gave in with a playful amount of fear in his voice.

Gladio snorted, “Oh yeah. Can you imagine if you didn’t? Iris would probably be halfway back to Insomnia by tomorrow morning with her scary girlfriend. Neither of us would live to see tomorrow’s dinner. Has your will been updated recently, because you might want to get on that, Dad.” 

Both of them laughed.

Both of them got back to work.

But for dinner that night, they were all together as a family in Amicitia Manor.

 

 

-----

 

 

One would think it’d be awkward; Prompto returning to spend time one-on-one with Noctis.

One would think wrongly.

Obviously it wasn’t what it was, when they were young and dumb and in love, alone in an apartment overlooking Insomnia’s cityscape and feeling like the only two people in the world. It wasn’t ever going to be that again. That simple. That easy. That closeness, of them against all of Eos - that was gone. It had grown strained, had wilted, in Mistveil Keep.

But what they did have was their shared love for Oriens Lucis Caelum. Ori who shoved the two of them together so he could play King’s Knight with his dad and uncle. 

Ori, who neither of them ever dreamt of disappointing. 

Of course, Noctis’ son couldn’t be present for every single one of their meetings, but he had done enough to twine them together with fresh threads. Noctis learned his last name had officially changed to Leonis-Aurum. Prompto learned that he’d taken up weaving as a hobby. Noctis learned that his best friend of the past had completed both the required training for the Crownsguard and Kingsglaive -

And Prompto learned about - met - Aurora. 

Which meant they spent almost an hour cooing over the sleepy kitten, squishing her cheeks and reminiscing about all the many times that Noctis had been late to school because he used to stop to pet every stray cat he saw. Even if it took two or three hours for those cats to let him get close. 

Prompto had brought his camera this time, and by the end of them catching up? He had easily a hundred photos of Aurora in all her kitten-fluffy glory. Photos he promised copies of to Noct.

It was new. It wasn’t bad. It was okay.

That was what their relationship could handle right now.

Relationships had been a big thing for the former-crown prince of late. They were also something Prompto cautiously dipped into after Ori had left them to their own devices, lounging on the sofa in the sunlight and chatting about whatever came to mind.

Slightly more impersonal than they used to be, but it was something.

“Do the other guys visit you at all?” 

Prompto fidgeted with his camera, asking that, an old and anxious tick that seemingly hadn’t changed in the last decade that Noctis chuckled at.

“Gladio comes by to tend to the flowers,” he motioned to the many colorful vases that had taken up residence in his bedroom, the petals, the aroma of their pollen, it was nice and it was an even nicer excuse to see his once-Shield every week, “Iggy comes by with most of my meals.”

“Ignis said something about you asking about new recipes?” Prom sort of prodded, and he nodded. The idea of some new recipes to cook had made Iggy really, really happy. So he’d suggested a few.

A few that a certain Glaive had introduced him to.

“Mhm. Nyx sometimes goes down to the kitchens to make Galahdian dishes for us,” Noctis explained, picking a few thread fibers off of his pants that seemed to perpetually cling to his clothes ever since he started weaving, thinking about that last dish of steamed mushrooms and fruits that had been delicious, “I tell him he doesn’t have to, but he always seems to come back to my rooms with it anyways, so…” 

He shrugged.

Prom snickered.

“Makes sense. I mean, he’s basically been living with you. For months.”

“What,” it took a second for the words to register because they made Noctis’ brain stall, but he was already shaking his head and denying and looking around, “no, Nyx and I haven’t…”

Looking around at his bedroom. His bedroom in the Citadel.

Looking at the sofa that Nyx slept on every night. And the pair of boots unlaced right next to it. And the overnight bags piled against its side. And the loom that Nyx used, left on its cushions. And a few of the storybooks from Galahd he’d been showing Noctis that were scattered across the coffee table. The coat thrown over the back of one of the chairs. 

The spare Kingsglaive uniform hanging on his closet door.

The special set of bowls on the vanity where he stowed his beads and braid threads when he needed to redo his hair.

The spare set of kukris on Noctis’ bedside table.

That charger wasn’t his, and that tablet wasn’t either, and that leather-bound journal with feathers and beads and a fang piercing one of its corners definitely wasn’t his.

Neither were those prayer candles on a tiny table that Nyx had moved to the corner of the room, full of miniature altars and offerings to Ramuh. 

The fur pelt - coeurl fur, Nyx had said, an honor of his as an Ulric Chieftain - on the windowseat was also, most definitely, not his.

Noctis stared at his bedroom as if this were his first time seeing it in months, wondering when he and Nyx had become so intertwined on a daily basis. He knew for a fact that if he rolled into his personal bathroom right then, that Nyx’s special handmade soaps and scents from Little Galahd’s market had their own shelf behind the mirror that he’d simply accepted appearing one day. Small things, so many small things from Little Galahd, from Nyx’s apartment there, that had added up.

And until somebody pointed it out, Noctis hadn’t noticed a thing.

After months of cohabiting with another man.

“Eos to Noct? You there? Knock knock? Heh - Noct Noct.” Waving a hand in front of his face, Prompto had no clue how his comprehension of his own life had just experienced an earthquake. 

Noctis had been living with Nyx. 

As in, living-living. Was this a crisis? Was he having a crisis? He wasn’t going away into his head. He wasn't going numb and hollow and pale. Actually, he felt like he was going rather pink. His cheeks felt warm. Ears too. That was stupid.

He was…was twenty-nine years old. So what if he’d been cohabitating with Nyx? So what if they’d been sleeping in the same room for a few months, and sharing a bathroom, and if sometimes he saw Nyx walking around in only a towel and if sometimes Nyx curled up next to his bed to hold his hand as he slept and if sometimes he’d just sit and watch Nyx write in his journal because they lived together.

It was a totally normal, well-adjusted realization to abruptly have.

Totally.

…Was everyone aware of this other than Noctis? Because he felt like somebody should’ve really said something sooner. 

How did he just not notice he’d moved in with his Glaive, his personal guard, attendant, a dear friend of his? 

For months? 

Or had Nyx moved in with him, because it was his rooms? His bedroom? His sofa? Actually, Nyx had been sleeping on the sofa for months. Or on the floor if he slept next to the bed. That couldn’t be comfortable, could it? Obviously a Kingsglaive would never ever complain, but, like, shouldn’t Noctis get a second bed? Or a pull-out sofa at least? An air mattress? 

For all the times that Noctis Lucis Caelum had gotten stuck in his own head, forgetting he’d aged at all in the last ten years, he’d never felt more like an inexperienced teenager than he did in that moment, with Prompto laughing so hard he was hugging his stomach. Laughing at him.

“It’s not funny, Prom!” 

“What’s not funny?” And, Nyx. Standing. In the doorway to his bedroom. Looking bemused and looking curious, dressed in casual clothes and definitely, definitely not just a Glaive on duty. In his bedroom. Where Nyx slept. Every night. Where he stayed, where he got dressed, where he returned to before and after his shifts.

Noctis shoved himself back into his shell, and turned over to snuggle with his carbuncle plushie until the whole world went away.

Why was his heart beating so fast?

 

 

-----

 

 

He really was happy to see Noct come out of that dark, hollow place more and more. He wasn’t faking it. Any of it.

But…

Let it never be said that Prompto Leonis-Aurum was daft. As a refugee in the Barrows, sometimes the only thing that had saved highschool him was his situational awareness and ability to pick apart people. What they were feeling. Who they were directing those feelings towards. Hate or disgust or lust. 

The fact that Nyx Ulric couldn’t take his eyes off of Noct as long as they were within sight of one another? 

He saw it. He recognized it. He breathed through it, and politely excused himself.

Prompto couldn’t blame Nyx. At all.

He used to be the same way.

But the fact that Noctis was starting to confusedly do the same? Following the Glaive with his eyes. Trailing off in conversation. Watching Nyx carefully, sighing a little when he went away from him. Brightening when he came back to him. Talking about him with that - that smile so soft and tender whenever Nyx wasn’t in the room. The light coming back to his eyes. All for one man.

One man who wasn’t Prompto. Not anymore. They’d never, exactly, hidden what they felt for each other as teenagers. It had felt at times like the whole Citadel was aware of their feelings, was waiting for them to confess so they could tease them together. 

It was part of the reason why the press came down hard on Prompto after Noct’s trial. Conviction.

They used to act the exact same way towards each other.

It made his heart ache more than it should be allowed to, to see that shifting towards Nyx Ulric. A verified war hero. A charming, older man, who seemed to see so much more of his oldest bestest friend than Prompto did anymore. Noct - Noct deserved to have something soft and tender and sweet like that. He did.

Which was why Prompto kept slinking away from them and their happy little love nest, to call Cindy and just listen to her talk about her day at the garage so he wouldn’t…

Bring up old hurts, for selfish sakes.

That time was done. They were done.

And when King Regis came to see how he was handling it, he smiled at the man who might’ve…been his father-in-law, once upon a time.

He cried a little, in private, later, talking to Cindy over the phone and wishing his wife was there to run her fingers through his hair and talk sweet to him like she did whenever his heart got away from him. Runaway chocobo-style.

The heart wants what it wants. Prompto Leonis-Aurum knew that best.

As Noctis Lucis Caelums’ Heart.

 

 

-----

 

 

Oriens noticed - he always did! Uncle Prom was sad. He was sad a lot when he visited now, and whenever asked he would just give the prince a very apologetic hug. Squeezing him tight. Ruffling his hair. 

“Sorry, kiddo,” he would say, sighing, “Remember what we talked about before?” 

Sometimes sadness doesn’t go away. 

And something sad was forever going to be between his dad and Uncle Prom. 

Ori made sure to play lots and lots of King’s Knight 3 with his uncle, acting as much his age as he could so he could get Uncle Prom to laugh and cheer and grin for real again. It was…like with his dad. If his uncle needed him to be small and young to keep his mind off of the bad stuff, Oriens could be that. 

They’d still be family, even if there were sad things between them, right? 

 

 

-----

 

 

“You need to hit something?” 

Prompto blinked, then shook off that sad haze over his mind and nodded gratefully to his dad. Here to return a favor. A lot of favors, actually. Because they were a lot alike, and they both needed the same sort of outlets to get out of their funks. Nobody would ever say Prompto Leonis-Aurum was as fearsome as his father, the Marshal.

Or, nobody had until they’d seen him punch a hole through a punching bag in his anger.

And nobody had started flinching away from him, scared, until they’d seen him on a battlefield side by side with his dad.

“I definitely need to hit something. Need it to hit back too.” 

“Think I can help with that.” 

They had a process. It worked. It left them both with bloody knuckles, but it worked, and they always got pizza afterwards. Watched a movie together while lounging on the couch in his office. Looked at the photos Prompto had taken that day. It worked. It just worked a little bit less when the feelings he was working away at revolved around Noct.

 

 

-----

 

 

The next time Prompto passed by Nyx, there was no jealousy. 

There was only gratitude that Noct still had someone in his heart, even when the Heart couldn’t be there.

His dad had been right. They’d already grown up, grown apart, and clinging to the past would only hurt his once-best friend. So he’d let go.

 

 

-----

 

 

Overseeing the training of the Kingsglaive recruits was actually something that Nyx enjoyed. Really. Their bright eyes, their energy, the ways they gave themselves concussions warping into walls - ah. Memories. It made him so nostalgic for his own days of training, way back…twenty years ago? He’d joined the Kingsglaive when he was eighteen, and he was forty-one now, so twenty-three years ago.

Six, he was old.

Another year or two and he’d be needing a walker. His hair would probably start turning silver, and his hearing would start going, and the young’uns would start calling him an elder.

Nyx snorted at the idea.

A sound that seemed to summon the little ones towards him. 

Not so little - they were adults, but they reminded him of eager little ducklings all waddling up to where he was leaning against one of the climbing walls of the Kingsglaive training yard. The imagery made him smirk.

“No cigarette?” One of them, Priya, bright kid, bit snarky, snarked. One of Pelna’s nieces with the braids and brains to back those relations up as a Khara. And she wasn’t the only one who seemed surprised by his lack of smoking. But the answer as to why wasn’t any big thing.

“Quit.” It really wasn’t big at all, actually. Not to him.

“Quit smoking? Really? The Nyx Ulric quit smoking?” One of her little friends joined in on the snarking, testy little things and Nyx snorted at them next. They made it sound like he’d been a ‘pack a day’ sort of smoker. Maybe one or two. Usually only on days he was stressed. And once he was given incentive, it was a habit he was willing to drop fast.

“His Highness didn’t like the smell.” 

Noses wrinkled at that, and yeah. Who really liked the smell of cigarette smoke? If Nyx caught any of the recruits smoking, he would’ve tossed their cigarettes so fast and sent them to run laps. Not just because they weren’t legally of age to smoke, or because Kingsglaive weren’t supposed to, but because it really was just that bad a habit to get into. 

The hypocrite says to the impressionable youths, as he often smokes right in front of them.

Crowe would’ve fallen over cackling if she’d ever heard his inspirational pep talks he gave to the recruits at times. As if he was some paragon of truth and integrity and responsibility.

As if.

“I didn’t realize Prince Oriens cared so much,” Faroh, one of Axis’ sons, said then. Sounding a bit surprised. A bit more than a bit. A lot. 

Nyx started, so there was a pause. Then, he realized his mistake.

“Prince Noctis,” he corrected them.

“Ah.” 

“Oh.” 

“Right…” 

An uncomfortable sort of silence lingered after that. The recruits glancing between each other, nudging at each other, a general ‘you ask!’ energy to all the young’uns. Nyx would laugh ordinarily. Tease them a bit. It was what they expected out of their most playful lieutenant. Today though - or rather, when it came to inlustris, he couldn’t be playful like that.

He understood their misunderstanding, but it still burrowed under Nyx’s skin and made him uncomfortable.

“Back to your routes. All of you.” There was some grumbling…but those grumbles were relieved. Relieved to have gotten away, scattering back to their different paces and exercises around the training yard, without having to had talked about Noctis Lucis Caelum.

That burrowing under Nyx’s skin got more uncomfortable, and he shifted into crossing his arms and frowning at the recruits as they got to training.

Again, it was understandable. It wasn’t good, but it was understandable.

When somebody heard the title, ‘His Highness’, in Lucis? Their minds went to Lucis’ Crown Prince.

Oriens Lucis Caelum.

Not his father.

Technically speaking, inlustris hadn’t been reinstated into the official registry of the royal family since his return. He was accepted to be of royal blood, of course. But officially? On paper? On every ledger in Lucis? He had no position at court, he wasn’t considered an heir, and should anything happen to His Majesty? It would be Prince Oriens who took the throne, not Noctis.

And even if you disregarded the official standing of it all, most of the current Kingsglaive recruits were too young to have ever really paid any attention to the crown prince before Prince Oriens.

Most would’ve been anywhere from eight to ten years old when Noctis was wrongfully convicted. Wrongfully imprisoned.

So why would their minds immediately go to Lucis’ erased royal, instead of the crown prince they’d dedicated so much time to learning how to defend? 

It was understandable.

But it wasn’t right. 

Not to Nyx.

 

 

-----

 

 

At times, it hit Nyx how his life in Insomnia had changed in the last few months. 

At other times, it didn’t even register.

Being one of the Captain’s lieutenants hadn’t changed. Being a Kingsglaive hadn’t changed. His apartment in Little Galahd was a bit emptier than before, sure. He wasn’t going on a bunch of ops, but there hadn’t been many of those before either. What was a warrior without a war? A man who trained for war, but rarely got in actual fights. 

Unless it was for a training exercise, Nyx’s reasons for leaving Insomnia had numbered in the few for the last few years in general. He stayed because Little Galahd still existed in Insomnia and some of his people stayed, so he’d kept to his oaths and he hadn’t regretted that. Still didn’t. Still never would. So nothing had really, really changed for him.

But, again, his hole-in-the-wall apartment in Little Galahd was a bit emptier than before.

He visited it - his actual, legal home - every other day, and mostly only because he was checking in on Little Galahd. The Galahdian neighborhood that had turned out less temporary than anybody in Insomnia, Galahdians included, had thought it would.

But a lot of things had ended up nestled around inlustris’ rooms.

Catching a fallen star meant he spent more nights in the Citadel than he did out of it.

Catching a fallen star meant his duties transferring from the Kingsglaive to his starlight specifically.

Catching a fallen star meant Nyx Ulric now had permissions he’d never had before; clearance to stroll straight into the royal wing of the Citadel at any time, day or night, and do whatever he wished there. 

It also meant a few major bonuses in his checks that he donated to the community, mostly. Other than what he used to buy crafting supplies from the market or passer-by hunters.

Just - changes.

A lot of changes in a lot of little ways.

Like Nyx leaving a training exercise for the recruits he’d been overseeing, and strolling on into the finest, most ornate hallways of the Citadel. Past Crownsguard that frowned at him. Past Kingsglaive who stopped him to shoot the breeze. Past all of that and the security measures of the royal house of Lucis - 

Straight into a prince’s personal rooms and bedroom. Where he draped his jacket over a chair, and stretched out casually, and crouched down to give Aurora scratchies when the white feline came to him mewling and mewling and mewling. A cuddly thing, she was. A fine companion for inlustris. Liked her naps, liked her fine dining in the royal Citadel that came straight from the best kitchens in Lucis, and liked Nyx too.

Not that that last one was…necessary, for her to share, with his star.

With Prince Noctis.

“Nyx.” Prince Noctis.

He raised his eyes to the man sat on the sofa, smiling at his return.

“Inlustris.” 

The smile brightened, somewhat. There was something else too. Something in the way those blue-blue eyes danced away from him. Something in the way he tilted his head and cleared his throat and kept smiling. But the smile, it was reminiscent of Prince Oriens. Or of a younger Prince Noctis. Small, sincere. Shy. It made Nyx’s heart do a traitorous leap of faith. 

A leap of faith that brought him over to the sofa, hopping around Aurora who kept winding between his legs to rub her white fur all over his black uniform pants and purr, purr, purr.

There was a handheld loom in his lap, and golden and white yarn between his fingers. Nyx had thought something thicker, something softer, might be even easier for inlustris to weave than thread. He’d been right. He was so glad he was right. His star looked so…happy.

None of what they’d been making thus far went further than squares and rectangles of cloth, simple stuff. But Noctis was proud of his every creation.

And Nyx was proud of him.

“Whatcha got there, starlight?” He asked easily, leaning over the back of the sofa, as if he didn’t know. Then the man leaned back and Nyx’s nose practically ended up in his raven-black hair, the smell of his shampoo and aftershave filled his head with clouds of the night, and he missed out on the first part of the prince’s answer.

“ - soft, isn’t it? You…bought it from Little Galahd?” 

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat a little and let it be, even if his heart wouldn’t, “lots of handmade crafting supplies in Little Galahd, inlustris. Galahdians may be warriors, but we’re also craftspeople. We never had big factories and automated systems to make our possessions. Had to do it mostly by hand.” 

A fact that had thankfully remained true, somewhat, in Insomnia. They hadn’t lost their crafters’ hearts. Their creativity.

They’d just, also, come to appreciate modern conveniences during their times of strife.

Which was one of the major reasons why Little Galahd remained in Insomnia, despite the Storm Islands being free of Niflheim occupation for a few years now.  

“And the…dying?” Noctis made a motion, indicating to the golden yarn, such a perfect shade of gold it filled Nyx with pride as a Galahdian. Even if the Aranahe weren’t his clan, they were wonderful weavers, cloth-makers, the works. Even royalty was impressed. He’d have to tell them that when he visited the market again.

“All done by hand, as I told you before,” Nyx shifted his weight from one hip to the other, still practically wound around his star’s head, and still slightly cloud-minded from the smell and he risked leaning in a little closer, “You’ll love it, inlustris. They do some of the dying in their stores, to show potential buyers the process. You’ll see.” 

His Majesty may have placed his plans to take Prince Noctis to Little Galahd on hold for a few weeks, but he hadn’t been lying.

His star would love getting out of the Citadel.

His star.

By Ramuh - he had to stop thinking that when looking into those starry eyes. 

It was going to show in his eyes if he didn’t.

“You’ll take me?” And then those starry eyes had swiveled around to look right, right into his, barely an inch between them, and he saw for himself how they widened as inlustris acknowledged how little space was actually between them, his request hanging in that barely a breath of space, and - 

“Yeah,” throaty, raspy, Nyx’s voice unraveled under that starry sky, “I’ll take you, inlustris. Of course.” 

The two stayed that way, for…longer than could be laughed off, and the Kingsglaive knew he was overstepping. Overleaning. Barely stopping himself from letting his gaze drift down to his star’s lips. Lost in the night sky of his eyes. By the Storm Father, he could give the Saren clan - those poets and storytellers - a run for their money right then. 

Noctis turned away first, turned back to his yarn and loom and what he was becoming familiar with.

Nyx shifted back so his very, very heavy but silent exhale wasn’t blown right across the royal’s nape.

If he’d stayed put a moment longer, he would’ve noticed how red the tips of Noctis’ ears were. But he hadn’t, so he didn’t, and instead they just went to their personal spots in the bedroom they’d been sharing for months to wind down from…that.

That, was that.

And Nyx Ulric was an absolute fool to think he could stay so close to his favorite star and not fall into its orbit to burn.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Drautos and Cor are a divorced couple with split custody over Prompto in some alternate universe out there, and I support it.

Something slightly softer to spoil Noctis a bit.

Chapter 10

~>-----------<~

 

 

 In Noctis’ dreams, he could walk. And in Noctis’ dreams, he could speak without that damaged rasp wrapping around every word that leaves his throat. And in Noctis’ dreams, he could laugh. And he could cry. And he could exist in the light without shame, without guilt, with an everlasting, underlying voice hissing from the deepest parts of himself don’t look at me. Don’t see me. I am ruined, I am broken, I am disgraced and dishonored, please don’t look at me.

 Because in Noctis’ dreams, he never was sentenced to Mistveil Keep.

 Some said, back then, some said his sentence of a lifetime of imprisonment was him getting off easy. Was favoritism towards the Lucis Caelums. Wasn’t harsh enough for the crimes he was accused of.

 Noctis would’ve rather death, for most of those ten years. Ten years out of a lifetime. Too much. Not nearly as much as it was intended to be. There had been times he doubted his father had ever loved him at all, if he was willing to leave Noctis to rot in Mistveil like that. There had been times he wondered if his family, his retinue, knew exactly what was being done to him and had turned away. Knowingly closed their eyes to it. Left him to it.

 There had been times he wanted to die, times he wanted to kill.

 Now there were only times he wanted to forget.

 Memories he wanted to lay to rest in a grave that was never marked, never found again, left to become overgrown and completely nothing. Nothing at all. 

 Memories that he couldn’t kill, nor bury, but that he could push away. With Ori’s sweetness, his big, bright eyes and smiles. With his dad’s presence, a hand in his hair, a kiss to the crown of his head, a calming cologne wrapping around his neck that he didn’t mind strangling him. With his uncles ever-visiting, his old once-retinue checking in on him, Nyx.

 Just, Nyx. Nyx with his stormy eyes. Nyx with his braids, his beads, that he’d let Noctis touch and told him the tales of so many times that he could practically repeat it all from memory. Such a sign of affection for Galahdians. Such a sign of respect for a Lucian to learn. Nyx who was there day-in and day-out. For the good days and the bad days and the easy days and the hard days. Nyx who had stepped into a space Noctis had never noticed was empty at his side until the Glaive spent their every moment together occupying it.

 Oriens had been his greatest blessing.

 Nyx had been his greatest surprise. 

 Both were the biggest reasons Noctis could keep awake, well, and within his own mind more often than not nowadays.

 Treasures. The both of them. His treasures. 

 His dawn and his storm.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He’d lived. He continued to live.

 He learned new stories and new skills, and with every new thread he wefted he was one new weave further away from Mistveil Keep. With all its horrors. All its nightmares. All of its rusted shackles, and bloodstains, and nailmarks scoring the rotten woods of cells better left never in the light again. 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum lived and continued to live.

 And continued learning. Adding each layer of new, fresh, innocent knowledge to the wall he was building in his mind against a decade of oppression and pain.

 It was the small things that needed to be built up the most sturdy. 

 And it was the small things that combined into something big, so long as they were nurtured properly.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Bathing. A luxury. Some thought it was, some thought it wasn’t, some put no thought into it at all. Lucis’ Crown Prince once or not, Noctis was of that first persuasion now. For reasons so understandable nobody even joked about how long he soaked in his private baths. Even if it was for hours. Even if they had to knock on the door to check on him often. There was no joking, there was no pointing it out.

 There were only those memories, of lice and rot and grimy, dirty rags for clothes, for sheets. A rat nest for a mattress. So many flinches when he experienced what it was to wash with warm water for the first time in ten years as Regis helped clean his son up.

 Bathing truly was a luxury compared to the bucket and rag he’d had infrequently for a decade.

 It was a luxury.

 One savored. One sought, when Noctis Lucis Caelum steadily realized he was allowed to ask for a bath whenever he desired one. Multiple times a day if he wished. Soaking from morning to noon, so long as he was careful. None of them would ever deny him, not ever, not for any reason. He enjoyed it. The reminder that he wasn’t there anymore - in Mistveil. 

 He enjoyed the warm water that he felt even with so many of his nerves dead, and the feeling of the steam on his face, the smell of the soap so clean so sweet so not…

Not Mistveil. 

Wheelchair, plus a bathroom, meant he was lucky his rooms had been made accessible to him when he was eight years old and wheelchair-bound then too. Noctis would wheel himself into the spacious bathroom when the mood struck him, to wash off the memories clinging to him like muck. And he would work his way around getting undressed and carefully transferring himself and his dead legs into his very, very spacious and ornate bath.

Where the waters were full of iridescent bubbles and steam curled through the air, Noctis could sit on one of the benches along its edge and soak.

As long as he desired to.

A small freedom few would call such, unless they had known what it was to have it taken from them. Warm. So warm. Shivers would climb his spine from it, and his scars, his bones, would stop aching for just a second and he would scrub carefully at himself until he was satisfied. Sighing. Content to stay until somebody came to tell him that any longer and he'd boil himself.

Magic curled up inside of his soul like a content, purring cat. Like Aurora in her sunbeams. 

In his palms, Noctis let a bubble land. And watched it pop. Flinching back away from the sudden burst, the rainbow spray of it, and he laughed.

He let another bubble land in his cupped hands. Watched it pop. And let another bubble do the same. Watching it pop without a flinch this time, the suds freckling his cheeks. He felt lazy, dipping his hands into the warm waters. He felt happy being lazy. He liked it, felt no shame for it, and brought his hands back up above the water with a whole bunch of bubbles cupped in them.

Some of them popped as they met the steam, but otherwise he was holding a big bunch of rainbow-shimmering bubbles that smelled like something flowery.

Somebody giggled.

Startling Noctis.

The bubbles - some floated and some popped and some plummeted back down into soapy waters as he straightened up, twisted around. Surprised.

Surprised, up until he saw the big, blue eyes peering around the bathroom door at him. The shy, embarrassed and fidgeting figure of his son there. A second set of eyes above his with the height of a certain Glaive. Nyx’s height. Gaze politely fixed on the bathroom tiles, but tone amused as Noctis relaxed and he said -

“Inlustris, it seems Prince Oriens would like to join you.” It sounded as if Nyx was trying to keep himself from grinning and ruffling the princling’s hair. It was a nice sound.

So too was the offer.

“Oh, Ori. Come here.” He waved and bubbles filled the air, floating on warm currents of steam, rainbows filling the dark and gold-tiled bathroom. So much gold, even in the dark. So suited to his light who was there and excitedly scampering over to the bath.

 It took a bit of fumbling; those buttons on his nice, princely shirt. But Oriens managed it. And managed his own shoes that he kicked off, letting them smack against the porcelain, and getting a little huffy and a little more bashful when it came to getting his belt off.

 It got stuck. Noctis giggled, would’ve offered to help except water wouldn’t be good for that expensive leather, so he waved Nyx in from where he was hovering behind a barely opened door. 

 “Allow me, mane,” of course Nyx was willing to help, and Ori was willing to let him help, thanking him quietly as he straightened out the belt and slid it free of the loops of his dress pants. 

 Which Ori immediately shoved down alongside his underwear, to the bemusement of both adults there, and leapt for the bath.

 Noctis snorted when bubbles exploded, filling the whole of the bathroom alongside the small tsunami his son had caused in his excitement. Sloshing over the edges of the tub. Risking the clothes he’d left scattered on the tiles, before Nyx saved them from a soaking and took them over to where Noctis’ own dry clothes had been left on a table.

 From the sea of shimmering bubbles, his sweet dawnlight reappeared rubbing at his eyes and covered in suds. 

 Which made his dad laugh and draw him closer by taking his hand.

 Taking a dry cloth to wipe away the suds from his eyes, brushing his wet bangs off of his forehead.

 “Hi Dad!” Ori chirped, blinking up at him, the image of pure innocence and all that Noctis had ever loved for a decade. 

 “Hello, Ori,” he whispered back, so, so grateful to…somebody, anybody, Eos or fate or whomever had given his freedom back as he sat his baby boy on the bench beside him, laughing when Ori sneezed and it caused a storm of bubbles to pop under his nose. 

 Mindful of his many, many - too many, scars, he sank a tad down into the cover of the bubbles, so Oriens wouldn’t have to see. Happy as he thought he’d never be as he watched his son sniff at each of his soaps, picking and choosing the ones he liked best. He looked so tiny in the sea of bubbles. So tiny and pink and brilliant and overjoyed to be there.

 “I’ll be sure to tell His Highness’ tutors he’ll be late today,” came from Nyx as the Glaive chuckled and left with a bow that was more playful than truly meant to portray respect, and Noctis caught his eye before he’d gone.

 Gave him a smile he hoped conveyed his thanks.

 “Dad!” Gave Ori back all of his attention again, only so happy to, as his son gave him the biggest smile imaginable and held up his shampoo bottle, “Help me?” 

 Maybe Noctis hadn’t been present for Oriens growing up, but he was fairly sure his son had been taught to wash his own hair before he turned nine years old. 

 But he never said a word about that, as he indulged his precious child and helped him wash his hair.

 Rubbed his back.

 Hugged him, laughing, as their bath turned into a bubble battle that Ori won.

 His reward? 

 An even bigger hug.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “A good bath, inlustris?” Nyx asked after; after Oriens had been found and folded into Iggy’s schedule for his tutors again, after Noctis had toweled off his hair, after he was wiping the steam from his glasses and pushing them back up his nose, after.

 And he said.

 “Yeah. You…should join us next time.” 

 He was halfway out onto the balcony to bask in the sunshine with Aurora before it registered in his head the way Nyx had startled, the way he’d stopped in the middle of wiping down his blades, what he’d offered.

 He stayed out there on the balcony for a while. A while. Because even if it hadn’t been a sunny, cloudless day? His face would’ve still been warm. Really, really warm.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens drew his dad a picture.

 A picture he was really, really proud of! Whenever he had a session with his therapist, if he didn’t have any ‘big feelings’ to tell her about, she let him draw for the whole hour. A whole hour! It was nice. It was quiet time. And nobody bothered him, and Oriens could stick his tongue between his teeth without worrying that somebody would scold him for not being prince-like, and dump his colored pencils all over the carpet, and lay on his belly drawing. For a whole hour! Did he already say that? 

 Anyways, the little prince used his best colored pencils. And he spent a really long time on the drawing. A really long time. Because it was the first one he’d ever drawn for his dad.

 He wanted Dad to like it. He wanted Dad to like it a lot, and maybe wanted Dad to smile at him because he liked it so much, and maybe even pat him on the head.

 Oriens knew he was getting too old to be patted on the head. And too old to do silly things like demand his dad’s attention, and ask to bathe with him, and run away from his tutors -

 But he’d only just gotten his dad!

 And he’d…he’d…growing up, all of the other kids at court had talked about their parents. Bragged about them, really. Most of those other kids weren’t at court anymore, because their parents were in trouble, but they’d still talked about them a lot! ‘My parents did this’ and ‘my parents gave me this’ and ‘my mom said’ and ‘my dad said’ and…a lot of stuff like that.

 Ori would watch TV shows, and there would be these scenes between mothers and fathers and children. And Ori would read books, and there would be more of those scenes. And two years ago, when Uncle Gladdy had his cousins he saw it firsthand in a way he’d never seen before. And he was seven years old and wondering why - even if he sort of understood because he was mature like that!

 He was so grown up, Grandpa would say and pat him on the head, and he was!

 And Grandpa tried so hard. Came to see him every day, spent as much time as he could with him, all of them did! The retinues, his family, they all tried! He loved them so much.

 But on TV, then, sometimes he’d see Queen Lunafreya. And she was his mother, but she didn’t…she didn’t really want him. She wasn’t really around like a mom would be. If he sent her letters, she responded as the Queen of Tenebrae and addressed them to Lucis, to the royal family, but she didn’t really…

 And then, and then, and then - Ori had met his dad! That huge, dark part of him! His past! The part nobody would talk about, the part everybody pretended didn’t exist, his dad who was a huge mystery! Who he only knew the name of because he eavesdropped, and only knew what he sort of looked like because he snooped in his grandpa’s belongings. 

 And then he’d met him, and his dad was amazing!

 A little bit different, at times, but there was nothing wrong with being different! Even if sometimes he hid in his head, and even if sometimes he seemed super sad, and even if sometimes it almost seemed as if he was mad at everyone in Eos except Oriens. Even so, his dad was there for him. Spoke for him. Looked to him. Smiled at him. Hugged him tight and often, and pressed kisses into his hair and rocked him when he was in his arms, and he would listen and he would - he was his dad.

 He was his dad. The sort of dad he always dreamt about! Actually - better! Because even when the small spirit of Carbuncle would bound through his dreams, the best he’d ever really dared hope for after all of the secrecy was…

 Maybe a hug or two, if he was lucky? 

 Maybe a dad who would tolerate him standing next to him, or a dad who wouldn’t yell because he knew some dads did that, or maybe a dad who would sometimes let him talk to him a bit. Just a bit. 

 Because the way everyone whispered about his dad, about ‘Noctis Lucis Caelum’, he'd thought…he’d thought for sure that maybe his dad was a tiny bit mean.

 But then he’d met Dad, and he was so sad, and so hurt, and so -

 He loved Oriens.

 Oriens knew. Oriens had felt it, in his heart, in his magic, he’d felt it. And nobody who looked so sad and so alone and so hurt but still loved could ever be a bad person. 

 So Oriens drew his dad a picture! And he colored inside the lines, and he went really slow and he spent, like, three whole therapy sessions on it. Miss Penny praised it so much. And even gave him the thumbs up to give it to his dad. Which meant it was absolutely awesome, because Miss Penny never lied to him. 

 So the princling took his drawing so carefully in his hands and scuttled off to his dad’s rooms. 

 He felt so short and so meek when he stood in front of the doors to his bedroom, where two Kingsglaive stood pretending they weren’t watching him. He knew they were, but appreciated them pretending as he gathered up his bravery to go in. 

 In, where his dad was weaving his colorful yarn together into squares with the loom Nyx had given him.

 In, where the sunshine was warm and Aurora was stretched out on a sun-warmed tile and he stopped to give her a few belly rubs and giggle at how fluffy she was before gathering his bravery again. 

 Dad stopped weaving the second he approached, drawing held behind his back shyly, and just smiled at him as he stood there. Bouncing on his toes. Trying, failing to find his words - 

 He just ended up holding out the drawing for his dad to take.

 “I made you this!” 

 Then, he waited.

 His masterpiece was taken out of his hands, gently, and Oriens stared really hard at his toes. Waiting. Waiting some more. A lot of waiting. And fidgeting. And, wow, that was a really interesting button on his shirt and - 

 “Oh, Ori,” his eyes shot up at the soft breath that was his name, and there was his dad. Looking at his drawing. Not smiling - beaming. So big and bright, his magic was warm with it, beaming so big he looked like he was going to cry, “I love it, Ori. Thank you.” 

 And then Dad reached out to pat him on the head, once, twice, the third time turned into him ruffling his raven-black hair that Uncle Iggy had brushed for him that morning.

 The ruffling turned into Dad’s hand curling around the back of his neck to tug him in, tug him up onto the sofa, onto his lap, to tug him into a hug where he buried his face in Ori’s hair and pressed kisses down into it.

 He wrapped his arms as far as they could go around his dad, even if they were short, and hugged him back. As best he could. One day he’d be able to wrap them all the way around Dad, and then he would be the one taking care of him!

 But for now, he was the small one and he felt so loved he could never mind.

 The drawing Dad asked him to explain.

 So together, with Ori on his dad’s lap, he pointed out every detail and explained it all excitedly, shyness forgotten, so loved like he’d never even dreamed he could be.

 Noctis, so proud of his son like he’d never even dreamed he might be in person.

 The drawing one of his greatest treasures now.

 A drawing that ended up framed and hung on his wall right next to his royal bed. A drawing of him, and of Ori. Holding hands in the gardens. And Aurora was there beside them in the sun, because she liked laying in the sunbeams! And his grandpa was there too with arms around either of them, because Grandpa liked to give them both hugs! And Nyx was standing behind his dad because Nyx was always with his dad! And Uncles Gladdy and Iggy were there too, and so was Aunt Cecilia with his cousins, and Pops Clarus and Cor were in the background with Mister Sword - Drautos - because they were always watching over them all to keep them safe!

 And the path’s stones matched those out in the gardens, and he drew the clouds without dark outlines because that made them look even more cloud-like and he was really proud of that!

 And yes, it was one of Noctis’ greatest treasures.

 Oriens was so glad he got to have a dad.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Later, the drawing had reminded him, Noctis asked Prompto for pictures of Oriens growing up. 

 Oriens as an infant in a cradle, all alone. Oriens in small, adorable onesies with plushies and toys and being held by members of his family. Oriens throwing around building blocks, his hair wild and fluffy and unruly with big, baby-fat cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. Oriens taking his first, wobbly steps towards Regis’ outstretched hands. Oriens growing up. A baby, a toddler, a child.

 A child that got bigger and bigger with every picture. Losing his baby fat. Getting lanky, and gaining teeth, and losing those teeth too. Pictures of him with wide, baffled eyes as he pet a chocobo for the first time, pictures of Prompto putting him in a saddle, pictures of him playing with toy swords, pictures of him dressed up for social engagements and big events. The suits got more and more official and less comfortable, but Oriens never stopped smiling like everything good and bright in the world.

 Pictures of Oriens closer to the son he knew now, pictures of him with his hair less wild, with guards shadowing him, with him doing exercises in the training hall with Gladio in the background. Pictures of him helping Ignis bake. Pictures of him being hugged by his grandpa. 

 Pictures of Oriens grinning at the camera with one of his front teeth missing, showing off a drawing he’d made.

 Pictures of Oriens.

 His baby boy.

 His son.

 Noctis went back to the first of them all; Oriens, a tiny, delicate little thing swaddled in fabric and held in his dad’s arms. The first picture ever taken of him. And he wasn’t even in the arms of one of his parents. He was in the arms of his grandfather - a grandfather who looked pale and sallow and so worn out it was a wonder he had the strength to hold even that baby he had his arms.

 That baby he was staring at with all the wonder and grief anyone could ever feel at the same time.

 His dad wasn’t even smiling, but he was holding his son so tight. Even in a picture, he could tell that. His dad was holding onto Oriens like Eos would tear his grandson away at any second, for any reason. 

 Noctis failed to realize he was crying until teardrops were splattering across the picture.

 Prompto laid a hand on his arm.

 When Noctis leaned into it, he draped that whole arm across his shoulders. And when Noctis leaned in even more, he pulled his best friend into his chest to shelter and hold against his heart as he shook with silent tears. Pictures scattered all around them. Those happy feelings scattered too, in tatters, needing to be woven together again when he had the strength.

 Because he’d missed it all.

 His son, his Oriens, his dawnlight, he’d missed it all. 

 He’d missed his birth. He’d missed his very conception. He’d missed his first laugh, his first babbles, his first steps and words and his first hugs. His first night alone, in a bed instead of a crib. He’d missed Oriens’ first dreams, and his first time using magic, his first warp and his first drawing.

 He’d missed it all.

 He’d missed so much of being a father; the only thing he’d ever really wanted to be. To be just like the dad he loved so much. More than anything. More than any magic, more than any crown, any sword, any throne - let it fall and let the cheers come because he’d help topple it himself if it helped his family. He’d missed it all. Oriens, his son, he would never regret him. Never not love him.

 But he also would never get those moments, would he? Carbuncle could give him as many dreams as were possible, inserting him into those moments, but none of it was real. He’d been imprisoned, and Oriens was here. Had he wondered why he didn’t have a dad? Had there ever been a time when he thought he was glad he didn’t, just because of what Noctis was accused of? 

 He could have so many moments now, he hoped. He had. He could hug Ori, and he could kiss him, and he could listen to his stories. Could give him advice for King’s Knight even if it was outdated. Could nap with him. Could see him learn how to do small hobbies like braiding, and could bathe with him, and could receive his first drawing from a son to a father.

 But he could never…

...

 Noctis cried into Prompto’s chest until there were no more tears. And there were clouds covering the sun. And Aurora was resting her little chin on his lap, purring at him. Her big, teal eyes almost sad in a way.

 His eyes swollen, red, and his heart weary, Noctis slumped. Wanting to never look at those pictures again…and wanting to stare at them until they were burned into his mind, forever, simultaneously. He wanted to always remember the moments he wasn’t there for. He didn’t want to remember that he wasn’t there for them.

 He wanted to be a good dad.

 He wanted to have been there.

 It was the one thing he couldn’t be. Couldn’t have been.

 There was cologne. The aftershave he remembered from days when he was a child, when he slid into his dad’s bath, when he was set on his dad’s bathroom counter kicking his legs and giggling and watching his dad trim his beard and giggling and wiggling and giggling - 

 “Come now, Noctis. Come here, sweetheart. Come back to me. Come back to me.” They’d learned to stop apologizing every time. They’d learned it made it worse. But for this?

 For this, Noctis Lucis Caelum wanted an apology. From a father to a father, he wanted his dad to apologize. His magic swished, furious, demanding it. Poking none too kindly at the soft, rippable blanket that was his dad’s magic. Give it to him, give it to him, give it to him.

 “I am so sorry, my boy. I am so sorry. I love you. I love Ori. I am so sorry.” 

 He got it. 

 It didn’t make him feel any better. He didn’t go away. But he didn’t stay either. He closed his eyes until they stopped burning, stopped throbbing, until he stopped choking and until the sun was warm on his skin again. Until Aurora stopped purring. And when he opened blue-blue eyes, they were not dull, but they were oh-so worn down. He was oh-so worn down.

 Despite how he stumbled and how he shook and how he barely managed it, King Regis lifted his son and brought him to his bed.

 And even though it was midday and there were pictures scattered all over the sofa and its coffee table? 

 He shushed his son, and laid in bed beside him. Holding him. The black sheets warmed by the sun. Carding his fingers through his hair, and pressing kisses to those raven-black locks, until Noctis slipped off to sleep. A sleep guarded by Carbuncle. The plushie and carving of that guardian on his pillows beside them. And Regis was there. There and apologizing still. Until his voice went raw and rough and ragged, he apologized.

 Until his son’s magic lightened up, until it stopped demanding repayment for what the Chosen King was cost, until then he apologized.

 Holding his son.

 He apologized.

 Because the Father was always the title he was proudest of, before any magic and any crown and any throne.

 And he’d do anything for his child or his child’s child.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Yet there was nothing that could take back what was already done.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Some of those scattered photos were framed. Set on Noctis’ bedside tables, set on the mantle of his rooms’ fireplaces, hung on the walls. Ori saw them when he came to see his dad. His dad who needed him to be small, needed him to be bright, so he was. So he let his dad pull him into his lap, and let his dad just hold him because sometimes Dad just needed that.

 He wasn’t gone. But he wasn’t all there either. 

 Dad was just sad, so Ori did his best. Because he knew his father would always do the same for him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Iggy made him cakes full of cream and berries he’d tried for the first and final time twenty years ago.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Gladio brought him a big, big, frankly bush of a bouquet that rivaled the bulky Shield delivering it. It was placed in front of one of the arching windows of his bedroom. The sunlight shone through the petals most of the day, and made for a relaxing sight that Noctis could focus on.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Prompto showed him more of his photos. Not just of Oriens.

 ‘Rip the bandaid off.’ Time had passed. The clock wouldn’t, couldn’t, be rewound.

 Prompto showed him more of his photos. Of the last ten years. Prompto brought him photo albums with so much hesitance in every one of his movements, eyes clouded by uncertainty, more violet than the vivid sky-blue they were a decade before. But he couldn’t refuse a request from Noct. He couldn’t. Not even if he thought it was a request that would hurt his old…flame. Love. He was Noct’s Heart.

 And a Heart sometimes had to hurt to heal.

 Photos of the King as he aged. Photos of Oriens, but also photos of Ignis. Photos of him growing and ascending to become a distinguished advisor to the King of Lucis, the next Hand to the Crown Prince, Oriens. Oriens, not Noctis. Photos of Gladio, growing, changing, softening. Iris beside him in some. Photos of Gladio, his girlfriend, his fiancé, his wife. A grown man, a Shield, a father - in a hospital room with twin babies in his arms and tears in his eyes as he beamed at the camera.

 Photos of Uncle Clarus stood proud beside him, hand on his shoulder, a father, so proud. A grandfather. King Regis stood beside him. Congratulating a brother.

 Uncle Cor, growing up, going on trips to hunt and train with Prompto. Photos that told a story of him taking the Niflheimr under his wing, under his sword, teaching him and leaning into him and becoming a father too, even if it was in an unconventional way.

 Photos of Prompto in Leide’s deserts, in Duscae under the arches, in Lestallum trying their spicy foods with his tongue stuck out, on the sea’s beaches fishing - in Gralea’s snowy fields with a hat over the red tips of his ears and a sniper rifle slung over his back. So many photos. So many of them compiling into stories. The stories of his family. The stories of people he had once cared so deeply for.

 Iris, growing up, no longer the dainty highschooler she was when he was accused. Iris an Amicitia. Iris with hunter tags around her neck, with an arm that was mechanical and not flesh, with her arm wrapped around a woman with silver hair he didn’t know, the two of them mid-kiss while Gladio laughed at them in the background.

 Talcott - Talcott all grown up. Almost a man. With Prompto’s arm slung over his shoulders and the pair with matching holsters on their thighs. Hunting together. Herding together. At chocobo outposts and standing victoriously in the foreground of a successful hunt, their bounty in the back. 

 And others, there were others. 

 There was Jared, who Noctis had always thought was what a grandfather would be like, there was his funeral. There were various Crownsguard and Kingsglaive who he’d grown up being guarded by, slowly disappearing as the stories went on. Some had happy endings. Some didn’t. There were old classmates of theirs here or there, then gone. There was babble about celebrities, about public figures, about the ways Eos had changed because Noctis demanded to be told and Prompto could never deny him.

 There was so much.

 So many photos, again, scattered.

 There were photos that made him cry, like the somber ones in front of graves or battlefields or shot in the night of a place abandoned to the daemons. 

 There were photos that made him laugh, like the funny ones documenting Uncle Cor and Drautos’ ongoing feud. Pranks abound. All of which Prompto played up for him. Telling him about the simple ones like exchanging their coffee’s sugar for salt, or the times itching powder got involved, or the times Uncle Cor would shove Uncle Drautos off of high places. And Noct laughed. He did.

 But he also stared too long at some, wondering, thinking, trying to imagine that moment that was frozen in his hand. Trying to put himself there. If he was there. If he was there, would it be different? What would’ve changed if he was there?

 But he couldn’t be there. He wasn’t there for any of it, and they’d just kept on living. Like it didn’t even matter. Like they didn’t even miss him. They erased him like he was a dirty little secret and did he even matter? 

 But that was the voice. That was the voice, and Noctis knew that, and when he recognized that he sucked in a sharp breath, and he dropped the photos.

 But wasn’t that voice only telling the truth? 

 A lot of new photos were added to his rooms. 

 Prompto left feeling more like he’d failed Noctis than ever before, holding his camera as if it were a cursed object better left abandoned than cherished. He…didn’t take as many photos as he used to. There was a whole year, almost two, after Noct was gone that he hadn’t even touched a camera. Had let it collect dust in an abandoned apartment, while Cor kept him safe outside of the city. 

 He’d only started taking pictures again because his therapist told him he was allowed to have hobbies, even if Noct was gone. 

 He didn’t regret the photos, but he regretted that they were all he could offer his best friend from back then now.

 When he left, King Regis met him at the doors to Noct’s rooms. He laid a hand on his shoulder and gave him a solemn nod, then headed in. Ori on his heels. For Ori, the blonde found it in himself to not regret and to smile, to crouch down and give his nephew a big hug, an even bigger squeeze, and a ruffle of his hair before they went to Noct.

 To help, where his Heart could not. Once-Heart. No longer. He never took those oaths that a member of a retinue were meant to.

 But he knew, because of an old letter he always kept on him, that Noct planned to ask him the day they graduated. And as far as Prompto was concerned, that made him a Heart.

 It was just…sometimes…a heart couldn’t actually help anything, could it?

 

 

-----

 

 

"Clarus, the labs tested and retested the DNA. Every test said the same thing."

"...Damn it." 

"The DNA was that of a Lucis Caelum, but not Regis or Noctis. The lab technicians were willing to stake their fucking livelihoods on that one truth being the truth. And I'm inclined to believe them, considering some of them ran the same tests ten years ago and they're downright horrified they never considered another reason for the DNA not being a match." 

"There's a Lucis Caelum bastard somewhere out there," Clarus finally, finally confirmed in the secrecy of only his office and only to the youngest of his brothers, furious, "and they helped frame Noctis."

 

 

-----

 

 

 The skies were bruised. Blacks and blues that Noctis was so used to seeing on his own skin. For so long. In the shadows, bruises, black and blue and yellowed and then black and blue again. He was on the floor and hurting and it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. Help, it hurts. Help, they won’t stop. Help, I can’t do this anymore.

 He was on the floor.

 And - help!

 Because he didn’t deserve this.

 Did the skies deserve it? They were bruised. There were no clouds covering the stars that night, but there was the telltale shimmering of the Wall that protected the Citadel. It, and the lights of the city, dulled those stars a little. The Wall that was his dad’s lifeforce. The Wall that he’d thought would take that dad he loved from him sooner than later. The Wall that now defended his dear son. His Oriens. His dawnlight. 

 The Wall he could no longer hate nor blame, because he understood what his dad felt when powering it to protect his nightlight. Noctis. His son. It had made Noctis a hypocrite.

 It had made him sad, to see the shimmer of the Wall that wasn’t as easily noticed during the day. During the night was the only time one could really see the gift his dad gave to so many, for so long. The gift that was costing his dad years, day by day. Week by week. Year by year, more years off of his lifespan. More years that Noctis and now Oriens wouldn’t have him. 

 It was there, and shimmering softly, and there were the lights of the cityscape of Insomnia, the quiet rustling of leaves down in the garden as a nighttime breeze blew by him. Sounds that he attributed to his childhood, to before Mistveil. Sounds of the city, of his home, the Citadel of the House of Caelum. The protection he was afforded, the protection he was stripped of the second somebody accused him.

 Framed him.

 Disgraced him.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum was out on the balcony. Staring at a bruised sky, and a wall that refused to fall for anything because it stood in protection of family. He sat on the balcony in his wheelchair. His glasses inside, because he preferred the world a little bit blurry when he felt like…he might cry, which he did. It was harder to notice that way. 

 There had been a lot of photos. Prompto had changed so much, but that? That hadn’t changed. Not entirely.

 Everything else, it felt like, had.

 Was he an awful person for hating that? Hating that the world had moved on without him? Hating that nobody had…that him, the loss of him, that it hadn’t changed anything? Oh, sure, it’d given Lucis a new crown prince to fawn over. It had changed the line of succession, it had tainted the government in the eyes of the people somewhat. Maybe, in broader strokes, it had emboldened his dad enough that he ended the war finally because he hadn’t cared if he lived or died during the fighting.

 But what had it really changed? Noctis’ name had been struck from the records. Scribbled out. Erased. The Father had had a son, and that son had committed crimes that earned him being disavowed and replaced, and a new son was born. Oriens Lucis Caelum was where their family tree picked up, but nobody talked about Noctis as anything more than a wretched, rumored criminal.

 Nobody…nobody talked about how he liked to pet stray cats.

 Nobody talked about how he loved sweet desserts, how he refused to eat vegetables no matter how the cooks tried to hide them in his meals, how he could nap for fifteen hours straight and then wake and then roll over and nap more. Nobody talked about how he was a teenager who still believed in the guardian spirit of children’s dreams, and nobody talked about how he liked going to the arcade with his best friend, and nobody talked about how much effort he put into charity events even if he neglected so many other events.

 Nobody talked about how much he loved playing with children when they were brought to galas so their parents could socialize, and nobody talked about how he tried to be considerate of everyone - to the point that his compassion got him in trouble at times. How he took the blame, how he stood up, how he spoke out because he recognized - 

 Recognized that even if he wasn’t really a good prince, he was a prince. He was born to a responsibility, and he couldn’t just pretend he wasn’t, and he had to fulfill his duties even if he was really bad at doing it without a lot of effort.

 He tried.

 He cared.

 He loved.

 But all they remembered was his trial and his sentence.

 And then he was erased, and what else was he? 

 He was nothing.

 “Inlustris.” 

 Well.

 He was also a fallen star, according to Nyx. Nyx, who always got a tiny bit nervous whenever Noctis went out onto the balcony. Especially late. At night, especially. When better for a star to fall? It wasn’t too obvious. It had taken a few times for Noctis to outright notice that the Glaive was nervous. The way his fingers kept curling and uncurling, the way he kept his body loose and ready to leap, the way his eyes refused to look elsewhere even if Noctis tried to point something out to him.

 The first time in ten years that they had met, and it was because Noctis hadn’t been able to handle the passage of time. Because he had finally found some of his failed strength, but only thanks to him deciding to pull himself up onto the balcony’s railing and throw himself to his death.

 He’d decided to fall, and Nyx had decided to fly to catch him.

 Maybe this, tonight, reminded the Galahdian too much of that night months ago when they’d met again. A smoke break. That was all that had saved the ruined royal. A smoke break - and it hadn’t escaped his notice that Nyx never smelled like smoke anymore. There would be no smoke break now. There was just Nyx. On the balcony with him. Watching him, watch the bruises shift and sparkle with stars. 

 “Nyx.” 

 “I am here, starlight. Are you?” There was a rasp, a chuckle, almost, in response to that question. It took Noctis a second to realize the sound came from his own, damaged throat. He swallowed hard when he realized. He turned his eyes down. To the shadows of his garden. To where he played with his dad and his son in the sun. 

 His dreams, come true.

 He was free, but they still felt unattainable even as he lived them.

 A finger curled under his chin, slowly urging him to turn his eyes away from the dark beyond the balcony’s railing. He did. He found stormy eyes, level with his own not-so-bright blues because Nyx had come and crouched down next to him. A finger curled under his chin, a hand on his knee he couldn’t feel.

 Magic always, always, always primed to protect reaching out to him.

 “...You’re allowed to be angry, inlustris.”

 Noctis looked into those eyes of the storm as if he would find absolution in them. Was that what he was? Was he angry? 

 “You’re allowed to rage. You’re allowed to hate. You’re allowed to not forgive because what happened to you went past any point of fairness or forgiveness. There is no taking back that. There are no reparations that will ever be enough. No words that will…that will miraculously fix it. No medicine to heal those wounds. These wounds.” 

 Speaking, Nyx lowered that hand from his cheek not so hollow anymore to press it over his chest, over his heart. Flattening the fabric of his shirt to his skin. Something he could feel, something that grounded him enough to suck in a short, surprised breath.

 Did he need permission to be mad? Maybe he thought he did.

 He didn’t.

 “It’ll scar, inlustris,” but Nyx was so firm, so resolute, so unwilling to bow to him in that moment beneath bruised skies that he felt a little like he wanted it. From him. He wanted it, “It’ll hurt. It’ll never really disappear because that’s not what these wounds do, but you’ll survive it. You already have…and I am, in awe of your strength, Noctis.” 

 A jolt ran through the once-crown prince. Nyx had never called him so simply by his name before. It sounded odd, okay. Nice.

 He was angry, he realized, reaching up to wrap his hand over the one atop his heart. Holding it. Cradling it, really. Guarding it for him, while he was wound up too tightly inside of his own head to do so. Nyx had been doing that for him for a while, hadn’t he? But he was angry.

 And he was allowed to be.

 “I’m…angry.” An encouraging nod, and Noctis found those next words he needed, even if he stumbled while saying them, “I am, but…I want to move on. Too.” 

 There weren’t tears. Not this time. He was too tired to cry. Too relieved to finally shove these poisonous words out of his chest where they’d been festering.

 “I want…to move on too. I want it, to not, hurt anymore, Nyx. I want it to be the…past…too.” 

 How could it be, when even speaking reminded him of it; damaged voice and damaged child and he wasn’t a child anymore.

 He’d grown up in darkness, in the end.

 How could any King of Light withstand that? 

 “You will.” The, the surety in Nyx’s oath then, the confidence? It wasn’t the normal sort. Wasn’t bravado, wasn’t simply ‘I know you can do it’. It was more ‘I know you can do it, because I did it too’. It was experience. Knowledge. From a man ten years his senior, who’d spent decades as a soldier. And it pushed the strength into Noctis’ heart to lift a head he’d let drop, to stare into those stormy-sure eyes again.

 “You will, inlustris, and it’ll hurt,” and the small, soft smile Nyx was smiling was full of pain, “You’ll want to give up. You’ll want to give in. But you’re strong. You survived, and you’ll keep on surviving, because you have a son to come back to, don’t you?” 

 A father straightened his spine immediately, a father thought of their children first, a father comes back, and Noctis straightened his spine as best he could. Oriens at the forefront of his mind. Ori, with those big, blue eyes he’d inherited from Noctis and from the mother he’d never gotten the chance to know. With a laugh so similar to Carbuncle’s chirps, shy but so, so sweet Noctis just wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and snuggle with him forever.

 For that? For that, he would survive. The magic of his soul, no matter how damaged and destroyed and distrusting it now was, writhed with that oath. Of his.

 He was no longer young and soft and innocent, but his son was.

 For Oriens, Noctis would do just about anything. Even bring gods to heel and even set Lucis aflame with his own two hands.

 “It’s alright to be angry. Just remember you have somebody to come home to, inlustris.” 

 Eyes refocusing, refocusing on the Glaive knelt before him in his devotion, in his care, in…whatever this was between them, that had been slowly blossoming for months.

 The royal didn’t quite like the way Nyx Ulric said that. The somber, finality of it. The shadows that filled those stormy eyes, the way his smile fell a little further into shade and bittersweetness. He didn’t like the way Nyx seemed to believe what he said when it came to Noctis, but…didn’t seem to believe he had anybody to come home to, if the roles were reversed.

 After months of having the Galahdian Chieftain at his side day-in and day-out, Noctis was seized by panic at the idea of Nyx simply not being there one day.

 So he gripped the hand flat over his fluttering heart tight. And then he took his other hand and also wrapped it around it. Squeezing. Tight. An anchor. Like what helped him.

 Those stormy eyes cleared the shadows to find him again, as if his blue eyes so dull and so not a child’s were beacons in his darkness, and he sucked in a breath.

 Something in the night air. Something soft. Something scarred. Something still…

 Innocent.

 “You too.” It was the command of a Lucis Caelum. It made Nyx’s eyes widen ever so slightly, made him straighten his own spine and draw back his shoulders, made those stormclouds swirling in his eyes sparkle - the first command Noctis Lucis Caelum had dared give since Mistveil Keep. And it was a command to him. The honor, was his.

 “You too. Come home to me and Oriens.” 

 There was the chime of crystal fractals in the air around them. A bond ready, wanting, praying to be formed this night under bruised skies. But praying does nothing. Who is there to listen? Nobody. Nobody except the darkness, that had a funny hat and a manic, angry glint in its amber eyes as it watched, unseen. Always unseen.

 When Nyx Ulric tugged his hand away from a prince’s heart, the prince let it go because he’d never keep his Glaive against his own will.

 But instead of going away from him, Nyx caught his hands. His small, frail, thin hands still so pale they glowed in the moonlight in both of his bigger, stronger, tanner hands and held them so, so tenderly.

 And brought them close.

 And bowed his head to kiss the backs of each of them. The knuckles. The fingertips. Lips feather-light and ticklish, beads shining in the moonlight.

 “I will, inlustris. I swear on my braids I will.” 

 When Nyx stood again, it was at his star’s side. Staring at him. In awe, always in awe. Always in faith. Always with - dare it be called? - affection lurking in the clouds of his eyes. That stormfront. It was Nyx at his shoulder, the two of them staring up at the shimmer of the Wall and the dim stars together. It was them. And it was okay to be angry.

 And it was a question, later, before they called it a night.

 “Inlustris?” He hummed, Nyx tapped his foot against the wheel of his wheelchair, so he glanced up at the man with braids and beads in his hair who was smiling softly down at him. He hummed again. Nyx chuckled. Nyx was always there. Nyx asked.

 “Let me show you Little Galahd?”

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

I'm sleepy so imma just drop this here and go sleep, but next up we should be in Little Galahd! That'll take a bit of work, but I'm looking forward to it~ For now we have some more softness and sadness since that's the name of this game. At least for a little while.

I honestly thought this story would be maybe a 40,000 words one, but NOPE. And my outline - we're not even halfway through it yet, so it looks like we're in for the long haul folks. Please sit back and enjoy more of Nyx not even needing a ring to be a good stepmom to Oriens. <3

Chapter 11

Notes:

Quick reference for this chapter -

"<>" This means the language is Galahdian! There's a lot of it spoken in this chapter, so I'm just going to assign it a marker at this point. Especially since Noctis is learning how to speak it.

Onward, to happiness!

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 Well.

 A lot - a lot - of convincing went into getting Noctis Lucis Caelum to Little Galahd.

Hours. Hours in the royal office of the King of Lucis. Hours of standing in respect and at attention, nodding patiently and listening to every one of that king’s concerns because that king was a father. And a father worries. And worries and worries, and never ceases to worry. Especially a father who has lost a child once before. The worries were boundless.

 Neverending.

 Nyx withstood the onslaught of them all.

 He suspected his king was, likely, secretly, hoping that the hours and hours of what was, in essence, a sort of shovel talk would scare the Glaive away. They did not. They would not. Because Nyx Ulric had made his star a promise. A promise he intended to keep. He’d broken enough promises in his life already.

 So he bore the worried babble of a king and father. He bore the weight of the expectations heaped on top of him by war heroes like Clarus Amicitia and Cor Leonis.

 He bore the glares of Gladiolus Amicitia.

 The gritted teeth of Ignis Scientia.

 The scowls of Prompto Leonis-Aurum.

 He bore it all, because he had made a promise. Make no mistake, this? This request? It was not a well accepted one by anyone in the Citadel of Insomnia. There was not a single soul in the whole of Insomnia who would probably speak in favor of it. Even if His Majesty had acted as if he would consider it weeks ago, facing that consideration was a different sort of story.

 How could he let his son out of his sight, after what had happened in Mistveil? How could he let Noctis out? Out, away from the protection of the Wall? How could he entrust his sweet child to anyone else? Even when he knew the truth was that he had failed Noctis too, how could he allow this and still walk tall afterwards? 

 His Majesty’s magic was a furious, snarling wyvern curled around its nest and eggs and ready to rip any who came close to ribbons.

 Nyx came close. And stood there. And bore it.

 And at the end of all those hours? It was Regis slumped over his kingly desk, staring numbly at his hands splayed on its surface. At the Ring of the Lucii circling one of his fingers. Staring at it. And aware. That he was only delaying the inevitable. 

 Which was confirmed by one very, very bold and very, very kind yet cruel statement from the Kingsglaive before him. Challenging him for the sake of his son. 

For the sake of a star.

 “Your Majesty, the Citadel cannot become another Mistveil Keep. His Highness should be free to leave, if he wishes.” 

 The wyvern flinched back so hard, so startled, so hurt it lost all its fury.

 And so, it was allowed.

 “...Very well, Glaive Ulric. You…may take my son to visit Little Galahd this week. Cor, see to his protection detail. Clarus, see to Oriens’. Gladiolus, Ignis; you two know your duties.” 

 So it was allowed.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was plenty to prepare when any member of the Lucis Caelum family ventured into the city.

There was quadruple that for Noctis.

 They would risk nothing. It was taken as seriously as a campaign in war. As those days when assassination attempts were ripe on the House of Caelum, before Empress Stella filled the void left on Niflheim’s throne with the death of her grandfather. Public favor may follow Noctis now, but - no risks would be taken.

 “Fifty guards.” 

 “Your Majesty…fifty guards may not even fit in Little Galahd. Don’t forget the ‘little’ part, please.” 

 “Forty guards and a barricade.” 

 “Your Majesty, folks will still have to come and go from the district while we’re there. We’re picking a day when business will be slow, yes, but my people still live there.”

 “Forty guards, then. And at least twenty Kingsglaive undercover.”

 “Your Majesty, with all due respect, the whole detail should be Kingsglaive. Especially my fellow Galahdians. His Highness…doesn’t exactly like seeing Crownsguard hovering.”

 The negotiations regarding Noctis’ protection detail lasted hours longer than the original negotiation to be allowed to even go had. Cor, Nyx had an ally in. But not much of an ally. The Marshal of the Crownsguard was also unwilling to risk anything, but he was of the mind that more guards meant making it more obvious where Noctis would be. Making him a bigger target.

 So the talks went on. And on and on and on.

 Clarus had a far easier time setting up Oriens’ protection detail for the day his father would be in Little Galahd. Protocol since the war, after all, dictated that if any member of the royal family would be leaving the protection of the Wall then all members of the family would be put under guard until they’d safely returned. The princling was a little upset that he couldn’t go with his dad to Little Galahd, but he understood.

 After being bribed by Ignis with a few sweet treats.

 The days leading up to them going to Little Galahd were more hectic than Nyx had been expecting, but every minute of that hecticness was worth it for that moment.

 That moment where he could walk back into the bedroom he’d been bedding in for months, shrugging off his coat, grinning, saying, “Inlustris, how does Wednesday sound for our visit to Little Galahd?” 

 Worth it for the way his star lit up and asked if he was serious, happy. Truly happy. Excited too.

 When His Majesty saw how excited Noctis was too, he could fight no longer to make his trip to Little Galahd not happen. The king surrendered with a sigh and sad smile.

 And so, the whole of the Citadel held its breath as it waited for Wednesday to arrive.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Wednesday arrived.

 And Nyx felt foolish, getting all dressed up in his nicer clothes in inlustris’ own bathroom, but this felt like an event worth it. 

 Worth it all the more for the way those blue-blue eyes glanced him up and down and lingered when he offered to be Noctis’ personal guide for the day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 As his personal guide, Nyx Ulric stayed right beside the prince all the way…to his home.

 Right beside. So close, he could feel how painstakingly inlustris was concealing his eagerness. The man was practically vibrating. Staring out the car’s windows with an almost painful amount of curiosity, and Nyx was reminded that this was his first time out of the Citadel since being brought back from Mistveil Keep months before. He made an oath then and there to let his star enjoy every moment of this day.

 To never rush him, to never hinder him, to be a guide but not a shepherd. He wanted to see his illustrious inlustris stay eager, the whole day. 

 He wanted to see what Noctis looked like when he was maybe, for once, carefree.

 Just happy.

 Just bright, like he once was.

 So he let the fallen star absorb Insomnia with all its towering structures and its districts that had changed in the last decade, answering any questions he had…pretending his palms weren’t a little sweaty from nerves. Wondering, hoping, that inlustris would be just as curious about his own home and people.

 He wanted to show Noctis Lucis Caelum his world.

 And he wanted to see the once-Chosen King love it, as he did.

 He was a greedy man. He wanted it all. He wanted, wanted, and wanted. More, more, more. He was selfish, covetous, but he still wanted. He hoped to the Stormfather and back that he would get what he wanted, this time. This time.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Wow.” 

 Nyx preened at the amazement lighting up his star’s face.

 And that was his reaction before they’d even left the Crownsguard-issued, black car at the center of their caravan from the Citadel to Nyx’s home district.

 A home district he had great pride in, regardless of what anybody else thought of it.

 Never, not even once, had the Galahdian man thought Noctis would spit on Little Galahd when he saw it. He had not thought he would be one of those people who wrinkled their nose and gave him flat platitudes, lies for compliments, being only polite but seeing no further than their own toes when a community was placed before them.

 He had not thought that, and his star proved him right.

 The instant his wheelchair had been carefully unfolded and he’d transferred himself into it from the backseat of the car, his star lit up when he saw Little Galahd.

 His home and heart and hearth, and his star had love in his eyes for it, from the first moment he saw it.

 Insomnians will tell anyone they meet that there’s nothing special about ‘Little Galahd’. They’ll talk on and on with pride about the Crown and Crystal Districts. They’ll give their nods to Rogue Row. They’ll take walks on Wanderer’s Way, and seek out Clever Corner, and of course bow in the deepest of respects to Mystic’s Mere, but Little Galahd? 

 Little Galahd was originally a part of the Barrows. ‘The Barrows’ being Insomnia’s refugee district, that had its foundations built in war and blood. The lost, needing somewhere to haunt. In those years, those years of Noctis being a child and Nyx’s first years in Insomnia, it was a stain on the brightness of the city that never stopped shining.

 A shadow they tried their best to hide.

 What was Little Galahd, but several dirty streets where the Galahdian refugees were shoved and intended to be forgotten about? It was an egg that would eventually hatch into a community. Because the Galahdians had become more than mere refugees.

 Galahdians were warriors, brave, resolute, ingenuitive - many went on to serve in a militarial capacity. Building on their foundations.

 And it took years - and years and years - for them to create something out of their dirty streets. But they had. They had built a Galahdian community in Insomnia. One? That wasn’t going anywhere, even after the war had ended. A few years ago visitors would’ve looked at Little Galahd and seen little more than colorless bricks and black streets and hollow-eyed people that had lost everything that mattered in their lives.

 Now, they saw the soul of Galahd.

 Saw the buildings that had been painted brighter, the murals on every open surface any painter might find. They saw the tapestries hung from every other open surface, of such vibrant weaves and threads, turning the entirety of the street into an art piece. They saw the lines strung between buildings with their lights, their flags. Saw the signs handcrafted and carefully hung above near-every doorway; businesses in every home for they were homepeople.

 They saw the streets lined with new bricks, the marketplaces that had sprung up in every alley and on each corner. The workstations outdoors, the musicians on every street that filled Little Galahd with music from home. The district had very swiftly, years ago, negotiated that Little Galahd be a district that banned vehicles, so everyone traveled everywhere on foot. 

 Each of the clans had claimed their own portions of Little Galahd, and while some had emptied in the years since the war’s end? The roots they’d laid down remained.

 Little Galahd was a sprout that had been taken from the original tree of Galahd and planted.

 And flourished, in time.

 A sprout full of music and laughter and people with strong hearts. Stronger souls. People who lived and learned and adapted and made a home from the husk they were handed. It was why so many had chosen to stay, even with Galahd being freed from Niflheim occupation. A blend of hearth and home and modern life in the city - some had needed that.

 Some simply couldn’t bring themselves to go back to the site of massacre after massacre. So much loss. So many mass graves.

 Little Galahd was their solace in the face of that.

 And Nyx Ulric was so proud to be able to show his star its beauty.

 It had taken a lot of love and effort to turn this cygnet into a swan. Love and effort that Noctis Lucis Caelum clearly appreciated, staring at just the start of Little Galahd’s streets ahead of them with blue-blue eyes shining and lips parted slightly. Speechless. Understandable. When last he might’ve visited Little Galahd ten years ago, it wasn’t nearly so bright and joyful. War sucks those things out of people. But now?

 Now he saw Galahd’s soul as Nyx had wished him to. And it was obvious he was in awe of it.

 “Nyx…this is…” Sweeping his gaze to and fro and to again, inlustris’ words trailed off, catching on every little thing with a sort of curiosity that was innocent, and by Ramuh did Nyx want to see more. More, more from his star, more of that awe, more of that joy, more of that softness in the face of something untainted by the years he’d spent hurting.

 “Come on, inlustris,” with a wink and one of his charming grins that always made his star laugh, Nyx spread his arms out and made his invitation, “let me show you my world.” 

 Noctis nodded.

 And followed him, in exploring his home from the eyes of a beloved stranger.

 

 

-----

 

 

 As sad as it was, it was also fortunate that Little Galahd was handicap-accessible. Very handicap-accessible. Because when you gather hundreds of refugees from a war-occupied land in one place? You end up with a lot of people who’d lost limbs in the bombs dropped on their homes. It had been one of the first priorities for their community. Everything was accessible. Plenty of locals had wheelchairs, after all.

 Which meant Noctis fit right in, even if his wheelchair was a little more sturdy and expensive than most.

 It made it easier for him to wheel along beside Nyx, though it was still slow going. Not because of his wheels, but because Noctis kept pausing to look at everything and it was wonderful.

 More wonderful was the fact that their forty guards were keeping a polite distance. Those that weren’t spread out all across Little Galahd, that is. They had an entourage of ten Glaives milling around on the street behind them, and Nyx owed Captain Drautos so much for ordering discretion.

 Home was not a place to be on constant guard.

Though he’d never risk the raven-haired man he was with. Not ever. He’d put up with any security measure, if he truly thought it’d keep inlustris safe.

 Home was a place to wander. To point out the curiosities, and explore when another thing and another thing and another thing catches your eye.

 And inlustris wandered. Asking questions. Pointing. Sticking close to Nyx for that first street, polite and contained. Both aspects he quickly set aside in favor of exploring. It was like watching a shy turtle emerge from its shell. The further they were from the Citadel, the deeper into Little Galahd Nyx led him, his star became a flower and that flower bloomed.

 Like he had finally found the environment right for him. 

 “Nyx,” he would say, would grab the sleeve of Nyx’s leather jacket, would point, “what’s that?” 

 And Nyx would look, laugh, then begin walking in the direction he’d pointed as easily as if he’d always been headed that way, “That, inlustris, is - “ 

 It was glorious.

 Seeing his star as life was breathed into him, after catching him when he was so lacking in it.

 

 

-----

 

 
 Navi, Navi Lazarus - they were heading their security detail for the day. Exploring Little Galahd’s streets? A confined, controlled outing? Practically as safe as one could be inside of Insomnia since the Wall was pulled back to only the Citadel? It was easier than bringing down a voretooth. Practically training. When Captain Drautos offered them the job, they would've thought it was a training exercise for the fresh recruits.

 But, well, long by now, the whole Kingsglaive knew that that resident hero of theirs had taken a shining to a certain returned royal.

 So an outing to Little Galahd, guarded by the Kingsglaive, shadowing Nyx Ulric and a ‘special priority’?

There wasn’t a Glaive picked for the detail that didn’t know Noctis Lucis Caelum was going on a date with their hero.

 Money exchanged hands, and as a lieutenant Navi looked the other way.

 Organizing the detail took very little actual work. The Captain had a roster in mind already, and on-site locations prepped, and eight different contingencies in place. All before he’d even told Navi about the outing.

 Which was extreme, even for him. Captain Drautos was thorough, but…Navi noticed things. Like they noticed the bottles of liquor that had appeared more frequently in the office of the Kingsglaive Captain these last years, or more specifically? 

 How that liquor had vanished, in the months since Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum was proven innocent and brought back.

 How the Captain worried about his honorary nephew. How he watched. How he stressed over the safety of the royal like he only ever stressed about…nobody. It was strange. If Navi knew no better, they’d think their captain had a guilty conscience. But about what? Everyone felt some level of shame and guilt for the royal being falsely accused.

 But the Kingsglaive - they hadn’t had a role in practically any of it. They’d been kept out of that mess. So for what reason did the Captain feel indebted to His Highness? 

 Well.

 It wasn’t Navi’s job to ask those sorts of questions. They did, anyways. They did so privately. But they did not bring up their questions unless the health and safety of their fellow Glaives were at risk. Navi’s job was to do as their captain instructed. And to keep their cousin, Luche, in line whenever he got some sort of ‘genius’ idea into that head of his.

 But Luche was away on mission, so Navi’s only job was to shadow a war hero’s date. Ducking in and out of alleyways, keeping them in their periphery. Relaying instructions to the others on detail. Scoping out possible risks - of which there were none.

 It really was, just, simply, a date. And also the first time Navi had ever seen King Regis’ son smile like that.

 It was easier than bringing down a voretooth.

 And Navi stayed and listened…and bought a few muffins from an Ostium bakery they passed by for them and their Glaives, as they all munched on baked goods and supported their favorite hero from afar. It had been a long time since the Ulric Chieftain had entertained anything even close to some grand, proper romantic pursuit. 

 But he was doing things rather properly with Noctis Lucis Caelum, wasn’t he? 

 “<Teaching him our language, our culture, our braids. Doting on him, fulfilling his rites, cohabitating - I never thought I’d see the day!>” Tredd snorted, enjoying a muffin too as they hovered in the background. Observing. As was their job. And as was enjoyable. “<At this point, Nyx should just buy him the beads and bestow him a braid and call themselves spousal chieftains of the Ulric Clan.>” 

 “<Are we sure that’s not what today is?>” Axis snickered, ducking in to join their group from an alcove. Snagging the muffin from Tredd’s hand and then quickly leaping out of reach while biting into his stolen prize, “<An excuse to trick the little royal into accepting beads without realizing what they are?>” 

 The redhead chased him and his bobbing muffin, cursing the Arra out in very creative ways. 

 “<Nyx would never.>” Navi stated firmly, frowning disapprovingly at the two Glaives playing keep-away with muffins when they were on assignment, but then they took a bite of their own muffin and let it go, further defending the Ulric Chieftain’s honor, “<He seems serious. More serious than I’ve seen him act towards somebody since Libertus abandoned his pride and became shameless. It is good for him.>”

 Both of the men - boys, really, they’d always be just boys to Navi - stopped and turned serious as well at their words.

 It was true. It was sad, it had been a worry for much of the community, but it was true.

 Nyx Ulric had been dragged down for far too long by those he was bonded to, those who were no longer with them, those who had joined the Great Storm. If he was now pulling himself back up, Navi intended to support their fellow lieutenant. And that support started by ensuring this outing went well.

 “<Back to your positions. They both deserve a day without grief.>”
 
 They were there to watch. To interfere as little as possible. To support two wounded souls from afar, as friends and as loyal warriors sworn to Noctis Lucis Caelum’s family. Even if that loyalty had been…questionable, during the final years of the war. They were now fully sworn and fully devoted, and they would do their duty as the proud Galahdians they were.

 Though, that didn’t stop them from being a little mischievous, like Tredd making kissy faces whenever Nyx wasn’t looking his way and Axis going on ahead to announce loudly to the community that their Ulric Chieftain was courting somebody - the scamp.

Even if it was not a busy day in Little Galahd, that was the sort of gossip that moved fast.

 Navi watched, and Navi waited.

 And Navi smiled, as all of their fellow Glaives did, because this was a job they were all enjoying.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Khara district was full of libraries and storytellers, the Ulric district was full of warriors and hunters, the Arra district was full of small crafts that took the skills of generations of family to create, and yet when Noctis wheeled into the Aranahe district? 

 Maybe it was unfair, but the novice weaver knew he’d found his favorite. The most colorful, most artistic clan. 

 The clan of weavers, as Nyx had promised to introduce him to. So he did. 

A promise kept.

 The craftsmanship of a city street shouldn’t have stolen his breath away, but this one did. And Noctis was ensnared. Caught in their loom.

 So many crafts. There were so many crafts to catch one’s eye. The Aranahe had always been craftpeople more than they were hunters, more than they were warriors, more than they were spiritpeople or storytellers or lorekeepers. Theirs was the clan that loved to keep their hands busy and always have a new project to work on. Theirs was the clan that painted their street in Little Galahd the most brilliantly, with the most intricate tapestries and woven canopies stretching from building to building.

 To paint their bustling markets in all the shades of fabric they could, as sunlight shone down through their expertly woven pieces.

 Each market had a new craft to take in. Some? Nyx had to slowly explain the purpose of to Noctis. Some, like the handmade loom shuttles, or the tool sheathes, or the bone candles. The prince listened so well though. So attentive. And Nyx was subject to more than one knowing look from the craftpeople they saw from market stall to market stall.

 What they thought they knew, he couldn’t know. But he knew what this looked like in the eyes of a Galahdian. A clan chieftain, taking special interest in a visitor of their home? Acting as their guide? Teaching them personally, privately, publicly - in every way he was practically broadcasting that Noctis Lucis Caelum was a special person of his. And he knew the community.

 Word of this outing and his star being his special person had likely already spread throughout most of Little Galahd. 

Maybe that made him hover a tiny bit more as inlustris explored the Aranahe district. Or maybe it was just how his star thrived in the heart of Little Galahd’s artistry. How so many of the threads and dyes complimented his eyes that shone every time they looked up at Nyx. Maybe it was how at ease and innocent a hurt prince could look picking through threads and ribbons and simple looms, like he’d never known that hurt.

 Nyx hovered.

 But Nyx wasn’t a babysitter. He let inlustris wheel himself away from his side. Let him go stall to stall. Buying some of their best threads that he said he wanted to gift to Oriens. Buying some beads he thought would be interesting to try weaving with. Buying until he had several bags of crafting supplies set in his lap as he wheeled himself around, so then Nyx waved some of their shadows forward.

 Sonitus appeared. Took the bags.

And vanished back into the crowd, leaving starlight’s lap free for more purchases.

 It was a good thing His Majesty had practically thrown gil and credits their way before they left the Citadel, insisting that there was no limit to the amount that Noctis could spend. The credits weren’t so useful in Little Galahd - since they traded so often outside of Insomnia, they used gil more than the crown currency, but it couldn’t hurt for the bigger, more mainstreamed stores. 

 Nyx was content to just stand back and look pretty and watch his star browse. Buy. Buy some more. Almost like this was some novel experience…which it probably was. His first time shopping since Mistveil. 

 Then, something else snagged the prince’s attention. He still watched fondly from closeby. Waiting to be called on.

 And again, he was.

 “Here, Nyx, here.” 

 “What is it?” He asked even as he sauntered over, curious, leaning over inlustris’ shoulder. And shifting back to avoid being smacked in the nose when the prince turned around excitedly, holding out what’d caught those starry eyes of his.

 A necklace. With a purple plume and beads strung along its cord. Beautifully dyed and beautifully cut.

 “It matches you,” his star said so earnestly, and what else was the Glaive to do? But to kneel beside his star’s wheelchair and tip his head forward. As if about to receive yet another medal for his efforts during the war, except so much more precious. 

 A gift, bestowed to him by his star.

 The weight of the necklace dropped over his head, and the feather with its beads settled against his chest. Nyx heard the Aranahe craftswoman who owned the stall giggle, but had eyes only for his gift. 

 Picked for him, to suit him, a gift with thought and that meant so very much to a Galahdian.

 When he lifted his gaze from his great gift, it was to find inlustris’ gaze fixed on him. Quiet contentment in the way he held himself. It was so obvious. It was so humbling, and Nyx didn’t hesitate for a second to toss a couple of his own gil to the craftswoman he had to thank for this moment. 

 “I’ll treasure it,” he swore with a grin that made it seem teasing, but he meant it. So truly, he meant it. On the Stormfather, Ramuh, he meant it. A gift given was a bond made, and a bond made was an oath kept safe at one’s hearth. 

“How about something for yourself, starlight?”

 There were far more future gifts to find in Little Galahd. Together, they looked for them.

And together, Nyx…wanted them to stay. Down to his soul, he'd started to want to stay with this star he'd caught by chance once. He could only pray he’d be so fortunate, oh Stormfather. Please, let him be fortunate in this.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When passing through the Khara district back to another colorful corner of the Aranahe district, where they would find the fine dye shops Nyx had promised to show Noctis, there was a table. It was not a big table. It was hardly more than a nightstand. With a cloth laid over it, a little torn and a lot worn, and the Khara salesman sat beside it looked old enough to have seen history unfold.

 Was old enough for Nyx to bow respectfully to, and call, “<Elder.>” 

 It was not the craftsman that caught Noctis Lucis Caelum’s attention.

 But the fact that his small, modest table was one full of carvings of Carbuncle. Small, slightly larger, idols and pendants and even some sketches. And Noctis swallowed, he did not have the words, he got this feeling - and a soft chirping in his ears - that he should not ask.

 So all he did was reach out with trembling fingers to pick four Carbuncle pendants from the table. They were identical; a thick, braided cord with a little, wooden totem hanging from it.

 He bought all four of them and held them close like they were precious. They were. They were. 

 One for him, and Nyx immediately extended a hand to offer his help, gently dropping the pendant around the dreamer’s neck. Where it settled. Where it felt warm. Where it felt like home. Like safety. And Noctis saw a flicker of dream-blue fur out of the corner of his eye with it before taking a deep breath. 

 Saying goodbye and continuing on their way.

 One for him.

 One for Oriens.

 One for his father.

 And one, for Nyx. Later.

 Carbuncle had dreamers all across the world, rare and wonderful, dreamers. Even in Little Galahd, or especially in Little Galahd. Where dreams were loved most of all, by a people who loved to make their whims reality. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Briiiing! Briiiing! Briiiing! 

 In the middle of watching inlustris watch some of the dyers dunk fabric into their dye vats, Nyx’s phone began ringing with an obnoxiously loud ringtone. A familiar ringtone. A surprising ringtone. Because that ringtone? Well, Nyx hadn’t heard it in…months. And months longer than that too. 

 If the number displayed on his phone’s screen was dialed at any point in the last three years, it was a hundred percent Nyx doing the calling. 

Never the one being called.

 Which was the sole reason he was willing to make an exception for the caller on this day - a day he’d sworn he wouldn’t take time away from his star.

 His star who was watching the dye process with vibrant, all but glowing eyes, so happy in a way he hadn’t seen the royal since his childhood. So loose-limbed, relaxed, at ease. Rolling his wheelchair this way and that, adjusting each time the dyer did so he could get a good view of them using their lengthy pole to dunk the fabric back under every time it floated to the surface of the blue-dyed waters.

 His star…who glanced over when Nyx’s phone continued ringing.

 The one exception Nyx would make.

 For a bonded brother of his.

 A bitter brother of his.

 “I have to take this,” it came out a whisper, almost verging on ashamed, and it stung a little when he had to realize that that was because of how little he wanted to talk to the one calling him. But inlustris simply smiled and nodded, and went back to watching the dyers at work in the cozy little dye shop in Little Galahd. Something so simple, it was sweet to see.

 And there Nyx was, stepping away, waving at Navi and Axis who had been hovering around the shop’s entrance to get them to watch his star for him as he accepted the call.

 As he grinned and whispered a, “<Thank you.>” One of the saleswomen nodding him out their back door, which led into a smaller alleyway still so full of splashes of color but lacking the bustle of the street’s market.

 A smaller alleyway where he could slump back against the bricks of the building, and shove his phone between his ear and his shoulder and shut his eyes tight. Already so…done with a conversation he hadn’t even had yet.

 Sure enough, the first words that crackled through his phone were slurring so bad the speakers translated them half into static instead of actual words.

 “Nyx, ye bastard. <Betrayer of our blood, tu----self------e--ince’s bitch, have you?!>“

 The cursing, the drunken slur between Lucian and Galahdian languages - yes, drunken. Damn it. Nyx squeezed his eyes shut tight. He could even hear the clinking of glass bottles knocking against each other, against other surfaces, the thick swallow of another swig taken.

 “Libertus.” 

 Damn it all.

 “Don’t sound happy ta - hic - ta…h-hear from me, do’ya?” More clinks of glass. Maybe even the sound of a whole bunch of empty bottles being knocked over and rolling away from the drunken man on the other end of the line, cursing, more cursing, and then shattering glass and grumbling. And Nyx’s heart sank every time he had to listen to this particular song and dance, but even so every time he hoped to hear something different when he got on the phone with Libertus Ostium.

 And every time he was disappointed. For the last ten years, he’d been disappointed.

 “Libs, I…<you okay?>” He asked because this was one of his brothers. A man he’d lived and died by, once upon a time. Fought beside. Lost beside. Ruined himself beside, and now only one of them was so ruined.

 And it wasn’t Nyx Ulric, even if he probably deserved it so much more.

 “Fuck you!” Shattering glass. A bottle throne. Angry shouts in the background - probably customers at his rundown bar over at the very edge of Little Galahd that Nyx had carefully steered clear of that day, “Ser-seri’usly, Nyx, fuck you! Bringin’ that royal b-b - “ 

 “Be careful of how you speak of Prince Noctis, Libertus.” 

 Silence. 

 Nyx hadn’t…strictly meant to say that. Or, not nearly as harshly as he had. It had come out a snarl, a furious sworn protecting somebody he had a bond with because he did, he did and the new necklace hanging around his neck was proof of that. He wouldn’t allow anyone to brazenly insult Noctis Lucis Caelum. Not his star. Not his happy star. Not even an old brother of his who he’d known for more than forty years.

 “<You chose him, then.>” Not a question. And frightfully sober-sounding too. As bitter as always…too.

 “I choose happiness, Libs,” and maybe it was the memory of how happy inlustris looked exploring Little Galahd these last hours, or maybe it was strength granted to him by his new gift, or maybe it was simply the exhaustion of ten years of being held accountable for something he knew wasn’t his fault, but Nyx slumped back against the bricks of that wall behind him and finally said something he wouldn't be taking back.

 “<I choose happiness, and I choose not to live in the past. I choose to move forward. I choose to find my light. I can’t stay in those days with you, my brother. I can’t stay in that darkness you choose to drown in. I can’t. And I won’t apologize for it.>”

 His head thumped lightly against the bricks, and Nyx stared at a sky so far above. So far out of his reach, compared to when he was with his starlight and he felt like he could fly. He could do anything, reach any goal, fulfill any wish of inlustris’ if only he’d ask.

 That was the contrast that made him realize that Libs tore him down too much for him to keep surviving.

 He wanted to heal too, beside the prince he’d tethered himself to with his braids.

 The silence dragged on. One more thing he couldn’t take back?

 “Crowe would hate what you’re doing to yourself, Libs.” 

 “Fuck. You.” Another bottle shattered, thrown, on the other end of this phone call that may be the end of something tattered Nyx had clung to for a decade. Another. And another. And a wordless, raging shout that ended with his drunk brother falling over from the sound of it.

 More slurring. And Nyx, for the first time in his life, was prepared to hang up on Libertus first while they were still on bad terms. But first? There was an ask he had, creeping up on him the longer he had to listen to the bartender ruin his bar over the phone.

 “How’d you hear about me being out with His Highness anyways?” Because what the hells else would’ve prompted this call? 

 “Thin’gh I wouldunt? Thin’gh I - I lost all my c - hic - connnnnnn…ectionssss?” More bitter spitting, more blended words, more reasons for Nyx’s heart to break as he gripped his phone tight and listened just a little longer, “Regs a’the - the bar. Came in. Gossipy he-hens. All ‘bout, ‘bout the great! Gre’...Nyx Uuuuuulric. Bringin’ his royal pet ta - ta our - !” 

 Groaning. Unintelligible noises that, for once, the Ulric Chieftain didn’t bother trying to parse out. 

 They had already assumed that gossip would spread fast about inlustris leaving the Citadel, about him being sighted in Little Galahd with Kingsglaive. Of course the community’s rumor mill worked faster than any paparazzi. Of course Libs heard about it from regulars despite it being midday and his bar being a bit of a mess, with a lot less customers than when he’d run one when they were younger.

 Didn’t change much, did it? 

 And by Ramuh, did that hurt worse than the time Nyx was flattened by a dualhorn on a hunt. 

 It hurt worse than anything, though, when he took a forcibly deep breath and did that something for the first time in a lifetime. He pulled the phone away from his ear while Libertus was still mid-rant, slurring, drunk off his ass before noon and trashing his own bar over Nyx being happy, and he forced himself to exhale too.

 “<Bye, Brother.>” 

 And he hung up the phone. And he put Libs’ number on silent. 

 And then Nyx lifted his head up high, because he was allowed to choose happiness, and because he was a chieftain of the Ulric Clan, and he was in his home and showing that home to somebody he cared deeply for. He walked back into the dye shop, casting thankful looks towards the ladies who’d let him use their alleyway.

 He was allowed to choose happiness.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Inlustris noticed his downtrodden mood the second he got close to him again, and the dyers were utterly forgotten in favor of his star asking him in slow, stilted Galahdian, “<Are you…well?>”

 And it was such a sweet show of care, to ask in his own language at that moment, even if the rolling syllables were a little flat on inlustris’ tongue, that Nyx couldn’t help but find his smile again.

 “<Yes. I will be. How are you enjoying the dye work?>” 

 Inlustris’ nose sort of scrunched up at the end of that sentence, which made the Glaive chuckle and immediately translate. Teaching his prince the words and the way they strung together in the sentence. Finding his joys in those blue-blue eyes that again found their joys in the simple work of others.

 Nyx didn’t look at his phone again, as they wandered around the cozy shop.

 

 

-----

 

 

(5) missed calls from Libertus.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Of course, Nyx tugged the shopkeeper aside and asked how much it’d be for those blue fabrics they’d been watching be dyed. The Aranahe man chortled at his eagerness, chiding him and bonking him on the head - the fabrics weren’t finished yet, silly young one. Which made Nyx - chieftain or not - bashful. Always one to be scolded by his elders. 

 “<When would you need them by, Chieftain Ulric?>”

 “<I am in no rush, elder. I can wait, but I will pay in advance.>”

 “<Good. Good head on your shoulders, good mind in your hands. Let me write you a receipt, young one.>”

 So, a set of specially dyed Aranahe fabrics, of the deepest blues possible, were set to be delivered to the Citadel two weeks from them.

 

 

-----

 

 

 (21) missed calls from Libertus.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Such a sweet show of care; inlustris continued speaking to Nyx in the tongue of Galahd as they wandered. Of course, he was only several weeks-practiced. His wording was stiff, and sometimes his star had to stop and exchange words he hadn’t learned yet for words he had, but it was the effort that meant so much to Nyx.

 It was an effort he admired, as they spoke his own language in his own home.

 And he felt so seen by those starry eyes.

 

 

-----

 

 

 (50) missed calls from Libertus.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Tredd Furia was a Kingsglaive on the protection…unfortunately. 

Tredd was on the protection detail. When Nyx had been looking over the pre-outing arrangements, he’d playfully asked the Captain to take the Furia off of the detail. Off, and far away. Far away, please?

 Captain Drautos had just huffed in laughter and clasped Nyx’s shoulder, the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice long-suffering as he said so flatly, “Take him. We keep him cooped up at HQ much longer, and he’ll start scratching apart the furniture. He needs the enrichment.”

 And so it was out of their hands. They knew how Tredd got cooped up, after all.

 Depending on how one looked at it, they were just lucky that Luche was on a mission and unavailable for this outing, otherwise the day would’ve definitely turned to chaos. Tredd had a bit of a habit to go from zero to a hundred without a breath in-between when he got worked up, and it was exhausting.

 Tredd? Tredd, alone? Wasn’t as bad as Tredd with Luche flanking him. He’d actually behaved throughout the morning. Remembered his manners and all. Kept to the edges of the detail, flitting in and out of sight, talking to all the little Galahdian grannies who came up to him to pinch his cheeks and offer him candies. 

 Maybe that made Nyx let his guard down. 

 He caught sight of Tredd out of the corner of his eye, red hair bright in the sunlight shining down between canopies overhead - always, always, if you’re looking for Tredd Furia, look for the beacon of red hair spiked up to make him two inches taller. He never had grown out of that style, even in his thirties. But anyways, Nyx saw him. Leaning against a wall and grinning.

 Tredd had nodded at a market stall nearby, draped in tapestries and newer, since Nyx failed to recognize it right away as anything else besides an Altius stall. 

 He took the hint, like an absolute idiot, and led inlustris on over. Curious.

 Just to falter and plant his face in his palms the second he saw what the stall was selling.

 Noctis had to take a second to realize the Glaive was no longer walking beside him, and was instead muttering into his hands that he’d put his face into, glaring through his fingers at a Glaive leaning against a nearby wall as if he wanted to throttle the redhead. 

He didn’t get it?

 The stall was as nice as all of the others in Little Galahd, and seemed to be one that sold jewelry. Rings and earrings and bracelets and necklaces were on full display all across its multiple tables, while the two saleswomen overseeing it were positively covered in jewelry head to toe. Beads and gems and jewels, necklaces atop necklaces and bracelets that went from wrist to bicep, ears pierced from lobe to cartilage and even with shimmering bits of glass and metal pierced in their noses and eyebrows and lips.

 One even had a ball of gold on her tongue when she beamed at the prince and waved him closer.

 “<Come! Come see! You and your ------ are sure to find something to share!>” There was a word there, in the middle of her waving, that Noctis wasn’t entirely sure how to translate. He didn’t think Nyx had taught him that word. But it was a word that made the Galahdian man squawk behind him and look even more like he wanted to throttle that one, now cackling Kingsglaive who was slipping away into the meager crowds of the street as they spoke.

 Wheeling his way right up to the tabletops of jewelry, blue-blue eyes had just begun to admire the craftsmanship of the amazing pieces - worthy of royalty, for sure - when a hand landed on his shoulder.

 Noctis glanced up in surprise at Nyx.

 The tips of his ears turned a bit warm with the way the man was leaning over him, squeezing his shoulder so firmly.

 “<We thank you,>” he said politely to the saleswomen, “<but these are not necessary for us.>”

 What a confusing thing to say. Noctis worried it might even be received rudely, since they had yet that day to simply, bluntly, say they had no interest in a stall whatsoever like that. So he was surprised when the saleswomen began giggling, nodding, seemingly not offended in the least. 

 “<Then perhaps one day! May the Stormfather bless your steps.>”

 That redhead Nyx wanted to throttle was a very distant splash of that red hair down the street, head thrown back and laughing but a safe distance away while Noctis wheeled after the Glaive who walked away. 

 They were several wheel-turns down the street before Noctis asked what that was about.

 Nyx’s answer made his ears all the warmer.

 “That, inlustris, was marriage jewelry crafted by the Altius Clan.” Nyx sounded so frazzled, groaning and dragging a hand down his face. And Noctis so suddenly, instantly, understood the feeling very, very well. Because he stopped rolling and also pressed a hand to his face.

 Holding it there, because his traitorous heart had started to pound and pound and pound, and his face was becoming as warm as his ears with its excited dancing.

 So Nyx had been embarrassed by the fact that they looked at marriage jewelry together. Was that something that would cause problems for a Galahdian Chieftain? Noctis had admittedly never thought to ask. Or, speaking of asking - 

 “Nyx, when she spoke to me, she called us - you? Maybe you? Something.” 

 Both of them stopped in a tiny alcove between all the colorful, cluttered stalls, and he was given every bit of the Glaive’s attention that was always just so heavy, and so happy was he to bear its weight each time. 

 “Amatus?” 

 The Galahdian word was stiff on Noctis’ tongue, like all Galahdian words before he practiced them and practiced them well. Usually with Nyx’s gentle corrections to lead him.

 This time, though, there were no gentle corrections. 

 There was just the man’s face suddenly turning really, really, really red around his beard and smile lines. As red as a summer strawberry. Red as a dawn that warned of a storm ahead. It was such a pretty shade, and Nyx prettier for turning it. Noctis hadn’t even realized he was staring until the Glaive cleared his throat harshly and turned away. Rubbing at the back of his neck.

 Embarrassed? 

 “That, uh, that means beloved, inlustris. Or darling. Amatus. A term of affection. Usually for an intimate partner of one of our people.”

 Oh.

 Such a pretty word such a pretty man, in an even prettier place.

 A-ma-tus. Noctis sounded it out slowly in the privacy of his mind, still staring, still the fool. Moving his lips to the syllable without really saying it. 

 Yes. It fit Nyx Ulric better than any word he’d ever heard in his life, didn’t it?

 “Amatus.” 

 So red. So, so red, and Nyx - Amatus - Ulric cleared his throat with an awkward tilt of his head down the street.

 “Shall we?” It was a suggestion and a retreat, and Noctis took it. But he could scarcely take his eyes off of the charming man walking tall at his side. Still sounding out the term of affection in his mind on repeat. Amatus. Beloved. Darling. An intimate partner of one of the Galahdian people. 

 The sunbeams through the colorful, woven canopies overhead kept catching on Nyx’s face as he walked, calling out greetings to so many people and grinning again soon enough, stormy eyes iridescent and face still blushing a bit red. 

 A. Ma. Tus. 

 Nyx Ulric…his? His amatus.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Being subtle was never really Nyx’s style, but now he really wished it was since it became clearer and clearer with every interaction that the whole of Little Galahd knew exactly how he felt towards inlustris.

 And it was getting harder and harder for him to deny that his feelings for the Lucis Caelum weren’t…so, so selfish and self-serving.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Pelna knew things. He was a Khara, of course he did, they prided themselves on that sort of thing. So him showing up despite it being his day off? Was the least surprising part of introducing inlustris to Little Galahd. The Kingsglaive intelligence officer showed up with his arm around his wife’s waist and their three little ones running around their legs.

 Starlight hadn’t quite gotten the chance to meet this old friend of Nyx’s, since Pelna was so rarely on active duty these days, so it served as a good introduction for them too. And his star was as wonderful with Pelna’s kids as he was with Prince Oriens. Even when the youngest asked once, twice, three times again and again and again why he was in a wheelchair.

 Her mother shushed her, smiling apologetically, but inlustris laughed it off easily and explained his legs no longer worked right.

 In Little Galahd, with so many of their people in need of prosthetics and other aids, the young ones were no longer put off by the sight of such things. And were used to their curiosity being answered by their elders. No harm, no foul. 

 When they were watching the small Khara family go, off to do their daily shopping, his star sighed. So softly. Nyx heard it anyways. 

 “Everything alright, inlustris?” 

 A cloud seemed to pass over Noctis’ face when he explained, “I miss Ori. He would’ve enjoyed today, if he was allowed to come.” 

 Ah, good ol’ separation anxiety. 

 “Maybe next time,” Nyx suggested before he’d really thought it out, unable and unwilling to take it back because of the way the raven-haired father lit up at that idea. Privately, Nyx cringed thinking about how much convincing it would take for that to be allowed when they’d barely allowed inlustris a day in Little Galahd.

 But for his star, he would try. 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum was a loving father, after all. It was one of the many things Nyx adored him for.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Later, later than they would usually eat lunch at the Citadel, the streets of Little Galahd began to fill up. Folks were getting off of their morning shifts. Going for lunch. The food kiosks and corner restaurants were filling up as people orders were taken and then left to eat as they walked around. Visiting clanspeople and friends. 

 Wafting up and down the streets were the smells of spices, of cooked meats and sauces of so many flavors.

 “Got a preference, inlustris?” 

 “Not…particularly? <My stomach might not be able to handle anything too spicy, though.>”

 Right. Malnutrition. Meal plans. Recovery; one that was not fully finished yet. Nyx struggled to think of somewhere in the heart of Little Galahd where they wouldn’t find spicy foods - it was just what his people loved. It was their way. Their normal. 

 “<This way, then.>” Well, there was one place.

 A small kiosk down another bustling street, an Ostium stall. Ostiums loved their foods, loved to fill others up and make meals enough for armies. But Ostiums also had the widest range of food types in Little Galahd, keeping in mind those with more delicate stomachs. 

 “<Two buns, please.>” 

 Inlustris seemed bemused by how few of people they passed actually stared at him in his wheelchair now that things were getting busier, but the truth of it was? An older man, in casual clothes, in a wheelchair exploring Little Galahd? Wasn’t anything so strange as to be a spectacle. He almost looked like one of their people. If Nyx gifted him braids, he’d fit in so well.

 If he could bestow braids upon his star…

 He swallowed. Then, nearly dropped the bread buns pressed into his hands, the homely Fayra Ostium sniggering at him in a way way too knowing. Nyx stepped away from there fast, and not just because she had other customers to attend to. He wasn’t subtle at all, was he? 

 “<Bun, filled with warm grits, cinnamon and brown sugar.> Shouldn’t hurt your stomach, starlight. Nice and light.” 

 “Sounds like a breakfast bun,” the royal mused, graciously taking the steaming bun offered to him. Sniffing it. Then pausing as he realized he couldn’t wheel his wheelchair with his hands full with it. “Hey, Nyx, can you - ?” 

 “I got you, inlustris.” 

 The Glaive devotedly gave his prince his bun, never mind the part of his simple mind that pranced about happily at the fact that he was providing food for his star, and then took the handlebars of his wheelchair and pushed them somewhere out of the way. A small, shaded alcove wrapped in colorful canopies. Tapestries, braided cords, woven hangers full of plants from Galahd. One of the many, many seating areas on the street.

 When you live in one, giant community, whether you went place to place or not, you were still in Little Galahd, and all of Little Galahd was home. Every bit of it. Open and welcoming.

 The Galahdian people knew what it was to not be welcomed openly, after all.

 “This is good!” Nyx’s stormy eyes lifted, his heart lifting with it, when he laid them on his star. Sat there, a bite taken out of the soft dough of the bun, steam curling around his face and looking excited. Another bite, and another bite, and he made a small groaning noise to show how pleased he was - 

 And every one of Nyx’s dark memories was destroyed by the light that was this star he’d caught and kept. He just looked so…happy. Still so content.

 Enjoying a grits bun in the heart of Little Galahd, watching his people pass them by, listening in to what conversations he overheard and asking questions. So many questions. What does this word translate to, or what do those braids mean, or does this or that have a special meaning? 

 When Nyx had begun teaching the Lucian Prince about Galahd’s culture, it had been to keep his mind off of a past few would be strong enough to survive.

 Now, it was simply to see how bright his star could glow when he learned something new and applied it to him and his.

 Lunch was good.

 Lunch was great.

 Nyx, like his star, was abuzz like the streets bustling with shapes and forms and laughter and talk. Content. Ready for a little more exploration. Just a little. He knew inlustris hadn’t the energy for hours and hours and hours of wandering around, but he certainly seemed to want to. So they would. For as long as they could.

 

 

-----

 

 

 For another hour.

 

 

-----

 

 

 For another two.

 

 

-----

 

 

 At the third hour mark, Noctis was wincing and shaking his arms out from how much effort it had taken to spend almost eight hours wheeling himself around Little Galahd. The sun was behind the buildings, the bustle was getting truly bustling with all of the people finishing work for the day, and he accepted it was time for them to go.

 Nyx gently offered to push his wheelchair on the return-trip to the car, and while most would earn a bristle for assuming Noctis couldn’t do it himself? Nyx got nothing more than a thankful look as he relaxed in his chair, stretching his arms.

 There was so much to see, even as they were leaving.

 And as they were leaving, Noctis realized something.

 He’d really, really come to love Galahd and its people with their strong hearts, hadn’t he?

 

 

-----

 

 

 At end of day? It felt almost anticlimactic for them to find their way back to the Crownsguard-issued car waiting in a parking lot outside of Little Galahd. Not a single scratch on either of them. No mishap, no trauma, no awkwardness. Nyx was laughing so hard his head was thrown back and he had his jacket slung over his shoulder, and he looked divine in the late afternoon sunlight shining down between buildings. 

 Noctis’ wheelchair maybe had a ding or two from how active they’d been throughout the day, but every ding was worth it as he animatedly asked Nyx question after question about things he’d worried would be too weird to point out in the middle of a Galahdian community.

 Neither of them even blinked at Noctis raising his arms, and Nyx moved to lift him into the backseat of the car. No hesitation. Folding up his wheelchair without ever derailing their conversation as they packed up.

 A few gifts here or there to take with them.

 A lot more gifts here or here - in their hearts - that they definitely were taking with them.

 Nyx piling into the backseat beside his star and teasingly poking fun at his fellow Glaives who had had to shadow them the whole day got Noctis laughing so hard that he placed a hand on the Glaive’s bicep and leaned into him. Shoulders trembling. Face flushed. It had been one of those sorts of days.

 And Noctis hadn’t had one of those days in such a long time. He was going to treasure it, he swore. 

 “<I had so much fun!>” He said with so much of the innocence he’d thought was surely lost to him forever, speaking straight into his Glaive’s chest. A chest fluttering for breath. Rising and falling under his cheek. A breath, two, loud on Nyx’s lips and Noctis realized he was practically laying across the man.

 When he went to lean away, though, to apologize, his heart fluttering as much as Nyx’s chest as it rose and fell? 

 A hand curled around the nape of his neck, holding him there. And Nyx’s lips were all but brushing his ear as he ducked his head down low and whispered - 

 “<I had fun too, starlight.>”

 For longer than he could make any excuse about, Noctis kept his ear pressed to Nyx’s chest on the ride home. The ride to the Citadel. The ride home? It was, in a way, home again wasn’t it? The raven-haired royal hadn’t really been considering it that in the months since he was brought back from Mistveil, but it was.

 His home, once again, thanks to the people inhabiting it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis was the King of Lucis, and the King of Lucis did not pace. Not publicly, at least. He was just…walking. Back and forth, repeatedly, on the steps of the Citadel. Waiting for that Crownsguard-issued car to drive up. Cor had received the report twenty minutes prior that they were on their way back now, so of course twenty minutes prior the king had hurried out to wait.

 For twenty minutes. Walking back and forth.

 What even were those children doing for so much of the day? Did a bit of shopping really require hours and hours? Cor had been getting bi-hourly updates that he gave to Regis time and time again, but it had felt like far too long. It was a good thing Clarus had only been giving him simple tasks to complete, because every task he did complete was…likely, not up to par.

 He’d just been so distracted. 

 Noctis, his beloved son, leaving the Citadel for the first time since coming home from Mistveil? It was a lot. It required deep breaths to deal with. Deep breaths. Regis couldn’t remember being this anxious over Noctis’ separation from him since - since his son’s first day of school, perhaps? He’d been a wreck then. Hopeless for weeks while he adjusted.

 That Nyx Ulric had better have been the best sort of gentleman to his baby boy, or else - 

 A Crownsguard-issued black car rolled into the bailey of Insomnia’s Citadel, and Regis stopped his pacing. Okay. It was pacing.

 Cor, already down there, stepped forward to open the backdoor the second the car had rolled to a stop.

 Regis leaned forward desperately.

 And the bright, happy laughter of his and Aulea’s son bubbled up. The king relaxed. Leaned on his Shield. Leaned on his Shield and thanked Carbuncle profusely for that laughter. That wonderful, carefree laughter. It had been too long since he heard it so genuinely from his son. 

 When he descended the steps to meet his son by the ramp, he walked as tall as he could with his age and his cane hindering him. Clarus’ hand on the small of his back. Ever his support against time, and against Cor’s smug, ‘I told you so’ expression.

 “Welcome home, Noctis.” 

 “I’m home, Dad.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis called his Kingsglaive straight to his office after asking his son about his day, because he was a father first - and the Father. And as wondrous as hearing Noctis’ laughter had been, he needed to…ensure, without maiming the Glaive, that Nyx Ulric had been a true gentleman throughout the day. Just to be sure. Just a little, light threat here or there. That was all, he swore.

 Clarus was a father too.

 Cor was a father too.

 So of course, neither of his brothers believed him one bit when he promised them that.

 But the doors closed to his office anyways.

 And two hours later, Nyx Ulric walked out in one piece, completely sound of mind! As promised. All because of the fact that he had, sworn, up and down and magically too that he had been a gentleman. And a good guide. And put not a finger out of line, or put his lips anywhere either. Now, if he hadn’t? 

 Well, if he hadn’t, there wasn’t a power on Eos that would’ve saved the man from the Father.

 Never again would there be, because his precious child had been hurt enough.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis felt giddy - such an odd thing to feel after so long forgetting what it felt like - wheeling his way to his bedroom. Gladio, Iggy; following him politely. Asking little questions. So clearly drinking in the sight of him sweet and happy for the first time in a long time, and Noctis was in such a good mood he didn’t even feel embarrassed by their stares.

 He’d felt more embarrassed when he’d seen Axis handing off a camera to Prompto when they first returned, and had realized that Prompto had paid the Arra man to take pictures of his day in Little Galahd.

 Prom had sniggered and trotted off to pick through the pictures, and Noctis had had to let him go.

 It wasn’t so bad a price to pay for his day going so well. His evening also seemed to be going well. He was home, he’d caught up with his dad, with his old would-be retinue. He’d said farewell to his Kingsglaive escorts and thanked Uncle Drautos for helping to organize the day so nicely - it felt like everyone had helped ensure the day was a success.

 And it felt…nice. To realize that.

 It felt…reliable? It felt like, he had support. And it had been such a long, long time since Noctis dared believe he might have something so precious. Especially without doubting it. But today - it had just been so innocent. A day out, exploring a district of Insomnia that had grown in the last decade like nowhere else. A beautiful, beautiful district with a beautiful people and culture and a chance to be free from so many of the memories trying to drag him down.

 It was special. Worthy of being remembered. An evening that followed a day like he’d thought he’d never have again.

 A day that brought him happiness.

 And that evening that followed? Included returning to his bedroom and finding Oriens sat on the edge of his bed, kicking his legs, waiting for him. Oriens, who lit up like the sun when he saw him. Who jumped down and rushed up to him, wanting to hear all about how his day with Nyx had gone.

 His brightness. Always his brightness, his light, his Oriens.

 “Tell me, Dad, tell me!” Ori got excited. Excited enough to plant his palms on the arm of Noctis’ wheelchair and start bouncing, begging his dad to tell him. Tell him. It was enough to make his dad laugh. To ruffle his hair and promise him exactly that.

 “After I finish readying for bed, and dinner, Ori.” 

 After, was his promise.

 And indeed, after they shared a simple dinner delivered by Ignis and Noctis had leveraged himself up onto his bed, dragging his dead legs up with him and folding his glasses to set them on his bedside table. That after was when he gained a lapful of Oriens. His son scrambled up onto the covers beside him and blinked up at him with big, bright eyes. 

 Blue-blue eyes that he got from his father.

 His father, who told him the story of his adventure around Little Galahd, led by a devoted and true Glaive. There was no reason to stretch the truth or embellish anything to make the Galahdian community seem more fantastical; brilliant colors and music playing on every corner and welcoming people and the sense of that - of a community, Noctis retold it all fondly.

 Having fallen a little bit in love with what had sprouted after the war’s end. What roots had survived and flourished into plants of their own.

 He went from sitting there with his son, to leaning back on his many, feather-fluffed pillows, to laying down completely. Oriens’ cheek on his chest, eyelids falling shut again and again, so clearly sleepy but trying to stay awake anyways to hear the whole story. Noctis kept talking. And talking. And talking.

 Pausing only to press his lips together and chuckle at his little dawnlight when Ori completely slumped into sleep, strewn over his body.

 It wasn’t even all that late in the evening, but Oriens had worn himself out waiting for his dad to come home. And Noctis had been thoroughly worn out by Nyx.

 …Maybe not the best turn of phrase there.

 In his bed, in the shades of dusk that shone through his bedroom’s big windows, Noctis cleared his throat and carefully distracted himself by getting his son comfortable. Movement out of the corner of his eye snagged his attention, and he waved Nyx closer. Not sure when the Glaive had returned from whatever report he’d probably given his dad, how long he’d been standing there, but he had good timing now.

 Nyx was gentle in coming closer and untying the sleeping princling’s shoes. Wiggling them off of his feet.

 Noctis loosened the buttons on his shirt, and ran his hand through his hair a few times without the restraint he’d been showing to ruin the hair spray keeping it neat.

 Nyx had to lean over both father and son Lucis Caelums to undo the young prince’s belt buckle and slip that out of his pants’ loops without waking him, but they managed it. Together. It just took a little finesse, and Noctis shot him a very grateful look after as he snuggled down into the covers with his son.

 Glad he’d already gotten ready for bed beforehand. There was no part of him that wanted to move now. He had his son in his arms and a good day at his back, and he was fine with calling it a night now.

 Nyx seemed to sense as much, because he gave him a playful bow and went to turn off the lights. 

 “<Goodnight, starlight.>”

 “Goodnight, Nyx.” 

 Amatus. 

 Both of them settled in for the night, early or not, in the din of dusk. The bedroom of Noctis Lucis Caelum went still, and quiet, ending what the day had been.
 
It really had been a good day.

 And an even better date.

…

 Noctis’ eyes fluttered open, and he stared unseeing up at the ceiling far, far above his royal bed where he laid his head.

 Had that been a date? He’d never been on a date before.

 Suddenly, he was all too aware of the sound of Nyx’s slow breaths, asleep just across the room on his own sofa. Slow, even. Noctis’ heart was beating faster than they were coming. Curling his fingers, running them through Ori’s hair, he stayed like that. For a long time, he stayed like that. Nyx was special to him.

 And the day had been incredible.

 But was it what they wanted? More importantly, was it what they needed?

 And would it be healthy for Oriens?

 Falling asleep - that took a while after that realization. That he wanted it to be a date, that he wanted it to be what they both needed, wanted it to be healthy for his sweet son. He managed, eventually. Eventually. Eventually, he fell asleep with his face pressed into Ori’s hair, hugging his child close, vibrant colors and musics and the taste of spicy foods all dancing through his mind.

 And across the room, on his sofa, Nyx Ulric lay awake.

 Listening, and waiting. Pretending. Until he heard inlustris’ breaths even out, sometime after midnight, and he let himself fall asleep.

 Hoping that the day had been as incredible for his star as it had been for him.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Sorry this chapter was a bit delayed! I was struck by writer's block in the middle, and we kept having power outages that slowed me down. The next chapter may also be a few days late, since the 4th of July means lots and lots of family events and gatherings over the next week.

Also, two big fics I was inspired by for this series would be -

'Oh, where do we begin?' by esama. (This one isn't finished but it is majorly amazing. 10/10 concept and characterization.)

'Sunshine and Madness' by Paperpuffin. (This one is finished and is the reason for my older!Noctis x Nyx love.)

Chapter 12

~>-----------<~

 

 

 This day.

 The day blood ran like brooks down the steps of the Citadel of Insomnia.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nearly six months.

 Nearly six months; that is how long it took to finally put the abusers of Crown Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum on trial. 

 The accused were Crownsguard. Every last one of them. 

 Crownsguard were a symbol of pride and great honor in Lucis. They wore the Lucian blacks that were respected by all, inside and outside of the Crown City. They were meant to be a prestigious, trusted group of trained people that the crown could always rely on. That was what they’d been founded to be, that was what they’d remained for so long. 

 That was not what they were now.

 The documentary centered on Prince Noctis told as much to the people.

 And the public trials confirmed it.

 You could make up any excuse possible. The accused certainly had. These were desperate times, they hadn’t been as strict about who was welcomed into the Crownsguard’s ranks, there was no way they could’ve known, it was an understandable anger, they had a bone to pick with the Lucis Caelums and they’d been served a solution on a silver platter - take your pick.

 Already it had taken months longer than it should’ve to even get the accused to court, but that was because the High Court had been overturned when the royal council was. They’d had to rebuild the infrastructure from the ground up. And up and up. There had been no end of work put into ensuring corruption would not seep into the cracks. And when finally they had their jury and their judge and their executioner? 

 The accused were brought up from the Citadel’s dungeons. 

 It took nearly six months to get there.

 And it was a trial that went on for only a single day, by King Regis Lucis Caelum’s orders.

 Less time than Noctis had had for his trial.

 A public trial, was it. And the people of Lucis, of Eos, watched the public broadcast with mixed emotions. Vindication. Disgust. Fear. It wouldn’t be right to call any of their emotions happiness or relief. Not tied to this. The people watching the trial were permitted to see every one of the accused's faces, and some argued that was a violation of their rights. But it was by a king’s order. Because if, somehow, impossibly, even a single one of his son’s abusers was allowed to walk away? 

 Regis Lucis Caelum wanted them to be hated and hunted for the rest of their miserable life.

 He waived their rights to privacy before conviction, because his son had not been afforded such rights. He waived their rights to an impartial lawyer, because his son had not been afforded such rights. He waived their rights to stand trial in health and a sound state of mind, because his son had not been afforded such rights. He waived their lives' worth away, because his son had been waived away.

 The House of Caelum finally had their outlet. For a day. But by those damned Six, they took it.

 And the people of Eos who tuned in; some of them wondered why the Crownsguard standing accused were in dirty clothes and looked to have gone a month - more - without bathing, some of them wondered why they were covered in bruises, why they were hollow-eyed and looked to be at the beginning of being malnourished. 

 They wondered why some were missing their hands, or their feet, why they couldn’t stand, why so many of them were covered in casts.

 Nobody mentioned it in the royal courtroom of Insomnia, however. It was simply a fact of life.

 If you lay a hand on the Father’s son, your life is forfeit.

 The Father resided over this trial. So too did his retinue, and those who would’ve been his son’s retinue before they became his grandson’s. So too did the Captain of the Kingsglaive, and his Glaives, and the new members of the royal council who had earned their seats at the king’s table. 

 Nyx Ulric stood right beside his captain in this, too. Just another Glaive gripping and ungripping his weapon, waiting. Waiting.

 Call it a proper trial or not.

 Call it inhuman or not.

 But the outcome had been decided months beforehand.

 And every single one of them watched those abusers receive it with cold, grim, vindicated satisfaction.

 Death, for all who had laid their hands on Crown Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum personally.

 And for those who had stood by? Those who had watched on? Those who had helped cover it up as a favor to their friends?

 For them, well, the judge went easy on them.

 They were sentenced to a lifetime imprisonment in Mistveil Keep.

 Those convicted to that particular fate numbered only, about, twenty. Out of nearly a hundred. Mistveil Keep was to become another prison. But the thing was, King Regis did not intend for there to be any guards. And he stepped forward himself to stand before them, with a sword to lean on instead of a cane, the Sword of the Father, to explain personally in the frostiest tone any had ever heard from him. There would be no guards.

 No abusers, which was more than they deserved. There would be no visitors for them. There would be no light, in that dark prison. There would never be light again, not for them. Not because they were getting off easy - this new High Court was supposed to not be corrupted. It couldn’t sentence to death those who had simply stood by.

 What it could do, by a king’s orders, was to sentence them to imprisonment.

 But it seemed they would be conveniently forgetting that anyone was imprisoned in Mistveil Keep again.

 They would be delivering those twenty Crownsguard to their cells in those windowless towers, they would be chaining them up and locking their doors, and then? 

 They would be leaving.

 Without ever looking back.

 What an unfortunate oversight. And they could still, perhaps, survive for a couple of months like that. In solitude, so alone, starving, dirty, perhaps being eaten by rats while their hearts still beat, never again to see the sky or stars or sun again. The Father told them all of this. He told them all of this, and then let those who would ‘live’ be taken away. Caring not if the public saw him to be like his father by now.

 To be a monster.

 Because all that his father had ever done, all that King Mors had ever done, was put the House of Caelum first. Family first. And that was what Regis was doing. So those who had looked the other way would be taken to Mistveil and they would be chained up, and their doors would be locked, and then they would be throwing away the keys. The only guards they would keep there would be to ensure those prisoners failed to ever escape. 

 Nothing more. They deserved nothing more.

 And those sentenced to death? 

 Well, for the first time in more than two centuries, a ruler of Lucis allowed a public execution.

 Nearly eighty of them, as a matter of fact. 

 It was not about glory.

 It was about avenging his sweet nightlight. His Noctis. It was not glorious. It took place the very same day as they were sentenced. Right in front of the Citadel. Not as some grand spectacle. There was no waiting for a crowd to form. No offering them any last words. There were those eighty former-Crownsguard, stripped of their respected blacks and made to kneel there at the heart of the kingdom they’d betrayed.

 And there was Regis immediately striding forward as if he needed not his cane, grabbing one of those faces he hate-hate-hate-hated and shoving the man forward onto his knees there in the open.

 And arcing the Sword of the Father around.

 Taking off his head with one swing of that sword. 

 Those old fairytales were well and good. About kind kings, and honor, and everything bright and happy. But it was a cloudy day. And none of them cared about their public image more than they cared about Noctis Lucis Caelum. So they reminded all of Eos why the kingdom of Lucis had stood tall for more than two thousand years. 

 King Regis killed the first. Let his head roll. Let his body fall. Let the blood splatter across the leather of his shoes, drip from his blade, let it be seen and never stopped standing tall during any of it. 

 Clarus came forward to kill the second. Always, always, right behind his king.

 Cor came forward to kill the third. Always, always, right behind his big brothers.

 Drautos came forward to kill the fourth, without a single flinch. Gripping his blade extra tight as he did. Eyes shadowed by past atrocities.

 Ignis came forward to kill the fifth, his dagger swift, blood splattering across his gloves, a more personal sort of hatred.

 Gladio came forward despite his father’s hand on his shoulder, because he may be a father to two young children but he was an Amicitia and a Shield, so he swung his own greatsword to kill the sixth.

 All of them glanced back to offer the seventh to the Kingsglaive there with them.

 Nyx’s kukris were slathered in the blood of the seventh, and he slit the man’s throat proudly that lightless day.

 One, by, one.

 Loyal Crownsguard.

 Kingsglaive.

 Royalty and Retinue - they all got their pound of flesh that day.

 Eighty corpses piled up on the steps of the Citadel one by one, and it was not hidden. Not kept as some secret. Not a conspiracy. Not a mystery. It was pure, blatant execution. A punishment earnt by abusers. A punishment carried out. A publicity that was necessary to show those who had forgotten that the House of Caelum had not forgotten how to make its enemies pay. 

 They’d simply allowed mercy and piety to stay their hands for too long.

 They were done with that. 

 They were done.

 It was done.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Elsewhere in the Citadel on that cloudy day, a father and a son lay in a king’s bed together. Oriens thought they were taking a nap together, and the tiny prince was nuzzled into his dad’s neck. Breaths slow. Even. Sighing contentedly every once in a while because Noctis was running his fingers through his hair and carefully picking out all of the little tangles they caught on.

 He had his chocobo plush and his dad’s carbuncle one to cuddle, and he got naps in the middle of the day! How could he not be content?

 Noctis Lucis Caelum did not sleep.

 He stared at the ceiling.

 And he cradled his son.

 And he stared at the ceiling, still, because they had not hidden what the day would bring. His family had not hidden it.

 ‘They die today, my precious son.’ That had been his father’s promise to him.

 So he’d sought comfort in his father’s bed, and kept his son close where he wouldn’t accidentally see whatever was to come, and he waited. And waited. And waited. And he let himself trust in his family. In how they would avenge him. He stared. And waited. And stared. And waited. And stared.

 And waited.

 Noctis fell asleep, waiting. And in his dreams? Carbuncle watched over him and his sweet dawnlight. His Oriens. They lay in a field of wildflowers disconnected from it all, dozing in the sunshine, playing, laughing, free of the world outside. And they stayed that way. 

 And sometime into the dream, he smelled a familiar cologne on the breeze, so he woke up for a moment. Woke up to find the Father stood over them, his father, his dad - blood splattered across his aged face and aged hands, but he was smiling softly down at his son and his grandson.

 “It is done,” he declared, softly.

 He leaned down, pressing a kiss to Noctis’ forehead.

 “Go back to sleep, my dear boy,” he said, so Noctis did.

 But there was a weight taken off of his shoulders that let him finally breathe properly for the first time in ten years.

 And he hoped that meant he could finally heal too.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Regis, there are those who are arguing on the matter of…humanitarian rights, in regards to - “

 “Clarus, if even a single damned reporter tries to say those sentences were unwarranted, slap them with so many lawsuits they won’t leave a courthouse for the rest of their lives.” 

 “As you say, Your Majesty.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Do you think it will help?” Ignis asked calmly, wiping the blood from his daggers with methodic grace, “Will it change things? Will it make him feel safer?” 

“Of course it’ll make him feel safer, Iggy,” Gladio sighed, slumped over his own greatsword that he was also wiping down. Was. Now, he was staring out the window. A window pummeled by raindrops, for the clouds had opened wide once the execution was done with, and now a storm raged over Insomnia, “Those who hurt him are gone. But…it’ll still have consequences.” 

 Actions always do.

 Especially actions that resulted in blood spilt. Puddled. Blood, mixed with the rain of a storm they’d been waiting for for a long while.

 “I would bear any consequence for Noct,” Ignis Scientia stated, still so calmly, daggers cleaned to perfection and he studied his reflection in their blades. Perfection. Composed, perfection. Ignis, for one, would not lose sleep over this day. Not a night - not even an hour’s worth.

 “...I just hope the kids don’t…see.” 

 From his reflection, Ignis lifted his gaze. Because his friend was a father. And a father worries about his image in the mind of his children.

 “I’ll see to it personally that any recordings of today are age restricted and pulled from public viewing, after a couple of weeks pass,” he swore, setting his daggers in the Armiger and pushing up his glasses, “You did your duty, Gladiolus. You protected Noctis. Do not be ashamed of that.” 

 A simple thing to say, for one who is not a father. And Ignis knew that. 

 Knew, that for all their similarities, there was a great difference between him and his fellow retainer.

 He would put nothing above performing his duties. And Gladio? Would put his wife and children. Because while Ignis had been trained since childhood to defend, defend, defend in devotion and death? Gladio had been trained to protect, protect, protect. And a protector’s compass would always point to a slightly different north than a defender's. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 There were screams echoing through Mistveil Keep that evening, for the first time in months.

 They got no answer. No hint of hope. No light. No mercy.

 There were just screams. That was all the imprisoned had left.

 

 

-----

 

 

 In one of the Kingsglaive’s offices that evening, Titus Drautos was sipping on a glass of something light, when his doors were so rudely kicked in. And who might stumble on in? But Cor Leonis himself.

The Immortal. The King’s Sword.

It wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last either, but Drautos still huffed and put out his hands in a, ‘Really?’ Sort of gesture.

 Cor just flipped him off, dragged one of the patchy office chairs over to his desk, and plopped himself down in the old leather so hard it probably tore a bit. Before kicking his legs up onto the edge of his desk and summoning a bottle of something heavier to drink from the Armiger.

 When Drautos repeated his earlier motion, this time with a raised eyebrow, he was flipped off for a second time.

 He watched Cor take a monumentally big gulp of that alcohol of his, and snorted a little when the younger man choked on it.

 Which earned him the Crownsguard Marshal grabbing one of his pens off the desk and tossing it in his direction. It flew harmlessly past Drautos’ ear. Got lost in the carpet somewhere behind him. He didn’t bother to go searching for it.

 Just offered up his glass, and smiled a bit at the way Cor grumbled even as he poured him some of his bottle.

 “How’s the kid?” He asked. Got a third bird flipped his way - would wonders never cease? - and a long groan from the man who had invaded his office as he pointedly kicked at his desk. Again and again.

The brat.

 Still, if there were a single subject in the decades they’d known each other that they agreed on? It was Prompto.

 They’d both trained the kid, after all.

 “...Talkin’ ta Cindy,” was the answer he eventually got out of this impossible little brother of his, paired with a little shrug and a big gulp of that whiskey he was downing, “Fuzzled. Fr-frazzled. Wanted ta join us, but he’ssnot…offish’ully…” 

 Right, the kid wasn’t officially permitted to perform executions because he wasn’t a member of court ‘on the records’. 

 More importantly - 

 “How much did you have to drink before you came here, kid?” 

 Cor’s head shot up from where he’d been slowly slumping over his bottle, an offended snort bursting out of him like a bull angered, and Drautos smirked at how predictable he was, “‘M not - ! Not a kid, Drautos!” 

 Nah, just, whenever he got drunk he slipped into that accent he got from ol’ Cid and then Drautos started to think of when he was a teenager facing off against grown men twice his size and handing all of their asses to him. Including Drautos himself. Hard not to get endeared to a gremlin three-fourth your size spitting like an angry rattlesnake and talking like he should be out herding chocobo instead of proving he’s better than half the royal Crownsguard.

 And to think, this kid was the one constantly, playfully, trying to kill him.

 A couple of years ago it would’ve been a good thing if one of his playful attempts succeeded. Would’ve saved a lot of folks, once upon a time.

 Now, it was just something Drautos was glad he could still have. Even after all of his wrongdoings. Even if…nobody else knew about those wrongdoings besides him. 

 Cor raised his whiskey bottle threateningly, so Drautos backed off with his palms up and a laugh stuck in his throat, “Got it, got it! Not a kid! Got it!” 

 If he sat and drank with his old friend for a while after this long, long day that they’d been working towards for months? What was the harm? And if he swapped their drinks halfway through so Cor was on a much lighter alcohol? Was there any harm in that? And if by nightfall he had the Marshall of the Crownsguard passed out on his desk, drooling on some of his paperwork? 

 If he laid a blanket over the kid and ruffled his hair before heading out to get work done elsewhere, shutting off the lights in his office so Cor could sleep? 

 There was no harm.

 He didn’t want to cause harm anymore.

 Before anything else though, he went looking for Prompto. Had to make sure both of the kids were okay before he could get to work, after all.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Prompto had wanted his pound of flesh too.

 Cindy laughed and called him cavity-sweet nicknames in that Leide drawl of hers until the would-be Heart settled, and softened, and accepted that none of his bullets had had those bastards’ names on them.

 Not this time.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When Nyx returned to the bedroom of a prince, it was late. It was dark. Because it was night, and it was a night where a storm waylaid Insomnia. The worst sorts of weather used to be blocked by the Wall that surrounded the Crown City. The Wall that now only surrounded the Citadel, and the storm was so much worse out in the city. All they got there was heavy rainfall and the distant roll of thunder.

 Nyx was uncertain if this was a sign that Father Ramuh was pleased or angered, but he knelt at the altar he’d set up in inlustris’ rooms and he prayed whatever the case was.

 Clicking his beads together, he prayed to the sound of water droplets pattering against windows, to the rolling thunder, the crack of wild lightning.

 Spending the afternoon in Little Galahd helping to storm-proof the community had meant he never got to see inlustris after. After the trial. After the execution that he had cleaned blood from his kukris for.

 So when he stood from his praying, he did something selfish. 

 He went to stand over his star’s bed.

 His star, slumbering, with his arms wound protectively over mane. Ori. 

 The tiny princling’s hands were clutching at his dad’s shirt, and they both slept with such peaceful expressions on their faces. Safe, where they were in their dreams. Safe now, where they were in the Citadel. A relief laid on Nyx. He thanked the Stormfather for it, as the shadows of rain pounding against the windows kept casting washed-out colors over them all.

 Nyx stayed to watch, just a while longer. Just a while.

 Then he made sure the doors were locked.

 And he unlaced his boots. Slipped the soaked things off of his feet. He stretched, readied for bed, and then laid down not on the sofa, but on inlustris’ windowseat. Where he could lounge on the coeurl pelt of a chieftain, and watch the rains fall for hours.

He’d taken a life that day. For the first time in many, many months, he’d taken a life and wiped precious lifeblood from his kukris’ blades. 

And he’d taken that life because there were beads in his braids, and a pair of necklaces set on his chest. One, a totem for the guardian of dreams that his star prayed to. And one, simply, because his star had thought it matched his eyes. That had been enough to get him to take a life.

 And to never, ever regret it.

 He watched the rains fall. 

 He watched the storm dance and listened to it sing.

 And he waited, for it to be over, so inlustris could have more of the peace he so surely deserved.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “My brother would’ve done the same for me, once, oh selfish House of Caelum,” a lone figure in the rain said. Words washed away by the storm’s raging.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Ring of the Lucii was full of discourse that night.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was mystifying how quickly life in the Citadel returned to routine, even with seemingly every news station in Eos talking on and on about the sentencing of inlustris’ abusers. Even with seemingly every Insomnian citizen talking and talking and talking about nothing but that with wary glances towards every Crownsguard and Kingsglaive they saw on the street.

 They had been reminded of the power their royals held.

 Some of them didn’t seem to like the reminder all that much; protests had picked back up. But Nyx? Nyx wasn’t involved in any of that public relations…stuff.

 Nyx was called on to oversee training for the Kingsglaive recruits, because the Lazarus district in Little Galahd had been hit hard by that storm and Navi was too busy helping out the community to do so. He didn’t mind. Loved to hang out with the young ones, loved to see them grow and make them laugh.

 Sure, there was something of a somber atmosphere over the Glaives’ training grounds that day.

 For some of the recruits, well - those executions were their first time seeing death.

 For many, it was their first time realizing they may be asked to take a life one day too.

 Nyx Ulric was a decorated war hero, a chieftain of the Galahdians, and yet this was the first time he saw some of the recruits look at him and see a man who had killed another person. For a lot of them, it was a rude awakening. You don’t get the glory without the guts. And you don’t get the guts without cutting open a few bodies.

 Nyx was glad they hadn’t grown up the way he had. Grown up surrounded by the massacres, the bombs dropping, the nights where blitzes lit up their villages and they ran burning and bleeding into the jungle to escape the Empire’s dropships. In many ways, it was a mark of pride for him. He’d fought so these children had no need to.

 Now, they wanted to fight too. And they were being faced with exactly what that would mean.

 He was faced with a lot of questions, that day. All in hushed voices. And Captain Drautos stopped by to inform him that they’d had several new recruits resign. It was just the way of it. And Nyx prayed to Ramuh he’d never have to force children to fight if they didn’t wish to.

 But regardless, eventually, his responsibilities came to an end.

 Returning to starlight’s rooms, Nyx did as he usually did. He shrugged off his jacket and threw it over the back of one of the armchairs, he set his kukris on a nightstand, he stretched out good and stripped out of his Kingsglaive uniform.

 There was snickering from the door when he dropped his phone and keys on the sofa where he usually slept, so he looked in that direction. Brow arched.

 Axis was on guard duty that day, and when he started snickering? Nyx started paying attention to things. There were equal chances of him sitting on a whoopee cushion, or having a voretooth suddenly let loose on him when that Arra was involved.

 “What?” 

 “Nothing.” See, he said that, but it was obvious from his tone of voice and the way he was leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed that it wasn’t nothing.

 Nyx glanced down at the sofa cushions, expecting to see pins scattered across them or something. When he failed to find that, he spun in a slow circle to check his immediate surroundings. Still nothing. Which only had his shoulders getting tenser.

 “Axis.” 

 “Oh, yes, great chieftain! As you command!” Axis rolled his eyes at Nyx, but then those eyes shifted to focus on something over his shoulder.

 Turning, he followed their line of sight.

 And blinked when he noticed a cot had been moved into inlustris’ bedroom.

 “<What is this?>” Was asked, then Nyx immediately threw one of his gloves backwards when Axis predictably snorted and was all like, ‘Gee, Nyx, I didn’t think I’d have to explain to you what a cot was at your age!’ He had eyes. Obviously it was a cot. A nice one too. With a soft mattress, and silk sheets and covers on it that matched his star’s own bed. Which was only about six feet away from it.

 The cot was wedged up against the wall, parallel to that bed big enough for royalty, and it may have just been a cot but it looked comfier than any bed Nyx had ever had the pleasure of sleeping in. 

 “<Gift from your star.>” He finally got a real answer out of the Arra leaning against the doorframe, tone amused and Nyx didn’t have the words as he walked over to the cot. Leaned down. Pressed his palm flat into the mattress and - yeah, uh, wow.

 That was probably the softest cot in the world.

 “Asked us to move it in here. For you,” Axis clarified with a snort when Nyx turned to point helplessly at his own chest in disbelief, “Yes, you, moogle-brain. He was all shy about it too, but told Navi and I that he wanted you to have an actual surface to sleep on instead of just crashing on the sofa. <Like you’ve been doing for months.>” 

 “I thought Navi was helping out the community today. That’s why I was covering their duties.” 

 “They were,” a shrug, “but it actually didn’t take as long as they thought it would, so they showed up, meant to take back their duties, and ended up being asked by your prince to help with the cot. Then, Captain Drautos popped in - told Navi to leave you to it since the recruits had questions for you specifically.” 

 A lull filled the space of the room between them, and for a second time Nyx flattened his palm into the cot. Pressed. For a second time he was startled by its softness. Sleeping on the sofa had been no trouble - he’d practically moved in without even asking, actually, so the fact that inlustris would offer him comfort like this? 

 It made him…made him a guest, or something more, not just a Glaive doing his duty as best he could for a hurting man.

 It made them more.

 It was a place made for Nyx by his star’s side, and that meant something. To him.

 “...Look, Nyx.” It wasn’t often that one heard Axis Arra get serious, “I know things with His Highness are hardly, probably, simple,” so when Nyx heard that? He actually turned his head to listen properly, “I know things are probably pretty complicated, to be honest. Most of us do. And I’m…really the last person to be having this talk with you, but I spoke to my wife about it and she had things to say, so I’m going to be her voice here.” 

 Well, Nyx Ulric was no fool. He knew to listen to an Arra wife, and listen well, especially that saint of a woman who managed not only Axis but their triplets too.

 “The whole community thinks you’re courting him,” he met those brown eyes, even across the room, and he could see how serious they were. It wasn’t just the words or tone of voice, it was a matter of community, “Your visit; showing him Little Galahd, teaching him our culture - half of the elders are asking how you plan to handle tying yourself to a royal. They’re asking when the ceremony will be. The other half is minding their own business, but they only will for so long.” 

 Tying…

 “More than any of that though, does Prince Noctis even know how you feel about him? Have you made your intentions clear?” Nyx opened his mouth to speak, but Axis just put up a hand to silence the older man, “No, you don’t have to answer. <It is not fair to him, if you haven’t. Those are my wife's words. He has been through enough. Far too much. And if you are not being clear with that child, she says she will come here herself and wack you good with her sandal, Nyx.>”

 Clear intentions, huh? 

 Were his intentions clear? 

 Nyx pressed his palm back into the cot. Leaned on it heavily. Starlight’s intentions seemed clear, at the very least. Or maybe he shouldn’t just assume. He should ask. And he should be sure. He should…

 “Just, give it some thought.” 

 The Ulric Chieftain sat down heavily on the edge of the cot as he was left by himself in the large, royal bedroom. Then, he fell back into the softness to stare at the ceiling far above. Wondering when his star would be back from wherever he was. There were two necklaces he wore that he’d thought made the intentions on both of their sides obvious, but now? 

 Now, he could just close his eyes, and enjoy his new gift.

 And hope that he hadn’t misunderstood something important after all.

 

 

-----

 

 
“Nyx? Nyx?” 

A finger poked his cheek.

“Nyx?” 

“‘M up. ‘M up.” Granted, his eyes weren’t open, but the cot was so ridiculously soft he swore he’d fallen asleep atop a cloud. He felt sore, he’d slept so good. And that had only been a nap. 

Anyways, Nyx reluctantly got his heavy eyelids to open after some torturous negotiation with himself. The biggest contributing factor to his success was that Oriens was the one poking his cheek. Calling his name. Nyx would always wake up if it was for him or his dad. And the boy was standing over where he was strewn across the cot.

 The bedroom was far darker than when he’d returned earlier. Dark as evening, as night. With the shadows and moonlight to make it such. And Nyx was just laid out spread-eagle on the cot, with his legs still hanging off the edge like he’d meant to get back up. Not take a nap. He sort of had.

 But, better late than never.

 Groaning, dragging a hand down his face and scrubbing at it to wake better, he shifted until he was sat on the cot’s edge again. Elbows on his knees and blinking slowly up at mane.

 “What’s up?”

 Nyx knew right away that it wasn’t something good. Because the princling was shuffling and wringing the hem of his pajama shirt in his small fists and his eyes were bright in the moonlit bedroom. Too bright to be okay. It made the Glaive straighten up a whole lot more. Reaching for the kid, “Hey, mane, what is it?”

 Prince Oriens pressed his lips together hard, biting them, then shuffled a bit to the side.

 Saying, “Something’s wrong with Dad.” 

 That shook Nyx awake all the way. Got him on his feet before he’d even fully looked past Noctis’ son. To inlustris’ bed. That big bed, that royal bed, that Nyx had slept beside more than once. Where his star laid his head, where his star was; shifting and twisting in the shafts of moonlight coming through the windows. It was obvious that his dreams weren’t happy ones. He just kept writhing around with his upper body, while his legs remained dead under the covers.

 Nyx put a hand on the princling’s shoulder and gave it a good squeeze. Eyes drooping with sadness.

 “Your Highness, I need you to head back to your own rooms, okay? One of the Glaives at the door will escort you.” 

 Oriens peered up at him with the biggest, brightest, saddest blue-blue eyes to ever exist in Eos. The boy looked as if he wanted to cry. As if this ask was too much for him to bear. Then he looked back at his father in the middle of whatever nightmare had taken him into its claws, and he slumped a little. Wrung his shirt a lot. And Nyx couldn’t justify sending his star’s son to sleep alone.

 But he also couldn’t allow Ori to remain. They’d already proven…things could get dangerous when inlustris was too lost in his own mind to realize who he was hurting.

 “Tell you what,” a second squeeze, “why don’t you go to your grandfather’s rooms? Just, let him know your father is having a bad dream so I sent you to him, hm?” 

 Did a lone Kingsglaive have the authority to send a prince to a king’s rooms in the middle of the night like that? Nyx didn’t really care to know at the moment.

 He was beginning to feel the thorny prickle of inlustris’ magic seeking out enemies, and he couldn’t let the princling stay any longer.

 Clearly mane took his suggestion to be something of instructions, instead, which wasn’t bad. Gave the kid bravery. Got him to straighten up and nod, determined. And then scamper off, finally. Giving his dad’s bed a wide berth and disappearing out the bedroom’s doors to the sound of small, bare feet pattering on the tiles.

 Leaving Nyx in the moonlight with the hurt man he’d come to care for deeply.

 “Inlustris, I’m here," with the thorns of that magic once so soft, so sweet, so much like the gentle rivulets of a river. Back then his star seemed incapable of ever doing harm to anyone. Not anymore, “I’m here.” 

 He bore the thorns. 

 The pain.

 With a smile, as he went to his star.

 “<Starlight, I am here. You are here, with me.>” 

 The next sting felt like a knife had slipped as he was preparing meat from a hunt. Cut him straight down the arm and left him numbed and bleeding. But there was no physical wound, so he drew closer. Kept talking.

 “<Those men are dead, starlight. They can never harm you again. They can never do anything to you again.>” The next sting felt lesser. Lighter. It was only a small nick, barely bled, so he kept on going as he slowly knelt down next to his star’s bed, “<None of us ever want you to be hurt again. None of us would allow it. You’re in your bedroom. In the Citadel. You’re not there.>” 

 Like he was calming a skittish chocobo, he kept his voice low and soft, kept his movements slow, but this wasn’t the worst nightmare Nyx had talked inlustris down from, so he didn’t mind the next sting that felt like little more than a papercut.

 “<I am Nyx Ulric, starlight, and I am here for you.>” 

 The next sting felt like thorns merely pressing on his skin, without ever making him bleed, and he could feel the prince’s magic. Feel it swirling around him. Around the bedroom. Confused. Recalibrating. Which was when he slowly started pushing his hand across the black, silken sheets to reach for Noctis’ hand.

 When he dared to so gingerly press just a single finger to one of his knuckles, the magic did not bristle. But it did flinch from him. Disappeared, as if he never could’ve felt it in the first place.

 He crooked one finger around inlustris’ index, then paused. Then slipped a second around it. He paused again, then very, very gently tugged the man’s thin hand his way. Adding a third, a fourth finger. A fifth. And held it so carefully in his palm. The hand of a man who had suffered. A hand so small, bony, with so many sharp edges and tiny scars. A hand he held. A hand he tugged towards him, just a bit. Just a bit more.

 Until he could hunch over the edge of the bed, and press his lips to it. Holding it gently.

 “<I am here,>” he breathed, knelt at his star’s bedside. Watching the tenseness fade shade by shade from that pale face. The nightmare, at its end. And still he held on. Running his thumb back and forth in what he hoped was a soothing motion for his sworn.

 “<I am here.>”

 With his free hand, Nyx took that idol of Carbuncle off of inlustris’ pillow and pushed it closer to the man’s heart. Then he took the necklace from the bedside table, the same totem he’d been given by his starlight, and also set that beside the idol. Double protection. 

 He swore he heard a chirp from somewhere, but he kept his stormy eyes on his star.

 “<I am here.>” 

 And he waited out the night.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When Regis was awoken from his sleep by a light knock-knock-knock at his doors, he went to answer it of course. And he found his grandson standing small and stout on the other side. Blue eyes big, and frightened, and Regis felt sadness take his heart as he immediately tugged his grandson into a hug where his head only reached the king’s stomach.

 “Nyx sent me,” his boy mumbled against his pajama’s satin, “Dad had a nightmare.” 

 A slow exhale, and Regis shut his eyes.

 A slow inhale, and he opened them. A green shade neither of his boys had inherited, a green that had also dulled over the years. But for his grandson’s sake? He made them sparkle a little, as he offered a tiny smile for Ori and turned them around.

 “Then why don’t you sleep in my bed for the night, sweetheart? We can go check on your dad together in the morning.” 

 He hoped that Nyx Ulric could handle this nightmare on his own. 
 
 He shut his doors, and led his grandson off to bed. It was all that he could do.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was…some, more, public outcry come morning about the ethics of the trial that had been started, carried out, and concluded over the course of a single day. A protest or two or three. People with signs and megaphones stood on city corners, arguing for the rights of abusers. When Regis saw them gathered out in front of the Citadel through his bedroom window, as small as ants practically from his perspective, he was sipping his mug of morning coffee.

 And he simply drew the curtains shut to go and wake Ori with pancakes in bed that the kitchens had been kind enough to send.

 They would not be entertaining those protestors. 

 Because there wasn’t a single person who had taken a life that day, or carried out a sentence, who regretted what they had done. And Regis presumed that those protestors were more frightened about the realization that even a peaceful king could kill should he wish, than in support of Noctis’ abusers.

 It was the only reason he didn’t immediately send an order out to have them rounded up and fined for something so cruel as trying to claim even a little that those corrupt Crownsguard hadn’t deserved what they got.

 But Regis - he just sat and ate pancakes in bed with his grandson. Drawing smiley faces on each one with a can of whipped cream for the way it made the boy giggle.

 He was the Father.

 And he would not regret whatever it took to make his child and grandchild happy.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Waking up, in a sunlit bedroom, with Oriens laying on his belly across Noctis’ legs? Playing King’s Knight 3, most likely. Kicking his feet in the air, humming along to the victory music? It - actually, it almost made Noctis think he was looking at himself. As a child. A child, playing King’s Knight 1, because Ori looked so much like him right then. But those moments were more than twenty years in the past.

 At least it reassured Noctis that he hadn’t harmed his son.

 Because he was fairly sure he’d had a nightmare. The shades of it still clung, distantly, to his mind. The knowledge that there had been one, that he’d had an unpleasant night, but if Ori was still here then it couldn’t have been a terrible one, right? 

 “Ah. You’re up, I see.” 

 Oriens wasn’t alone. 

 Blue-blue eyes, two sets of them, father and son, they went to Regis sat there at his bedside. Resting his chin on the handle of his cane and beaming at both of his boys. Then, Ori’s blue-blue eyes went to his dad. Who was awake. Which meant immediately dropping his phone into the twisted sheets.

 And glomping his dad with a giggly, “Dad! Good morning! Grandpa and I brought you lunch!” 

 Noctis’ frail hands instantly went up around his dawnlight, to hug him tight in return, they got tangled up in his son’s messy bedhead and the back of his pajama shirt - and it was most definitely past any time they would’ve usually eaten breakfast or gotten ready for the day. 

 Which meant they’d been waiting for him to wake up for hours.

 “We had pancakes for breakfast, but for lunch we have some nice, healthy sandwiches to enjoy,” his dad declared, straightening up so he wasn’t hunched over his cane, still also in a set of pajamas. Satin ones. “Courtesy of the kitchens. They should be delicious. Ori? If you’d grab them from the fridge in the kitchen, please?” 

 “I can do that!” Noctis’ sweet son was scrambling off of him and off of his bed and out of his bedroom within the minute, out to the kitchen that was a part of his rooms. 

 And it was adorable to see, but it was also so obviously a chance for them to talk in private. Just for a few seconds.

 “Last night, Dad, did I - ?” 

 “You did not harm anyone, my dear boy.” Nothing but honesty rested in his dad’s voice, or in the way he reached out to pat Noctis’ hand. Eyes tired and tender, “You gave Ori a bit of a fright, yes, but only because he was worried for you. Nyx sent him to sleep with me, and it was he who stayed with you last night. According to him, you settled rather fast, and there was no harm done. To anyone.” 

 Purring, and there was Aurora, walking unevenly across the rumpled sheets of his bed so the white kitten could collapse in his lap and rub all over him. 

 Both of them glanced down at her and were made to laugh, because, really, none of them had ever considered the ramifications of having white cat with all its shedded hair around when their family’s color was black.

 They were giving the cleaning staff a run for their wages, that was for sure.

 “I’ll have to thank him,” the once-maybe-Chosen King said, giving Aurora her deserved scratchies and attentions, glancing over at that cot out of the corner of his eye, “for so many things.” 

 “That, you will.” 

 And that was that, because that was when Oriens’ came back with a wrapped platter balanced in his small hands, that he held up like a trophy he’d earned in battle against the fearsome fridge. And his dad had been right. They were nice sandwiches. They were even nicer when enjoyed with his family.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Tense, twist, swipe, back off, duck.

 Tense, twist, swipe, back off, duck.

 Tense, twist, duck, back off and groan at Navi because that hadn’t been fair.

 They snort, they swipe, and there’s the hissing of kukris bone on bone as their weapons catch on each other mid-clash. Hilt to hilt. Nyx’s muscles strained, and his grin was full of teeth over their blades as Navi smirked back. And then they broke apart, he stabbed, they lunged, both of them blocked the attempts with their second kukris and then Nyx slammed his forehead forward.

 Navi stumbled back just fast enough for his fellow lieutenant to avoid having their nose broken by his forehead.

 He bared his teeth and snarled.

 They clicked their tongue.

 They waited, two paces away. Three paces away. Two paces away. Circling. The training yard was full of whistles and cheers, people shouting out who had money on who, giving advice that ranged from smart to stupid to sabotage.

 Nyx had done this enough times in his life to ignore the onlookers. To drop his shoulders and charge the second those green eyes of Navi’s had shifted towards the crowd. Distracted. They didn’t let him get in that easily though, and if he hadn't twisted to the side there he would’ve ran headlong into one of their knives.

 “Nice try, Nyx. Still always one to charge first and think later.” 

 Bone on bone, heels in the dirt, muscles and the way they strained to keep them matched - fuck did Nyx love this.

 He’d always been a fighter, and he never pretended otherwise.

 He’d needed it. After the night he’d had, after spending hours counting inlustris’ lashes as he slept, after inlustris had only fallen asleep because of him - his calming, his voice, his presence. He needed something rough to harden the something soft that had filled his heart to the brim. He needed that distance. Especially after Axis’ words the day before.

 Navi gave him that, like they’d given him plenty of cuts and scrapes in the past.

 He was a chieftain of the Ulric Clan, a clan known for their skills with weapons in hunting and in fighting, known for their bravery and their brazenness and their leadership skills. He showed every bit of that lineage every time they had a sparring session like this. It became a show the whole training yard got in on, whenever it happened. He knew money had exchanged hands today, knew some of the recruits had even snuck in to watch.

 None of it would distract him from his win.

 “Oh, look at that, <your star is here>.” 

 Except that.

 Navi said that with a smirk that twisted the edge of their lips up, and punctuated it with a thrust of their kukris that had the beads around the hilts clicking together, but Nyx so easily redirected them and their blades past him. Turning his head as he did so. Turning to the crowd. Turning to those that would not distract him.

 To find the one that would.

 “Inlustris.” There was a star in that crowd.

 A crowd that had split to let him come forth in his wheelchair, where he’d parked it to watch. A star with glittering blue eyes, framed by glasses inlustris adjusted just as their gazes met. It was a second. Less than, maybe. But the whole world froze for Nyx anyways. He was suspended in that less than a second, staring at his star who was smiling unsurely at him with those glasses on the bridge of his cute little nose that Nyx just wanted to kiss - 

 “Focus, Ulr-urk!”

 Focus, they said.

 But it was Navi who was grunting and losing their footing before they’d even finished their sentence, mid-lunge. Sent backwards and staggering by Nyx shifting his weight into them after such a fast twist he might as well have been a coeurl. And a coeurl with drive, at that. Not just a coeurl playing with its food. Nyx wasn’t sure what it was.

 He swung.

 He wasn’t sure.

 He stabbed.

 He really wasn’t sure.

 He caught one of Navi’s kukris by its bands and sent it sailing sideways away from them with a wild flick of his wrist.

 He was lying.

 Nyx dropped into a crouch so swiftly he felt dizzy, but it was Navi who ended up on their back when he swept the lieutenant's legs out from under them. Them, who hit the ground with a relentless thud. Them, who groaned. Them, who dropped their remaining kukris and tapped the dirt three times to end the sparring session.

It was Nyx who instantly tugged Navi up before they could even get their bearings, just so he could turn on his heel and drink in the sight inlustris made for. A real, broad smile stretched across his face, eyes full of constellations, clapping his hands with all the strength he had. Even if it was still quieter than the cheering Glaives surrounding them.

 Just him. And just that fallen star he’d caught.
 
 With the sunlight glittering as it caught his beads, with a flush across his face and his chest panting for breath, he was a liar. He knew precisely what it was.

 It was him showing off, just to get this reaction from the man he…he cared so much for.

 It was him showing off, just so he could saunter on up to that crown prince of his heart, and kneel at the feet of royalty. Smile up into those eyes filled by every night sky in Eos. Fall in love, a little…maybe. His voice low and rough from the exertion when he spoke.

 “Hey, starlight. Wasn’t expecting to see you down here.” 

 “I wanted to thank you, for last night,” Noctis told him, a bit breathless himself and my if that didn’t flatter Nyx Ulric like nothing else on their star, “It was good, but you were gone when I woke up. Uncle Drautos said you’d be here.”

 “You don’t have to thank me - I should be the one thanking you,” Nyx snorted, rolling his shoulders a little just from the thought of that amazingly soft cot he’d gotten a few hours of sleep on before his star had needed him, “It was good for me too, I promise.” 

 “Good.” 

 “Good.” 

 Both of them smiled at each other, chuckled a little, then the prince tilted his head. Cheeks somewhat pinking, “I, uh, promised to join Iggy in the kitchens this afternoon, but do you think you’d be up for more of the mushroom skewers for dinner if I ask the cooks to make them? We can eat in the gardens with Ori and Aurora. And my dad, if he’s not busy.” 

 “Sounds like a plan, inlustris.” 

 Sounded like a great plan, to be honest. Nyx…Nyx really hadn’t had all that many meals shared with others in the years since Libertus fell to the bottle and Crowe fell to that accident. Not that he wasn’t invited, as a chieftain, the community would always welcome him to any dinner table any night of any day. It just hadn’t felt right, until he started sharing meals with the malnourished royal to encourage him to eat more regularly.

 Now it just felt right. Just that.

 And he waved as he watched Noctis wheel himself away from the training yard they’d muddied. And the crowd of Kingsglaive that Nyx now realized were awfully…quiet. 

 He frowned at them as he rose from where he’d knelt, and that frown deepened at all the smirks he was faced with. The wiggling eyebrows. The coughed words behind people’s hands.

 “What?” 

 “Nyx, you dog,” Tredd barked, and hence unleashed the wolf whistles as Nyx was practically buried in horndog Glaives in a sudden turn of events he hadn’t predicted, “<You and your prince must’ve had a really, really fun night, huh? If it was so good for both of you?>” 

 Nyx finally replayed what they’d said over in his head, and felt his face color red-red as he realized what it’d sounded like.

 “Wait, no, we didn’t mean - !” 

 Too late. Insomnia’s hero was buried underneath a mountain of teasing and noogies from his comrades, who laughed off his every attempt to explain it hadn’t been that they were talking about.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Elsewhere in the Citadel, Noctis sneezed.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx blushed later, when he kept his promise to his star; to meet him in the very gardens where he had caught him. Months ago.

To join him for dinner with the King and the Crown Prince of Lucis. A Galahdian recipe for the main course. A softness in all of their hearts, in light of all of that blood scrubbed from the steps of the Citadel that only two of them had seen. Nyx sat at a table of royalty. He sat, a soldier - a Galahdian warrior. A chieftain.

 He sat beside his king, ‘Please, just call me Regis when in private like this, Nyx.’

 He sat beside his crown prince, ‘Hi, Nyx!’

 He sat beside the man he had sworn himself to, ‘Nyx.’

 Three pairs of bright eyes on him. The forest-greens of a father. The night-blues of a son and a son’s son. No longer as haunted. No longer as scared. No longer as dim. Each of them, to Nyx Ulric of the Ulric Clan, stars, in each of their own rights. Family. The royal family of Lucis. The Lucis Caelums. 

 The House of Caelum.

 One of its hurt members finally avenged and finally happy.

 And Nyx had seen for himself - for that? For that, no cost was too great. The House of Cealum would drag gods from the skies to protect its own after all it had endured. And Nyx knew himself best of all, he’d like to think. Which was how he knew so surely that day, invited to dinner with royalty, sat basking in a noon sun, petting Aurora who was purring and sat beside his king as they watched the man and boy they both…loved, play together? 

 Nyx knew he’d do just about anything to protect inlustris and mane too. His star and his morninglight.

 He and his king understood each other well in that regard. 

 Understood each other best, when they were just watching the stars of their lives live happily, right in front of them.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Later, when Oriens was safely out of hearing range, Nyx gently asked, “Last night, your nightmare, you calmed easier. Faster.” 

 Maybe it wasn’t actually a question. But his star tilted his head in thought before asking back.

 “You spoke Galahdian when you were calming me down, didn’t you.” 

 Maybe that also wasn’t actually a question. But it was a guess from whatever flashes of the nightmare that Noctis remembered. And when his stormy Glaive nodded? Noctis had an explanation for him.

 “Nobody ever spoke Galahdian. Not there. Not when they hurt me.” 

 They let the conversation die after that; let it wither away in the sunshine they basked in. They were figuring things out. And they’d take it day by day as they needed to.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Finally, vengeance! Had a busy week. Sorry this one was a bit late. We're setting things up to make this family a bit more morally gray as we go, and I'm excited to get there.

Sometimes, I just need my Lucis Caelums to be completely badass and unforgiving. <333

Chapter 13

Notes:

Again, sorry about the delay, but this chapter ended up a bit longer to make up for it~

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 Day by day meant good and bad things. 

 And day by day meant happy and sad things.

 And sometimes it was all intermingled; sometimes the mornings were good and happy while the nights were bad and sad. Sometimes Carbuncle blessed the dreams of the House of Caelum. Sometimes the trauma its two oldest members had suffered in their lifetimes was too much even for that guardian of sweet dreams. Sometimes Noctis slept through the night, sometimes he woke up weeping without understanding why.

 Sometimes he understood too well.

 Sometimes he woke up hugging himself, waking Nyx with his keening. 

 Unlike before, though, they could tell Noctis that it was okay. ‘They were dead. They were gone. They cannot hurt you ever again.’ And it could be true. It was true. It was his greatest relief. Those who had hurt him for ten years of his life were headless and dead and buried. Rotten and withering and chained away for the darkness to take. It was his relief.

It was his relief. 

 His to hold and his to thank and his to focus on whenever their actions were a ghost haunting him.

 Each day, there was no way of knowing what form that decade would take in Noctis Lucis Caelum. But. There were a few things they might know. Know to be true, and be glad to know it.

 Like they might know that he can stomach most meals the kitchens make for him these days. Like they might also know that he was gaining back enough weight to be more than skin and bones. Like they might know that he enjoyed being outside; enjoyed that often, and oftentimes more with his father and his son. His paleness pinking.

 Or like they might know that he was used to his glasses now, after months of adjusting to his need for them lest the world blur. But like Nyx might know - he still sometimes forgot to take them off before taking a nap, and he ended up doing that for inlustris while he dozed so he wouldn’t have their frames imprinted on his face when he woke up.

 Like him being completely at ease with needing his wheelchair, and like they all knew he was no longer that insecure little kid who was afraid to admit he needed it because the council had its opinions about that.

 Like him letting Ignis in, like him letting Gladio come tend to the bouquets he gifted his prince, like Prompto came to visit around his responsibilities in Leide and Duscae.

 Like Cor was allowed to stand guard; the only Crownsguard allowed. Like Clarus was invited to meals. Like Drautos was often invited into his rooms by Nyx to discuss Kingsglaive business. Like Regis was wanted and there for his dear Noctis.

 Like Oriens was loved and loved more than anything and always, always, always welcome.

 It was a day by day thing.

 It was a day by day that they played by ear.

 And it was a day by day that they were all simply too happy to dance for, for Noctis, for the House of Caelum.

 Sun or moon or star, clear skies or clouds or rain, they were willing and hopeful to serve. Because they did not want to ever fail again.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Day by day, and one day? 

 While Regis was doing his kingly duties in his royal study, a soft knocking came at the doors. Thick wood. Carven. Imposing, to any and all…except family. And they were never truly closed to family. So when Regis heard his son’s voice calling through their wood, asking to enter? He rose from the chair at his desk. Because it was midday and Noctis was not prone to coming to see him unless something was wrong.

 Cor didn’t exactly rush - nothing so uncollected - but he did make it to the door rather quickly and had it open less than half a moment later. 

 Noctis wheeled in with a thankful look to his uncle, before his blue-blue eyes, his mother’s eyes, went to Regis.

 Which meant this was about him, yes? 

 He circled his desk to welcome his son in, aware of Clarus also straightening up with a seriousness to him. Because not only had his darling son come to his study at midday, but he was frowning.

 It was wretched to see.

 “Noctis? Sweetheart, what is it?” Was all the king could ask without immediately offering his son the whole of Eos to make it better. If it would, make it better, that is, he would. He would give Noctis the whole of Eos.

 He would conquer the world and offer it to his precious child if it were to make him smile again. He would, he would, he would.

 Instead, Noctis took his heart and tore it a tiny bit.

 “Dad, how could you do this? I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. Is it true? Tell me yourself. Tell me.” 

 The heartbreak in Noctis’ voice was the furthest thing from genuine, Regis would realize later. Even as he said it he was sort of smiling and wheeling his way over to his father in a casual manner. But those words - they were not something this old king could hear without his heart skipping a beat. His breath catching. He froze like a critter stuck in the headlights of a car, panic tearing through him as he tried to figure out what had upset his darling son. What he’d done.

 But - those serious words, questions, demands? They were so at odds with the way Noctis snorted so, so softly at seeing his panic. The way he actually rolled his eyes. An action so at-ease, something he’d not seen from his child since his return - it was - it was confusing.

 He was confused, staring owl-eyed at Noctis as if waiting would give him his answer.

 Hunching a little to bring himself close to his little nightlight when he stopped his wheelchair right in front of him.

 Prepared to beg for forgiveness, for anything and everything. For Noctis. His and Aulea’s dear son. 

 Those were Aulea’s eyes, staring deep into his as their boy’s expression became one almost akin to pouting. Said.

 “Have you really never taken Oriens fishing before, Dad? How could you?” 

 Lucis’ King was so relieved he nearly fell over. 

 As it was, Regis didn’t actually fall over, but he did lean heavily on his cane to let out a breathy laugh that gave away his relief. 

 “Just how did this conversation come around, sweetheart?” The king asked because he felt faint with relief, dizzy with mirth - here was his son and he was focused on fishing and suddenly he felt young again with the conversation. My, the things a son could do to his father’s heart with just a few words.

 “We were talking about how King’s Knight 3’s developers want to add a fishing mechanic to the game, and I was telling him about the lure collection I put together as a teenager, and he was all, ‘I didn’t know you fished, Dad! I’ve never fished before - ‘ Dad, how could you not take him fishing?”

 Regis felt so young again; Noctis talking about his lure collection, about that mobile game he and Prompto used to play together constantly, sounding properly scandalized over fishing. 

 It was like a trip back in time, and his grin was genuine for it as he reached out to ruffle his son’s hair with his mirth.

 “An oversight that clearly must be seen to,” he said with teasing seriousness, “Immediately, I should think. There’s still the sunfish pond in the gardens, Noctis,” eyes sparkling, “How about we see to it there?” 

 “You…you want to fish with us?” 

 And oh, how was Regis to not do that, when his boy’s eyes lit up like true stars at the idea? 

 “Let me adjust my schedule for the afternoon, and we can go then, hm?” 

 An afternoon of fishing for three royals. What a way to spend time as a family.

 But more than that? A joke! A joke! In a way, his Noctis had participated in a joke all on his own and all for his own amusement and that - that was something that had felt so far outside of them ever having again in those immediate months following his freedom from Mistveil Keep. There had been so much darkness, such a depression, Regis had surely thought his son would never joke again. Never smile again, let alone anything else.

 So if he had to take a moment with his brothers to collect himself, to tip his head to the ceiling and stare at the fanciful molds decorating it until his breathing evened out again? His brothers did not blame him.

 They did not blame him, but they did need a moment for themselves as well.

 

 

-----

 

 

 About ten minutes later, after he had departed the study of a king, a father, with the promise of meeting his son and grandson to fish together that afternoon? Noctis hesitantly rapped his knuckles against a particular set of doors. 

 He heard himself be summoned inside, though the voice was muffled. Confused, maybe, too.

 The confusion cleared from the study’s sole inhabitant when Ignis looked up from his desk brimming with organized papers and saw Noctis wheeling himself inside. With a timidness to the way he glanced around. The way he didn’t go far from the door. It had his once-Hand on his feet immediately. This, this first time that his Noct had come to his study since his return.

 “Noct! I hadn’t realized it was you, I apologize for the mess. Give me but a moment, and I - “

 “That’s not necessary, Iggy,” his Noct said, raising a hand to stop him even as he’d already begun to shuffle papers to the side, shifting in his wheelchair’s seat, “I just had a question for you.” 

 “Of course, Noct. Whatever you need to know.” 

 Things were…never going to be the same between them. Both of them had come to accept that - or, Noctis had come to accept that in the months since his return. Ignis Scientia? Well, Ignis Scientia was in therapy to learn to accept that. But the difference was clear in that moment of his prince being uncomfortable in his study, uncomfortable speaking to him in private like this, like he never was before Mistveil.

 And it made it hard for their eyes to meet as Noctis asked his damning question.

 “Why did nobody ever tell Oriens that I liked…to fish? Or took him fishing, at the very least? The real reason…if you could.” 

 The reason his dad had skirted around. 

 “Noctis,” and the shame in his Hand’s expression then made it clear he hadn’t read his father wrong. There was a reason. And Noctis no longer accepted shame as a reason to be lied to, to be guilted into accepting things at face value. For this? In this? 

 He raised his head high and demanded the answer from the man who was once his closest confidant by finally meeting Ignis’ green eyes, and Ignis folded in an instant.

 “I - it was a conscious thing, Noct. I am sorry.” 

 There had already been so many apologies. What was one more? 

 Ignis Scientia hung his head with his shame, as he admitted this to his Noct.

 “There was talk, after Prince Oriens’ birth…with him so similar to you - looking like a younger you, having your mannerisms more and more as he grew, so much like his father, like you - there were people…who started whispering that we were trying to raise you all over again. And it wasn’t fair to His Highness. So, we, began to…purposefully steer him away from being likened to you. And your love for fishing was well known, so we kept that from him and kept him from it. To better differentiate you two in some small way.” 

 It was something to be ashamed of.

 It was something that crawled thick up Noctis’ throat, when the man’s eyes darkened as he listened and he finally turned to leave without another word. Jaw working.

 Angry, he was made angry.

 Because he’d seen himself in Oriens, and he’d known others would see him as well, but he’d never wondered if they’d held his son back from things just because it was something Noctis liked.

 It made him angry, so he left to wheel himself around the halls of the Citadel aimlessly. To calm down.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ori had said, before, he had said he’d always wanted a cat. When Aurora was found in the gardens. When they took her in. Adopted her. It had made his sweet son so happy. 

 Had he been denied a cat because Noctis had always loved cats? 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Had they tried to force-feed him vegetables, because Noctis hated them and it was too much if his son also disliked them? 

 

 

-----

 

 

 A replacement prince, inheriting his looks, his magic, his retinue, and his love from Noctis Lucis Caelum. A criminal father. Had he been scorned for something he had no control over? Had he been hindered and hurt for it? Had they ever stopped to realize how selfish they were being; in erasing Noctis, they had tried to erase bits and pieces of his son too. 

 Oriens deserved so much better.

 They both had.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Dad! Grandpa said we can go fishing together in the gardens! Are you coming? You’re coming, right? I have this tiny fishing rod - well, it’s not super tiny, but it’s for kids - anyways, Grandpa said it used to be yours! Was it?” 

 Oriens deserved so much better, so Noctis swore to give him better. Gave his son a bright smile, and nodded at the kiddy fishing rod he was waving around like a very long magic wand. His chuckles were certainly real when Ori swung it like a bat and Axis, who was accompanying the princling, had to duck quickly to avoid being wacked in the face.

 “Easy, Highness!”

 “Oops, sorry!” 

 Noctis still had his lure collection. It’d been put in storage, but it hadn’t been thrown away. So he, of course, started telling his son about some of his best catches while fetching it and his own rods. Shoving the anger of before deep, deep under his skin where only darkness was. Where it could not taint his son’s light. Smiling and chuckling.

 And joining him down in the Citadel’s gardens, where there was a small, artificial pond full of murky waters and pebbles and sunfish.

 Their scales shimmered whenever they came close enough to the surface to catch the sun’s rays. Their golden color giving away why they were named sunfish at first glance. It was the same pond Noctis had practiced at, as a child. Casting his line again and again, practicing. Practicing. Practicing.

 One of the few activities he could enjoy as a child that didn’t bring him pain after the Marilith. Sit. Be patient. And be rewarded with a stunningly beautiful catch.

 So, in the sunny gardens, they did. Beneath the Wall, they sat, Noctis sliding out of his wheelchair to sit in the grasses with his son tucked up against his side. And he started to show Ori how to tie a worm to the hook. A worm they dug up from the damp soil itself. And he laughed when his sweet-hearted son looked disquieted by the worm’s fate.

 He used to be the same way. Still was, in a lot of ways. While he preferred lures, he wanted his son to be aware of how to naturally bait a fish as well. Just in case. Just in case.

 He cast his line, and flashes of gold shone beneath the surface.

 They waited.

 And when the line was tugged on, minutes and minutes later, he reeled it in.

 A reward of shimmering gold, that made Oriens’ eyes light up.

 “Dad, me next!” 

 “So sorry I’m a little late,” was how his dad greeted them thirty minutes later, hobbling up with his own fishing pole tucked into the crook of his arm, “The council had me bouncing between departments today. Caught anything yet, my dear boys?” 

 Both father and son, Noctis and Oriens, lifted their lures up to show off the golden fish dangling from their lines. Making a king laugh long and hearty.

 And a king sat beside them to cast his own line. Leaning into his son and his grandson as they sought their rewards. Retinue looking on from the garden’s shadows. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 A picture of Oriens holding aloft his prize while sitting in his dad’s lap; a golden sunfish that shone in the sunlight, his first catch, was taken that day.

 It made the muffled anger worth it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Dinner was rich, and as much a feast as Noctis could stomach. Dinner was Ignis’ apology. An apology accepted, but not forgiven. Because a father could not forgive his son being held back for their own selfish reasons. 

 Dinner was delicious, and dearly treasured were the pictures taken of three royals fishing together.

 

 

-----

 

 

 You know - Noctis was, reluctantly, aware that water couldn’t actually wash away the things done to his broken body. But he liked to pretend. He liked to pretend, that when he began to feel icky and grimey, when he started to feel touches he didn’t want ghosting over his skin, hot breaths on his neck, that a bit of water was all it took to wash it away.

 Maybe he had some small modicum of innocence left, after all.

 Maybe it was naivety.

 But whenever he awoke from nightmares that left him gasping, ashen, gripping his sheets tight? Those rare nights where he hadn’t woken Nyx, where the man was still passed out asleep on his cot only a few feet away? Those nights, those, where he tried to silently transfer himself from his rumpled sheets into his wheelchair, and head to the bathroom, still breathless and choked by memories he didn’t want to remember? 

 Those nights, he pretended it was all washed away by a little bathwater.

 He would let the steam fill his bathroom to the point where he could barely even see the scars on his own skin. Where his magic itself was made sleepy by the heat, and he would carefully climb into the tub. Sinking into steamy, milky waters.

 Sinking deeper and deeper and deeper, until all of those things he didn’t want to remember were scalded away.

 He welcomed the burn. He relished in it.

Once upon a time, Shiva had been his favorite Astral. Her with her grace, her power. Her indifference.

 He had resonated with that. After the Marilith, after the things his own people had to say about him - a ‘crippled’ prince, worthless in their eyes, wanting another born to replace him as they’d eventually gotten. He had wanted her grace. Her power. Her indifference. So he had prayed to Shiva. 

 Now, he found he far more resonated with the old tales of the imprisoned Astral, Ifrit. 

 Wanting to burn away all that scarred him, all that hindered him. Wanting to make it go away and wanting it to hurt. Noctis was not some small, sheltered, safe thing to be around any longer. He was a man grown in chains, in pain and in torment and hate, covered in the marks of it all.

 A baby bird, stunted by growing up in a cage that stayed fitted only to a baby. Crippled and full of cracks. Fit to break again. 

 Noctis liked to believe his delicateness was washed away by the bathwaters too. Blades were forged in fire, weren’t they? And they were made stronger for it. Why could he not be the same? It was a lovely fantasy to have, soaking in the bath. His head pillowed by his arms on the rim of the bathtub.

 The heat enough to pull him out of reach of his nightmares, at least for a while.

 A while.

 Just a while, and then there’d be a knock at the door. Always a gentle knock. A question.

 He’d answer by telling them to come in.

 A few times it had been his father, coming to check on him after finishing up a late evening of work. A few times it had been his son, coming to be comforted after a nightmare he’d had. Once, it had been one of the Glaives who guarded his door, worried he’d fallen asleep in the bath because of the late hour. 

 This night, it was familiar stormy eyes that peeked through the crack of the door. Checking first that he was decently covered before entering. Those eyes always cast themselves down, so polite, when he was in the bath. As if he weren’t used to others seeing and even bathing his body by now.

 Nyx’s politeness was always the sweetest thing, however, so Noctis never told him it wasn’t necessary.

 “Nyx,” he mumbled out, already sleepy from the heat. How long had he been in the bath? 

 “Inlustris. You’ve been in here for three hours. <Everything alright?>” And there was Nyx, unknowingly answering his unspoken question. Three hours? He must’ve been dozing in and out. How relaxing. But, that also meant, Nyx knew exactly when he had woken up.

 His Glaive had been waiting for him. Had trusted him. A trust that held out for three hours.

 Three hours, and now here the Ulric Chieftain was. 

 “Just…nightmares, better left forgotten.” 

 “Forgetting is easier said than done,” and there Nyx was, again, speaking about such things with an old haunting in his eyes. The haunt of a soldier that had spent far too long fighting for far too small a reward. Or perhaps not. Because knowing Nyx, knowing Little Galahd, all of those long fights were worth it to the Galahdian now standing in his bathroom.

 A soldier, a man, who was willing to be there for another broken man.

 “Would you like help? Reaching?” Together, each word Nyx spoke strung together into a sentence, but they only made sense after Noctis had taken a second to parse them out. His mind a million miles away. Or, not a million. A very specific amount of miles. The specific amount of miles between the Citadel…and Mistveil Keep.

 That place that would always be his haunting. That place that had him fading from his own mind for a moment.

 That had him subconsciously reaching for the scars silver and pinked and jagged and healed and not at all - all across his body. Scars like those all across his back.

 Which he’d twisted a little to reach for, which was why Nyx was offering.

 To help.

 His hands dropped back into the soapy waters with a wet, plunking noise. And he hunched a little. Nodded, a little. Shied away, a little. Not from Nyx. From the memories. Nyx…Nyx could…maybe, Nyx, might be allowed there. With his scars and with his heart’s hurt. At one of his most vulnerable places. 

 After all that he’d done for him, this broken royal was willing to let Nyx behind his closed doors.

 He left them unlocked for him to enter as he pleased.

 For Nyx Ulric, who cautiously approached the bath’s edge, giving him so many seconds to change his mind. A minute. More. Before he was so cautiously as well lowering himself onto his knees on the bathroom tiles. Letting out a hum. An, “Is this okay, inlustris?” 

 Nobody ever spoke Galahdian when they hurt him. 

 So Noctis bowed his neck forward to let Nyx help him.

 To take a soapy rag from the waters, and take it to his body. His deformed back, that had been scarred beyond being pretty for years before Mistveil ever added its own scars. The Marilith. With her deadly ambush, the glint of her blades in flamelight, dripping with blood. Her memories used to be his only haunting. When he was…such a small child. And then there was Tenebrae, when Queen Sylva was murdered by General Glauca.

 There was seemingly the whole world burning down around them as he and his dad fled.

 And there was more, after, but none so terrible as Mistveil. His punishment.

 An innocent teenager’s punishment.

 Those were hard things to think about, though.

 It was easier. To stare at Nyx’s profile, the hook of his nose and his bristly stubble. At that tattoo inked just under his eye. At his braids and beads falling over his shoulder, that Noctis’ cheek was practically pillowed by. Each with meaning. Each so special, and it was intimate for him to know them.

 Nyx’s face turned. To look down at him, looking up at Nyx.

 “Is this alright, starlight?” Asked so, so softly. So Noctis looked down. To where Nyx’s forearm was down in the milky waters between his legs with the rag. That was intimate too. For him. Or, it would be. Used to be. Probably. If not for one fact.

 “It’s alright,” he whispered, “I can’t feel anything below my hips anyways, so don’t worry about it.” 

 “I’m being gentle,” Nyx swore instantly, eyes concerned, but he needn’t be.

 Because Noctis just tipped his face into the hollow of his throat and nodded against the skin there.

 “I know,” he agreed, even if he couldn’t feel a thing, “You always are, Nyx.”

 A curious noise rumbled through the man’s throat, then. Low. Raspy. He hummed when he heard. Nodded again against it. Felt Nyx gulp, and then felt his other hand come up. Up, to hook around Noctis’ shoulder. To cradle him there back against Nyx’s body, against the rim of the bathtub as comfortably as he could. Washing him with single-minded focus. And care.

 Always so much care, even when Noctis himself couldn’t bring himself to care.

 Because his star deserved it. Deserved somebody who would treat him gently when he thought he deserved it rough. Deserved somebody he needn’t guard against. Somebody who was there to serve. As a friend, as a confidant, if not as a member of the Kingsglaive. And maybe Nyx felt a hint of guilt tying knots up in his gut.

 Maybe he felt selfish, for feeling the way he felt about inlustris and now no longer being sure if inlustris felt the same.

 Had he made his intentions clear? 

 He tucked his prince closer into the safety of his neck, his heart, and held him steady as he washed him down. Shivering each time he felt the soft exhales ghost over his collarbone, even through his shirt. Trying so hard not to tip his face into his star’s hair and breathe him in. Not to nuzzle into him and tie them together right then and there; his intentions clear.

 There would be a time and place for that.

 It was not that moment, there in the bathroom.

 But.

 It was still a moment that mattered as he finished washing up his star, and helped him towel off the water, and helped him dress. And carded his fingers selfishly once through the wet strands of his hair as they went to bed again. In the early hours of morning.

 It was still a moment that mattered, because when he went to lay down on his cot again? Inlustris’ raspy voice sounded in the soft darkness.

 “Thank you, Nyx. <You have done so much for me.>”

 It mattered.

 “Anytime, starlight. <Anytime.>”

 

 

-----

 

 
 Come morning, there was a soft blush on his star’s pale cheeks.

 And Nyx felt fiercely proud of it, as he pulled his shirt on, feeling those starry eyes scanning his body up and down while his back was turned. 

 They weren’t misunderstanding each other. There was no way.

 

 

-----

 

 
 Living together came with certain…unavoidable concessions. Like Nyx. Needing to change his clothes. And he made use of the dressing screen when he needed to completely undress, but if it was just his shirt? Well, he wasn’t a shy man when it came to taking off his shirt and walking around shirtless for several long, long, long minutes.

Living together meant Noctis’ face often felt hot - hot, hot, hot - and that he felt embroiled by how often he caught himself staring at the shirtless Glaive.

 It felt like it happened a whole lot more often now than it had in the beginning. 

It - it wasn’t as though he was unaware that he could find men attractive. Prompto had proved that. For…for years, he’d known that, been fine with that. Mistveil had hurt his confidence in that. With all those guards, Crownsguard, more men than women although there were both, the things done to him there in its darkness…him being attracted to men felt frightening.

But not when it was Nyx.

Not when it was Nyx.

 

 

-----

 

 

Mutual attraction was…something to get used to.

 

 
-----

 

 

 For years, and years and years and years and - he wondered if his father had realized - well, Noctis had always despised the dining room in the royal wing of the Citadel. Oh, it was a fine place to dine. No doubt about that. It was fit for royalty. But its table, lacquered black, was…long.

 Spacious.

 So empty.

 Noctis remembered sitting on one end of that table, while his dad sat at the other, eating silent meals that grew more and more tense as they simultaneously grew apart and tried not to. He remembered staring at his reflection in the wood that was so polished it shone. He also remembered all those times his dad had sworn they’d eat together. Sworn.

 And something had - come up. And he ate alone. He wondered if his father had realized how much he despised that dining room and those memories. And all the space between them.

 Because not once, since he’d returned from Mistveil, had they eaten in there.

 And not once had Ori mentioned ever experiencing the same.

 As a matter of fact, Ori had mentioned how his grandpa made sure to eat at least one meal with him a day. Which was a far cry from the maybe once a week meal Noctis had gotten most of his life.

 He was proud of his dad for this, this change. 

 Because it meant his son had had better than him, and that was all a dad could ever really want for his child.

 But, their meals as a family which often did happen at least once a day now, too? They were meals taken in the gardens. Surrounded by flowering bushes and birdsong. Or they’d take it in their beds, still in their pajamas, or in the kitchenettes of their rooms. At small, round tables or at countertops. And it - it was like they were just a normal family. Sharing meals. It was nice.

 Noctis had come to enjoy it so much.

 They were having a late brunch, and Dad was talking about some of the new councilmembers and their mishaps as they tried to get used to being elevated so suddenly to nobility - most had been lesser or branch families with little responsibility before the purging of the royal council. Talking about how one particular member had been so nervous he accidentally shredded important documents and nearly broke down crying, before Ignis swept in with a fix. They were laughing.

 Eyes bright, sunshine golden through the windows, the Caelum family, just, having a meal together.

 And then, Oriens bit into an apple slice mixed into his oatmeal while laughing.

 And - 

 “Ow!” 

 And Noctis Lucis Caelum had already splintered the table beneath his hands with rampant magic, by the time his eyes caught up to his instincts. By the time he realized there was no threat to his son there. The tiles beneath his wheelchair had small cracks in them. The table wobbled. But both him and his dad were staring at Ori wide-eyed with magic twisting in the light around them.

 “Ori?” He asked, voice cracking.

 His son was never to be hurt. 

 Ori glanced up at them from his spoonful of oatmeal with a red face, and eyes pooling with tears, and something small and white he held out in front of him.

 “My toof fell out!” 

 Noctis tangled his fingers deep in the fluff of his carbuncle plushie, feeling faint because of how long his exhale was. Something shaken inside of his chest. His son was missing his second front tooth. The first, had already been missing when he first returned. It had grown back. And now the second was held in his fingers, and - and his baby boy was crying.

 “Oh, Ori, come here,” he rasped, opening his arms wide for his little dawnlight who immediately slid out of his chair and jumped into his lap. Shaking like a leaf. The tooth was set on a napkin. Set aside, so Noctis could tangle his fingers in his son’s raven-black hair and give him his carbuncle plushie to cuddle for comfort.

 How quickly could their hearts hurt.

 How quickly, indeed.

 “Here,” but his dad was there as well, his dad with his cologne and his kind tone, leaning down to cup Ori’s cheek delicately, “let me see, Ori. Let me see, sweetheart.” 

 There was blood on his son’s lips.

 There were tears in both of their eyes.

 “It’s alright,” Regis shushed them, both of them, one hand in the son’s hair and one hand in the grandson’s too, petting them, “It’s alright. It was about ready to come out. Seems that apple just sped things along. You’re both being so brave. Here, here.” 

 The king pressed a second napkin to Oriens’ lips, and the boy obediently put it to his gums to help staunch the bleeding. But he also pressed a kiss to the crown of Noctis’ head, and shushed him more while running his hand up and down his spine in slow motions. As if he needed the comfort more than Ori did.
 
 “I - I’m alrigh’, Da,” his brave, brave son sniffed, even as a few more tears slipped down his cheeks, words muffled by the napkin stuffed into his mouth, “I’m alright, iz juzt - juzt a toof.” 

 His brave son.

 Who he never wanted to see bled.

 Never like he was.

 Brunch was still cast in a golden light, but they existed in the shadows. And they moved things back to Noctis’ bedroom, this small family. Where the light was still as golden. And the leaves in the garden were rustling, and the balcony doors were open so a late summer breeze could calm their nerves. Their up-in-arms magic. Noctis had a small piece he could work on with his loom, and Oriens sniffled a little but got to work on another braided cord like Nyx had taught him.

 And Regis sat back to let both of his boys lay on him as their hearts settled and their hands crafted.

 All of their hearts. Because Regis had never wanted to see his grandson bleed either, and had dreaded each and every time he did, but had only dreaded it all the more after Noctis came home. Because now? 

 He knew just how much one of his boys could bleed, and he never wanted to know that again.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When Glaive Ulric came back to the royal rooms he practically called his own, toweling off his hair and uniform undone after his shower in the locker rooms, Regis pressed a finger to his lips to keep the Glaive quiet. 

 When he came back, it was to the royal family in one big pile of arms and legs and black outfits, napping in his star’s bed.

 And it was to Aurora, perched, loafing on his king’s chest with strands of her fair, white fur scattered all over them all and the sheets, purring with her eyes slitted in contentment. Royalty; her throne. Truly, she was the princess they all spoiled relentlessly. And it was that? 

 That, that made Nyx choke on a laugh he had to cover up, and pull out his phone to start snapping pictures. 

 Regis smiled indulgently at the man, who’s camera lingered longer on his son and grandson than on him, and just kept holding his boys close.

 He wanted to be able to protect them. For as long as possible. And he wanted them to not bleed. And he wanted them to not hurt. And he wanted to be their wall, against a world that may scorn them simply for being born, elevated above others. Simply for being royalty. Even if the choice of being that was almost a hundred generations out of their hands. He wanted to keep them safe, for as long as they lived even if he knew that that couldn’t…

 He pressed kisses to each of their foreheads as they slept.

 And he let Nyx Ulric bow to him as he moved to stand guard, before he too let his head bow to join his boys in taking a nap.

 It was all that he could do, with threads and yarn and beads scattered all around them, and carbuncle totems around their necks and plushies under each of his sons’ cheeks. Each other’s plushies. Noctis with a chocobo, Ori with a carbuncle. It was all he could do and all he wanted to do, so he did.

 So he did.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Secretly, but not bad secretly, Nyx sent those photos to a private group chat the Marshal had asked him to join.  

 Full of pictures of their Lucis Caelums just being happy.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ignis sent a picture to the group chat the next day, of Prince Oriens enjoying a frosty dessert, trying to lick said frosting off of his nose while laughing. One of his front teeth clearly missing, but in an adorable way.

 

 

-----

 

 

 And Gladiolus sent a picture to the group chat a day after that, of Noctis booping his nose against Aurora’s in a soft, sunlit moment on his balcony. Flowers framing the image, from where the Shield had taken that picture while tending to his bouquets. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 And Sir Clarus sent a picture the day after that, of King Regis sipping from his mug of coffee in the morning with a small smile on his lips. Reading a novel that looked more suited to a middle schooler’s taste, but he seemed happy so what harm was there in it? 

 

 

-----

 

 

 And the Marshal sent a picture of Prince Oriens and Prompto cheering over a victory in King’s Knight 3 together, high-fiving and grinning and it looked almost like Prompto was playing with a nine-year old Noctis instead of his son.

 

 

-----

 

 

 And Captain Drautos sent a picture as well, of Noctis dozing on his bedroom’s windowseat, fingers curled in the coeurl pelt’s fur that was Nyx’s as an honored chieftain. Aurora snuggled up under one arm and his carbuncle plushie under the other.

 

 

-----

 

 

 So many pictures. Worth a million words to those who loved the Lucis Caelums. There was Noctis sat in serenity, in the flowering gardens, weaving. There was Oriens as he reeled in a sunfish from the gardens’ pond, an eclipsing smile on his face. There was Regis bonking his Shield over the head with a rolled up stack of papers, and there was Nyx crouched down next to Oriens to offer him new beads from Little Galahd’s markets, and there was Noctis leaning around Ignis to see what he was cooking in the kitchens - 

 And there was so much, if one just bothered to stop and look.

 Each and every one was precious too, to them. 

 To them, every smile was true magic.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There were stormclouds gathering over the Citadel. Thick and twisted, dark, heavy and full of rain. Regis stared evenly out at them, his palms wrapped around a mug of warm tea. Tea that helped clear the cobwebs which filled his chest when the weather was acting such a way; stormy and gray. 

 His mood was far from that though, after the nice day he’d shared with Noctis and Oriens. He was even humming happily to himself as he sorted stacks of documents he had to go through in order of importance. From royal council matters, to PR business, to Crownsguard, then Kingsglaive, then there was the charity gala they’d be holding that autumn as well as its accompanying beneficiaries banquet and - 

 “So much to do.” 

Yet he said as much with a smile, and the silvered king happily sorted his schedule accordingly.

 According to the time he could spend with his son and grandson, that is. That had become his baseline. From there, the Lucian King based everything else he did off of that. Spending time with his family. 

 It was a priority he should’ve had when Noctis was a child, but better late than never, no? 

 “Feeling old yet?” Clarus joked, as if he also didn’t have a head of silver hair now that he was in his sixties. As if he weren’t also a grandfather, and practically retired despite acting as his Shield and consult on all matters of state. As if.

 “Of course not,” Regis jested, waving his papers between them, still smiling, “I’m in my prime, surely? I mean, look here! I’m still receiving at least twenty marriage offers a week, old friend!” 

 Clarus sputtered, so he laughed at his Shield’s incredulous expression. Especially because they both knew it wasn’t some fabrication. Regis really was waving around a stack of marriage offers from eligible women hoping to wed a king - a king who would not demand an heir or her to take on responsibilities, at that. He was quite the catch, and that wasn’t a lack of modesty speaking.

 It was the fact that Regis still got voted as one of Lucis’ most eligible bachelors nearly in his sixties. 

 Well, what could he say? His family had always aged fast, but they aged finely as well. He’d been called a ‘silver fox’ on more than one occasion. He’d even entertained a few of the more polite, more genuine women who’d come onto him throughout the years. Just because his hair was silver and he had age spots, and he may have plumped up a little as an elderly gentleman, didn’t mean Regis had to not…enjoy a few more intimate aspects of life.

 The concept that a person’s sex life disappeared as soon as they hit fifty was absolutely a lie, and Regis could attest to that personally.

 Which Clarus unfortunately knew, due to those rare times he’d walked in on his king proving as much. Most likely that was why his older brother groaned and slapped a hand over his eyes, as if trying to forget something he’d seen. 

 That was the minute that there was a knock at their door, and the knocker didn’t even wait to be welcomed in to enter.

Of course, it was Cor. Only their youngest brother could get away with going anyway at any time like that.

“Do I want to know?” And their youngest brother knew them well, which is why he raised a brow at the exasperation on Clarus’ face and the smugness on Regis’. 

“No.” 

“Not particularly, no. What is it, Cor?” 

“Right. Well, I have those reports from Drautos for you about - “ 

Those reports failed to reach the King of Lucis that day. Because that, that exact moment, was when a Crownsguard stumbled through the doors to the royal study of that king. And quite, literally, stumbled through. As in, the frenzied man didn’t even knock, didn’t pause, didn’t even push the doors open fully. His shoulders slammed into the thick, wooden doors so hard it would probably leave bruises.

 And the force of that nearly toppled him, leaving him on one knee for a second before he’d scrambled up and bowed hastily to King and Retinue.

 And it was important, it was clearly important, every single one of them was on their feet and fighting-ready in an instant because that is what decades of war does to men.

 Especially when Dustin Ackers, one of Cor’s most trusted, wasn’t observing proper protocol and was there before them with his glasses askew and panting like he’d run through the whole Citadel to get there.

 “Dustin.” Cor said his name. That was all, but it was an order and a promise all in one. Speak and I’ll protect you and the man immediately bowed, trusting his Marshal to do just that.

 “Your Majesty, another message from Queen Lunafreya has arrived!” 

 Regis Lucis Caelum’s heart skipped two beats, for these were not the actions of a messenger bearing any sort of good news.

 “Very well,” he steeled himself, “What does this message say?” 

 “It - that is, it steers towards…the general direction, just about, of…”

 “Speak, Dustin.” Cor Leonis commanded, when his man’s eyes drifted towards him.

So he spoke. 

 “...Queen Lunafreya wishes to inquire about the willingness of Prince Noctis to entertain a - a marriage offer from her, Your Majesty.”

 Stunned silence filled the study of Lucis’ King.

…

 Then.

 “Fuck. No.” 

 “Regis!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was shock.

 Then panic. 

 Then frustration.

 Then anger, this king’s emotions, and then he was storming out of his study and onto a warpath. In search of answers few could give him. Few mortals, that is. Which just meant he’d need to ask those who weren’t mortals. Not for the first time and not for the last. But this time? He would not be taking silence so easily as an answer.

 ‘Easy,’ as if.

 As if one could call Lucis losing its religion over the course of little more than half a year such.
 
 Clarus and Cor, Shield and Sword, hadn’t wanted to let him go after Queen Lunafreya’s message was delivered. At least not alone. But that hardly mattered. Them, wanting. Not in this. Because Regis had given his orders. And his brothers would obey. Their orders; to shake every tree with information on Tenebrae in Lucis until answers fell out. What precisely did the Oracle Queen intend? 

 While Regis went to the Crystal Chamber. Alone.
 
 Because he had some things to say to those Astrals. Those who never listened. Those who had not stood up, not spoken out, when his son was falsely accused. Today they would listen. Today they would. Because the Father was on a warpath this day, thinking about a marriage proposal his sweet son had received and thinking it a false prophecy. 

 When those of the Citadel saw their King coming this day, they got out of his way. Because he was walking with his cane not as if he needed it to keep himself upright, but as though its solid wood length and golden, gilded handle were a club he intended to swing. Its tap-tap-tap-TAP as he walked, the smothering force of his magic that forced the air from anyone’s lungs who got too close. 

 It was the power of an angry Lucis Caelum.

 And this Lucis Caelum came to a halt at the grand doors to the Crystal Chamber, where he leveled mad eyes at the guards entrusted to guard it, and said, “Let the records show my visit to the Crystal this day. Now. Move aside.” 

 They did not question. They moved aside. To allow Regis Lucis Caelum into the centerpoint of the Citadel, the atrium that held his family’s greatest bane and boon. Curse and blessing. An almighty gift from those Astrals, which he would choose to throw to any odd landfill in Lucis if only to be rid of it and its dark omens. 

 Its damned destinies.
 
 Those grand doors slammed shut with a finality that was one-sided. 

 For its finality was on Regis’ side, as he slammed the base of his cane down on the tiles forcefully enough to crack them and their details, and planted his feet wide as if he stood on a battlefield. In many ways he did. He was a king who had stood on enough battlefields to know the feeling. But he did not stand alone. Because the Ring of Lucii on his ring finger was on his side as well. His ancestors and his ancestor’s ancestors and even their ancestors - they stood with the family.

 Stood with the Father this day, staring down the Crystal all of their lives had eventually been drained into until they were naught but necromorphic embers. 

 It with its gentle, pulsing glow. So blue. So deceptively soothing. Its glow faded in and out almost timed as though it were a heartbeat. It drew in Lucis Caelums, generation after generation, and bled them in every way except physical oft. 

 Like a poisonous plant that was bright and colorful to invite its victims to touch it. 

 But Regis had come to recognize the danger for what it was. For his boys’ sakes. 

 “No. Do you hear me, O’Astrals? No. I do not care about whatever prophecy you claim my son is meant for. I do not care what destiny you claim for his - you will not have him. He has been through enough. You will not have him. And you will not have my grandson either. You will not have another of my line, not so long as I have a say in it.” 

 Regis thought of the great tapestries, weaving together the family tree of the Lucis Caelums. 

 He thought of the branches snuffed out. Of how, even after a hundred generations, only three lived now. In this lifetime of his, there were only three. 

 He thought of how many had met their ends because they had faith in deities who did not listen. 
 
 How many were declared to have divine duties. How many were claimed by the Astrals themselves. He thought of his childhood, of those times his father would mutter and those around them would call him mad, blasphemous, cursing the Astrals. Regis had learned from those around them that that was bad, that the Astrals are to be respected. Worshiped.

 But now, he thought his father had had the right idea, even if he was paranoid and harsh.

 What had the Astrals done that so-deserved them being worshiped? Trusted? Relied upon? 

 Those who stayed in the Beyond and watched. Waiting. Demanding respect and prayers and piety. Those who claimed all of humanity owed them. Those who looked down on their star and saw specks of dust for mortals’ lives. One after another, none important. None that mattered to them. Regis had been raised to bow his head in respect to the depictions of Bahamut in Insomnia’s cathedrals.

 Raised to thank the Crystal for its power. Raised to think his own father senile and mad for scorning the very beings who once gave them their magic, who tethered themselves to their line.

 Now, Regis wasn’t afraid to swing his cane at the Crystal and shout at it.

Challenge it.

 Because he never got anything besides silence. Thick, stifling silence. The Astrals were challenged and they did not respond. They had not responded to anything since Noctis’ innocence was proven months prior. They had not explained themselves. They had not sent word. Not even through one of the Messengers. They simply, ignored the House of Caelum.

 And its righteous hatred.

 Regis thought of Queen Lunafreya’s message. And he thought of the sweet, timid little girl who had been the daughter of a dear friend and fellow ruler. He thought of Tenebrae falling to the occupying flames of the Empire, and then rising from the ashes with a graceful if cold queen to lead them. He thought of how others warned him about Lunafreya, about how she had changed.

 How she had grown jaded and smart in a chilling way since Prince Ravus died in ‘service’ to the Empire.

He thought, again, about her message. Her marriage offer. And he gripped the handle of his cane testingly as he glared into the faintly glowing depths of the Crystal so many had died for.

 “Marriage? Marriage? Oh, Lunafreya, my dear, what are you up to?” He whispered, feeling his age in every creek of his bones aged by that damned Crystal when he closed his eyes, “Is this some whim of the Astrals? Do they yet speak to their Oracle, but feel too ashamed to speak to me now? Have they given you the answers I seek? Have they some new game they wish us all to play?”

 When he opened his eyes, they were the same dark, possessive green his father’s had always appeared to be when he looked at Regis. At his mother. At family. Protecting that family; the only thing on his mind.

 “Do you think we would play any more of your games?” He whispered coldly to the Crystal that had bled years off of his life already, and likely would bleed his son and grandson the same.

 Always glowing bright off the life it drained from its Lucis Caelums.

 “Do you think I would ever allow Queen Lunafreya to wed my child, after he has already made it clear that letting her be Oriens’ mother went against his wishes? Do you think I would ever allow her close to him, after how she abandoned my grandson completely following his birth? Do you think I would ever entrust my family to one of your most faithful, ever again?” 

 There was a pulsing, somewhere deep within the Crystal’s glassy exterior. 

 And Regis slammed the bottom of his cane down onto the tiles, the sound loud, and the pulsing stopped instantly.

 “No,” he said with it, hissed it, “No, you do not get a say in this. You have said all too much and still never enough, always above us, always thinking yourselves too superior to mortals who dare want and dare to care. I accepted once, with folly, that you had a destiny set aside for my precious son, and I will never accept it again. And nor will another of my line.” 

 Noctis, down to his soul, he knew no longer held the Astrals in any regard.

 Oriens? Had grown up in a Lucis that had begun to lose its faith, that had shifted away from prayers and worship, and he thought of the Astrals as little more than bedtime stories. Less tangible than Carbuncle.

 Regis would not alter either of those views. He would not.

 He would stand tall beside his son and his son’s son in denouncing the Astrals, straight to their Oracle’s face, if need be. And knowing that? He thought, might be when he also stood there, stood tall, and cursed the accursed Crystal before walking away. That might have been the moment he changed everything, truly.

 Leaving the Crystal Chamber, the Crystal at his back flared with blackened light. Wings furiously batting at its surface - Bahamut caged and furious, but Regis did not turn back around.

 He left, sealing the Crystal Chamber behind him.

 He left, and as he did so was when the stormclouds over Insomnia opened wide.

 

 

-----

 

 

 As he did so, an unseen figure stepped out of the shadows at the edges of the Crystal Chamber, a chuckle stuck in his throat. A chuckle that built and built, until it was full-bellied laughter as the figure threw his head back to cackle maniacally. Wiping tears from his eyes. 

Pure. Honest. Joy. 

 “Never, in a hundred generations, did you think you would be forsaken by the House of Caelum, did you, Bahamut? Oh, my dear, this is more perfect than I could ever have thought. You have turned your greatest toys and puppets against you! I cannot wait to see how they decide to dance without you pulling their strings. Do you think they’ll fall?” 

 When he strode forward to press his palm to the Crystal’s surface, black oozed from his face and irises glowing a sickly amber color gazed back at him from its depths.

 “Or, do you think they’ll climb higher than ever before, without you chaining them down anymore? I do so look forward to seeing where this story goes.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rain was falling.

 Its raindrops were splattering against those grand windows of the Citadel. Windows ‘fit for royalty’. The skies outside were gray. The clouds thick, darker than gray, maybe. It depended on who was looking. Noctis was looking. To Noctis, they looked a little darker…maybe. They looked stormy. A particular sort of stormy. They were rainclouds that looked like a pair of eyes always fixed on him, that looked like the twisted braids of a Glaive who had done his duty, the lightning flashing in them looked like beads when the sun catches on them.

 Rain was falling, and Noctis Lucis Caelum was watching.

 Sat in his wheelchair in front of the grand windows, watching the streams of rain descend the glass. He was cast in so many watercolor shades.

 Grays and blacks. Blues of the palest sort. Pearls and silver and dim, but still beautiful in its own way. That was the way Nyx Ulric would describe him, if he saw his star in that moment.

 Cast in the glow of a rainstorm.

 That was how Nyx did describe his star in that moment, when he entered that bedroom they’d been sharing for months on months now. His hand was in his hair; tangled and wet and he was using his jacket like a towel as water droplets slipped down his temples, down his neck. As he shook out the soaked shirt that clung to his skin.

 Stepping in, laughing and stomping and alive in the grace of a storm.

 Stopping in his puddles, when he laid eyes on the star outlined against that storm.

 You know, every time Nyx Ulric saw inlustris, he fell a little more in love.

 And every time, he thought, surely, there was no way he could love a person more. 
 
 And every time, his heart proved him wrong. As much of a rascal as Nyx was - no surprise there. It skipped a beat. Two. And he stared at his beloved star who glowed in the din of this wild storm. Skin, aglow, yes. Hair swept back. Glasses slightly crooked on his nose, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his lips. A carbuncle plushie in his lap.

 A palm pressed flat to the window’s glass, so he could feel the vibrations of the rain pounding against it. A constant. A promise. A pat-pat-pat-pat-ing thrum that seemingly soothed him.

 Noctis had always loved rainstorms. He remembered, when he was still an innocent child, sitting on the tiles of his bedroom floor. Right in front of these grand windows. Just like he did now. He remembered squishing his cheek to the glass, and peering up at the rolling clouds far above the Wall’s shimmer. Remembered counting the seconds between lightning strikes that lit up the whole sky using his own heartbeats.

 He remembered the song the rain sang, in his heart. Where those moments were engraved. Moments from an innocent childhood. What little innocence he’d ever even had.

 Yet, here he had the moment again.

 Eos was under storm, and he sat so comfortable with it. Conscious of the altar in his bedroom because of one Nyx Ulric. Conscious of the lit candles upon it, half-burned with melted wax on the floor, and their flames that flickered. Conscious of Carbuncle’s dream-soft fur beneath the dead nerves of his fingers. Conscious of Aurora napping, purring on the soft.

 Conscious of the fact that Nyx had entered his bedroom five minutes prior, and had done nothing besides stand still there, across the room, and watch him.

 That last one, he was so very conscious of.

 Of Nyx. Of his presence. Of his heart, there. There, at his back. Right there. A man trusted.

 A man loved, by a star, by a ruined royal.

 By just another man, who was hurt in a lot of ways but who still loved the rain.

 There were no words. There were no greetings which faded into silence. There was nothing of the kind, nothing besides the sound of rustling fabric. Of a jacket being tossed lightly over the back of a sofa. And then the sound of boots padding closer and closer to Noctis’ back. 

 Nyx Ulric was there, for him. Was watching. Was finished waiting, in a lot of ways. In a lot more ways, maybe he’d been finished waiting ever since that day they spent together in Little Galahd at the beginning of the month. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to grow impatient. Not in this sort of silence. This sort of soft, comfortable silence just begging to be broken by the words neither of them had spoken yet.

 He was finished waiting. So he was ready to speak those words that were begging. Ready to bare more than his home and his culture to the fallen star he’d caught by chance months ago.

 Axis’ words of before came back to him.

 Make his intentions clear. For inlustris. He deserved that.

 “You’re beautiful.” 

 Nyx had never really been accused of being subtle. 

 Starry eyes focused on him. Forgot the rain. Forgot the storm, or rather, found a new storm. And they were wide. Those starry eyes. They were so wide, he could clearly see the whites shimmering around those blue irises. Blue. So blue. So brilliant. So bright. His star’s starry eyes. Nyx had never really been accused of being subtle.

 But he tried to be as honest as he could be. As honest a man as Noctis Lucis Caelum deserved. Noctis Lucis Caelum, who was now staring up at him with his lips parted as though to speak.

 There was only the song of the rain, of the raindrops on the window, for a long few heartbeats.

 And then there was a longer, shaky exhale.

 Those blue eyes were so bright they looked as though they were about to begin shedding teardrops of their own.

 Nyx…really should’ve made his intentions clear earlier than this. He wouldn’t steal it back. He wouldn’t ever steal back that compliment. He’d meant it - it meant something to him - this had all meant something to him. To him and to his heart. To him, to his braids, to his beads. This had all meant something to him.

 And seeing as how he hadn’t been met by immediate derision? 

 Nyx pushed onwards.

 “I mean it, inlustris. You’re beautiful.” It was such a soft, faded blush on his star’s cheeks. It was - but what mattered wasn’t its softness, but the fact that there was a blush there on those pale cheeks. What mattered was the way Noctis gasped faintly, the way he averted his eyes back to the storm outside, to the rain-splattered window, to the tiles below them. Anything. Anywhere else but Nyx.

 Covering the lower half of his face with one of his hands, starry eyes flicking to him. Glancing away. Glancing back.

 It was not the dance of somebody uninterested, in Nyx’s experience.

 But this? This, to Nyx, to the Galahdian Chieftain, this was so much more than mere interest. Which was another fact he needed to make clearer than crystal. Which was why Nyx put a crooked grin on his lips and took a knee in front of the man who had held his heart for months now. He rested a hand so very delicately on one of inlustris’ thighs.

 And he chuckled a bit as he asked.

 “You know I’m in love with you, right?” 

 A blush the same soft light of dawn on those cheeks.

 “I…I thought, may…be,” Noctis breathed, and breathed, and breathed again. Admitting that much? Admitting there was something to the - the living together? To the constancy of one another, to Nyx, to what they shared - the dinners, the moments with Ori, that date in Little Galahd? It…he’d thought for sure it’d be scary. A huge step forward. A chance to fall and hit the floor and break.

 He hadn’t been expecting it to be so easy to float into Nyx’s orbit, unharmed and happy. But he had.

 “...Thoughts?” Nyx teasingly asked, when the silence drew on, tilting his head and throwing more teeth into his grin. It was sweet. Charming. Noctis had thought so for a while. Maybe that was his answer. But his answer was also - 

 “...I’m scared.” 

 He was scared of so many things. Scared of the dark, scared of the voices in the shadows, scared of a life without Nyx, scared that this would affect his son negatively, scared that this could go wrong and still crumble and ruin what he and Nyx had created between them in the months since he was freed.

 “That’s alright.” And here Nyx was. Here he was. His hand squeezing the once-Chosen King’s leg even if he couldn’t feel it, treating him as a man instead of a royal. A person instead of a broken doll. Here he was, smiling up at him from on his knees, patience overflowing from him and his stormy eyes.

 Here they were.

 “It’s normal to be scared. It’s normal to shrink away from something new, something unknown. It’s normal, inlustris. You can be as scared as feels right,” a hand on his thigh, “You can be as scared as you need to be to feel safe,” a hand reaching up to hover right over his cheek in a ghost of a caress, “You can ask anything of me, if it would make you feel more comfortable,” those stormy eyes on him. Only on him.

 “<Because I have fallen in love with you, and that is enough for me if you want nothing more.>” 

 Noctis’ heart fluttered.

 Came alive.

 With light.

 “Amatus.” 

 And there was his answer, in the end. In this storm.

 Beloved. Darling. A term of affection. Amatus, Nyx Ulric, his amatus. His Glaive. His constant. Star catcher. Star lover. Hero and chieftain and a man, worthy of all his graces. His blessings. Son of Ramuh. Son of the community. Somebody his heart would be safe with, should he entrust it to him.

 But, really, Noctis already had entrusted it to him, hadn’t he? So he smiled too. Smaller, more shyly. Ducking his chin, just so he could tip his cheek into the hand hovering there. 

 Nyx’s nostrils flared. 

 His palm felt big. And warm. And wet, from raindrops. How could it be warm then? Noctis wasn’t sure. Maybe he was just cold. And Nyx was here to warm him. He was here, too, to warm Nyx. Because, yeah. Yeah. He had an answer for this Kingsglaive who guarded his hearth and home, who guarded Noctis Lucis Caelum best.

 “I…like you, Nyx.” 

 Who grinned, like a boy who’d been confessed to, so sweet and innocent and worthy of another confession.

 “Like…I really, really like you, Nyx.” 

 “I really like you too, starlight.” 

 “Can we…take this…slow?” Was his one request, a prince nuzzling into the palm of his father’s Glaive. His Glaive, now. Fully his. In a way he’d thought was only possible in his fantasies, “I - I’m not…” 

 “As slow as you need, inlustris.” A second hand, on his leg, and Nyx shuffling forward to get as close as he could on his knees to Noctis’ wheelchair, “Whatever makes you happiest. I’ve never…<been this serious about somebody before. I’d like to do it properly.>”

 Such sweet sentiments. They were worth just as sweet a smile from Noctis. Noctis, who turned his full face into Nyx’s palm to hide when he felt his face going hot from staring at the open adoration in the Glaive’s expression for too long. 

 Noctis, who bashfully pressed the faintest of kisses to the center of that palm.

 His world smelled like petrichor. 

 And he was in love.

 He was able to confess this time, in a world awash with watercolors and the shades of a storm, taking it at his own pace, from his own heart.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx hadn’t exactly been a celibate man during his life. 

 He’d had many morning afters.

 None quite like this.

 None where he’d removed his braids and beads in the company of a beloved. None where he sat at a vanity, delicately picking bead after bead from his soul bowls to braid back into his hair as dawn broke. None quite so sweet; the scent of petrichor all around them because the storm had come to an end. It was new. It was special in that way.

 It was flattering to Nyx - that inlustris had woken and lay in bed watching him do his braids up that morning after. Never saying a word. Just, watching. 

 Was he aware of how intimate this was, to a Galahdian? 

 Well, their relationship had been ‘intimate’ by Galahdian standards for a while now. It had begun with cohabitating, with sharing an altar space and letting Noctis touch his braids, letting him learn them. 

 It had settled firmly into place now, with a confession in the watercolors of the rain.

 And those starry eyes stuck on him. Words going unspoken in the morning light between them. So Nyx spoke first.

 “Good morning, inlustris,” he said, unable to help his smirk when he saw his star start in the reflection of the vanity’s mirror. Hugging his plushie of Carbuncle tight.

 “...Mornin’, Nyx,” his star mumbled, yawned, and slowly shifted upright. Still watching him braid his hair. A thoughtful look to him - or as thoughtful as his sleepy inlustris was capable of being when the sun had only just risen. Especially after the long night they’d shared together.

 Not that kind of night. 

 No. No, spending time together in the rainy moonlight, in comfortable silence, holding hands…and then heading to bed with smiles on their faces was possibly the most innocent night he’d ever shared with somebody he loved. Loved romantically. And that was special. And that was what they’d both needed. It needn’t be more. Not yet.

 “What is it?” Clearing his throat a little, covertly, to rid himself of those thoughts, Nyx tied off another of his braids and turned in his chair. Sensing something was definitely going unspoken now.

 Sensing Noctis’ hesitance, with those blue-blue eyes still on his beads and braids. And the reason why became clear when he started to explain with that very same hesitance.

 “There are beads. That you’re meant to…wear, if you’re courting someone. Traditionally.” 

 Ah, so that was what this was about. It honored Nyx that his star remembered what he’d told him about Galahdian courting rites. Yes, traditionally, both of them were meant to wear courting braids now that they’d confessed and made this bond between them official. And Nyx had the beads, knew the braiding style even if he’d never worn it for himself. 

 But, “Only if you want to.” Because in the end, he knew, they both knew, that this relationship of theirs would be going entirely at Noctis’ pace.

 But, Noctis surprised him with a shy, tiny thing of a smile.

 “...<I want to.>” 

 “Here, then.” 

 Here, he said. So simply. As if he weren’t so eager to see Ulric beads braided into his starlight’s hair. Hair that was turning thicker, healthier, silkier these last months. Such a rich raven-black. The perfect length for a braid or two or three right behind one of his ears. Or both. And strung over his nape, crowning his head - the beads Nyx would decorate his amatus with if only he had the chance.

 For now, they would begin with him picking up the pouch with courting beads that he’d been keeping in one of his soul bowls, and joining his star on his bed. They were beads he’d bought after their date in Little Galahd. When he realized exactly how serious he’d grown to feel about this fallen star he’d caught once, Noctis Lucis Caelum.

 Noctis, who dragged his dead legs over the edge of his bed to sit, and let Nyx sit right at his side, and seemed eager in his own right to see the beads.

 “<Allow me.>”

 Noctis, who nodded and offered up that rich hair of his. Who sighed to the feeling of the comb he carefully untangled the strands with. And Nyx couldn’t help himself; dragging his fingernails lightly down inlustris’ scalp.

 His nostrils flared when his star groaned, pleased by the feeling. 

 His heart fluttered, and he did it again before emptying the beads from the pouch into his palm. They were the shades of stars. Of a night sky. Blues and blacks and golds and silvers. Their colors. A star and the one who’d caught it. They were perfect. They made Noctis’ eyes sparkle. 

 And when a prince bowed his head to him, Nyx responded as a Glaive should. With greater honor, and care. Beginning to weave the beads into a strand that was tucked back, behind inlustris’ left ear.

 “Nothing happens between us without your say so, <starlight>,” he found himself swearing as shimmering, starry beads were given a proper place in the hair of this royal he had chosen to devote himself to. A proper, proper place. If he were still in Galahd, it would be a day for feasting and celebrations and gifts from the other clans. Courting somebody? The Nyx Ulric? 

 That was probably how Crowe would’ve teased him, if she were there.

 But in his forty years of life, he had never found a person who felt so right to his soul, the way Noctis Lucis Caelum did.

 Beloved.

 His.

 “You too, Nyx,” his beloved, said, so softly as his fingertips fell from his hair, as he reached himself up to touch his new braid gingerly, “I want…to make you happy, too. <I want this, with you. I want us. I just…want it slow.>”

 “Slow, I can do, just for you, inlustris.” 

 To prove it, he was so slow lifting his hand to cup his star’s cheek that flushed a pretty complimentary pink color. Dusky. So pretty. With those starry eyes. So pretty. And he was allowed to touch. He was allowed to admire. He was allowed to love. 

 “Nyx, though, I - I have to put Ori first. No…matter what.” 

 “I would expect nothing less, starlight. <And I love you all the more for it.>”

 Maybe it wasn’t a confession that ended in a kiss.

 But it was a confession that ended with his braids and beads in his dear royal’s hair, and that was already enough for Nyx.

 

 
~>-----------<~

Notes:

The comments were so sweet, I couldn't delete the chapter so I just overwrote it.

But, we finally have a confession! <3 Nyx isn't shy at all. They both are actually pretty aware of what they want, there's just a lot of heavy topics laying between them and a happy ending. What is Lunafreya planning? What will the Astrals do to get back at King Regis? Will Ardyn interfere further or just sit back and watch as it all unfolds? I'm as excited as you to find out~

Chapter 14

Notes:

Little notice, the next chapter will be a bit late because I'm going on another trip this weekend with my siblings! So sorry, but hopefully it won't be too late. Here. Have all of these fluffy moments and a few hints of the future to tide you over until then~ <3

~>-----------<~

 

 

 It felt like a new sort of dawn, every time there was a new braid for a Galahdian to wear with it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx felt the stares leveled at his shoulder from that first step he took onto the training yard, outside the Kingsglaive Complex. 

 Leveled at the braid falling over his shoulder, that is.

 For Galahdians, it was a big deal. New braids. New beads. It was oftentimes a way to announce news without actually announcing it. It was their way of knowing the people of their community and knowing them well without interacting with each other on a daily basis. If a new braid was twined into the hair of somebody? By nightfall, most could bet that the whole of Little Galahd was aware of it and come away a little richer.

 If a new braid was twined into the hair of a chieftain?

 The whole of Little Galahd would be aware of it before breakfast.

 Nyx had thought it best to go the silent route. Why make an event of it? The moment he left inlustris’ rooms, the moment the Glaives on duty at his doors saw his braid, he’d known they’d be texting the news to everyone. Everyone in Little Galahd, but more pressingly everyone in the Kingsglaive. 

 Nyx felt no shame.

 Nyx wore his braid with pride.

 And with the awareness that, as the last Ulric Chieftain, him wearing a courting braid was a massive thing to the community. An event. He’d already informed his star that he’d be spending the night in Little Galahd, because he knew what to expect and what to expect was a celebration. The elders would want to speak with him, the other clans would want to congratulate him, and his own clan would want to throw a party.

 His family had been one of Ulric Chieftains for generations upon generations.

 And since Niflheim had razed the Storm Islands, razed Galahd, since, after - he was the only one of any of the chieftain families that had made it out alive.

 This would be important. To his people. He’d known that when he went to Little Galahd to buy the courting beads, he’d known that when he accepted he’d fallen in love with Noctis Lucis Caelum, and he’d known that when he sat on his star’s bed that morning, finally gifting him a braid and beads and tied their souls together.

 So he’d prepared himself for the many reactions he had ahead of him.

 Nyx still had his duties, as a Kingsglaive Lieutenant…and maybe he’d figured the training yard was the safest bet for the morning since there’d be more recruits there than Glaives.

 But going through the complex had meant more than a few stops, stares. More than one set of widening eyes. More than one phone pointed in his direction as photos were taken and texts sent out, again and again and again. But there weren’t questions, because it was considered rude to bring up new braids unless the braided brought it up first. Unless you were family.

 Nyx’s only family left alive was Libertus, and…chances were Libs would be one of the last to hear about it, if he’d drank himself into another stupor.

 But what there were? 

 There were hands clasping his shoulders as Glaives passed him in the halls, there were knowing smiles, a few quiet cheers, more than one high-five. There were ducked heads, chuckles, more than one wolf whistle. Navi actually tugged him aside so they could give him a firmer clasp on his shoulder, a squeeze, a stern, “You treat him right, you hear?”

All of the non-Galahdian Glaives who hadn’t learned how to read braids in the last few years looked so lost, but Nyx just kept right on walking.

 Until he ended up out in the training yard, where he likewise ended up gently touching that braid. Inlustris’ braid. In his hair. While he sharpened his kukris, and wondered what his mother might’ve said had she lived to see him take courting seriously. What Selena might’ve said. What Crowe might’ve said.

 “Aw, our little Nyx is growing up!” Yeah, something like that.

He let go of the braid full of starry, night sky beads when he heard Axis’ voice as the Arra approached.

 “Only took forty years,” Tredd snorted, and Nyx succinctly lifted his finger in a rude gesture to the redhead. Earning another snort. He rolled his shoulders to give his fellow Glaives and friends a toothy grin. 

And then another finger, just to prove them wrong.

“Nah. <That’s still a child, right there.>” Axis laughed, then nudged Tredd with his elbow when the Furia returned the finger once, twice - three, four, five times in rapid succession, “Hey! Adults, remember?”

“I think your wife would be one of the first to say she raised quadruplets instead of triplets, Axis. ‘Adult’, he says! Ha!”

 Both of them were swatted over the backs of their heads by Sonitus. 

 While they were rubbing where they’d been hit and whining, their resident weapons specialist gave Nyx a good, proper nod. 

 “Congratulations,” he grunted, then turned and went back to his work by the weapons racks.

 “Congratulations!” Pelna echoed, quickly, coming up to actually rest his hand on Nyx’s head. He probably would’ve ruffled his hair if it weren’t all braided into neat rows like it was, “Just letting you know, the community is already planning a whole Little Galahd-wide party for you. And the elders want to see you this afternoon.” 

 “I figured. Thanks, Pelna.” Nyx clasped the Khara’s wrist thankfully, and they stayed like that for a few seconds that dragged on. And then his favorite communications and intel lieutenant headed off on his own way. Probably to collect more information about whatever was being planned for this ‘party’.

Stormy eyes went back to Axis and Tredd, who were still standing around there.

Everyone else was satisfied with a few nods and acknowledgments. Of course they wouldn’t be the same.

“Took your advice,” Nyx figured it didn’t hurt to be thankful in this, though, and Axis smirked to hear it, “Worked out. <Thanks.>”

“I’ll let the wife know.” 

It was important.

But it wasn’t just important because it was a new courting, or because it was a chieftain, or even because it was an Ulric Chieftain. Not to the Galahdians who’d rooted themselves into Insomnia. It was important because it was Nyx Ulric. Because so many of them had thought he’d never move on from the war. Never be able to rest his blades and fill up his braids.

And here they were, happy to be proven wrong.

Axis and Tredd, aside from Pelna, were some of the only close friends he still had who’d survived the war and remained in Insomnia.

And he knew they meant well, so he let them tease him as he went back to sharpening his kukris. Happy to have stars in his hair, and looking forward to the celebrations. Because he was always happy to see his people happy. Whatever the occasion. Whatever the occasion, he loved to see Galahd’s heart beat loud and proud.

 Hearth and home, warm and loud.

 Home.

 

 

-----

 

 

 You know, some more than small part of Nyx kept waiting for his phone to ring, despite already long-accepting that it wouldn’t.

 Waiting for the last of his only surviving family members to call him, to actually care.

 He closed his eyes with resignation, knowing that wasn’t going to happen. But still. He waited for Libs to call. He waited.

 

 

-----

 

 

 His phone never rang.

Surviving or not, Nyx Ulric truly had lost his entire family to the war.

 But what he had left? What he had left, was Little Galahd. The sprig of his home in the Storm Islands that they’d taken with them, that they’d planted on new shores, that had thrived and grown with attention, with care. So much care. What he had was home and hearth and he was happy enough with that. Nyx Ulric didn’t want to be dragged down anymore.

 He’d rather fly, like he always did with his star no longer so fallen.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Fidgeting with the neatly ironed hem of his shirt, Noctis knocked on the doors of his dad’s study. Feeling and trying to ignore the way his skin crawled, because there were two Crownsguard standing guard out in the hall. Even if they didn’t touch him, even if they didn’t look directly at him or address him, it was too close. And that was while knowing his dad had changed where the Crownsguard stood guard so they wouldn’t be right outside his rooms' doors.

 Just in case his son came to see him.

 Just so he might be that little bit more comfortable. Feel that little bit more safe.

 Uncle Clarus was standing behind the doors when they opened, face impassive. 

Until he saw it was Noctis there, and then the impassiveness was broken by a soft smile and softer eyes, and his uncle stepped aside. Opening the doors wider so Noctis could wheel himself inside. 

 Dad was engrossed with the many, many, many sorted papers scattered across his desk. The crown in his silvered hair was askew, and there were extra lines under his eyes that morning, and Noctis suddenly felt guilty for simply showing up and expecting a moment of his dad’s time to go to him.

 It was an old insecurity that bubbled up, as his fingers went to the new braid in his hair. Touching the beads, rubbing them, to calm down.

Uncle Clarus cleared his throat loudly, when the doors had already been shut and locked again and Dad hadn’t looked up.

 So his dad did look up, looked baffled for a second, holding a piece of paperwork in each of his hands, looking overworked too - but all of that was brushed aside for a big, bright grin the instant he laid tired green eyes on Noctis. 

 All of that paperwork was set aside an instant later, too, and turned upside down or buried under other papers.

 Noctis wondered what had his dad so busy now. It was always something.

 But it seemed to be more important this time, somehow.

 “Noctis, baby, hello!” 

Meanwhile it was always a nice surprise; for Regis to have his Noctis visit him. There was the usual, older worry that he was visiting him so early in the morning, when they’d already talked about having dinner with Oriens that night, but he saw nothing immediately off about his boy at first glance.

 Noctis even gave him a crooked, shy smile to greet him back.

 So the aged king stood from his desk with the help of his cane, hobbling around it and giving his boy all of his attention. As he deserved.

 Also, to take the attention away from what he’d been working on.
 
 “Here,” Regis motioned towards the ratty couch he kept in his study - maybe it was a tad too ratty to be in the kingly study of, well, Lucis’ King. Maybe there were patches in its leather and maybe there were a few scorch marks too. Maybe it was broken in almost too well, and maybe…maybe it had been there since he was a kid. And his own father was Lucis’ King.

But it was also a couch that held so many memories for more than three generations of Lucis Caelums.

So Regis didn’t think twice about sitting himself down on it, while Noctis wheeled over to sit in his wheelchair across from him. 

His dear boy was fidgeting with his shirt, with its buttons and cuffs. An act of shyness he hadn’t seen in a while. An act of shyness that his dad instantly picked up on, and started scanning Noctis up and down for. Injuries were his first concern. Bruises, since Noctis didn’t exactly have the ability to feel most bruises nowadays.

But when he found no injuries, his shoulders dropped some of the tenseness they’d taken up.

And then, Regis noticed there was a braid in his son’s hair.

Just a one. Braiding together four strands of his raven-black hair, just behind his left ear. It wasn’t very big. It wasn’t nearly as eye-catching as some of the dreads of braids Galahdians wore. But it did have a handful of beads. Beads a shade as blue as night skies, with gold and paler blue accents.

My, if Regis didn’t immediately break into a bit of a mischievous, knowing smile as his son continued to fidget.

Was he there to announce it in his own way? 

“Congratulations, Noctis.” 

Blue-blue eyes, Aulea’s eyes, shot up to look into his, a look of start on his sweet son’s face. Then his hand went to his braid. Rolling the beads between his fingers. And his cheeks pinked by several shades, his eartips too, and Regis chuckled at his adorable boy. He - he hadn’t seen Noctis so shy and so in love since he was just a boy. With Prompto.

“Thanks…Dad.” Nyx Ulric, it seemed, had won his son’s stalwart heart.

“So, do I need to have a talk with your new suitor?” This father, the Father, teased. Rolling his cane between his hands while his son straightened up and straight up squeaked. As if Regis hadn’t already had several talks with Glaive Ulric already alluding to how he expected his son to be treated.

“Dad!” Still, it was so much fun to see Noctis flush and whine like he were a child again, so Regis let out a contemplative hum to keep playing along.

“I’m not so sure. Just a short talk. Short. Simple. Him and I.” Regis leaned forward with a twinkle in the green eyes he’d gotten from his own father, “No witnesses.”  

 “Dad!” 

 Sweet, sweet summer laughter filled the study of the Lucian King that morning. Even sweeter congratulations and assurances followed. Noctis had come to declare his courtship with a Kingsglaive. With Nyx Ulric, who had more than proven himself worthy of royal attention long, long ago. How was Regis to refuse him? How was Regis to tell his and Aulea’s son no, no, he cannot be courted and loved by a chieftain of the Ulric Clan of Galahd? 

 He cannot be loved by a man who had earned the Father’s respect as well, who was a hero, who was loyal and good and strong, and he was willing to entrust his little nightlight to?

 In truth, an unfortunate truth, there would’ve been severe backlash towards such an idea if the old council was still instated. Actually, there still were technically issues regarding it.

 But, in this case, it worked in their favor that Noctis Lucis Caelum had been removed from the line of succession.

 He was a royal, freed.

 Free to exist and love outside of royal obligation. Especially with an heir already born from him.

 For that reason, Regis could simply bask in the wonderful fact that his darling Noctis had found the strength to fall in love again. Noctis was happy. Noctis was shy, but he was proud at the same time. And Noctis was so, so soft that morning, that he even leaned up to give his dad a peck on the cheek before he wheeled out of his office so he could get back to work, a braid in his hair.

 Uncles Clarus and Cor both giving him hugs before he went.

…

 And after, Regis let out the longest, most mixed sigh he felt he ever had.

 Because when he stepped back over to his desk, it was covered in scattered reports about Tenebrae, and about Queen Lunafreya’s request to open marriage negotiations between her and his Noctis.

 “Regis?” Clarus asked, short, simple, already seeing straight through the king he had served for decades.

 Ready to do anything asked of him by that king, as ever.

 “...Send a private message to Queen Lunafreya,” Regis Lucis Caelum commanded, crumpling his previously drafted messages as he did, because he had his answer. His son had given it to him, even if he hadn’t realized it, “My son is already courted by another, and it is a courtship reciprocated and supported by the Crown. We thank her, but we refuse any and all marriage offers on his behalf.” 

 He paused, and cringed like he’d just thought up something foul. Which, he had.

 “And,” he added, abhorring the very idea, but best to be firm from the start and leave no loopholes, “that Prince Oriens will not be available for marriage offers until he has turned sixteen and received the Crystal’s covenant.”

 If he received the covenant.

 It depended on what the House of Caelum’s relationship with the Crystal became, in the years to come.

 “As you wish, Your Majesty.” 

 He wished to protect his boys. So that was what Regis would do.

 

 

-----

 

 

It spoke volumes: that officiating their courtship changed practically nothing in Noctis and Nyx’s relationship.

 Oh sure, there were the reactions of others. And there was Gladio cornering Nyx in a quiet corridor to lay down the law after he’d heard. And there was a certain advisor grabbing Nyx none too kindly by the collar to drag the Glaive into an alcove to do the same about an hour later. Though the encounter with Advisor Scientia involved his knives, so. There was that.

 There was Marshal Leonis inviting him for a ‘friendly spar’ shortly after lunch, stealing him from Captain Drautos with a smirk that was all teeth that made even the captain back off without a fight. He left the sparring ring more than a little bruised.

 There was maybe a moment there - more like three hours - where he was summoned to the office of King Regis, and Sir Clarus was there too, and they both had…words, for Glaive Ulric.

 A lot of words, spoken in a lot of ways, with more than one weapon summoned just so their points could make a point.

 He thanked Ramuh to be leaving that office with all his private bits still attached.

 He also found it secretly amusing; the amount of shovel talks one man could get in a day. The Lucis Caelum family was not one like his family of Little Galahd. They did not do silent, unspoken acknowledgement.

 They did whispered, sharpened weapons and threats of magical castration and of making him disappear - that’s what they did.

 But still, practically nothing changed between Noctis and Nyx personally. 

 Sure. Come dinnertime, Oriens stared a teensy bit at the new braid in his dad’s hair. His stare turning into a pout, and a, “Dad, I could’ve done your braid for you! Is Nyx teaching you too now? Does that mean I can learn to weave?” Sure, that involved Noctis struggling to steer around explaining why his little dawnlight was wrong without actually saying why.

 Noctis wasn’t ready to tell Ori about his…relationship, with Nyx.

 What if Ori disapproved? Obviously if he did, it’d be over, because Ori came first. But he wanted it for more than a day before that happened. Which meant he wanted plausible deniability.

 Besides, nothing had really changed, so it wasn’t as if Ori would notice.

…

 Before Nyx clocked out of his Glaive duties for the night, he showed up at the doors to Noctis’ royal rooms. Knocked properly and everything. Like he hadn’t had to do for months. His fellow Glaives on guard duty snickered at him, so he ground his heel down on one of their feet, and let them hop away cussing just as the doors slowly opened.

 Inlustris blinked up at him, looking surprised, but happy too. Happy to see him.

 From behind his back, Nyx pulled out the bouquet of flowers he’d picked specially from the gardens for his starlight.

 “For you, inlustris. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Blue-blue eyes twinkled like true stars as Noctis accepted the bouquet, a blush spreading so fast across his cheeks it would beat out a sunrise. He hesitated, then buried his whole face in the flowers. Inhaling deeply. 

 When he lifted his head, there was a smidge of yellow pollen on the tip of his nose.

 “Thank you, Nyx.” 

 The proud Galahdian man knelt down onto his knees, so he could beam up at his incredible star when he reached out to gently brush the pollen off of his nose. Chuckling at the way it made his amatus’ nose scrunch up and him go cross-eyed. 

 So nothing had really changed.

 Except how hard Noctis’ heart pounded whenever Nyx walked away from their encounters.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The celebrations in Little Galahd that night lit up their district like a shining star, even amongst the brilliance of Insomnia’s typical nightlife. Especially then. Because Galahdians? Knew how to make their own fireworks. Very big, very loud, very vibrant fireworks, with special explosive powder that could shake hearts. 

 And they made good use of those fireworks late into the night, ensuring Insomnia was the city that really didn’t sleep.

 And that several blocks of car alarms sounded off sometime around midnight. 

 And that the fire marshals were called.

 And the Kingsglaive were called to investigate, by request of Captain Drautos. Which was amusing beyond words for the celebrating district, as the Glaives sent to scold them in the name of the Crown instead sent back reports that it was a ‘false alarm’ and joined the party, even as the fireworks still lit up the skies above Little Galahd.

 For it wasn’t just the Ulric Clan celebrating that night, but them all.

 Because it felt like a new beginning for the community, in so many of the most spectacular ways.

 And back at the Citadel, on the balcony of a king’s rooms, King Regis fondly watched the fireworks. Rolling his eyes when Captain Drautos came up to the balcony just to exasperatedly tell him that, “There are no disturbances in Little Galahd, Your Majesty. My Glaives checked it out for themselves.” 

 Another firework, so bright it lit up the face of the Citadel even from such a distance, exploded right after the Kingsglaive Captain’s report.

 And Regis tossed back his head to laugh.

 And next to the Lucian King, a wheelchair was on his balcony as well that night. Noctis, with his head pillowed in his arms on the balcony’s railing, was watching the fireworks as well. And tucked just underneath his chin? Was Ori. Pretending he wasn’t there, because it would be long-past the prince’s bedtime if he was, wouldn’t it? 

 So he just nuzzled up under his dad’s chin, giggling at how ticklish his beard was, and watched the fireworks show too.

 With his dad and his grandpa.

 These had been the best months of Oriens’ life, you know? 

 He was so, so, so, so happy!

 He fell asleep curled into a tiny ball in his dad’s arms, yawning and yawning and yawning, until he just slipped off to play with Carbuncle. Dad and Grandpa stayed up to watch the lights that lit up the night for a while longer, with Grandpa carding his fingers through Dad’s hair as they talked softly between the bursts of color painting Insomnia in a hundred colors.

 It was the earliest hours of the morning by the time they went to bed too. And their bedrooms were so far away! So Grandpa just herded his dad into his kingly bedroom. Their plushies were already sitting, waiting, on his big bed and everything. 

 All three of them cuddled up in bed together that night, exhausted, but blissful.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Come morning, Cor knocked carefully before entering Regis’ bedroom.

 Stopping short, when he was faced with a full bed of three tired, yawning Lucis Caelum sleepyheads all with various states of bedhead, groaning and glaring at him. Looking as dangerous as coeurl cubs. And about as disoriented as them after a nap as well.

 Three generations of sleepyheads. Royal ones, too.

 Cor Leonis doubled over laughing himself to tears that morning.

 Multiple pictures were sent to a certain group chat.

 And the royal family all unanimously agreed to kick the Crownsguard Marshal out so they could go back to sleep for a few extra hours that nobody begrudged them. Only men with a death wish got between Lucis Caelums and their naps. 

 They had Lucis handled until they were ready to wake back up.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The fireworks had been so big, and so bright, and so loud but so cool too!

 They hadn’t gotten to watch the fireworks show at the Founder’s Festival that year, because that really weird man showed up and made his grandpa upset, and that was the only time there were really fireworks allowed in Insomnia. So Ori had really loved getting to see fireworks after all with his grandpa and his dad!

 But he got this strange, strange feeling from the glances sent his way in the days since that something had changed. 

And the princling hadn’t been told about it, as usual.

 Okay, so he was a kid. But Oriens was really mature! Uncle Iggy had been saying so lots lately, because he was getting all of his tutor sessions done on time. Just so he could spend the extra time he had with Dad. He could handle it! It wasn’t fair for everyone to be in on secrets except for him!

 So…it was time to do some sleuthing. Like from his favorite book series! He was totally a royal detective, because Uncle Gladdy said he could be whatever he wanted to be and that was what he wanted to be. And he would get to the bottom of what had been so strange in the Citadel lately.

 After all, nobody knew the Citadel’s secret passages as well as him, and nobody could eavesdrop quite as quietly either.

 Let the mystery begin!

 And if the ‘Guards spent a few days watching their tiny crown prince scurry around, disappearing in dead end corridors, peeking around corners and glaring at them like they were hiding secrets, and warping out of the way just as they followed after him? They valiantly pretended that they saw nothing at all.

 Though, they didn’t always catch him. Oriens really was a good little secret seeker when he needed to be. And as soon as he realized the secrets involved his dad? He became the best sleuther in all of Eos to discover what had happened. 

 It ended with a few whispered conversations about beads and braids.

 And a few observations on his end.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens tapped, then tapped again, and again, at his phone screen. Pretending to be engrossed in the current round of King’s Knight 3 he and Uncle Prom were playing…but he really wasn’t. Really, the princling was peering over the top of his phone. Watching.

 Watching Nyx Ulric.

Who was watching his dad play with Aurora.

 Aurora purred, her fluffy white tail wrapping around his dad’s wrist like a bracelet as he held her. Dad beamed. And bent down to boop his nose to hers with a giggle.

 Nyx softened.

 And Oriens narrowed his eyes. He really was an observant child.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx hadn’t known what to expect, when he received an official notice while in the Kingsglaive Complex that Prince Oriens had requested a meeting with him.

 Receiving that notice had confused him, and reading it had his brows going up while Captain Drautos read over his shoulder. Looking equally confused.

 But, “As your prince commands, no?” Of course.

 As mane commanded, Nyx had finished training, showered the sweat off in the locker rooms, and headed straight for the private sitting room pointed to for this ‘meeting’. He was feeling more than a little bewildered by the whole thing. Ori and he had gotten pretty close, bonding over Noctis, the last few months. As well as him teaching the princling how to braid, and buying him gifts from Little Galahd.

 He couldn’t imagine that this was a request to be taught…officially? As one of his tutors? Let alone political in nature, because usually they all just did their crafts in his star’s rooms.

 Bewildered, but willing to entertain Ori as much as he entertained his dad, Nyx knocked politely on the doors to the sitting room. Adjusting his shirt since he was still a bit damp from his shower. Maybe, sort of, fidgeting. And then he was summoned in by a muffled voice.

 He entered to find the sitting room to be straight out of some posh, historical painting, far fancier than the parts of the Citadel Nyx usually frequented - with Ori sat primly in one of the larger chairs. Staring at the Glaive who entered with a bow.

 His fingers were folded neatly in his lap, and he was dressed up like a proper little prince. It was adorable.

 But the frown on his face was a bit worrying.

 “Hope I’m on time, Your Highness,” Nyx said, playing along with the serious, almost formal atmosphere as he shut the door behind him and stepped forward, “May I sit?” 

 “Please do.”

 How right and proper. It really, really was adorable; the way Ori nodded stiffly and motioned to the armchair across from him. Nyx wanted to take out his phone and snap a few pictures to show inlustris later. But he was matching mane's politeness too, so he just sat himself down and folded his hands together between his knees. Hunching to better be on the prince’s level.

 “So, what is this meeting about, Your Highness?” 

 Oriens sniffed.

 And for a split second, his ‘properness’ fell away as he wiggled his shoulders. Just a hint of his real shyness showing through. Before he collected himself - and damn it, Nyx wanted to laugh so very much.

 Nearly did, with the question mane mumbled right after.

 “Are you…going to be my stepmom, Nyx?” 

 It was a close thing. Not laughing. A very, very close thing, that involved Nyx breathing out loudly through his nose and biting into his cheek. By Ramuh. Mane. He kept face, and he only managed that because of the lessons he’d had to endure about not outwardly reacting when on guard at public events. 

 But - his stepmom.

 “...No, Your Highness,” he managed to strangle out of his throat, coughing at the end there, “I…I am not…currently aware of any plans involving me becoming your stepmom. Mostly because I am, well, a man.” 

 The princling, who’d begun to droop a bit, perked up. Blue-blue eyes so much like his dad's sharpening.

 Ori definitely had the wisdom of a Galahdian child, Nyx would give him that.

 “My stepdad, then?” 

 Nyx pressed his lips flat together. He and Noctis hadn’t yet, really, discussed how open they were going to be to Oriens about their budding relationship. Inlustris probably hadn’t even thought that the kid would notice anything had changed between them. But Oriens - he had a bit of reputation in the Citadel. For knowing things.

 And according to some rumors? For being inside of the walls. Literally. 

 “Nyx Ulric,” and a prince he was, so as a prince Oriens Lucis Caelum spoke then, straightening up and finding his spine to be a steel one as he met the Glaive’s eyes evenly, “What are your intentions with my dad?” 

 Ah. So that was what that familiar look in the mini star’s eyes had been.

Protectiveness. 

 “I love him,” Nyx said honestly, shrugging when his prince stiffened, his love’s son, looking truly panicked for a second, “and my intentions are whatever he’s comfortable and happy with, Highness. But I can swear I never, ever intend to harm him. I never, ever want to break your dad’s heart. If marriage is something he wants down the line, and me being your stepdad is something you are comfortable with, then maybe that is where we’ll wind up. But for now we’re just…seeing what happens.”

 The panic battled with some other emotion in Ori’s eyes.

 He waited patiently, watching, wondering what emotion would win.

 Seeing mane fold into himself, seeing him shrink and become small and turn to mumbling a few moments later, made it clear that some of the panic at least had won.

 “I…see,” he shifted, obviously, so suddenly, uncomfortable as he started playing with the fabric of his pants and Nyx kept waiting patiently. Just to inhale so, so quietly when the mini star whispered, “So…is it like, when Lord Oriole remarried last year? His daughter…said he started a whole new family with her stepmom. Are you and Dad…planning to - ?” 

 “Oh, mane, no.” That was just too heartbreaking an idea for Nyx to stay seated - he was up and kneeling in front of his star’s little dawnlight instantly, reaching for his hands that were still so small at nine years old, “Look at me. Look. Your dad has every intention of putting you first. He made that very clear to me. And I don’t think either of us have any plans of having children. You don’t need to worry about that.” 

 Inlustris loved his mane.

 “You are the most important thing in your dad’s life. I will never try to get between him and you. I promise.” 

 So Nyx loved him as well.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Inlustris blinked, blue-blue eyes shifting between Nyx and Oriens. 

 His son was holding the Glaive’s hand, humming happily as they walked.
 
 Inlustris smiled, and Nyx wished their every day could be like this, as mane let go of his hand upon finally noticing his dad and stretching out his arms to him. Running forward with a, “Dad!” To get his hugs and attention.

 Yeah, he wished their every day could be like this.

 

 

-----

 

 

 If only.

 

 
-----

 

 

 “Anything? Or are there not enough sightings?” 

 “...Too many, actually.” 

 Narrowing his eyes, Cor leaned over Clarus’ shoulder to see what the Shield was staring at on his computer. It was a spreadsheet. Organized, as ever. But it was a spreadsheet compiling all of Eos’ unexplained magic sightings and reports over the last forty to fifty years. 

 There were a lot of entries.

 “All of those?” The Marshal muttered, already reaching for his phone to message Dustin and Monica to start their own investigation. Ordinarily they would keep this in-house. Clarus and him only. But Dustin and Monica were his best people - he trusted them with state secrets he wouldn’t even trust Drautos with.

 “Some…some might be false reports,” Clarus tried to say, but it was only too obvious that he was trying to convince himself as well, so Cor figured it was safe to assume most of them were likely to be true.

 “How did so many slip by us?” 

 “We weren’t looking for a Lucis Caelum bastard, Cor.” 

 “Damn it,” he tapped his phone screen too hard, and hissed out a breath between his teeth to gain back his composure. Shaking his head. Frustrated. With himself, with this - this whole situation, “These reports go back forty years, for the most part, so we can presume we’re looking for somebody around that age. But they’re from all over Eos. That’s too much ground to cover covertly.”

 “We’ll have to bring Regis in on this.” 

 Cor’s finger froze over his phone screen, his message to Dustin unsent. Working his jaw.

 “He won’t be happy we kept him out of the loop for so long. And he has so much to handle already; the new council, the PR involving those ‘Guards and the result of their trial, the upcoming gala, the - “

 “If there’s a chance of an unknown Lucis Caelum wandering around Eos,” Clarus interrupted him sternly, all fatherly there and Cor reflexively cringed away from that sternness, “he’ll want to know sooner than later, Cor. And you said it yourself - it’s too much ground to cover without his say so.” 

 “...Clarus,” he sighed, slumping a bit over his oldest brother’s shoulder, “the Crownsguard can’t handle this big of an op. Our ranks were already wrecked by the war, then nearly a hundred of my men were just tried and convicted - deserved or not - and the Crownsguard’s reputation is at an alltime low. We won’t be refilling our ranks anytime soon.” 

 If at all, went unsaid. The Kingsglaive had gained a lot of favor since the war’s end; significant favor over the Crownsguard in a lot of ways, thanks to the Glaives always being the ones in the thick of it while the ‘Guards remained mostly stationed in Insomnia. They had grown to be seen as largely obsolete by the people of Lucis. 

 Lesser than the Kingsglaive, who wielded the magic of the Crystal where most ‘Guards did not.

 Now, they were a dishonored organization who harbored those who’d harmed an innocent prince for so many years, in so many ways. Cor had reports of his Crownsguard getting harassed on the streets by rioters sitting on his desk in his office at that very moment, and more than one resignation from ‘Guards who couldn’t believe they’d been working alongside monsters for years. They were an organization shamed.

 And they deserved it, but that wouldn’t help the House of Caelum in future endeavors.

 “Maybe we should bring Drautos in on it then?” Clarus suggested, and though he didn’t say so, his eyes said he understood exactly what was on Cor’s mind, “Ahead of telling Regis, so we have Kingsglaive support for the op?”

 “I don’t like it…but probably, yes.”

 Cor didn’t like it, sighed like he didn’t, shifted like he didn’t, crossed his arms and huffed like he didn’t.

 But the House of Caelum came first, above anything he didn’t like.

 Even the House of Caelum’s bastards.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Drautos simply arched a brow when Cor Leonis kicked in his office’s door and said, “Drautos, I’m borrowing a bunch of your men for an op. The Crownsguard are undermanned. Thanks. Bye.” 

 That Captain of the Kingsglaive was halfway to standing up and calling that troublesome brat back when Clarus Amicitia - the only sane member of King Regis’ retinue - came right back through his office’s door.

Dragging the Immortal by his ear.

 “That is to say,” the Shield said pointedly, pushing his captive Cor out in front of him and glaring at him before turning a far more polite look to the captain they’d interrupted, “Drautos, we have some information relevant to you, and to an op that is soon to become our highest priority. Do you have a moment?” 

 Did he have a moment? No. 

 But that had never stopped Drautos from getting his fingers into every pie of information he could possibly find. Least of all information that would have both the Lord Amicitia and Marshal Leonis interrupting his work. 

 His office’s door was shut, locked, and then double-checked to ensure it was locked.

 And then both of Drautos’ eyebrows arched in disbelief at what they had to tell him.

 Maybe a bit of panic too.

 This hadn’t happened the last time around, had it?

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Your Majesty.” 

 The King of Lucis was reluctant to lower the paperwork he’d just been perusing. Mostly because he’d far rather spend his time staring at paperwork for the upcoming gala, than deal with the downright serious energy rolling off of his Shield as Clarus knocked and bowed and then entered his office.

That reluctance grew when behind his Shield, like two ducklings, followed Drautos and Cor respectively.

 Regis’ first thought was that they’d gotten into another prank war that would cost the Citadel thousands. Like that time that Cor had put Drautos’ car in the captain’s office. On the sixth floor of the Kingsglaive Complex. 

 Use of the Armiger in their pranks had been banned henceforth, but they were both frustratingly creative. 

 And adults…he thought. Maybe. Maybe adults.

 “Clarus, Drautos, Cor,” his tired tone? Regis bothered not to hide, groaning and pinching the bridge of his nose as he finally set his paperwork down, “What have you three done now?” 

 “They haven’t - wait. Why are you including me in that?” Clarus stammered, derailing whatever this was because his offrontedness made both the Kingsglaive Captain and Crownsguard Marshal behind him burst into laughter. Oh yes. Adults. Yes. Sometimes, Regis really, really missed Weskam and Cid.

 Of course what they had to tell him turned him into the stammering one.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “I’m sorry, you think I may have a what - ?!” 

 “A…brother, Regis.” 

 “Damn it, Dad.” 

 So the House of Caelum gained the potential to grow.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...So how are we going to handle this?” Surprising none of the kingdom of Lucis’ three most powerful men - four, including him - Cor stole the charge first. Crossing his arms and fixing his eyes full of fire on his king. Not only because of the sort of man he was, but because Cor had owed King Mors a lot during his life. 

 That Lucian King had been the one to take a chance on the street rat who tried to gut him in an alleyway, after all. All because he’d liked Cor’s ‘spirit’.

 It had changed so much of his life. For the better. Arguably, it was the reason Cor Leonis had anything and everything he had now. So he would always have a bit of loyalty to the late king. A lot of loyalty. But not nearly as much loyalty as he had for Regis. Not nearly. And that showed in the way he shrugged and went on.

 “I mean, are we seeking out this potential bastard to bring back, or to make him…disappear?”

 Regis choked a bit, burying his face in both of his hands as his only response to such a casual offer to dispose of this unexpected trouble. This unexpected…family member.

 “Cor, please stop threatening murder in front of me. There’s only so many times I can claim my hearing is going and I cannot be counted on as a witness before people notice it’s only gone around you.” 

 “Both options have their merits, Your Majesty.” 

 “I’m telling Prompto you used the word ‘merit’,” Drautos snorted, since the kid loved to hear about his dad acting as if he knew what being composed meant; already had the phone out and was sending the message when Cor proved his point - by reaching for one of the sitting chairs to try and swing it at the Kingsglaive Captain.

 Thank the Six, or not, that the Shield and sane one between them all grabbed it before it could be used in a case for attempted battery and set it firmly back down. Swatting at Cor’s hands until his youngest brother, most troublesome brother, huffed and backed down too.

 “Yes, thank you. Both of you. Behave.” 

 In spite of the situation at hand, Regis chuckled. Couldn’t help it. His brothers really were some of the most ridiculous forty to sixty-year olds in all of Eos. And he was really so very fond of them for it. They all abandoned their glaring at each other to turn their eyes back to their king, some of the tension bleeding out of them. Likely because they hadn’t gotten an explosive response to this…unexpected news.

 Was it unexpected? 

 Like his beloved Aulea, Regis’ own mother had died shortly after childbirth due to the complications of birthing a Lucis Caelum. His father had never remarried.

 But he wasn’t fool enough to think his father had never taken lovers. He’d never been explicitly told about any such lovers - he’d never been told about the possibility of his dad having other children at all, really. But the chances, as it were, weren’t zero.

 Regis had had his lovers before Aulea, and his lovers after, but he had always been so careful. Besides, the reports went back at least thirty to forty years, making this potential unknown Lucis Caelum a little old to be an accidental child of his. And he doubted his grandfather had had some secret child that kept themselves hidden for nearly sixty or seventy years.

Ah, but, “Are we certain that it is a brother? Not a sister?” 

 “The DNA presented at the trial was, and has been since confirmed, to be from a male Lucis Caelum. If it had been a female from the line, that would’ve been noticed immediately during the forensic study.” 

 So he may have another member of his family that nobody knew about. A brother.

 Steepling his fingers in deep, deep thought, the King of Lucis closed his eyes. Unable to deny the fact that this might just be the truth. But also unable to get out of his head his brothers’ speculation; that this unknown family member may have helped frame his innocent son.

 Friend or foe?

 Family or enemy? 

 Both? Neither? 

 He was too damn old for this. His hair was silvered, his skin wrinkled, his hands covered in age spots, and his bones achy in a way none could help because it was time’s own price. He was in his late fifties but he felt as though he were nearly seventy. That, the price of his family’s magic. That, the time stolen from him by the Crystal. But here he was. Meant to make this decision that could impact Noctis and Oriens in so many ways.

 Regis peeked through his eyes first, at his brothers, all three waiting patiently before him and his desk. Backs straight. Selves, firm. They would do as they were asked, because it was their brother and king asking. 

 But…if this man was family…

 “We…will not,” he sighed finally, sitting up and deciding on his decree, “be making this mystery man disappear. If he is a Lucis Caelum, it is important for us to find out. As soon as possible. I - I am not as young as I was,” his eyes betrayed him by landing on a picture frame he kept on his desk, of him young, with his arms around his Aulea and her baby bump that was his Noctis before he was born, “and I may not hold out long enough for Oriens to come of age, to take the throne.” 

 A bittersweet atmosphere filled his office.

 “And I will not ask Noctis to surrender any more years, not to the Crystal, not to our family’s throne. I would entrust…perhaps one of you, or otherwise Gladiolus, to rule as Lucis’ Regent in that event. But if there is another member of our family out there, if he’d be willing…” 

 “Regis,” Clarus whispered, eyes pained for his younger brother aged even beyond his years, “we have no way of knowing if this man would be willing to accept Oriens’ succession. Publicly claiming him as family - that would likewise give him a claim to the throne. We don’t know him. He could try to seize power. He could - “

 “Which is why we must find him, Clarus,” the king cut in tiredly, yet not unkindly. Just, tiredly, “So we can know. So we can make that decision, while I still have the years left in me to maybe make that sort of decision while sound of mind. Hear me. Please.” 

 There was age in the air.

 An age gone, where they were all just young men looking to make their futures better for the ones they loved.

 They were not young men any longer. 

 They were old. And that future had arrived. But they still had more to make better, didn’t they? 

 “Titus, if you’d please? This op is the Glaives’, with how understaffed the Crownsguard is and will be for a while. Entrust it only to your closest. I want this Lucis Caelum bastard found, brought back to Insomnia, and learned. So I might know if he would be a good addition to mine and my boys’ lives.”

 “And if he fights? If it turns out he did help frame Noctis?” 

 “If so, then I will have another head rolling down the steps of my home before this year is done.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 A new branch of the House of Caelum had grown wild and free.

 What would he bring back to Insomnia with him, when this mystery man was found?

 

 
-----

 

 

 The Kingsglaive Complex of the Citadel was filled with such bustle after a secret meeting between the Captain and his closest, most trusted men. Bustle, and whispers.

And when Nyx went back to his and inlustris’ rooms that very evening, he stood, struggling with himself at the threshold. Because as a Glaive, he had his orders. His oaths of secrecy. But as an amatus - and he had never been one before, but, he had the honesty he’d always kept with Noctis.

 Noctis, who noticed him hesitating in the door and wheeled his way over.

 And looked him in his stormy eyes. That was all. That was all it took.

 For even if it had been more than a decade now, Noctis Lucis Caelum recognized that expression too well.

 “It’s alright,” he whispered, despite it not being, it not being, it was his greatest insecurity and regret, “We…we all, have our duties, Nyx. You, yours. And I, mine. You are a Glaive,” and he reached up, so Nyx hunched over so inlustris could touch his cheek and reassure him in this, so, so, gingerly, “and I am a dad. Some things just come first, before each other, okay?” 

 Was that really what it meant to love somebody? Nyx’s mother and father had loved without oaths to put above each other; a Galahdian oath of marriage was meant to go above all, even clan. Even the community. Glaive oaths had changed that. Had terrified his people when they took them.

 They hadn’t terrified Nyx more than twenty years ago, when he made them.

 But they terrified him now, and he spent the night as close to his star as he could get without invading his space. It was his apology. Unspoken. But there. Like so many things tender between the two of them.

 His star sadly understood how duty affected relationships with those the Lucis Caelums loved.

 

 

-----

 

 

 If he went to ask his fellow Glaives how they handled it later, that was his business, as a man and as an amatus. 

 And if he carefully kept an eye on this ‘bastard’ Lucis Caelum op as well, so he could tell his starlight everything as soon as he was allowed? That was also his business.

 

 

-----

 

 

 See, when Gladio had had to explain the wedding band he wore now, as a Shield he’d been ashamed. As a man, he’d been firm. As just Gladio? A mix of those two. Because growing up, he’d wanted little more than to be an Amicitia Shield just like his dad. Serving his Lucis Caelum. And he’d wanted a relationship just like his dad and Uncle Regis had. That strong, stalwart bond not just tying them together but knotting them together.

 A Shield is meant to be a part of their Lucis Caelum. Is meant to embody them, to be their shadow in every way; physically and mentally and emotionally - 

 And Gladiolus Amicitia had been too arrogant, too prideful, for too many years to be that for Noctis.

 He’d tried to make his crown prince fit to him, when it was always meant to be the other way around. Gotten frustrated, thrown fits, and in the end even had thought maybe, maybe, Noctis could’ve done those things he was accused of. Just so he could pretend the failings weren’t his, as his Shield.

 Now, as Oriens’ acting Shield, as a husband and as a father, he recognized his selfishness.

 His old pride.

 Gladio was willing to dirty his pride for a lot of reasons, nowadays, thanks to all the therapy he’d put his efforts into taking as seriously as he could. 

 One thing he wasn’t willing to dirty his pride for was his wife though. That goddess of a woman deserved to be defended and defended and defended, whatever the price of that defense. He stood by that. Even…even against Noctis. So when Gladio had had to explain the wedding band he wore now, he’d been honest.

 He had a wife, and they had a set of twins, and he loved his family so fucking dearly and he’d do anything for them.

 And Noctis had actually smirked, hearing that response.

 They’d moved on, and Gladio had tended to the flowers in his rooms. 

…

 When Gladio had forgotten the lunchbox his wife had made for him, one busy, busy morning, that goddess of a woman had offered to drop it off at the Citadel for him. And he?

 He decided to take a leap of faith.

 Noctis met his wife out in the flowering gardens, during one of their walks where they discussed mostly safe topics. Like their kids and their kids and their kids, occasionally flowers. He loved that woman. He loved that woman so much, and so much more when she barely blinked twice at Noct being present, came right up to them and gave him a peck on the lips, a slight slap to his bicep to say, ‘We’ll be talking about this later.’

 Then Cecilia Amictia turned to face his little brother, who he’d always bemoaned failing.

 Whereas most people ducked their heads and pitying gazes at Noct, she held hers high. Hers held no pity.

 Where most seemed nervous, she just smiled.

 And when she reached out to offer her should’ve-been brother-in-law a handshake, her grip was firm. She even gave his hand a faint squeeze, where most cradled him as if he’d break with just the faintest of touches.

 “Oh,” Noct nodded, “I like her.”

 Gladio relaxed so much, all at once, that his relief was obvious. Cecilia laughed, and Noct joined in, and this Shield? This Shield would do absolutely anything for those two. Even if it was at his expense, he’d listen to them laugh every chance he could. Noct should’ve been there at his wedding, would’ve been his best man if he was - 

 But this? This was a bandage for what ‘should’ve’ been. 

 And he was okay with that.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Later, blue-blue eyes looked at the Shield curiously as he was asked, “Is she as much of a romantic as you?” 

 Gladio snorted.

 “I’ll give you a hint. I’m not the one who proposed.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Understandably, there was still a shadowy part of Noctis Lucis Caelum that begrudged his family for moving on. For growing up. For leaving him there, nineteen years old and imprisoned in the darkness of Mistveil Keep. But that shadowy part had so many more light sources to hide from these days. It still poked its head out, on occasion.

 It still poked its head out after Gladio left, and Noctis stared without seeing at the new vase of flowers his Shield had picked with him down in the gardens during their walk.

 Gladio had been promised to him in a way none of his other family had been. Because Gladio was an Amicitia and he was his Lucis Caelum. 

 And yet Gladio was a better man and Shield than he’d ever been when he was just Noctis’. Because he was Oriens’. And because he was married, and he had children of his own.

 And Noctis’ nails dug into the arm of his wheelchair, wondering if the man who’d been his big brother had ever stopped to think about all that had been taken from him. All that he had gotten while he was chained up like an animal and abused like even less than that.

 His magic lashed out.

 The vase shattered.

 And the water droplets hitting his cheeks shocked him back to his senses. Shoving his magic back down, deep, because his magic was a sharp weapon now. His magic hadn’t been soft since he was nineteen and still free. 

 Glaives were in his room barely a heartbeat later, responding to the sound of shattering glass with their weapons at hand and magic loose. The two guarding at his door that day. Tredd and…Farrow, was it? They settled when they found no threat.

 And the redhead stepped away to search for a new vase, while Farrow knelt to begin cleaning up the shards and water.

 “...Sorry,” he whispered, for so many things. 

 But the Glaive just peered up at him, younger than most of the ones he knew, but still with so many braids. And an especially big mourning braid, that matched those mournful, understanding eyes. 

 “<No apologies, Nyx’s star. We are here for you. And…the grief, never, really, fades.>” 

 His stilted words truly soothed the last lashes of Noctis’ magic. He apologized for not being able to get past it, he apologized for breaking something beautiful that held none of the blame, he apologized for that moment where he’d hated Gladiolus Amicitia just because he got to be happy.

 Tredd came back holding his trophy, the new vase, aloft like it was the greatest discovery any man had ever made.

 And Noctis snorted.

 Because he had no clue where the redhead had gotten it, but it was one of the ugliest vases he’d ever seen in his life. But the flowers were no less beautiful once Farrow had arranged them in it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx had told him it was perfectly alright for him to be angry.

 He just had to remember that he was allowed to feel things for himself again.

 

 

-----

 

 

 This was what they had to take day by day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Condensing ten years of events into something Noctis could manage to swallow wasn’t exactly easy. Which was why new information would sometimes pop up casually in conversation that left him a bit gobsmacked. Learning about Gladio being married with kids, learning that Aunt Maria had died six years ago, learning that Ignis had had a fiance at some point but it ‘hadn’t worked out’. 

 It was similar to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, but every time Noctis thought he had the complete picture? 

 A new set of disjointed pieces appeared.

 Meeting Cecilia had gone…the way it had, and Noctis had taken a day. And Gladio had taken a day. And then, Uncle Clarus had knocked politely at his door another day to invite him to a simple lunch with all three of the Amicitias.

 He’d gone, because he really had been impressed by Cecilia. And by how obviously Gladio adored her as his wife and the mother of his twins. And, besides, he missed being close to the members of his family that he’d been keeping at arm's-length as he healed. The Amicitias were meant to be closest to the Lucis Caelums.

 Maybe it was time to be again.

 And it was a good lunch. In the gardens. Surrounded by flowers, the raven-haired man was hopelessly amused to learn that Cecilia had been a gardener there at the Citadel. That had been how she and Gladio met. Flowers. In the end, Aunt Maria’s love for flowers and gardening had brought together multiple generations of Amicitias, and it really was a lovely lunch.

 And then Cecilia had asked Gladio a question as they were leaving.

 “Oh yes, did Prompto’s brother get my instructions on how to care for those Altissian dandelions? He hasn’t been in contact since, so - “ 

 And quite suddenly, Noctis had even more unanswered questions.

 So, seeing his confusion, Uncle Clarus laid a hand on his shoulder. 

 And took him back to his room, personally, so he could set up a video call with Prompto for him while he was still dazed by - that. It was on his tablet. A simple thing. Usually only used for music, since all of the web browsers were blocked on the thing for his own mental health and safety. 

 Prompto picked up on the second ring of the video call, panting a bit, like he’d just leapt across a table to reach the tablet and answer.

 Or, the royal realized, seeing a garage background and a truck with its hood popped, he had leapt across a truckbed.

 “What’s up, Noct?” Prompto asked with this big, bright grin like they were just teenagers again and this was a normal video call, like Prompto wasn’t sun-kissed to Ifrit and back, like he didn’t have a wrench in his hand and a wedding band around one of his fingers and grease smeared across his nose in a way Noctis would’ve found so frustratingly cute ten years ago - 

 “You have a brother?” 

 The grin didn’t exactly fade. It flickered. Confusion dulled it, and then nervousness brought it back full-force as Prompto laughed and nodded, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

 Giving him his answer.

 “Oh? Yeah, uh, I guess. I mean, I do. Guess I never brought him up, huh?” 

 It was difficult to smother the hurt, it always was, but Noctis was getting better at it. Managed to get a questioning noise out of his throat that didn’t sound like he was dying a slow death because his Heart had never…

 “Uh, right, so the Argentums, they - they called me. About three months after you were…yeah,” Prompto cleared his throat loudly, obviously bouncing on his toes on the video. Always somebody who liked to move when he felt awkward, “I’d just turned eighteen. They wanted to let me know, they, um, weren't planning to continue to pay for the apartment they moved me into for highschool. And they weren’t going to pay for my final months of tuition. Or for food. Uh - they wanted to tell me…that they weren’t coming back to Insomnia.”

 It was easier to smother the hurt, when a hard rock slammed against Noctis’ chest in its place. 

 Imagining his best friend alone, freshly eighteen, freshly hurt by him being gone, and abandoned by the Argentums on top of everything.

 “That they had moved to Altissia,” Prompto continued, eyes downcast so he never saw the promise of murder crossing Noctis’ face, fiddling with his wrench even though it had no moving parts, “and they didn’t plan to come back. That they…regretted, adopting me. That I wasn’t what they’d wanted. That I wasn’t to contact them again, because they’d finally been able to have a child of their own. A son. Their son, and I wasn’t that. Their son. Anymore.” 

 “Prom - “ 

 “It was fine!” His head shot up, and there was that grin again, and it didn’t seem disingenuous but it definitely had some old ghosts hiding behind it, “I was fine! I mean, you know, they were never really there. And I knew I wasn’t what they’d wanted anyways. And when Cor found out, he came to get me. Got me out of Insomnia shortly after. Started paying for whatever I needed, since I couldn’t find a job with my reputation at the time. It - it was what made us so close. He stepped up. Said, ‘You’re a kid. You were supposed to have parents who could support you, take care of you, and you’ve never had that. Let yourself be taken care of for once. Let me take care of you.'” 

 Prompto laughed, and it was wet with so many emotions that made his violet eyes even brighter than his grin.

 “And he was still surprised! When I turned twenty, he was still so surprised I asked him to adopt me. Like he’d done nothing to deserve being considered my dad.” 

 That hard rock hit Noctis’ chest for a second time, and he gripped the tablet tight. Saying, “Still, Prom…”

 He’d left him behind to that. He’d left the boy he’d loved behind to that.

 “Hey, no, don’t feel guilty, Noct. I mean - the Argentums, they weren’t good people. Not really. They were adults. And they took responsibility of me the day they signed my adoption papers, but they failed their responsibility to me. It took me a while to get that, but I do. I do now.” 

It was different, seeing his old friend without his old securities as well.

But it was a good difference.

“Especially, like, after Ori was born. After I met him, And after Gladio’s twins were born too - I couldn’t forgive them. I’d never really been around kids before, and then I was and they were so small, so helpless, they relied on us for everything, and,” his hands clenched the wrench, “I could never understand how they could look at me as a child and just not want me.” 

“You’re in contact, though? With your…brother?” 

“Yeah. He’s a smart kid. Nine, like Ori. He found some old adoption records his parents had kept. Contacted me in secret to find out why he had an older brother he’d never met. We’re keeping it quiet until he’s older, but he’s sweet. Smart. He’s awesome, really. Ten out of ten baby brother. His name’s Sterling.” 

 So his would’ve-been Heart had a younger brother. And in so many ways, Noctis realized suddenly right there during that video call, had also healed a lot in the last ten years. He’d already known Prompto wasn’t the same lanky, awkward teenage boy he’d fallen in love with back then.

 But, for some reason, seeing him grown up in this instance didn’t hurt the way the other times had.

 The conversation lasted a little while longer; Prompto’s mood brightened so much, and he went on a rant about the rusty truck he was working on that Noctis could barely keep up with. But it was nice. For both of them.

 It was nice.

 When the video call ended, the royal out of time felt comfortable again, sort of.

 When the video call ended, Uncle Cor eventually came to check on him and talk him through that comfort.

…

 When the video call ended, though Prince Noctis couldn’t see it, in Leide, in that dusty garage that was hotter than an apartment set at Ifrit’s personally preferred temperature, Cindy fondly watched her hunky boy work for a few minutes. Leaning in the doorway. And a few more minutes after that, because gosh - what a view, yeah? Before knocking on the rickety metal of the garage door.

 Her boy straightened up, grinning broadly and sauntering on over to give her a good kiss and a, “How’s my favorite girl doing, hm?” 

 Yeah. Yeah, they’d be right okay, they would.

 “She’s packin’ for two, sugar.” 
 
 Her boy’s grinning turned to a frown, confused like a chocobo offered a bug.

 He glanced down first, checking to see if his garage goddess had strapped on one of his gun holsters since she was ‘packing’. But. Nope. So Prompto glanced up again with a wiggly sort of ‘what?’ to him. Cutest gunslinger in those parts.

 Well, soon he’d have proper competition for that title, now wouldn’t he? 

 Cindy Leonis-Aurum laughed, then held up the pregnancy test she was holding.

 Her boy jolted like he’d gone at the generators with those fancy metal gauntlets those Glaives wore, shocked to a crisp. So she laughed again. And laughed again in his arms when he shook her a little ‘n shouted - 

 “Wait, you’re pregnant?!?!”  

 Prom’s girl nodded, breathless with the dust and her laughter, reaching up to toss off her garage cap and laugh more when her boy whooped. Swept her up into a hug. Spun her ‘round and ‘round. Laughing like it’d bring the chocobos home as laughter filled that garage in Leide.

 Then he froze, laughter turning hysterically as he squeaked out, “By the gods - Cid is going to kill me!” 

 Still beaming.

 Setting his incredible wife and baby in her belly down to stand on her own two feet, just so he could dip Cindy into a proper kiss right there in that hot as hells garage. Dusty and grimy and covered in grease. Just like he was. Just like she was. They were a pair. They were a set. Of three! Because his girl was pregnant and he was going to be a dad!

 “Geeze - I love you so much, Cindy!”

“Love ya too, quicksilver. We’ll have ta be expandin’ the garage! Our young’un’s gonna be needin’ a work station all their own before we know it.”

 Before that - any of that, any of those thoughts of tomorrow and a different dawn, Prompto Leonis-Aurum dipped his stunning girl into another deep kiss. It would’ve been a bit more romantic if he wasn’t laughing between each press of his lips, and if he wasn’t crying a little, and if he wasn’t accidentally getting greasy handprints all over one of Cindy’s favorite shirts.

 But it was perfect. For them, it was perfect, darn it!

 It was the start of something just for them.

 A little something new to go with all the age and rust and dust, that they found while falling in love in Leide over the years.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The hour was late, the Citadel of Insomnia and its corridors were quiet, and Titus Drautos slipped past his own Glaives with ease. He had plenty of practice, after all. 

 These Glaives though were guarding the doors to Prince Noctis’ rooms. He’d have to scold them later for their carelessness. 

 Nobody knew he was there.

 Nobody ever did. 

 Shafts of moonlight shone down into the bedroom of his prince. Silvered, blues, pale. The way that light reflected off of the black detail and polished tiles was almost artistic. Was enough to give him pause in the partially opened doorway. Bowing, after a moment of thought. So used to serving. So wanting to serve. It was all he’d wanted, once. It was a want that had been twisted by certain men in the past.

 He had footsteps even more silent than a Galahdian hunter’s, and he entered with them. Eyes glancing this way and that in the din. A bit, breathless, still. From the nightmare that had torn him up out of his bed in his quarters in the Kingsglaive Complex that night. He approached Prince Noctis’ bed, slowly. Keeping his head low.

 Whether it was respect or guilt or shame that kept it so low when there were no witnesses to notice, Drautos had long-since given up on trying to figure out.

 Things were changing.

 There just might be a Lucis Caelum bastard somewhere out in Eos - things were changing.

 He lowered himself a little more, just a little more, he lowered himself down onto one knee like when he made his oaths to the House of Caelum. And drank in desperately the sight of Prince Noctis’ chest moving up and down with sleepy breaths. Breaths. Breathing Alive. He bowed his head until his forehead touched the bed’s edge.

 He let out a lengthy breath of his own. 

 A chirp was the response he got. A distant, distant chirp. Like that after, echoing chime of a warp. So Drautos lifted his head for a second time. And his eyes landed on that plushie his prince was cuddling as he slept. Despite knowing the chirp came from elsewhere; elsewhere where his waking eyes could not find.

 “...Are things turning out like you’d hoped they would, Lord Carbuncle?” 

 Another, even more distant chirp.

 Titus Drautos rose in silence, bowed in silence, and left in silence. And after there were just the shafts of moonlight filling that bedroom. After there were only sleepy sighs. After? It was as if the Captain of the Kingsglaive had never been there at all. As fate had desired.

 In the timeline they had prevented.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Oh Drautos, what are you up to? And how did you manage to sneak your way into becoming one of the most important characters here? XD

Chapter 15

Notes:

We weren't actually super delayed! Sick though. On my way home now, and figured I'd use some data to edit and post this chapter. Enjoy~ <3

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 Cor Leonis rarely silenced his phone. If it was? Well, there were still several numbers that he had set to ring regardless. Numbers like Regis’, Clarus’, Drautos’, Cid’s, Noctis’, Ignis’, Gladio’s. But most importantly of all? His kid’s number.

 So when his phone started ringing despite being set to silent, Cor pulled it out of his pocket and answered without hesitating.

 The split second of a photo of a chocobo on his screen told him who it was before he’d even put the thing up to his ear as he walked.

 “Hey, Dad. You busy?” 

 “Never too busy for you, kid. What is it?” 

…

 Cor was really glad he was already walking into the Kingsglaive Complex when Prompto called him, because the Glaives were a whole hell of a lot more used to him doing things like freezing mid-step and barking out a laugh that would’ve scared his ‘Guards for weeks, and stopping for just another second to slump against one of the walls and congratulate his kid.

 “Pregnant?!” 

 “I know now is a really, uh, busy time for it - “ Prompto stammered through saying, but Cor just waved his hand at the air and at the Glaives who’d also stopped to stare at the Marshal, because - 

 “Fuck that. Congratulations, Prompto!” 

 “Thanks, Dad.” 

He just knew from Prompto’s tone of voice that he was shuffling and blushing and being all loveable - and fuck. That was his kid. That was his grandkid, and Cor - Cor felt a lot of things that floated up to the base of his throat and he had to keep right on walking before he gained a reputation of being a sap thanks to the gossipy Glaives. 

 “How’re you, how’s Cindy? How’d the old man react?” He asked, throat thick with those things, and his kid just laughed through the phone.

“Good, good, and he only tried to put three bullets in me!”

“Well he must be real happy to be a great-grandfather, then,” Cor joked, trying to imagine his kid having a kid and, it just, it was hard. 

 In his head, he kept imagining Prompto and Cindy holding a chocobo egg instead.

 And then a chocobo chick.

 And it fit, but it didn’t but Cor just - felt. So much for his kid. 

 “Dad, I don’t want to make a super big deal out of this,” his kid went on and on with the babble, like he always did when he was anxious, but Cor was long-used to it by now, “I mean, I do - it’s a big deal. To me, to Cindy, I mean, we’re going to be parents! But I don’t want it to distract everyone. I know there’s a lot going on right now, and I just wanted you to know I don’t expect anything from you. Or anyone. We can handle it, you know? And I - “ 

 Yeah, no. There was that fiercely protective and proud part of Cor. 

The part that had gotten him to take the kid in like an abandoned chocobo chick in the first place, bubbling up.

 “Are you kidding? Of course it’s a big deal. Of course I’m distracted,” he scoffed, marching onwards. 

Already mentally plotting out which weeks he’d need to be delegating duties for so he could head on out to Leide for his son and daughter-in-law and grandkid on the way.

“Don’t spout some nonsense about not needing any help, kid. Trust me. You’ll need all the help you don’t think you will need and more,” gosh, did Cor suddenly feel like he’d been put on the opposite side of that talk Clarus and Regis sat him down for when he adopted Prompto. And that was when his kid was already twenty years old.

 He ignored the Glaives making frantic motions at him. He was the Marshal. They could try to stop him.

 “I can come out to Leide for a while. Help out in the garage, help with the nursery - hell, help with a few hunts to pad out your baby budget,” Cor laughed, and waved aside a handful more of very stressed seeming Glaives, “Well, as if you aren’t getting an unlimited baby budget courtesy of Regis. He loves babies in the family. He’s about to become an uncle again. So money won’t be an issue, but - oh. Hold on, kiddo.” 

 This Glaive was persistent.

 But the Immortal just shouldered past him.

 To kick in Drautos’ stupid, shut door and announce himself.

 “Drautos! Our kid’s pregnant! Congratulate him!” 

 Turned out the Kingsglaive Captain was in the middle of a meeting. That was why all those Glaives had been getting in his way so rudely. Oops. Anyways. Drautos and his lieutenants all stared at him for a second, so he switched his phone to speaker while Drautos whined. Like usual.

 “Cor, I’m in a meeting, you can’t just - wait, Prompto’s pregnant?” 

 “Cindy’s pregnant, Uncle Drautos!” Prompto corrected him through the phone, voice muffled as though he were talking into his hand and so done with his dad’s chaos, “I - Cindy’s pregnant!!!” 

 The second shout, and the following whoop, still clearly so disbelieving, made all the Glaives in the room burst into laughter while Drautos just started smiling.

 Prompto was a kid of the Glaives’ too. They’d accepted him when the ‘Guards turned him away for being Niflheimr. 

So this was a big deal to them all.

 “Congratulations, Prompto,” Drautos told his sometimes-son, his sometimes-nephew, for once not a single snide remark being exchanged between him and Cor while in the same room as the man shifted his phone closer so he could hear better, “Do you need anything? I can have some of my Glaives stop by on their next run. They can do any maintenance you need around the ranch, or help out on some hunts if you need the funds.”

 “Geeze - both of you! I’m fine, we’re fine,” Prompto laughed, and Drautos smiled at Cor. Cor couldn’t help smiling right back as the Glaive lieutenants continued laughing around them, “We’re - I’m sure we’re fine. We’ve already had Dave and more than half of the hunter population on our doorstep thanks to Cid! I think we have enough favors to call in to last us until our kid’s in college.” 

 “Well Leide’s favorite mechanic and mechanic, hunter, rancher are replicating themselves. Of course you’re going to have support.” 

 As much support as possible. And some of the most powerful men in Lucis would be seeing to that personally.

 “I’m going to be a grandpa,” Cor snorted, then froze. Blinking at Drautos who blinked right back, “I’m going to be a grandpa.” 

 “Dad, breathe.” 

 “Don’t worry, Prompto,” Drautos turned his smile into a smirk, “All of my lieutenants are CPR certified.” 

 Cor Leonis was going to be a grandpa.

 For once he didn’t have a single bit of snarkiness to shoot back at Drautos as he stared at his older brother, a bit speechless. It finally hitting him. That was his grandkid. Out in Leide. He was going to be a grandpa to a tiny human being that wasn’t already twenty years old and decently self-sufficient. He - shit.

 “How do I - ?” He asked, more than vaguely panicked - a lot panicked, actually. Really suddenly. And Drautos’ smirk lightened into something of a genuine smile again as the man got up from his desk. To clap Cor on the shoulder. Nice and firm. 

 “You’ll do great, Cor. You already did with Prompto. This one is just…tinier.” 

 “And no guns until he’s at least ten,” his son piped up through the phone’s speaker.

 And he was going to be a grandpa, what the fuck, how did Cid and Clarus and Regis handle this?! 

 “I need to sit down,” the Immortal said faintly, making his older brother outright cackle even as Drautos also pushed him down in his own desk’s chair. Waving his lieutenants out and telling them to come back later. Never really removing his hand from Cor’s shoulder. Squeezing, intermittently. 

 While his son just started gushing. Because he was going to be a dad soon.

 “Congratulations, Prompto,” Cor whispered it this time, those things in his throat finally getting through, turning both his voice and his eyelashes wet for no damn reason. But still. But still. There were tears in his eyes, because that was his kid, and he’d gotten his kid through the worst of it alive.

 And now his kid was going to be a dad too.

 And he was just so proud.

 

 

-----

 

 

 On rare occasions, Drautos wondered if he’d really done the right thing.

 But standing there, supporting his younger brother, listening as the kid he’d also come to see as one of his own asked so many questions about being a dad when he knew Prompto Leonis-Aurum hadn’t gotten to be one in a future past now forgotten? By everyone but him? 

 Drautos was reminded that this - despite all it had cost his godson, Noctis - was still so much the kinder option.

 Drautos could only be so glad and so sure he’d done the right thing, when he’d intervened to stop General Glauca from turning the Glaives to traitors, years ago.

…

 Yes. Yes, Titus Drautos was aware that he was a right bastard for acting as though he hadn’t been General Glauca. Decades ago. As though those hadn’t been his actions. As though those actions hadn’t been following his ideals. Ideals twisted by bitterness, by anger he’d heaped wrongly on the Lucis Caelums.

 And had helped bring about the end of Eos, as a result.

 As though those hadn’t been his actions.

 But the mental distance was the only thing keeping him sane; the only wall that could withstand his terrible guilt, his shame. From which, had been born a need to make things right as the Scourge consumed him in his final moments.

 A moment of clarity, come too late, as he and Nyx died together in the ruins of Insomnia.

 A need to make things right.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was another call. Later.

 A video call, that Noctis hadn’t been expecting to receive. But then his dad had shown up at his bedroom doors with concern in his eyes, and the call had come.

 The call had come.

 “Pregnant?” Repeating that made it more real.

 More real, but not entirely…real. Not right away. Off-screen, though Prom couldn’t see through the video call, Regis was watching his son carefully. Because, however much time had passed? However much had changed? However their relationship had been patched up in the months since Noctis began adjusting to life outside of Mistveil Keep again?

 Big events like this; they still worried they’d undo some of his progress.

“Yeah! Uh, Cindy and I - we weren’t trying, you know?” A big event like this specifically, when they all knew how much Noctis had loved Prompto all those years ago? “I - it wasn’t planned. But we both agreed years ago; if it happens, it happens.” Even if Noctis now loved another? “Well, it happened! And we want it. We do.” 

Even so? 

 “Congratulations, Prom!” Noctis whispered into the tablet, like it was his secret he was sharing as he congratulated his best friend on becoming a dad too, “Congratulations. Really. You two - you deserve it. You’ll be a great dad. Ori loves you, so I know you will.” 

 There was hurt behind those blue-blue eyes, that Prompto was too excited to notice.

 “Obviously, I don’t want to leave Cindy alone, you know? Not when she’s pregnant - I mean, she’s pregnant! Can’t leave my girl all by herself to handle the house or the ranch or the garage, now can I? I - I’m not sure when I’ll be getting back up to Insomnia. Of course if you need me, if Ori needs me, I’ll try, but I really…I really have to focus on me and Cindy and our kid now. I just…”

 There was so much hurt.

 “I just wanted you to be one of the first people we tell, Noct. I mean, whatever we are, or were, you’re still my best friend.”

 “You too, Prom.” 

 Regis had been so careful not to pity his sweet son since his return. Sympathize with him. Regret what he’d been through, support him, be there. But pity - he tried not to pity him. Even now, he tried to call it remorse for what his son was enduring as he smiled through the pain his best friend seemed too bright and happy to notice. As they exchanged good news, as they said their goodbyes for the afternoon.

 As he hung up the video call, and stared unseeing down at the dark tablet screen for several, motionless moments after.

 Regis sighed softly, and also softly went to his sweet son.

 To stand at his shoulder. To sit, to set the tablet aside on the sofa cushions, to wrap his sweet, sweet son up in his arms when his shoulders began to tremble with tears he wasn’t sure he was allowed to shed.

 “It’s alright if it hurts, Noctis,” the Father whispered, this father who had lost his wife, his love, the mother of the son he now held, somewhat able to understand what his loss felt like, “It’s alright. It’s alright.” 

 “I’m happy for him,” that son whispered, wretched, sounding so wretched, “I’m happy for him - so why does it hurt?” 

 “Because you loved him, Noctis. Because you loved him.”

 Because he loved, and loved, and loved so dearly that he was ready to make that love a tangible fragment of his soul. His Heart. And he lost that chance, that love. Had had it torn from him and ripped into tiny pieces. And nothing would ever make that right. But sometimes, some things would reopen the scars.

 And nothing would ever make that right.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Prompto said his goodbyes with a big smile, and then that big smile was reflected right back at him in the reflection of the tablet’s black screen. He stared at it. And he stared and he stared and he stared, until his eyes turned shimmery.

 And he breathed in, loud, wet.

 And arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind, as his girl peppered melon-sweet kisses all over the back of his neck.

 “I’m so proud of ya, sweetpea. So proud.” 

 “It hurts,” Prompto whispered, wretched, because there was a heartfelt letter his heart still clung to desperately. Because there was a shelf of arcade plushies in the other room, and a necklace with their highschool phone charms around his neck, and it did hurt. He knew it would. That was why he’d asked Cindy to be with him when he told Noct.

 Loving Cindy, though, didn’t mean he hadn’t loved Noctis in the past with all of his heart.

 “I know, sugar. I know. It’s alright - I’ll never ask ya to not love him. Yer heart’s too big for such a darn fool’s dream.” 

 He was happy.

But it hurt anyways.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum, the Crown Prince of Lucis. Once. He’d been brought low by, well, by so very many things. Events. Attacks on himself, attacks on those he loved. He was used to the drop. Barely even screamed anymore. Just closed his eyes and pointlessly prayed for it to be over quickly.

 Who would’ve thought happiness, happiness and love, could bring him lower still.

 Now he was just Noctis, a displaced member of the House of Caelum with no real title or true authority on paper. And he was just…sat on his sofa. In a beam of sunshine. It was warm. Usually it was nice. Ignis had brought him a hot mug of cocoa, despite the warm weather of Lucis’ late summer. He sipped it.

 Mostly he just stared at it until the whipped cream had melted.

 …It was just one of those days, wasn’t it? 

 Nothing ever really stays the same. Everything changes eventually. One day you’re so sure you are starting to figure out how this whole life thing works, and the next it changes again. You never are allowed to have sure footing. You never get a completely easy path to follow. 

 It never really stops scaring the hell out of you.

 Nyx Ulric, now he knew about those sorts of days. He’d had so many of them. Scars, on his soul, that still scared the stormy hells out of him some nights. Some of them weren’t even all that bad. They were just changes. That was all. But that was enough, even for a so-called fearless Ulric Chieftain. But the truth was that nobody was really fearless. So when His Majesty met him outside of inlustris’ rooms?

 Nyx never hesitated to forgive something that didn’t even need apologies.

 Everyone in the Citadel had known how dearly Prince Noctis loved his best friend.

 He’d never, and would never, hold it against the man he loved.

 “Hey, inlustris,” he whispered to that hurting heart on the sofa, staring into a cold mug of cocoa, for it was a heart he’d taken responsibility for with a braid and its beads, “how about we take a nap? A nice, long nap in the sunshine? Training really kicked my butt today. I could use it.” 

 So the mug of cocoa now cold was set aside. So Nyx forewent the wheelchair with a hum of permission to simply lift his star from the sofa’s cushions. So he brought him so gently over the bed, intent to set him down and sit on the floor beside him, so they could doze together - 

 But so this man with raven-black hair falling into his eyes, sticking to his wet cheeks, caught his hand. Stopped him from sitting.

 So Nyx Ulric was carefully tugged onto the royal bed beside this man he loved.

 To lay beside him.

 To doze, until the hurt softened a little.

 But first, inlustris kept holding his hand. For a minute. For two. Just in that bit of air between them as he hesitantly got comfortable and laid down parallel to the fallen star he’d fallen with. Then? Only then? Did inlustris lift his hand.

 To set it down on top of his own head.

 So Nyx took the hint, and started to run his fingers through Noctis’ rich hair. Thumbing his braid. As his amatus. As he was allowed to do. He wiped away the tears and he tended to the braid he’d put in his star’s hair, and they laid together on the sun-warmed sheets. Until it hurt less.

 Until they dozed off together, just like that.

 In the same bed for once.

 Until it hurt less.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Nyx,” his raven-haired amatus said to him that next morning, eyes still closed, cheek now squished into the dream-blue fur of his carbuncle plushie, “I’m…sorry.”

 But it was their first morning together so tenderly in the same bed, and the morning light was soft and warm on their shoulders, and Nyx had never slept better, so his lips just quirked up. And he just dared squirm a small inch closer to this man he’d fallen with.

 “<No apologies, starlight. You loved him. You loved him so much. And that part of you will always love him still. And that is a beautiful thing. Don’t regret it. Not in my name. You could a wear a bead in the name of that love with pride, and I would be just as proud, for you are just that loving, Noctis Lucis Caelum.>”
 
 Very, very delicately, Nyx Ulric closed the distance between them in the sheets with just his pinky finger.

 To hook it around his star’s pinky finger.

 And although it hurt, they smiled, because it hurt less. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Later, Noctis dressed and Nyx looked away.

 Nyx tried not to look. Whenever he possibly could. His star had spent so long at others’ mercy, so long without privacy, without being allowed to cover up when he felt exposed. When he felt violated. So Nyx tried not to look. Not without permission.

 Sometimes, though. He caught glimpses. 

 Nyx remembered this…this one day. Early on in their months together.

 Instead of using the proper doors to enter inlustris’ bedroom, he’d warped up onto the balcony after training and entered through its doors. Hadn’t thought twice about it. And inlustris…had been sat on the bed. Facing away from him. Pulling on a shirt. And he’d seen his star’s back in full. Just for a second. And everyone knew about the Marilith. Everyone.

 But nobody had ever really seen their prince shirtless after.

 Nyx had seen scars before. So many scars. 

 But that one had stolen his breath and chilled his blood.

 That wound had been one that had nearly torn out his star’s spine when he was just a child. The foundation for all the others. His back was so…he hated describing it, even in his own mind. It felt unfair. It felt cruel. But it looked more like the bark of a tree than skin. It was so warped, so twisted. Folding onto itself. Pinked and reddened and silvered around the edges. It did not look like a human back.

 And what was worse was the amount of scars atop his star’s first scar.

 As if, in Mistveil, they’d paid it special attention in their abuse.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum had been more than stabbed in his back by Lucis. So much more. Nyx would never blame him, should his love one day confess to despising his own kingdom. Not ever. He would understand, and stand by his star should that day come. 

 Until then, he tried to give inlustris all the privacy that he could. Because Nyx understood that no amount of love meant automatically being given consent. Because he knew how scars ached when it rained. Because few hurt worse, than the scars atop scars, inflicted by those you’re supposed to trust your back to.

 So when Noctis shied away, Nyx tried not to look.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was the sweetest thing; Nyx never looked without permission. Noctis had noticed that quirk of his amatus early, had appreciated it even in the beginning, but more importantly appreciated it even more now.

 Because there were some days he simply couldn’t bear eyes on him.

 So every time Nyx tried not to look? The scarred prince fell a little bit more in love.

 And that had started months ago, so he had so much love saved up to silently bestow on the man who had made it through every door he locked between him and the world that had left him behind in darkness.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens may have had a ring of keys to every door; keys gained the moment he was born - 

 But Nyx knew how to talk his way into every single one, with charming smiles and a quick Galahdian tongue and his beads - his heart - bared to Noctis in every way.

 

 

-----

 

 

 And sometimes, it hit Nyx just how much of his star he was allowed to see that others weren’t.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Kingsglaive locker room was as muggy as ever with all the steam from the showers filling up the air. Nyx never minded. It reminded him of the humidity of Galahd’s jungles. Of summer hunts, late in the evening, moving amongst the shadows as just a boy, avoiding the hottest hours of the day by living in the night. 

 He dropped his bag on one of the benches and groaned, rolling a shoulder. Backward. Forward.

 Sonitus hadn’t gone easy on him. Never did. But Nyx had still won that sparring match. He was feeling a little smug yet, as he heard the Bellum groan even more loudly than he had from another row of lockers. So he grinned and banged his hand on the locker in front of him.

 Laughing, when Sonitus tossed his sweaty towel over the lockers and he had to sidestep it so it wouldn’t splat flat on his face.

 “<Fuck off, Nyx.>” 

 Quick shower, quicker towel off, and Nyx Ulric would be back on his way to his star’s bedroom. 

 Would be.

 Would’ve been. If, that is, he hadn’t heard inlustris’ laughter as he was pulling his sweaty t-shirt off, up, over his head. He froze. Searching for the source of that soft sound, as he let his shirt drop to the tiles without a care. That hadn’t sounded entirely right, but that was his star’s laughter. He had no doubt. 

 Why would Noctis be in the Kingsglaive locker room, though? 

 Nyx peeked out from his row of lockers, brows furrowing. Nothing. No sign of his star. But, then, the laughter came again. And it sounded off again, not entirely natural, but Nyx followed the sound curiously through the locker room. Sidestepping a fellow, sweaty and undressed Glaive or two.

 The source of inlustris’ laughter, Nyx found, was a small huddle of Glaives hidden by another row of steamy lockers. Huddling around a phone one of them was holding. A video playing. 

 “What are you watching?” 

 The huddle all jumped guiltily at the question, turning to stare at him with big eyes. They were younger. Nyx didn’t really know any of them personally. Joined in the last five-or-so years. All it took was him crossing his arms, and they were practically kids, super early twenties, so they easily turned the phone’s screen around to show him. 

 Pressing play.

 On a video of inlustris.

 From years ago. More than ten years, judging by how damn young his love looked in the frame. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. With mussed hair and a disheveled suit, at one of those many galas that Nyx had stood guard at more than once. Noctis Lucis Caelum. A young him. Playing with the attendees’ kids. Little ones barely up to his hip, who were clinging to him and staring up at his star like he were something to wish upon.

 The hubbub of the gala’s audio seemed muted to Nyx. All he could hear was his star.

 All he could see was him. Kneeling down. Smiling softly at one of the shyest kids, making motions with his hands; sign language. That the kid eagerly returned and then also became one of the little ones clinging to his prince. 

 Noctis, young, smiling, carefree. 

 Innocent.

 And…

 So bright.

 “Inlustris,” Nyx whispered. Staring hard at the video. So hard, that he was startled by its end. By the small replay icon popping up, as the image froze on one of Noctis smiling down at the horde of kids he had surrounding him, adoring him, looking happier than he’d almost ever seen his prince.

 Nyx suddenly felt flooded by shame. For the way he was drinking in the image of a younger Noctis Lucis Caelum like he was a man dying of thirst. For how he couldn't tear his eyes away. For how he…

 Was it unforgivable to say he’d almost forgotten how young and open his amatus had been back then? Nyx Ulric had been a Glaive, that was all. Even when tasked with training the prince in warping, it had been a job. That was all. Was it unforgivable? Was he unforgivable? 

 Stormy eyes tore themselves away. Stinging from all of the steam in the locker room. 

 “Sorry,” one of the young Glaives whispered then, sounding so - shocked, “we…we’d never really seen Prince Noctis before, so we thought we’d see how different he used to be.” 

 “Don’t say that sort of thing around anybody,” Nyx commanded, voice going hard, eyes going harder on the Glaives. Unable to even force himself to relax when they flinched. Unable to keep the bitterness from his voice when he went on, “You - there’s nothing wrong with being curious. But Prince Noctis has been through enough. Don’t drag up the past. Don’t compare them.” 

 ‘Don’t compare them.’ 

 Damned hypocrite.

 When the Galahdian shouldered his way into the showers, he turned his water to the coldest setting it could be set at. And shivered as icicles hit his skin. His skin covered in goosebumps, his body shuddering.

 His heart shuddering.

 Don’t compare them.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Being aware, that ten years ago, the man he’d fallen so dearly in love with had been nothing more than a living duty and oath to him?

 It ached.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Being aware that he spent that decade disturbed by the accusations leveled at him, that he’d heard the elders sing of Ramuh’s weeping for the prince, imprisoned. Being aware of that - 

 Being aware that he’d done nothing to mend the hurt, until a star had fallen right into his arms?

 It ached so much.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Inlustris.” 

 “Nyx!” His star smiled softly at him, so softly, holding aloft his loom. That smile was soft, but it was proud. It was free, “Look what I made! I…I matched it to our beads.” 

 It ached, but Noctis Lucis Caelum was the best balm for that.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The most tormentive question of them all, that Nyx Ulric had to go to the elders of Little Galahd to ask advice on.

 Would he have still fallen in love with his fallen star if he’d never fallen? 

 The whims of the heart, he was learning, were some of the most complicated things in all of Eos. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Observant children see a lot. 

 Observant children hear a lot too.

 And observant children always end up with questions, that they will ask somebody they are comfortable with. Be that a parent, a friend, a protector. Oriens Lucis Caelum was an observant child. He had to be, growing up. Nobody would tell him anything. He was a child, a prince, inside of the walls. Listening around corners, sneaking in and out of sight. Sometimes he was caught.

 A lot of the time he wasn’t. It was how he got a lot of his information.

 It was why he was so willing to be small and obedient for his family, when they worried about him. When they took away his electronics to keep depressing news from him. When they tried to keep away the insults, the mean headlines, the meaner people talking about their family. It was why he didn’t make a fuss.

 His grandpa had already been dealing with so much.

 So Oriens had pressed his lips together and he’d been good.

 But…he had questions that had never been answered. Born of whispers he hadn’t been supposed to hear. And Grandpa was still super busy! But, not in the way he used to be. Because those mean councilmembers were no longer working against him, so he had more time for the things that mattered. For him and for his dad. For his uncles too! For all of them!

 Oriens had questions he had held back for as long as he could. Even his curiosity had its limits. But ever since Dad had come home - he was so glad Dad was home - the firewalls on his electronics had been reinforced. 

 With Sterling’s help, he’d actually broken them before to find answers to questions he’d had!

 But now, not even his online friend could help.

 And he had a question. A big one! 

 There had been. A certain. Well, a certain phrase, the Crownsguard and Kingsglaive repeatedly whispered, for years, that he’d overheard. Usually the Kingsglaive. And usually in reference to his dad’s disappearance. He’d never quite figured out what it meant, although some of the royal history books in the Citadel Library mentioned it too.

So Ori gathered up his courage, and waited for a good moment. To ask. 

 He thought a good moment would be dinner with Grandpa and Dad, but all of his gusto he sort of wiggled out beforehand and he spent dinner withdrawn and shy instead. Then, he thought, maybe breakfast. But the same sequence repeated itself. Ori wasn’t really good with buildup. He - he did better with routine. Or, he did better if his actions were impulsive!

 So he tried visiting Grandpa’s office between his tutor lessons, but with Grandpa staring down at him so patiently he just ended up clenching the hem of his shirt and shrinking. Feeling small. The words wouldn’t come out. It was a simple question, it was the questioning that wasn’t so simple.

 Grandpa, despite his bad knee, knelt down to be on his level when he clammed up. To hug him, and tell him it was alright. 

It was always alright.

 So he figured - be more impulsive! He snuck down to the Kingsglaive Complex. It wasn’t hard to slip away from his attendants at all, and besides. This way he could check to see what Nyx did out of sight of his dad and him. To see if he was behaving himself, and being a good partner for Dad.

 A good…boyfriend? For Dad.

 But he ended up backing out of that plan too, bashfully. Ended up just watching the Glaives train from the balcony above their training yard, until his attendants finally found him and herded him back to the Citadel.

 He just…had to go for it! 

 The good moment that Oriens had been waiting for found him. A sunny afternoon. Aurora was sunbasking, purring so cutely, with her fluffy white belly up to really enjoy it. Ori was practicing his braiding. Dad was practicing his weaving. Together, alone, in Dad’s bedroom. Ori messed up the braid five times because he wasn’t really focused on it.

 But that was fine! Because he finally managed to find the bravery to turn so abruptly to his dad.

 And ask.

 “Dad, what is Crystal Madness!?” 

 Dad went really, really, really still the second he blurted out that question.
 
 Another second passed, and Oriens gripped his shirt tight, tugging at his buttons to distract himself from the sudden vacancy in Dad’s eyes. They’d gone empty, like they hadn’t in a while. Dad hadn’t gone gone in a while. Was - was it a bad question? Was he bad? Should he apologize? 

 Before he apologized, Dad blinked. Slowly. Sort of like Aurora did whenever she was telling them she loved them. He set down his lap loom. And Dad opened his arms wide. 

Which was an invitation Oriens knew well.

 So he set down his knotted braid, and crawled across the sofa’s cushions to snuggle his way under his dad’s arm. Hiding in his armpit, where he didn’t have to see the gone look in his dad’s eyes.

 “Where’d you hear about that from, Ori?” It wasn’t angry, that wasn’t what his dad sounded like. His dad sounded more, worried. Troubled. Was it a bad question? 

 “...The…Glaives, used to mention it a lot,” he mumbled into a mouthful of his dad’s shirt, clinging to the fabric, still hiding. Not so curious anymore if it would hurt his dad.

 Silence filled the absence of space between father and son.

 Dad’s fingers carded through his hair slowly, slowly. So slowly in thought. Oriens was ready to take back ever having asked. To tell his dad it was fine, he didn’t need to know. 

 But Noctis quietly started rubbing small circles into the nape of his son’s neck, so he’d sink completely bonelessly into his side, and then started to explain in a soft tone of voice.

 “Crystal Madness was…what they used to use to refer to Lucis Caelums who went mad from magic, Ori.” 

 Oriens started a little. Then tucked himself that little bit tighter into his dad’s side. What did that have to do with his dad? His dad wasn’t mad.

 “It’s alright,” Noctis shushed his son, speaking more from memory than from actual, present thought as he stared straight through his own thighs. Lost. But explaining this to his son, “That’s what it’s typically referred to as, is all. Modern medicine has…actually, all but proven that prolonged exp…exposure to extreme amounts of magic can cause an - “ 

 Clearing his throat, his throat damaged, his throat hurting.

 Noctis barely blinked at somebody else’s voice taking up the explanation.

 “Modern medicine has actually all but proven, that prolonged exposure to extreme amounts of magic can cause an increased chance of health complications and mental deterioration due to the strain it puts on the body. There are plenty of historians who now believe ‘Crystal Madness’ was actually Lucis Caelums who developed brain tumors and were driven to be unpredictable and violent as a result. Many also…died, quickly, in the time following their madness. Months or a few short years. And that adds to the credibility.”

 Regis Lucis Caelum looked forlornly at his son, at his son’s son. At his boys clinging to each other, for not so adorable a reason as the old king had assumed when he first walked into Noctis’ bedroom. Before he overheard what his little nightlight was trying to explain. 

 In every truth, they’d been aware they wouldn’t be able to stop Oriens from slowly uncovering just what had happened to his dad. 

 But they’d thought they’d have more time than this.

 Whatever Noctis was accused of, ten years before, whatever evidence had been presented - whatever anybody had thought of him out there? Every single soul who had personally met his darling son before had known he was never capable of doing those things. Not in a sane state of mind. 

 They had believed it to be Crystal Madness. 

 Regis had ordered the brain scans himself, had demanded the doctors to be thorough. And although they hadn’t found a thing? They had an excuse and they clung to it regardless in the face of so much evidence. DNA evidence included, which, now they believed to belong to a Lucis Caelum nobody knew existed. If not a brain tumor, then perhaps residual damage from the Marilith.

 That daemon, she had cut his son down to his bones. All of the doctors in the past had told him to expect future repercussions. Blocks in the magic that ran through his son’s body. Less skills than most in their family usually developed. Physical and mental troubles - Regis had clung to each and every one of those excuses when he had to let his son be dragged away from his arms.

 …In every truth, Regis Lucis Caelum’s only relief was thinking his son would be dead from Crystal Madness before his first two or three months in Mistveil Keep had finished.

 Here they were.

 More than ten years later.

 Regis? The old, fool of a man he was, he hobbled forward. Leaning hard on his cane. Harder. When Noctis curled around that sweet son of his, hiding in his side. To protect him. From the old, fool of a man he was. But even as Noctis protected Oriens from sight, from touch, from hearing more? 

 Even as he did, Noctis also tilted his head towards his dad’s approach. Nodding a little. Nodding more and more, until he got what he sought. What Regis could never deny him.

 He let the beloved little son of his and Aulea’s nuzzle into his hip, and buried his fingers tenderly in the rich strands of his hair. Richer than silk. With a bright braid to match, these days. He ran his nails down his son’s scalp, slowly, and felt the way the tension drained out of him with each pass. 

 Neither of them said a word, where Oriens might overhear.

 Oriens overheard enough already, as it was.

 It hadn’t been Crystal Madness.

 But there’d been too many apologies already, too.

 So Regis just told his boys, “I love you two,” instead.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There had been too many apologies.

 Even before Mistveil.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis dragged his hands down his face in that frustrated, trademark dad move that all of his brothers understood well. Groaning.

 Faced by four different offers of having his son go on Insomnian talk shows to discuss his ‘time in Mistveil Keep’. Damn them all.

 “By now, I’d have thought they’d get the message,” the king scowled at each and every offer, before huffing and tossing them into his paper shredder without hesitation. It wasn’t a ton of trouble. What was troublesome was that they were the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth of those offers to hit his desk that very day, “Noctis will not be speaking on - on any of that. Why must they keep asking?” 

 Why must they keep cutting open the wounds that had started to scab over? 

 Why must they keep bleeding his beloved son? 

 “Well,” oh, and the hesitant note to Clarus’ tone of voice told Regis right away that he wouldn’t like what his Shield had to say, “Regis, it has been nearly seven months since he returned. And the public - they’ve seen nothing of him since those few leaked photos months ago. Even if the PR team tells them that he’s healing and doing well, they are going to want to see him eventually.” 

 A tick in the king’s jaw.

 And Cor, who’d been tapping away at his phone as ever, managing the Crownsguard who were now pariahs -

 “Well, there is the upcoming gala,” his Sword said carefully, peeking over his phone. And not carefully as if to spare Regis’ feelings, carefully as if he were preparing to turn tail and run from the king’s office on a dime, “It could act as Noctis’ official reintroduction back into the public’s eye - “ 

 “Absolutely not.” 

 His Shield and Sword shared a look. 

 “Regis,” Clarus tried again, even more hesitantly than before, hesitant as a father of which he also was, “I know you are worried for his mental health. I know. We all are. But he has already managed to recover leagues beyond anything we or the doctors thought would be possible. The doctors are even talking about organizing those surgeries to try and help with his nerve damage, with him walking again, and the public - “ 

 A thin thread stretched too far snapped.

 And Regis slammed his fist down on his desk, exhale trembling when his brothers were silenced completely by it.

 “I…I will not put my son in that position. Not again,” not like with the Marilith, not like those headlines that dared to ask the question if it would’ve been more beneficial to Lucis for their prince to have died in the ambush so Regis would simply remarry and have another, non-crippled child, never again, never again, never - 

 The very first time Noctis Lucis Caelum had ever warped, it had been an accident.

 His son had been such a very observant child.

 Who’d overheard so much that Regis tried to protect him from.

 Who’d thrown himself off a balcony not just once, but twice in his life, because he saw no future in living. The first time, he was just eight years old and potentially paralyzed forever and living in an Insomnia full of fear for a future ruled by a disabled king during the war. He was just a child. And he’d wanted not to exist anymore. And his magic was all that had saved him, and even that had been an accident.

 Regis…remembered being called to the gardens. Remembered his son lying there with dead legs, sobbing, refusing to let anybody touch him until his dad came. He remembered.

 Clarus, his brother, he loved him and he loved Cor so much. So, so much.

 But they could never understand all of the reasons he was so protective of Noctis.

 From the age of five, he’d known the gods had his son’s end planned out.

 From the age of eight, his son had known what it was like to wish for death.

 From every age after that, his son had known what it was to have the illusion of freedom following him in all that he ever did.

 And then - nineteen. And those accusations, and Mistveil, and those damned dead eyes that haunted Regis more than any ghosts of the Lucii. That had him waking drenched in a cold sweat on so many nights. How could he ever ask a single thing of his son again? How could he ever see him hurt? How could he ever see him sad?

 “Never again,” he whispered to the picture frames on his desk. Him holding Aulea while she was pregnant, him holding Noctis as just a babe before anything in Eos had ever hurt him, him holding Noctis for his son’s sixteenth birthday and he looked so happy, “I will never again put him in that situation. The public can ask. They can beg for all I give a damn. Noctis will not be a monkey that dances for them. Nor Oriens. Neither of my boys.” 

 For as long as he could.

 “Neither of them. Ever.” 

 Being royalty in a modern era, meant more eyes on their family than any generation before. Enough of their line had known tragedies already. None so publicly as his son. His son had been the first to grow up under the cameras and the microphones as he had. And it had already cost him enough.

 “I’ll alert the PR teams,” Clarus said, his king’s decision made, and made firm, “I’m sure Advisor Fareth can have the incoming requests redirected through a few secretaries. I’m also sure that they’ll end up ‘lost’ along the way.” 

 “The Citadel security will be keeping a close eye out for any more journalists sneaking their way in for pictures,” Cor added, his taps turning rough as he texted whichever ‘Guards he’d be assigning to that, “No more leaks. Not for anything.” 

 No more hurt for his boys to bear.

 Not for anything.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Grandpa! Grandpa!” Oriens called to him with the sort of excitement only a child might hold, waving his arm over his head fast enough to blur, “Look what Nyx taught me to make! It’s a braid, like Dad’s! I just can’t give it to anyone because he says that means I’m dating them!” 

 An eyebrow went up at that, and Regis cast his amused look at the Glaive who suddenly looked a little more than a bit embarrassed.

 Well, Regis hadn’t been entirely sure his grandson knew about his dad's new, budding relationship with Glaive Ulric. But it seems he did. Which clearly meant Oriens approved of the Galahdian Chieftain as well, in some capacity.

 “A fair warning. You are far too young to be thinking about dating, dear boy.” 

 Ori nodded, solemnly.

 “Uncle Gladdy says I cannot date until I’m ready for the responsibility of having a baby. I’m not ready yet.” 

 Regis cleared his throat loudly at that, to cover up the way Glaive Ulric had gone red up to his eartips and snorted like a challenged spiracorn. Challenged not to burst out laughing, that is. Ori’s dad let out a similar noise, looking up from his loom, and looking to a nearby vase of flowers as if the pretty petals were to blame. Ah - 

 My, what a…unique vase. Where on Eos did Noctis find such a statement piece? It looked awfully a lot like something Aulea would’ve felt bad for and bought simply because she would’ve thought it too hideous to ever be bought by somebody else. 

 “Well, let’s leave the babies out of this, Ori,” the Lucian King told his grandson delicately, chuckling at the chaos a child’s innocence could so easily cause, “and instead, you can show me this braid Nyx has taught you to make.”

 Courting braids.

 Beads the same shade as a night sky.

 “And perhaps,” he added, going bashful in a way so, so unlike him but it felt warranted as he added more softly to Noctis while coming closer, “if you’re comfortable with it, sweetheart, I could hear about your braid more too. Properly. Bead by bead.” 

 Noctis had of course already announced the courtship to him, had already shown him the braid and thumbed it as he confessed to feeling special things for Nyx Ulric, but that wasn’t the same as what he was suggesting. Not really. 

 Even if his Galahdian know-how was scattered, it was enough. For this, for now, it was enough. 

 He would know his son. He would. It would make Regis so hopelessly happy.

 This son of his and Aulea’s went to thumb his braid, his night-shaded beads, pinking with the awareness of how loving such a request was in a culture not their own. A culture they would learn. For his son had learned to love and live again with it, and Regis loved his son. Simple as that.

 “Me too!” Ori joined in, with all the excitement of a child wanting to be included, “Me too! Tell me about it too, Dad! It’s really pretty! Even prettier than in Nyx’s hair, because your hair is darker and the colors fit better!” 

 “Oriens,” Regis sighed, shooting an apologetic glance the Glaive’s way. But the man simply shrugged. Smiling something charming.

 “It’s perfectly alright, Majesty. That’s what I was going for when I chose the colors.” 

 Braids. Braids to twine them all together. In this way, with this sort of scene, it was easy for Regis to forget all of his troubles. Forget about the fallen reputation of his Crownsguard. Forget about the op the Kingsglaive was now responsible for, to find a Lucis Caelum they knew nothing about. Forget about the public begging to see Noctis again, about the Astrals, about the Crystal, about the Adagium always lurking in his wariness.

 It was easy to forget when Oriens was showing off the braid he’d made with his chest puffed out in pride, easy when Noctis shyly tilted his head to the side to show off his polished beads - when Noctis let him touch them with soft eyes and leaning into his shoulder. Ori touched them too. With permission. And Nyx looked on.

 Looked fond.

 It was easy to forget. Regis would rather forget.

 So for just a while, he did. He did. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Not forever.

 Regis woke up in the middle of the night grasping at his sheets, searching for his son’s bloodied body, before he remembered.

 His little nightlight hadn’t succeeded in taking his own life.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis never said anything about those nights where Carbuncle nudged him awake with a chirp, and he peeked past his eyelashes to find his dad standing over him as he slept. Face pale. Eyes sunken. Aged. Old. Scared. Sad. So much.

 He just patted the sheets beside him with a sleepy hum, and let his dad crawl into bed too. To hold him. Even if he was typically gone by morning.

 Noctis never said anything about those nights.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis had been so baffled, at sixteen years old, stood before the Crystal for his covenant and learning his title would be ‘the Father’.

 Now, it was the proudest of all the titles he bore, yet he felt he deserved it the least.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis had been terrified, at sixteen years old, stood before the Crystal for his covenant and having it confirmed that the Nox Fleurets were right. Him; titled ‘the Chosen King’.

 It was a title in tatters, that he’d shredded himself in light of his lost faith and would never again let himself be called. Damn the gods. And that was that.

 

 

-----

 

 
 A soft knock? Not so strange. Not so strange at all. Regis dealt with news knocking at his office’s doors often. A king must stay up to date. Informed. If he is to rule properly and promptly, he must also be interrupted often and manage his time accordingly. So a soft knock would not be so strange - 

 If it had been a knock at his office’s doors.

 But the soft knock came from a section of one of his bookshelves.

 So of course, he turned all of his less than child-appropriate paperwork upside down on his desk and called out, “Come in, Oriens.” 

 And smiled when that section of the bookshelf clicked and predictably swung open to reveal his little grandson, scampering out from behind his office’s walls. They had tried, once, years ago, to deter Ori from exploring and mapping the passages of the Citadel. But it had been fruitless, and his grandson had been too curious, so they’d let it be. 

 “Grandpa! Dad wanted to know if you wanted to go fishing!” Oriens chirped, eyes shining, and how was he meant to refuse that sweet face? He’d always been helpless to those bright eyes of his boys. Doubly so when his grandson was bouncing on his heels and waving his hands excitedly like he was, “Dad said if you are, we can go this afternoon! And that maybe we could have a picnic! And - oops!” 

 Oops, the darling prince gasped, when his waving hands ended up colliding with one of the picture frames situated on the corner of Regis’ desk.

 It fell.

 And although Ori tried to catch it, it hit the floorboards. Hard. There was no sound of shattering glass, however, so Regis didn’t rush much in getting up as Ori knelt down to pick it up.

 The picture of him and Aulea, with his arms around her pregnant belly. When they were both young and seemingly so newly wed.

 Such little time they’d actually had together, in the grand scheme of things. Yet Regis Lucis Caelum had never loved another as much. For Aulea, his Queen, had given him his greatest gift and joy in life. Had given him Noctis. And none of the lovers he’d had in the years since had given him that.

 “Sor-sorry, Grandpa,” Ori gasped, sounding distressed so his grandfather shushed him as he limped slowly around his desk. No harm was done, really. The picture frame wasn’t even broken. The back had simply been dislodged by the fall. The picture had slipped out. No harm at all.

 “It’s fine, dear boy,” he whispered, unbothered, “It’s fine. I can put the photo back in the frame easily enough.” 

 Oriens was glad to hear it. More than. He hated when he made mistakes - mistakes made him feel small.

 And Ori had so-loved how many photos of his dad had reappeared over the recent months. Compared to all of them being hidden before his dad had come back. Sure, the one with his grandma and grandpa and his dad still in Grandma’s belly had always been on Grandpa’s desk, but it still mattered to him.

 The princling was trying to slide the picture back into its frame, when something caught his eye.

 And instead, he pulled out a second picture that had been pinned behind that one of Grandma when she was pregnant.

 It was different. Weird. Blue-white lines on black. Skeletal…medical…and blobs, and Oriens tilted his head. Reminded of something, but…

 “Oh, yes,” Grandpa chuckled, crouching down with a huff despite his bad knee to peer over Oriens’ shoulder with such soft eyes, “I’d quite forgotten about that, Ori. That is your dad’s sonogram picture. A picture taken of him when he was still in your grandmother’s belly. Do you remember?” 

 “Oh!” And it hit the princling why it looked so familiar, “Like with Auntie Cecilia! And the twins!” It looked exactly like that weird, blob-like picture Auntie Cecilia and Uncle Gladdy had been showing off when she was carrying his baby cousins in her belly! 

He’d only been six years old, but he sort of remembered being shown it.

 The sonograms looked identical!

 “Yes, exactly!” His grandpa agreed, gentle as he held out his hand expectedly. So Oriens was super, super careful about placing the sonogram with his dad’s blob in the palm of his hand. Then the picture of Grandma. Then the picture frame. 

 Smiling shyly and apologizing again as Grandpa put the pictures back into the frame to place it on his desk once more.

 “I promise; no harm done, Oriens. Come now,” Regis ruffled his grandson’s hair, rich and raven-black just like Noctis’ and he hoped to do the same when he saw his son again - a nice, loving hair ruffle, loving the way both of his boys pressed into the affection like they did, “I believe you said something about fishing? And a picnic? I do believe I need a bit of a break, and I would like to spend time with my favorite child and grandchild.” 

 Oriens giggled, darting forward to hug his grandpa’s leg.

 “Grandpa, we’re your only child and grandchild!” 

 The Father’s eyes saddened.

 “Ah. Yes. You are. It’s why I love you both so, so much.” 

 “We love you too, Grandpa!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 His little nightlight’s smile was bright, and blue eyes full of stars, when he reeled in fish after fish that afternoon. And brighter still as he and Oriens sampled every single dessert dear Ignis had brought to the gardens for them, for their picnic. And the sun was shining. And the Wall shimmered overhead, as the Ring of the Lucii glowed faintly on Regis’ finger.

 And autumn was coming for Lucis, but these last months had healed years of hurt, for so many people, hadn’t they? 

 Regis Lucis Caelum watched the son he had failed with the fondest of loves.

 Aware that time would keep moving forward…whether he liked it or not.

 So he waited until a moment came when dear Ori was distracted by Aurora. Carrying around his more fluffy sister, in spite of the white fur it got all over his fine clothes. Bringing her to his favorite flowers, so the feline princess could sniff at them and Ori could gush about why he liked each one. 

Courtesy of Gladiolus’ knowledge of flowers.

 When that moment came, where it was just him and Noctis sat together on a garden bench beneath the trees, amongst the flowers, like when his son was just a boy? 

 Regis asked what he didn’t want to ask, because even if he wanted to keep his son safe, he also knew he had to let Noctis continue to grow.

 “Sweetheart?” He started delicately, rotating the Ring around and around his finger as his and Aulea’s son turned those brilliant blue eyes to him, “How would you feel about attending the upcoming gala with Oriens and I?”

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

I want Noctis to attend a public function, because I love the mix of modern and fantasy of FFXV. Including things like paparazzi, talk shows, news channels. So we're going to make the House of Caelum superstars! At least until some of our villains show up~

Chapter 16

Notes:

Managed to get this done despite the bronchitis! Also, if you didn't notice there's now another story added onto this series where I'll be dropping the little scenes that just sorta don't fit into these bigger chapters! Flashbacks, maybe scenes from other character's perspectives too. <3

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 “How much security do you think - “ 

 “All of it.” 

 Clarus Amicitia glanced at the Sword. Cor Leonis glanced at the Shield. Together, they glanced back at their king and brother. And together, they’d been delicate so far. Not mentioning the tremors in Regis’ hands. Not mentioning the pile of paperwork still yet to be sorted on his desk…or the half-empty bottle of bourbon on his desk as well. 

 They didn’t mention the way their brother kept clasping his hands together, then rubbing roughly at his face, then clasping his hands together. 

 The fears of a father never rubbed off of his expression, no matter how many times he repeated those motions.

 “...I’m sure Drautos would be willing to lend us several more Glaives than we’d previously settled on - “ 

 “Clarus,” the Shield faltered when bright, magically bright green eyes settled on him, leaving him to feel like prey under a predator’s sight, “all of it. Glaives. ‘Guards. Hire all of the most reputable security companies in Insomnia - I mean all of it. I do. I’ll pay the extra expenses and overtime myself. Do not spare…anything.” 
 
 Shaking his head, the king pinched the bridge of his nose.

 “Do not spare anything,” he repeated, a murmur, the printed words on paper before him swimming around a bit. Blurring. Wiggling, further and further and further out of his reach, and - 

 A hand clasped itself firm on either of his shoulders. 

 Centering him. Back to his royal, regal office in the Citadel. Back to the mess that was his desk, the chair he sat in. The chair he sat in with both of his brothers standing on either side of him, supporting him. As ever. As he always trusted them to do. 

“We’ll take care of it, Regis,” Clarus swore, squeezing his shoulder to show that support, age and love behind the wrinkles of his face, “All of it. Nothing spared. We hear you. It shouldn’t be too hard to contract a few security companies for the night, and Drautos will of course be willing to provide Glaives. If not him, then I’m sure Glaive Ulric would be willing to call his Glaives in to work overtime.” 

 Regis snorted.

 “Oh, yes. Glaive Ulric would probably have the whole of Little Galahd ready to guard Noctis and Oriens if he asked it of their community.” 

 The amusement eased the tenseness in the Father’s shoulders, and he breathed out slowly.

 He couldn’t make the decision for Noctis. Whether or not his son attended the charity gala should be his choice, so he’d asked…and so Noctis had tentatively agreed. Provided he felt up to it the day of. But the gala was taking place in Caelum Hall, which - technically - was outside of the Wall.

 And Clarus, Cor, Drautos, and Cid had all already vehemently refused his suggestion to temporarily shift the size of the Wall to include that hall just off the grounds of the Citadel.

 A whole evening, where the whole Lucis Caelum family would be out of reach of their greatest defense.

 The whole of Insomnia was now in a tizzy too, thanks to the PR team’s press release stating Noctis Lucis Caelum may just be in attendance. Not to mention the new members of Regis’ reformed council - most of whom had never met his son at all, before or after Mistveil. They were a lot more nervous about voicing it, but they had their own eager reasons to see the whole House of Caelum in one place.

 It would be a show of strength and unity unlike Lucis had done since before Emperor Aldercapt was smote by the Six.

 It would be a declaration.

 And…secretly, most secretly, Regis hoped - a threat. To Tenebrae. 

 By those damned Astrals, just a year ago Regis Lucis Caelum would’ve never so much as dreamt he’d have a reason to threaten Tenebrae. Because that would mean threatening the Nox Fleurets. And just a year ago? Regis Lucis Caelum hadn’t had anything against the daughter of his once dear, dear friend, Queen Sylva Nox Fleuret.

 Now, however, Queen Lunafreya had earned the slight threat. With her strange neediness to reunite with Noctis, with her marriage proposal, and with the abrupt silence from her ever since Regis had sent word that Noctis was courting another.

 All their informants could tell them was that the queen had spent plenty of time, these last months, communing with the Six. Speaking in riddles. Neglecting her other duties, somewhat, to focus on being Tenebrae’s Oracle.

The small reports sent their way about Queen Lunafreya apparently being short tempered of late worried Regis greatly.

…

 The less small report saying that she’d tried to convince her council to request an invite to the upcoming gala more than worried him. Thank goodness her council had convinced her, in turn, that it wasn’t the right time.

 That less small report was what had had him cracking open a bottle of bourbon the night before.

 “Any more news from Tenebrae?” The tired, tired king triply checked, over and over again. To be sure. He had to be sure. His darling son had made it clear Queen Lunafreya wasn’t a welcomed topic; she would not be invited into Insomnia until that might change. 

 “Nothing yet, Regis.” 

 “Prompto says that a few Tenebraean hunters came through Hammerhead last night,” Cor offered, frowning, “Weren’t very sober, since, hunters. But according to Takka? They were rambling on and on about the Havens in Tenebrae. About how they haven’t been very reliable lately.” 

 That caught the Lucian King’s attention.

 “Reliable as in, they’re no longer keeping daemons at bay? Hunters are no longer safe?” 

 “Well, just rumors of that being the case so far. Could be that a handful of also not very sober hunters got careless and stories spread from there,” his Sword shrugged, leaning around him a bit to set a proper, printed report about it on his desk, “Prompto though…kid thinks it’s something to watch out for, Regis. Said he’d call Dave so our Lucian hunters know to be more careful for a bit. Can’t hurt.” 

 No, it couldn’t hurt, could it? Regis shifted. Staring at the report, thoughtfully stroking at his beard. Feeling a bit more awake all at once. Because that - that was a bit more than a queen being short tempered. That was an integral part of Eos’ safety against daemons. Even rumors of something being wrong with the Havens had to be taken very seriously.

 If they lost Havens, it would completely alter so much of life outside of cities.

 …And it would bring Queen Lunafreya straight to the steps of the Citadel to investigate as well.

 “Treat this as one of our highest priorities,” he commanded, a chill slithering up his spine at the mere idea of so many of his people being stuck out, in the dark of the night, without Havens to shelter in while daemons and their growing numbers prowled the wilds, “Bring in Drautos, bring in Meldacio Hunter HQ, and have some calls sent out to Tenebrae, Niflheim, Accordo, and Galahd. If there are rumors about failing Havens elsewhere…”

 Well, then they may not simply be rumors.

 “Back to the security details for the gala - “ 

 There were always new threats for a king to keep his sword pointed at, weren’t there?

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis’ sword got heavier with each year that passed, but he kept on wielding it in spite of that.

 For the lights of his life.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Speaking of the lights of his life, Ori came scampering into his office that morning, his father wheeling himself in after him. Both of his boys insisting Regis take breakfast with them in his office’s drawing room. A breakfast of waffles with whipped cream smiles, and whipped cream hearts, and whipped cream stars drawn on those waffles. 

And also Ori giggling as he hopped up to spray whipped cream on his dad’s nose.

 When Regis burst out in the brightest of laughter, his son pouted and went for the whipped cream can himself.

 Lucis’ King squawked when he felt whipped cream sliding down his forehead and eyebrows; his son getting a good shot in while he was distracted with his laughing.

 “Noctis!”

 Oriens used their distraction to his advantage to gather and hide all of the best pieces of fruit for his waffles alone.

 And Regis loved his family so, so dearly.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Captain of the Kingsglaive looked out, across their meeting hall in the Kingsglaive Complex, so many of his men - and women - looking back. At ease. Relaxed. Curious, not concerned. Such a far, far cry from all of their meetings during the war. There were more faces now. And there was a lighter atmosphere.

 And this - this was a Kingsglaive Drautos was so very proud of.

 A Kingsglaive he hadn’t embittered.

 A Kingsglaive for hearth, and for home.

 A Kingsglaive loyal to the House of Caelum.

 “Alright!” His voice boomed across the meeting hall, loud like it needed to be to reach them all but not rudely so. He got a bunch of smirks sent his way as he cleared his throat, so he smirked back, pointing out the most troublesome of his kids in a ‘behave’ sort of way, really, really hoping Cor hadn’t put them up to any pranks today.

 The hall fell quiet, respectfully so, and Drautos leaned back against the big table at the front of the room to begin giving out news.

 Crossing his arms.

 Carefully eying Tredd extra hard when the redhead turned around to repeatedly nudge Luche to try and get the kid’s attention. And when eying didn’t work, he cleared his throat pointedly. Which earned Tredd a whole bunch of swats on his arm from his fellow Glaives until he’d turned to properly face him with a quick, “Sorry, Captain!” 

 Damn it. They were all just kids to him.

 His kids.

 He couldn’t ever be mad at a single one of them.

 “Thank you, Glaive Furia. Now that everyone’s paying attention,” his teasing got a few chuckles, a few more swats at the redhead and Nyx behind him reaching forward specifically to ruffle his gelled hair up and leave it sticking out in every direction to Tredd’s squawking displeasure, “this is about the upcoming charity gala to be held at Caelum Hall. As we all know, the hall is outside of the bounds of the Wall.” 

 He shifted, hiding his nervous tick well.

 “And as I’m going to assume you’ve all heard by now, the whole royal family will be in attendance for this one.” 

 The atmosphere in the meeting hall turned serious. Predictably so. Guarding their ruler, King Regis? Was an honor, an important job, but it was something most of the Glaives had done plenty of times by now. Guarding the heir, Crown Prince Oriens? Was an honor, an even more important job, but it was rarely a position that meant expecting trouble because the princling was rarely let out of the Citadel without the king accompanying his grandson.

 But adding Noctis into that mix, now? The rumored unstable, unwell Lucis Caelum who’d only been guarded by their best thus far? Well, it had his younger Glaives getting shifty. Eying each other. While it had his older Glaives getting more serious. 

 Eying Nyx.

 The whole royal family of Lucis in the public domain, outside of the Wall, for a whole evening? 

 Was a concern, when their concern as Kingsglaive was ensuring their safety.

 “Previously, we had the security details for the gala finalized and already set in place,” Drautos continued, once the meeting hall had calmed, somewhat, “You all had your assignments. The schedule for next week was sent out. Overtime and bonuses were arranged accordingly,” he shrugged, genuinely apologetic but Drautos knew his Glaives would understand, “But that was before it was decided that Prince Noctis would be attending, in order to reintroduce our prince to the public. Meaning changes, Glaives.” 

 Well, yeah. His Glaives understood.

 But he clearly saw a lot of his younger kids didn’t really like it. They got more shifty, groaning and throwing up their arms, grumbling about this or that plan they’d made under their breath.

 His older kids set them straight though. Smacking them over the back of their heads and hissing scoldings their way. Couldn’t be helped. Drautos would try to help smooth it out, best he could, but he knew…he knew that even if Noctis Lucis Caelum was his crown prince, and would always be that, he wasn’t that to these new Glaives who were only between the ages of eight to twelve when he was imprisoned.

 There had been some frustrations directed towards Regis’ son in recent months, from those younger Glaives.

 But Drautos knew for a fact - and thanks to reports about three separate bloody noses - that his Glaives who did know Prince Noctis were setting them straight.

 Still, he reminded himself mentally to have a few talks with his kids who complained the loudest later on.

 “Now, it’ll be a damned hassle to completely toss out the previous arrangements,” he drawled, earning a few laughs as he waved his hand casually while cursing, “but His Majesty is also arranging extra Crownsguard to be on duty for the evening of the gala, and is hiring out some of Insomnia’s best security companies to keep eyes on the streets too. That’ll take a lot of the weight off of us, but I’m still giving him at least twelve more of you. I know you had your schedules already, and I know some of you made plans because you thought you knew which days you had off. For that reason I want to leave it up to you all who is going to take these extra shifts for the gala.” 

 Several of the younger kiddos cheered, high-fiving each other when they heard that, and Drautos smiled.

 He truly tried not to make things harder for his Glaives. 

 Maybe it was his way of easing the guilt of all the ways he’d intentionally sabotaged their trust in the Crown in that past timeline.

 “Anyone who wants overtime or bigger bonuses, I have duty rosters for you to fill out on my desk if you’re interested in working the gala. Anyone who needs to sort out their schedule, please talk to Leiutanent Navi. And anyone who wants to switch which shift they’re on to work with somebody different, talk to Lieutenant Pelna. Any questions; you come to me for. The donation cut of your paychecks is the same as it’s always been.” 

 Hushed conversations started up, sort of haltingly, as the assembled Glaives waited to see if their captain had more to say.

 Drautos gave it a second, just to keep them waiting, before dropping his arms and nodding, “That’s all!”

 Those conversations came to life, filling the whole meeting hall with the Kingsglaive’s usual noise. 

 Well, that had gone better than…nah. That had gone pretty much exactly how the Kingsglaive Captain had expected it to. He knew his Glaives. There wasn’t a ton of unrest, with all of the conversations happening. There were a few grumbles, but mostly there was this excitement taking over everything else now. And why not? This would be the first time the full House of Caelum was attending a single function since Regis’ kid had been proven innocent.

 Well, the whole House of Caelum excluding whoever the hell they were searching for on the side, in secret.

 That was its own priority, though. Drautos just sat down on the edge of the table behind him to watch all of his Glaives mill around. Listen to some of the conversations. Keeping up with it all like he always did. Saw Axis trip over a chair leg and go crashing down, which led to a whole group of Glaives playfully throwing themselves down atop the man with exaggerated, ‘Oh no!’ s to boot. Saw Navi flick Nyx in the forehead for something he said to them.

 Saw Nyx get his shoulders grabbed and shook by Tredd as revenge for earlier, nearly knocking the man down with how much weight he threw at him.

 “So, Nyx! You were already assigned for the gala before, right? But are you still attending as a Glaive, or are you attending as your amatus’ date now? Huh? Are you going to play mister fancy-pants with royalty for the night while we work, great Ulric Chieftain?” 

 “I - I - Tredd!” 

 The chiming of a warp, the swish of a blade thrown through the air, and suddenly a kukris was caught just several inches to Drautos’ right. Nyx coming out of the warp with easy grace, as he scowled at the Furia shoving past other Glaives to follow him.

 “If inlustris wants me as his date, then - Tredd!” 

 “No warping indoors, Nyx, Tredd,” their captain sighed with all the eternal suffering of a tired father, as both of the boys started running around and around the meeting table he was sitting on, chasing and shouting at each other.

 Then they made for the doors to the meeting hall, to take their game of cat and mouse outdoors.

 “Nyx! Tredd!” 

 “We know!” They shouted back in unison as they bolted out of the meeting like the adults their driver’s licenses supposedly claimed them to be, “No explosions!”

 Yep.

 Those were his Glaives. Those were his kids.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Drautos owed them everything, because he’d cost them everything.

 

 

-----

 

 

Had it truly been ten years since Noctis was last fitted for a suit? That felt…untrue. Weird. The minute the tailors had stepped into the dressing room they were using for fittings, the minute they bowed and carefully intoned, “Your Majesty. Your Highness…es,” was a minute that felt straight out of Noctis’ memories.

 When he was young and uncomfortable standing still for long periods of time because of how it would hurt his spine, and they just kept adjusting things. The fittings were never simple.

 They were never quite satisfied with the way royalty fit him. 

 Well, Noctis was never quite satisfied with that either, or comfortable, but the tailors had just been doing their jobs.

 Jobs made more complicated by the fact that he was wheelchair-bound. He knew. He noticed the sideyes they sent towards it, the way they spoke under their breaths to one another, behind their hands, obviously trying to figure out a solution to fitting him when he had to sit the whole time.

 None of it was a thing Noctis had missed.

 But the gala…his dad had asked. And Ori was attending. And Noctis knew he had to, he had to, eventually, start living again. Outside of the Citadel. Outside of a handful of rooms and a handful of people permitted near him. 

He needed to make a choice for his future, not just his present. So he’d said yes when his dad asked, so he’d said it again when he asked if he was sure, and so he said it a third time when Oriens excitedly ran up to ask him if he really was going to gala with them.

 Ending with him trapped.

 In a dressing room.

 With several uncomfortable tailors who’d been vetted down to where they preferred to eat breakfast each morning on the way to work, who were just barely being allowed in the same rooms as their misplaced prince.

 They had needles.

 Noctis had King’s Magic.

 And not even the gods could save them if they poked his son.

 It was…a tense time.

…

 After - after the tailors had stepped out, after they had their gala outfits decided upon and tailored to exact, royal perfection? After, Noctis felt far more comfortable. Oriens had been very brave. Unbothered by the needles, or the need to stay still. They were a royal family. Alone in the dressing room as they fancied themselves up in the mirrors.

 Seeing his dad grin as he offered to tie Oriens’ tie for him was like seeing himself. And his dad. Twenty years earlier.

 These were ghosts Noctis didn’t mind watching, though.

 All of them in front of a large mirror, framed gold, but of course. Regis Lucis Caelum and Noctis Lucis Caelum and Oriens Lucis Caelum. All dressed in Lucian black. All with their golden accents. Three generations. The similarities striking, as family only could be, and anyone who saw them would surely say they were dashing.

Dad with his pinstripe suit and extra, embroidered and gilded details to ensure he stood out as Lucis’ reigning King. Knee brace and cane picked out perfectly to match.

 Noctis with his more plain, more tailored look thanks to the fitted waist of his suit coat and the hems of embroidered silver. Little skulls. Since he would be in his wheelchair, the tailors left his pants a little oversized, but suggested boots instead than dress shoes to hide the difference better. His dad had offered up a forgotten pair of fashionable, black, men’s boots that went up to the knee from his closet; a gift from one of Insomnia’s fashion designers that he’d worn once and never again.

 They suited his son. With his beard, his longer hair, he cut a roguish royal figure. Quite handsome, his boy.

 Oriens had shyly asked, before the fittings started at all, to match his dad’s style. So the dapper little princling wore his blacks, with silver skulls embroidered around the collar, and a little black bowtie that contrasted his father and grandfather’s regular ties.

 When Noctis had asked why the bowtie, his dad had chuckled fondly while his son flushed and shuffled around.

 “His favorite book character wears a bowtie, I believe,” his dad had hummed, in that way that said he definitely knew and thought it adorable but didn’t want to make Ori self-conscious.

Dad used to say things the exact same way around him.

 My.

 The House of Caelum, Lucis’ royal family. 

That was what and who stood and sat tall, reflected in the mirror’s image.

 “So handsome,” Regis soft comment was also a tender one, as he adjusted his son’s tie just a little to the left, and Noctis toyed with the frames of his glasses to avoid making eye contact as he flushed, “I believe few will be able to keep their eyes off of you at the gala, my son. Especially that Glaive of yours.” 

 He threw in some wiggly eyebrows for good measure that his sweet son snorted at as he nudged him away.

 “Do you…Noctis?” He was a king. He was a father. He was conscious of the needs of his family, but he was also conscious of the rumor mill Lucis had, so he waited patiently for Noctis to look at him again to gently break the soft moment, just a little, “Forgive me, sweetheart, but I need to make sure you’re aware that there will be people who understand the meaning of your braid. And that there will likely be reactions to it.” 

 “I know,” thank goodness his son didn’t withdraw completely with that acknowledgement, but there was a bit of an uncomfortable twist to his lips now.

 “It has occurred to me,” Regis started, and by that he meant Drautos had dropped by his office to bring it up personally with him out of concern for one of his best Glaives and his nephew, “that you may wish to have Nyx attend the gala with you.” 

 The eyes that slowly drifted up to look at him were Aulea’s eyes.

 “As your date.” 

 And they seemed clouded by confusion.

 “Which is alright,” Regis kept trying to gentle this topic, as though dealing with a flighty chocobo instead of his son, both of them acutely aware of Oriens knelt down to tie his shoes only a little ways away, “Since you are courting him, you could attend as a couple. It would mean there would be no doubts, however. About your relationship. I - I want you to have all the options, Noctis, darling.” 

 He brushed a bit of his son’s bangs back, behind his ear, by that braid. Giving Noctis a moment to think on what he’d offered.

 He truly wouldn’t have an issue with it. The public, on the other hand, was a wild card. Always. Introducing the courtship too soon would ensure no misunderstandings or speculation, but it may also cause unsavory rumors. Most things did.

 “Nyx will be attending as a guard,” his son said slowly, and Regis nodded.

 “Yes, Drautos has him assigned to personally shadow you and Ori throughout the event. Since it’s an event bound to Caelum Hall, and will involve no leaving the venue, he’ll be closeby the whole night. But if you wanted him as your date, I’m sure Drautos wouldn’t mind reassigning his duties to another, trusted Glaive.” 

 Noctis thought on that for a moment, thumbing at his braid, then shook his head.

 “I trust him to guard us,” his son declared so, so trustingly, and Regis knew he owed Nyx Ulric more than any king could pay a man in gratitude, “And…he’s allowed to come talk to me, right? Spend time with me?” 

 “Of course, Noctis. Whenever you and he wish.” 

 So that was settled. Right on time, too. Since Ori scampered up to show them how he’d managed to tie his shoes as neatly as they did, all puffed up and proud and looking like a proper little gentleman.

 Three Lucis Caelums.

 All fancied up in nice dress, groomed to perfection because as symbols to their people they had to be. The truth of it was that social events like the charity gala were simply another sort of battlefield they had to fight on. Instead of blades, they wielded words and manners as their weapons of choice. And really, that was where so much of the concern came from. 

 Noctis, his little nightlight, was rusty. But he was ready to relearn his skills. Regis already had talked him into sitting in on a handful of Oriens’ etiquette tutor lessons in the days to follow. A patchwork solution, but a solution.

 Still. Right there? In that dressing room? In that mirror?

 Regis saw reflected back at him everything he loved and adored and fought for.

 The Lucian King saw everything he thought he’d surely never have again, and he’d do anything to keep it. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was strange. Dressing up. It made Noctis Lucis Caelum feel more like royalty than a dirty, discarded thing.

 It wasn’t bad.

 It was better when Ori stood before him, shuffling his feet and smiling shyly up at his dad. Saying, “Look, Dad. We match!” 

 As happy as he’d ever seen his son. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 When it was Noctis’ turn to be the shy Lucis Caelum, later? When it was him and it was Nyx in the bedroom they shared, when it was Nyx asking how his day had gone with that charming little smirk of his as he undid his braids at the vanity, and Noctis motioned with the phone he’d been given to use - carefully restricted, and he was fine with that - at his amatus? 

 It was Noctis offering to show Nyx a picture that Uncle Clarus had taken of him, his dad, and Ori all dressed up.

 But stormy eyes glittered with gold when Nyx laughed. And turned down the offer.

 “I want to see you in all your glory, inlustris. The day of the gala. Let’s save it until then, yeah? <I’ve been thinking on it a lot.>”

 Very shy.

 Very, very shy as Noctis delved into a new weaving project he had so he had an excuse to avoid those fond eyes on him. Sometimes he thought his Ulric amatus was terrible for his heart. And sometimes he thought Nyx was exactly everything he needed.

 Sometimes Nyx was just everything.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “The things I do for you,” Cor shook his head in fake exasperation, as the camera powered on in his hands and he turned it over to check its battery life. 

 “Thanks Dad!” Fake, because - well, who could actually be exasperated with the kid when he chirped like that, sounding so genuinely cheerful? A daemon, maybe. A daemon might get exasperated. But Cor would bet even Astrals would falter in the face of his sunshine child, Prompto Leonis-Aurum. 

 Snorting at the thought, he turned his attention back to his phone set to speaker when his kid kept talking.

 “I obviously don’t need, like, a bunch of pictures! But if you could get a few of the family, and of course of Noct? That’d be great! Oh - and some of Noct and Ori together! They’re going to look totes adorbs all dressed up!!!”

 ‘Totes adorbs,’ the Marshal mouthed in disbelief. His kid somehow always able to come across as a teenager still despite nearly being in his thirties.

 “I’ll get you the pictures,” he swore, pointing seriously at the phone in spite of the fact that Prompto couldn’t see him doing so, “So you - you have to deal with me delivering them to you personally and then sticking around for a week or two. Regis has already approved a mini vacation for me. I’m coming by to help you and Cindy out with the nursery, and that’s that.” 

 “Sir, yes sir!” 

 Cor ignored that he could practically hear his kid saluting him through the phone.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Security sorted?” 

 “Just about,” Cor confirmed, fiddling with a camera he’d been carrying around for the day, looking a lot like Prompto right about then. It made Gladio snort. 

 “This is going to be the most secure event we’ve had in years.” 

 “Better to be prepared for situations that don’t arise than be taken by surprise.” 

 Ain’t that the truth. Even if it was a lot of work, it was work that was worth it and the Shield would stand by that. He’d double-checked the security layout over and over again. Anxious like he hadn’t been in his role for a long time. Because, well. Oriens wasn’t his only priority this time. 

 Frowning at a Crownsguard that came over to hand his uncle a few reports, Gladio let out a quiet huff. Trying to rememorize their appearance in his mind’s eye.

 It was important to be able to tell friend from foe when you were in the blur of a battle. 

 Making changes like that so close to a huge security risk like the gala was throwing him off.

 “Still not used to the new uniforms?” The Crownsguard Marshal correctly guessed, himself wearing lighter colors than he had in, well, forever. Grays and faded blues that went against what his wardrobe had been for decades, and - yeah. Yeah, Gladio could admit he was having a hard time adjusting. He’d grown up seeing the Crownsguard with their Lucian blacks and their insignias and now…

 “It was necessary,” he said gruffly, a father, a Shield, a man who still held respect for the Crownsguard because he knew not all of them held fault for Mistveil. 

 He also knew Noct deserved damned better than to spend the rest of his life tensing up every time he caught a glimpse of the Crownsguard out of the corner of his eye.

 “It was.” No argument. 

Cor Leonis lifted his head high, wearing the new colors of the Crownsguard with a pride that his men couldn’t help but try to emulate. The blacks - it was a change. And maybe some saw it as a sign of disrespect; stripping the Crownsguard of the royal color but leaving the Kingsglaive uniforms as they were.

 For some reason though, Noctis never flinched away from the Glaive uniforms.

 And it all came back to Noct, didn’t it? That was what was important to Gladio.
 
 If his little brother couldn’t bear to see Crownsguard uniforms anymore - the uniforms he’d grown up surrounded by and been tortured surrounded by - then the Shield would learn to like the new ones. The insignia had changed. The colors had changed. The soles of their boots were the royal blue of King’s Magic now.

 They were new.

 They were trying to survive the dishonor brought down on them by Mistveil, and Gladiolus Amicitia would learn to like this change.

 For Noctis’ sake, even if it meant fielding a few confused questions from His Highness.

 “It will be a long night,” he said, witness to the decorators scurrying around Caelum Hall’s grand venue, everything ornate, regal, and black worthy of royalty being strung up like a huge flower arrangement that needed fixing.

 “It sure will be.” 

 They watched.

 They prepared.

 They adjusted, for their royalty. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “For the last time, Lady Mattea is allergic to peanuts! Should I see one more dessert selection including them, I will personally - “

 “Alright there. Iggy? How about we just, take a step aside. Outside. Before you stab somebody?” 

 Gladio meant that as a joke. A joke and nothing more than a joke. 

 But the way Ignis Scientia immediately muttered murderously under his breath, “Bit late for that, Gladiolus,” was not a joke.

 “Iggy,” his old friend whispered, resigned and already pinching the bridge of his nose as those foolish caterers crept away while they had the chance, “What did you do? Who? When? Did this one live?” 
 
 “It was a journalist who tried to sneak in,” the Royal Advisor told him primly, sniffing. And Gladio immediately snorted.

 “Oh, then fuck ‘em. Still, a small break? I’m sure Ori would love to have you check up on his public speaking lessons?” 

 “You mean he’ll love the distraction from his lessons,” Ignis sighed, but already his voice was easily a hundred times more fond, “Oh, alright. I need to grab the charity table layouts from my office anyways. We cannot have another gala where Mr. Frenz gets wasted on his wine and is sat beside his ex-wife. Oriens still sometimes calls councilmembers he doesn’t like dandelion-huffers.” 

 “I don’t know. I really like that insult, actually.” 

 Without looking, Ignis swatted at the foolhardy man.

 But left with him anyways, of course.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “So are you sure that journalist survived?” 

 “Yes, Gladiolus…marginally so, at least.” 

 “Igs.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

Charity was, of course, important. 

But charity wasn’t the reason the whole of Eos had its eyes on the upcoming charity gala in Insomnia. The reason had more to do with all of the news headlines declaring their lost royal, Noctis Lucis Caelum, would finally be making his reappearance for the people. 

Whether they deserved it or not remained to be seen, but the riots had quieted down of late. The conspiracies too. Sometimes a tragedy was just a tragedy, and there wasn’t some great, overarching evil agenda putting all of the pieces together. Sometimes life was just hell. Sometimes they had to live knowing that, without the mercy of a way out or an alternate story’s end.

Eos waited. Eos watched.

Eos still wondered about that mystery man from Founder’s Day.

Tenebrae sent their representatives. Accordo sent theirs. The Empire sent theirs.

The Crownsguard stood tall in new colors with a new insignia over their hearts, the Kingsglaive caused their chaos, and the people prayed.

But not to any gods. They prayed, simply, to the empty winds. They prayed to the clouds and they prayed to the sun, but many no longer prayed to any shrines or altars or the pages of a cosmology book. 

Their star had changed.

And they all prayed it was for the better.

 

 

-----

 

 

Religious; few used that word to describe men like Nyx Ulric. He, himself, rarely would. It was not his ‘religion’. It was his way of life. It was, and had been, an irrefutable fact since he was born and his parents baptized him in the eyes of the Stormfather. In Father Ramuh he trusted. In Father Ramuh he placed his faith. And in Father Ramuh’s grace he tried to live his life. 

 Insomnia, Lucis, losing its religion? 

 He understood. He placed little faith in the Astrals outside of Father Ramuh to begin with, but he wouldn’t judge any for losing their faith now. Ramuh was the wise patron of the Galahdian people. Of their history. Their stories. Their founding; centuries and centuries ago.

 On a level far from any of the other Six, Ramuh had stood by the Storm Islands for generations and so they rightfully prayed with his name on their tongues.

 He did not begrudge a failing faith in the people of Lucis, and he did not begrudge those who looked at his people who wore Ramuh’s prayer beads in their hair like they couldn’t believe they still worshiped the Six after all that had happened of late.

 Two different worlds.

 Two vastly different worlds, in their own wonderful ways, as Father Ramuh might say.

 Nyx had lost none of his faith, though. He had his beads dedicating his birth, his growth, his life to the Stormfather. The blood he’d spilled. The lives he’d taken. The places he’d ruined in the hearts of his enemies. He did so in the name of Ramuh and he asked forgiveness afterwards, and inlustris had asked him nothing of forsaking his faith for him.

 He’d heard, from some of the community, in the past when there were courtships with outsiders - that they’d asked their Galahdian partners to abandon their worship of Ramuh. Convert to another Astral’s faith.

 Nyx had not thought inlustris would ask that of him, but he’d also had something of a conversation plotted out in his mind if the topic arose. 

 But his star had never disagreed with his faith. Had touched the beads dedicating him to Ramuh in his hair with care. Had seemed curious about his small altar to the Stormfather that he brought into the bedroom they shared. Had listened in when he said his prayers and sang his hymns, and had never been disgruntled.

 When he’d cautiously broached the subject once before, the royal he loved had just blinked at him.

 “I…don’t really believe in the Six anymore…I think.” 

 They hadn’t broached the subject since.

 But Nyx still knelt to pray at his altar to Father Ramuh each morning and each night, lit the candles, clasped his prayer beads tight. And nowadays…it felt even more like inlustris watched him do those things. From his bed. Those blue-blue eyes, Nyx could feel them bearing into the back of his head, his shoulders, watching. 

 It was electrifying.

 When he finished his prayers, when he snuffed out the candles, he turned on his knees maybe just a bit more swiftly than was necessary, a grin tugging at his lips as he caught those pretty blue eyes so, so easily. His star startled. Sitting up a bit straighter. Then sinking down into his pillows. Then hiding his face in the black pillowcases after a second with a tiny noise of embarrassment.

 “I’m flattered, starlight.”

 “Nnnnnmmmgh.” 

 How eloquent his star was.

 If he casually grabbed one of his kukris from his waist and tossed it towards the bed, bouncing when he landed after the warp? Well, who’s business was that? At least it made Noctis snort at him.

 “Something’s been on your mind,” Nyx said, sure he was right because of all the stares he’d been subject to ever since inlustris decided to attend the gala, and he leaned a tiny bit closer. Not close enough to scare his star by breathing on his neck or anything - but close enough to be able to lower his voice and murmur, “<Tell me, starlight? I could help.>” 

 Noctis wiggled. Then wiggled again.

 Then slowly peeked up from his pillows with as near to a pout on his lips as Nyx had ever seen.

 “You don’t mind…do you?” 

 “Mind what?” Nyx straightened, backed off, both. Just a little. So his star would feel more comfortable pushing himself up and flopping over, tugging his legs into place so he could actually sit. Still looking troubled.

 “Not being my date. For the gala.” 

 Ah.

 “Inlustris, if you wanted me to be your date, all you’d need to do was ask,” the Ulric Chieftain said honestly, honored, and a bit of a tease as he smirked, “You may have to beat potential suitors off with a stick, since I’ve been told I’m quite the catch, but if you think you can handle that…”

 He trailed off, leaving plenty of room for his prince to pick up the teasing. And, well, he actually laughed.

 And brought up one hand to stroke his chin in thought playfully as he huffed, “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, you’re no pink jade gar, that’s for sure. I’d beat somebody off with a stick for that beautiful fish. You might be…maybe, on par with a noble arapaima. A trophy to be sure.” 
 
 By Ramuh, his amatus was comparing him to his favorite fishes.

 He was so in love.

 “I don’t know, I’m sure I can wiggle around extra hard,” Nyx promised slowly, dropping his voice down low because he could be a loveable idiot sometimes according to his friends, as he leaned in just a bit while his star giggled at him, “Make it extra good just for you, inlustris. Make sure you enjoy catching me.” 

 This star he’d caught and loved kept on giggling, and Nyx was so bewitched by that…that he never heard the footsteps getting close until a throat was cleared loudly behind him.

 “Dad!” 

Ramuh have mercy -

 “Your Majesty.” 

 King Regis stood there, leaning on his cane, a brow arched as he stared directly at the Glaive with this dangerous sort of tilt to his smile as he said, “Hello, sweetheart. Glaive Ulric. Pray tell, what exactly was your conversation just now about? It sounded quite interesting.” 

 Nyx coughed into his fist. Was it suddenly a bit chilly in inlustris’ bedroom? He had chills. Shivers. Goosebumps. And, the sudden, frightening feeling that he was being stalked by a starved coeurl. 

 Of course, his star just spoke up, sounding so damned happy, “Fishing!” 

 The chilly feeling melted away, and Nyx considered making a strategic retreat. 

 “Fishing, is it?” Until he was trapped until the gaze of that king, whom he was sworn to, whom he’d been warned by. Many times. Repeatedly. And Nyx Ulric was not a man easily declawed, but he felt declawed as he straightened up and gave his ruler a small nod. Hoping this wouldn’t end with him being exiled from Insomnia or something similar.

 “...Oh, I don’t know,” His Majesty then said, tone undeniably teasing, “I really think a mighty barramundi suits Nyx better, don’t you, sweetheart?” 

 Nyx sank into the bed, defeated, when his star gasped in delight and started nodding.

 Well, there were worse things for one’s love to compare them to than fish, right? 

…

 Ramuh, he loved the Lucis Caelum family.

 

 

-----

 

 
 “Hello Insomnia! I’m Ruby Cantil, and at this very moment you can see behind me the illustrious Caelum Hall - yes, that Caelum Hall! Tonight is the night, people! The night we’ve all been waiting for. The night that Noctis Lucis Caelum makes his first public appearance since the unfortunate circumstances of what happened to our former-crown prince. We can all agree that the announcement of his attendance at tonight’s charity gala was a surprise, I’m sure. But was it a bad surprise? Far from it! The people of Insomnia, of Lucis, of Eos - have all been waiting for this for months now. It’d be untrue to say the main draw of tonight is truly charity. There are high expectations being put on this appearance tonight, and will King Regis’ returned son be able to live up to them? Well, tune in with me in an hour’s time, when our royal family is set to arrive, to find out live on Insomnia Nightly!”

 The small mute icon that appeared in the bottom corner of the television screen explained why the chipper reporter went quiet.

 But despite there being no mute button for real life, the dressing room was quiet too.

 For a second time, the royal family stood tall in a mirror’s reflection. All dressed up. All dapper and respectable.

 Noctis was holding Oriens’ hand, because his son had made an unhappy noise at the reporter’s mention of his dad. The way she had described his ‘unfortunate circumstances’ perhaps? Noctis couldn’t be sure, couldn’t care much about that, as he ran his fingers carefully through Ori’s even more carefully groomed hair.

 Iggy, nearby, winced at the mess it made of his crown prince’s appearance, but Noctis knew from experience it’d be fixed before they arrived at the hall.

 “...Noctis,” Regis, not only a king but a father, turned his frown from the television and all its news channels reporting on the gala that night to his sweet son, seeing the strain around his eyes - and how could he ask this of his child? “Are you sure? You needn’t go through with this, my dear. You in no way owe them a thing.” 

 Ori pressed his head that little bit more up into his dad’s fingers running through his hair, always disliking mention of his dad having been gone.

 And the fact that he still hadn’t been told why, just that everyone seemed terribly guilty and ashamed about it.

 The most telling thing, though, was that his dad didn’t reply right away. Everyone was there with them. Grandpa. Pops Clarus and Cor and Drautos. Uncle Gladdy and Iggy. His attendants, just outside of the dressing room. Galas had always been a big deal, but Ori couldn’t remember one ever being this big a deal.

 But if his dad said he didn’t want to go, then Ori would make them let his dad stay home!

 Ah. What a fierce son he had. 

Noctis saw this determined scowl darken his son’s face, so he gave his hair a good ruffle which dissolved Ori into giggles. And then he kissed the crown of his son’s head, and again turned his gaze to the mirror. All of them. All dressed up. All ready for the gala. Almost as if nothing bad had ever befallen them. The scars were there. He had too many to hide, mentally, physically. 

 But he also had his glasses. And his braid, with its beads. And he had his son who’d matched his outfit to his. And his dad, who reached out to rest a hand lightly on his shoulder in a show of support he leaned into.

 It was going to be hard.

 It was going to be so hard.

 But Noctis Lucis Caelum wanted to do it anyways.

 “Yeah,” he whispered to his reflection, to them all, wanting to take this next step forward, “I’m sure.” 

 Let the gala begin.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Chapter 17

Notes:

Sorry for the delay, I'm no longer sick but I am interviewing for a new job! That involves longer hours.

But without further delay, the gala.

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 They rolled out the black carpet for the House of Caelum.

…

 Caelum Hall may have been tangentially attached to the Citadel of Insomnia, may have been less than a city block outside of the Wall that protected the Citadel, but they were taking no chances. Not a single one. A full caravan of Crownsguard-issued cars drove the distance of that less than a city block. There was no way for onlookers to tell which of the cars held the royal family. Then again, they knew too well that that measure wasn’t always enough.

 The scar warping their prince’s back proved it. 

 And there were a lot of onlookers. Hundreds.

 They lined the sidewalks like it was a parade that had taken to the city’s streets. Like this was a second Founder’s Day Festival that year. Citizens of Insomnia.

 Eager to show support for their prince who’d returned. Eager to tear apart their cosmology books right then and right there, and throw the torn scraps of paper into the air as if it were confetti. Clapping. Cheering. Pushing at the barricades that had been set up early that morning, eager, eager, eager - then shying away from the security teams that had been hired to keep people from running into the road.

 Less than a city block, but it felt like such a long journey.

 Noctis hadn’t been in a car since he visited Little Galahd with Nyx, and before that? Hadn’t been in a car since he was brought home from Mistveil. The motion of it moving was…a lot. He spent most of the short trip staring at his hands clasped in his lap. Around Ori’s hands. 

 It was his son and his dad getting him through this, he knew.

 This step forward, into the rest of his life.

 Deep breaths. Deep breaths. He knew how to keep calm, he knew. From years and years of lessons as a child. Yet, now, it felt like none of those lessons were enough. Only his son letting him hold his hands, letting him squeeze them each time the car turned even slightly, letting him go away - just a little - while Ori chattered excitedly about the gala kept him calm.

 It was a lot. It was scary.

 He was allowed to be scared, though. Nyx always told him so. He was allowed to be scared of the dark, he was allowed to be scared of the sounds of people breathing around him, he was allowed to be scared of being alone and being not alone at the same time.

 He was allowed to be terrified of that second where he thought he’d finally calmed down, and then the car rolled to a stop that wasn’t sudden at all but he hadn’t noticed it happening.

 Until the motions were all gone. And it felt too still. And the air felt too hard to breathe in. 

 And he held his son’s hands more firmly, feeling as if he were adrift in cold, dark waters. The interior of these cars were always Lucian-black, always black, ever since he was a child, and it was so dark…and Noctis? 

 Noctis? Noctis Lucis Caelum? He held his son’s hands, gentle yet terrified.

 And took a deep breath, staring into the eyes Oriens had gotten from him. From a mother Noctis had never met. 

 Blue. So blue, even in the darkness that seemed so utter. 

 Ori. His brave, brave son. Holding his hands back, beaming up at him, still chattering away. Pretending he hadn’t noticed. For his sake. Talking about the dessert table that Iggy had arranged with them in mind, of all things. About the main course of dinner being a nice menu of fish, just for them. The subject wasn’t what mattered, though.

 What mattered was Ori’s calm, was his son’s magic so bright, shining like a star, wound around Noctis’ wrists, his pulsepoints. 

 Soothing him.

 Until he could take in a breath that didn’t tremble.

 “Thank you, Ori,” he murmured, well aware by now that his son saw so much more than he tended to pretend he did. His gratitude was rewarded by a faint blush. And his son ducking his head. And a nod.

 And they’d arrived.

 “Noctis?” Dad asked him, so softly. Arm outstretched as if his scarred and hurting son was about to snuggle up, under it. Somewhere safe and warm and tucked into his dad’s side. A prospect that sounded nice. But Noctis shook his head against it.

 The windows were tinted black.

 So black.

 “...I’m ready.” Thank Carbuncle, nobody commented on his momentary dissociation. It happened less nowadays. But still. It happened. His dad nodded, ghosting a hand over his shoulder anyways while his arm was outstretched before he started shifting towards the door. Oriens right behind him. Both looking regal and flawless and royal.

 Down to the magical blood in their veins, royal.

 Was he ready? 

 A click, as somebody lifted the car door’s handle.

 He had to be.

 There was a black carpet laid out for them. Trimmed with gold. For the House of Caelum. There was the bustle of people, of shoes on sidewalks, of shoulders brushing. The flashing of cameras bright and white like starbursts. Voices, alone not as loud but together a cacophony. Noctis stilled. In the middle of pulling himself along the seat to the door. Seized by it all.

 By it all. It all that seemed so much. So much louder than in his memories, so much more. He honestly didn’t think he’d be able to get himself moving again, as he heard Uncle Clarus call his name softly in some distant way.

 Which was weird, because Uncle Clarus was supposed to get out ahead of his dad.

 But…Gladio had, instead. The first one out of the car; a precaution.

 And then, there was a pinstripe suit. Dad’s. His back was there, filling up Noctis’ whole line of sight as he stepped out of the car and stood. The suit, the cufflinks shimmering with the cameras’ flashes, his cape swishing. He stood tall there. In the face of it all. And Noctis felt like he could breathe when he was looking at his dad’s back again.

 Like he was a kid. Like when he was Ori’s age. Ori, who stepped out easily after his dad, with just as much elegance to stand there as well.

 It gave him his breath back.

 Noctis found it in himself to pull himself to the edge of the seat. Uncle Clarus patted him on the shoulder, “So proud of you, Noctis. Just like that,” echoing in his ears as he used his breaths to sit on the seat’s edge. Dragging his dead legs into position. Looking forward expectedly to find his wheelchair being unfolded by Gladio and set there for him, just like he knew it would be.

 Uncle Cor stood behind the door, holding it open. Iggy was offering his body to the small ring of Gladio, Ori, Dad - that surrounded him.

 Nobody could truly see him, as he carefully transferred himself from the backseat of the car into his wheelchair. Righting himself. Adjusting his legs. Letting Iggy smooth out his coat with sure hands as the world refocused.

 Refocused on the fact that the car had parked right next to the ramp leading to the walkway for Caelum Hall, not the main steps.

They’d gone through the bother of parking a bit out of the way, just so he wouldn’t have to wheel himself somewhere else to enter. And they’d even laid the black carpet out on the ramp in segments, that eventually led back to the main walkway’s long, straight length of it.

Affection swelled in his heart.

He wheeled himself up that ramp, finding his breaths in every heartbeat.

 There was news coverage of the event, of course. There were reporters with their cameras and their microphones crowded around the gates of Caelum Hall’s estate. Their bright, flashing cameras. Snapping pictures, even from a distance, of every single second. Lining the carpet like this was a celebrity event, which, it was. For Lucis, it was.

 Their calls got louder as they got closer, hands waving, voices rising. Hoping to get a picture, a comment, but the royal family had been enveloped by a team of Glaives within moments of making it up that ramp. Keeping them safe. 

If, by necessity, restricted. 

 Noctis didn’t see Nyx among this team of Glaives. He hoped his amatus would be meeting him inside.

 Their formation thinned out a little as they neared all of the hubbub. Letting the reporters get their shots, letting them shout their questions that wouldn’t be answered. But answers didn’t even matter. This was the event of a decade. The whole royal family of Lucis, attending the gala together? Every picture would be worth a hundred daemon hunts. Pictures of Noctis? Worth a thousand.

 Regis walked at the head of them, flanked by his Shield and his Sword. King of Lucis.

 Following him was Noctis, in his wheelchair, going a bit slow but nobody minded matching his pace. They never had. They never would. They walked in time with his wheels, and that was simply that. And beside him, just behind him - Oriens. His son. His heir. Which wasn’t how it was supposed to be, Noctis knew.

 As Lucis’ Crown Prince, Oriens had every right to walk directly behind his grandfather. Technically he outranked Noctis. Technically it was his right to walk in front. 

 Oriens, though, didn’t care about technicalities. He wanted to walk with his dad.

 So he did.

 Oriens, with his little head held high, showing respect to his father by walking behind him, so much like how his grandfather was walking ever so closer to Noctis and his grandson than protocol technically said he should. Regis was sticking with his boys. They were all of a similar mindset, tonight.

 They were doing this together.

 Damn technicalities and protocol. 

 There was a woman next to the black carpet. Ruby-red hair, lipstick to match and a pearly white smile. Talking rapidly into the camera her cameraman was holding next to her. She just kept talking faster and faster as they neared her, her who was allowed to stand closest to the gates of the venue out of all of Insomnia’s reporters. Her lips kept moving faster. Noctis shifted. Slowed a little.

 Ignis strode forward with purpose, headed straight for her. Breaking away from their entourage to get there before anybody else.

 Noctis watched as his once-Hand reached her. As he reached out and cupped her elbow, not nearly as kindly as he treated Noctis himself or Oriens.

 Watched as Ignis tugged her to the side, out of frame of the camera for a second.

 Watched his old, dear friend’s lips move as well, far more slowly, sounding out whatever he had to tell the woman very, very, very clearly. Eyes narrowed to slits. 

 Noctis watched that pearly white smile freeze in place, as if she’d been hit by a sudden cold front. That woman. He knew who she was. She was Ruby Cantil - they’d been listening to her coverage of the event earlier. The most famous reporter in Lucis, for Insomnia Nightly. No wonder she was allowed outside of the bounds of the regular reporters. 

 She had a badge around her neck with ‘VIP’ printed on it, so she wasn’t just a reporter who’d snuck her way somewhere she didn’t belong. The prince could guess, however, what Ignis had to say to her. It was the same as when he was a kid. A list of topics she could mention, what she could ask, what she absolutely could not ask - 

 Not unless she wanted to be dragged off the black carpet by angry Glaives and lose all future privilege for royal events. 

 Noctis took a deep breath. The Kingsglaive spread out further around them, and the reporters behind them literally cast their shadows with their camera flashes, in this world of early evening light.

 “Your Majesty,” Ruby intoned politely, properly, bowing to them and everything as his dad came to actually stop a few feet from the woman, “Ruby Cantil, Insomnia Nightly. If you’d have time for a few questions before the event, I’m sure Lucis wants to know.” 

 “A few questions, Miss Cantil. Just a few.” 

 All three members of the House of Caelum, stopped together on the black carpet for the camera, and Noctis knew he was now being shown live on screens all across Eos at that very moment.

 It was a struggle; not squirming in his wheelchair. Suddenly it felt so…he felt so aware of it, like he hadn’t been since before Mistveil, since he was a child. It felt so clunky. So big and awkward as he tried to remember how to sit in it in a way that looked natural. 

 Then Ori reached over to hold the armrest, so distinguished, so calm, his little dawnlight looked every bit the role of a prince.

 And suddenly Noctis felt more comfortable in his skin, knowing how shy his son was. Knowing they shared this.

 Ori was far better at disguising his shyness though, than his dad had been at his age.

 “ - that is good to hear, of course, Your Majesty,” and he came back to that current conversation to realize he’d missed Ruby’s original question, his dad’s answer, and now the woman’s sharp gaze was shifting to him and Oriens with an eagerness that almost seemed manic, “And you, Your Highness? Prince Oriens? How does it feel to have your dad back in your life?” 

 Several forms stiffened all around them. Even Ruby cringed a second after she asked that like she was cursing herself in her mind.

 Not the best question, proven by the way Oriens shifted twice in place before slowly answering it.

 “It has been very rewarding to meet my father,” answering in a clear, cool voice, and his dad was just so proud of his Ori, “I may never have had the chance to know him before he went away, but I find myself very sure, Miss Cantil, that my life would’ve been lesser had that never changed. Our family is complete now. That’s what matters.” 

 Oriens.

 So, so slowly, hopefully sneakily and out of sight of the camera, Noctis crept his pinky finger towards his son’s hand on the armrest of his wheelchair. He hooked it over Ori’s. And he gave it a bit of a squeeze. 

 So proud.

 “And you, Your Highness? Prince Noctis?” All attention, all eyes in Lucis, in Eos, they turned to Noctis Lucis Caelum at that moment with that question. Thousands holding their breaths while it was finally the man’s turn to breathe. A microphone was pushed his way. The camera focused. The woman with ruby-red hair and ruby-red lips smiled, and - 

 Yeah.

 They’d gone to highschool together, hadn’t they? Veronica.

 “If you have any words for Lucis, Highness, you can share them.” 

Ruby Cantil, Veronica, his classmate, the girl everyone called so vain and nosy and look at her now - said in a lower tone of voice than she’d used with his dad or his son. And it felt for a second like Noctis was just a teenager again. And Veronica was late for cheerleading practice, and they’d run into each other in the halls so they were complaining about the homework they’d been assigned.

 She looked different. Aged. Established. It’d taken him a second to recognize her, but recognizing her had his shoulders lowering. Just a little. 

 He was okay.

 So he leaned forward just a little to say - 

 “Hello, Lucis.” There was no speech, “It’s been a while,” there was no planned address, not here, “hasn’t it?” In truth, Noctis never even thought Lucis deserved that from him, “It’s…been a long road,” but maybe, “and I won’t…say any of it was easy, or acceptable,” just maybe, “in any way. At all. But I’m here.”

 Maybe he deserved this.

 “I’m here, and that’s all I really can be now, and I won’t apologize for that. I’m home.” 

 Carbuncle’s dear dreamer had come home.

 All across Eos, the people of the star regretted.

 They kept on walking on the black carpet. Wheeling. Heads held high. 

Caelum Hall ahead of them.

 The hall was as stunning as it was old. The evening hour leaving the skies behind it painted in lilacs and lavenders, the gold and white stone of its spires shimmering. Situated on an estate full of lush, flowering gardens. It simply looked like something out of a storybook. A happy ending. With a not so happy tale attached to it.

 Caelum Hall had a long and storied history.

 A history most people had forgotten. The foundations of that hall were taken from Solheim. Its pillars, from a palace toppled. Its polished floors of marble, from house by house of the House of Caelum, back when branches of the family still grew throughout Lucis. Ornate and grand, open to the public only for the most special of events and nothing else, a site of many milestones in the kingdom’s history, Caelum Hall was a cornerstone.

 Seeped in histories combined.

 Noctis had never liked attending events in the hall, as a child. First, because it meant boring political games. Then, because it hadn’t been made wheelchair-accessible until after the Marilith attack. And then? Simply because it meant all the tethers of royalty falling heavy on his shoulders when he was a teenager who wanted anything but.

 Now he headed straight for Caelum Halls’ grand entryway without any of that old unease.

 Smiling at the extra skip in Oriens’ step after what he’d had to say to Eos.

 Still.

 He had to pause before taking his next breath, and of course his dad happened to be glancing back to check on him at that moment. 

 “Noctis? Sweetheart?” So much concern, “Are you alright?” 

“I - “ It came out as a wheezing noise, so he paused to slow his breathing and try again, “I just…need a moment, Dad.” 

 Even though they’d only just arrived. Even though they were still in the entryhall of Caelum Hall. Even though he was alright.

 “There were…a lot of people.” 

 “Of course. Of course. Over here, sweetheart.” 
 
It was no trouble, no trouble at all. Not really. Not to any of them. The royal entourage slipped silently into small alcoves at the entry, where they were hidden by gilded pillars and flower arrangements. The cameras weren’t on them now. And so what if their entrance came a little late? Who was going to chide royalty for that? 

 They were all just so proud of Noctis, is what they were. Noctis who’d handled that so, so well. Who’d stayed so calm and so composed throughout that whole ordeal, who’d addressed Eos with such grace, such poise - they were all just so proud. So if they had to hover around the entryhall for a few minutes? Admiring the beautifully lush vases of flowers and talking amongst themselves?

 They were perfectly fine with it.

 It was a lot. All of it. That all, to Noctis, felt like he’d just spent hours facing off against a tumultuous council, like when he was a teenager.

 But it hadn’t really been all that bad. 

 So he stilled his heart, thumbing at his braid, remembering that Nyx was waiting for him too.

 So they went, with Dad’s hand a weight on his shoulder and Ori his adorable, dapper little son who still seemed so happy about all of this.

 They made their entrance into the grand hall.

…

Caelum Hall looked to the House of Caelum.

And weren’t they a sight to see.

King Regis Lucis Caelum, head held the highest and a gentle smile at his mouth as he hobbled forward with his cane. For so many years now a symbol of Lucis’ grace and Lucis’ prosperity. For so many years now the reason for both of those things. The Father who watched over them all, with a silver wisp of a crown at his brow and his golden details glimmering in the lights of the hall.

Crown Prince Oriens Lucis Caelum, nose up properly and looking adorably proper at that, walking slowly just behind his grandpa’s side. Lucis’ future. Eos’ future. With his little bowtie and a wisdom behind his blue-blue eyes that few would deny. 

And? 

Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, wheeling himself aside to get to the short wheelchair ramp that would get him onto the hall’s marble floors, sitting up tall. So tall. And for so many? This was their first time seeing King Regis’ son with their own eyes since his return. The rumors, the whispers, the pictures - they had nothing on his absolute presence, did they? Absolutely not.

 Those who had known him when he was just a princling, young and pure and naïve, saw the changes most apparently. But even those who’d never met him saw the sort of man he was.

 A survivor.

 Maybe he looked a little aged beyond his nearly thirty years of life, maybe he had a silver strand in his hair here or there, and glasses, with a myriad of pale scars visible across his skin. Maybe his hands looked a little small for the swords he’d been meant to wield once. Maybe his legs no longer moved him. Maybe none of that mattered.

 There were crinkles, around his blue-blue eyes, as he rejoined the king and prince at the bottom of the ramp. 

 There was their Prince Noctis.

 Still with love for his family, as he’d always been known to have in spades.

 Somebody began to clap. Quiet, but echoing in the grandness of Caelum Hall with its domed ceilings and spare space. Then another joined in. And another. And another. And another. Until the clapping filled the whole hall, from all in attendance. There were no cheers. But the sentiment was there. And it was a moment that surely made the House of Caelum taller, as they inclined their heads to it.

 As King Regis straightened with his cane, his gentle smile, to address them all.

 “Welcome, my friends. Welcome to the Caelum Charity Gala of this year, M.E. 766. I am gladdened to see so many of you managed to attend. As you know, the funds we raise go to those in the kingdom most in need of them, and there are still a great many in need since the war’s end. Peace is not the end of need. Peace is only the beginning of fulfilling those needs. And peace is what we have, and what we must maintain, by giving what support we can to those who rely upon us. For we are those who have the ability and resources to provide that support. Thank you for attending. Truly. And I hope you all have a wonderful night here in Insomnia.” 

 There was a reason Regis Lucis Caelum was seen as such a fair and understanding ruler.

 There was a reason his decision to overthrow his council of generations and execute his son’s abusers had been shocking to Lucis.

 But here, tonight, his people clapped proudly at his address.

 “Please,” their king told them, “enjoy the gala! And let us all remember for what reason we gather like this, every year.”

 So the gala began properly, glasses raised in cheers to the Lucian King and the murmur of agreement filling Caelum Hall. 

 So the gala began properly.

 So the gala began.

 

 

-----

 

 

The gala wasn’t anything new to Noctis. He’d been attending them for as long as he could remember, before Mistveil. Especially this big, yearly one held in Caelum Hall every new autumn. Galas always followed the same sort of precedent. There would be speeches, there would be toasts, and there would be gossip. Lots of gossip. 

There would be a dinner catered by the finest chefs royalty could call for, and a dessert course to match, and after everyone had eaten?

There would be an auction, selling off various objects of worth ranging from pieces of art to historical texts to finely bred chocobos. The money would then be donated to the various causes supported by the Crown. 

 It was a gala brimming with Lucis’ most prominent, and most wealthy, families.

 Businessfolk, the new noble families on the council, old wealth. 

 All of them, gathered in Caelum Hall for the evening to flock around and preen each other’s feathers. 

 A game that had to be played, for the people helped by the money raised.

 People, places, like the Storm Islands. Like Galahd.

 Blue-blue eyes scanned the grand hall, finding Nyx. The Glaive with a few of his fellow lieutenants, standing at attention behind Captain Drautos on the far side of the hall. Near the pillars. Where they’d be ‘out of the way.’ 

 Nyx failed to move for a second.

 Then his lips quirked up.

 And he shifted out of his stiff at-attention pose to give Noctis a wave.

 “Would you like me to stay with you, Noct?” 

 Noctis considered Ignis’ offer. He understood it; leaving him to his own devices in a whole hall of people whom it was important for their family to stay on good terms with was a risk. He could see it in those green eyes too, so serious, so shadowed. The last thing Iggy wanted was to leave him alone to the wolves surrounding them. But. It wasn’t an offer he could accept.

 Because his son needed his Hand with him, more than Noctis needed his oldest friend.

 “Stay with Oriens,” he told Ignis instead, entrusting him with this as he inclined his head towards where Ori was already being approached by a small group of folk with big, fake smiles pasted onto their faces, “I’ll be fine. He needs you more.” 

 Torn between his prince and his prince. That much was clear.

 But Ignis Scientia still did as he must and bowed to Noctis, murmuring, “As you wish,” before he went to the one he was actively sworn to. To attend to him. As his Hand.

 Leaving Noctis a little alone at the entrance to the grand hall. He shifted, feeling so easily the eyes scanning him over slowly. He had the Glaives still flanking him, but with his father attending to greetings and his son off to do his duty by being sociable, both of them taking their retinues?

 The one between them, the one forsaken, was left there.

 Trying not to frown too obviously as he watched his dad grin and do his duty by being companionable with all the older, jolly patrons attending tonight. Trying not to look too concerned as he watched Oriens stride straight up to those people who’d been heading for him to smile and begin talking to them politely.

 They all had their roles tonight, other than Noctis.

 Noctis, whose only role was to look sane and somewhat healthy, and not cause any incidents that would destroy the royal family’s standing in any way. Not that he thought his dad would be upset with him if it happened - but he didn’t want it to happen.

 But he knew just sitting by the entrance for hours would do nothing, so he wheeled himself forward.

 Allowing the Glaives to finally disperse to their stations around the edges of the hall for the evening.

 Into the fray, he tossed himself.

 It was slower than a warp, far slower, but it was no less effective. The very second he moved at all, even more eyes darted eagerly towards him. And the very second he made to mingle, it was as if a hundred guests took that as their cue all at once to start in his direction with genial smiles on their faces, trying not to look too much as if they were rushing to beat everyone else to him.

 This must be how a piece of meat felt when torn between two starving coeurls.

 Well, not that Noctis needed to imagine what that felt like all that much, since he knew exactly what it felt like to have people fight over how they could have him.

 “Hello!” 

 The winner to the race called out to him, a woman in a white pantsuit with her hair in rich curls and a flower pinned to her breast. She was grinning. She looked a bit like a hungry coeurl, as a matter of fact. So smug as she tossed her hair a little and several of the other guests backed off, grumbling, but aware of etiquette in this.

 Noctis was aware of etiquette too.

 And so he sucked in a tiny, unseen breath to say, “Hello, ma’am.” 

 And so he rejoined society.

 A piece of meat they all wanted a bite out of.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Fuck, <he looks so on edge.>” Axis’ muttered observation was echoed in grunts by his fellow Glaives, as the lieutenants all stood at-attention behind their Captain, expected to remain as a show of force for at least the first thirty minutes of the event before they’d gradually split off with dinner nearing.

Muscles in Nyx’s jaw tensed.

His stormy eyes flicked towards inlustris, then flicked away.

Yeah. Yeah, his star looked on edge. He was hiding it well though. It was all under the surface. His star looked fucking gorgeous, but like he was half-expecting all of the attendees stampeding up to him to summon weapons out of the Armiger and attack him. But gorgeous. He’d taken Nyx’s breath away, when he saw his star enter. 

The tailored coat made his waist look so lithe, and the boots looked so fashionable on him. His hair looked so rich and braidable in the shining lights of the hall, and his beads were so obviously polished with care before he’d come here.

Nyx wanted nothing more than to warp right over to his amatus and tell him all of those things.

 But as a Glaive, he had his place. So the Ulric Chieftain was stuck a while longer standing at-attention, watching from afar with his fellow Glaives as rich folk after rich folk rushed up to his star to chatter at him. To wave their hands and squawk and smile behind their glasses of drink with all their teeth.

 Logically, Nyx knew most of them were probably good people. They weren’t really vultures looking to rip the flesh from a hurt star.

 He knew Galahd had benefited for years from these charity events, and from these people’s money.

 But that made him no more at ease, watching. Waiting.

 Counting down the ticking seconds until he could go to inlustris and know that his star was really doing okay.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There were so many eyes on Noctis Lucis Caelum that night. 

So many more than on anyone else.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis was working so hard, at being sociable. Presentable. A scion of the House of Caelum like he was originally born to be. 

 Now he needed only to be his father’s son, and Ori’s father, and happy.

 

 

-----

 

 

 They were all so proud.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Hey, inlustris.” 

 Startling his star wasn’t Nyx’s intention - duty done for a second and the Glaives let loose across the hall, he’d headed straight for him. Sitting on the sidelines and seemingly relieved for it, and free for just a moment of those seeking to brush shoulders with a story sensation like the prince who’d been falsely imprisoned and then proven innocent. 

 So, startling his star wasn’t Nyx’s intention, but he still did just that when he popped up behind him without warning like that.

 Inlustris jumped a little, magic prickling a little, thorns just waiting for a threat.

 He apologized with a grimace on his lips, circling Noctis to kneel right at his side.

 “Sorry, starlight,” he apologized with his words too, well aware of how jumpy so many people being around was probably making his amatus, “The captain let us loose. Shouldn’t have crept up on you like that though. I just couldn’t wait any longer to come talk to you.” 

 “It’s fine,” inlustris said with ease, the strain easing around his eyes too, “Hi, Nyx. How’s being on duty tonight?”

 “Like being a very particular sort of dancer at a very particular sort of club,” the Glaive huffed, earning some snorts of amusement from the other Glaives on guard within range - and he would know. He’d drunkenly danced at a few of those sorts of clubs in the past, “Our braids make it a little obvious, inlustris. No more obvious than me talking to you, though.” 

 There were easily a hundred pairs of eyes trying to pretend they weren’t peeking at them at that very moment.

 It was almost enough to make the handsome Nyx Ulric feel flustered. Almost. Not quite.

 “Does it bother you?” 

 “Nah,” Nyx waved his star’s concern idly away, shifting to more important topics. And shifting onto his knees properly too. Folding up his arms on the armrest of his prince’s wheelchair, and resting his chin on them. Grinning up at him, “<But, I gotta say, starlight - you look incredible tonight. Took my breath away when I saw you.>”

 The color that rose to his star’s cheeks was flattering; from just a single compliment. Nice and dusky pink.

 It gave him a whole lot of confidence, Ramuh have mercy.

 “<Seriously, beloved. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. That suit, seeing you in a tie, head held high and all handsome and confident like that? I totally swooned. Sonitus had to catch me.>”

 “<Sonitus would’ve dropped you on your ass, Nyx. Don’t lie!>” One of their Glaive shadows, another Bellum, barked out. Triggering barks of laughter from all the other Glaives as Nyx was tattled on.

 “Well, alright. Maybe I didn’t fall swooning, but I definitely swooned, sweetheart.” 

 “I…could wear a tie…more often, I suppose,” was what his star mumbled in response to all his gushing, and Nyx was more than flattered. By Ramuh, he was in love. He wanted to crawl up into his star’s lap and kiss his braid, that was what he wanted.

 But they were in public, and publicly inclined, so he had to maintain a pretend distance from this man whom he loved.

 You know, disregarding all those eyes that had just totally seen the Glaives all but catcall him in response to his silly flirting. They really weren’t hiding all that much. They hadn’t wanted to. They wouldn’t be. Nyx was proud to show off this man he adored, and Noctis? 

 He hoped his star, his Noctis, was no less proud.

 So busy admiring how handsome his starlight was in the shining lights of the hall, Nyx never noticed until something nudged his wrist that inlustris’ pinky finger had crept over to his arms. Folded on his armrest.

 That pinky nudged his wrist again, and he let a grin take his mouth.

 Smug as a fucking coeurl who’d caught its prey as he slowly, gently, clasped his star’s hand in his. In public. In that moment.

 Silence never really fell between them. There were just lulls in the moments of them talking about different guests they saw, and how the gala had gone before his star arrived, and how much trouble Nyx would cause if he somehow, somehow, overturned the dessert table at some point that night. Not that he had any experience. Doing that. Before. Not at all.

 Captain Drautos had ordered him to stay away from the dessert table for no reason whatsoever. No reason at all.

 He just didn’t want to deal with any Glaives hyped up on sugar. Yeah. That was it.

 That was all nice, to Noctis.

 When Nyx had to go, he went with his star’s warmth in his hand and his head held high above the stares sent towards their braids.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “How’s he doing?” Regis asked softly over the lip of his champagne glass, swishing it. As though in thought. It gave him a lull in the constant conversations.

Clarus leaned a bit to the side, then leaned back in close.

 “Seems okay. Maybe a bit frazzled. Should I have some of the councilmembers run interference?” 

 “Yes, thank you.” 

 Entertain his guests. Entertain his newly chosen council of only a few months. Entertain those who were watching extra closely, with ties to lands outside of Lucis. Regis knew his duty. Knew it well. He knew how to smile and make it seem so genial and genuine, knew how to get them laughing politely at him, and how to stand at the center of a room and seem larger than life despite his need for a cane.

 But it was so much harder to know he had to stay where he was, after walking away from his sweet son and leaving him to the attendees.

 He’d kept an eye on Noctis the whole time, but of course. It felt like they’d been in Caelum Hall for hours rather than the little more than half an hour that they had been.

 When his strong, strong nightlight had actually moved to mingle all on his own, Regis’ heart had been pounding so hard he swore it’d burst from his chest.

 He waited.

 He watched.

 He held sway over it all, never letting Noctis go far from his thoughts or his sight.

 But with Clarus’ words, he risked a peek. Through the cluttering of folk surrounding him, with their finery and their richness and their chatter. Noctis was staring up at two of Duscae’s nobles. A very standard look of attention on his face, listening to them talk about whatever it was they were talking about. 

 He saw the creases from how Noctis was scrunching up his nose, though. And that his fingers were gripping the armrests.

 “Make it a few more councilmembers, Clarus,” he said quickly, gripping the champagne glass more tightly.

 “Yes, Your Majesty.” 

 All he could do was wait. All he could do was watch.

 He held sway over it all, but that was all he could do under the eyes and expectations of his people.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The newest members of his father’s council Noctis hadn’t really met before this night. And they were flitting closer then further away then closer to him, over the hour that drew on. Introducing themselves. Eying him with their expectations. Then? 

Surprisingly, shifting attention away from him by leading guests away with their pomp and talk of council business.

 More than one chatty guest had had their elbow taken by a councilmember and tugged away, and Noctis realized the reason why when he caught his dad staring worriedly at him from over the lip of his champagne glass.

 …It was okay of him to accept help.

 So he nodded thankfully to his dad, as he was given more and more breathers while the hour went on.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Many of the new councilmembers seemed…decent, to Noctis. 

 Maybe that was because they were from lesser houses. Or maybe that was because they were on their best behavior after what had happened to the previous council of generations of Lucis’ history. They seemed to introduce themselves the most briefly to the returned royal, and seemed to be doing as his dad ordered by keeping the non-councilmembers appropriately distracted. Elsewhere. Away from him.

 It was a good foot to start them all off on.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ignis, likewise, he caught glaring at them all from Oriens’ side. So he assumed they’d been instructed thoroughly on leaving him be before the gala had ever started.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The braid was an obvious thing. Noctis was aware of that. Nyx had said as much too. He, himself, was thumbing at it as his nerves grew. Drawing attention to it. Those first eyes had drifted towards it again and again, and that had been a pattern that simply repeated with every new person who approached with their bows and platitudes. 

 It was other.

 It was so obviously not Lucian.

 One brazen man with a swagger and a second glass of champagne had actually reached out as though to touch it, while bowing and introducing himself. Noctis couldn’t recall his name because all he could recall was fingers going for his braid. A Glaive clearing their throat somewhere behind the prince had saved the man his fingers. Maybe even his life.

 Another, less restrained Glaive had summoned a weapon to hand in a shower of crystals and the tipsy man had immediately cowered.

 Even for those who didn’t know Galahdian tradition, they knew it meant something.

 And those who did know seemed to be spreading it around, or Noctis assumed they were. Because several guests he’d now seen wander around where the Glaives were on duty, where Nyx was on duty, scanning the Galahdians’ braids without any attempt to hide what they were doing.

 By the end of the night, he knew they’d have picked out that Nyx’s braid and beads matched his.

 And what that meant.

 And that was fine with him, he just hoped Nyx was truly fine with it too.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum had attended so many of these things. Even if there was a decade between now and the last time, he knew how the games worked. Like he knew Ori was only smiling that widely because it’s what guests expected to see of small, ‘cute’ princes. And like he knew most of the times his dad shifted it wasn’t casual - it was some sort of silent order for those looking out for them in the hall.

 Attendees approached, so he entertained.

 “Hello, Your Highness - “

 “Hello, Prince Noctis - “ 

 “Hello again, Highness, you may not remember me - “ 

 “It is so nice to meet you, Your Highness, I’m - “ 

 “This is my daughter, Your Highness - “ 

 “I am so very sorry to hear about all that happened - “ 

 “Terrible, isn’t it? Your innocence being proven was such a good thing for Lucis - “ 

 Fingernails digging into the armrests of his wheelchair.

 Most had the common sense to steer completely around Mistveil Keep. Around those ten years. Mentioning how he was ‘back’. That was all. Most. Not all. 

 “If I could introduce myself - “

 “I was recently raised in status to be on your father’s council, Your Highness - “ 

 They seemed to be sticking to the title of ‘Your Highness’ for him, in spite of him being removed from the line of succession. One bold woman had tried to address him without any title at all while Ignis was sweeping by to check on him, and his firmly voiced correction was apparently noted by everyone within hearing range.

 Still a prince. Still his father’s son.

 Still a Lucis Caelum.

 There was prestige, to be found, in introducing themselves to the prince who’d returned. Honestly it made him uncomfortable. Another full hour ticking by, tick by tick, full of blurring faces and blending voices as every single person attending the gala made sure to greet him properly.

 He felt like a novelty. The traumatized, hurting man in a wheelchair at the edge of the hall’s grandness, half in the light half in the dark. A story they all wanted to be a part of. To hear. But never to live themselves. The second the novelty wore off, the second they noted his scars, his tired eyes, his wheelchair as more than just a vague detail to him? 

 They started to drift off, almost as fast as they’d come.

 Noctis hadn’t felt so put on display since he was younger. At least, not displayed in this way.

 He noticed, of course, the concerned glances his dad continued sending his way over the hour. And those shifts that clearly translated as orders for Glaives to helpfully nudge folk along when they stayed to try and talk to Noctis for longer than he could handle, and didn’t take the distraction that Dad’s councilmembers offered.

 He noticed when Gladio appeared to his left, arms crossed, looking so refined. Looking so protective. A true Amicitia Shield.

 He took the five minutes that his once-Shield was there to sink back a bit and catch his breath. Trying to sort through all the introductions swimming around in his head.

 He…wasn’t used to this much interaction anymore. That was for sure.

 Ignis would sweep past, getting drinks, holding up such composed conversations with guests, always returning to Ori but his attention was still on Noctis too.

 Who thumbed his braid, and tried to let the gala flow. It really was a lovely event.

 The flower arrangements Gladio’s wife, Cecilia, had helped arrange. They were so full. So bright. He ended up sitting next to a pedestal with one vase since the smell was soothing. The drapes in the halls were embroidered with golden thread, the stones all white and pale and cream in a contrast to the Citadel’s blacks. And with the crystal chandeliers? Everything shone.

 A fairytale come true, especially as the evening drew on and the skies darkened outside in the pavilions. 

 The golds stood out all the more in the din.

 An hour gone by.

 And they called for dinner with a chiming.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis honestly couldn’t help smiling, when he saw his Uncle Cor wandering around the hall as things settled for dinner somewhat, with a camera clasped in his hands. Frowning into the viewfinder while snapping pictures.

 It was new, yet it was nostalgic too. Prompto had influenced his dad as much as Uncle Cor had influenced him, hadn’t he?

 

 

-----

 

 

 Dinner had charm.

 Aside from the indisputable truth that each and every dish looked as if it was worth being photographed and printed onto the front page of a magazine, it was also a dinner planned with Noctis in mind. Ignis’ doing. 

 Ignis, who was serving Noctis his dishes personally, as if they were still prince and chamberlain. As if he hadn’t his own place at the stately table, as an advisor to the royal family. As Oriens Lucis Caelum’s Hand.

 Dinner was appetizers and several fish options that looked positively divine.

 And made Noctis long for his fishing pole.

 Dinner saw him sat at his dad’s right hand, despite him holding no official position as a royal, with Oriens to his right as well. It was a displacement. But nobody in attendance dared say a word about the impropriety. Dad took the chance of relative privacy they had at the head of the long, long feasting table to ask how he was. How was the night treating him? How he was, again.

 “You are doing so well, Noctis, sweetheart. Just remember we can make your excuses for you if it becomes too much at any point. I will not have you kept here. I swear.” 

 “Thanks, Dad. I promise I’m doing okay…for now.”

 Oriens spent every moment in-between bites of his meal regaling his dad with silly stories about the guests of the gala. All the gossip he could remember. Which was quite a lot, it turned out. His son kept records of courtly gossip Noctis learned when he pulled a small notebook out of his Armiger just under the edge of the table, out of sight.

 Thankfully, dinner, with the sheer length of the table? Was not as much a time for socializing unless it was with your elbow neighbors. 

 He was free to go without speaking for a while, and it wasn’t even considered impolite. 

 Dinner was his own time; his time to think about how he wanted to go fishing the following day and to listen to his son and to listen to his dad.

 Dinner was simpler than anything else had been, so he enjoyed it a lot more than he’d expected he would.

 Finery in the form of dinner plates and utensils, a finer embroidered table cloth he had to be careful he didn’t catch in his wheelchair’s wheels, and the constant chatter around the table’s length, notwithstanding. The food was delicious. He found himself motioning to Iggy to ask that some be saved for the Glaives on duty too, to take home. 

 Better that than let leftovers go to waste, and Noctis had always felt a tad guilty seeing them all standing guard while he ate. 

 Nyx, he thought, could do with more fish in his diet. 

 He intended to deliver for his amatus.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The whole, evening - was turning out better than they’d all expected, wasn’t it? Noctis wasn’t exactly comfortable. Saying he was would be a lie. He didn’t think he’d ever really be comfortable around groups of people, all breathing, all staring, ever again. But…dinner had been good. Warm. Dessert had been sweet on his tongue. Ori had shared a second slice of ulwaat berry cake with him. 

 The lighting was crystalline, the hall something out of a fairytale or some dream Carbuncle might’ve sent him as a child. 

 The murmur of voices, the low tenor of instruments as an orchestra filled the hall with music.

 It was all, just…something softer than he’d expected.

 It was all enough to make him feel small again. Young again. Like he was still his dad’s little princling, struggling to keep his eyes open with a full stomach and a late hour upon them. Leaning into his dad’s leg. Nuzzling his pants. Barely, barely awake. Dozing off, only to wake up in the car with his head in the crook of Dad’s neck, his cologne’s scent all around him.

 Nostalgic. It was nostalgic.

 That was one of those realizations that hit the part of him, of his heart, that would always be tender about the ten years that he’d missed.

 Noctis took that realization with him, out of the hall. 

 Not far. No. He had no illusions about him going far meaning anything other than his dad ordering the whole Kingsglaive to follow him. But Caelum Hall had these tall, arching doorways that opened into pavilions in the gardens. Like balconies on the ground floor. Surrounded by flowers, petals bright in the moonlight.

 The breeze was nice. Cool. He wheeled himself out there to put his wheelchair next to the railings where flowering vines draped. 

 He stared up at the moon. The stars. The blue, night skies, with the tops of skyscrapers in his peripheral. It felt so silent there, with only the distant droning of the gala’s noise reaching him. Noctis was…pretty proud of himself. Was that okay? He thought he was doing decently.

 He thumbed his braid. He thought of Nyx grinning at him. Of Nyx acknowledging his braid, in public like that.

 He felt his cheeks warm in spite of the breeze.

 “Noctis?” His hand fell from his braid, even though it wasn’t necessary.

 “Uncle Cor.” 

 His Uncle Cor came right up to the railing to join him, his jacket off and slung over one shoulder now. His eyes also looking up at the night skies shadowing Insomnia. Making them all seem so small. They just stayed like that for a minute. Silent. And Noctis’ eyes shifted down to the camera hanging around his uncle’s neck, because in his memories? 

 It was always somebody else with that camera around their neck.

 “Hey, Uncle Cor?” And all of a sudden, Noctis had something he needed to say to that somebody.

 “Yeah?” 

 “Can I borrow your phone?” 

 Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was the worst timing. But tonight - tonight, Noctis had his voice. And he had things he wanted to say while it was still his. So he accepted the phone his uncle dug out of his pocket, and he found the contact he was looking for saved under the ‘favorites’ list.

 The picture of a chocobo that popped up before he dialed was fitting.

 Noctis stared at the night skies as he listened to it ring.

 A click. A, “Dad? What’s up? The gala going okay?” 

 “Prom.” 

There was a pause, then? Shifting. Fabric. Like Prompto was rolling over in bed. Waking up. He didn’t sound all that sleepy, though. There was a second voice, softer, with a twang to the words in the background. Were he and Cindy in bed together? Noctis waved away the image of that from his mind.

 It wasn’t his place anymore.

 “Noct, hey. What is it? You okay?” They were friends who’d gone on with life.

 “Yeah. Just, taking a breather.” Even if he could still remember a hundred galas where he’d done this exact same thing; stepped out for a breather and called his best friend. Called Prompto. All those little moments. All those little laughs. All those days, of being teenagers, who…

 “Hey, Prom?” If his voice trembled a bit, would they hold that against him? 

 “Yeah?” If Prom’s was also trembling through the phone, could he be forgiven?

 “...You know, I would’ve loved you forever if I could’ve.” 

 They’d lost their chance. They’d moved on.

 They still remembered, though.

 “I - I know, Noct,” pieces of them would always still be those boys, wouldn’t they? “I would’ve loved you forever too. I would’ve been happy to. So, so happy. You would’ve made me so, so happy.” 

 Noctis thumbed at his braid. At the beads, reminiscent of a night sky. He thought of Nyx. Nyx with his stormy eyes, with the mischief in his smile, watching him. Watching him and smiling and waving. 

 “...I love Nyx.” 

 “Congratulations, Noct.”

 “Congratulations to you too, Prom.” 

 On the other side of the phone, Prompto’s palms were cupped around Cindy’s belly soon to be round and looking pregnant. And on this side of the phone, Cor’s palm was running slow lines up and down his nephew’s back. This was a call they’d needed. And apparently this was the time they’d needed it. 

 They said their goodbyes softly, in front of the flowers, and then hung up. And Cor accepted the phone back.

 “Thanks, Uncle Cor.” 

 “‘Course. If you ever need anything, Noctis…”

 “I know. Thanks.” 

 Tonight was just the night that Noctis had gotten more of his voice back than he had in a while, wasn’t it? He had so much to say. So much he hadn’t been allowed or able to say for so long. And now he could. He just, had to work up to it. Who knew it would take just one more step forward for him to confront his feelings for Prom? For his best friend?

 For the boy who would’ve been his Heart and his everything, if things had just been a bit different?

 For now, though, the raven-haired man laid his head on the railing, with the flowers, and collected his breaths. 

 Imagining, for himself, for just one moment, that he was still that boy too.

 Then he let it go, finally. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Prompto squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling…and let it go.

 He would never say Noct called at an inopportune time, even if he and Cindy had been wrangling in the sheets as it were when he did call.

 They’d both needed that.

 Like he needed his girl, his wife, his pregnant wife, who slowly crawled on top of him to straddle him and be gentle with him as he finally let go of it a little more. Heart tender. So, so tender. It always would be. But he’d be okay. He kissed Cindy sweet and knew he’d be better than that one day. Him, and Noct too - they deserved that.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The whole, ‘auction’, part of a charity gala? Wasn’t one he particularly enjoyed. 

 The raised voices that echoed, the strike of a bet placed, the loud display of it all - Noctis had forewarned them all that he’d be avoiding the brunt of it. Ended up lingering in the pavilions. Thinking about what certain flowers’ colors would look like weaved together, listening to the auction that began but in a distant sort of way. 

 He sipped on a drink of something bubbly, very little alcohol, shadowed by several Glaives with braids in their hair who occasionally made conversation with him.

 Nyx came and went. On duty but also on a date…of sorts.

 He was there with his smirk and his swagger and his charm - dashing man. Listening to Noctis talk on about the fabrics he wanted next from Little Galahd to weave later. Complaining about this or that guest who wouldn’t stop hovering, asking questions about his beads and his braids and humming all suggestively. Bringing up Noctis. As if they’d caught them in some scandal.

 The raven-haired royal would chuckle.

 Would duck his head and thumb at his braid.

 “Guess you’re my scandal now, Nyx,” he’d say with his own ghost of the smirk he’d had as a sassy teenager, and Nyx would fall for his star all over again.

 “Wouldn’t be the first time I was somebody’s dirty secret,” Nyx snorted.

 And that was a statement their Glaive shadows were apparently willing to attest to, since they all snorted as well at various volumes and with various levels of exasperation at the Galahdian Chieftain.

 Nyx flapped his hands at them, and Noctis turned eagerly to hear what they had to say, and it became a game of Nyx warping around trying to cover all their mouths all at once with a very handsome blush shading in his beard.

 It wasn’t a bad way to pass the auction. Not a bad way at all. 

 Oriens came to find his dad halfway through the first portion of the auction, and stared at the Glaives all running around the dim pavilion in confusion.

 “Dad, what’re they doing?” 

 “Being silly to make me laugh,” Noctis was fine confessing, as he took his son’s hand to listen to how his dawnlight was a little bored and a little tired now and the adults were all just so boring sometimes. Galas were boring. Nobody was even causing a scene! 

 But Oriens had also overheard the history of one of the historical texts being sold off, and he wanted to ramble about that for a while. So he listened. To his son, he listened. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Uncles Drautos and Cor came to fetch their wayward royals back, when the auction reached its recess. 

 They still had dreaded socializing to do, despite the latening hour and the yawns Ori was hiding behind his hand every few minutes now.

 Inside the hall of Caelum Hall once more, Dad caught their eyes. Sending his love with a look. Surrounded, as usual. And stuck in conversation, as usual. Everyone wanted to discuss their buys now. The items they had their eyes on for the more expensive half of the auction. 

 Thank goodness most of them had finished with their badgering of him, because Noctis was content to sit in a small alcove between pillars and just watch as his dad and Ori played the roles of royals he was now somewhat exempt from.

 Being disavowed officially had its perks. Tonight had proven that.

 This had all gone better than he’d believed it would.

 This had all been a good step forward, towards his future, hadn’t it.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum, he was glad he’d attended. 

…

 Movement from the very edge of his vision, and Noctis turned to look because of course he did. He’d learned to hate having people approach his periphery years ago. At least, when he was surrounded by groups like this. It was a sort of distant reflex he didn’t think about. Like he didn’t put much thought into the movement itself.

 Yet another attendee was approaching him. Nothing new.

 As elegant and done up like a duck fit to feast on as every other rich man and woman at the gala was. With a swagger that just told Noctis he wouldn’t like this one all that much either. 

That is, he definitely didn’t like his walk.

 Like he was carrying such a heavy ego he could fall over from just a puff of breath. Those sorts were the worst. He had this awfully feathery hat, with brunette hair and these eyes that seemed like tricks of the light for the way they seemed to shift colors when Noctis tried to meet them. 

 He frowned, averting his eyes to avoid the oddly dizzying trick.

 “Hello,” he said politely in spite of that, wondering if Nyx would be back soon so he could ask for a drink or two. It was getting late.

 The response from this man wasn’t prompt, and that struck the prince. As strange. Everyone else had started with their buttering language and words right away, but this man - out of the corner of his eye? Noctis saw him instead remove his hat to sweep into a far too grandiose bow. It almost came off as mocking. He considered it mocking. Just, the air about it.

 His frown deepened. He started scanning the hall for Nyx.

 And the man leaned a little too much into his space, and that had Noctis leaning away suddenly uncomfortable. 

 But he hadn’t even the chance to ask the man with tricksy eyes to back off.

 Because then he spoke.

 “Hello again, Prince Noctis.” 

 Ah.

 Ah.

 It - 

 It was the voice.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It had been the voice.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He was being hurt.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He was being hurt?

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was a blur.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was the vague sort of awareness that his hands were hurting and rubbed raw from how hard he’d turned the wheels of his wheelchair, and the chill on the back of his neck that told him he’d gone outdoors, and it was the ringing constant and noisy in his ears that suddenly cut off without warning.

 It was the silence.

 Of being gone.

 And then not.

 The end of the silence.

 In the gardens, in their solitude, where every shadow may have been a daemon reaching for him with their glinting claws but he was in the light of the moon. Outdoors. He was outdoors. Unchained. Untouched by all but that moonlight. And - and the metal of his wheelchair, and Noctis became aware he was Noctis again with the chill of that metal.

 Which was the very last thing he wanted so he shoved himself forward.

 Falling from his wheelchair, onto the stones of a garden’s path. Shoving his wheelchair with a grunt, it rolled away.

 And he dragged himself sideways.

 Until he was no longer tearing his fingertips open on stones, but getting dirt under his nails. Grass. Dewy, with the late hour. Cold. But in an entirely natural way that metal wasn’t. It was wet and it was cold, but it was grass and little flowers and groundcover like clovers.

 And Noctis wheezed, pressing his cheek desperately into the grass.

 Grounding himself with all of its reminders that he wasn’t in Mistveil anymore.

 No more shackles. No more rusted metal. No more of that voice. No more hands reaching for him, touching him, harming him. No more mockery, no more of that voice’s jeering, no more of them gripping his hair and dragging his head up and, ‘Is that all the noble House of Caelum can handle?’ And -

 Breaths wet, ragged, on his lips. Blinking, he raised his head. His cheeks wet where they came away from the blades of grass. Whether wet from tears or from the dew, who knew. Who cared. Noctis sucked in a long, slow breath through his nose. Staring at the way the beams of moonlight were reflected off of all those dewy blades of grass.

 This wasn’t Mistveil.

 This was just a garden.

 Full of flowers, blossoming in moonbeams.

 Another long, slow breath. Through his nose. And then…Noctis hesitantly rolled himself over. Onto his back. Adjusting his legs separately. Squinting, when he was met by the full brightness of a full moon. Or close enough to one. Wondering where his glasses had gone. But. That didn’t really matter. His vision would be blurry with or without them.

 A soft exhale, and he let his head fall back in the grasses, still wet and still cold under his neck.

 The moon. The stars.

 The lights in the night sky, shining above Insomnia.

 Noctis had missed them so much, for so long. 

 He never really was going to get over being able to see them again, was he? Mistveil, everything he somehow survived in that keep, it would haunt him. For the rest of his lifetime. But…but, the voice in the darkness had left him now. There was only the silent-not-silence of the moonlit garden. The chirping of crickets. The rustle of leaves. Some pavilion somewhere with its doors open and the distant sounds of an orchestra from inside.

 Another, softer exhale. Heart quieting in his ears. No longer pounding.

 The chirp of Carbuncle. A blur of dream-blue fur in his blurry peripheral. The guardian of dreams; always there to reassure him whether awake or dreaming. He pressed his lips together, faltered…swallowed, then pressed them together again.

 To chirp back. 

 The Astrals’ Chosen King.

 Just another cricket in the garden in the night.

 Carbuncle chirped in reply. Plainly amused, he knew, because then repeated, higher-pitched chirps followed. Again and again and again. Playful. And he closed his eyes to bask in the moonlight for a moment. Heart settling. The voice gone. The outdoors and dewy grass and cold soil stuck under his fingernails.

 He was okay.

 He was going to be okay.

 He was going to be okay.

 He was going to be okay.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Damn it. Damn it. Nyx knew he should’ve been watching more closely, knew he shouldn’t have gotten distracted by all those damned fools trying butter him up because his braid matched inlustris’. But it was fine - it all seemed fine. His star was handling it all so well, he was being so strong. So incredible. And Nyx had looked away for a second - 

 And when he’d looked back, another of the gala’s attendees had been next to his star.

 Leaning in closer than he should’ve been.

 Saying something.

 Nyx hadn’t been able to see inlustris’ reaction from the angle he’d been standing at, but he had seen the man with a strange, feathery hat straighten up. And he’d seen this strange…something where brunette hair seemed to turn this berry-red color in the lights of the hall. Just for a second. And then he’d seen the self-satisfied smirk on the mystery man’s face and he’d immediately broken away from his station. Headed for his star.

 All of a sudden, it’d been as though everyone in the gala was trying to get in his way on purpose.

 He’d lost sight of inlustris and the man through all the people.

 And then when he’d gotten there, inlustris was gone. The man too.

 Turning in a circle, again and again, searching for him, Nyx had had his hand already reaching for his comlink, a terrified feeling in his chest that made it hard to breathe. He hadn’t even needed to call. His eyes had happened to meet mane’s through the crowds because those eyes were the same as his dad’s.

 He wasn’t sure what his expression was.

 And he’d watched in slow motion as the princling’s eyes grew wide; too smart. Too smart. 

 It’d been such quiet chaos. 

 But it was chaos.

 Don’t cause a stir, don’t disrupt the whole event, but the second Prince Oriens darted off like a black cat, weaving through all of his guards’ legs to get out of the hall? Escaping both his Shield’s and his Hand’s grasps? It was hard to not notice. And Nyx was reporting into his comlink, reporting that man with such an audacious hat and that inlustris had disappeared after being spoken to by him.

 Captain Drautos gave him the order to seek, so he did.

 Nyx went running out into the pavilions that had been close to where his star was sitting before. Leaving behind the sudden murmurs, wondering what was happening. Chasing mane since he had hope that the prince had actually seen where his dad went and hadn’t just run off in a random direction.

 That was all he had really, at that moment. Hope.

 And faith.

 As he thumbed his braids while darting out into the night, praying to Ramuh that his god would lead him true to his inlustris.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis was at ease and in the middle of a very bland conversation about stamps throughout the years with the royal postmaster, politely humming at appropriate points and nursing his drink, when Clarus cleared his throat next to him. Very suddenly. And noisily. And the king lowered his drink in an instant because when things stood out like that - 

 His eyes scanned the hall instinctively, even as his Shield came closer to lean into his ear.

 To say.

 “Your Majesty, Prince Noctis and Prince Oriens - “ 

 “Please excuse me,” the Father said no less suddenly, setting his drink down on a server’s tray as they passed and going. 

 To find his boys.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Daddy!” There were tears in Oriens’ call for his dad - his baby boy was calling out for him.

 Noctis jolted up as best he could with dead legs, frantic, so frantic, scanning for his son in the seconds before a blur of Lucian blacks and tearful blue eyes came rocketing down the garden path.

 And the melody of a warp’s chime echoed within the garden walls.

 And suddenly, Noctis Lucis Caelum was back on his back in the grass. The breath knocked from his lungs by his son who’d slammed right into him. 

 Who was now nuzzling into his chest as he sniffled and sniffled and sniffled, a tiny ball atop his dad.

 “Dad! You were gone!” And his sweetest little dawnlight was sniffling, because he was struggling not to cry, so he curled his fingers in his son’s hair without any regard for the hair gel keeping it all nice and neat. Letting out a noise of regret. Then nothing but shushes, as he kissed the crown of Ori’s head again and again and again.

 Reminded that his son may have been a proper little princling, but he was still only a child.

 His child.

 “Here, Ori, I’m here. I’m here.”

 And there was nowhere else on this star he’d rather be. Wrapping his most dear joy up in his arms in a moonlit garden like this. Brushing away the few teardrops that slipped down Oriens’ cheeks that were all red with the emotions of a child in distress. Kissing them away when they wouldn’t stop. Big, loud, wet kisses that made his son giggle and hiccup and hug him tighter. 

 That was how they stayed, for several sets of heartbeats as he shushed his son. Swearing with every breath that he was there for him. Because he was. He could feel Ori’s magic; so young and so brilliant it was a newborn star. And that wasn’t something he’d ever felt in Mistveil. He was in Insomnia. He was in the gardens of Caelum Hall. He kept reminding himself of that, with the small flowers underneath their cheeks and the clovers tickling their necks.

 His glasses Ori found for him with a sniffle, a shaky smile. They’d fallen off when he fell from his wheelchair.

 He placed them back on the bridge of his nose, and made a funny face by scrunching up his face and making a big deal of being able to see clearly just for the way Oriens burst into hysterical giggles and hugged him tight.

 Then, there was a soft silence. For a few moments.

 Before there was a less softened silence. There was noise. A call.

 The call of their names.

 “Inlustris! Mane!” 

 Embracing his son close to his heart, Noctis had no desire to raise his voice. So instead, he pursed his lips together and whistled. Long and low. The sound standing out in the nighttime gardens. The sound of footsteps followed it, coming nearer and nearer. He was heard. He was sought.

 Nyx Ulric, Ulric Chieftain, came into sight with his shoulders rising and falling rapidly for his breaths. Turning in a full circle. Seeking.

 Noctis whistled for a second time.

 And he was found by his hero.

 “Inlustris. Mane.” Rather, they were found. And Noctis pressed a swift kiss to his son’s forehead as Nyx moved. Warped. There was only the whistle of a kukris cutting through the night’s breeze and the chime of magic, and then Nyx appeared beside them in a shower of crystals.

 Dropped down to his knees in an instant.

 “You two okay?” Both of them nodded. Honestly content, cuddled up in the dewy grasses a little soaked and a little chilled but also grounded. And first thing first - Nyx pressed on the comlink in his ear to report that he’d found the two missing royals safe and sound. Waited for a reply. Responded, like a good Glaive.

 “Yes, Captain. Seems they both just needed some air. West garden. Near the pink hydrangeas. Yes…yes…yes, Sir. Of course. Yes…thanks, Captain. I’ve got them.” 

 The conversation finished, Nyx turned all of his minding from his comlink to Noctis and Oriens; Lucis’ Princes.

 Just laying there, staring up at him with these big, blue-blue eyes that seemed to reflect all the stars in Insomnia’s skies.

 “You two okay?” Nyx repeated now, with a new sort of undertone to the question. And even as he asked, the man with braids in his hair shifted to lay himself down on the dewy, chilly ground beside them, “<Starlight, did that man - ?>” 

 “...Just, the voices,” he whispered, wanting not to linger on that any longer.

 He understood that he’d caused a stir. He understood that he had better ways to handle that - that delusion rather than ‘running’ away. But understanding something like that and being capable of doing something else were two entirely different things. So Noctis settled for squishing his cheek into the dewy ground, the grass, and staring at Nyx who’d simply laid down beside him without question.

 In the dark, in the cold, in the wet.

 At his side, anyways.

 “You okay?” Nyx asked him, even more lowly this time, and the raven-haired man tucked his son into his side when he nodded.

 When he said, “I will be.” 

 Touched. That Nyx had come for him like this, that they had this moment together, he was touched.

 Those stormy eyes shifted. They were shaded in the night’s dark, but he noticed anyways. Noticed them shift lower. Noticed the lighting in them shift and shimmer in the moonbeams. It ensnared Noctis, for a moment. Their glimmer and their gold. And then the way they shifted again ensnared him.

 There was something intentional in the way Nyx was glancing down, then glancing up again. Something softer than usual in his small smile. So Noctis glanced down too.

 And found Nyx’s hand to be cupping his thigh so, so, so gently.

 He blinked back up, at those stormy eyes, startled. Stilling for a second. A heartbeat. Unprepared…but then…you didn’t have to be prepared for everything, did you? Some things just happened in the moment. Some things were better that way.

So in the moment, Noctis Lucis Caelum reached up to cup his hand tenderly around his favorite storm’s braids.

 Around the back of his neck.

 Sweeping his thumb across the skin there, supple and sensitive. Enjoying the way Nyx shivered.

 And sucking in a quick, quiet breath, giving Nyx all the power needed to pull away should he not want this - Noctis tugged the man down.

 To kiss.

 On the lips.

 It was like lightning. Sweeter, maybe. Nyx had clearly been sneaking treats from the dessert table this night at the gala. But it lit Noctis up like nothing else but magic ever had before.

 Nyx’s lips were chapped, thin, but they pressed down on his with an eagerness that made them seem so much more. Accepting what was offered gladly. All but folding around and over his star to do so. His other hand coming up to cup Noctis’ braid as well, a little gasp leaving him when they parted for a second - 

 A second that lasted, as Noctis’ eyes fluttered open and he wasn’t sure when they’d ever closed. 

Nyx Ulric, beaming down at him with the night sky framing him and his braids and those stormy eyes of his.

“Noctis.” 

 “Nyx…”

 That hand around his braid slid up, so mindfully. Cupping his neck. Running a thumb along his jaw. Brushing at his beard. Staring into his eyes as though lost in them. Nyx was close, and then he was closer - close enough for Noctis to count his dark lashes even in the night, as Nyx pressed his forehead to his. Nuzzling him. A chuckle low and rumbling through his throat and mercy - have mercy - 

 “I…love, you,” a star whispered in the grasses of a flowering garden.

 And the noise that escaped Nyx then was so strong, so emotional, and this man whom he loved was completely covering his body and cupping his face with both hands and laughing. Low. Mirthful.

 “I love you too, starlight.” 

 And then? There was a soft snuffling noise. So Nyx and he blinked at one another in surprise, before the Glaive shifted his weight up and back. Off of his amatus. Both of them turning their attentions to the source of that noise. Which meant they rediscovered Oriens. 

 Oriens, tucked into his dad’s side still. Covering his ears with both hands, with his face buried in Noctis’ dress jacket so his eyes were hidden from sight. Those snuffling noises coming from the way he was nodding into that jacket. Squirming. Waiting. Oh. 

Oh, Ori.

 “Ori,” he whispered to his son, shifting an arm down to gently ruffle his hair, to get him to lift his head slowly, “Ori, it’s okay. You can look.”

 Small hands formed fists in Noctis’ clothes, and he squirmed a few more times. Before peeking. Suspiciously. Up. At Nyx. Squirming forward until he’d taken more of his dad’s chest for himself, still peeking up at Nyx with a suspicion that had Noctis running a hand down his son’s back. Reassuring him. 

 Nyx had his own reassurances for his love’s son.

 “It’s alright, mane,” the man promised, and on his braids he meant that, “Remember, what we talked about?”

 That, and a wink, was enough to make Oriens relax a little into his dad’s chest. Seemingly exhausted in that way only kids could get. Awake and active one second, then dozing sleepily the next. And sleepily, the princling mumbled out - 

 “I guess, if it’s you, Nyx…I don’t mind having a stepdad.”

“Ori.”

“It’s alright, inlustris,” Nyx just chuckled in response to his star flushing because of the kid’s sleepy declaration, “remember? Nothing happens without your saying so.” 

 “...I’ve…appreciated your help, raising Ori,” Noctis confessed shyly, tucking himself around his son as well, as if they weren’t all just splayed out in the dewy garden grasses. And at that it was Nyx’s turn to flush a bit, clearing his throat. But the whole time his hand was still cupping inlustris’ thigh, and he started running his hand up and down it to ease his mind.

 “‘Raise’ may be a strong word, amatus. I won’t be upset if I’m never seen as a second father figure. Besides. We have an understanding, don’t we, mane?”

 Turning to look, both of them watched Oriens yawn, then nod. Saying solemnly.

 “Don’t hurt my dad and I won’t kneecap you, Nyx Ulric.” 

 “Oriens.” 

 Nyx’s laughter was loud. Genuine. And genuinely in love, with the both of them. Nice…it was nice. More than that. It was wonderful. The dew soaking his suit, the slight chill of the night, neither seemed to matter more than Nyx lounging in the grass beside him, hand around his braid and eyes watching over his son for him. 

 “I’d deserve it, inlustris. No worries.”

 It was good. To be in love.

 Like that was how Regis found them; in love. All three of them strewn out in the dewy grasses of a garden wreathed in moonlight. His son’s wheelchair shoved aside. His son laid back and basking in that moonlight, with his grandson nodding sleepily into his chest, and with a Glaive he’d come to trust with so much laying there as well. Watching over them both.

 Clarus’ hand was a weight heavy on his shoulder, as he sagged. Dizzy with his utter relief.

 The king sagged over his cane, shaken. So relieved but so shaken. 

 It was about time for them to call this night to an end, wasn’t it?

 Insomnia’s yearly Caelum Charity Gala ended somewhat abruptly, for its guests. For them? Their prince had disappeared. Their crown prince had followed. And then their king had hastily excused himself too, while the Glaives silently closed ranks and concern filled Caelum Hall for half an hour’s time. The royal family hadn’t even stayed long enough to see all of the auctioning to an end.

 Not that the gala was any sort of failing. As a matter of fact? Later it would be confirmed that the gala of year M.E. 766 was the most profitable gala Insomnia had held in nearly twenty years. Profits which would help so much of Lucis.

 But most importantly to Noctis Lucis Caelum later, was that it was where he kissed Nyx for the first time.

 Where he told his storm of how he loved him.

 An end with Noctis being helped back into his wheelchair, an end with him somewhat chilled, an end with the royals leaving Caelum Hall through the rear entrance where they’d be free of being watched. The king and his family made their excuses for the night. And his true excuse was that his boys were tired so he was taking them home.

 Uncles Clarus and Cor helped him slide into the backseat of a Lucian-black car. And Ori wiggled when he was set against his dad’s side, yawning, barely awake but awake enough yet to snuggle in close.

 And Regis entered after them, to sit at his boys’ sides.

 Noctis’ head rolled onto his shoulder; his son as sleepy as his grandson.

 And Regis wound an arm around them both to shield them.

 A quiet, quaint ride home to the Citadel for them. With both of Lucis’ Princes dozing, leaning into the Father’s side. It felt like nostalgia given form. Both of his boys seemed so relaxed. So happy. So Regis held them close, and when they arrived in the underground garage beneath the Citadel? He waved off Clarus and Cor’s hands. For just a moment. Just a moment more. Please. Just a moment.

 He pressed his face into his son’s hair, and held him and his grandson close, staying like that.

 For just a few moments more.

 Letting them go had always been something Lucis’ King found impossible.

 So he barely bothered to anymore.

 Just grateful that they could have this, at long last.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Your Majesty…that man.” 

 “...I know.”

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

I like the House of Caelum being royal celebrities, and them having a black carpet as opposed to a red one~

But Nyx and Noctis and Ori being all cute and a family is so adorable. Can't wait to write more! *Shoos Ardyn away with a broom in the background.*

Chapter 18

Notes:

Sorry for the delay -

Not sorry for what lies ahead. :)

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 “By all accounts, the Caelum Charity Gala this year was a complete success, Your Majesty,” Clarus reported dutifully, “It is being touted as a reunion of Lucis’ royal family. A symbol of unity and prosperity in the face of all that has happened this last year, by most all media outlets. It was public, it was secure but with some freedoms, it raised more funds than any year before for those in need, and although yours and the princes’ early departures has been noted, you are being praised for it. Like Prince Noctis is being praised for his strength, to make a public appearance still so early into his recovery, you and Prince Oriens are being praised for being at his side when he reached his limit and had to leave.”

 Regis stroked his beard, waving a hand to signal his Shield to continue with the formal report.

 “There have been a few whispers of a ‘scandal’, involving Prince Noctis and one Glaive Ulric of the Kingsglaive, but they are all placed in a rather positive light. Specifically, a romantic light.” 

 “Ah, yes, the prince and his loyal guard,” the king chuckled, a small glimmer of lightheartedness in what had otherwise been a somewhat tense meeting, this afternoon following the gala.

 The meeting chambers for Lucis’ Royal Council were rather quiet. A thing Regis was still adjusting to - used to the clamor and complaints of his former council, all so willing and unafraid to talk over him. Whilst his new council was far more reserved yet. Many young. Many more still unsure of their places at court.

 And even with that unsurety, what did it say that Lucis’ Citadel had never been more peaceful and unified in Regis’ lifetime? 

 Gladiolus got a good chuckle out of the romanticism of this scandal as well, attending as his grandson’s Shield, as was his duty. 

 It was all very routine. 

 Regis regretted he’d barely had time for more than a rushed breakfast with his boys that early morning, with Noctis so tired and ready to nap and Oriens taking after his father in that way as well. But he had his role. As Lucis’ King, he had several speeches to give live that day, addressing the success of the gala. As well as no less than a dozen carefully timed meetings with new benefactors and sponsors gained through the gala. As well as this very council meeting, which was thankfully coming to a close now with Clarus’ final report.

 He leaned back in his august chair at the head of the council table, the chambers still quieter than he’d ever been used to as the meeting was adjourned by Advisor Fareth and his yet-new council shuffled out. Speaking hushedly amongst themselves.

 With the doors closing, and Regis fiddling idly with the handle of his cane, those chambers seemed suddenly so very acoustic; the smallest sound of his cane scuffing the tiles as he rolled it in his palm seeming loud.

 Attended only by his Shield now.

 Because his Sword was personally on guard over his son and grandson that day, both of them napping together in Noctis’ bedroom. For a reason.

 “Regis?” Clarus asked him now, all the formalness stripped away as he laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder, “We will figure this out.”

 “...The gala was a success,” he said simply, a fact. But something else that went unsaid was heard by this man who had lived a lifetime at his side.

 “‘But’?” 

 “...But,” Regis let out a huff of frustration, thudding his cane against the tiles as he stared at some middle distance remembering, “Nyx Ulric’s report of that man. Shifting hair colors. There, then gone, as though by magic. Nobody else saw him, the cameras fritzed out when they should’ve caught his image. Noctis’ comment about his eye color also shifting. I…he - “ 

 “Regis, I know,” Clarus said, though he didn’t know, didn’t know how difficult it had been for Regis to try and struggle through casually asking Noctis about the man who had sent him spiraling that morning when Ori had stepped away to pet Aurora, “but we’ll find him. This won’t happen again.” 

 Wouldn’t it?

 “Clarus, he was right there.” Regis clenched his jaw, and looked to the the Ring of Lucii for support like he’d taken to doing far more often these days with no faith in the Astrals left in his heart, “Clarus, that man had Noctis…in his grasp. He could’ve so easily reached out and slit his throat if he wished, he was right. There. In the gala. In a room full of Glaives and ‘Guards, and entirely untroubled by it. He slipped right under our noses. He could’ve done anything to Noctis and Oriens and nobody would’ve noticed until it was too late - !” 

 “Regis!” 

 Tense, a bit breathless, Regis shut his eyes tight, turning his face to the domed ceiling of the chambers. To the rays of sunlight that warmed his face. Clarus’ hands on both of his shoulders now, gripping at them, grounding him.

 “If that was the same man from Founder’s Day,” Clarus shifted with discomfort, “If that was the Adagium, then - “

 “Then what defense do we have against him, when he can wear any face he wishes to hurt my boys?” This tired king interrupted his old friend, so tired, “The only thing that seems to stay his hand is his amusement in all of this. Playing us like pawns. What play does he have next for us? What other pawn does he plan to send against us?” 

 Him, the scorned of the gods themselves.

 Gods who no longer were worshiped by a majority of Lucis. Gods who had kept their silence, and left them to their scorned. Their damned. Their Adagium. 

 The Scourge itself.

 “Cor is guarding the kids now,” Clarus reminded him, but both of them - both of them were just tired fathers scrambling for reassurances in the face of a new fear, “Neither of them will be leaving the Citadel for the foreseeable future, and all guards and staff are being briefed on the new security checks expected of everyone. Drautos also says his operatives have a lead on a more recent rumor of somebody using magic being seen in Accordo. Maybe they’ll find something there.” 

 “Another Lucis Caelum, you mean they may find.” 

 Regis Lucis Caelum sighed, staring up at the grand molding of the ceilings, this chamber that had held so much of Lucis’ history. His ancestors around his finger and his love for his sons leading him forward. At this point, whatever was found with that investigation wasn’t even high on his list of priorities. 

 They were facing the boogeyman of the House of Caelum, and they were surely losing.

 And he slept less and less well, these days.

 “I am tired, Clarus,” he whispered to those ceilings and those pillars that kept it all standing tall, “I am so tired.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 The reports kept coming, and he was surely a harried man. His attendants were having a hard time keeping his hair tame and crown straight with all the rushing around the Citadel required of him as the day drew on and on and on. But he made his appearances. And he did his duty. And he did it all well, because he did it all for his boys.

 Even if he wasn’t sleeping well, and even if there was a boogeyman in the shadows of his home.

 Regis did his best. It was all he could do.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was all he’d been able to do for a very long time.

 But it was worth it, because whenever he saw his boys?

 They were smiling.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The gala had been an uproar of a success, a succession, in a way. An ascension for the House of Caelum. And even if every television in Eos was playing and replaying clips of the Lucian royal family making their appearances?

 In the Citadel, they were simply themselves. Doing what needed to be done for each of their own sakes…other than Regis.

 Other than Regis.

 He did what he had to do for his boys’ sakes.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx woke up with a gasp on his lips. Woke up with his braids held by one hand, and a kukri pulled from under his pillow to be held in the other, and the faint sparkle of King’s Magic in the moonlight falling all around him. All the blankets kicked off of his cot. Eyes. On. Inlustris. 

 Sound asleep in that big, royal bed of his. Safe.

 Chest rising and falling slowly with his sleeping breaths.

 Nyx let out a long, long exhale. Staring up at the fine ceiling of his star’s bedroom. Running his hand up and down his stomach in slow patterns, up over his sternum, his pecs, his own heartbeat something he could feel. His star was safe. He knew that. His brain knew that. That heart of his was proving to be a little harder to convince. Because there…there had been minutes there, at the gala, where he’d been gone and Nyx - Nyx was supposed to be watching over him.

 It had felt like Selena all over again.

 He was supposed to be watching her.

 With a heavy huff, but not too loudly, Nyx tossed his legs over the edge of the cot. Reached for his shirt to yank on. It…it had been a while. Since the nightmares stuck around this long. But nothing should have changed since the last time. He knew where he was welcome. 

 Well, something had changed. Leaving his starlight, his amatus, alone was - 

 The Glaive paused. Standing at his star’s bedside as he slept. Geeze, Axis and the others would call him such a creep for doing that, but he wanted to watch his love sleep a little longer. Those steady breaths of his, the way his eyelids flickered as he dreamt. The Carbuncle carving on his pillow giving him good dreams.

 Nyx reached up for the pendant around his own neck; a gift from his star. From their date in Little Galahd. A Carbuncle pendant. 

 Reached up a little bit higher, to brush his fingertips over his lips. 

 Remembering how their first kiss had felt, in moonlight a lot like this, but so much better.

 The nightmares weren’t as bad as they used to be. Maybe that was thanks to the little guardian.

 Either way, Nyx shook himself out and left his love’s side. But only because he trusted the Glaives on duty tonight. Two Bellums. Good, strong folk. Handier with their weapons than just about anyone else. Sonitus’ cousins. When he stepped out into the hallway, when he ordered them to watch his amatus, they reacted to the order not as fellow Glaives.

 But as Galahdians. Entrusted with the amatus of a chieftain. 

 Nyx had barely taken two steps down the hall after they’d ducked into inlustris’ rooms before a figure stepped calmly out of one of the shadowy alcoves, tucked alongside each pillar of black marble and glittering trim. 

 The Marshal stared at him in the din.

 Then clapped him on the shoulder as he passed Nyx, to go guard the door now left undefended.

 “He’s in his quarters.” 

 Nodding, Nyx went. One convenience to living in the Citadel now was he didn’t have to take several trains to get here on nights like this anymore. He walked the halls of Lucis’ most secure place with ease, in the din of night. Nodding to guards he passed. Headed for the Kingsglaive Complex. Nobody tried to stop him. Nobody did anything more than nod back. Like he belonged.

 Yeah.

 …Yeah.

 The Kingsglaive Complex felt more right. Like water running off of him after a hard rain. It may have had all the same designs as the Citadel, but it all felt more contained. Less complex. Simpler. Its halls were nearly silent, the lights off for the night, the smell of cleaning supplies in the air. It felt like he was there when he wasn’t supposed to be, but this - this had been an open invitation. For any time he needed it.

 So Nyx stopped at a specific set of doors deeper into the complex, in a wing that required several codes just to access.

 And he knocked.

 Waited.

 Listened to the heavy, sleepy footsteps on the other side of the door as somebody shifted themself out of bed to answer.

 Of course though, Captain Drautos looked awake and alert when he pulled the door open. Shirtless. With his service tags hanging over his heart, but otherwise completely collected. And he took one look at the sheepish Glaive at his door at…his internal clock said three in the morning, and he stepped aside. Holding open the door. 

 Nyx shuffled in. Suddenly ducking his head and holding none of the confidence he’d had for his stroll through the Citadel and complex.

 “Captain,” he greeted him quietly, an apology Drautos didn’t need in his words. 

 “Nyx. People will talk, you know. Especially after the gala.”

 A flicker of something panicked shot through his Glaive’s eyes, and Drautos cursed himself. That joke would’ve been one Nyx snorted at a few months ago, but now that he was in a relationship? Of course he’d take rumors seriously.

 “At ease,” he commanded him, a bit gruffly, and reflex alone had his lieutenant’s shoulders easing up. His quarters weren’t the biggest, were only a single multi-purpose room and a bathroom, really, but he led Nyx to the small set of table and chairs he had shoved in front of one window. Flicking on the lights.

 “Sorry, Sir,” Nyx told him as he headed for the countertop shoved up against one wall with a very basic kitchen stocked there, sitting down heavily, “I just…it’s happening again, and the gala…” 

 Nyx trailed off.

 “That’s understandable,” Drautos told him, reaching for the mugs and for some of that tea from Little Galahd one of his Glaives had given him as a gift, filling the mugs with water and popping them in the microwave to warm them, “It wasn’t as free of trouble as we’d hoped it would be. Your mind was reminded of something that scared it, Nyx. These nightmares are a perfectly normal reaction to that.” 

 Nyx remained quiet, after that reassurance. Drautos let him. Focusing on the microwave beeping as it finished heating the water, then seeping the tea packets in the now-steaming mugs.

 He’d always responded best to reassurances that this was normal; Nyx. 

 As if he thought he were some freak for having fears, for the nightmares haunting him.

 The first time Drautos had caught him thrashing in his bunk, so many years ago now it felt like, soon after he’d come to Insomnia, soon after becoming a Glaive, back when Little Galahd didn’t even have room for them all it was so brimming with refugees. They’d had to bunk all the Galahdian Glaives in a small set of quarters where they were practically stacked on top of each other. Most of them little more than kids.

 Drautos had made the rounds to check on them all. He’d found Nyx thrashing, quietly but obviously in distress.

 He’d woken him, and they’d had a night together. Just like this.

 The Kingsglaive Captain set a steaming mug of tea in front of Nyx, watching the way he sighed so wearily when that warm steam curled around his face. Watching the way he cupped it with both hands and leaned over it. Enjoying that warmth while he could. Drautos sat down with him, and they stayed like that. Quiet. For a few minutes.

 Back then, Drautos had promised him - any night he needed, you need someone, you come to me, Nyx.

 He’d promised so many of his Glaives the same. Some of them were no longer alive. Some of them had moved on with their lives, moved on from the fight. 

 Nyx was still here, though. Nyx was still coming to him.

 Because he didn’t know what Drautos had done. 

 That first time Nyx had come to him following one of his nightmares after…after, Drautos had stared at him a bit too long at the door. This kid. Staring up at him. Such faith in him. And Drautos remembered Nyx with his body crumbling to ash and magic running too thick in his veins as the dawn broke for one final time, for both of them. 

 It had solidified his choice like nothing else had.

 Here they were again.

 Another night, another set of steaming mugs, another chain of faith he wrapped around himself to carry in penance.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Drautos asked, as if he weren’t a mass murderer in something like a past life. As if this wasn’t a man, one of his kids, who he’d killed. 

Because Nyx was staring into his mug of tea like he’d remembered something better left forgotten, and he’d sworn never to leave his Glaives in a tight situation without his help ever again. 

 “Just…realized I could lose them.” 

 There was a second where he said nothing, so the captain took a sip of his tea and prompted, “Prince Noctis?” 

 “Inlustris,” Nyx agreed, rubbing his thumb along the lip of his mug in thought, “and…mane. I mean - I was right there, Captain. I was right there. I had my eyes on him, and then I - I couldn’t get to him. And then he was gone.” 

 Making a considering sound, Drautos nodded. 

 He’d be lying if he said that moment at the gala where Nyx’s report had crackled through the comlink in his ear hadn’t petrified him. 

 “He was gone, and mane had run off, and I had to follow him praying he was following his dad. And it was dark. And we were surrounded by people one moment then I was alone running after a kid who could warp faster than me and - “ 

 Nyx just got more and more breathless as he went on, so Drautos stopped him with a palm laid on his wrist.

 “Drink,” he ordered him, and stopping to take an actual sip of his tea forced Nyx to take a breath too.

 Some of that tense line still hidden in his shoulders sagged.

 “I just…thought…I was going to lose them, like I lost Selena. Like I lost Mother. Like I - like we lost so many,” typical Nyx, being the one to think about the whole community instead of the individuals. No matter the timeline, he was always going to be a hero, wasn’t he? Drautos was proud of him for that. But he still wanted him to take care of himself too.

 “That will always be a risk, Nyx. But you didn’t lose them. If you live as if you did, then you will lose them to that.”

 Psychology? That - all of that? Drautos couldn’t claim to know a whole lot about all of that. The Astrals fucking knew he wasn’t mentally stable in any way for the longest time. But that wasn’t what this was.

 This was a soldier, who needed to remember to live in the present, not in past battles.

 And Drautos knew how to help with that better than he wanted to. Already, sipping his own mug of tea, he was able to watch those painful thoughts bleed out of Nyx’s eyes. Able to watch the determination seep back in. The dedication. The care. For something and somebody he loved more than himself. 

 That was Nyx Ulric for you.

…

 Even if he had to start talking again, with sharp eyes this time, staring at Drautos with no idea his captain was about to lie to his face.

 “Have they found out anything about that man?” Damn it Ulric, always asking the hardest questions, and Drautos held back the sigh that wanted to leave him like always when Ardyn was mentioned, “That one, who sent inlustris spiraling? There’s no way he was just a simple guest, right?” 

 “We’re looking into it.” 

 Nyx’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, and it was deserved because that was a damned bureaucratic answer, “If you’re looking into it, you mean he hasn’t been found yet. You don’t know where he is. What he wanted.” 

 A rebuttal was at the tip of his tongue, something like that was for him to worry about, not Nyx. But this, tonight, Nyx coming to him was Nyx coming to him for reassurance and advice when nightmares had left him shaken up.

 No matter how reasonable avoiding his veiled accusations was, it went against everything Drautos cared about in this new life of his.

 Maybe he didn’t quite have to lie. 

 “...We are looking for him,” he allowed, and Nyx’s fingers tightened around the handle of his mug, “yes. But we believe we know his identity. We also know what he wanted. It will be taken care of, Nyx. It will.” 

 “It has to do with the new security measures, doesn’t it?” Always asking the hardest questions, “It has to do with the Marshal standing guard over inlustris and mane, it has to do with that man we still know nothing about. That man who framed my…my Noctis.” 

 Drautos’ ears alone heard the happy chirp in the room with them, at that.

 He smiled behind his mug as he took another sip, because Nyx’s devotion to the prince he had failed was such a bright spot in this new life of his. Especially after how he’d turned away, during Mistveil Keep’s time. 

 And it was something new, just for this life.

 “Sir?”

 “...Yes, it does,” Nyx Ulric, out of all his Glaives, deserved to know this much at least, “That man we’ve been searching for for months without a trace. We suspect it was him at the gala. And we suspect he’s planning something. And we’re looking for him, but.”

 He set his mug down firmly on the table, catching Nyx’s eyes so he knew he was serious, “Nyx, right now, your place is beside Prince Noctis. Beside Prince Oriens. Leave the looking to us, and keep your guard up, but try to live. With them. Like you have been. Okay? You’ve been happy. They’ve been happy. Eos is changing, and they need you at their side, not chasing a mysterious phantom who’s playing us all like fiddles.” 

 Nyx frowned.

 Nyx stared into his mug of tea that was no longer steaming, clearly contemplating things.

 And Nyx nodded. Slowly. 

 “I know you’re right, Captain. You always are. For hearth and home. For them.” 

 There was no specific moment where the two of them decided that they’d finished this little encounter of theirs. There was just the two of them, sipping tea in the dimness of a soldier’s quarters. A whole lifetime between them that one of them didn’t remember. A small, dream-blue fox sat on the foot of his bed watching that one of them couldn’t see.

 Drautos saw Nyx Ulric off at his door, with a pat on his shoulder and a reminder to not think about that man, not when the princes needed him.

 And he closed the door, to turn back to that fox who blinked up at him with big eyes as he walked up.

 “I know I have no right to ask, but do you think you can spare him those nightmares, Lord Carbuncle?” 

 He got a chirp in reply, and the Kingsglaive Captain sighed.

 “I know. Those who die twice are harder to guard.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx returned to inlustris’ rooms, where the Marshal nodded at him in greeting and then returned to being on guard. Where the Bellum Glaives did the same, leaving guarding the bedroom to him.

 He paused at his star’s bedside, sighing.

 “<Goodnight, starlight.>”

 He fell asleep in his cot with his arm outstretched towards the bed his star was sleeping soundly in.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The next day, while inlustris was working on his morning weaving, Ori scampered on over to Nyx who was sharpening his kukris. For no special reason. Just in case.

 Mane was pinching some of his hair between his fingers hopefully.

 “I’ve been growing it out! Do…do you think it’s almost long enough for a braid too, Nyx?”

 Nyx came up short. Partially because he wanted to laugh over the fact that mane couldn't have been growing it out for more than a few days since the gala and thought it’d somehow be long enough for a braid after that amount of time. But also partially because he was so surprised still by the princling’s willingness to learn about Galahd and her culture.

 A lot like he’d been with his dad.

The dad who was pretending he wasn’t peeking at them at that very moment, as if his hands hadn’t stopped weaving. And Nyx stared at the hopeful expression so bright and open on the mini star’s face in front of him, then set aside his kukris.

Reaching out with a thoughtful, “Well, let’s see about that,” pinching at his short, fluffy, raven-blue locks too, “Hmmm…still a bit short, mane. But I’m sure we can get something started here.” 

He poked Ori’s cheek as he pulled back, already thinking about which of his beads would fit. But first - 

“First though, mane, do you know what Galahdian braids mean?” 

He watched the hope shift to surprise, then to a thoughtfulness that always seemed way too wise for a nine-year old kid. But mane actually considered his question. Looking at his braids, then turning to look at the one in his dad’s hair, then turning to look at him again. This time with a tiny, downturned frown on his lips.

“...No. Maybe. No. I assumed…tradition. Is it something…important?” The small prince asked, suddenly shy about it, and Nyx grinned to put him at ease. This wasn’t some cultural secret.

And his sweet amatus set down his loom properly to pat at the sofa’s cushions and get both of their attentions.

“Why don’t we sit down and have Nyx explain it?” Inlustris suggested, his smile spreading to something as wide and bright as starlight when his son immediately scurried over to hop up on the sofa beside him and snuggle in close, under his arm, cute as a button, “It is important to know, Ori. Do you want to learn something new?” 

The princling nodded rapidly, blue-blue eyes bright with the promise of new knowledge.

And, yeah. Nyx went to them both with a full heart, to sit down on the coffee table even if it was improper.

Because then his knees were brushing inlustris’, even if his love couldn’t feel the touch. Even so, he could.

And he settled in to tell Oriens the story of Galahdian braids properly.

And, yeah.

Nyx couldn’t lose them. Either of them. He wouldn’t survive that. Not again.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Well, that talk had seemed to really, really interest Ori, since his son had disappeared off to the royal Lucian library after Nyx’s explanation of braids. And his explanation of beads. And his explanation of how both came to be for the Galahdian people. Noctis was glad. His child was so much more interested in learning new things than he’d been at his age, that was for sure.

 Unless those new things revolved around fishing.

 And Ori left his rooms with a single bead carefully tied into his short, fluffy hair. A bead as blue as his blue-blue eyes; a spare that matched the ones in Noctis’ hair.

 A gift.

 A sign that Nyx had accepted his son as much as he’d accepted Noctis.

 Noctis had paused, with his fingers curled in the wool-soft yarn he’d been weaving, when he watched his amatus wave goodbye to his son. His - their? - his son. And when Nyx had turned back to him with that charming smile and stormy eyes? 

 Noctis had given him time to move away, as he shifted up close to him. 

 Glancing down at his lips, then back up at his eyes, then down again.

 And Nyx hadn’t moved away.

 Their lips had pressed together so, so faintly for just a second that Noctis closed his eyes to, feeling Nyx’s hand cover his on the cushions, giving it the faintest of squeezes. Then he pulled back. Face feeling…warm. Heart fast in his chest. Their second kiss, because a bead had been put in his son’s hair.

 “Thank you, Nyx,” he whispered, lowering his eyes to his weaving, to the yarn so soft he felt that softness even with all the damaged nerves in his fingers; gifts from Nyx. So many gifts, “It means a lot.” 

 A bead means a lot. 

 “Of course, inlustris. I care for mane too, you know. Not just for your sake, but, as a kid. He’s a good kid. He’s got heart and wisdom. Father Ramuh would approve.” 

 Nyx lent him his bicep to lay his head on as he finished his weaving that morning.

 

 

-----

 

 
 The kisses…were…something Noctis Lucis Caelum had never, ever thought he’d have. Even with a braid and its beads in his hair. Because his first kiss - it had been stolen by rough hands and teeth that made his lips bleed, and Nyx…Nyx wasn’t capable of either of those things. Treating him roughly or making him bleed.

 But Noctis had thought the reminder would be too much for him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 But he’d been wrong. Because both times when they’d kissed?

 All that existed in the world was him and Nyx. 

 And nothing that had ever done him harm.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “He’s so…energetic,” Noctis noted, softly, so as not to be heard as he and his father watched Oriens scamper out of his rooms. Giggling.

But giggling quietly, like he hadn’t really meant to be overheard. Off to the Royal Library, to hide from his tutors. Ori spent a lot of time there, didn’t he? Of course, if anybody asked the son and father duo, neither of them would know where the little princling had gotten to. They wouldn’t know at all. They weren’t snitches.

 “He is, isn’t he?” His dad agreed with him, just as softly, smiling and shaking his head and so fond. 

 Noctis had never been that energetic as a child. Not even before the Marilith’s attack. While he’d become dangerously lethargic after, even before he was a child who liked his naps. And his time lounging around in bed. He certainly didn’t spend his spare time hiding in the library’s older sections, or mapping out the secret passages that stretched throughout the Citadel.

 It was a rare difference to be found between Noctis and his son.

 And Noctis relaxed back in his wheelchair. Enjoying the afterglow - and full stomach - of a nice lunch shared with his dad, as busy as he’d been since the gala. As busy as all of that, and he’d still made time for him. It remained amazing to Noctis.

 Considering when he was young, the most he’d ever had…had felt like a single dinner a week for them to share.

 Noctis sighed. Glad for the change. For the time his dad made for them. Then? The raven-haired royal noticed a book. One left on Ori’s chair. He’d been fiddling with it and its bookmarked page earlier, but it seemed he’d left it behind when he himself left.

 “Noctis?” Regis asked curiously, confused until his son picked the book up. 

 Just then, the doors to his rooms suddenly opened again and there was Ori.

 Eyes locking straight onto the book in his dad’s hand.

 “Ah! There it is!”

 “Conan Drew?” Noctis, interested, read aloud the name of the book series printed on the spine, and Ori’s hands flapped in his periphery.

 His son shifted, suddenly so shy, and it was adorable but Noctis knew how small being shy made a child feel. So he offered the book back to his little dawnlight. Ori scampered back to him to take it and hug it to his chest, tight. Cheeks pinking. Scuffing at the tiles with his shoe.

 “It’s a book series that started coming out - two years ago?” His dad checked, got a nod from Ori, and that was just pure fondness in his tone once again, wasn’t it? “Oriens borrowed one from a library during a charity event, and has kept up ever since. He loves those detective stories, don’t you, Oriens?” 

 His son pinked more, nodding his head.

 Detective stories? Mysteries, he meant. Huh. Somehow, that fit so well with Ori. Noctis nodded along, then motioned that his son was free to go. He never liked to make him stay when he felt shy and needed to get out from under people’s eyes. Ori took the book and darted off, gone in a blur of his black clothing and fluffy raven-black hair.

 It was strange though. For Noctis to sit back in his wheelchair again and realize he hadn’t known what sorts of books his own son liked to read.

 Sometimes he felt that way. Sometimes it hit him. 

 That his dad had been there when he wasn’t.

 “Is he…embarrassed?” Noctis checked, unsure, unsure so he asked his dad, who he’d never blamed for taking up a role raising Oriens when he couldn’t. His dad who chuckled. Who reassured him by shaking his head and reaching over to pat Noctis’ elbow gently.

 “No, no. Not embarrassed. You know how shy Ori gets, Noctis, darling,” as shy as he used to get, “Also, he has simply never, really, liked leaving his belongings lying around outside of his room. He likes his privacy. I’m sure if you asked him about his books, he’d love to tell you about all the mysteries he’s read.” 

 That was true, wasn’t it? 

Even if he’d never specifically noticed before. Ori never left any of his things behind in his rooms when he had to leave. Noctis had simply chalked it up to his son being a very neat child. Apparently not. Also -

 “He reads a lot of them?” Ori read occasionally when they were together, but not often. Was it really so many?

 “Oh, yes. And he makes such a game of it,” his dad laughed, and there, well - there were memories in that laugh.

 So many joyous memories, that Noctis wasn’t a part of.

 “He has whole notebooks full,” Regis remembered, full of fondness, so much fondness, “As he reads, he pieces together the clues himself. Sometimes he and Ignis would make it a thought exercise where they have to come up with scenarios to solve. And he tries to unravel the whole mystery before the book’s end!”

 He wasn’t a part of…any of that.

 “I remember one time, one of his detective stories didn’t have any of the clues it needed for the reader to solve the mystery ahead of time, and he got so upset. He actually came to me and asked me to help him pen a letter to the author, to tell them their book disappointed him. I helped him word it a slight bit better than that, but he really - “

 Noctis was never there.

 “Ah, sweetheart?”

 Never there at all.

 “Baby? Noctis, baby,” a hand on his elbow even more gentle than before, “are you okay?” 

 “Hm? Yeah?” He murmured, even though his blue-blue eyes were still stuck staring at nothing and everything. Unfocused. On a moment in time he hadn’t been there for, “I’m fine, Dad.” 

 Regis kept his hand on his son’s elbow. Thought about what to say. What had he said? It wasn’t often anymore that Noctis disassociated like this. But he hadn’t the chance to even try and figure it out. Because suddenly his phone, set on the table, began vibrating. Loud. Noisy. The way it moved across the table’s surface a few centimeters from the force of it.

 That seemed to shock Noctis out of wherever he’d thought he was. Whatever he’d thought was happening in front of him.

 Regis watched his sweet son shake himself out, draw himself back out of the emptiness of that part of his mind.

 That part where Mistveil Keep lay.

 He reluctantly reached for his phone, letting go of Noctis. Yet another meeting. Yet another. He glanced up at his and Aulea’s boy, regret filling his heart, feeling that this was too much like all those years ago when Noctis was young, when there was always another meeting yanking him away.

 But his son gave him a small smile this time, eyes a bit distant, sure. But still within viewing distance anyways.

 “Go, Dad. I’m fine. Promise,” Noctis leaned in to give him a quick peck on the cheek, and Regis sighed. Heavily. Always hating this part.

 The goodbye.

 “I’ll…probably just take a nap,” that was what his son tended to do when he was getting a bit too far away from them, so Regis closed his eyes slowly. Listening to his boy starting to roll away from him, “Ori and I will be here for breakfast in the morning, if you want to join us?” 

 Of course he wanted to join them. Always.

 Regis went to stand, and stopped to breathe halfway up, placing a hand on the table. Weighed down by all he’d had to do of late. It felt like a lot. Especially after the few precious months they’d gotten where things were remarkably quiet. Where there was little business to deal with. His shoulders felt heavy. His knees weak. His eyes exhausted. 

 But he stood tall anyways, because he was a king.

 He was a father.

 And despite the slight pain in his chest, walking away from his son when he knew Noctis’ heart was also hurting, he went to this meeting.

 To do what he must, so his boys could continue living without the strain of a crown tearing them down.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Days of that.

 

 

-----

 

 

 So busy.

 He’d been so busy. 

 Regis had been so busy, and that led to him being so tired, and that was so reasonable it was almost unreasonable. He had to pinch the bridge of his nose just to stay awake for the drawling meetings he had to attend. Thank goodness, not the gods, that his former council had been completely replaced. If it had been them he had to deal with when he felt so tired - well, it would’ve been trouble. For them.

 But even his new council, more nervous, more reserved, quiet in ways the former never was - they drained him. Maybe it was the lack of sleep.

 Maybe it was the nightmares whenever he did sleep.

 Nightmares of the gala, of his son, his grandson, missing. There, then gone.

 Of the monster in the dark who could take them away with nobody the wiser until it was too late, lapping at their doors. Drooling his Scourge across their lands.

 Maybe it was the Adagium.

 Maybe it was just his fears, haunting him like a ghost at his shoulder, tearing him awake every time he came close to getting enough sleep.

 Maybe it was something else, maybe it was nothing else. Regis had no idea, but he had an idea of how words swam, because they did so when he went too long without scrubbing at his face with his hands. He needed…a nap. Even for just a moment. But he hadn’t yet seen his boys that day for their daily meal, and he still had several meetings to discuss various aspects of the gala’s good fortune, and Drautos said he wished to see him when he had a chance - 

 Tired.

 He was so tired.

 The Lucii whispered in his ear.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Clarus shook him gently by his shoulder when he started to nod off in the middle of a meeting.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Cor came to deliver his reports to his office with a cup of coffee as well, rich and black and steaming. It helped. Regis smiled in exhausted gratitude at his younger brother as he sipped at his coffee and read the reports.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Lucii kept whispering.

 He turned the Ring over and over on his finger, rotating it, staring at it when the tired fog started to roll in. 

 They weren’t usually so active.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis stared at him with such worry, so poorly concealed, when he stumbled while rising from the table after their meal together. He suggested a nap. Hand on his wrist, eyes big and blue and pleading - voice straining with fears from a child’s mind, his sweet son suggested a nap. For all of them. So Regis smiled. Never able to refuse his son a thing.

 All three Lucis Caelums climbed into Noctis’ bed and made themselves at home in the sun-warmed, black sheets. His boys tucked under his arms. And sleep was finally his. It was a long nap. It displaced at least eight of his meetings for the day - 

 But it was necessary.

 …And he still awoke no less tired, but he hid it better from Noctis when his son looked at him hopefully.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Drautos still wants to know when you might have time to meet with him,” Clarus reminded him, not a gentle reminder. A tense one. Meaning it was important, and yet - “His operatives may have new information for that job, the one we entrusted to them. If you remember. It’d be wise to see him sooner than later, Regis.” 

 “I know, I know,” he sighed, slumping a little despite the fact that they were in a public hall rather than his office. He felt like he’d been doing that a lot of late.

 “And Cor was hoping to have a word with you. I believe it may be about Prompto and Cindy. About the leave he asked you for.” 

 “Yes, yes, of course he can go to Leide. I’d never dream of keeping him from helping dear Prompto with Cindy’s pregnancy.” 

 “And Oriens’ tutors wish to speak with you about the level of learning he is equipt for. I believe they wish to increase his lessons, and advance them due to how smart he is.”

 “I will have to speak with Noctis about that. Oriens is his son, and…I think he’d agree…Ori shouldn’t have to st-strain himself.” 

 Strange, how breathless he was getting. 

They were simply walking along. That shouldn’t be strenuous at all.

 He flexed his fingers on his cane’s handle, and frowned down at them when he found his fingers weakened. They didn’t…quite want to close around it right. There was no grip, there was no…he was…

 Strange.

 “Regis?” 

 There was a pain in his chest.

 So Regis reached up to grasp at it, burying a fist in the layered fabric over his heart. Then there was a clattering, and he realized his cane had slipped straight through his fingers.

 “Regis?!” 

 The cane rolled. It hit the top of a long, polished flight of steps. And one by one it began to bounce down them with such noise.

 Hands on his shoulders.

 Pain in his chest.

 Regis gasped without air, as his knees buckled, and Clarus went down with him. Always.

 “Regis! Guards! GUARDS!!!” 

 He was so tired.

 “Regis, stay awake! Regis! Regis!” Clarus was above him. His brother was holding him. Was clinging to him, as he lay there clutching his chest and panting. Pain shooting up and down his sternum. It felt like lightning. It’d been quite some time since he’d been shocked like this. Not since they were younger. Like that time, Clarus fumbled an elemancy flask, like, like that time, like…

 “Call medical! CALL MEDICAL!!!”

 Like when they were younger…

 When they were younger…

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx Ulric was one of the Glaives who answered the call that fritzed across the Citadel’s coms, demanding ‘Guards, Glaives, anyone to assemble in the main wing. And he arrived with them all, sweaty from training, from the sprint there, weapons already ready. 

 There was a cane at the bottom of the stairs.

 There was a hand hanging limp over the edge.

 Medical staff crowded around.

 Nyx sucked in a shaky breath, and turned to sprint the other way.

 Knowing his star would need him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Today, the yarn was a softer shade of blue and pink. Carbuncle had come to him in a dream, and Noctis wanted to remember it. So he wove the two strands back and forth on his loom, slow and steady and careful with it, humming Galahdian weaving songs Nyx and a few other Glaives had taught him. The sun was warm on his neck. Aurora was purring, tucked up next to his thigh and getting her white fur everywhere, so he chuckled at her and scratched under her chin.

 She’d grown a lot the last few months. And she’d turned out very fluffy.

 And he picked up his humming again.

 Moments before the doors to his bedroom were pushed open…far too fast to feel normal.

 Noctis started, and Aurora started too, fluffing up and hissing and jumping down from the sofa.

 And Noctis blinked in a confused manner at Uncle Cor standing in the doorway, with Nyx right behind him. Breathless. As though he’d run through the whole Citadel to get there.

 “Uncle Cor? Nyx?” He lowered his loom…shoving away the whispers of that voice trying to get into his head as he found a smile for them, because it was wrong. The voice was always wrong. Everything was fine.

 Everything was fine.

 Uncle Cor came towards him, regret and something far more terrifying in the wrinkles of his face.

 “Noctis - “

 Grief.

 “Noctis, it’s your father.”

 

 

~>-----------<~

Chapter 19

Notes:

The update schedule I think is pretty much every two weeks now, with my new job, so sorry about that.

But here you go! Time for Noctis to take another step forward.

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 “Move!”

 “I - “

 “He said move.” 

 “I’m sorry, Lord Marshal, but until it’s determined whether there was foul play involved, protocol states - hurk - !”

 “Move, or I’ll fucking make you, <damned of the stormless lands.>”

 “Dad!” 

…

 Dad looked so still, laying there. 

 Dad looked so -

 So -

So…small. And fragile. Dad looked so pale. And like the world itself had fallen on him, and he’d finally buckled underneath its immense weight. His hair was all messy. Salt and pepper strands falling over his face, creases around his eyes from pain, wearing a hospital gown that almost seemed to swamp him for some reason in Noctis’ eyes.

 Dad was wearing an oxygen mask.

 Each breath fogged it up.

 Each breath was such an utter relief, Noctis nearly forgot he needed his wheelchair. Nearly threw himself out of it, trying to get to his dad on that bed, surrounded by all the people wearing white and masks and gloves - 

 He nearly hit the floor, but Uncle Cor grabbed him by the shoulders and Nyx pushed his wheelchair forward.

 And those people in white all moved, were shoved back, and there was the beeping of all the medical equipment, the colors, the screens, the tubes and wires and smell of sterility in the air - 

 And Noctis grabbed his dad’s hand.
 
 Tight.

 It was limp in his hold for a second, and for that second Eos was set for ruin if the Chosen’s heart broke again like this.

 But, then, though it was so faint? Dad squeezed his hand. There was a tremor there, in the hand he was holding. Or maybe it was in Noctis’ hand. Maybe it was both, maybe it was neither - but, no, his shoulders were shaking something awful. His shoulders, his ribs, his ribcage was closing around his heart, squashing it - and Dad. Dad was there, Dad was there, Dad was there, and there were breaths fogging up his oxygen mask, there were breaths shuddering through his chest, there was his throat working as he swallowed, his lips twitching.

 There were those green eyes, Dad’s eyes, peering up at him. Still creased with pain.

 But there was Dad, trying to smile at him.

 Lips moving behind the foggy oxygen mask, and even though his son couldn’t hear it, he knew what was being said.

 ‘I’m alright, baby.’ 

 Twenty-nine years old or not, Noctis folded over his dad’s hand at his bedside in the Citadel’s hospital wing and collapsed in tears.

 An adult? He didn’t feel like an adult, he felt like a kid again, wondering why his dad’s hair had gone silver so soon in life. He felt like a teenager again, seeing that broadcast and finding out like that that his dad had to use a cane now. He felt like an adult, home from Mistveil, seeing the age in his dad’s face after ten years even though he still wore the same cologne.

 The smell of that cologne was covered up by the smell of alcohol wipes and cotton swabs and plastic; the smell of a hospital room. Or one of the Citadel’s private hospital rooms, at least.

 Noctis pressed his forehead to his dad’s fingers, to his age spots and his wrinkles, and he sobbed so hard he thought he’d throw up.

 Because for a moment there, minutes, so many minutes, he’d thought his dad was dying. A ‘heart attack’, they came to him and said. His dad, they said, a heart attack, they said, hurry, his heart had begged. 

 Please, his soul had pleaded.

 “His Majesty will be okay, with rest,” somebody told him, told somebody else, something. To somebody. This son couldn’t know, because all he could know was his dad was still breathing and that he was alright. And if he thought about it too much, he’d have to acknowledge his dad wouldn’t get the rest he needed.

 Because under his forehead, pressed to those fingers, was the Ring.

 His dad still had to wear it, even after -

 Noctis cried harder. Cried and cried and cried. Until he was hiccupping, until the covers under his dad’s hand were soaked. Until he was so exhausted, and his eyes stung from all the tears, red and puffy and achy and he held his dad’s hand through it all.

 Just as he started to collect himself, just as he lifted his head to blink at his dad with his puffy, reddened eyes? 

 Was just when the doors to the private room were flung open again.

 Oriens sprinted in despite the guards outside shouting for the prince to wait.

 There were tears streaming down his son’s face, his red and splotchy face.

 “Grandpa!!!”

 There was a flash of crystals, and a Carbuncle carving landed on the covers next to Noctis a split second before his son followed through on his warp.

 He barely managed to catch Ori in time to not have him fall on his father.

 Ori struggled, for a second, as he tugged him in and tucked him close to his chest right there on the edge of the bed.

 Oriens, struggling, grabbing for his grandpa and sobbing like the scared kid that he was absolutely broke his dad’s heart.

 He just held his son around his waist, as he got him to settle enough that he was careful about crawling up beside his grandpa. To cry into his shoulder. To clutch the hospital gown in his tiny, tiny hands and cry and cry and cry.

 As…a father, he should be comforting his son. He should be comforting Ori. Shouldn’t he?

 Instead, Noctis was in the exact same position as his son. Leaning over his dad right alongside him, fisting at his hospital gown, the hospital bed, and shaking as he cried. Shaking apart. Breaking apart. It was all that he could do. All that they could do. The House of Caelum. So noble. So heartbroken.

 So many scared children, who’d had to lose their parents to grow up.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum held his son through it, through his dad’s tired blinks and eventual slip back off to sleep.

 And through the beeping of the medical machines.

 And through those trying to tug them away.

 He held Oriens.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A heart broken a thousand times lost more and more fragments each time it had to stitch itself back together again.

 

 

-----

 

 

 What had they done to deserve this?

 

 

-----

 

 

 They had been devout.

 And the Ring of the Lucii remained on his father’s finger, mocking Noctis.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He was going to make a full recovery.

 That was what all the doctors kept repeating, each and every time they braved the prickle of their prince’s anxious magic to treat their king. 

 That was what they kept repeating.

 So why couldn’t Noctis believe it?

 

 

-----

 

 

 He stayed at his dad’s side through the day, through the night, and through the next day. Dad spent most of it sleeping. Rest, he needed in order to help his recovery. Noctis’ lullaby was the quiet puffing of his breaths fogging up that oxygen mask. The beeping of a heart monitor and other machinery.

 He clung to his dad’s hand, even after Iggy led Ori out by the hand.

 He rested his chin on the covers and slept there despite so many people trying to coax him into leaving.

 His magic whipped at them.

 They left him alone after a tray of scalpels was flung into the wall in his frustration.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Dad was going to be okay.

 But was he?

 

 

-----

 

 

 When he woke up, he was groggy. His neck was sore. His eyes stung. He yawned, then winced because so much of his body was in pain. But he was used to pain. Even if he’d gotten used to sleeping in a bed fit for royalty again, he knew well what it was to go without, so Noctis just lifted his head wearily. Reached for his dad’s hand where it lay, limp, on the hospital bed still.

 His dad was still asleep.

 The private hospital room was empty, aside from him.

 Vaguely, he remembered others there. In the background. Trying to convince him to return to his rooms to rest. Trying to convince him to eat something for dinner, to drink some water for them, to act like a person who was alive. Not a hollow puppet. They never used those words, those descriptions, but Noctis saw it…in their eyes.

 His fingertips brushed the beads in his hair, his braid, when he reached up to rub roughly at his neck.

 Just as vaguely, he remembered Nyx reaching out to put his hand on his shoulder, speaking to him in Galahdian, all but pleading with him.

 And all he’d said - 

 “Don’t touch me, don’t - don’t - no, <don’t you touch me!>” And Nyx’s stricken expression as he flinched away from his harsh words, rejection. 

 Nyx, his…Nyx wasn’t there. Nobody was there. It was just him. And his dad. And his dad was still resting, so Noctis sighed softly and laid his head back down on the bed’s edge.

 He went back to sleep, holding his dad’s hand, waiting for him to wake up. Carbuncle would tell him when he did.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “When can I go back to Dad and Grandpa?!” 

 “Oriens - “

 “When can I go back?!”

 Chaos; was trying to contain a scared princling with King’s Magic who knew the passages of the Citadel and how to warp through small spaces. But they’d managed it somehow.

 Oriens had never really thrown a tantrum, until now.

 They were all heartbroken by the way he collapsed in his bed with all his plushies and pillows to sob into the sheets. Refusing to look at any of them. Refusing to respond. Giving them the silent treatment, even as he ate and drank and dressed and then tried to escape them again. It was a full-time job, their duty.

 It was a full-time job, and their prince was unhappy with them, but it was for his own good.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Another afternoon, evening, sometime when the lighting was fainter and golden through the windows of the sterile hospital room - and for a second time? Noctis woke up groggy. Swaying as he sat up. Rubbed at his eyes. His eyes that stung like he hadn’t slept at all. In a room that smelled like bad memories from his childhood. Scary memories.

 Before, during, after his coma.

 He used one hand to rub at his eyes, and he lifted the other to sweep his tangled bangs away from his face…or, he tried to.

 Just to find that hand held.

 By his dad’s.

 Blue-blue eyes instantly went to the head of the bed, but, his dad’s eyes were closed. But the oxygen mask was removed from his face. He - had he - ? Was he - ? 

 “He woke up earlier,” somebody, somebody he knew, Uncle Clarus, told him softly from where he was standing sentry by the door behind Noctis. And even in spite of that softness, his godson still flinched. His magic still curled tight around him to protect him, to protect - 

 And there was a quiet noise, from beside him.

 So Noctis glanced down to find Oriens sleeping alongside his grandfather’s legs, curled up on top of the covers like a kitten. 

 It…didn’t exactly look comfortable, considering he was squeezed onto the tiny ledge between Dad’s legs and falling onto the hard tiles of the floor. 

 “...Ori…should be in bed,” he murmured. The first words he’d spoken in a while. A while. And even though he didn’t quite remember it clearly, he remembered that Oriens had stayed by his dad’s side with him, crying, until late. He didn’t quite remember when his son had been led away, or quite…if Ori had said anything to him, in his distraught state.

 But he knew his son shouldn’t be sleeping somewhere so uncomfortable.

 “He refused to go anywhere, even when we all tried to insist,” Uncle Clarus told him, a sad note in his words, “He missed your father waking up too, so he said he’d stay until he woke up again, but…”

 But he was exhausted.

 And his eyes still looked red and puffy, even asleep. Even however many hours later.

 This was all his fault. That realization hit Noctis so hard, he was dazed by it. Oriens was so scared for his grandpa because Noctis was scared. Because he’d completely shut down after getting to his side. Because he hadn’t left once, so his little Ori thought he also needed to stay, and had fought to do so. 

 Oriens was only so scared because he was so scared. He was such a failure of a father.

 If he’d stayed calm and focused on reassuring his son instead of completely breaking down, then, Oriens wouldn’t have been so…

 Oh, Oriens.
 
 Shame prickled, sharp, under layers of pale skin. And a prince reached for his son. This son who he had to be better for. He ignored the noise his uncle made in the back of his throat, as he carefully got his arms under Oriens. Tugging him along the edge of the bed towards him. Careful, so careful, so as not to wake him.

 He tucked an arm under Ori’s legs, and cradled him close and he transferred his sleeping child from the hospital bed to his lap.

 Still sound asleep, his cheek squished up against Noctis’ collarbone.

 It was hard. It was so hard; to look at his dad’s resting face a final time. To turn the wheels of his wheelchair and turn away. It was so, so…hard. But he pressed a kiss softly into Ori’s hair, unbrushed, a mess, and knew - he had to. As a dad, himself, he had to do this. 

 For Ori, he’d do this.

 Oriens deserved to sleep in his own bed without being scared it would mean never seeing his grandpa again.

 Uncle Cor opened the door when Noctis got close, stood there, for a moment. Taking in his godson with his nephew there, trying to balance Ori in his lap while also trying to wheel himself along without waking the kid up. 

 “Need help?”

 The dad wasn’t sure what about that offer got his hackles up, whether it was the inference he couldn’t even take his own son to bed or the sort of worn down, resigned outward appearance of his Uncle Cor, but he curled himself protectively around Oriens.

 “I can do it myself.”

 The Sword backed off. 

 Then tensed, and made as though to follow after his godson, his nephew, a man who was like a child of his own - damnit.

 But the Shield in the room clasped his shoulder. Firm. Both of their gazes slid to their brother, resting in the bed. Still attached to so many tubes and machines and wires; no good memories for any of them. The Sword had his orders. Guard Regis’ boys for him. But this? In this situation? How - ?

 “Follow in a moment,” Clarus suggested, “He has the Glaives. A moment should be fine.” 

 You don’t become the Marshal or the Immortal by accepting ‘should be’. But. Cor, stayed, for a moment. To go to his oldest brother and take his hand and hold it. Not his oldest brother. His oldest brother physically. Because of magic that would take him from them too soon. Cor held his hand, and Clarus joined him, and they watched over their Reggie.

 “Wake up again soon, Regis,” Cor whispered to his brother and king, “They need you.”

 A group of Glaives were indeed hovering around the Royal Hospital Wing of the Citadel. More than a group. Two or three groups, really. They weren’t taking any chances. Between the king and the two princes? Security was heavier than ever. Noctis didn’t even register that he’d been concerned about there being Crownsguard until he shoulders untensed at the sight of familiar uniforms. Glaive uniforms.

 It was a natural thing.

 The way several of the Glaives pushed away from their places leaning against walls or sitting on the hallway’s floors to flock around him. A lot of them were familiar faces. Nodding to him, motioning towards the handles of his wheelchair; an obvious offer.

 Noctis just curled tighter around his little dawnlight and glared at them, and they immediately took their hands away with a nod.

 He might’ve felt bad, except Axis joined the flock around him with this knowing little twist to his lips.

 “Don’t worry, Highness,” he said in a hushed voice, “I’d be the same for one of my kids.”

 It was unfair; how much of a relief it was to hear that, one father to another.

 But it eased something that had been drawn taut in Noctis’ chest, and…Axis, he let push his wheelchair. So he could focus entirely on running his fingers slowly through Ori’s messy hair, picking out knots with care, holding him steady as they rolled along. Maybe it was how often Axis had guarded him in the last months, or maybe it was that Nyx saw him as one of his closer friends.

 Speaking of.

 Noctis saw none of Nyx as they left the hospital wing, heading for the royal apartments.

 Blue-blue eyes searched for the Ulric Chieftain. They did not find him though.

 “<Looking for Nyx?>” Another of the Glaives asked him, in Galahdian. And without much thought Noctis answered the same.

 “<Yes. I…think I remember snapping at him, but…>” 

 “You want to apologize to him?” Axis guessed, and the simple way he said it inexplicably made Noctis’ ears turn hot. Like he was a child. Who’d done something dumb in the moment and knew he had to say sorry after. Axis just chuckled at him, quiet, they all were, “Nyx had to step away to deliver some reports to the Captain. You woke up at the only time he wasn’t right outside His Majesty’s hospital room.”

 It probably wasn’t very fair of Noctis to want Nyx there now, after the way he was pretty sure he snapped at him earlier, but he did. He wanted Nyx. There. With him, with Ori.

 He held his son closer, pressing his face into his hair and breathing.

 And they got on the elevator. They were weightless for a few moments. But Noctis’ heart was still heavy.

 The clinking of Glaive armor, the presence of their magic unchallenged by his own, his dad in a hospital bed - 

 “Inlustris?” 

…

 By Ramuh, his star looked worn down.

 Dulled.

 Nyx Ulric had thought, surely, nothing would shatter his Galahdian heart more than seeing the man he loved crying at the bedside of his father after that health scare. But seeing him now? So tiredly wound around mane, so tired, still wearing the same clothes he was wearing two days ago and staring at Nyx like he thought him a dream?

 When Axis had texted him, telling him to make a detour through the royal apartments, he’d been a bit annoyed to be told to stay away a while longer.

 But here they were.

 Those blue eyes looked less blue today, and Nyx shook his shock away to go to his inlustris. To be of help to his amatus, as Axis stepped away to leave plenty of space for him.

 “Hey, starlight,” he murmured, going down on one knee and keeping his words so soft so they wouldn’t wake mane, “What do you need from me?” 

 Inlustris’ arms tensed around his - their - his boy for a moment, just a moment. And then he sighed. And it was like all his energy went away with that sigh as he slumped with Oriens in his arms and nodded against his son’s hair that was a bit of a half-tamed mess. 

 “Help me…put him to bed?” 

 Thank Ramuh they were near the princling’s rooms already. 

 Nyx’s fellow Glaives all spread out to take up positions around it, standing guard, and Axis exchanged a nod with him as he pushed inlustris in - and inlustris kept glancing around a little. Nyx had to admit he wasn’t sure how often his star had actually been in his son’s rooms. He seemed curious. Tired, but curious. 

 But Nyx could only slow down so much before they inevitably made it to mane’s bedroom.

 With his bed. 

 Where mane would be most comfortable.

 Nyx, no father himself, saw the space his star wanted in the tense line of his shoulders. So he stepped back. A step. Two. Until that tenseness had slipped away, and even though it went against everything in him, he watched silently as his amatus struggled somewhat to lift the sleeping princling up onto his bed. 

 And then he watched his amatus stare at the clothes mane was wearing, lost.

 They weren’t pajamas. Clearly that bothered his beloved. So Nyx did something about that.

 Went to the wardrobe of mane’s and shuffled around in its drawers until he found a set of black, silken pajamas. They seemed right. They’d look cuter with some embroidery, was an idle thought of Nyx’s as he brought them back to the bed. Maybe he should sneak a few things of the kid’s out to Little Galahd. He knew some of the Aranahe embroiderers would love to add some color to the princling’s clothes.

 His star let him approach this time, looking lost, still. So lost. So tired.

 He’d shifted from his wheelchair to sit on the bed with mane. Holding him close. Watching Nyx like he’d give him the answers he wanted.

 “<Let me help, starlight,>” was really the only answer Nyx had for those pleading, dull eyes, “<Let me help you two.>” 

 Let him be there for them.

 There was some…feeling. In the air. That softened, for him. And Nyx hadn’t even realized how smothering, how much pressure, his star’s magic was pushing out until it had lightened up. Suddenly it went from him having to push through every step, to feeling as if something was curling gently around his wrist to tug him forward.

 He went with it, because where else would he want to be besides at his star and mini star’s sides?

 Sitting on the bed, on the opposite side of mane than his dad was on, he motioned with his hands.

 “Let me help,” he said even softer than before, reaching out. To cup the braid he’d put in his inlustris’ hair. It was a little messy too. It needed to be rebraided. He didn’t even know where his star’s glasses had ended up, but he had these bags under his eyes and Nyx needed to help him.

 Noctis held his son as Nyx undid the buttons of his shirt. Undid his belt. Helped change him from his wrinkled royal attire into the silk pajamas that were probably so much more comfortable. 

 When the raven-haired man saw the imprints of his belt on Ori’s tummy, from sleeping in such uncomfortable clothes, he felt so ashamed. Rubbed at the imprints in an attempt to get them to go away.

 Ori let out a noise, a giggle almost, in response to his dad all but tickling his tummy.

 Then he dropped back into sleep when Noctis stopped.

 When Nyx had gotten his tummy all buttoned up again in soft, silky pajamas? He went to fetch a comb from the princling’s personal bathroom. Smirking at the chocobo-print towels hanging on the rack in there. To be honest, he also hadn’t spent all that much time in the mini star’s rooms before.

 He gave inlustris the comb when he came back, so his star could focus on something as he pulled back the covers of the bed fit for a prince. Basically an exact copy of his dad’s bed. Just, with a lot more plushies littered around it. He picked up a behemoth plush the size of his torso and snorted at it, then set it back down with all the others.

 And turned back to his star, his smaller star -

 And fell so fucking in love all over again.

 Inlustris was done combing Ori’s hair, and was now just cradling him close, rocking him back and forth in the light of golden hour. Pressing a kiss to his temple. Touching his braid, rolling the beads between his fingers, looking from his son up to Nyx. A look that asked for some help. So Nyx reached out. 

 Waited, patiently, as his star gathered up the strength needed to let go of his son. 

 And carried mane to his collection of pillows and plushies and more than one Carbuncle carving lining his bed’s headboard. Carvings, keychains, drawings taped to the wall. He tucked the mini star until the covers, and turned to watch his star drag his dead legs with him up the bed. To fluff up Ori’s pillow for him and tuck him in as well. 

 Nyx sat on the bed’s edge just behind his star.

 Leaned all but over him as he sat there, staring down at his son.

 “Inlustris,” he murmured in his amatus’ ear, and took the chance to very, very, very so tenderly cup his hip. Hold it. As his sweet star surrendered enough to lean back into his chest. Relax, maybe, there. Still staring at mane’s sleeping face as he seemed to sense he was now in bed.

 Because the kid immediately rolled over and snuggled into his pillow, making a tiny, content-sounding noise as he seemed to relax in a way he hadn’t before.

 And the Carbuncle pendant around Nyx’s neck felt warmer, for just a second.

 And his star relaxed into him too, truly, now.

 They stayed like that for a moment. Him, his star’s support.

 A long moment.

 “...I snapped at you…didn’t I?” When inlustris spoke up, he didn’t sound sure at all. So Nyx rubbed his thumb over his hip, paused when it slipped under his shirt because of how his star was arched back into him. But when there was no flinch, he kept up the light, repeated rubs.

 “You were upset. I’m not upset. Not about that,” he promised, he wasn’t, even if he had felt so gods-damned helpless in the moment.

 “I’m still…sorry.” 

 “I know. I forgive you.” 

 “...I’m scared.” 

 A breath shuddered at his neck, and Noctis shuddered with it. With the feel of Nyx’s whole face being pressed against his skin. With the faintest brush of his lips, with each of his breaths, with his heartbeat beating against his amatus’ jaw. It was just Nyx. He was safe with Nyx.

 Still, his heart started pounding.

 He got a bit breathless.

 Nyx’s forehead pressed into his cheek, a weight that kept him where he was. Where they were. On the bed, beside his sleeping son. He sucked in a breath when Nyx rolled his neck, when his braids and beads brushed against his nape with his shifting. He was helpless to it, and he hated being helpless…but…not if it was Nyx. If it was Nyx? If it was - ?

 The fragile royal turned his head to the side, just enough that their foreheads met with a light thump. Just enough that when he peered through his lashes, it was into stormy eyes.

 Nyx’s eyes, full of a special emotion, just for him.

 “...can’t lose him,” he mumbled, like he was still just a child, scared for his dad’s health. His heart. And Nyx pressed into his forehead a little more, kept him there a little more, “‘M not ready, Nyx. ‘M not. Not yet.” 

 “You never will be, inlustris,” Nyx told him apologetically, a sad crinkled around his eyes that said he knew from experience and he was sorry, “You never will be. <There’s no need to be, though. Not now. Your father is going to be fine. Your son is going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.>” 

 Did he believe that? Those smooth promises rolling off of his love’s tongue in Galahdian?

 No. Maybe. Noctis couldn’t be sure at all.

 For now, though, he could be sure that Nyx would stay through the night with them.

 Couldn’t he? 

 “Will you stay?” He asked, fingers curling in his uniform shirt, bedroom gone dark with night, “Will you? Stay with us?”

 “As long as you wish me to,” was sworn to him, Nyx’s forehead against his, Nyx’s eyelashes tickling his cheeks as he tilted his head just so, Nyx’s lips brushing against his as he kept whispering in the din, laying him down on the bed next to his son, “<I will stay the night, starlight. I will watch over you and morning, I will. Sleep now. You are safe.>”

 Maybe that final promise was true, maybe it was false, but when Nyx made it to him?

 Noctis Lucis Caelum believed it.

 And he fell from those lips, into the sheets, under blankets Nyx laid over him, to curl protectively around Oriens. To sleep with his face pressed into his son’s hair. Waiting for news, whenever it would come. Heart a little broken all over again. Realizing he couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He could barely do it as a child, he could barely bear it now as a damaged adult with a son who relied on him and a love who centered him.

 He couldn’t lose a member of his family. Not now.

 He would not survive. He would not allow it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Lucii whispered in their oh-so precious ring.

 On their family’s side. Always.

 

 

-----

 

 

 While Noctis slept, with the utmost care, Nyx Ulric undid the braid in his hair.

 He laid out the beads of blues and golds and silvers. And he combed through inlustris’ hair slowly, until there wasn’t a snag in it. He sat there, in the soft moonlight, polishing each bead. Until they shone. 

And then? 

 With just as much care, he rebraided his star’s hair.

 And he kissed the beads he’d been allowed to braid into it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When morning came, with its light, with its dawn, Oriens woke up with his dad curled lovingly around him in his own bed, in his own rooms.

 Oriens woke up with Nyx curled around his dad and him, also sound asleep, with his kukris held so naturally in his hands it was as if he wasn’t used to letting them go.

 Ori traced the leather strings and beads tied around their hilts, around Nyx’s fingers.

 His dad looked tired.

 His grandpa wasn’t well.

 He wanted knives of his own…if they would help.

 Oriens Lucis Caleum was a good child for his father and for his grandfather…and for his stepdad - ? So he pretended to be asleep a while longer. Until he felt the Glaive who loved his dad stir, and until he felt his dad stir too, and until he heard the quiet breath of his dad maybe being kissed good morning.

 He waited, snuggling into his dad’s chest, and listening to his heartbeat.

 Hoping his grandpa had survived the night, he pretended. Just a while longer.

 

 

-----

 

 
 Dad was just as eager to go and see Grandpa, so Oriens didn’t have to restrain himself for too long.

 Still, he restrained himself from warping all the way to the Royal Hospital Wing by holding his dad’s hand. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis Lucis Caelum was sitting up, the oxygen mask was gone, more of those beeping hospital monitors were gone, and he was picking at the IV stuck in the back of his hand while Clarus fussed over him like a mother chocobo. 

 “Clarus, it is fine, the doctors - “ 

 “Don’t know you and are bound to obey whatever you say, Reggie, now stop picking at it. You need the fluids. If you keep being difficult I will be calling Cid again.” 

 Lucis’ King was very good at pouting when the need arose. His Shield’s eyebrow twitched. His scowl deepened. And it was such a lighthearted scene, that Noctis instantly burst into tears. Without a second in-between to even realize he was going to start crying again.

 His dad’s whole face fell, facing him, and Regis just held out his arms to his son with all the need of a parent who hadn’t held his child in too long, “Oh, Noctis, sweetheart,” he crooned, motioning, “come here. Come here.” 

 This time, he was grateful to Uncle Cor for just pushing his wheelchair forward without asking. It got him to the edge of that bed. Which got him close to his dad, which meant he could grab handfuls of the awkwardly stiff mattress and tug himself up there with him. And for the first time in days he was folded into his dad’s embrace.

 And he never really wanted to leave again.

 There was sniffling, snuffling, and then right by his hip he felt a smaller form climb up to join him. Ori. Also pushing his way into his grandpa’s embrace. 

 The Father held his boys, both of them crying, both of them not ready for him to go, and he apologized. For scaring them. For bringing them both to tears. For doing this to them, doing this to himself, despite knowing he’d do it all over again exactly as he had if it would give them a good life.

 “I’m sorry, Noctis, Oriens. I’m so sorry,” he mumbled against one head of raven-black hair, then the other, “I’m alright. Everything will be alright.” 

 A heart attack had been unexpected but…also not. In so many ways, both of those things.

 With all the good that Regis had finally regained in his life, he’d let the possibility of tragedy striking once again slip away from the forefront of his mind. His health, he’d not exactly been neglecting, but he’d admittedly not pushed himself so hard since his council was replaced. The gala, everything surrounding it - ?

 ‘Your heart gave out, Your Majesty,’ was what the Royal Doctors had of course told him, when he was awake enough to comprehend their words, so apologetic. So scared. Because when a king falls? The whole kingdom feels the ripples of that stone breaking the pond’s surface.

 It was unfortunate. It was terrible that he’d scared his boys like that.

 So he held them tight, as tight as he could as weak as he was, and peppered kisses all over each of their foreheads. Taking tissues from the bedside table to dab at their splotchy cheeks, their red eyes that were too swollen to be tears from just this. 

 He wiped at Ori’s runny nose, and he brushed a thumb under Noctis’ eye to catch his falling tears, and he whispered his apologies like he had failed them.

 He felt he had. Because this was a sign of worse things.

 This was a sign of his body giving out. 

 Whether his boys realized it or not. The doctors had been clear enough in what they told him, with Clarus and Cor standing by his sides, twitching like disgruntled coeurls the whole time. Almost more upset with the news than Regis had been. 

 They spoke of chest pains, of a weakened heart. Of heart palpitations, and a much higher risk of a second heart attack if he pushed himself. Things like difficulty breathing, difficulty regulating his temperature, feeling confused or foggy-minded. It was clear that they were conflicted. Those doctors. Because there were supposed to be times when they had the authority to put forth to the council a suggestion or two for the good of their ruler’s health.

 Including; putting forth the motion that another member of the Lucis Caelum family rule in his stead until his health is no longer at risk. But his health, at his age, was always at risk now.

 And who would they suggest take the throne? Oriens? Surely not Noctis, who still wasn’t recovered enough to be suggested anyways or even officially in the line of succession any longer.

 A regent, perhaps, but even then…

 Ah, but, Regis was straining himself again. By worrying. He put aside those worries, put aside the whispers of the Lucii wrapped around his finger.

 He just held his boys as they cried themselves into an uneasy doze, laid across his chest.

 He’d figure it out. He always did.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “The hell do you mean?” Well, that certainly wasn’t language Regis would usually use around his sweet boys. Wasn’t usual at all. But his boys were asleep with their heads laid on his chest, every one of their breaths felt through his ribs, and Cor had returned from being called away.

 With plain derision on his face for all to see.

 And considering the news he brought his brother, his king? It was understandable.

 “Queen Lunafreya has sent an official messenger to greet you, Your Majesty. According to her communications, they will arrive tomorrow evening at the latest.” 

 And, oh, Cor’s tone was so terse when repeating that, eyes flashing. Hand clenching at his side as if he wished to draw his sword from the Armiger here and now and somehow put an end to this - this. This show Lunafreya Nox Fleuret continued to perform at their expense. But more than that - 

 “...A messenger could not make it here from Tenebrae in two days, or three, or four,” Regis pointed out needlessly, his Sword, his Shield, both watching him with twin furrowed brows as he reached up to rub at an ache in his chest without dislodging either of his sons’ heads, “Which means she sent this ‘messenger’ before my heart attack happened. What reason does she claim to be sending them?”

 “She claims it is to open a dialogue about her…coming to Insomnia to offer you her healing, Your Majesty,” Cor’s jaw audibly popped with how tense he was, with how he spat that lie off of his tongue.

 “Does she think us so dumb?!” Clarus barked.

 Backed down, hastily, when Ori made a tiny, scared noise and hid deeper in Regis’ chest. 

Shoulders climbing up and up and up. 

 Regis ran his fingers through the small darling’s hair, shushing him, waiting until he settled to sigh heftily. 

 “Perhaps…she thinks us old men, perhaps she thinks us silly obstacles between her and whatever goal she now holds for herself and Tenebrae,” he mused, in honest sadness, because once Sylva had been a dear friend of his, and Lunafreya like a niece to him. But he no longer knew her or her mind. And he no longer knew what she thought of him at all, “Perhaps this is all for some greater good to her; pushing us.”

 But to Regis Lucis Caelum, there was no greater good than the good of his family. His Noctis, his Oriens. 

 And she? Was threatening that good, because Noctis had stated clearly he wanted her nowhere near him nor his son.

 How was he to guess her thoughts? He could not, so he would not. Politically, this was a march forward on Lunafreya’s part. He had refused all of her previous requests to visit Insomnia now, for months. So she had sent a messenger without warning; a messenger he could not refuse. And then she’d been handed the convenient excuse of saying it was out of concern for his health. Perhaps she didn’t think them dumb. Perhaps she just wanted an excuse, so she grabbed the first one she was offered.

 If they turned the messenger away, after days of travel…it could be seen as a potentially hostile action.

 Gods damn this.

 “Greet the messenger, grant them entry to the city when they arrive,” Regis ordered, rubbing at the pain in his chest that grew as he tried to keep his boys held tight, “But. I want them staying in one of the royal apartments out in the Crystal District. They won’t be staying in the Citadel, Clarus, Cor. I also want a guard assigned to them. And…although it is underhanded, let us make use of some of the technology Empress Stella has offered us in the past.” 

 Underhandedness was worth it, if it kept his family safe.

 “An apartment, a guard, and a few tapped phone lines and bugs. I can do that,” Cor was quick to agree, quicker in pulling his phone from the Armiger and tap-tap-tapping away at it. Already getting some of his people on it, “Maybe I’ll also arrange a small mix up in their permissions. Get their feathers ruffled a little when they try to get into the Citadel for whatever meeting is arranged and instead get jumped by security for trespassing.”

 When Clarus snorted and Regis raised a brow at their younger brother, Cor shrugged. A mockery of innocence.

 “It was just a mix up,” he said, sounding very self-satisfied with the idea, “It will be a mix up. When it happens. Don’t worry too much about it.” 

 Well, Regis would leave his baby brother’s scheming alone. He’d always managed to balance the careful line between getting away with things and political distastor. 

 “You need rest,” Clarus picked up the conversation where it’d been left, pure concern in the wrinkles around his face as he watched Regis trace faint patterns up both of his boys’ backs as they soundly slept on, “Regis, leave this to us. We can keep everything running smoothly while you get back on your feet.”

 “Oh, don’t I know it?” A fainter chuckle than his touch, Regis’ lips curved up for just a moment before falling. Of course he could trust his brothers. He always could. But, “Before I rest, one thing? Or, two things.” 

 “Anything,” his Sword and Shield said as one.

 “Did Cid call back? And Wes?”

 “They did,” Clarus confirmed, softer now, so, so soft, with those memories of a lifetime they all shared as Retinue so many years ago. Maybe having his heart break down on him made him…worry, and miss that lifetime a little, “While you were asleep. Wes says he’s going to leave the restaurant to his protege for a week or so, come visit. Cid says he won’t be telling you this again, but you’d better sleep for a month if that’s what it takes for you to recover…just, you know, in his way.” 

 “Curmudgeonly?” 

 “Curmudgeonly.” 

 Regis laughed, to himself, to those memories of a youth that had passed him by, to Retinue. And he held his boys. He held them close. He held them tight. He pressed kisses to both of their foreheads as they slept on, because both of them would know the feeling one day too. Or, he hoped they would. Live long enough to know what it felt like to have lived lifetimes in a single life.  

 “And the other thing - ?” Cor urged him, phone gone now, and Regis almost wished he’d started the requests with this one. They could’ve ended on a happier note that way. Still - 

 “How…has the public been reacting?” 

 Two, twin winces were his answer.

 “We’ve isolated as many of the rumors as possible,” Cor reported right away, despite his obvious annoyance - as always, when gossip and public perception was brought up, “In the hours after it happened, there was more than one shady news outlet that ran with the story that you had passed. The PR teams worked quickly. Still, there was some panic before we got the news that you’d be okay. More than one reporter posed the question of who would rule. It’s a question that’s been repeated a lot since.” 

 Of course it was. Lucis’ people had a right to be concerned about the kingdom’s future and who would rule if something happened to Regis. 

His health so publicly being at risk had no doubt brought the question up in force.

 “We’ve stamped out much of it. The council was surprisingly united in displaying faith that you’d recover,” Clarus added begrudgingly, never one who was a fan of the old council, “That, paired with the news that you would make a full recovery, has led to a lot of well wishes and questions about the future, but in general the public is just concerned for your health. Asking after the princes.” 

 “That’s…more optimistic than I honestly expected,” Regis confessed, somewhat relieved, a lot relieved, closing his eyes as he nuzzled into his little nightlight’s hair, “I’ll put it from my mind for now, then. Thank you both. I cannot imagine where I’d be without you. Either of you, after all these years.” 

 “Focus on recovering, Regis.”

 “Yeah - otherwise we won’t hesitate to get Cid up here,” Cor snorted, as if Cid wasn’t up there in age like none of them were and couldn’t get around so good anymore.

 Well, whatever the case.

 A little of something old, a little of something new, his boys, a heart that was broken in a way that wasn’t just sentimental or emotional.

 Regis closed his eyes to rest.

 

 

-----

 

 

 His son glared at the Ring when he woke, its whispers in the back of his mind.

 Still sure it would cost his dad his life.

 

 
-----

 

 

 It was like a buzzing in the back of his head - the Ring.

 Even with each, single day that his dad recovered, Noctis just glared at the Ring that drained him all the while.

 Every day he was at his bedside, no matter how much he disliked the sterileness of the hospital room. Every day Oriens joined them for most of it. They ate together. They stayed together. Every day Noctis thought about tugging the Ring off of his dad’s finger while he rested, and every day ended with his shoulders slumped as he went to tuck his son into bed. Nyx usually joined them.

 Iggy was fighting for his life, trying to get them to have an appetite and feed them.

 Noctis slept in Ori’s bed more than once, more than twice, with Nyx watching over them diligently.

 And every day, again, the Ring.

 Noctis wanted more and more with every day to just take it and toss it out of the Citadel’s highest tower. Who cared where it wound up? He could feel its magic, stuck in his father like needles, draining him dry little by little. Slowing his recovery down. But each time he thought, this time. He’d do it this time - ?

 All it took was shifting a tiny bit in his wheelchair, and he was reminded how dangerous this world was. And how the Ring was what kept him and more importantly his son, safe.

 If he took away the Ring, when he couldn’t even walk, what would that cost his son in his future? 

 It was the only thing that stayed Noctis’ hand. He wasn’t fit to take on the burden killing his father.

 He wasn’t fit.

 

 

-----

 

 

 And then Regis Lucis Caelum was silently buttoning up a proper shirt one day when his son came to visit him in his hospital room, and he had his cane, and he was up and recovered enough to leave -

 To return to doing his duty, even after everything that had happened.

 He was going to go right back to working himself to the bone for his boys.

 And Noctis wanted to weep.

 He wasn’t fit for helping his own father.

 …But, and the idea crept into his head as he watched his dad so slowly hobble away down the hall.

 What if he was?

 

 

-----

 

 

 What if he got what he deserved, finally? 

 For his father.

 For Dad, Noctis silently slipped away from the Glaives and the ‘Guards and the rest of them.
 
 The wheels on his wheelchair didn’t even squeak. The halls - he remembered them. Which to take. And he remembered the floor that it was on. At the very center of the Citadel. At its cradle. Their blessing, their curse, Bahamut’s great gift to the Lucis Caelums centuries ago. Noctis had had no reason to go to these halls since he was saved from Mistveil. Had had no desire to go either. 

 Until now. Because the Crystal beckoned him. Not itself. But what it might do for him - that beckoned the broken one through halls less guarded than he’d seen in a while. He had no plan. Not really. He wasn’t even sure what would happen, him, defiled, before the Crystal. He wasn’t sure how the magic might react. 

 He was alone.

 He was sure somebody, somewhere, Nyx or Ori or someone else - had noticed he’d slipped away by now. They were probably searching desperately for him. But here he was, wheeling himself towards the doors to the Citadel’s Crystal Chamber. Two guards stood at-attention in front of those doors. A Glaive, a ‘Guard.

 Both of them seemed shocked to see him there.

 Seemed as if they were about to access the Citadel’s coms, to check if this was okay. Treating him with kid gloves, like everyone did.

 But he held his head high, nearing them.

 “Let me in.” 

 He ordered them.

 The Crystal Chamber, where nobody was meant to go, nobody had permission to enter, nobody had the right to stand before the Crystal for any reason. Unless you had the right blood in your veins.

 Royalty was the sole exception.

 To stand before the Crystal, you were supposed to be of Caelum blood.

 Here was one with Caelum blood. A son. The son. The son of the King.

 The son of the Father.

 Still, after a pause, one of the guards shifted as if he were uncomfortable with this. Actually opened his mouth as if he were about to refuse. Crownsguard. New uniform, new insignia, with his new colors. Same old rebelliousness. It was the Glaive he was on duty with, embroidery on his uniform and feathers in his braids, that reached over to grip the ‘Guard’s arm. Too tightly to be considered polite.

 His mouth snapped shut.

 The Glaive dragged them both aside, out of the way of the door, and bowed deeply to his prince.

 He, who Father Ramuh had wept for.

 “Your Highness.”

 He opened the door to Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum. Held it, so this son could wheel himself into the Crystal Chamber. Closing the door behind him with another deep bow. Respect in his eyes and his actions, even if the Crownsguard had forgotten that same respect. Even so, the Kingsglaive never had.

The last time the Astrals’ supposed Chosen King had entered the Crystal Chamber, he’d been sixteen. And he had received his epitaph of just that; Chosen. Coming of age. Coming into his supposed destiny. And he had stood before the Crystal feeling awed and insignificant in its light. In this chamber that stood so high above most of Insomnia. Most of Lucis.

The Crystal was brilliant.

Was a false prophet, to him now.

Noctis sat in his wheelchair right in front of it. This ancient boon and bane of his family. Its luminescence. Its glow. So blue. King’s Magic, the people had come to name that blue glow that his line wielded. Here was its source. Here was the source of so much of his family’s hurt. His father’s hurt. Noctis no longer felt awe in any sort of way as he gazed into its depths.

This chamber, so ornate, walls painted in murals of the Six. Their pasts. Their worship. 

The House of Caelum kneeling before Bahamut. In subjugation.

 “They called it…respect,” the broken prince mused, in broken faith, as he took in those murals that looked so drastically different than he remembered them being as a child. Or maybe he was just looking at them in a different light now, “Mutual…respect. A fair trade. Our lives, for your power. Our youths, for your protection.” 

 For Lucis, the House of Caelum had made that deal. Noctis had heard the tale told a thousand times. Like it was some great deed. Some story worthy of astoundment. Mortals and gods, bridging the gap and gifting each other - what? 

 Power for power? 

 Youth for power.

 His father, bled dry and collapsing of a heart attack in his own home when he was only in his fifties. His father with his hair as white as snow, with wrinkles like he had lived decades longer than he really had. His father who had had to rely on a cane when he was barely in his forties, who literally worked himself down to his bones for his kingdom and his gods.

 His father who was hardly recovered at all, but expected to take up the burden of the Ring and the Wall and ruling Lucis anyways.

 “How is this fair?” 

 He asked a question he’d asked a hundred times before, knowing no answer would satisfy him.

 As a child, he’d been shushed. As a teenager, he kept it inside. In Mistveil, he’d had only the voice to answer him with mocking laughter.

 Now he asked it aloud and there was just silence.

 “What have you done to deserve this?” A hundred generations of faith, and for what? He asked the Crystal, “Any of this? What makes you so special? What did you do that makes it all earned? So much of my family - my dad…why do you get them? Get him? When I was rotting in - in…in that place, for ten years, where were you? Was it too much trouble? Even after hundreds of my relatives have served you, was speaking up just this once to clear my name too much to ask of you gods?”

 Noctis thought of the cold, the dark, the din. 

 He thought of his dad laying in a hospital bed with an oxygen mask covering his mouth.

 He thought of his dad getting back up, recovering, just to end up right back there again, eventually. If he kept working himself to death.

 This son couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t. But…he gripped a knee of his, and he couldn’t feel his own grip no matter how hard he dug his nails into the fabric of his pants. His leg would not move. His body was broken and weak in ways it would never really recover from. He could not be of use like this.

 He could not help his dad like this.

 And Noctis bit deep into his lip, the noise he growled out irritated down to his bones and his blood and his ancestors.

 He wanted to help his dad.

 He wanted to help his son.

 He wanted to help his family.

 He reached out to place his palm on the surface of the Crystal, furious.

 This was no petition. What he needed was an able body. Able enough to act. Able enough to fulfill his responsibilities as a royal, to save his dad from them. The Astrals could not heal him. He did not intend to ask them to. What they could do, however, was give him magic.

 And with magic, Noctis could walk tall.

 “You. Owe. Me.”

 The Crystal’s glow darkened under his palm, but he just pressed back harder against the dying light.

 “No - come back here,” he hissed, done with the gods and their damned games, “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I’m telling you, you failed me, you forsook me, you owe me. And I have come to collect on your debt, Astrals. Give me what I’m owed.” 

 The dimmed surface under his palm pulsated. Throbbed. A heartbeat, thrumming at his fingertips.

 Tendrils of light crept towards him, just to be tugged back, and just to creep towards him again. As if something from deep within the Crystal was trying to stop them from paying back the Chosen’s rightful debt.

 But Noctis just pressed back harder, done waiting.

 “Give it to me.” 

 The brilliant, blinding glow of the Crystal filled the Crystal Chamber. The guards at its doors stepped back when it spilled between the cracks, smothered by its grace. A ripple ran through the Wall surrounding the Citadel, hardly noticeable at all. But those who had access to that magic reached for their hearts, pausing in what they were doing. Startled. 

 A debt had just begun to be repaid.

 A Glaive and a ‘Guard stared at the grand doors of the Crystal Chamber.

 And they pushed open from within. 

…

 Noctis gave his wheelchair to the respectful Glaive at the door, to take back to his rooms.

While he went to find his dad.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Now, it wouldn't be fair to completely heal him, would it?

But our Noctis deserves a small present or two...

Chapter 20

~>-----------<~

 

 

 There was a wheelchair in Noctis’ royal rooms.

 It sat, left in a beam of sunlight that shone down through the windows. 

 In it sat Aurora, purring and dozing because the black leather of the wheelchair’s seat warmed up so nicely in the sunlight, didn’t it?

 The Galahdian who had delivered it safely to those rooms ran; a messenger for a message he passed on to every other child of the Stormfather he encountered. A message the community would also deliver. A message meant for one Ulric Clan Chieftain.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Crystal dimmed and dimmed and dimmed, and the one known as ‘Adagium’ fell against it, laughing so loud, so hard, he was clutching his stomach. 

 “How important he must be to you, dear Bahamut, to grant his demands despite his disrespect! How important indeed.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx was twirling his kukris around and around and around in thought as he wandered the halls of the Kingsglaive Complex, counting the hours until he could go back to his star.

 Somebody shouted his name.

 A message was delivered.

 Nyx warped, and all he left behind were crystals fracturing in the air.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A vow, a deed, a bond - broken.

 The Chosen had finally made his choice, though he could not know that.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens was very observant, and all the Citadel knew that. Oriens had been very stressed and temperamental this last week, two, since his grandfather’s health scare. All the Citadel knew that too. Oriens felt the change in the air, the shift of magic in the Wall, the shift in his ties to his dad, the ties between their souls, as Caelums.

 Oriens purposefully left his book in the other room, so he could ask his Uncle Iggy to go and grab it for him.

 By the time Ignis returned, the Hand found his charge gone.

 A princling ran through the walls of the Citadel, passage after passage, feeling in his small heart that his dad needed him.

 

 

-----

 

 

Heads turned.

Eyes followed.

People gasped.

Noctis Lucis Caelum kept on walking.

 From the Citadel’s Hospital Wing to the throne room, a king went from having a heart attack and spending little more than a week regaining his strength, to immediately returning to his duties as if it wouldn’t happen again if he did. The fact that that was his father’s first stop, that his uncles, the retinues, supported that - it made Noctis’ teeth clench.

 It made him angry. And he was always angry, really. It was always there. This ball of tightly squeezed anger inside of his chest, screaming out against the injustice he’d endured. But now he had his legs. Now he was walking like he hadn’t in half a decade or more. Now he was stuck in an in-between and he was angry.

 And he was going to where he knew his dad to be, because he wanted to help him.

 Those doors to the throne room of Lucis were pulled open.

 Their conversations ceased as they all, as one, turned to frown at this interruption.

 Then, as one, made noises of shock.

 Because there was not some uninvited guest interrupting them, this day. There was, that was, Regis’s shoulders shuddered as he inhaled, inhaled so sharply he nearly coughed on it, taking a step down the dais of his throne, because there was his little nightlight. Entering the throne room. Head held high; as high as any Caelum’s should be.

 But more than that, there was his little nightlight.

 There.

 There, Regis took another single and unsteady step down towards his Noctis.

 Who was on his own two feet.

 Who was walking towards the dais of the throne, despite the disbelief of the whole hall. Of King and royal retinues, as the doors were slowly pulled close behind his son once more.

 “Noctis,” the old king rasped, so unsteady, “baby, how? What - ?”

 How? 

 What gave him this gift to walk? What had healed a decade of harm done to his son’s body? 

 What had this cost? 

 Noctis stopped. Just there, in his steps, at the bottom of the stairs. Looking up at them all. At the throne once meant to be his by birthright.

 He shifted. Just so. And with the royal son’s shifting, there were threads. Made visible. Threads of blue magic fading in then out of sight. Just below his waist. So they all lowered their gazes, to where those threads were winding around Noctis’ hips, his legs, gripping them. Holding them. Holding him with their glowing blue weaves.

Almost like an aetheric splint on each leg, or like the knee brace around Regis’ very own right leg. 

“You’re…using your magic to brace yourself,” Regis whispered, realized, was startled by it as his eyes grew wider and he took in that fact. Descending the steps of the throne’s dais with new haste, “Noctis, my dear boy, that is dangerous! Too much of a constant magic strain like that, and when you haven’t even practiced - “ 

“My magic spent ten years festering, unable to be used,” the son interrupted his father, the Father, old horrors behind his blue-blue eyes. As blue as his magic. And as blue as the price he now paid to walk, “It has no other purpose, and it will not be threadbare for a long time. I can handle it, Dad.” 

He shifted again, the threads fading somewhat.

 “Besides,” averting his eyes, Regis’ concern only grew with the quieting of his son’s voice, “It’s not all from my own reserves, so - “

 The concern turned to panic.

 And Regis stumbled that final step to stand on even ground with his son, on tiles engraved with their family’s royal initials, his son who grabbed his wrists gently to steady him, who was standing, who had paid some price because there was only one way for a Lucis Caelum to gain additional magic outside of their own.

 “Noctis, my boy, what did you do? What did you do?!”

 “I told the Crystal to give me more magic,” he said, like it was simple, like it hadn’t torn something from his soul in exchange, “I was owed a debt. I demanded it repaid.” 

 “A debt - ?” Regis repeated, feeling a pang fill his chest, feeling a hurt take his heart with it and run, run to his boy, and barely felt the way Noctis helped him stumble into standing up straight and let him go. A debt, a debt, what debt? 

 “The Astrals could’ve cleared my name the moment I was accused. They didn’t.” 

 And that was the explanation they all got, the explanation that seemed to suck all breathable air out of the throne room and out of their lungs. There was a hard, steeliness in Noctis’ voice none of them had heard much of at all since his return. There was a shadow in his eyes. There was something in the way he stood tall, in the tight threads bracing him up - 

 There was something there, and that something was power, and they all recognized it as such.

 There was defiance.

 There was blasphemy in the House of Caelums, and Regis was so proud.

 But so scared for his son too.

 Noctis reached for him, so of course Regis reached back, never capable of denying his sweet son a thing.

 Reached forward with the Ring of the Lucii on his finger.

 And only realized it was not a simple embrace his son sought, when Noctis’ hand went to that finger with a frightful amount of casualness. Regis felt the fool for taking so long to realize what was happening exactly. Staring at Noctis sliding the Ring from his finger, baffled, then scared, cane hitting the tiles of the throne room’s floor as he dropped it in his panic to grab for his boy who would be hurt by this.

 “Noctis - don’t!” 

 The Ring was removed from his finger.

 The immediate relief was terrible. The weight of the Wall was off his shoulders. The drain of it, of being the protector, of being the King of Lucis, fell from him and he felt revitalized but he hated it because Noctis was slipping the Ring onto his own finger as his father and the retinues all made terrified sounds too.

 Regis knew how the Ring felt, claiming Lucis’ ruler.

 He knew how it set the Caelum blood aflame. How one screamed their first time wearing it.

 He grabbed his son by the shoulders, for support and to support him, panicked, panicked.

 But when Noctis slipped on the Ring of the Lucii - 

There was no scream. 

There were blue tendrils of their magic, King’s Magic, gently twining around the rest of his fingers like more rings, winding all the way up his wrist and forearm. A greeting from the family that came before them. They were kind about it. They hadn’t been that in generations.

 Regis was open-mouthed and in awe, and somewhat…ashamed, seeing that.

 His son. Welcomed home.

 Cor had a hand to his ear, asking into the Citadel’s communication lines if the Wall still stood, and Clarus was skipping steps in his haste to rush down to Regis’ side, shouting with his own type of panic. And Ignis had sat down hard on the steps, staring at them with wide, wide, wide eyes that had seen torture and seen death and seen ghosts. And Gladio was right behind his dad, cursing, because this was never what any of them had expected.

 Regis’ soul was no longer as heavy.

 His heart no longer as strained.

 And yet he reached out to try and plead with his son to give his burden back to him, because it was never a thing he should’ve had to carry for a minute, let alone more.

 “Noctis, baby, Noctis, Noctis - I can handle it! I can! You needn’t do this, sweetheart. Let me. Let me,” he was babbling and he knew he sounded like a somewhat mad old fool but Clarus grabbed his arm to offer him support and he just kept babbling, “I know I scared you, I know, but please! You’ve given enough, I cannot ask you for more, nobody in Lucis can ask you for more, nobody - !”

 “Noctis,” he thought he had the support of his Shield, thought Clarus would back him up in his begging, but his oldest friend’s voice trailed off after just saying his son’s name. And he did not speak again. His posture resigned.

 No - !

 “Noct, what about Ori?” Gladio spoke up at his other shoulder, tone low, coaxing, but also not nearly fighting this enough, not enough.

 “I’m doing this for Ori.” 

 Never enough.

 “Ori…deserves to have you for as many years as he can, Dad,” it was never enough, when facing the truth of how much his son loved him beyond words’ reason, “Let’s not…lie. You have raised him. Like a father. Like a mother. Like everything. You were there. You can’t push yourself to death when he - he still needs you.” 

 His boys; Regis had let them love him too much.

And now the shadows had cleared from Noctis’ blue-blue eyes to leave them as bright as the day he was born and named for the night skies Regis once thought were everything beautiful in the world.

 “I still need you too.” 

 Oh, Aulea, their boy was so much like her. 

 “I’m…I mean,” Noctis finally dropped some of that, truly, in all honesty - imposing power he’d been exuding. Dropped his shoulders. Dropped his head, to peer down at the Ring of the Lucii he now wore on his finger as if it were nothing at all but another piece of jewelry. And his voice, always with a hint of raspiness to it, dropped too. Even lower. Almost sounding ashamed, and Regis wished to weep that his brave, magnificent son would ever feel such a way. For any reason, “I am well aware that I cannot be Lucis’ King, Dad. Physically, this extra magic hasn’t healed me. It’s just giving me back my mobility. I’m still mentally, too, unfit. The memories, they - “ 

 Now, Noctis truly reached out for him, so Regis cupped his elbows and brought him closer, cane kicked away by the toe of his shoe, feeling like a failure for the way his sweet son’s voice broke.

 “They’ll never go away. I’ll never forget. I tried to. I won’t. I can’t. Mistveil is engraved on me. Every moment of it is engraved on me, and I see those moments clearly even if they happened in the dark. I remember, my body remembers, my mind won’t forget even if I beg it to, so…I know, I can never really handle ruling, Dad. I’m sorry.” 

 “Oh, do not apologize, my boy,” when he held his son, so tightly, he felt the hands grabbing at the back of his shirt, the tremble in Noctis’ shoulders and again he despised himself for not saving his son sooner and just fleeing if that was what it took, “Do not apologize. Not a one of those moments was ever your fault. And I would never expect you to rule. Never.” 

 Regis Lucis Caelum never wanted the Ring on his son’s finger, either. 

 “It won’t drain me, much,” was mumbled into his shoulder, muffled, “It’s the Crystal’s magic…it would drain. Not my youth. Not me. I can…I can hold the Wall, Dad. I can supply the Glaives and ‘Guards with magic. You don’t have to anymore.”

 Regis cupped the back of his son’s neck and kept him right there, squeezing his eyes shut tight.

 Feeling the weight of his failure take the place of his burden’s relief.

 “I - I’ll leave the paperwork to you, okay? You know I’m bad at it,” Noctis tried to joke, his chuckle weak, wet, and Regis hummed. Pressed a kiss to his son’s hair. Rocking him.

 Noctis now wore the Ring.

 He’d wanted to protect him.

 Both of the Lucis Caelums had wanted that, the same. And one more.

 One more Lucis Caelum, who was announced by shouting ‘Guards out in the hall without the throne room, pleading with someone small who was ducking around them, who threw a Carbuncle carving from his pocket through the crack in the door the second he pushed it open enough.

 Oriens warped after that carving.

 Appearing a few feet off of the ornate tiling of the throne room, catching his Carbuncle carving, squeaking as he had to stagger sideways when he landed.

 The door behind him pushed fully open with more shouting, and Nyx froze there, panting, like he’d been chasing the princling all over the Citadel.

 Everything, everyone, even the magic threads bracing Noctis Lucis Caelum upright? All froze in place.

 The scene being taken in from so many angles as Regis let his and Aulea’s beloved, beloved, beloved and loving child pull back to face his own child. Standing. With just the support of some magic indebted to him, in the god rays of the throne room. Looking like a king without a crown, beside a king aged, beside retinues in a tizzy.

 Oriens broke the frozen atmosphere first.

 By inhaling so much it was as if he were trying to turn himself into a balloon.

 Then running as fast as his short legs could carry him the distance between him and the dais. Him and his dad.

 “Daddy, you’re walking!!!”

 His excited shout echoed, bouncing from pillar to pillar, from stairs to throne, and back again to Noctis who stooped a little. So his son could come flying into his arms. He staggered, but Regis was there to let his son rest against his chest, to hold him and his grandson, as Oriens cheered, kicking his legs happily.

 Held by his dad.

 Who could hold him in his arms now, without the need for help or needing Ori to crawl into his lap.

“Ori,” Noctis choked, on his baby boy’s name, his little dawnlight all lit up by the most brilliant of smiles that he hadn’t seen since his dad’s heart attack, “Careful. What if I hadn’t caught you?” 

“Of course you’d catch me!” Oriens chirped, with full faith in his father, still squirming around and still kicking his legs and laughing, as he kept trying to peer back down at his dad’s legs curiously, “How’re you walking?! Dad, you’re standing! Upright!” 

 As if he hadn’t noticed, Noctis let out a loud laugh, more than a little emotional as Regis smiled fondly at his boys.

 “It’s…a long story, Ori. How about I tell you later?”

 It was all a very long story.

 But there was one very short truth to be sure of.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum would protect his family, no matter what came for them in the dark.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx Ulric was still standing on the threshold of the throne room, more than a little disbelieving.

 More than a little hopeful.

 Inlustris’ pretty blue-blue-blue eyes peeked at him, past mane’s shoulder. There was a sentiment in them. Something unsure and nervous. Something strong, underneath that. For his star was so strong. And for Nyx was so proud of him. So he shook his head, laughing, just to himself and to his star who always managed to surprise him in the best of ways. And inlustris grinned, before he pressed that grin and his face into his son’s hair to kiss him and hold him close, both of them in His Majesty’s arms.

 Later. Starlight would explain later, Nyx knew.

 For now, he waved the baffled ‘Guards behind him back, to give their royals some privacy.

 Thanking the Stormfather for this blessing that gave back just a small amount more of his amatus’ freedom.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis insisted - insisted - on visiting the Citadel’s Hospital Wing first and foremost…once they got Oriens extricated from his father. His son’s explanation continued to be that he’d ‘demanded’ magic from the Crystal, and Regis couldn’t possibly calm himself down until he was assured that there wasn’t some time limit…or worse, attached to the magic. 

 They gave him some meds for his hurting heart while he was there, while they checked over Noctis.

 And then they told him with wide eyes and an air of bafflement to them all that there was no issue with this. His son was in perfect health. Or, as perfect as he could be with all  of his permanent disabilities. There was the risk of straining himself, since he still wouldn’t be able to feel his legs, but he’d been diligent about his physical therapy for the past many months. His magic was fine. His body was fine. His head was fine.

 Regis barely could believe the Crystal, Bahamut, would hand his son such a gift without any nasty tricks included.

 But he hardly wanted to make his son feel interrogated, so he accepted it.

 He held Noctis’ hands in his as they stepped around the halls together. Slow, easy steps. Almost as if they were dancing, while the lighting shifted from day-bright to afternoon-gold through the windows. Noctis watched him. With a smile. 

 And Regis folded his baby boy back into his arms for a hug, wanting to protect him from all the world.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “How could we let this happen?! He should never have made it into the Crystal Chambers, let alone been able to pluck the Ring from His Majesty’s fingers right before our very eyes!” 

 “Calm down, Iggy. Com’on. This isn’t exactly a terrible thing.” 

 Ignis exhaled harshly through his nose, turning his glare towards the man who had followed him. Who was leaning in the doorway of his office so casually. Arms crossed. Looking calm. And Ignis despised that calm, now, when they’d just watched their Noct take on an immeasurable burden that would drain the life from him day upon day upon day!

 “Calm? I am meant to be calm?! Gladiolus, you know what sorts of cruelty the Crystal employs. You know what the Ring asks as a cost. How can you be calm? And how did he get into the Crystal Chamber?!”

 A pause, his lips pressing tightly together, then Gladiolus’ shoulders rose into a shrug.

 “There was a Glaive on duty today, of all days,” was his explanation, “You know how the Glaives are with him. And I never said I was calm.” 

 The Hand startled.

 Reexamined the Shield.

 Noticed, this time, the tense way he was holding those broad shoulders of his, and the furrow between his eyebrows, and the resignation behind his eyes. Ignis stilled. Then reached up, removing his glasses to stare into their lens as if they were at fault. For what? For everything. He tossed them onto his desk with a sigh.

 “What are we to do, Gladio?” 

 “Stand by him. It’s all we can do anymore. Him and Ori need us.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “He what?!”

 Cor moved his phone away from his poor, ringing ear. Listening to the speaker crackle from how high his kid’s voice had gone - and yeah. Yeah, this was a lot. And a lot perfectly described how reluctant the Sword had been to even call up his kid and tell him about all of this, because -

 “I’m coming to the city, Dad, I’ll - “

 As if.

 “You’ll do no such thing.” Maybe he was a bit sharp with barking that order. He knew that, he heard it, practically heard the way Prompto jolted in surprise on the other end of the phone too, so he pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to be gentler about this, “Prompto, there’s nothing to be done now. He claims there will be no cost to the extra magic, and the Ring took him so carefully it was like nothing we’d ever seen, or nothing the Caelum records have in store. Prompto, your wife is pregnant. I know my own visit has been pushed back, but you should not be going anywhere, you hear me? Your place is right where you are. With Cindy and with your own kids who are on the way.” 

 A shaky breath, and his phone’s speaker crackled again. 

 “I know, Cor. I do,” he settled back against his desk, leaning on its edge, to listen. Because he would be making damned sure Prompto didn’t make the same mistakes he had when he was younger. When he had Prompto as his kid the first time, “I just…it’s a lot. First there was His Majesty’s heart attack, now this? I feel like I haven’t been there for any of you. I feel so useless sitting here.”

 “It’s called having a normal life,” Cor Leonis, Immortal and Marshal and Sword murmured, “Congratulations on escaping, Prompto. Don’t come running headlong back to this when you finally have something else to look forward to.” 

 “I…yeah, Dad. Yeah.” 

 On the other end of the phone, Insomnia wasn’t even a dot in the distance for Prompto to stare longingly at. He really had left that city and its troubles in his rearview mirror years ago. And on the other end of the phone, he and his girl were getting dinner ready, and planning to try and put together a crib that had more complicated instructions than taking apart an engine and putting it back together again did.

 And Cor? Cor wanted to be on the other end of the phone too, just a little.

 “I’ll be along in a week, maybe two, depending on how a few other things play out in the next couple of days,” he promised his kid, his kid, tired in his own right, “Wait for me?”

 “Always.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Together, they had promised Oriens a family dinner to sate his curiosity and his concern.

 So a family dinner there was. Nothing formal. Nothing formal in the least. It was a dinner held in Regis’ drawing room. A cloth simply laid over one of the tables, and them all sat in comfortable armchairs or on the sofa over the course of it. Oriens had so many questions for his father. They answered those as best they could, but the unknowing of it all clearly intrigued the princling anyways. 

 It was a family dinner which ended with music played softly from Regis’ phone; some waltz all of them knew the steps to and had known the steps to since they could walk. 

 It ended with Regis watching Noctis dance with his son.

 Noctis was giggling like he was just a boy. Holding Oriens’ small hands so gently in his, the two of them dancing around and around on the patterned carpet in the glow of a golden twilight. Ori kept skipping steps, and just bouncing back and forth happily, circling his dad’s legs. Reaching out to touch the threads bracing him up.

 Noctis kept hugging his son to his hip, and holding him, swaying to the soft sounds of the orchestra.

 When the song ended, Oriens came over to his grandpa. Tugging at his sleeve, at his pants’ leg, tugging him up and off of the sofa. Another song started. And he was tugged over to his and Aulea’s greatest and dearest treasure of all. This time, this time - ?

 When they danced, they danced for real.

 Regis rested his head on his son’s shoulder as they swayed, old and tired and worn down to dust in so many ways.

 His son seemed taller than him now.

 Oriens danced in circles and squares around them, cheering and giggling, with his hands in the air. With his magic in the air, pure and blue and bright.

 It was a truly wondrous way to end this day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A reasonable bedtime for Ori came, went - was missed entirely, really. The princling was more interested in learning about how his dad could walk again, and then asking questions - so many questions - and then shyly offering to heal both his dad and his grandpa. It wasn’t the first time he’d offered to use his healing magic on Regis since his heart attack. They’d gently steered him away from that each time, since his magic couldn’t undo the price of time and age.

 He hadn’t really offered to heal Noctis, though. Because he’d been told from the beginning that most of his dad’s health issues were permanent.

 This though, him walking, seemed to make his son hopeful that he could help more.
 
 “Maybe…this time?”

 They were gentle with refusing him this time too.

 And they all sat together, talking, leaning on another, until Ori nodded off on his dad’s shoulder. Gladio stepped up to offer to carry him back to his bedroom for the night, waved Noctis off kindly when he offered instead. 

 “You’ve tucked him in all week. Let somebody else for once, and go to bed yourself, Noct.” 

 Regis agreed Noctis should go to bed too, worry not quite well hidden in his expression as he urged him to do so. Fear hidden quite less when Noctis caught his dad staring at the magic bracing him upright still. It would take time for everybody to get used to it. For everybody to be sure there was no terrible price tied to him walking again.

 Noctis walked himself back to his bedroom.

 Not that he was by himself. Nyx had diligently stood guard outside of the king’s drawing room for hours, waiting to walk with him. And they did. They walked back to his bedroom. Together. Nyx had listened in to receive answers like everyone else, though he didn’t have the same worries they did. He had trust in Father Ramuh, if none of the other Six.

But his stormy eyes kept shifting downwards.

 To watch his star actually move his own two legs.

 Noctis never minded; not Nyx’s eyes. Not when they were on him. They weren’t the same as being stared at by everyone else. 

 There wasn’t really any talking. There was just Nyx’s hand hovering over the small of his back whenever they shifted past other people in the hall who gawked at them, and Nyx shadowing him, and Nyx nodding to the Glaives they passed who nodded back, and security was still tight, and -

 And he was so very glad to get back into the privacy of his rooms. His bedroom.

 Something else would make him gladder, though, and he knew he wanted it. Especially after all the gawking done at him on the way back there.

 It was…different. For him. Almost, like new. 

 Noctis wanted a shower.

 Who would’ve thought, who would’ve ever thought, a shower would be able to heal a few of those cracks in Noctis’ heart? It was the usual. He felt dirty, he felt grimey, there were eyes on him and he could walk again and it was hard to tell how old he was or where he was in his mind - 

 So, he decided to clean himself up. And then he stood in his bathroom and made the conscious decision to choose the shower over his bathtub. 

 Maybe that made it harder to stay in the present, to remember he was twenty-nine not nineteen. That he could walk, but he still couldn’t feel. That he was in the Citadel, not Mistveil Keep.

 But he turned the handles, and he stuck a hand under the spray of water that hit black tiled floors and walls anyways. Shivered when he found it cold.

 Pulled his hand back when he felt it heat up to an uncomfortable degree, even with his damaged nerves.

 Waiting, until it was just right.

 And undressing. All on his own. Which wasn’t very novel, but usually doing it himself involved him wiggling around on the floor to get his pants off and this - it didn’t. Blue threads bracing his skinny, bones-for-legs up. He forced himself not to look at them.

 He took a breath, then stepped under the spray.

 It was warm.

 Noctis had…forgotten. What a shower was like. The spray on his shoulders, on his cheeks, the water droplets rolling off of his lashes. The feel of the water pressure, constant and steady, thrumming away at his broken body. It made him immediately squeeze his eyes shut and take a deep breath. It was something old made new.

 It was like standing in the rain.

 Noctis hadn’t been able to feel rainfall for…ten years? More, now. He hadn’t since being saved from Mistveil either.

 It was magnificent.

 He could feel it.

 He could almost imagine he was standing under stormy skies. Stuck in the rain. The clouds were gray and dark and rolling. And the rain was chilly, but its beat soothed him. And he turned his face to it. And he basked in it, in his freedom. He’d always loved the rain. Some of his favorite fishes only came out when it rained. He’d imagined it so many times, in Mistveil; being able to go out into the rain. Just for a little while.

 No matter what the guards there asked of him in return, no matter what they did to him in the rain, Noctis probably would’ve agreed to their every request if he’d been able to go out into a storm again after ten years of wanting. 

 Now he was here, home, using his legs in an unconventional way but still using them. He was upright. He was able to take a shower, and - 

 And there was the Ring of the Lucii worn by one of his fingers. 

And he brought his hand upwards to stare at it, in the spray. The water falling off of its ornate design. The small gem, opal-like, at its center gleamed in the waterlight reflected off of bathroom tiles.

 What had he changed? So much.

 He could take a shower now too.

 Noctis closed his eyes again to enjoy it to the fullest, for the first time in more than ten years. Standing on his own two feet under the water spray. It was amazing.

 It was a revelry that was only slightly interrupted by a knock at the bathroom door. A quick, three knocks. And Noctis let out a soft hum in acknowledgement that surely went unheard since he was all the way across the bathroom and the water fall was drowning out soft sounds like that.

 But a hand pushed the door open, just a bit. Just enough for a head to poke through the crack. A head of dark brunette hair and braids with so many beads. A confident little smirk on that mouth, that faltered when Nyx didn’t find inlustris in the bathtub like usual. He pushed the door open more, stepped in, a brief trill of something like panic settling over him.

 And then found his star.

 Standing in the open shower across the room. Standing under the spray. Face tipped up to it almost in longing, whole body trembling, and it was something like emotion or something like awe - it was his amatus, and Nyx wanted to care for him.

 “Inlustris,” he called softly, identifying himself with just that, that name he’d given his prince himself. 

 And his heart maybe skipped a beat when he saw his star’s lips immediately curve up into a smile in response.

 “Nyx,” his starlight, his love, said back, so quietly Nyx couldn’t hear a single syllable but he could read his lips moving as he tilted his head towards him without opening his eyes, “Join me?” 

 As if it needed to be a question. Well, Nyx definitely didn’t need him to ask twice. The Glaive didn’t even waste a moment. Glad he’d taken off his uniform’s outer layers already and left them in the bedroom, since that meant he could just walk straight towards his inlustris, yanking his shirt off over his head.

 The boots went, one after the other. The socks too.

 Then the belt, the pants.

 The underwear.

 All in a trail of discarded clothes that led straight to the shower, which Nyx stepped into without hesitation.

 Stepping up close to his star - so close their bodies were nearly pressed together. Inlustris’ scarred, ravaged back to his chest. 

 Noctis sighed, able to feel the presence of his favorite Glaive shadowing him. He glanced back at Nyx. Peeked through his lashes for just a second. It was strange, to realize he was only a couple inches shorter than Nyx when standing. He was so used to him sitting while Nyx stood. But like this? 

 Those extra couple of inches allowed Nyx to lean a little over him.

 Nyx reached down, tentative as his fingertips touched one of those magic threads bracing up his love.

 “Does this hurt you, inlustris?” He asked.

 “Just phantom pains,” Noctis responded, savoring the height difference. While his response had Nyx making an unhappy noise.

 “Here. Lean on me, if you need.” 

 It was nice.

 It made him feel safe, in this storm, with his storm.

 It made Noctis feel safe enough to take the smallest of steps backwards. Enough to make his shoulderblades meet Nyx’s chest. Enough to press their hips together in different ways. Enough to make his shoulders rise, then fall, then relax with the rest of his body as he sank completely back into Nyx.

 Nyx, Nyx Ulric, who did not throw away this chance, who pressed back. Just the slightest amount. Just so his star could feel the pressure of him reciprocating. Waiting. Honored, to have his starlight granting him so much trust like this. So honored. The rain rolling down his cheeks, the back of his neck, wetting his beads until they shone. 

 The water spray, not the rain, but Nyx would be willing to do this even if it were the rain. If they were outdoors, under stormy skies, he’d love to press his naked body to his star’s and be there for him. In every intimate way possible. There was nothing sexual about the way Nyx placed his hands on his star’s hips. There was nothing sexual in the way they wound around each other in the shower, surrounded by tiles wet and gleaming and the sound of pattering water droplets.

 There was just them.

 And the kiss he placed tenderly on the curve of Noctis’ shoulder.

 And the way his favorite royal sank back into him in every way, as magic faded in and out of sight around his legs, his body covered in scars, his limbs, his nerves - all damaged.

 But Nyx was allowed to wash him, as his inlustris simply enjoyed the feeling of a shower.

 And he loved it.

 He loved Noctis Lucis Caelum.

 He kissed him, on the lips, with soap in his star’s hair and suds all over them and puddles under their feet. He kissed him with a towel damp in his hand as he slowly wiped down every centimeter of his body, and with their clothes left in piles on the bathroom floor, and while he was rebraiding his star’s braids and beads.

 He kissed him goodnight, when they were both dressed in pajamas and inlustris had laid down on his bed, and those blue threads had disappeared from around his legs. His hips. Leaving himself unable to walk once more, but his wheelchair was right there. Waiting for him. And so was Nyx.

 Nyx, who went to sleep on his cot with his lips tingling from all the kisses he’d been allowed to ask for that day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Carbuncle’s purrs were so loud, the little dream guardian was practically a vibrating orb of blue fur in Noctis’ lap. He - the Chosen, they called him - kept petting his dear companion. In a dreamscape. A field by the sea’s shore, where his son ran through wildflowers as he watched. 

He could see his dad in the distance, conversing happily with his retinue, healthy and without his cane and without the strain of being Lucis’ King burdening him.

He watched Iggy and Gladio come over the hill, walking leisurely to join Ori as he ran around, watching over him with fond, fond smiles.

Somewhere in the wildflowers, he saw the stems sway. He heard giggles. He caught glimpses of Prompto curled around his wife, as they kissed gently and looked forward to the arrival of their unborn child.

It was the best dream.

Noctis Lucis Caelum got to watch, petting Carbuncle like he were still a child who needed the guardian’s help to find his way out of his coma.

Carbuncle’s ears fluttered. Long. Fluffy. They perked up, because Ori had his hands to his mouth and was calling for the guardian who had also watched over him his whole life. Noctis chuckled when Carby’s nose twitched, and let him go. So he could go to his son. Bounding through wildflowers like a cat, to leap into Oriens’ arms and be held close.

The raven-haired man leaned back, eyes falling shut with the pleasant smell of flowers all around him.

A hand rested itself gently on his.

Petrichor, he smelled. The earth after rain’s fall. The sharp, real smell of a storm ending. Nyx. The fingers curled around his. He heard that all-too familiar chuckle, a breathy, “Inlustris?”

Murmured in his ear. 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum woke up. 

 His bedroom was pleasantly warm thanks to the sun filling it with light. His sheets were warmer, thanks to them being black and having absorbed all the warmth. There was a Carbuncle carving beside his head on the pillow. There were vases of flowers all throughout his royal rooms, the smell of pollen and petals in the air. 

 There was Ori, laid out on his belly on the tiles of his bedroom, rubbing Aurora’s tummy as the white molly purred so much she was a ball of vibrating fur.

 There was Nyx, sat on the tiles next to them both, occasionally reaching out to poke Aurora’s tummy in a way that made her meow and wiggle closer to Oriens.

 Both Glaive and Prince giggling like children in the middle of some mischief.

 Noctis snuggled into the soft, feathery pillow he had bunched under his arms.

 And watched a while.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “The messenger from Tenebrae has arrived, Your Majesty.” 

 Regis bothered not to hide his hefty sigh, at Clarus’ report. Taking a sip of water to wash down the pills the doctors had prescribed him. Would they get not even a day? To adjust to all that had happened not even a day before? Apparently, no. This felt too soon. So many of these things felt too soon.

 Regis went to turn the Ring over on his finger as he always did when thinking…just to remember he no longer wore it when all he touched was the pale strip of skin around his ring finger. A perfect imprint of the Ring of Lucii.

 A brand, almost.

 He stared it, unreasonably calling it such in his head, even when he knew the sun would tan the skin eventually.

 And his baby boy now wore the Ring.

 How could he let this happen?

 “Regis?” Clarus’ questioning tone brought him back to his official office, his desk, scattered full of documents that had piled up during his time recovering from his heart attack. He sighed. A second time. Nodding.

 “Yes, I - keep to our previous plan. A hotel and careful surveillance for them, and under no circumstances is this messenger to get anywhere near Noctis,” he shifted aside some papers, piled up a few more, then accepted the dossier Clarus had for him to add to…everything else. So much else, “Also, I want it kept as underwraps as possible that Noctis now wears the Ring. For as long as we can. He’s taken up the Wall, and it doesn’t seem that he feels the burden at all, but if I transfer the Glaives’ bonds to him he will surely feel that so we must speak to Drautos…about…“

 Staring at the dossier Clarus had given him, Regis’ thoughts blanked for a moment’s time.

 More.

 “Regis?”

 The dates on the dossier. August twentieth to September second. How long his recovery took, how long -

 Oh no.

 “Clarus,” he murmured, clutching the dossier pages so hard they crinkled as he struggled deeply with not feeling even more a failure of a father, voice cracking, “Noctis’ birthday was on the thirtieth.”

 When he glanced up, he saw his Shield doing mental math, and saw him come to the same conclusions Regis had as his heart fell.

 “We forgot his birthday.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 How could he forget?

 Even having put the date out of his mind for ten years previously, how could he forget now that his sweet boy was home?

 Regis Lucis Caelum sat the throne of Lucis, as King, with a replica ring on his finger meant for emergencies. He sat staring coldly down at this messenger from Tenebrae who Queen Lunafreya had sent in spite of all their wishes. Expression as unmoving and unforgiving as stone. He didn’t even care that the young, blonde man was shaking in his shoes and Tenebraean robes. He didn’t even care all that much to listen to his words that were all flowery and false.

 ‘Allegiances’ and ‘prior agreements’ and ‘beneficial for our houses to meet again’ was repeated over and over again in various ways and words.

The messenger was so frazzled by Regis’ uncommon coldness that he never mentioned Lunafreya’s offer to extend healing to the king until after Ignis skillfully prompted him into doing so. In a way that made it seem very much like a second thought, and therefore very much disrespectful. 

He mentioned his queen’s wish to visit Insomnia, her wish to see Noctis with her own two eyes, and again Ignis easily managed to trip the messenger into a faux pas by pointing out Oriens hadn’t been mentioned once.

 Regis, admittedly, left most of the audience to Ignis’ sharp tongue and Clarus’ boxy politeness.

 HIs mind was stuck elsewhere.

 Repeating over and over again, ‘How could I forget?’

 His son’s first birthday free of Mistveil Keep, and it had been spent at Regis’ bedside in fraught concern because he had had a heart attack. Noctis hadn’t said a word. Had his son even known? Noctis…to be honest, didn’t have a good grasp of days passing anymore. Regis didn’t think his son paid attention to the date at all. 

 How would he make amends?

 “Still, Queen Lunafreya truly wishes to visit Crown Prince Noctis herself, Your Majesty - “

 “Prince Noctis,” Ignis corrected coldly, on the dais of the throne below Regis, each step closer, another step that held retinue members, “Prince Oriens is the one who holds the title of Lucis’ Crown Prince, Mister Plorn. And has for nearly ten years now.”

 “My apologies, I only - “

 “And I believe we’d made it rather clear our stance on royal visitors, Mister Plorn. Both in our letters to Queen Lunafreya and our direct messages, before and henceforth after this visit of yours we will continue making ourselves clear.”

 What would Noctis even want for his birthday? Would he wish to celebrate it at all? Time was a difficult subject for his son, he knew. What was he to do? 

 “Best you be on your way now.” 

 Regis barely noticed when the Tenebraean messenger was all but politely shoved out of the throne room, except for the sudden uptake of murmuring from his council who had stood audience. So he took that as his que to be able to rest his chin in his hand and lounge more comfortably in his throne, thinking.

 “Do you think Noctis would - ? But, no. No. Oh, what would he like?” He asked Clarus rhetorically, somewhat, listening to Cor and Ignis and Gladiolus all come up to join him around the throne as well, both of the latter quietly stricken like he was. Perhaps he should’ve waited to mention Noctis’ missed birthday until after the audience was finished. Not before.

 “A fishing trip, maybe?” Gladiolus hedged, but grunted immediately after due to knowing they could not allow Noctis out of the city. Not at this time. 

 “How did I miss this?” Ignis whispered, miserably. All of his sharp edges snapping off now that he didn’t have a foreign dignitary to direct them at.

 “Well, we had planned for Oriens to have a vacation out to the outpost over the summer, before…everything,” Cor pointed out, tapping away at his phone, a scowl seizing his features that showed he was just as displeased about this, “We could reschedule? Maybe after Her Majesty loses interest in visiting. If she does.” 

 So much to manage. So much to handle.

 And they had forgotten Noctis’ birthday for an eleventh year in a row.

 “Perhaps you could ask him?” Clarus suggested lightly, laying a hand on Regis’ shoulder when the younger brother looked up at his Shield, squeezing just as lightly, “Be honest. We all know he’s probably not even kept track of the days. Perhaps he has something in mind. Something he wants.”

 Perhaps that was the only thing Regis could do.

 Besides sighing, and nodding, and removing the fake ring from his finger to rub at the pale skin underneath.

 “To work then. And to my son. We have much to do, but Noctis deserves a chance to celebrate something in spite of our troubles.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 The fact that Noctis seemed so befuddled by his own birthday being a thing that existed, that they cared existed, that they cared they missed as Regis sat in front of him and apologized wholeheartedly - it was heartwrenching. It was meant to be a day of celebrating the day he came into this world, and even if birthdays weren’t something any of them made a big deal of? They’d wanted to celebrate Noctis’ this year. With him home.

 But his son simply thought for a second, then shrugged. 

 Entirely unbothered.

 “It’s not a big deal,” he said quietly, stroking Aurora who was strewn out on his lap, getting her white fur absolutely everywhere as ever, “I didn’t even realize it was my birthday. Or that it was August. Or, September, now. I don’t mind, Dad.”

 Maybe it was his nonchalance, or the fact that there were ten birthdays behind them that Regis Lucis Caelum could never make up for, but he felt desperate in some sort of way to give his sweet boy something. This year. Something. So he leaned forward, even though later he’d be ashamed of how desperate he so transparently was in that moment.

 “Maybe not a party, sweetheart, but something else? Some gift you want?” He tried, he tried, “Something you long for?”

 “My only wish was for you to be okay, Dad,” Noctis told him earnestly, blue-blue eyes flicking down to his chest then back up to his face full of wrinkles and age and oh, Noctis.

 “Baby, that’s no birthday wish…pick another,” Regis urged, listening to Aurora’s purrs and the breeze blowing through the gardens and his son, sniffing as he thought on it, “Anything your heart desires.” 

 Anything in Eos; Regis was prepared to get for his and Aulea’s boy in that moment. Anything at all.

 “...can I go to Little Galahd again, eventually?” 

 Regis’ heart suffered from that question, but he swallowed so it wouldn’t show. A failure as always; him as a father.

 “Oh, Noctis, baby, you’re no prisoner,” he rasped, reaching to place his hand on his son’s knee while nodding, “Of course you can go. Pick something else. Anything. That’s no gift.” 

 “...Can Ori come with, this time?”

 

 

-----

 

 

 How was Regis to ever say no?

 Oriens cheered when he was told, and immediately scampered off to prepare what he’d need for a day trip to Little Galahd. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Perhaps this is not the worst thing,” Ignis pointed out, in the midst of many hours of security details being discussed for this outing once more, “While Noctis and His Highness are out in the city, we can finish this dreadful business with Tenebrae’s messenger and be done with it.”

 And be done with it.

 If only it were so simple, truly.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Hm,” the man with hair black and eyes green murmured, tired of being tailed, as he’d been all throughout the day “Just what are you following me for, my friend?” 

 In the reflection of the store’s window, he caught a glimpse of his tail.

 Dressed all in black.

 And he smiled to himself, to his reflection, sauntering on down the street without a confrontation after all. 

 “Is my time as Father’s dirty little secret almost up?”

 

 
~>-----------<~

Notes:

So Noct can walk again! It felt too cheat-y to erase all that Mistveil had cost him, but this way he can at least get around on his own two feet when he needs to. Poor Regis though. The man never feels like he's done enough for his boys.

Another little date scene ahead, but with Ori this time~!

Chapter 21

Notes:

Sorry for the delay! I kept coming up with little ideas and got distracted. XD

Enjoy their third date! <3

.

~>-----------<~

 

 
 Oriens Lucis Caelum was excited.

Very excited. 

Very, very, very excited. To put it quite bluntly. For not only had he been told they would be celebrating his dad’s belated birthday, not only was his dad walking again, not only was his grandpa looking healthier and healthier by the hour with his dad now wearing the Ring that whispered -

 But he had been told he and dad would be going out together. To Little Galahd.

 It wasn’t that Oriens never left the Citadel. Because he did. For charity events and for Grandfather’s ‘dinners’ with important people and sometimes to be fitted for clothes at Crown-sanctioned stores. For speeches. For festivals. For parades on certain holidays. He was allowed to visit some of the parks in the city, if he told his Uncle Iggy ahead of time. And for his seventh birthday his grandpa had actually brought him outside of Insomnia.

 To see the sea, and sit in the sand with him, Ori in his lap as they watched the sunlight shimmer on the waves.

 But this was his first outing with his dad, excluding the gala.

 But also, unfortunately, despite Oriens’ excitement? Despite him immediately scampering off after being told to pack his things for a day trip, despite him immediately seeking out several Glaives to ask questions about Little Galahd? So many questions?

 Regis couldn’t allow them to leave that very day. Even if he felt guilty. Even if he had a very rare moment there, where he had second thoughts about keeping Ori out of public school.

 There were preparations to be made.

 “A hundred guards.”

 His Shield sighed at him. His Sword sighed at him. His grandson’s Hand and Shield as well, both sighed at him. Even Titus sighed at him, that paranoid, paranoid man. 

 Regis still felt he was in the right. And that a hundred guards was still far too few.

 “Your Majesty, please recall what Glaive Ulric said previously about Little Galahd being little,” Clarus reminded him, unhelpfully. Last time Regis had checked, his Shield was supposed to be on his side. Clearly he was dealing with a rebellion.

 “Previously it wasn’t both my son and grandson leaving the safety of the Wall,” he reminded Clarus right back, tapping idly at his desk with his fountain pen, faced with a dilemma. Or not a dilemma. Faced with the fact that his boys would both be outside of his reach for the first time in nearly a year now, “I believe a hundred guards is reasonable. A blend of ‘Guards and Glaives. A perimeter will be established, and they will be shadowed constantly throughout the day, and - “

 “Let me go, Your Majesty.” 

 Lucis’ King he was, but he fell silent when one of his own spoke up. Interrupted him. When Titus Drautos himself stepped up to offer to guard his boys for him on their day trip to Little Galahd.

 “Me going should cut down the need for guards by at least half,” his old friend declared, and not in the way a braggart would. It was simply factual. They all knew it. The Captain of the Kingsglaive was an immeasurable fighter, on level with Cor or Clarus or indeed any retinue member. If not stronger a fighter on top of that, “You can focus more on Tenebrae’s movements, without worry. And I can manage the outing myself, personally, with my Glaives who join me in shadowing His Highnessess.”

 ‘Shadowing’ was a term for it; they all raised their eyebrows at it, for they all knew the man was so paranoid he wouldn’t be doing anything of the sort.

 Titus Drautos was a protector, and Regis knew from experience he would be right there beside his boys the whole outing without restraint.

 His boys couldn’t be safer than they would be, by the captain’s side.

 “You could probably use a trip outside your dusty office,” Cor sniped at Drautos immediately after his offer, frowning, “When I went in there last night, there were dust bunnies hopping all over the place.” 

 “Terribly sorry if it brought you to sneeze, Immortal,” Drautos snarked back, “Whatever shall be done. I suppose I’ll need to find my smallest sword to fight off those dust bunnies so nobody else with delicate sensibilities has to flee from them.” 

 Cor Leonis made a noise of affront, Drautos chuckled at his own teasing -

 Cor reached for the heavy paperweight on the edge of his king’s desk.

 Clarus wrestled it out of his fingers and swatted their kid brother over the back of his head, causing him to whine and causing Drautos to laugh properly and causing Regis to lean back and chuckle a little himself. An unnoticed tension softened in the air of his office.

 “Behave, both of you,” the Shield commanded, giving Drautos no less of a stink eye than he did Cor and making both of them grumble out excuses, then he turned back to Regis, “So long as Cor doesn’t go with them, I second Drautos acting as a guard for the outing. He’s been invited to Little Galahd by his Glaives often enough that he won’t be an unfamiliar face, and we can keep the ‘Guards on a perimeter of the community while only Glaives shadow them from within.”

 A reasonable plan.

 Noctis and Oriens were still going to be away from him however, so Regis hated it.

 And yet he set his fountain pen down and nodded anyways, because this was his son’s birthday wish and how could he refuse him it?

 “I’ll leave the specifics of which ‘Guards and Glaives are chosen to you two; Cor, Titus,” he told them, thoughtlessly reaching for the Ring to rotate around and around on his finger…but he no longer wore it, and his fingers closed over a pale stripe of skin instead, making his next exhale an unsteady one.

 None of his old, dear friends missed the mistake on his part.

 More than one set of eyes lingered on his now ringless finger.

 The fact that out of all three of his oldest, dearest confidants - that Titus was the one most against Noctis wearing the Ring of Lucii? Had been baffling. Clarus had been willing because it took a weight off of his king and brother that had been killing him. Cor had been willing because it added protection to Noctis and undid some of the strain on Regis. Titus though, when he had gotten the news, had looked ready to shout at Regis until he heard the whole story.

 And then he had just seemed so exhausted, and so old, and it had been startling because he was younger than Regis was and yet. It hadn’t felt like it was so, in that moment.

 There were already so many rumors.

 They wouldn’t be able to hide that Noctis now bore the Ring for long.

 They could only try to protect him, as best they could.

 “Leave it to me, Your Majesty,” Drautos swore, fist held over his heart as he bowed as deep as he could to his king and brother, before taking his leave. Already making a mental list of which of his strongest Glaives to entrust with this outing. Secrets hanging over his neck like a guillotine still.

 “I’ll summon the ‘Guards,” Cor said, fist held over his heart as he bowed to his king and brother too, following Drautos out of the office. Already tapping away at his phone with messages to Dustin and Monica both - the most loyal and unfettered of the ‘Guards were the only ones that would do for this op. And it was a show of faith still remaining in the Crownsguard that the Marshal didn’t intend to stumble with.

 Whatever faith still placed in them after Mistveil, he would take and hold dear and return tenfold, after all the ways he had failed.

 “I’ll brief Gladio, and have him speak to Ignis,” Clarus added, not bothering with the show of loyalty or the bow for after so many years such things went unsaid and were still heard clearly, shown in the way he looked at his king, at his younger brother. 

 “I feel bad for separating them,” his younger brother sighed, with a resigned shake of his head, “but I need Ignis here for the politicking of it all.” 

 “Gladio will do his duty as Ori’s Shield proudly, and be there in Ignis’ place just as proudly.” 

 “I know he will,” Regis promised his old, dear Shield who patted him on his shoulder, “I am as proud of Gladio as you are, Clarus. It will simply be a long day. For us all.”

 A long day indeed. 

 “...Speaking of long day, I hear this morning Noctis accidentally interrupted you and Miss Province having a private meeting. In bed.” 

 “Clarus!” Lucis’ King squawked, face flushed and swatting at his Shield until he was guffawing and walking away, chased out of the office by random papers and pens being tossed at his back. Oh, the chaos of the House of Caelum.

 How it is loved.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Not quite a hundred guards were chosen. Regis was concerned.

 Having his Captain of the Kingsglaive accompanying them assuaged so much of that concern.

 

 
-----

 

 

 “I highly doubt I need to remind any of you how important it is that security remains tight the day of,” the Captain of the Kingsglaive bellowed, voice loud in the low, droning sounds of the Glaives’ meeting hall. His kids all assembled before him, “This will be a day when both of our princes are out and about, in lots of locations that will be difficult to secure. Lots of alleys, lots of small shops. Lots of civilians, all going about their day-to-day.”

 Lots of acknowledged murmuring met his words. 

 And lots of his kids were Galahdian. Fierce and proud and part of the community they’d be in the day of. 

 So Drautos was deciding to place his faith in them. For his princes’ safeties. He’d hardly be hiding. He’d be shadowing them directly alongside Gladiolus. His Glaives would be strategically spread out all across Little Galahd in uniform and out. And the ‘Guards would be keeping an eye on the perimeter of the community. It had been one thing when Prince Noctis went into the city without Prince Oriens.

 This was a matter entirely different.

 This was a matter, Drautos knew with shame, he would’ve taken advantage of…years ago. When he was led wrong in his hate. In his bitterness. It would’ve been a golden opportunity. For any enemy of Lucis. So he wouldn’t be taking a single chance.

 “Myself, Shield Gladiolus, and Nyx will be with right at their Highnesses’ sides,” he continued, inclining his head to Nyx at the front of the assembly, grinning like the fattest cat in a kitchen who had caught all the mice - smug ever since learning His Highness chose to visit Little Galahd again, “The specific patrol routes and teams we’ve decided on, Lieutenant Navi will explain to you. Listen to them well. I want everything ran like the most well-oiled machine you’ve ever seen, people.” 

 There were some lighthearted chuckles.

 There were a lot of serious nods sent back at him when he gazed out at all his Glaives.

 “Dismissed!” 

 Titus Drautos didn’t and wouldn’t give a damn if some of his kids thought this was overkill. Especially those younger ones. As much as he tried to listen and take into account the opinions of his Glaives? The young ones who grumbled and rolled their shoulders like this was all pointless? Those were the ones who hadn’t quite gone through war. Those were the ones who hadn’t faced assassination attempts hailing down on their royals day after day, on every outing they planned.

 The most unexpected obstacles they’d faced since making their oaths had been the interruption of the Founder’s Day Festival, and the occasional car trouble or construction on the road. 

 Perhaps that was what peace was. A lack of unexpectedness. A lack of threats.

 The chance to be complacent.

 But Drautos would never, ever, ever again let himself be that. It had cost him his wife and child decades ago. And then it had cost him his honor. His oaths. It had cost him the kids he uniformed and taught and tossed to the Empire as a symbol of his loyalty. It had cost him everything, as he melted away like Scourge in the light of a dawn shining over Insomnia razed. 

 Never again.

 “Excited for your second date, Ulric?” He overheard Luche’s teasing as he leaned casually back against the meeting table, to listen. To watch. To see Nyx grin and reach out to ruffle the younger Glaive's hair until it was worse than a rat’s nest and Luche was wiggling out from under his hands shouting complaints and maybe a curse or two.

 “Of course I am!” Nyx laughed, shoving Luche to help him stumble a few extra steps away, twirling a kukri of his in his free hand, beads and strings wrapped around its hilt, “You’d better behave in front of inlustris, Lazarus! If you make me look bad, I’ll put you on sewer duty!” 

 “That’s an abuse of power, Ulric!”

 “Wouldn’t the gala have counted as your second date?” Axis asked, joining the two of them by giving them both a good knock to the shoulders that sent them stumbling, “You two still spent most of that night together. Even if you didn’t show up as a couple. You certainly left as a couple.” 

 There were some downright ear-piercing whistles in response to other Glaives hearing that be said, some good cat calls at Nyx’s expense. Drautos didn’t say a word about it because not a one of his Glaives made a single comment at Prince Noctis’ expense.

 Nyx shoved a few of the overzealous Glaives that crowded around him.

 Those shoves turned into a few headlocks.

 And then, the next thing their captain knew? He had a big pile of wrestling Glaives rolling around the meeting hall, joined by more and more every minute. Lieutenant Navi was standing nearby and looking exasperated beyond belief, so he exchanged a look of sympathy with that Glaive of his.

 There were still kinks to work out; Drautos left his kids to play as he headed for the door that led directly to his office through a bit of a hall.

 Nobody else used it. 

Which is why he didn’t suspect a thing.

 When he opened the door, there was the sound of something falling.

 A whoosh.

 He looked up just in time to squeeze his eyes shut.

 And then he breathed out, blowing white powder everywhere.

 A fucking bag of flour.

 Set to fall when the door was opened.

 He was coated in it. His black Kingsglaive uniform was coated in it. It was layered in piles on his shoulders and on top of his head, and there was a bag sitting on the tiles at his feet with the cheerful logo of a talking bean beaming up at him, claiming it to be the best flour in all of Duscae. From Saxham Farms. Wonderful. Just, wonderful. 

 A heavy silence had fallen over the meeting hall at his back. 

 Drautos straightened up, very, very slowly. And blew air out of his nose again to get some of the flour out of his nostrils for a second time. And reached up to draw a hand down his face, brushing off a bit more of the flour on his lips and in his beard. Mhm. He barely looked back over his shoulder when he commanded loud and clear.

 “All of you, back to what you were doing. And somebody please call a housekeeper to clean this up.” 

 Then he kept on walking down the hall to his office, a trail of flour forming in his steps as it fell off of his shoulders and head.

 Flour on the dark carpet of his office was very white. Very white. Very, white. And very messy. And it struck Drautos very, very clearly as he stood right there staring around at his office that most of the things in it were black. So black. And he shut the door behind him, leaving white fingerprints all over the doorknob. 

 He took a breath.

 And then he collapsed back against the door, his whole body shaking from how hard he laughed his heart out with his head thrown back and tears building at the corners of his eyes. 

 “Damnit, kid!” He muttered between his bouts of guffawing so loud he could probably be heard in the meeting room still, “You got me. Good job.” 

 “Don’t call me kid!” An offended voice demanded, very offended, and Drautos glanced up to realize for the first time Cor Leonis himself had had the gall to wait for him in the other doorway of his office. A phone in his hand. As if he’d been plotting to take a picture. Or video. But now that phone was pointed at the floor and the kid was just plain pouting.

 “Sure thing, brat,” this monster who’d gotten a second chance chuckled, still shaking from laughter coming from deep inside of him, shaking his head at the legendary Immortal scowling at him like he’d ruined everything by laughing, “Do you have…ha, the duty roster for the ‘Guards yet, or not?”

 Cor made a frustrated sound.

 And reached for the nearest thing to him, which happened to be a picture frame hanging on the wall. 

 He threw it like it was a throwing knife, and turned to stomp out of the office. Not a kid, as if. Drautos caught the picture frame with care. Still chuckling in intervals and covered in flour. Damn. He smiled fondly down at the picture frame, smearing a white fingerprint across the glass when he touched it.

 A picture of him, of his king, of his brothers. All four of them younger, and kinder, and a whole hell of a lot more innocent. Crowded around a table that wasn’t really a table, was really a few crates turned upside down, in Cape Caem’s cove, playing cards together. 

 “Not a kid, huh?” Drautos whispered, staring at all those young faces, Cor still a teenager and his king barely a man and him also still a teenager but almost a man.

 It had been so, so…so long since then.

 “You’ll always just be kids to me, though.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Make sure you don’t forget a spare change of clothes, or two,” Regis reminded him, following him with every step, hovering as surely as he could ever, “I’m sure Ignis is packing snacks for the two of you as well, so if you’d like anything specific do let him know, sweetheart. And water. There’ll be water bottles in the Armiger if you need any. And of course money isn’t an issue, so do not concern yourself with that whatsoever. And another thing - “

 “Dad.” Noctis clamped his hands down on his wheelchair’s wheels, halting himself in place and therefore halting his dad as well, turning to smile shyly at him, “It’s fine, okay? We’re…okay. Managed last time.” 

 Regis had been a mother hen for his last trip to Little Galahd, yes. Just as bad as he was now. But he’d been able to distract himself by focusing on Ori the last time. This time both of his boys were going.

 “I worry,” he professed, hunching forward over his cane to bring himself more down onto his son’s level, “This shall be my first time having both of you out of the Citadel on your own. Allow me my mother henning, Noctis, my dear. If you could.” 

 His son sighed, soft and fond. So fond.

 Nodding.

 “It’ll just be for the day,” he reminded his father kindly, “We can all have dinner together when we get back. You know Ori will want to tell you all about the day.” 

 “When you get back,” Regis agreed, already looking forward to it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens frowned, staring at his chocobo plush, then staring at his Carbuncle backpack that was already stuffed full.

 Ignis entered his charge’s bedroom to find him trying desperately to shove the plush into the backpack, pouting something fierce and determined. 

 He snapped a quick photograph with his phone, which was just as quickly sent to a specific group chat, before hurrying to help the princling properly pack everything he wanted to take with him on the outing with his father. Which included a lot of things he was unlikely to need, as it was, but Ignis was there to serve.

 And to make his charge and nephew happy.

 So he went along with his wishes anyways.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Shifting, shifting again, Noctis curled around one of his frilly pillows all black and as soft as royalty deserves, staring at the cot that his favorite Glaive was laying on. It was the night before they would go to Little Galahd all because his dad had wanted him to have a birthday of all the things in the world. And there was moon and starlight shining down silver and bright in his bedroom. And Nyx was laying there.

 Shirtless.

 Sweatpants low on his hips.

 Smiling up at the ceiling, as a soft tune played from the phone he had near his pillow. A Galahdian lullaby. He was humming along with it at intervals. Silent at others. As if it was meant to be a duet, but he had nobody to sing it with. Noctis watched. 

 Learned.

 And when the next interval came, he quietly hummed the next part of the lullaby.

 His amatus started, sat up halfway to blink at Noctis with these pretty, wide and stormy eyes.

 Then he just grinned, all charm and happiness, at the star there in bed. Curled around a pillow. 

 “<Looking forward to tomorrow, starlight,>” Nyx murmured, lying back again, proud of the way he could tell his star was blushing even in the low lighting of the night.

 “Ori and I are too,” inlustris murmured back, and the lullaby took center stage once more. Both of them humming their parts in the quiet until they each slipped off to sleep. 

 It was good and it was light and it was a wonderful night.

 

 

-----

 

 
 The morning of their third date, Noctis shyly suggested that Nyx wear one of his nice, black t-shirts. 

 Nyx offered him one of his leather jackets in exchange.

 They started the day off with a bit of blushing, and that was just fine by them.

 It’d be a blatant lie to say Nyx didn’t look good, all dressed up with his beard trimmed, his braids freshly done, his beads polished and wearing that tight black t-shirt and jeans. It’d be a more blatant lie to say he wasn’t staring at the man in…an appreciative way. 

 So it was a very good thing that Noctis needn’t lie, and he could stare at his favorite Glaive as much as he desired. 

 Nyx was…graceful, in all honesty. And it was a deadly grace, and it was beautiful in Noctis’ eyes. Nyx moved like a coeurl. All power and surety and confident that he was one of the deadliest people in every room he entered. And very, very aware that he was a handsome man. He never seemed super smug in a bad way when he caught Noctis staring. He’d just smirk and preen a little and then stare back. Until the prince got so flustered he had to duck his head and look away.

 Of course Nyx found inlustris stunning too. 

 His star had gotten all dressed up. For this third date of theirs. Hair pretty and dark, braids neat, beads polished, wearing a black leather jacket of Nyx’s and a t-shirt of his own and jeans too. He looked good. Still a little gaunt around the edges, but not much. He was a healthy weight, he was stronger now, he was healthier now like he hadn’t been in ten years.

 And Nyx carefully placed his glasses on the bridge of inlustris’ nose, smiling down at him as they prepared to head out.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx Ulric wasn’t used to his heart pounding this hard before a date.

 Only inlustris could do this to him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Third date, hm?” One little princling said, a little less than casually as they stood next to the Crownsguard-issued car that would be their ride for the day

Nyx recognized that tone.

 The princling’s Shield grinned, just a bit, so clearly he recognized it too.

 “Yeah, mane,” Nyx said, crouching down to be better on the kid’s level, making sure to look him in the eyes when saying, “But it’s also an outing for you and your dad. He wants to spend time with you today.”

 “You’d better treat my dad well, Glaive Ulric,” Lucis’ little Crown Prince told him sternly, chin up and a tiny frown on his lips and hands tucked behind his back, all proper and dressed up in a Carbuncle t-shirt and shorts with a Carbuncle backpack for the day, “You’d better make him happy, and take him wherever he wants to go, and…and you’re supposed to kiss at the end of a date, so you’d better not disappoint him!”

 One of the Shield’s eyebrows arched, peering down at his prince. But he just shrugged when Nyx peeked up at him to see if there was a specific way he should respond to that.

 “I’ll kiss him if he wants to be kissed, mane,” he swore, nodding with full seriousness, “But if your dad doesn’t want to be kissed…” He trailed off to let the realization come to the princling.

 Brave little princling, straightening up as he did realize and looking even more stern.

 “Then you had better not.”

 “Of course.”

 His Majesty kept summoning inlustris back to him again and again, as they slowly made their way to the car. Talking. Mother henning, as any Glaive would call it. He seemed anxious, which was so understandable. But they eventually did, somehow, make it all the way to the car. And Noctis laughed at his dad who looked on tearfully.

 “This feels like when you went away for your first day of school all over again,” Lucis’ King whispered, close to wiping tears from his eyes with a handkerchief, and Nyx just had to chuckle at that. There was no other choice. 

 Inlustris left his wheelchair to be folded up by Gladiolus who stepped up to do so, and that little trick with his magic helping him walk sure was useful. Since he could climb into the car on his own now, instead of needing to be lifted or slowly transferring himself from one seat to another.

 Oriens stepped forward quickly to hug his grandfather’s leg, tight. Squeezing and snuggling into the fabric of his pants for a moment. Then stepping back. All proper again as he peered up at him.

 “I’ll keep Dad safe, Grandpa! You can count on me.” 

 “Oh,” King Regis chuckled, fond and forlorn as he patted his grandson’s head, “I know, Ori. I know. I want you two to have a delightful time today.”

 “We will, Dad,” Noctis told his dad, fond and fondly exasperated from within the backseat of the car as Ori crawled in next to him to sit. Practically buzzing with excitement. Setting his Carbuncle backpack between his feet. 

 Both of the princes out of sight, King Regis Lucis Caelum let his expression turn stern and serious and rather similar to how his grandson’s had just been, now that Nyx thought about it.

 “Gladiolus. Nyx. I entrust my boys to you, and - “ Turning, the king likewise regarded their third main guard approaching the car with just as much seriousness, “Titus. If you would. Watch over them for me.” 

 “Your Majesty,” all three of them said in unison, fists placed over their hearts as they bowed. 

 When Nyx got into the car, he was sat on mane’s other side, so the little princling was squished between him and inlustris. Titus was to be their driver, and Gladiolus was in the passenger seat. It was a very protected car.

 But never again would any of them think any amount of protection was truly enough. Never, after the Marilith.

 And the Crownsguard car pulled out of the Citadel’s court, excited for the day…but also rightly on guard.

 Little Galahd awaited.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Woah,” the mini star whispered in honest, hushed awe after crawling over his dad’s lap to reach the car’s window. Pressing both of his hands to the tinted glass and pressing his cheek up against it too so it was all squished, and peering around at the buildings they passed. Getting more and more and all the more colorful as they neared their destination. Little Galahd.

 Pride filled the heart of Nyx Ulric, and a by now familiar fondness. It was the same sort of reaction inlustris had had to seeing his home. 

 Inlustris, who was leaning up close behind his son as well, cheek also squished to the tinted window, to look at everything they passed. The father and son duo giggling and pointing at things and giggling - and by Ramuh, Nyx’s heart wouldn’t hold out against how cute they were.

 Gladio, the punk, snorted when he caught sight of whatever expression was on Nyx’s face as he watched his love and his love’s son be cuter than words could describe.

 Nyx was not above kicking the Shield in the shin, heroic reputation or not.

 The captain probably wouldn’t even look at him scoldingly for it, so it would be worth the glare the Shield would have for him. 

 There were parking lots for folks looking to visit Little Galahd, since it was a foot traffic only neighborhood of the Crown City. Glaives had reserved the closest spot they could for their car, just like last time. And just like last time, Nyx opened the door to exit first. Waving to a few familiar faces he saw going to and from the roads of Little Galahd who waved back bright and happy.

 And then Nyx’s hand shot out to catch the black and blue blur that had tried to jump out of the car and dart off without warning.

 Mane made an ‘oof’ sound, wrapped around his forearm and pouting up at him. And Nyx just laughed at the kid who was kicking his legs, held slightly off the ground by him curling his arm.

 Maybe they should’ve brought a leash for his backpack, or something like.

 “Easy, mane,” he chuckled, setting the kid back on his own two feet as a frantically muttering Shield hurried out of the front passenger seat, looking exasperated already, and the captain went to help inlustris out of his side of the car, “Do you know your way around this neighborhood and just didn’t tell me?” 

 Back on his own two feet, the princling pouted up at him with his big, blue-blue eyes for a moment, then ducked his head. Shuffling. Shaking his head.

 “It can be a bit confusing, kiddo, and it’s easy for newcomers to get turned around,” Nyx reminded him kindly, aware already that the princling hadn’t been to Little Galahd aside from carefully monitored events once or twice over the years. Certainly never as a casual visitor, “You wouldn’t want to accidentally stumble into a Bellum fighting ring, would you?”

 Mane’s head shot back up, blue-blue eyes sparkling as he gasped, “There are fighting rings?!”

 Whoops.

 Gladiolus facepalmed behind his prince, and it turned out Nyx didn’t even need to kick the Shield in the shin to be glared at.

 “...Maybe when you’re older,” Nyx switched the subject, clearing his throat as inlustris wheeled up to their little group with the captain in tow. Both of them looking amused at his plight, “Inlustris, do you still want to visit the Aranahe shops first? Elder Kinglor says he has your special dye order ready.” 

 “Yes, please,” his pretty star said, wispy laughter in his voice as Ori bounced over to him, looking so very excited, “Ori can get more strings and beads for braiding while we’re there, hm?”

 “Yes, please!” 

 There were a great many things they could do for the day in the beautiful neighborhood of Little Galahd. There were a greater many things Nyx wanted to show his two dear stars. Watching their little dawn barely contain himself from scampering off at every little sight, when they’d barely gotten anywhere at all, was sweet enough to make his teeth ache. And even inlustris in his wheelchair looking happy and comfortable - and not on his feet because it was a waste of his magic when Little Galahd was so handicap-friendly - was a fond reminder of their first date in the neighborhood.

 Even the Amicitia’s sternness as he followed them, and the captain talking into the comlink in his ear couldn’t dampen a moment of it.

 Little Galahd was bright.

 And Little Galahd was art, and it was light, and it was warm food and boisterous chatter and folks waving at them as they passed and it was color. So much color. It was everything Nyx wanted to show off to the man he loved and the son he’d folded easily into his heart right next to his starlight. 

 This outing was a secret thing to Insomnia’s public, but not to the Galahdian community. Because what one Galahdian knows? Unless specifically ordered, all Galahdians know in swift order.

 The awareness that they’d be hosting royal visitors changed little about a community as earnest and raw in beauty as Little Galahd, but it did drive the Galahdian people to impress. Which led to a few new murals painted bright on the fringes of the community. Spiraling out from its most colorful heart because that was where the only blank walls remained after a few years of making the neighborhood their own.

 There were lines strung from window to window in the narrow streets, with cloths and tapestries and flags and lanterns hanging from them. And as ever there were musicians on every corner, and craftspeople doing their crafting sat on the curbs, and food carts steaming and smelling of very strong spices nearly everywhere they walked.

 And there were gardens, and there were bricks painted with handprints and pawprints and beastprints. Footsteps and swirls of paint. 

 Oriens saw signs and arrows painted on the ground and spun in excited circles, the little star trying to take in everything he saw all at once.

 Waving his hands at every person they met, which meant a ton of waving.

 Their guide once again for the day, Nyx, last Ulric Chieftain, waved back as well to their many greetings. They stood out slightly more this day. But his people were polite about staring for too long, and even more polite about trying to approach. 

 It was a lot, and mane stuck close to his dad’s wheelchair arm, even with all of his excitement.

 Quickly overwhelmed and shocked that the world could be so much bigger than the Citadel, clearly.

 Even if it was a lot, though. It was home. 

 It was the smell of those spices, and all the greetings in happy tones, and the hands waving steaming buns at them as an offer of food, and the glances at his and inlustris’ braids, and the music curling pleasantly through the air. It was the way inlustris seemed to know the general way to the Aranahe streets, and the way little mane would tug on his dad’s jacket sleeve to get him to stop so he could lean in close and ask so many curious questions.

 It was the way that they were in no hurry, and yet everybody was, and yet nobody was.

 It was that moment where Nyx was busy waving to another Glaive he saw ducking in and out of alleyways on protection detail, and then started. Because tiny hands had grabbed his pants’ leg and tugged. And there were big, blue orbs peering up at Nyx that made him crouch down so Ori could ask him a few questions too.

 It was the hilarity of several Galahdian grandmamas noticing that the captain was with them, and flocking to him with all manners of homecooked goodies and offers for him to court their daughters and granddaughters - because for some reason nobody had ever figured out, grandmothers really liked the man.

 It was a lot.

 And it was just enough.

 And inlustris was beaming brighter than Nyx Ulric had near-ever seen, seeing his son flourish in the bright community of Little Galahd. Watching over him like a star in the sky. Never left behind by the princling either, who always ran right back to his dad’s side each and every time he moved away as he adjusted to this big, bright world.

 His star was beaming, so Nyx was beaming.

 And his community had likewise not seen the last Ulric Chieftain so joyful in many, many years.

 So they, too, had come to love the stars in their midst.

 Those who Father Ramuh loved as well, like grandchildren he feared he had failed.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Aranahe’s most famous shop, most well-known, the very same they’d visited when last in Little Galahd. And it was brilliant with color. And charming, and smelled strongly of dyes and fabric fibers. The shopkeeper, an elder, grayed, he came to greet them personally. And with none of the pomp royal outings usually meant, just like last time. But this time?

This time, they had the princling with them.

 And he seemed rather astounded that people outside of his Citadel family could simply not treat him like he hung the moon by bowing and groveling and layering on all sorts of flattery they didn’t truly mean.

 Ori peeked back at his Uncle Gladdy, but he seemed perfectly alright with…well, his tutors would call it disrespect. His Uncle Gladdy was just leaning against the entryway of the shop, arms crossed. Really, perfectly alright with it.

 And Ori found he also rather liked the way the nice old man treated him like a curious child instead of an interested prince who could gain him something.

 There was an order of fabrics prepared for inlustris.

 The deepest violet cloth they could dye. A whole bolt of it, and then another of a dreamy-blue shade aside. The quality was as amazing as always from the Aranahe Clan’s best dyers. Nyx wasn’t yet aware of what his star planned to make with the material, but he handed the order off to a waiting Glaive just outside of the shop. To take back to the car.

 Best not to fill up their arms when they have a whole day in Little Galahd ahead of them, no?

 “Any hint as to what you plan to make, inlustris?” Nyx tried for charm in the cozy atmosphere of the shop, curious now that he had wondered. But all he got was a shy little smile from one of his favorite stars.

 “You’ll find out when it’s finished, Nyx.”

 “Will I now?” He teased, just for the sake of seeing how those blue-blue eyes sparkled when faced with mischief. 

 “<No peeking, beloved.>” 

 There might’ve been more teasing to be had - and oh, how sweet it was to hear his star slip seamlessly into his own tongue in his own home - but both of them turned their heads to the sound of a very startled-sounding squeak. 

 To find mane. Who had gone over to the dye vats to see how the dying process went, and Nyx had let him be, and Noctis had only taken his eyes off of his son for a second. 

 And now they had a mini star standing there, holding out both his hands in front of him that were dripping in a vivid blue dye and adding to all the many speckles of spilled dye on the floor of the shop. Looking supremely guilty as the Aranahe dyers behind him laughed and laughed and laughed. Grabbing a towel for the princling and hurrying to help him and making sure he didn’t get any on his clothes, sure. But laughing the whole while.

 “Oh, Ori,” Noctis said in a tone very much painted with amusement he was trying not to show for his embarrassed son’s sake, “What happened?” 

 “...I tripped,” the raven-haired boy mumbled, ear tips pink, as his dad rolled over to him, “I caught myself! Just…in…the dye bowl. Thing.”

 “Well, you didn’t get it on your clothes,” Noctis said, in a softer tone now, taking the towel offered to him by one of the dyers to start wiping his son’s hands himself. Which were very, very, very much as blue as blueberries, “but I imagine dye this potent…”

 “Will take a few days to remove, yes,” the elder shopkeeper chuckled, eyes shiny with mirth as he shook his head, wiggling his fingers. To show his hands that were dyed so many colors, with smears and dots going up his arms. All of the other workers showed off their hands and arms that were the same, “<Caught blue-handed, young one.>”

 Ori’s nose crinkled up a little, his Galahdian not as advanced as his father’s yet. Only able to understand one or two of the words said to him.

 “What a way to start the day.” 

 “I’m blue,” mane whispered to his dad as he wiped his hands, like nobody else had noticed and like he’d suddenly just had a realization, “like Carbuncle, Dad!” 

 “Ah, so you are,” the father agreed, leaning in to kiss his son’s forehead because he was simply adorable and how could he not? “The very same soft blue. Maybe he was the one to trip you up. You know how he loves to play games.”

 “I’m Carbuncle!” 

 Noctis laughed, loudly, and gave back the stained towel to an Aranahe woman cooing at the little prince, “We’ll have to tell him that, when we dream with him again, hm? Maybe you can both be Carbuncle.”

 The shop was cozy and splattered in dye and the shopkeeper with his dyers were all as fond of their visiting Lucis Caelums as Nyx was now, and the mini star’s hands were dyed blue to up just above his wrists. 

 But that in no way stopped them all from exploring more of Little Galahd together.

 Blue hands and big hearts.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was so much to see.

 So much to take in.

 And Ori did so, with a slowly unfurling heart, shy towards this world outside of the Wall he’d known his whole life.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When he walked next to his dad, when he asked his dad again, why? Why his wheelchair when they could walk together? Dad ruffled his hair. 

 Cupped his cheek, the skin of his hand covered in a hundred tiny scrapes and scars.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum was not ashamed of being unable to walk without magical assistance, was his answer. A kiss was pressed to his forehead. Walking took effort. Effort he didn’t want to expend today, and besides. He rotated the Ring around his finger. Around and around. Just like Grandpa always used to do. And besides -

 Rumors were so much more powerful when they went unconfirmed. 

 Ori wasn’t sure he entirely understood his dad’s reasoning, but he nodded along seriously anyways, and then ran along to explore more of the colorful streets of Little Galahd.

 

 

-----

 

 

 So many eyes were on their little Crown Prince Oriens that it was probably impossible for him to wander off. Nyx easily counted six Glaives moving alleyway to alleyway, and six more wearing casual clothes blending into Little Galahd’s crowds wheresoever they went. Not to mention Navi had at least three on the rooftops too. He kept seeing the shine of them warping between buildings out of the corner of his eye. 

 It went without saying that they also had Captain Drautos and the Shield with them.

 So mane didn’t so much as wander off, as scamper away while his dad was curiously picking through a table of potent paints meant for bead painting. Nyx saw no harm in it.

 The little star didn’t exactly go far. They were right on a street corner between the Aranahe streets and Bellum streets and he just went a bit further down the curb. Attention caught by something. 

 Nyx’s eyes were caught by the Shield’s though, and the kid was frowning, amber eyes fierce and obviously trying to tell him something, so Nyx sauntered off after the princling. Running a hand across inlustris’ shoulders gently as he went so he would know he’d gone.

 When he caught up to mane, when he saw what had caught his eye, his smirk became a real smile.

 “Want one, mane?” 

 Ori startled, turning to blink up at him like he thought the offer was a joke. But Nyx kept his expression open. He meant it. He wouldn’t offer if he didn’t. And the princling hesitantly, hopefully too, turned back to the assorted knives.

 Insofar as Nyx had heard, mane was being trained to be proficient in all weapons like all royals were expected to be, but there’d been no talk of the kid preferring one weapon to another. He was young. It was perfectly fine to take his time with it. But a knife - ? Nyx would be lying if he tried to claim he wouldn’t be fond of his love’s son preferring the same sort of weapons he wielded.

 Mane still looked a tad bit like he thought Nyx was about to take back his offer, so he crouched down. All of the knives were displayed on a blanket laid out on the curb, and there was a scarred Bellum Nyx recognized sitting there, manning his little shop. He nodded. He received a nod. 

 And the princling slowly crouched down next to Nyx, starting to look excited.

 “These are all excellent craftsmanship,” he commented, trusting that they were because Bellum craftsmen knew one thing more than anything else and it was their weapons, “Have you trained with any specific types of knives, mane?”

 “Oh, um, stiletto and push ones,” Ori told him, eyes beginning to sparkle somewhat as he took in all the knife options spread before him. Maybe he did have a preferred weapon. Huh.

 Maybe Nyx could help the little prince train sometime. 

 “Stiletto,” Galahdians didn’t really use push daggers, though Lucians didn’t either, that was a Tenebraean weapon. And stilettos also weren’t much of a Galahdian weapon - but Nyx scanned the blanket for a second’s pause. Then picked a stiletto that seemed to have been crafted for any Lucian tourists visiting Little Galahd.

 He offered it to his amatus’ son.

 Then carefully adjusted his fingers to grip it properly, though he didn’t have to adjust much. Oriens already had skill with a knife; that was obvious with how he quickly got comfortable holding it. And with how he tested its weight before anything else. Good kid. Knew his way around a weapon. Nyx was proud, even though he had no reason to be…

 Other than the fact that this was his amatus’ son, and some part of his heart already considered Oriens Lucis Caelum one of his.

 The stiletto was long, thin. Strong blade though. And the handle was carved bone. Its pommel taking the shape of a coeurl's head. Add a strung hilt, a few beads, and it wouldn’t be far off from a Galahdian weapon after all.

 It was slightly long for Ori’s small hands, but he’d grow into it easily enough.

 “How’s it feel? Test it out.” Nyx instructed him, taking on the same tone he used with the Glaive trainees, and feeling that same trill of pride pulse through him when mane immediately stood up to run through a few stabbing drills. Clearly taught by a Lucian, considering his form, but Nyx could work with that.

 If he was allowed to train the princling.

 He shouldn’t be getting ahead of himself.

 “I like it,” Ori declared, drills done, staring down at the stiletto as if he’d just received a new toy - oh, how could Nyx say no? The princling looked too adorable. With his big backpack and his happy smile and a knife in his tiny hand. Strong. He had a strong heart. 

 Silently, he passed some gil over to the Bellum who wasn’t exactly smirking at him. Not really.  But it was as close an expression to that as Nyx thought he might make, all amused and clearly looking forward to sharing this tale later. Eh. Let him.

 Nyx held no shame for how he loved his stars.

 He stood up, realizing a tad too late that mane had no sheathe and he was running around with a knife on a crowded street - whoops. 

 Then realized a tad even later that inlustris had caught up to them, and was sat just there a few feet away for who knew how long, listening to the whole thing. Mane ran up to his dad, holding the stiletto like a trophy, chirruping about how Nyx had bought him a knife and, yep, whoops.

 Gladiolus looked positively exasperated with him.

 The captain just shook his had and dragged a hand down his face. Clearly already tormented by the thought of His Highness being influenced by his most chaotic lieutenant. 

 His star though, his inlustris, was grinning - as much as he ever grinned. It wasn’t ear to ear, but it was wide and it was brilliant. And his blue-blue eyes were just as brilliant, peeking past Ori to Nyx. Affection in them. So much affection. Nyx’s heart skipped a beat, and wasn’t that a strange feeling at his age.

 Both of his stars.

 He’d do anything for them.

 “Ah, should I have asked first?” He realized definitely too late, and inlustris tossed back his head to burst into peals of pretty, pretty laughter in the sunshine of Little Galahd.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Of course you can train him?” Inlustris told him, sounding two parts confused and one part fond. Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe Nyx wasn’t really sure, and was just so distracted by the idea that he could train their mini star. 

 Training children was a precious act of trust to Galahdians.

 Even if mane’s Shield was scowling at him, it was worth it.

 

 

-----

 

 

Ori was absolutely enjoying himself, and little could make his father happier. 

Shy, though he was, he was scampering around. Taking in anything and everything and all of Little Galahd with wide, twinkling eyes. He was wiggling to the music, and giggling, and chattering at Noctis like a particularly vocal songbird. Clearly having more fun than he’d thought he would.

Maybe this wasn’t quite the date Nyx thought it would be, and Noctis would worry over that later, but his dad had promised him anything.

A day of seeing his little dawnlight so happy, running around and giggling was a wonderful birthday gift, if he had to choose one.

Having made that clear, Nyx in no way seemed to be unhappy either.

He was following right behind Oriens, even closer than Gladio, and was chattering back, smiling and laughing and pointing out answers. Picking his answers to Ori’s questions carefully.

If that was the view he had this whole day, Noctis Lucis Caelum wouldn’t complain.

The man he had truly come to…to love, his amatus, his Glaive and Ulric Chieftain, had taken to loving his son as well as he seemed to love Noctis himself. And was something like a second parent to him, in all the ways Noctis had thought Ori would never get. They hadn’t spoken of it much. Hadn’t put a label or dedicated conversation to it.

But it was plain to see, for them, for Little Galahd, that Nyx Ulric cared for his crown prince. 

It made Noctis’ hurt heart pound, healed a little more each time he saw Ori tug on Nyx’s sleeve or pants’ leg, to question him about one thing. Or another. Each time Nyx ruffled his son’s hair. Each time Nyx chased after his son with a laugh of indulgence, glancing back at Noctis to grin.

 This was never something he could’ve dreamed of in Mistveil Keep.

 His sweet Oriens, with maybe two parents, running and playing in Little Galahd.

 It was better than anything he could’ve dreamed of in Mistveil.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “You’re certain? Nothing astray?” 

 “No, Your Majesty,” Ignis answered, surely sure, because he was not the sort of man who would settle for wishy-washy information and report such. So Regis was reassured, “His Highnesses’ arrived safely in Little Galahd nearly two and a half hours ago. The ‘Guards report all is quiet around the district, the Glaives all arrived on time and reported in, and Captain Drautos as well as Gladiolus both reported individually that all is well.”

 A pause, and a quirk almost like a smile he was fighting off on the edge of Ignis’ mouth.

 “That being said, I did hear they had visited a dye shop first and foremost, Your Majesty,” the amusement in his nephew’s voice made Regis pause, there in the hall, a smile also tugging at his own mouth, “And that Prince Oriens may have had a small mishap, involving blue hands.”

 “Did he now?” The Father hummed, sharing a look with Clarus ever at his side who was shaking his head with an exasperation only parents could know, “What a start to their day.”

 “Gladiolus?” Clarus asked, as if his son could’ve stopped Ori from getting into mischief, oh how naïve of him.

 “Took pictures,” Ignis said succinctly, causing both King and Shield to laugh.

 Laughter that would’ve lasted longer, had they not been about to have an audience in Lucis’ throne room for that Tenebraean messenger once again. It trailed off. And it quieted. And Regis turned the fake ring around and around on his finger, still getting used to how weightless everything felt without it. Getting used to having more energy, getting used to the lack of whispering in his ears that he’d spent years shutting out. 

 For Noctis, he had to send this messenger away. He had to make it clear to Queen Lunafreya she would not be welcomed in their kingdom - not after her rudeness.

 And after? After, he would be able to hear about how his son’s belated birthday went, and hold his boys close again.

 “Shall we?” 

 Into the fray they went. To a battlefield of proper manners and polite words.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A picture of Oriens with his hands held aloft, blushing and embarrassed, dyed a very familiar shade of soft blue joined the group chat for those who loved the Caelums.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “They’re spiced meat kebabs, mane,” not overly spiced meat kebabs either, in Nyx’s Galahdian opinion - a Lucian stomach couldn’t handle anything more, “Careful. Might be a lot for you.” 

 When the Glaive offered up the kebab stick, of course Ori just immediately opened his mouth wide despite the warnings to slide one whole chunk of meat off the end. Nyx let out a startled snort. 

Gladio sighed. 

 Ori froze, mid-chew, then kept chewing. Slowly. Cheeks gradually growing red and then redder and redder. Until he was shrinking down into his shirt. A little royal strawberry, sticking his tongue out after swallowing and letting out a long breath with it. Eyes watering. 

 “Here, mane,” Nyx laughed, like the Ostium who manned the food cart they were crowded around did, who handed him a bottle of milk that he kept in stock just for Lucians not used to Galahdian spices - he handed the princling the bottle.

 And they all watched him gulp down the milk like he’d die if he didn’t.

 Ori didn’t stop until he’d drained every drop from the bottle, and then he lowered it. Holding it in both hands like it was something of great, Eos-saving importance. Letting out a long sigh of relief.

 His Shield reached out to ruffle his head so heartily the whole kid rocked back and forth in his shoes, squeaking. 

 “I warned you,” Nyx said, Galahdian through and through and happily - easily - tugged another chunk of meat off the kebab to chew on. Mmm. The spices weren’t as strong as he’d grown up with; couldn’t be unless Ostiums wanted to be accused of poisoning Lucian tourists like they had been the first few years they’d taken up in Insomnia. Still. It was the aftertaste of home, and hunts, and the spice of the storms.

 There was a small, curious noise.

 So Nyx turned to his star. Who was sat there in his wheelchair, staring at Nyx, staring at his kebab, and then staring at his son. Then back again. 

 Of course the Ulric Chieftain immediately swallowed, and tipped the kebab stick in offering to his amatus. Last time they had had a date in Little Galahd, inlustris hadn’t been able to eat anything with spice because of his strict dieting. Now that he’d recovered more, though, maybe?

 “Want to try, inlustris?”

 Pursing his lips, thinking about it, his starlight was so brave. And Nyx meant that even if he was barely keeping down his chuckles. So brave and so cute; Noctis closed his eyes and opened his mouth expectedly. Nyx blinked, then smiled, then tugged a piece of meat off the kebab. To push past inlustris’ lips.

 The raven-haired man closed his mouth to chew. 

 Froze.

 Chewed slower.

 And Nyx’s shoulders shook even as he covered his mouth to hide the laughter, when inlustris’ eyes opened and he peered up at Nyx like he thought he had been rude.

 Cheeks turning red.

 Wordlessly, the captain stepped around them and extended a hand to the Ostium watching them all in delight, clearly excited to gossip about this later. A bottle of milk was placed in his palm. And the captain turned to offer it to inlustris. Who took it gratefully and swallowed quickly, sticking out his tongue, face red, gulping down the milk in desperation.

 “I ge’ i’ Da’,” Ori said solemnly, tongue still poking out past his lips, “S’picys.”

 “S’picys.” Noctis Lucis Caelum agreed just as solemnly.

 And Nyx loved them both so much.

 

 

-----

 

 

 An audience began in the Citadel, a city away.

 A king sighed under his breath and left the cajoling of it all to dear Ignis, thinking of his boys. 

 Hoping they were having a good day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Adults will be adults.

 A phrase Oriens had never really understood, because adults were just…themselves. Around him. Adults who weren’t his family bowed to him, and adults who were his family didn’t, but otherwise adults just seemed like anyone else. Maybe a little dumber than kids sometimes. Especially those diplomats always visiting his grandpa. But Ori thought the phrase didn’t really apply to adults he knew.

 And then he started to see his dad and Nyx staring at one another when the other wasn’t looking.

 And he started to see his grandpa hugging his dad tight often.

 And he started to see Uncle Gladdy get loud and tall with people who wouldn’t listen to his orders. 

 And as he got older - and older and older - he realized adults weren’t all smiles and bows. A few months? Was that all it was? He was almost ten years old now! And these last few months, Oriens had seen far more of adults being honest than he had ever seen before. 

 Little Galahd was a place full of adults! And Ori had blue hands. And the adults he ran circles around would smile endearingly at him and coo. And wave. And offer him snacks, treats, and compliments on his favorite Carbuncle backpack!

 They knew who he was, even if he wasn’t dressed up like a proper little princling today. He knew they did. 

 But they were treating him like he was just a kid! Adults will be adults. And decent adults won’t treat him any differently just because he is a prince, he’d started to realize. Or maybe it was just Nyx’s people. They were nice people. They never got mad at him, and there was so much color, and music, and smells, and food that was really, really spicy but still yummy! He wasn’t chided for being rude, just because the spices were too much for him.

 When he accidentally stepped on somebody’s blanket, they just laughed and offered him a little charm! A little metal sword charm, to use in his braiding. 

 Nobody bowed to him, nobody wore fake smiles, nobody approached and tried to make conversation with his dad.

 Uncle Gladdy kept having to speed up to keep up with him, but Ori couldn’t help it! He’d never seen such a colorful place and people before! Whenever he and Grandpa had come to Little Galahd before, it had always been on the fringes where there was less color, and it was quiet and they were polite - but he liked this so much more!

 He kept finding himself hopping and skipping, and running around with his arms spread wide, running back to his dad to tell him all about everything he’d found in every nook and cranny of the streets!

 Dad was back in his wheelchair today; had said it was better if a bunch of people didn’t know he could walk again, which Ori didn’t really get but he would stand by his dad and not tell anyone.

 Nyx was being good to his dad.

 Ori tried to not make it too obvious that he kept running off to give them a bit of space, whenever the Glaive fell back to walk beside his dad’s wheelchair and talk quietly to him in the Galahdian tongue. Grandpa had told him that this visit today, this outing, was for dad’s belated birthday! And he knew that his dad would want some time with Nyx, that it would make him happy!

 So he came back when they had turned their attention back to him, once or twice sitting in his dad’s lap as Nyx took over pushing the wheelchair so he could babble about everything he’d seen.

 And Dad just pressed a hand to the small of his back and listened, indulging him, with a soft smile Ori’s gift for doing so.

 Little Galahd was really, really amazing!

 Ori found himself more and more curious about the culture than he’d ever been before, and touching the single bead in his hair, and the braid in his dad’s hair, more than once. 

 He was really glad he’d been invited!

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Dad, do you think I could have that many braids one day?” Oriens asked, pointing at a resident of Little Galahd with braids so thick in their hair it was fluffed up like a mane, and his dad smiled at him.

 “I’m sure you could earn as many braids as you wished to, sweetheart.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 “A little braider, is it?” The Galahdian saleswoman said, peering over the edge of her shop’s table down at the prince who peered right back with big, shy eyes, every strand of her hair braided into hundreds of rows full of beads a thousand colors, “Growing out your hair, little one?”

 “Yes ma’am,” Ori chirped, hiding, just a tiny bit, behind Uncle Gladdy’s leg as his uncle reached down to rest a hand on his head. The woman was so tall and so pretty and had so many braids! And she laughed at his shyness, but not in a mean way.

 Turning to Nyx, she said something in Galahdian too fast for Ori to completely understand.

 Nyx responded in kind.

 And the tall, loud in a welcome way, woman circled the table of her little streetside shop. Pushing aside silk drapes hanging over the entries, them swaying as she came out and around to join them. A box in her hands. 

 Ori shrunk further back behind Uncle Gladdy’s leg, because she was even taller than his Shield.

 Dad made a soft, soothing noise, just behind him, and he couldn’t help his shyness when facing strangers directly, even if he felt bad -

 And she knelt. Down. Folding both of her legs to kneel right there on the street in front of her shop of braids and threads and charms and beads and so much - Nyx Ulric hadn’t been exaggerating when he claimed Galahdian hairwork was an art. She knelt. And her lips quirked up in a gentle way. And she opened the box in her hands, revealing it was full of charms separated into little compartments.

 “Take your pick, little prince,” she said, voice thick with her accent from the Storm Islands, and Ori glanced up at Uncle Gladdy to check if she meant what he thought.

 Uncle Gladdy frowned at Nyx, looking for his own answer, and Ori knew his uncle couldn’t understand Galahdian. He’d gotten a little annoyed when he learned Ori was learning it because it was a whole new language he would also do well to learn as his Shield. 

 But Nyx just smirked at his uncle. 

 And it was the saleswoman who explained with a hearty laugh.

 “Owe Nyx and his Glaives for fixing my leaky roof,” she said, still with such an accent, and there was a word or two mixed in that Ori couldn’t understand and suspected to be Galahdian curses, since Nyx rolled his eyes, “Reward they all told me they wanted was charms for their little prince. Figured I’d let you pick, while you were here, this one did.” 

 Casting an amused look back at Nyx, who cleared his throat and looked elsewhere, Ori cautiously moved out from behind his uncle’s leg when she turned her gentle smile back his way.

 There were a lot of charms.

 Sifting through them carefully, so as not to mix up her sorted compartments, Ori asked her shy questions and she explained what some of them were. Clan symbols. Galahdian runes. Ori picked out a fox charm, to go with his new stiletto. Picked out a few others too. And when she closed the box because he was finished, she picked several lengths of string off of her table all dyed so bright, and offered those to him as well, laughing and nice.

 It was a little more overwhelming than just running around, waving at people.

 But Oriens remembered his manners and gave her a little bow and a squeak of thanks.

 Before, admittedly, scurrying back to where his dad was and crawling up onto his lap, holding his new gifts tight in the little bag she'd placed them in.

 His dad and Nyx smiled at one another. 

 And they moved on.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Little Galahd was art.

 Its people, treasures.

 And Nyx Ulric was as proud as any Galahdian could ever be, showing it off to his two stars. Seeing it loved and held in the highest of regards.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “<How’s this?>”

 “<Perfect. Thank you.>” 

 Perfect, like inlustris so seamlessly slipping into his own tongue in his own home, an ease to the dialect rolling off of his tongue now born of nearly a year of practice. Perfect, like the way those two sets of blue-blue eyes sparkled in the colored lighting of Little Galahd’s streets. Perfect, like the way Noctis smiled shyly up at him, the two of them following their wayward little star.

 Perfect in the smaller ways, like how that kid, Gladio, let him take the lead.

 Like how the captain watched over them silently, speaking only to toss in his two cents or direct Glaives and ‘Guards using the comlink in his ear.

 Perfect like his people, waving, bowing, beaming.

 Perfect like the clouds soft and white in the skies above, like Father Ramuh’s great beard. Watching over them as well. Perfect, perfect, perfect - like his star enjoying himself and shining so bright.

 They filled their pockets, they filled their hands, they filled their hearts. They bought and they browsed and they bought more. And even if it was just fabrics, just dyes, just threads and beads and charms - if it was weapons and books and pendants and decorations and pelts and embroidery and the heart of Galahd.

 It was perfect.

 Perfect like mane blushing when another Galahdian with another food cart tried to offer him more spiced foods. Perfect like the kids bright, blue Carbuncle backpack. Perfect like his blue hands that adults chuckled at. Perfect like inlustris, slow and at ease, trusting the community. Perfect like being home, being greeted, like a boy by his elders, a chieftain by his clansmen, an elder by the children.

 Perfect.

 Like being home again.

 

 

-----

 

 

 For hearth and home.

 “Captain, having fun?” 

 “...It’s not unpleasant, to guard you all.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “<Starlight, what do you say? Third date on par with our first two?>”

 His starlight, stars in his eyes, a star for a heart, no longer a dying star - blinked at him. Blinked. Ducked his head a bit to the side. A smile dancing, tugging at the corners of those lips of his. Stars in his eyes, stars in his eyes, stars that focused on his son running about up ahead, shadowed by his Shield.

 Noctis hummed, warmth on his cheeks like the humidity of a storm on its way.

 “Better, I think.”

 Captain Drautos stepped forward without being specifically asked to push inlustris’ wheelchair, so he could reach up and take Nyx’s hand so, so faintly in his and they could still continue moving. There was no force there. No grip. And yet, his love was strong and Nyx knew that to be true. 

 Better.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Around and around they continued to go, like dizzy cats on catnip, and Regis Lucis Caelum felt very much like they weren’t getting anywhere. More than that. He felt very much like his respect for Tenebrae and for Queen Lunafreya was falling rapidly. He had made it as clear as he could in more than several ways that this act of hers - of sending this messenger, was extremely rude. Disrespectful to him. To his son. To his grandson.

 To Lucis.

 They had made it more than apparent that her messenger wasn’t welcome.

 That they’d be keeping him at arms-length and trying to shove him back out the city gates as soon as possible.

 And that this had better not happen a second time.

 And yet, the messenger had been petitioning for hours. How? How had he the energy? Regis hadn’t a clue. The man seemed desperate. They had pushed back the meeting, had talked him in circles, and all but threatened to kick him from the Citadel if he didn’t wrap this up, and despite how much the young man sweated and stumbled and misspoke and was torn down by a very efficient Advisor Scientia?

He kept on saying, “Your Majesty, a moment more, please. I really must insist!”

And checking his watch.

Regis had resorted to simply letting the poor messenger babble senselessly, lounging in his throne with an air of cold indifference. Chin held in the palm of his hand. Nothing respectful to be found in his attitude, nor in the same cold indifference of Clarus at his side, nor in Ignis who stood down on the lower level of the dais, cutting into the messenger’s messages and arguments as well as he cut into training dummies with his daggers.

It just kept going.

And Regis just wanted to know how his son’s date was turning out.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Like this,” Nyx demonstrated patiently, sat on the colorful curb with mane and mane’s newest set of fine threads held in a specific sort of way by his fingers, crossing thread over thread as his mother had once taught him to do, the pattern one of the Ulrics and of family, “Careful; hook your pinky finger around this last thread, and when you cross these two together, then stitch it in, and then hook it again. Do you see?” 

 “Yes!” The princling chirped, peering at his example then at the threads he was braiding himself. Easily mimicking the technique. 

 Nyx found himself smirking and ruffling the little star’s raven hair. Mane was very good at mimicking what he saw.

 “Good job!” The Glaive cheered him on, shifting to show him better the technique that came next, charm included, thread threaded through its let, “Okay, now watch carefully, mane. It’s sort of easy to end up with knots at this point, and they’re not fun to undo. Trust me. I pricked my fingers with needles all the time at your age, trying to carefully pick out knots from my braidwork!” 

 The little morninglight giggled, leaning in to watch carefully.

 And the two of them were being watched too.

 By Noctis. Who was sat, nomming slowly on a soft, steaming meat bun they’d gotten from one of the food carts lining the Ostium streets of Little Galahd. Late enough to have missed lunch, early enough to have not yet hit dinnertime, Noctis’ rumbling stomach had been a good enough reason for them to stop in the foody neighborhood. 

 Where Ori had proceeded to see a new type of braid braided into the hairstyles surrounding him, and had tugged on Nyx’s sleeve to ask to be taught.

 They were adorable.

 And Nyx was so good with him. So good, it made Noctis’ heartbeat…quicken.

 This, all of this, this whole day. It had been wonderful. When his dad had come to him, distraught over his birthday being missed because he’d had a heart attack, Noctis hadn’t cared in the least. Lucis Caelum birthdays were usually…events. And galas. And big parties, and going onto talk shows, and nothing enjoyable. Being stared at, and being photographed a hundred, a thousand times - being the center of attention in a way he abhorred. 

 But a second date in Little Galahd, including his sweet little dawnlight, Ori?

 It had been the best birthday he’d had in a very, very, very long time.

 “He’s good with him,” Gladio commented, a bit begrudging in tone, that tone of a dad. Standing beside Noctis’ wheelchair with his arms crossed as he watched like a Shield should, “I…had my reservations. Before. But he is. He’s more than just a hotshot hero.”

 “Nyx is a good man,” Uncle Drautos spoke up immediately from Noctis’ other side, making Gladio straighten up at-attention just from his own firm tone, “If…if my child had lived, I would’ve been honored to give him away to Nyx and accept him as a son-in-law. He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known. Gladiolus. Remember to judge by actions and heart, not by your own pride.” 

 “I know, Uncle,” the Shield sighed, after a second where he seemed to debate whether he would and then deflated, “I know. I just never really knew him. Before.” 

 Noctis took another big bite of his yummy meat bun, chewing slowly. Savoring the spices that weren’t too spicy in this one. 

 Then swallowed, and said softly, “Nyx is nice.” 

 Both of them, Shield and Captain, brother and uncle, glanced down at him.

 But the raven-haired royal just went back to enjoying his yummy meat bun and watching Nyx teach his son something new. Satisfied. His favorite Glaive, his most loyal guard, his beloved, his amatus - Nyx Ulric was a nice man. A truly empathetic man. Who had seen Noctis fall and caught him. Who saw him shattered and broken and decided he wouldn’t mind cutting himself if it meant holding Noctis together. 

 There was a bead in his son’s hair from him.

 And a braid full of beads in Noctis’ hair too.

 And here he ate, in Nyx’s home in Insomnia, accepted and loved. And wasn’t that just wonderful?

 

 

-----

 

 

 On the busy streets of Little Galahd, there was such bustle. 

Colors blurred and emotions leapt high.

 And when it felt like they were the only two people left on Eos, Nyx peeked down at Noctis, and Noctis peeked up at Nyx, and those stormy eyes glittered gold with lightning-fierce emotions as Nyx stopped in his tracks to bend down and place a painfully soft kiss on Noctis’ lips. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 A lovely third date, to be sure.

 

 

-----

 

 

 As the King of Lucis, Regis had taught himself to hold a saintly level of patience. All knew that. It had been a very, very necessary part of holding court with his previous council. Not so much his new council. But. This man. This messenger. He had tried him his patience, and then pushed beyond even that. It was late, and his son may be returning home soon, and part of the reason they agreed to this audience today was so his sweet Noctis wouldn’t run into any Tenebraean delegates wandering the halls of their home.

 He no longer showed indifference.

 The Lucian King showed annoyance. And frustration. In the way he was scowling, at the messenger now very much keeping his head down and stuttering.

 No more of this. 

He wanted to be there to greet his son and grandson when they returned.

 “Mister Plorn.” He spoke. All listened, his bleary-eyed and nervous council turning towards him as the messenger went very still in the after of his voice echoing throughout the throne room, “I believe. We should call this audience to a conclusion, so you can take the words we’ve already given you to your queen.”

 No more words. No more time. 

 Not for them, nor Lunafreya and whatever schemes she had thought up.

 “Your Majesty, please, I must in-insist,” this Mister Plorn tried, stammered, when he finally dared glance up and was met with a frankly angry king staring down at him from his throne on high.

 Had Tenebrae forgotten all manner of respect in the years since its queen had avoided coming to Lucis’ court? Avoided until Noctis was free. Avoided until whatever plan she had had borne chance. Avoided and avoided and avoided while Regis raised a son all by his lonesome for a second time in his life.

 And now she sends this crock of a messenger to, what? Talk him in senseless circles?

 They were done there. The audience was finished, the king’s patience was depleted, Tenebrae had humiliated itself -

 But with the raising of his hand to call an official end to the audience?

There was a commotion outside of the doors of the Lucis’ throne room. A small commotion. But a commotion nonetheless, leading to Clarus stepping somewhat in front of Regis, and the ‘Guards surrounding the chambers to tense. Never too careful. Never.

 The doors parted, and into the throne room rushed a member of the Crownsguard. 

 “Your Majesty, a report for you!” 

 Uncertain murmuring rose from his council, Clarus stepped aside, and Regis wondered what sort of trouble they could possibly be facing now - just for the thought of his boys to cross his mind as he gripped the armrests of his throne tight.

 “Your report,” he commanded, magic crystalizing in the air around him at the thought of his boys hurt somehow. 

 Just to pull up short from the actual report the ‘Guard bowed to give.

 “Majesty, it’s Queen Lunafreya!”

 The actual report.

 “Has she sent another of her messengers? Tell them - “

 “No, Your Majesty!” Lifting his head, the ‘Guard’s expression was grim and set, and Regis’ heart halted with his actual report, “Queen Lunafreya is here, Majesty. At Insomnia’s gates. Requesting entry to the city!”

 His blood ran blue with his family’s angry, angry magic.

 

 

~>-----------<-

Notes:

Uh oh.

The plot bunnies are escaping. :)

Chapter 22

Notes:

So sorry about the delay! I've got a tendonitis flare up that's not very fun going on right now, but also this just ended up being a longer chapter because of Lunafreya's entrance - without further waiting though, enjoy!

.

~>-----------<~

 

 

 At the gates of Insomnia, Tenebrae’s Queen waited in her car with her convoy.

 Fingertips drumming a soft, steady beat on her thigh.

 Waited. And waited. And waited. Held up by the Crownsguard in new uniforms with a new haunting to their eyes, talking into their communications devices. Expressions set, serious, as if faced by some dreaded enemy instead of a royal guest. The queen sighed. Her attendant stiffened fearfully.

 “What is taking them so long?” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 In the halls of the Citadel, headed away from the throne room king and council had stormed out of, leaving that Mister Plorn of Tenebrae to be escorted out quite roughly without a second thought -

 Lucis’ King gripped his cane’s handle too tightly for the good of his heart. Feeling as if all the weight of the Wall had fallen back onto his shoulders. He lacked only the whispers of the Lucii now. Angry, he was angry. More. Regis Lucis Caelum was furious. The sound of his cane slamming into each tile he stormed upon was fury, fury, fury - enough to crack the black marble.

 His court cleared the way when they saw this angry king coming.

 Damn Tenebrae.

 Regis could now nearly say, with full conviction, that any goodwill he had towards Tenebrae on behalf of his old, dear friend Queen Sylva was hanging on by the thinnest of threads.

 Her daughter was a…he stopped. He brought his cane down on another tile, taking in a deep breath as he did. The halls of the Citadel were painted pale with the light of a latening afternoon. Soon was when Noctis and Oriens were supposed to come home; supposed to take dinner with him and tell Regis all about their day in Little Galahd. Now? 

 Now?

 Gazing out one of the grand windows of the Citadel, there were clouds, and the skies, and there were birds startled from the gardens that took to those skies in a flock of birdsong and fallen feathers. And there was an old king. Taking deep, slow breaths to try and steady a heart already strained too much for one lifetime.

 His council scattered, off to their own departments, competent enough he hoped to handle this unexpected event so soon since their appointment.

 His Shield and Sword stayed.

 Clarus and Cor stayed.

 “Regis,” Clarus said, sounding a sort of grim he hadn’t heard from his Shield since the war.

 “I know,” the Father hissed out between his teeth, feeling every year his age and the years the Ring foisted onto him as well as he dragged a hand down his face, tugging at his beard. There was much to do. Too much, “I know. Cor, get a message to Captain Drautos immediately - he is to keep Noctis and Oriens in Little Galahd until told otherwise. Tell him why, but tell him neither of my boys are to know. Put their detail on the highest of alerts. Nobody from Tenebrae gets near the neighborhood.”

 “Regis,” Clarus said in soft opposition whilst Cor bowed and immediately rushed off, “you cannot simply - “
 
 “I am aware, old friend,” he hated it, but he could not change it, “I cannot turn away a ruler at the Crown City’s gates, who has traveled for days to visit us. It would be seen as nothing short of pure disrespect. More like hostility. And it could open the path to a war between Lucis of Tenebrae, which neither of our kingdoms can afford. But I cannot let her near Noctis or Oriens either. My boys deserve better.” 

 Turn Queen Lunafreya away and risk war.

 Let her in and risk Noctis and Oriens’ safeties.

 What right answer was there? His kingdom, or his family? Regis knew which he wanted to choose, but he also knew his sons deserved better than being the catalyst of ruin.

 “Once the message is sent, let Queen Lunafreya’s convoy into the city.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 In the streets of Little Galahd, all seemed fine. Better than fine. 

 Prince Oriens was skipping in circles around Nyx and his father. His father was chuckling. Nyx was grinning, laughing, dancing a little to the constant music of the streets like he always did subconsciously. Nyx was alive. Little Galahd itself was bright and bustling and loud in a way that said it was home to many, even if the late afternoon meant more citizens on the streets. Meant their outing was nearly over. 

 Drautos had no reason to feel uneasy.

 He actually felt happier and more relaxed than he had in a long time, watching over them all.

 And then the comlink in his ear crackled with static.

A message coming through.

 A message that instantly had the Kingsglaive Captain standing straight up, on alert. 

 Something his Glaives in the alleys and on the streets and on the rooftops did not miss. They’d been trained too well. At least a dozen warped to strategic spots within range in an instant, from what he saw out of the corner of his eyes. His jaw worked. He felt angry. He felt like…he had failed.

 Because this wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for him. 

 Gladiolus had stiffened up, had noticed. Nyx too. The streets around them seemed a little clearer, all of sudden. Not much. But enough. No chances. They were taking no chances. That had been made clear before this outing was even agreed to, now his kids took it literally and did their jobs. He was angry. But he was proud. And he was trying not to scare the princes.

 The outing was over, but they couldn’t go back to the Citadel.

…

 Observant was what Oriens was called.

 But his dad wasn’t unobservant, not when he wasn’t stuck inside of his own head. 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum noticed things too. Noticed when his amatus went from swaying his hips a little, laughing a little, grinning a lot - to still. Noticed those pretty, stormy eyes go from soft like rain on a sunny day to a proper storm. Alert like a hunter. Alert like a predator. Alert, and protective.

 Gladio shifted closer.

 Oriens scampered closer with him, not as carefree as he’d been a moment ago, crawling right on up onto his dad’s lap. 

 Uncle Drautos came and whispered something in Nyx’s ear.

 Nyx turned to them, smiling, but it was a strained thing stretched too thin across his face.

 “How would you two feel about seeing my apartment? Maybe staying the night?” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Really?” Ori had gasped, thrilled, “I can spend a night outside of the Citadel?!” 

 The street felt different, so Noctis had held his son closer.

 “A sleepover? Can we, Dad? Can we?!” 

 Nyx’s magic felt apologetic when he reached for it, but not afraid. So Noctis had chosen to trust his Glaive. 

 They went.

 To Nyx’s apartment.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx Ulric’s apartment had been in disuse for months now. Ever since he moved in with his star. He returned only for community matters, or to grab this or that. But even then? Most of Nyx’s belongings had slowly migrated to his star’s rooms too, so he returned less and less for that reason. 

 He was grateful somebody had been coming by to do the cleaning, because otherwise they would’ve been walking into a dusty, dead apartment.

 Instead, he unlocked the door to a neat, somewhat still and quiet apartment.

 Nyx still remembered those years, before Little Galahd had blossomed, of him living in a shoddy apartment. Cheap as they came. Laundry strung up indoors and holes in the floor and mold climbing the walls. It was enough, back then. Survivable. But not living. And the instant the neighborhood had life breathed back into it, after the war, his clan had insisted he live like a chieftain should. 

 So he caved, he let them push him to take one of the bigger apartments in the Ulric district. Not the biggest. But bigger. With nice furniture, utilities, and no mold or rat holes in sight. No cockroaches.

 Which was why Nyx was only feeling a little tense, inviting inlustris and mane in.

 His apartment had a view of most of his clan’s streets.

 Like all buildings in Little Galahd, it had been revamped to be toned more towards wood and stone, less like the modern sleekness of most of Insomnia. Its colors were rich, warm - at least, that’s how Crowe had described it when Nyx had first moved in and claimed he didn’t care about color palettes. 

 And it was Galahdian.

 Proven by the way the little princling took one look at the apartment, gasped in delight, and ran forward with single-minded determination to bury his hands in the soft pelts laid over Nyx’s couch. Leaning down to rub his cheeks on them too while Gladiolus sighed and hurried after him.

 Before he could catch his prince, though, mane had noticed something else and darted off in that direction. The bone lanterns. The handcrafted furniture. The woven curtains, the rugs hand-dyed and embroidered, the antlers displayed above the mantle, the weapon racks and the tapestries and - inlustris’ brows had climbed higher and higher the longer he sat there taking it all in.

 Nyx wondered if it was too much. He’d brought some things to the bedroom they shared in the Citadel, but some of his best pelts and his altar and his bead bowls didn’t equate to this.

 But with Captain Drautos shadowing them in the doorway, inlustris just looked up at him.

 “You can bring more of your things…to our rooms in the Citadel, Nyx,” inlustris just said, looking uncertain, like he wasn’t sure the offer would be welcome.

 Oh, his brave, beautiful star.

 “It would be my honor, starlight,” this Glaive whispered, and it would, it would - and he truly needed to talk with inlustris soon about Galahd’s traditions on home rights, but that would be for another time, “Come in, please. You and mane are welcome.” 

 Their little star had already found the apartment’s kitchen, and found his knife block on the counter too judging by the Shield’s distant muttering of, “More knives. Of course. Ori, don’t - !”

 The captain shut his door, then locked it, then slipped the chain on it into place. 

 It went without saying that there were Glaives taking up defensive positions all throughout the apartment building, down on the street and up on the roof. The chain on the door, though? That was obvious. And that was right there. And the way the captain turned around to stand guard right there where he could see practically the whole apartment, alert and tense? 

 It was no surprise when Nyx turned back to his star, just to find inlustris frowning up at him, tensed too.

 “This isn’t a sleepover, is it?” 

 “Inlustris, please, trust us.” 

 If the raven-haired royal wasn’t able to do so, it would’ve been a blow to Nyx’s heart but it would’ve been understandable. Trust was a difficult thing to ask of anyone. Let alone a man who’d been hurt as badly as his star had been. Nyx wouldn’t have begrudged him his distrustful nature. But he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep Noctis there against his will either.

 To his surprise, after a terse moment of silence, narrowed eyes and downturned lips, his star had a single question for him.

 “Is anyone hurt?” 

 “No, inlustris. Everyone is fine.” A question he was able to answer honestly.

 An answer that seemed to be his star’s limit, with the way his shoulders slumped and he reached up to rub at his eyes as if he were suddenly so very tired.

 “Then I suppose we’ll stay the night.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Sorry for the wait, Your Majesty. Welcome to the Crown City.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Minutes and minutes later, Oriens was spread out on one of the rather generously sized couches of the apartment’s main space - couches covered in thick, fluffy pelts from past hunts, and the little princling was sorting through all the cool things he’d found or had bought for him throughout the day. He looked so comfy. So cute. With his shoes kicked off, and digging through his Carbuncle backpack, showing off everything to them as if they hadn’t been there when he bought them. 

Like it was his treasure and he a dragon so proud of its hoard.

 The young prince kept nuzzling into the pelts under him, giggling and kicking his feet, and Nyx had a pretty good idea what he’d be getting mane as a gift for his rooms in the future.

 The captain had insisted on standing close to the door, where it was easier to see everyone, and Nyx had let him because he knew what that paranoia felt like.

 Gladio shadowed the princling, obviously disgruntled here, in unexplored terrain. But he had been a polite enough house guest so far. 

 Inlustris was standing in the light of the windows that lined one wall of the apartment, watching Little Galahd’s life flow on and on, on its streets down below. Standing. Because he had stood from his wheelchair, here, in privacy. And he cut a gorgeous figure against the light of afternoon, wearing one of Nyx’s jackets still.

 Nyx went to him, because he couldn’t be kept away.

 Couldn’t. But was careful to circle around, to approach from the side and not his star’s spine. His star, who had been so strong throughout the day. And who had to be strong yet. Whose blue-blue eyes shifted from the streets, up to where the Citadel would stand if only the skyscrapers of the Crystal District weren’t in the way, then back down to the streets. He sighed.

 Nyx slipped his hand into his.

 Noctis leaned on him.

 So Nyx held him.

 “This was a good date,” his star mumbled into his shirt, a shirt borrowed from the man himself, just that morning but it felt like years ago now, “I enjoyed it.” 

 “I’m glad, inlustris.” 

 “...You’re hiding something from me, for my own good.” 

 Nyx Ulric did not respond to that - that prodding. Any answer he tried to give would be dishonest somehow. And he hated lying to the man he loved. So instead, he just curled his star closer to his heart. And he just reached up to cup his cheek, beard prickly under his fingers. And he just leaned down to press a kiss to his star’s forehead.

 Noctis let him get away with not answering. He much preferred the kiss to whatever bad news his amatus held for him.

 Preferred it enough that he turned in Nyx’s strong arms to close those few, scarce centimeters that stood between them when he was on his own two feet.

 He kissed Nyx, short and sweet, on those lips of his that tasted something like spices too hot for Noctis to handle. 

 Let him be ignorant.

 Let him be happy.

 Just for a while longer.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A line of cars, white in contrast to the Crownsguard’s black, came to a stop in the court of the Citadel.

 A queen was escorted into the House of Caelum.

 

 

-----

 

 

 She was tall.

 And elegant.

 And gowned in white, with a golden crown perfectly placed above her brow. With the laurels of Tenebrae’s Oracle braided into her equally golden hair, catching the light of the sun and shining as she walked. Her hands clasped in front of her gown’s skirt. Expression one of serenity. The picture of divinity walking the earth.

 Nothing like an uninvited guest.

 She was bowed to because she was a queen, uninvited or not.

 A king awaited her arrival on his throne. His Sword and Shield a his hands. His trusted Royal Advisor on the dais below. His council assembled. Feeling as though he could hear her heels clicking on marble with every heartbeat that passed, waiting, waiting, and waiting. Some part of him wasn’t upset, but was an uncle excited to see his niece despite his disappointment in how this all played out.

 Some part of him, a larger part, though? Was annoyed, truly. And only more annoyed when the ‘Guards on duty opened the doors of the Lucis’ throne room wide, bowing, and announcing -

 “Presenting to the court Queen Lunafreya Nox Fleuret of Tenebrae, Your Majesty!” 

 Sylva’s daughter.

 Last of the Nox Fleurets. Last of the line of Oracles. Last, and boldest. A survivor. Lunafreya, the darling girl, his grandson’s mother. Regis watched with world-weary eyes as she - picture of divinity - walked into his throne room with her head held high. 

 This was the first time he had hosted her since she gave birth to Oriens.

 She looked well. Strong. Confident.

 She looked unchallenged.

 She did not bow, but Regis Lucis Caelum gazed down at her kindly. She had her mother’s features, her father’s eyes, her kingdom’s pride. She had grown into a beautiful, lustrous young woman. Regis could see all of that in an instant. She still looked almost to be in her twenties, when she was actually in her thirties…she looked younger than Noctis.

 “Lucis welcomes you, Queen Lunafreya, despite the surprise of this visit,” some of his uncle-ness won out, and he just couldn’t greet her coldly when it had been so long since they were in the same room like this, “I apologize for the delay at Insomnia’s gates. This was all very unexpected, and there was much to prepare.” 

 “I am the one who showed up and brought you to surprise,” and oh, she sounded like her mother too, a smile in her words as well as on her lips, “There is no need to apologize for that, Your Majesty. I and my convoy thank you for making as much haste as you could.” 

 Inclining her head, she had a small flock of attendants behind her who bowed deeply in her stead. All dressed like acolytes of the Astrals.

 Tenebrae was as pious as ever, wasn’t it.

 “I hope your health has taken well?” Lunafreya continued, still serene and smiling, “I heard it faltered recently. Perhaps, if you’re willing, I can offer some of my healing?” 

 “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.” 

 For just a moment, her smile seemed to dim, and then she nodded and was just as serene as before. Regis noticed. Surely he wasn’t the only one. But he spoke only the truth, and he didn’t want to think about why refusing her healing would upset the queen in audience with him. His doctors had been very enthusiastic about the progress he had made recovering, doubly so since Noctis took the Ring from him.

 Her healing would have no true effect on his heart by this point.

 He considered what he should say - whether he should pretend this was a genuinely friendly visit, or a power play, or something else. There was silence in the throne room when neither of them were speaking. And there were so many ways this could go. 

 And then there were her words. Her words, a question.

 “Where might Noctis be?” 

 And a lot of his goodwill vanished.

 “Resting. As he needs.” Needed so very much, as he’d told her, as she’d ignored. And it was clear for anyone to see she didn’t much like the answer he offered her, “You understand. My son has been through a great deal, and I wouldn’t ask him to entertain guests when he needs his time.” 

 “I was under the impression he was much further along in his recovery,” she said, her smile becoming a frown, “What rest does he need?” 

 “I don’t know where you came under such an impression,” Regis said, perhaps a bit too harshly but he couldn’t contain it - not after all the messages she’d blatantly ignored from him about the health and happiness of his sweet Noctis, “But Prince Noctis is very much still recovering from the…ordeal, he suffered through. Physical therapy and basic, psychological therapy are still only in their early stages.” 

 Her frown deepened, creasing Lunafreya’s face. Giving her back more of her age.

 The Lucian Council, as it was, frowned a little too. But that was more on the side of, they knew what their king said wasn’t necessarily true. Noctis’ physical therapy was going as well as it possibly could. And even mentally, emotionally, his recovery had been miraculous. But.

 Tenebrae’s disrespectful Queen didn’t need to know that.

 “Perhaps if I see him - “

 “Absolutely not.” 

 The silence that overtook the throne room was frigid. Biting. Regis’ goodwill froze completely beneath it. He would not take it back. He meant what he said. Lunafreya had no right to his son’s company - it was Noctis’ own wish not to see her. And not even for political reasons would he force his sweet boy.

 “I do not see why you must be so antagonistic, Your Majesty. You were excellent friends with my mother. For many years. She was your sister in all but blood, you have said as much yourself.” 

 “Yes,” Regis agreed curtly, “but you are not your mother, Queen Lunafreya.”

 Her eyes flashed - dare he say? - furiously.

 “No,” she agreed, “I am not. My mother is dead. Was murdered, by the Empire. When Emperor Aldercapt was seeking you.” 

 Refusing to let himself tense, refusing to react to that - that accusation, that made him think of Sylva and the way he had heard her scream as she burned. Regis refused. He kept his eyes even, staring down at her. This woman who had been his niece once in all ways except blood, like she implied. And once, she never would’ve made such veiled accusations. Not even when Lunafreya stayed in Insomnia during her pregnancy had she said anything of the sort.

 Something had changed.

 Their star had changed, and they had all been guided in different directions after.

 “...I have apologized for what mine and Noctis’ presences brought upon Tenebrae,” Regis, however, would always regret that day, so he would offer this, “I have always apologized. And I, Lucis, has extended its help unto the Kingdom of the Astrals since. We have been faithful allies. Our treaties stand strong. Our - “

 “You have been ignoring me,” Lunafreya said simply, primly, frowning.

 And interrupting him.

 At which his whole court tensed, disrespected, until he held up a hand to calm them.

 “In what way?” Regis asked, still Lucis’ King and this was his court, calm about it as well. Which only made the queen purse her lips further, “We have not abandoned any of our responsibilities, we have offered resources, kept up trade, our hunters have helped yours with hunts plenty - “

 “You have denied,” she interrupted again, starting to sound just a hint frustrated while Regis had to calm his court for a second time, “my requests to visit Insomnia multiple times in the last year, since Crown Prince Noctis’ return. My offer of marriage - “

 Marriage.

 “Prince Noctis,” it was her turn to be interrupted though, by Ignis’ sharp tongue. On the lower dais of the throne he frowned disapprovingly down at her from, “Crown Prince Oriens is the Lucian heir, not Prince Noctis, Your Majesty. Please refer to him properly.”

 Well, that answered the lingering question of why Tenebrae’s messenger had called Noctis Lucis’ Crown Prince.

 Answered it well, and more, when that seemed to instill the visiting queen with a frustration she couldn’t keep contained anymore. She dropped her hands from their politely clasped position, and even took a short step forward, properly scowling now; angry? Angry.

 Regis straightened up in his throne as Clarus also took a short step forward to respond to her movement.

 “You really would deny him his birthright?” Queen Lunafreya demanded - demanded - in his own court, in front of his own council, as her attendants shifted nervously behind her with her voice like a cracking whip loud in the throne room of Lucis, “Has he not been through enough? Why would you keep another as your heir when it is Noctis who was foretold by the gods to be their Chosen? Why would you not take him back in full, instead of treating him like a disgraced hermit, left in the shadows when he is meant to bring light?”

 Clarus and Cor, his Shield and Sword, both tensed. Because she was implying they were ashamed of their darling Noctis.

 Ignis, down on the dais, forgot his mask as Advisor Scientia for but a moment and even descended a step, towards the queen here to offend them.

 Did she truly think Noctis was in any state to be named Lucis’ heir? 

 “You - “ She addressed Lucis’ King.

 She had forgotten.

 So Regis Lucis Caelum reminded the girl, by bringing the bottom of his cane down firmly on the tiles between his feet, even louder than her voice in his throne room, the cracking of those tiles turning to shards and dust even louder. Queen Lunafreya fell silent. Pinking slightly. Falling back a step. Regis had no idea what expression he wore, but it must’ve been fierce, since her attendants all bent a knee to him, to bow, to murmur apologies for their queen that made her pinker.

 In the House of Caelum, Noctis and Oriens would not be disrespected.

 “In every message I sent, I stressed to you, Queen Lunafreya, that Prince Noctis was not in any state to be reinstated as my heir,” he told her harshly, but calmly, “I stressed that he was recovering. That guests with expectations of him would do him no good. I stressed later that he wished to be left in peace, to learn to live again as a free man. I then stressed that he had no interest in considering marriage, and that your proposal was kind but unnecessary. And what have you done?” 

 Perhaps his tone resembled that of a father scolding a child, who had disappointed him.

 Perhaps it made her pinker in her humiliation, before his court, but he kept going. Because she needed to listen for once.

 “You have repeatedly tried to push your presence onto my son and my home, you have insisted and insisted, you have made offers of marriage that are more than unnecessary, in truth. And then, you sent a messenger in person to us. Who arrived after my own health scare, which you turned into an excuse. Following this messenger without invitation, without forewarning, to appear at our gates and request entry we could not refuse.” 

 She was a queen showing her colors, and Regis did not like all the shades of Queen Lunafreya anymore.

 His retinue had been right. She had grown crafty, and she had grown to have her own goals as well.

 “You have been impolite, inconsiderate, and disrespectful to my home and house,” Regis finished, shaking his head a slight bit, truly, truly disappointed in what Sylva’s sweet girl had grown into, standing before him gowned in white that hid far too much shadow for being her mother’s daughter, “Now, you greet me with interruptions. With demands about my own line of inheritance. Your Majesty. Calm yourself.”

 Some might call it condescending, but Regis was truly just trying to get through this mess with some semblance of respect for his fellow queen intact. 

 Settling back into the smooth stonework of his throne, he waited. Watched her shoulders rise slowly, then fall, obviously taking a deep breath. Was she irritated? Would she lash out with that tongue of hers that had grown to be so sharp and unchallenged? 

 Queen Lunafreya bowed to him, like she’d failed to do when first greeting him in his own home.

 “Apologies, Your Majesty,” she said curtly, facing the carpet so he couldn’t see her expression, “It was a long trip. And I had hoped to see Noctis soon upon arriving. I have been rude, and I sincerely seek your forgiveness for that oversight and lack of control on my part.” 

 Well.

 …Well. Tempted to sigh, Regis barely kept it held in.

 “A long trip can be trying on your nerves,” he conceded, for show at this point, glad to be given an excuse as he waved down at dear Ignis to signal a coming end to this ‘greeting’, “Perhaps it would be best you take your rest for the remainder of the day. We were not given proper forewarning for your visit, as I have already explained, so please forgive that we’ve had to find you accommodations outside of the Citadel,” she tensed, still bowing, like she wanted to straighten up, “Rest assured, Your Majesty, that Caelum Via is a very suited hotel for you to spend your stay in.”

 “...I appreciate your thought, Your Majesty,” her voice was quieter now, Regis had to lean forward to better hear her, “And I apologize, again, for showing up so suddenly. Will a meeting tomorrow suit you? Sometime early, with Prince Noctis?” 

 “Prince Noctis is currently unavailable,” Regis injected a firm scolding into his tone with that, honestly done with this - this charade, “But a meeting can be arranged to discuss the reason for this unexpected visit of yours.” 

 They had both shown disrespect.

 She had shown more.

 Queen Lunafreya of Tenebrae still refused to show her face as she shifted from her bow to a curtsey, dismissing herself with her head bowed from the throne room of Lucis. Sweeping through her attendants behind her so swiftly that they had to scatter a little, to not get in her way. Regis did not miss that her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. 

 What a mess.

 The grand doors of the throne room shut behind her, and Regis immediately gave his orders.

 “Advisor Scientia, please ensure she and her envoy go nowhere aside from Caelum Via. Use the excuse of security concerns, if need be. Cor, send word to the ‘Guards in Little Galahd, nobody gets through unless they have identification. Clarus, please call Gladiolus to get a report immediately and explain they may need to stay longer than expected outside of the Citadel.” 

 Outside of home, outside of the Wall meant to protect them, that now may host a woman with unknown intentions.

 “Did you notice, Your Majesty?” Dear Ignis asked, sounding serious and furious even as he hurried in a composed manner to follow the queen, his question left behind where he just was once he was gone, “Queen Lunafreya did not make mention of Prince Oriens once.” 

 “I noticed,” the tired king sighed, taking the pills Clarus offered to him from a familiar pill bottle, to swallow like he was swallowing the hurt of what this would all surely become, “I noticed. Oh, Sylva, I am so sorry, my old friend.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “You were right, Lord Bahamut,” a queen whispered to the tint of her car’s window as she was all but exiled from Lucian court so disrespectfully, “King Regis has forgotten himself.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was late.

 But the streets of Little Galahd were no less brilliant with light, or bustle, or filled with hearty people laughing and dancing and celebrating another day that had come then gone. They had had to draw the curtains shut, to darken the apartment. An apartment still lit by candles and lamps, but otherwise dim.

 Noctis was curled around his son, who had dozed off on the couch while cuddling his chocobo plushie. Running his hand up and down Ori’s back, his fingers through his fluffy hair.

 There were things he hadn’t been told.

 But he chose ignorance, so he could choose to spend time peacefully with his little dawnlight. Watching him sleep.

 Halfway to dozing himself, Noctis could feel his eyes drooping, his lips brushing his son’s head. He would start, and straighten, and wake up for a moment when he realized. And then it would happen again. And again. And again. The smells of incense, of pelts, and of leather and petrichor in the apartment coaxed him to fall asleep. Let go. Drift off.

 He wasn’t sure when, but he was there, on the couch curled around his Ori - 

 And then Nyx was there. Kneeling. Reaching for him.

 “Come here, inlustris,” whispering, low in his chest as arms wound around him to gently pull Noctis from the soft furs draped over the couch, “Let your Shield take mane to the spare bedroom. It’s time for you both to sleep the day off.” 

 Noctis was in the arms of his…love. His lovely storm. His Glaive.

 Nyx, peering down at him with stormy-gold eyes, his usual charming quirk to his lips. It was a nice view. It made his heart feel safe, in Nyx’s arms. Details were vague. Like Gladio taking the place of where Nyx had just been kneeling to lift his son from the furs too, careful with his chocobo plushie. 

 Details like Gladio and Uncle Drautos telling him goodnight, details like the exact scent of incense being burned, details like if Nyx had changed into pajamas or not since he’d leant Noctis a shirt and some sweats to change into before.

 Details like what Nyx Ulric’s bedroom looked like exactly.

 Aside from the fact that there were plenty of pelts laid across the bed. And a canopy of some sort overhead, with strings and beads and charms and sigils hanging over the bed. And that everything suddenly smelled like his Nyx.

 Like the earth after a storm.

 Sharp and earnest.

 Nyx set him in his own bed. Tucked him under those pelts and his blankets. Laid his head on his pillows. A blur smiling softly down at him, with beads shining in the candlelight. And then the blur tried to move away. Which Noctis very much didn’t appreciate.

 He caught Nyx’s hand.

 Tugged at him.

 Too tired to say what he wanted.

 But his Glaive crawled under the blankets anyways, with a chuckle and a, “If you’re sure, starlight, then I’ll stay,” as if he wasn’t sure after how wonderful a day they had had. Nyx didn’t touch him under the covers, other than to stretch out his arm. Letting Noctis rest his head on it as a pillow instead. And the raven-haired man curled up. Finally content to let sleep take him.

 Nyx watched his star doze off, in his own bed, using his bicep as a pillow.

 So happy, he chose to forget what awaited them come morning.

 The hero just curled around his star in turn, and closed his eyes to sleep too.

 “Happy Birthday, inlustris.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Dragging his hands down his face, Regis gazed up at the portrait in his study, that hung in a place of honor above the mantle. A portrait of him and his dear Aulea. Painted in those hectic days following their wedding. As beautiful as he remembered her being, every single time he looked upon the son she had given him.

 It was a lifetime ago.

 But he still missed her so.

 “Oh, Aulea,” he whispered, seeking her counsel as he always had so many years ago, “I do not know what to do about her.”

 A portrait had no counsel to give to a tired king.

 

 

-----

 

 

 ‘Long night’ felt like an understatement. Even for those who slept soundly, who woke up feeling as if the night had dragged on and on for forever. There was dawn, shining over the walls of the Crown City. And there were birds flying across the sky, clouds big and puffy puffing past, and the usual noises of a city stirring come morning. There was Insomnia.

 And there they all were, in it.

 Facing another day of opposition. Call their enemy fate or call it destiny - it was simply the way of it.

 Regis Lucis Caelum woke, in his bed proper, wondering tiredly whether it was his Shield or his Sword that had carried him there after he nodded off.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum woke, in furs warm and smelling of a certain man he loved, slowly. Very slowly. And very safe, like he never believed he could ever be with somebody’s body pressed against his. 

 Oriens Lucis Caelum woke, in furs so much bigger and thicker than him it felt like being lost in a fluffy cave, giggling at his Uncle Gladdy who was trying to catch him; just a little royal lump under the blankets crawling around.

…

 Elsewhere, Queen Lunafreya was already awake and on the balcony of her elegant hotel room, frowning at the outline of Insomnia’s Citadel against a dawning sky. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Why?” 

 It was mumbled towards the ceiling, or towards the canopy of weavings and charms and culture hanging over the bed, and maybe it was also partially mumbled into Nyx’s bicep when he turned his head - but it was clearly heard. Since his dear Glaive tensed up under him. Even if it was only for a second. Even if he relaxed quickly afterwards, in a practiced sort of way.

 “Inlustris?” Nyx asked, as if he wasn’t sure what Noctis was also asking. As if.

 “Don’t,” the prince who had been hurt enough whispered to skin and muscle and the softness of somebody else’s bed, “pretend. Don’t.”

 Nyx made a small noise, straining, and Noctis knew - he knew - he was yanking his amatus around between his duty as a Glaive and his duty as his partner. Yanking him by his braids. But this couldn’t wait. He didn’t want it to wait. And he wouldn’t wait to be told why their admittedly wonderful date had ended in Nyx’s apartment. In him and Ori not being able to go home.

 “Tell me,” he pleaded, without opening his eyes.

 The arm that had been his pillow for a whole night curled, and a hand rough with weapon calluses slowly, slowly, so slowly and gently, pressed into his hair. And Nyx’s other arm he draped just as slowly and gently over his hip. Gripping him in no way. But still holding him.  

 “Noctis,” Nyx whispered, and this Chosen who had been abandoned tried to harden his heart, “I’m so sorry.” 

 He could never harden it enough, not in time.

 “...Queen Lunafreya is at the Citadel.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ignorance.

 It was regretted, after.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The date.

 It was missed, after.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Crystal’s light pulsed, sensing anger, the anger of its Chosen.

 The betrayal.

 The fear.

 

 

-----

 

 

 ‘You told him,’ Captain Drautos’ stare accused him, when he had Prince and Glaive in front of him, in front of the apartment’s door, and the prince was buzzing with magic and emotions. Crystals forming and shattering in the air around him. It wasn’t a fight. It was an order. It was - 

 “Move, Uncle Drautos.” 

 And the captain hesitated for a short two seconds, before bowing his head and stepping aside. As his prince commanded.

 There wasn’t a lot to be done. An angry Caelum was a Caelum you bowed to, or died to. And Nyx felt something solid and hurt hit him in the gut when inlustris went to tear the door open and storm out, not even bothering with his wheelchair. There was some tumbling from the direction of his guest room, and there was Gladiolus. The man tugging on his boots as he hurried to follow Noctis. Ori peering around the doorframe he’d just left with wide, worried eyes.

 Nyx went to follow too. His amatus. His everything.

 And was met by a hand pressed against his chest.

 Was met by fierce, trusting blue eyes despite what he had kept from his star.

 “Stay with Ori.” 

 It was an order from the man he loved. How could he ever refuse? How could he watch him walk away? How could he stay, when inlustris was going? How could he ever leave mane alone? Nyx was trapped in the eye of the storm, and knew the only way out would be to get tossed about by the winds, and he was willing to accept it.

 But the uncertainty of knowing which direction would be the worst of the storm made him falter.

 Not in inlustris, though. Never. He reached up to hold the hand over his chest. Never faltering in his love for his brilliant star. Nyx smiled, a crooked, silly thing. 

 “I have him, amatus.” 

 And his brilliant star left him to go deal with the snake in their grasses.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens stared up at Nyx with a fake smile when he suddenly found the apartment empty of two very important family members of his, and just as suddenly felt very much only nine years old as he found himself alone and away from home and not sure what was going on.

 The man his dad loved crouched down to his level, though, and lifted him up to hook Ori around his hip like he was much younger, carrying him off to the kitchen to make breakfast like that.

 If the princling hid in his neck like a much younger child, it was nobody else’s business.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He was owed a debt.

 Who he would collect it from, he wasn’t sure, but Noctis stalked on his own two feet the streets of Little Galahd. Headed home. Shadowed by his Shield and his love’s Glaives.

 And he wouldn’t forgive.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Taking a deep breath wasn’t enough preparation to meet with Lunafreya again.

 But nothing would be enough, he feared, so Regis simply stepped forward to greet the queen once more allowed inside of the Wall. The walls of his home. As beautiful and elegant as she’d been the day before, if less…serene.

 “Walk with me, Your Majesty?” He offered, hopeful that a less official setting would help them come to a better even ground. He was accompanied only by a pair of Glaives Clarus had insisted upon, and she was alone, and he was hopeful. Perhaps foolishly so. But he had to try. 

 They walked, together, through the corridors of morning light in the Citadel.

 “Lunafreya, my dear, I do wish you’d understand I have my reasons for making Noctis’ recovery my highest priority,” he started, tone carefully respectful. Trying to find the right words, “What happened - it was a tragedy. It never should’ve happened. And I would give anything in the world to take back my inaction when my son was accused of crimes he did not and would not commit. But I cannot give anything. And I cannot take it back. So I will do what’s best for him now; letting him rest. Letting him heal. Letting him recover, from the torture he endured for ten years. Can you understand that? My dear, I did not spurn you or ignore your messages because I hold any ill will towards you, but because my son genuinely is not ready nor willing to have anything to do with you. It is as simple as that. Can you understand those reasons?”

 Could she put Noctis first?

“You have your reasons, and I have mine,” she stated firmly, and Regis’ heart sank further with the realization that Her Majesty had not been swayed in the least by his speech, “It is foretold. The Astrals themselves have decreed Noctis shall have his place by their sides, along with myself, when the prophecy is seen fulfilled. Your reasons do not rank above the desires of our gods, Your Majesty. And do not think I haven’t noticed Lucis’ lacking faith in these last months.” 

Her eyes, pale blue, flashed with an ancient, cold fire that brought Regis’ heart to sink lower still.

Devotion was that fire.

“I cannot control the faith my people place in the gods,” he told her, turning from her fire, watching the tiles they slowly made their way over as they walked. Saying nothing of his own faith, “I cannot force them to follow a religion that has waned in my kingdom for multiple generations now. It has not been the beating heart of Lucis the way it has been for Tenebrae, Your Majesty.” 

“It should’ve been. Because what is the Crystal if not a beating heart given by Lord Bahamut himself?” 

The old king had no answer she would accept, so he simply sighed. 

Queen Lunafreya walked a little too fast for him, him with his cane and his hobbling, aged beyond her years in ways she couldn’t understand. The distance between them had grown. And now she was frowning, looking over her shoulder back at him, seemingly frustrated when she realized she had to wait for him to catch up.

 Where was the patience her mother had so been known for? 

 Where was the empathy of that little girl who was like a niece to him? 

 When did Lunafreya Nox Fleuret change into a woman who could look at him like he was a disappointment? Perhaps when he never came to save her, during Niflheim’s occupation. 

 But she had let go of his hand, and he couldn’t turn back if she regretted that decision.

 Regis Lucis Caelum had never blamed her - after the war. When Lunafreya showed up in Lucis, gowned and crowned and a queen. When she seemed a little colder. A little harsher. He could scarcely imagine the horrors she had been subjected to, after spending a decade under the Empire’s rule. After losing her family. Left all alone, only a child, shouldering all of Tenebrae’s fear.

 And after Oriens’ birth, Regis had still never blamed her. The doctors called it postpartum disorder when she held her son just long enough to drop him in Regis’ arms and walk away. Leaving him to do it all over again. Like with Noctis. Another boy, a newborn, in his arms with no mother and no other family in sight. 

 No matter how many tears he had shed because of her walking away, no matter how many times he had to gently explain to Oriens why he had no mother, Regis had never blamed her.

 Not until Noctis returned.

 Until she pushed and pushed and pushed.

 And now, here they were.

 And Regis almost…wanted to blame her. Maybe he was just a horrible, horrible and jaded old man. Maybe he’d become somebody he never wanted to.

 But staring at her, ahead of him, this woman who would not wait and would not accept no as an answer? He wanted to blame too much on her, despite knowing he should never.

 “I want to see Noctis.” Stilled Regis in his tracks, a single step away from catching up to her. He heard the Glaives following him freeze up as well, heard one of them whispering into their comlink. Reporting that she had asked yet again, and what was he meant to say to her as she stared resolutely ahead, away from him?

 She already knew what he would say.

 “Your Majesty, he doesn’t want to see - “ 

 “You cannot keep him from me and his destiny forever - “

 “Queen Lunafreya, please,” he tried. Failed, in the face of her cold fire turned back onto him.

 “He has a duty, to Lord Bahamut, to - !”

 “Lunafreya.” 

 He said it too loudly to be proper, when speaking to a fellow ruler. He said it so loudly it echoed in that corridor of the Citadel. It felt unnaturally chilly between them in an instant. And Regis was pleading, but she looked as though she had viewed it as a blatant challenge. Drawn up and glaring at him.

 “He deserves to heal,” the Father pleaded, and the Oracle’s glare got colder.

 “He hasn’t done anything for more than ten years now, how much healing could he need?” 

 There was a sharp inhale.

 And it was from neither of them, and neither of Regis’ Glaives either.

 So they turned somewhat.

 And there, standing in the morning light that shone through arching windows, was Noctis Lucis Caelum.

 There he was. Standing there. With big, brilliant blue eyes. And with both retinues behind him. And with the morning’s light catching on the beads in his hair, the rims of his glasses, the buttons of his shirt. But pale. So, so, so pale like Regis hadn’t seen him in months maybe. Pale like a ghost, so he took a step towards his son with one hand outstretched.

 His son, his little nightlight, had eyes only for Queen Lunafreya.

…

 Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. They’d tried to stop him, but he’d kept going, they’d tried to plead with him, but he’d kept walking, they had whispered, they had yelled, they had grabbed him and they had been stung and they had regretted the way he flinched but kept storming through the halls of a home invaded - and he had known she would be there. 

 He had been told.

 He had been reminded of betrayal, and betrayed again in the process.

 Lunafreya Nox Fleuret.

 Luna.

 Standing. There. A queen. A ruler. A woman. Standing there in the halls of his home like he had never, ever seen her, gowned in white and crowned with gold and aged and angelic and Oriens Lucis Caelum’s mother.

 She…smiled, softly at him. While his whole family stood around behind him, silently frantic. 

 She spoke.

 “Hello, Noctis.” 

 She sounded so much the same, with her Tenebraean accent and singsong way of speaking…she…but she, had aged. And Noctis’ mind was split. Between memories of being a child looking up to this elegant princess so much and yet so not older than him. Memories. And memories. And memories. And the sweet pollen of sylleblossoms. 

 So much the same.

 So much still a friend, who he confided so much in.

 “I have missed you, Noct.” 

 …But.

 Where was she when their son needed her? 

 And Noctis Lucis Caelum plunged headfirst back into his hollowness, because she was the one person he wouldn’t ever forgive.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was wheezing.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was a scream.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was numbness.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was nothing.

 

 

-----

 

 

…

 

 

-----

 

 

 Running his fingers through his son’s hair, like when he was just a child, Regis regretted.

He regretted.

He regretted. 

 How had he allowed this to happen? How could he have failed his sweet, tormented son all over again? Regis had hopes, foolish hopes perhaps, but hopes nonetheless that he would get Queen Lunafreya to see sense in time. Before anybody else had to know she was in Insomnia. Before his son and grandson came home.

 Instead, his son had walked straight into them.

 Met with her.

 And fractured.

 That scream. That terrible, terrible scream. Oh, his poor child. His Noctis. It had been a scream from him, from his magic, from somewhere within him - it had burst out of him like a storm when Lunafreya dared speak to him, like his magic did. Smothering everyone in the corridor. Everyone in the Citadel, as the Crystal sensed his distress and lashed out. 

 Such panic. Such pain. 

 His boy.

 Now lying in his bed like it was his final resting place, eyes empty and staring off at some horror Regis could only torture himself by trying to imagine. None of his touches seemed to register. Nothing had. Not since Queen Lunafreya opened her mouth and spoke. And now Regis was left with everything he’d been trying to avoid - his dear son relapsing.

 Dissociating. 

 His grandson, he’d been told, was still in Little Galahd a city away from them. His Kingsglaive Captain with him. His son’s lover with him as well; a man who was the only one aside from Oriens who could get through to Noctis when he was in this state. He had a queen in his home, uninvited. He had concern from the public because Noctis’ magic had shattered whole windows and what a noticeable thing that was.

 Regis had shaky hands. And fear for his son, and fear for his grandson, and a straining heart.

 “Regis, Her Majesty is asking for you.” 

 He had a queen in his home, uninvited, who refused to believe absolutely anything he said about his child being in too fragile a state to deal with the Astrals and their damned expectations. Who was asking for him, when his son needed him. And who he could not refuse. Kingdom, or child? Child, or kingdom? How many times will the Father have to ask that question?

 How many times, until he decides finally which to keep to?

 Why did he have to be named the Father when he was the King?

 Why did he have to be destined to tear his heart in two?

 “Please inform her I’m on my way,” he whispered.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Drautos’ fingers gripped his phone too tightly, causing the screen to flicker. 

 The call ended.

 Looking up, he hated having to watch Nyx’s jaw lock into place, a long-cold mug of coffee in his hand. There was somewhere his Glaive wanted to be. But. There was a princling taking a nap on the couch, curled tight around his chocobo plushie, and neither of them were going anywhere for hours yet.

 His star needed him.

 But Nyx knew best where his star truly wanted him.

 So he stayed put, watching over their little star of dawn.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Broken shards of glass littered part of the Citadel’s gardens, and already groundskeepers were picking it all up. Already workers had been called to tarp off the windows now open to autumn air; cool and brisk. Already so many knew their returned prince had been hurting, had lashed out in his hurting.

 And yet, it wasn’t his name they whispered about unhappily in huddles of gossip.

 It was the Queen of Tenebrae’s.

 Cosmology books burned that afternoon.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “What is wrong with him?”

 Regis had words, really, whole sentences, really, for Queen Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. All neat and tidy and organized. That he’d thought out while limping his way from his son’s rooms to the drawing room Her Majesty had been escorted to after what happened. Loathed as he was to leave his son’s side. They started with not quite an apology and not quite a polite request for her to leave his home, and ended perhaps with her being escorted out - disrespectful to do or not.

 He would not have his Noctis feeling unsafe in his own home, nor Oriens accidentally running into his mother as well and also having a…bad reaction to her.

 But when he hobbled into the drawing room with Clarus steady at his side?

 When he inclined his head to speak to the queen pacing within? 

 Queen Lunafreya had twisted towards him and demanded to know that.

 ‘What is wrong with him?’

 And all of Regis’ neat and tidy and kind words, sentences, escaped him.

 Were replaced by blue-blooded anger, born of seeing his son’s eyes dulled and hollowed once more for the first time in long enough that he’d been relieved. 

 “Watch your tone, Your Majesty,” all of his kindness was stripped away, and Regis rose up to his full height still taller than her, his majesty still there in him whether he was an old man now or not, his own tone harsh, “Need I remind you that you are a guest in my home, that you showed up entirely uninvited, that you have been disrespectful from the moment you were welcomed in regardless, and that I told you my son was in no state to see you?”

 Her lips thinned.

 He hardly cared now.

 “You will be going back to the hotel, you will be packing up, and you will be leaving,” Lucis’ King told her softly, dangerously so, “You will not be doing this again, and you will not speak another word to either of my boys between now and then. Am I understood?” 

 She needed to be gone, Sylva’s daughter or not.

 Tenebrae’s Oracle refused to acknowledge him with words, at least. She stared at him, glared at him, lips even thinner now and eyes icy, but her hands were still clasped primly in front of her dress. And then she raised her nose higher, and simply swept past him. To leave the drawing room. Where she was met by a handful of Glaives, ordered to escort her out.

 The clack of her heels fell silent, and Regis turned to find she had stilled there. In the doorway. Her attendant fluttering around behind her, looking fearful. 

 Lunafreya was examining the Glaives, he realized. 

 Examining their hair, and the beads most of them had braided in them. 

 After a long moment of the Glaives all examining her in return, shoulders drawn back and eyes challenging, the clack of her heels continued. As she was escorted out of the Citadel she had never really been welcome in. And Regis waited until she was out of sight and unheard to slump over his cane and let loose a sigh worthy of some frustrated teenager instead of an old king like him.

 “Well, if we thought she didn’t know about the rumors of Noctis being with a Glaive before,” Clarus said, let it hang in the air, and his king nodded.

 “Speaking of, is Glaive Ulric - ?” 

 “He’ll be bringing Prince Oriens back to the Citadel this afternoon,” Clarus nodded back, looking older as well in the opulence of the drawing room, “He is very, and I mean very, concerned about Noctis. But he is holding firm. Keeping His Highness distracted while we - “

 A set of footsteps, fast footsteps, turned both of their attentions to the doorway. 

Not heels, thank goodness, but combat boots. Loud and thudding. And skidding a little on the marble tiles when Cor came rushing into the drawing room to join them. And oh their little brother looked pissed off. He was holding out a tablet. 

 “Regis.” 

 Regis accepted the tablet, dreading what he might find on it. 

 The browser was opened to one of Insomnia’s news websites. An article. With a big, front page picture right in the middle of it. A picture of Queen Lunafreya. Standing on the steps of Caelum Via, waving to what seemed to be a small crowd of people cheering for her in front of the hotel. The very picture of a beloved queen, a graceful smile on her lips.

 The headline?

‘Queen Lunafreya Announces Her Extended Stay In Insomnia’.

 “She held a public conference this morning,” Cor reported, bit out from between his teeth, seething like Regis’ blood likewise was, “announcing she had been invited to stay in Insomnia for a few weeks. Regis, we can’t order her to leave without making the public question things. And without making Tenebrae angry.” 

 Regis gripped the tablet so hard the screen flickered.

 “She’s forcing our hand.”

 His boys or his kingdom.

 “...Send a message after Her Majesty that…she is not required to leave Insomnia just yet.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 She had not frowned so much in many, many months. Years. 

 But on her convoy’s return-trip to the Caelum Via, Queen Lunafreya’s cars passed by mounds of books being burned on sidewalks, and witnessed Crownsguard not even stepping in to smother the flames as long as they were contained.

 She was disappointed.

 She saw the covers of those books they were throwing onto the fires enmasse. 

 She was scared to realize they truly were cosmology books. 

 Lucis had lost its faith and fallen into heathenism. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Speculation has already gotten out of hand, Your Majesty, beyond out of hand,” said a harried member of the Crown’s PR team as they hurried along beside him, “We can barely cover our bases - her entire visit is built on taking us by surprise and leaving us scrambling, leave the public to steer the story, if we outright argue against the public’s view in this - “ 

 It was a mess.

 And Regis’ heart hurt enough that he had to force himself to stop. To take a breath. And to accept the pills Clarus immediately pressed into his palm, with a bottle of water from the Armiger waiting for him to swallow.

 “Three requests from Tenebrae’s own news outlets for a comment, seven requests from Insomnia Nightly alone for an interview, two from talk show hosts, twenty-six from Lucian magazines - “

 Noctis was hollow-eyed and hopeless in his rooms, like he had never been rescued from Mistveil Keep at all.

 “Pictures are already being released of Queen Lunafreya entering the Citadel, and I have a line from the Empire inquiring if they need to know about any shifts in Lucis’ treaties with Tenebrae - “

 His darling grandson wasn’t even home yet, was still in Little Galahd and unaware of all of this.

 “I also have a line from Meldacio Hunter HQ, wishing to know if they can expect the Oracle, Her Majesty, to visit them about the recent influx of concerns involving Havens - “

 How had this all become such a mess?

 “Accordo, as well, has asked if - “

 All of it traced back to Queen Lunafreya, did it not? 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Hearth and home was supposed to mean safety.

 So why was Noctis scared and betrayed in his own…home?

 Numb. He was numb.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...Hey, Nyx?” Calling for his attention, it was some of the only sounds mane had made since his dad left in a flurry that morning, and the only sounds since they had gotten back into the car to drive back to the Citadel.

 Glancing down at the mini star sat beside him, with his seatbelt almost too big for the mini kid, Nyx hummed.

 His love’s son peered up at him, with distress hidden too well in his eyes for someone so young.

 “Something happened, didn’t it?” It wasn’t a question. Not really. It was a pleading, those big blue eyes, pleading that he was wrong this time, “That’s why Dad left early. That’s why Little Galahd was full of whispers when we left. Something happened.” 

 Little morning. So wise. Too wise. Seeing too much, with eyes like stardust. Nyx wouldn’t lie to the kid, his and Noctis’...theirs. The kid. Curiosity shouldn’t be rewarded with dishonesty. But he would drape an arm over Ori’s shoulders. And gently pull him into his side, a clear offer which had mane hesitating for only a split second before he was snuggling under Nyx’s arm. Making a tiny noise of worry.

 The captain, up in the driver’s seat, met his eyes in the rearview mirror. 

 Brows furrowed; both of theirs.

 “Something happened, mane,” he agreed, heart clenched tight by a fist of regret all over again when he remembered that he had let the man he loved go to face it alone, “Something happened. And your dad had to see for himself. We’re going to him now, though.”

 He had stayed, to protect Noctis’ son for him.

 A worthy reason to stay, but he still regretted.

 “What happened?” 

 “...Your grandfather will tell you,” the Ulric Chieftain told him, like a coward, curling his fingers through the little star’s raven hair, “but it’s all going to be okay, mane. It’s going to be okay. I have faith.” 

 And he had the princling's face nuzzling into his ribcage through his shirt, hidden and safe. Safe from the television screens outside, on the sides of towering skyscrapers. Running and rerunning and rerunning videos of Queen Lunafreya of Tenebrae standing on the steps of Caelum Via, of her entering the Citadel, of her waving at citizens with a benevolent smile. 

 Nyx carefully kept Ori’s eyes away from it all, shielding him as well as a Sword could.

 “<It will be okay, little morning light.>”

 

 

-----

 

 

 A Crownsguard-issued car came to a stop in the garage underneath the Citadel, and before Nyx could even hand a certain princling his Carbuncle backpack?

 Ori was scrambling out of the car.

 Running for his grandfather, who had been waiting for him.

 The princling ran straight into His Majesty’s hip, hugging him and hiding there, and King Regis leaned over to hug his grandson. Whispering all sorts of things to him. Shushing the brave, brave princling and smoothing his hand down his back. 

 Nyx followed, with the Carbuncle backpack in his hand. Honestly not that far from doing the same thing and running off, to find his star.

 But first, he would ensure mane was safe with his grandfather. As he’d sworn he would.

 Nyx passed the small backpack off to Sir Clarus, nodded to Marshal Leonis, and waited. Waited despite how hard it was. How his heart was yanked up, up through the floors of the Citadel, up to where his star lay hollow and hopeless and needing him. Nyx waited. Because he was a good Glaive, and because his captain was there to pat him heartily on the shoulder, and because the king he respected was there, and - 

 “He’s in his rooms, Glaive Ulric,” His Majesty told him, peering up at Nyx, and Nyx took that as permission. 

 Was gone, warped straight to the garage’s elevator, his thumb slamming into the button for inlustris’ floor before he’d even taken another breath. 

…

 “Ori, sweetheart,” the Father said to his grandson, holding him by the shoulders, crouching down to deliver this unfortunate news.

 Oriens Lucis Caelum-Nox Fleuret shrank into himself.

 “Your mother is here.” 

 

 

------

 

 

 Those Glaives guarding inlustris’ rooms barely reacted to Nyx running down the hall towards them - Nyx knew them, good men, men he trusted - they just stepped aside and inclined their heads. Recognizing this as a matter between Galahdians, not Glaives. A chieftain come for his amatus. 

 A bit out of breath, a lot worried, Nyx Ulric slipped into his star’s bedroom. The bedroom they shared.

 The Shield was there, and Gladiolus nodded when their eyes met. Got up from where he’d been sat reading on the couch to head back out the door Nyx had entered from. Leaving him to it with a quiet, firm, “Be good to him, Hero.”

As if Nyx could ever be anything but.

Inlustris was small. Had made himself small, and curled himself tight up into a ball in the top corner of his bed fit for royalty. His pillows almost looked bigger than the raven-haired man. His legs were a little twisted, like he hadn’t bothered to adjust them after being set there, so the first thing Nyx let himself focus on and do was circle the bed and fix their uncomfortable position for his lovely star.

His lovely star did not react to his touch at all. 

Nyx willed himself to look more. To see his inlustris. Eyes open, and empty, and dull. 

Staring through the wall at some distant sight, like he hadn’t done in a while. This, the dissociation? It rarely had happened in recent months aside from when His Majesty had his heart attack. And this was worse. This brought Nyx quietly down onto his knees by his star’s bed, reaching out with care to brush stray hairs out of his star’s face. A pale face.

 “<My star,>” he murmured, brushing a thumb under those eyes that had lost so much of their shine with one encounter his bold prince hadn’t been ready for, “<it will be alright. I will see to it. I will stay.>”

 Taking one of his star’s hands, the one that bore the Ring, a ring of ancient kings - Nyx brought his head low to kiss Noctis’ knuckles.

 “<I will stay.>”

 So he would stay, kneeling there, talking quietly to his star of the day they’d spent together in Little Galahd with a little star by their sides.

 So he would stay.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Regis,” Clarus said softly, after the two of them had seen Prince Oriens off to dinner and bed, after, and after, and after, “I’m sorry, but - “

 “Please. Not tonight, Clarus,” his brother and king asked of him, leaning too hard on his cane, tilting too much to one side away from his Shield, thinking too much and unable to handle more, “Not tonight. I can’t. Please. Can you…and Cor…and Drautos, can you - ?”

 So much had to be asked of the House of Caelum.

 So when the House of Caelum asked, the answer was never no.

 “Of course we can. Leave it to us, get some rest.” 

 The answer was never no, and that trust was never misplaced.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens was a good kid. 

Or, he tried to be. He tried so hard. To listen to his grandpa, to listen to his Uncle Clarus. He tried to be good. And it had nothing to do with being royalty, being Lucis’ Prince, and everything to do with not making trouble for his family that already worked so hard. 

 Oriens tried to be a good kid.

 So he went to dinner with his grandpa, and he told Grandpa Regis all about the day he’d had in Little Galahd, showed him all of the cool things he’d gotten there, babbled about how awesome Nyx and Galahdians were - like a good kid should. He took his grandpa’s mind off of his duties. He made his Uncle Clarus laugh and his Uncle Gladdy pat him on the head. He smiled. And he laughed too. And he yawned when the day started to darken outside.

 Oriens tried to be a good kid.

 So he rubbed at his eyes as if he was getting sleepy, and he let himself trail off, and when his grandpa chuckled indulgently and suggested it was time for bed? Ori nodded slowly and hopped off of his chair to be escorted to his bedroom.

 And he let his grandpa help him change into his pajamas and comb his hair, because it had always helped Grandpa calm down. And he snuggled with his soft chocobo plushie, and he crawled into bed to be tucked in by three members of his family. Safe and dozing off to the sight of the constellation mural painted over his bed.

 Dozing, until he heard the sound of his doors being shut, and the click of them being locked.

 And then Oriens opened his eyes.

 And crawled out of bed.

 Oriens tried to be a good kid, really. He did. But sometimes adults just didn’t understand! Which was why he had to pretend sometimes. As long as nobody found he pretended, nobody would be hurt, so was it really bad? Usually nobody found out. Ori pushing down his blankets and crawling out of bed - it didn’t hurt anyone. 

 Ori gathering one of his pillows under one arm, and his chocobo plushie under the other, and heading for the tapestry in his bedroom that hid an entrance to the Citadel’s passages? Didn’t hurt anyone.

 Ori scampering through the walls on a familiar path to his dad’s room?

 Didn’t hurt anyone.

 He peeked around first, before just scampering into the actual bedroom. Grandpa had always made sure he knew it was important to check spaces before he entered them through secret entrances, and his dad’s bedroom seemed quiet. Still. Dark. Shafts of moonlight the only brightness. So Ori crawled out of the little cupboard that had a false back, and quietly slid the cupboard shut again.

 He wasn’t the only one there to keep Dad company that night.

 Nyx was kneeling beside his dad’s bed, head resting on the edge of the mattress, their hands clasped together.

 And Dad looked gone, but Nyx looked at Ori, saw Ori. And smiled softly at him.

 “Hey, mane,” the Glaive murmured, sounding a little sleepy, sounding a little sad, looking a little tired but in a weird way that was more emotional…if Ori had to describe it somehow. But Nyx patted the mattress with care, and that was all that really mattered at the moment, “Here to join us, little dawn?” 

 Ori nodded, determined, and scurried up onto his dad’s bed.

 Crawling across the black covers, silky with moonlight, to find his place. The last thing the princling wanted to do was separate his dad’s and Nyx’s hands, so he curled around behind his dad. Grabbing fistfuls of his pajama-soft shirt, and nuzzling in close. Pillow under his head, and chocobo plushie squished in one elbow.

 And Nyx reached over him and Dad both to pull the blankets over them.

 “I’ll be right here if you need me,” he said, that man his dad loved, an oath Oriens would never doubt because he knew Nyx wasn’t the sort of man who made promises he wouldn’t keep, “Sleep tight, mane. Say hi to your dad for me, in your dreams.” 

 Oriens dozed off properly this time, and his dad didn’t have a mural painted over his bed, but he did smell like…Dad. Like safety and security and hugs.

 So he fell asleep like a good kid.

 Hugging his dad.

 Wanting to protect him from Queen Lunafreya, because who else would’ve made his dad so upset that he went away from him again?

 

 

-----

 

 

 Come morning? Yes, there was a minor panic when Ignis realized his charge wasn’t sleeping soundly in his bedroom.

 The panic lasted as long as it took Nyx to hear reports crackling across his comlink, and then he ended it by reporting that Prince Oriens had come to see his dad the night before and never ended up leaving. 

 Regis went to see his sleeping boys as soon as possible. Already dreading the long, long day ahead of him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A polite invitation was extended to Queen Lunafreya to visit the Citadel and have an audience with King Regis that day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Crown City was asking questions.

 Cosmology books were burning.

 They were questioning.

 But the Queen of Tenebrae walked tall up the steps of the Citadel, the train of her dress so long it was still flowing over those steps after she had entered the Citadel itself. Crowned gold. Heart burning cold. The whisper of an ice goddess in her ear, brushing off her shoulders so she kept them straight and fixing the gems in her hair to better shine.

 She was the Oracle. She would not apologize. Not for doing her duty, or the will of her gods.

 Regis Lucis Caelum was once her uncle in so many ways, but clearly he had faltered. She didn’t entirely blame him. He had been alone for so very long, and struggling for even longer. She would not accept his scorn, however. And she would not accept what had happened when she saw her Noctis again for the first time in ten years. She’d waited too long. 

 Suffered too much.

 King Regis of Lucis was waiting for her in the grandest hall of the Citadel to welcome her and her heavenly attendants, his retinue and advisors with him. She bowed. He bowed back, not quite as low as she had. There were god rays shining down on them through the glass dome overhead. 

 “Shall we make our way to the throne room for our audience, Queen Lunafreya?” King Regis offered her an arm, offered her one route to take.

 But she had not brought Tenebrae back from the brink by accepting the sole route offered at her feet.

 And Lunafreya had already compiled a list of questions she needed answered in her own head. First and foremost? The fact that she’d noticed a distinct lack of Crownsguard guarding the Crown, and that those she had seen, Lord Marshal included, weren’t even wearing the royal colors.

 In their place she had seen Kingsglaive, and knowing what she did about their captain, she had questions.

 “First, if you wouldn’t mind, Your Majesty?” So she picked a different route just for herself, and her once-uncle tipped his head indulgently at her request, “I noticed the Kingsglaive have taken up a far more active and prominent role at the Crown’s side of late, and I’ve a request to satisfy my own curiosity.”

 To put to rest those rumors that had irritated her enough to tear the missive to shreds when she received it.

 “I would like to see the best of your Glaives.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Gathering the Kingsglaive Captain and his Lieutenants took a short while, since they had to be summoned from the Kingsglaive Complex to the Citadel - or most of them did. But they answered the summons from their king. And were watched calmly by the visiting queen as they joined Her and His Majesty in the hall, assembling and lining up as if they were doing a training session instead of just standing around.

 There were a few murmurs, wondering why they were there.

 But most of them were just watching the queen from Tenebrae with narrowed eyes - all aware of what had happened the day before between her and their prince.

 One Glaive in particular had harsh thoughts he wanted to share with her.

 But he held his tongue because his captain gave him a look that told him to.

 Of course, she started things off in the most terrible way she ever could’ve, by staring at them all like they were slabs of meat on display at the market and she wanted to buy the best quality slab she could. But none of them met her standards. It was the air to the queen. An air the House of Caelum never had about them.

 It had them all already a little prickly.

 And that was before she’d opened her mouth.

 “So,” Lunafreya started primly, looking up and down the line of Kingsglaive assembled there before her, “which of these wildings exactly is the one Noctis has been passing time with? The news of his tryst reached even Tenebrae after the gala.”

 A whole line of Kingsglaive stiffening at once was noticeable as all hells. And she clearly noticed, not just from the way they all turned to stare at her with indignation in them all - proud hearts and prouder culture in their hair. 

 But from the way one specific Galahdian stepped out of line and turned to face her, a chieftain braid in his hair though she wouldn’t recognize it as such.

 “Your Majesty, ‘wildling’ is not an appreciated term for me or my people,” Nyx Ulric told her, with a ferocity that immediately stole all of her attention. And she looked him up then down.

 And then she looked away again, pursing her lips.

 “I apologize. I had not realized it was an offensive term for those from the Storm Islands,” she said melodically, the picture of royal grace and composure, still scanning the Glaives there while King Regis watched with a twitch in his jaw. Clearly frustrated, “Still, you must admit it is natural to be curious. Just what sort of woman could ensnare him so quickly, after he spent so much time without.” 

 Nyx had patience. And Nyx had charm. And Nyx was known to be a remarkably laidback man, for all he had survived.

 But Nyx did not like her tone.

 Nor the way she assumed so many things about his inlustris.

 And his jaw worked from the way he gritted his teeth, settled, then gritted his teeth again at the way the queen stopped to stare at Navi in the lineup for a longer moment than the others, as though trying to assign them a gender. For Ramuh’s fucking sake. His eyes narrowed. Went to his king, expectant, and was met with a nod. What a relief.

 “Not sure where you got your information, Majesty,” Nyx speaking up again got her icy eyes sliding over to him, then sliding away again like she was already dismissing whatever he had to say before he’d even spoke so he put a very satisfying amount of smugness in his voice when saying, “but it wasn’t quite a woman.” 

 Her cheekbones almost seemed to stand out sharper with how she went still, and finally stared at him properly.

 “As for what sort of man I am,” Nyx smirked, mean with it, “I’ve been told I’m quite the charmer. Irresistible, really. But I was damned lucky he chose to place his love in my hands, and I would never do anything to make him regret doing so. Majesty.”

 Her title was added belatedly, a bit forgotten.

 And he could already see Captain Drautos shaking his head out of the corner of his eye, but Nyx didn’t much care at the moment.

 Too busy letting this stubborn, stubborn queen take in his beads and braids, with realization dawning so satisfyingly on her.

 “You?” 

 “Me.” 

 Nyx was usually pretty decent at reading people. So many different emotions seemed to hit the queen at once, however, that he lost a few of them in translation. There was shock, definitely. Disbelief. Frustration. Maybe annoyance. More. Unnamed ones, plenty, but her body language was pretty readable.

 Namely, the way Queen Lunafreya took a sharp, loud step towards him in her shiny high heels, hands clasped tight - tight enough to whiten, in front of her dress.

 “And you are - ?” Well, and here Nyx had thought for some reason that royals were taught manners. Maybe because even His Majesty, King Regis, looked a little startled by the rude bite in the queen’s voice too. 

 He wasn’t sure what it was. If it was him being a man, him being Galahdian, him being a Kingsglaive and not of proper breeding or whatever - he’d stopped worrying about useless measurements like that ages ago. But something had clearly put a wasp up Her Majesty’s dress. Not that Nyx was inclined to kneel down to check.

 “Nyx Ulric,” he introduced himself, smile all teeth and threats, “Lieutenant of the Kingsglaive, member of the Ulric Clan of Galahd, and amatus to Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum…if you please.” 

 If the Captain kept shaking his head like that, he was going to strain something.

 “If I please?” She repeated, even turned to raise one archly brow at the king standing by as if to ask if he would allow such disrespect, or to ask if Nyx was even telling the truth.

 King Regis just raised a silver brow back, seemingly willing to let Nyx handle this how he wanted to today.

 Well, he’d probably regret that later.

 “Is that any way to speak to your queen?”

 “You are not my queen,” he challenged this woman, speaking to him as though he were a child who wouldn’t understand her arrogant words, and he took a step into her space too.

 Admittedly a little satisfied when she took a half step back, away from him.

 He was not required to bow to her.

 “You are not my queen, and you are not my Oracle, and if you want to get technical, ma’am, I hold a position in Galahd about equal to yours,” never in Nyx’s life had he thought he’d be equating his role as a chieftain to being royalty, but, well, the Tenebraean Queen took another step back so he took another step forward, “I am not required to bow to you. And I am certainly not required to like you, when you act arrogant and use half-slurs to refer to my people.” 

 Not his people. No matter what she might’ve been through, she would never have that right.

 “As for my relationship with my amatus, that is even less your business than you judging the Galahdian people. I’d rather not talk to you about gossip and rumors, Majesty. If you can understand that.” 

 Was it disrespectful? Absolutely.

 He wasn’t trying to be respectful.

 Did she look offended? Absolutely.

 She probably wasn’t used to being talked back to. Too bad. Somebody should’ve warned her about Nyx Ulric and the mouth on him. 

 “Glaive Ulric,” a flicker of something like triumph crossed her face when King Regis spoke up, stepped up, and Nyx did incline his head respectfully to his King, but that flicker of something was wiped away just as quick, “if you’d please go to my son’s side? We’ll begin the audience shortly.”

 No support from His Majesty for her.

 A bow from the Glaive, though. 

 Before he went on his way with one final stare down his nose at her, his tattoos sharp with a crawling feeling when he saw the pure disbelief dawning on her. Was she really so unused to being challenged? To disrespect? Had she been catered to so completely since Tenebrae regained its independence? 

 It didn’t matter to Nyx Ulric any more than that, though, because he had said his piece and now he went to seek his star.

 His people falling in behind him without another word.

 They all walked away from the queen who had barbs in her heart as surely as she had them on that tongue of hers.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Mane had been led off by Advisor Scientia, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

But the mini star had tugged his hand free from his Hand to come over to Nyx and hug his leg.

“Take care of my dad, Nyx,” mane told him seriously, so Nyx ruffled up his already messy, morning hair.

“Always, kiddo. <Always.>” 

 And his sweet, strong inlustris was hugging himself tight. Twisted around himself again and again in a knot on one corner of his bed. Making himself so small. So small. So small, it was as if the Tenebrae Queen’s visit had shrunk him into the tiny thing he was after Mistveil. Nyx hated, hated seeing his love like that.

 If he was asleep, it was not a restful sleep.

 His eyelids were flickering, and his body was tensing just to untense and then tense again.

 “Inlustris,” Nyx Ulric murmured, sat on the bed’s edge, so careful not to touch even as he hovered a hand delicately over his star’s pale cheek, “I’m…sorry.” 

 How had they gone from the day before to this?

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Queen Lunafreya,” another meeting in the throne room, another time where he looked down at Queen Sylva’s daughter, desperate but with dwindling hope - Regis was so tired of all of this, “while Lucis is thankful for Tenebrae’s support in the last ten years, as we have been thankful for your mother’s support in the past, there was a reason we did not want you to visit at this very moment, and you - “

 He was interrupted.

 “Noctis is to be the Chosen King, Your Majesty,” and maybe they were both desperate, in different ways, trudging towards difference goals, “He, as I do, has a duty to perform in the name of Lord Bahamut and the Pantheon of Astrals. You cannot simply keep and coddle him now that we know he was not disgraced.” 

 A duty? His little nightlight, a duty, in the state he was in? Was wearing the Ring of Lucii already not enough? 

 Regis could not condone more, hated as much as he had condoned.

 “The…Adagium, Your Majesty,” Regis tried to stress, to explain, noticing the way his council flinched away from the mention - but she just kept trudging forward with a sickly serene smile taking her lips.

 “Please, do not speak of that abomination in my presence. I have held council with Lord Bahamut since Noctis’ return, and it is he who says you hold him back. Noctis is not a child. You need not coddle him.” 

 ‘Coddle, coddle, coddle,’ why did she repeatedly say such things? She had done nothing but speak of Noctis’ attacks and hurt as if he should be immune to ten years of false imprisonment. As if she believed it had left no scars on his baby boy. She spoke as if she wanted him to immediately seize the throne and declare order in Bahamut’s name. 

 Regis’ hands gripped the arms of his throne, perhaps a bit too tightly.

 Gazing down at Sylva’s darling daughter - now in opposition to him.

 To Lucis.

 To his son, whether she was willing to admit that to herself or not.

 “That abomination,” this tired father pressed on, despite how it made her jaw work, irritated, “framed my son. That abomination confessed the truth to the whole of Eos. And that abomination, Queen Lunafreya, is Lucis’ greatest enemy at the moment. I will speak of him if I wish. And I will not turn around and drag my son out of bed when he is barely healed, so that you and Bahamut can use him for your own means.” 

 Lunafreya’s eyes were like ice, the emotions frozen beneath the surface, but she seemed honestly affronted by what he had said to her.

 Or affronted by the fact that he had meant every word.

 “You have forgotten your faith, King Regis,” she declared, stiff in body and tone, and he sighed.

 Never more weary than when he sat on the cold stonework of his family’s throne, with a false ring worn by his finger.

 “Faith did not help anyone during those ten years,” the Father told her, tired, so tired, and staring at the god rays shining down across his throne room and her and her attendants, all looking astounded by how he blasphemed, “I prayed, for ten years. And I was never answered. And my son, my innocent son, my Noctis - what of him? Ten years. Ten years without light. Ten years without proper sleep, or food, or free of abuse. Ten years. And where were your gods, Queen Lunafreya? Where were they?” 

 This, for this first time, perhaps, he was making it publicly clear that he had also lost all faith in the Astrals that had never proven his son innocent when they could’ve. While it still would’ve mattered.

 And it clearly fractured some idea, or concept of him that the Queen of Tenebrae had held.

 For a moment, it felt as though he was staring down at Sylva’s little girl again. So small, and so sweet, and so sympathetic with the whole wide world. A question in her eyes, a question of faith, a question of why. Unable to understand him. Him, who went against all she had ever and would ever be taught, by history and by gods. 

 “Where were they?” He repeated. And would keep repeating.

 Until he got an answer that satisfied him.

 He would repeat himself forever. And that truth was carved in the air between the two rulers.

 But the fact that he could see, beneath the ice in her, that his question and her question had changed nothing? Was clear. He saw Lunafreya harden her heart against his lack of faith. Watched her lift her chin high. And her faith was as admirable as it was sad - it was maybe all she had had for so long, so he could not fault her for it. But he also could not agree.

 Did she have an answer for him? Did she know why the gods had not stepped in?

 Regis was equal parts dreading and anticipating the answer.

 Lunafreya pressed her lips tightly together. She did not speak. 

 Regis closed his eyes and called the audience to an end, earlier than he’d thought he would.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Hey, Dad,” Oriens mumbled, huffing a little, from the effort of climbing up onto his dad’s big bed. Crawling across the covers to where his dad was curled up. Trembling a little. So Ori crawled over him, and then carefully took both of his wrists in his small hands to pull them open. And fit himself in them. Hugging his dad tight. Tight. Tight.

 “Don’t worry, Dad. I’m here.” 

 Dad had gone away into his head, was still trembling under Ori’s cheek. But even so. He felt his dad’s arms close around him. And felt his dad’s hands get tangled in his shirt. Protecting and protected. 

 “Sorry that Queen Lunafreya is so mean,” he whispered, shame curling in gut, “I’d make her leave if I could, Daddy, I would.” 

 He would. But he couldn’t.

 …That was his mother.

 That was a stranger.

 That was who Oriens Lucis Caelum was hiding from, in his dad’s arms, that day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 All day long.

 The polite arguments of his grandfather and his estranged mother were none of his business.

 The burnt books, the riots, the protests, the discussions on the throne and in the halls and in private meeting rooms - none of that was Ori’s business. Queen Lunafreya frowning at something his grandfather said, and frowning more deeply at his hand as they walked together, tense, saying, “That is not the true Ring of the Lucii, Your Majesty,” was none of his business.

 The fact that his grandfather did not answer except to frown too, that the real Ring was worn by his dad, was none of his business.

 “Your marriage proposition was highly disrespectful,” his grandfather told her quietly, when the tensions rose, and it was none of Ori’s business.

 “Noctis and I have a duty,” she responded sharply, and it was none of his business.

 “What of the son you already share?” Regis regretted asking without thinking, staring into her eyes as if he’d find some small shred of motherly affection in their icy depths. But all he found was the flicker of something sharp. An iceberg of feelings she refused to let herself feel at all.

 “A mistake.” 

 It was none of his business.

 “I think we’re done here for today,” the Father ended their hours-long talks, because she had dared call his dear grandson that, and whatever mental hurdles Lunafreya had faced following the birth he could not simply overlook it. So she was escorted out of the Citadel for a second day in a row.

 And the public continued to speculate.

 And the news stations continued to report.

 And Eos held its breath, wondering what would happen next.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “She called Oriens a mistake,” Regis Lucis Caelum whispered, watching from a balcony of the Citadel as Queen Lunafreya walked elegantly down the steps of his home. Watching her leave.

 Still unable to overlook…or forgive.

 “I really don’t know her at all, do I, Sylva? I’m sorry.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Waking up was hard.

 Or, wanting to wake up. Was hard. It had always been disorientating. Being real and then being fake. In his head and then out. There, then not. Darkness to light. Light, light, light. It was still so hard to believe sometimes that he got to see light with his own two eyes. After so long in that place. That nothingness. Noctis wasn’t sure he wanted to wake, wasn’t sure why he had left the safety of that cage in his head where he locked himself when it all hurt too much to be free.

 There was light, but it was dim and silvery.

 Moonlight. Starlight. Night lights.

 His next breath shuddered in his chest…and Noctis realized why he woke up.

 Oriens. Ori was sprawled out on top of his chest, his head of raven hair ticklish where it was tucked under his dad’s jaw. His small hands were twisted in Noctis’ shirt. His small legs were kicking a bit, like he was running in whatever dream Carbuncle had blessed him with tonight. 
 
 Noctis came awake, completely, to the sight. 

 Reaching up with shaky hands to hold his son. Running fingers through his hair and murmuring nonsense soothingly. Pressing kisses to Ori’s forehead. Until the creases in his face smoothed out, until he stopped running. 

 Noctis kept up the ministrations even then. Eyes slipping past his son to stare up at the ceiling far above.

 He…remembered why he had gone away into his head in the first place. He did. Lunafreya. Luna. Queen Lunafreya. Once his friend, she was here. In Insomnia. Maybe even in the Citadel. He remembered seeing her, remembered the buzz in his ears as she parted her lips to speak to him. Remembered the popping. Like a cyst inside of his brain, bursting, and making his insides melt out of his ears as he clamped his hands over them and broke a little more.

 Lunafreya.

 Oriens’...mother.

 Oriens’ mother. 

 It had been intentional. Him not thinking about that, for months. Ever since learning who was the other half of his son whom he adored. He had done it on purpose. Unable to face the betrayal. He still didn’t want to face it. He still wanted to pretend Lunafreya didn’t exist. 

 They had been something, maybe, once upon a time. Friends maybe. Confidants maybe. Each other’s keeper. Their relationship was based on a single meeting as children, and then a journal being passed between them where they wrote their every thought and secret. Their relationship was based on Noctis reaching for her hand while she stayed behind, with flames dancing around them and Tenebrae’s sacred forest on fire. 

 She had been dear to him, in some ways.

 And she had betrayed him. Because he had told her. So. Many. Times. He had never wanted to be Lucis’ King, not really. But he had told her, and told her, and told her. His dreams. His fantasies. What he wanted.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum had wanted to be a dad for as long as he could remember.

 Like his dad.

 Oriens’ existence he would never want to take back, but the fact that he had missed so much he would never stop feeling hurt about too.

 And the fact that she had offered herself up to be his mother, even knowing a child was all Noctis had ever dreamt of…it was a very personal sort of betrayal, to him. He wasn’t even sure why he’d rushed back to the Citadel to meet her, knowing that. He’d just known he didn’t want Ori around her.

 Didn’t want her to taint the home he was finally feeling comfortable in.

 And look where he’d wound up. Back in bed, back in his head, helpless.

 Broken.

 Into shards only a few people wouldn’t be cut by. 

 “Inlustris?” There was one of those people. There he was, his Nyx. Kneeling beside the bed, like he’d been the whole time. Voice heavy with sleep, just waking up. Rubbing at his eyes. Beard scruffy. But the corner of his mouth was quirked up. And suddenly Noctis was reminded of their wonderful, wonderful date and he - 

 “Nyx,” he whispered, remembered leaving his Glaive behind, after so much happiness was theirs, “sor…ry…”

 “Don’t apologize, starlight,” pushing himself up, Nyx braced his elbows on the bed’s edge, and leaned in just a little to bring their faces close together. Stormy eyes soft in the shimmer of real starlight, “I understand. Okay? I understand.” 

 Their foreheads thumped together, so, so lightly.

 “I love you.” 

 Said by one of them, echoed by the other, Noctis tipped the crown of his head into his pillows. Lifted his chest, just a little. Careful of Ori still sleeping on his chest. But getting what he sought - a kiss from Nyx. A soft, sweet thing on his lips that sent tingles all down his spine to places he could no longer feel. 

 Still, almost, innocent in that way Noctis had thought he’d never ever have again after Mistveil.

 “I’m…scared.”

 Nyx was careful too, crawling onto the bed. To curl around both of his stars. Protective to the last of them. Pressing another kiss, and then another, to the top of inlustris’ head. Breaths going a little shaky, because he was just a man, and his love was a royal, and the woman they both worried about now was an oracle - what were they in the face of that?

 They were in love.

 That was all. Was that enough?

 It had to be.

 He kept up his kisses until his star had relaxed in his arms, fallen off to sleep, and Nyx stayed awake after. Tired. But with prayers on his mind. To the one Astral no oracle could claim to speak for. Father Ramuh. To protect. To teach. To love. The Ulric Chieftain tried to protect his stars as best he could, praying for them.

 He hoped it was enough.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Watching from the wings, as ever, an abomination sipped from his glass of wine. A chuckle building in his throat. Building and building until it burst out of him in a sharp bark of laughter. That he immediately got under control again, swishing the blood-red wine around and around in its fragile glass.

“Oh, you poor thing. Our Lord Bahamut really molded you in his image, didn’t he? Poor, poor princess, all alone for so long. Hm.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Cor stared at his computer for so long the words on the screen started to blur, bleeding in and out of shape. His eyes were burning. With a sigh, and maybe a bit of a frustrated kick to the underside of his desk, he reached up to yank his reading glasses off and let them land on his keyboard. Pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing. Like that would get rid of the headache he could feel forming.

 “Fuck.” 

 He stared blankly at his computer again, and let the words bleed this time. He was basically staring through it anyways. What did it matter? The spreadsheet for Crownsguard funds would still be there for him to fill out in the morning. And most of what he was typing wasn’t making much sense anyways, he was pretty sure.

 “Fuck.” 

 Dropping his head to his desk, he let his forehead thunk against the edge of it. Then lifted his head just a little to drop it again. There was so much work to do, thanks to a certain visitor who’d shown up uninvited.

 Cor Leonis was supposed to be wrapping up the big things for the month, so he could leave everything else Crownsguard-related to Monica and Dustin and go to Leide.

 To his kid.

 To help him with his kid on the way.

 “Fuck.” 

 Instead, he was having to push that back again to deal with the trouble a rather selfish queen had caused. Cor, as well as his whole Crownsguard at this point, could probably agree that most of the respect they had all had for Tenebrae’s Queen was lost the moment she showed up and dropped a fuckton of extra work on their laps when they were barely back on their feet after Mistveil.

 While Cor himself hadn’t really been close to Queen Sylva before, the way Regis and Clarus had been, he could admit he’d found the Nox Fleuret family…genuinely benevolent. 

 The sort street kids like him could look to for help and actually get it.

 And her brother at least, Prince Ravus, had been a respectable young man before he was killed in the Empire’s constant internal fighting under Aldercapt’s rule.

 It was all just a mess. Cor was getting too old for this shit.

 Staring tiredly at the picture frames cluttering one corner of his desk, pictures of him and his kid and his retinue and life - Cor felt his eyes slowly falling shut. Despite how hard he fought to stay awake to finish just a little more of that damned spreadsheet. He inhaled. He exhaled.

 He slipped off to sleep, with his head on his desk and an ache in his shoulders.

 He woke up on the cot in his office’s backroom, with a blanket tossed over him and a bottle of water on the little, crooked-legged table next to it. A sticky note stuck to the bottle. With familiar, messy handwriting scribbled on it.

“Damnit, Drautos,” the Sword muttered, burying his face in his pillow and groaning just to get out the prickly feeling of being cared for. 

He was totally going to put peanut butter in that bastard’s boots. 

…

 Goosebumps raced up Drautos’ arms, and he frowned in the middle of reading a report from his team in Accordo chasing a mystery Caelum.

 Why did he have the sudden urge to hide his shoes?

 

 

-----

 

 

 Limping his way into his son’s rooms, leaning…a lot on his cane’s handle, Regis wasn’t entirely sure what he would be faced with. A fool, was he. For not hardening his heart already against his son going hollow-eyed and empty. But in some twisted way, it felt like he could never let himself go numb against it. Could never not acknowledge what Mistveil had done to his and Aulea’s baby boy.

 Maybe it was his penance.

 Maybe it was just a foolish old man’s shame.

 Whatever it maybe was? In Noctis’ rooms, there was a heavy quiet hanging over everything like morning mist. And just from that? Regis thought he knew what awaited him when he entered his son’s bedroom. Only to stop. And stare. And then sigh, and take some of his weight off of his cane in relief, as Clarus echoed the sigh behind him.

 “...Hey, Dad.” 

 “Noctis.”

 Bright blue eyes, like Aulea’s. With all the sky’s stars.

 His darling little nightlight was sat in bed, all but in Glaive Ulric’s lap, with Oriens sleeping soundly on his chest still. Despite the morning hour. All three of them, there, like a little family. It took away so much of Regis’ tiredness. He was able to walk taller towards them. Circling the bed, so he could reach for his son.

 And tuck a few of his stray bangs behind one ear.

 And smile apologetically down at his sweet boy.

 “Noctis, sweetheart, I am so sorry.”

 Noctis leaned into his knuckles, rubbed his cheek against them, a sad light in his eyes while his Glaive very carefully and noticeably did not touch him all the while. Sometimes his son simply could not handle it, he knew. Conscious touch from another person.

 “Dad, we need to talk about Lunafreya.”

 Regis sighed,and although he wanted anything but? He nodded. Because she wasn’t going to go away. So the only thing they could do now was figure out how they were going to handle the visit from Queen Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Oriens’ mother, and Noctis’ once-confidant, and Regis’ once-almost-niece. 

 She who cared only for her gods now.

 “Let’s talk, my dear boy.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Having received the go-ahead to proceed from Captain Drautos, a team of hooded Glaives on Altissia’s rooftops exchanged looks. Nods. And then all tossed their weapons over the edge in flashes of crystal. Their bodies warping after the falling metal. 

 In an alleyway in Altissia, the sound of water rushing by in nearby canals, a stranger with hair black and eyes green found himself suddenly surrounded by a circle of Glaives.

 Uniforms black.

 Masks and crowns silver.

 Weapons very pointedly not being held like they were meant to threaten.

 “Excuse us, sir,” one Glaive said in a very Galahdian accent to the man’s back, “but we’d like to talk to you. On behalf of the Lucian Crown.” 

 The man smiled, just a little, to himself.

 And turned to face the Glaive who’d spoken.

 “Yeah, okay.” 

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Lunafreya is here and the plot bunnies are free. They're hopping all over the place. My next chapter or two will be off schedule I believe, because of the holidays and my current tendonitis issues, but I hope to write a few more mini chapters in the meanwhile! Thanks for enjoying! <3

Chapter 23

Notes:

Sorry for the delay!

~>-----------<~

 

 

 “Captain. We’ve made contact with the suspect.” 

 “Keep him close, Glaive. I’ll be in contact with His Majesty soon.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was late. Half of Insomnia was heading to bed, half was just waking up to start their ‘day’ after dark. There was not a single hour to waste in the Citadel though. Day or night. Light or dark. If the streets were alive with the Crown City’s nightlife, if the districts were bright with their shining lights and attractions, it changed nothing. 

In the Citadel, there were always those who worked.

 Like a heart, it did not stop beating for one moment, because doing so would lead to a risk of death.

 Rest was for those without responsibilities. And because of their royal guest, they were buried under responsibilities for the day. As they were the day before. And the day before. Three days Queen Lunafreya had been in Insomnia. Three days of chaos, and revelations, and unadulterated frustration. Nobody had stopped working since her arrival. Nobody could. And where was she?

 Sat on high, in her suite in Caelum Via, the finest hotel in Insomnia.

 Sipping from a glass of wine, staring at the Citadel in the distance with the shimmer of the Wall surrounding it. Her fingers gripped the glass just that tiny bit too much. She was beauty and she was grace and she was divine - but she was unwelcomed. And she was angry. And there was a winter chill whispering in her ear, brushing her hair for her. For she was the Oracle.

 She was the Oracle, and that used to mean something to the whole of Eos.

 But there were others.

 Cor Leonis was awake after an impromptu nap and checking on his Crownsguard, as usual. His disgraced Crownsguard. In their new uniforms, new colors. With so much of their pride stripped away. But they still had their Marshall, and they still saluted him when he passed in the hallway, and if that was all they had for now so be it.

 They would rebuild themselves.

 Clarus Amicitia was at his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose, acting as the liaison between the PR department and several media outlets who still wanted comments on Queen Lunafreya’s purpose in visiting Insomnia. They wanted interviews, talk show tours, things that would be nearly impossible to grant. With one exception.

 A VIP from Insomnia Nightly, who he was in the middle of drafting an email to. 

 Ignis Scientia was hidden behind all the mounds of paperwork taking over his desk. All carefully organized, of course, but there was so much of it that organization hardly mattered. And he found himself longing for a spatula and apron and a pair of oven mitts instead, as he sighed and straightened up and got back to work.

 Maybe he could cook breakfast for His Highnesses in the morning if he was lucky.

 Gladiolus Amicitia, as a father, wanted to be home. With his beautiful wife. With their beautiful twins. But, as a Shield, he was standing tall outside of a bedroom where both of his charges slept. They weren’t taking any - any - risks. Cecilia understood. Had kissed him sweetly before he left her again.

 He hoped the twins had gone to bed easy for their mother, while he was stuck at the Citadel away from them.

 Prompto Argentum stared at nothing in particular, safe in bed with his gorgeous girl, rubbing small hearts into her hip as she slept. Pressing kiss after kiss to her naked shoulder. Thinking about the past, the future, the present - and what was happening in Insomnia. But Cor had told him to stay put. Stay with his girl, with their unborn baby. So he stayed.

 But half of the heart of this Heart was miles away, in a city that never truly slept.

 They were the others. The retinues, the would-be.

 The ones who fell into the orbit of the House of Caelum. An orbit you never really left. Like ol’ Cid, in Leide, too old to hold a wrench right anymore but still looking to the distant lights of the city on the horizon. Grumbling about the fools who couldn’t do anything right without him. Like Weskham in Altissia, opening up the bar of his restaurant for the night, listening to the Lucian radio stations that reached him, cleaning a glass and sighing.

 They were the House of Caelum’s. Forever. 

 Nyx Ulric laid in a bed, not his own, honored to be allowed to touch the star he loved as he slept. And he wanted to be the House of Caelum’s too. Forever. A Sword in all but title or record, he let his inlustris use his bicep as a pillow gladly, carding his fingers through mane’s hair as the small star slept on his father’s chest.

 Let them all have their small moments.

 Before the big ones had to come.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Captain of the Kingsglaive received that report he’d been waiting for from his Glaives, late into the evening. He clicked on it. Somewhat dreading what it would contain. Confirmation that they had succeeded? That they had failed? That this suspect was a Lucis Caelum? That he wasn’t? 

 He read.

 He read.

 He read.

 And he closed his laptop, before picking it up and leaving his office to report to his King.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was so very much weighing down on Regis Lucis Caelum at the moment, even without the Ring, and the whispering of the Lucii, and the burden of the Wall laid across his shoulders like a shroud. For each weight removed? Another and another and another had taken their places. As was the responsibility of being a royal. 

 Of being a Lucis Caelum.

 And Regis found himself, like so often, trying to sort out those new weights in his own study. Hunched over papers. Documents and reports and political incorrectness. Never had Tenebrae been so boldly wrong before - had been so demanding about their wrongness as well. He almost wondered if all along it was Lunafreya’s council that had kept Tenebrae running smoothly since they were freed from Niflheim.

But surely not. She was a capable ruler, she had to be; every report Lucis had ever received since the war’s end had pointed to as much. Tenebrae’s recovery. Its renewed strength. It now prospering - a council alone could not be responsible for it all. So she must be some measure of the queen he’d seen her to be for nearly a decade. Some measure.

 Which meant…all of these terrible decisions, the strain she was putting between their kingdoms, it was all done knowingly.

 Her people were panicking, his people in Tenebrae reported, and she was letting them. 

 So many weights to carry.

 In that way, another weight came along to be dropped onto his shoulders.

 A weight carried by one Titus Drautos. Drautos, who knocked politely twice at the doors of his study. Drautos, who entered when he called for him to do so. With a bow and with just as polite a greeting, as ever. Drautos, his captain, one of his brothers, one who would’ve been Retinue if there’d been room for him in tradition like there was room for him in Regis’ heart.

 Drautos, who was carrying a Kingsglaive-issued laptop under one arm.

 And who had a report for him that had Lucis’ King straightening up plenty.

 “Your Majesty, my operatives in Altissia have made contact with, and are in the company of, the…suspected Lucis Caelum bastard.” 
 
 Just hearing that - it stole away a bit of Regis’ breath. As important as the op had been, as aware of it as he had remained? It had been a maybe, what if, potentially, entirely unsure thing. There may be a Lucis Caelum bastard somewhere out in Eos. What if there was? There potentially could be. They had nothing concrete to prove it, however.

 Without letting it slip his mind, Regis had simply been focusing on other things in the meanwhile.

 Now, Titus’ tone clearly said…they had something.

 The doors to his study were locked. And the captain had ensured that before approaching his overcrowded desk. Regis rushed, a new urgency in him, as he tucked away piles of papers and slipped a paperweight into his Armiger he’d likely forget about, motioning quickly with one hand. A bit out of breath.

 More than a bit tense.

 Titus set the laptop he was carrying onto the new space opened up on his desk, opened the thing, and then leaned back as the screen came to life.

 Displaying a folder of several pictures that must’ve been taken by his Glaives in Altissia. Regis stared at each of them for some time, clicking on them one by one. Heart, oddly enough, thudding in his throat. He wasn’t sure at all what he was looking for, but maybe he’d find it anyways.

 The first few pictures had been taken from a distance. And seemingly from some rooftop or another. Pictures of the canals of Altissia, of its bridges, its waterside streets and a cafe here or there, a bookstore, a flower shop. All with one commonality Regis noticed.

 A man. In each of the pictures.

 There was a man, dressed in black, with black hair as well.

 Moving about Altissia’s streets like a civilian, from the looks of it. Browsing. Exploring, perhaps? Sitting at a cafe’s table, eating a muffin. Buying a book at the bookstore. Smelling the flowers at the flower shop. The distance made it hard to make out any details, but he was obviously the centerpoint of each picture. So Regis flipped to the next picture and the next.

Each one progressively getting closer and closer to the mystery man. As if the Glaives had started to close in on their target, once they were positive he was who they were after. 

A picture of him crouching down to pet a plump, needy cat that was rubbing on him. A picture of him waving at a gondola passing under the bridge he was walking over. A picture, closer than most of the others and from street-level on top of that, of him simply walking with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Staring in shop windows he passed.

 A Glaive must’ve blended into the crowd to get that one.

 Regis leaned closer, and closer still after, to the computer screen to examine that picture. He even picked his reading glasses up off his desk and put them on his nose to better see the details of this closest picture yet.

 Black hair, yes. Fair skin. A bit of a beard, suitable for a man in his thirties or forties. 

 The next picture? 

 Had the Lucis King sitting back, just a bit, startled by how it was suddenly a framed and not at all covert picture.

 It was a picture that must’ve been taken after they made contact. Of the man, standing in some sort of alleyway judging by the dullness of their background, two Glaives behind him and his hands shoved deep into his jeans’ front pockets, smiling a bit awkwardly at whoever was holding the camera. The details were far more obvious in this one.

 Details like the slight waviness to his hair, which was a trait Regis had shared with his father even if his son and grandson hadn’t inherited it. Details like the sharp line of his nose. Like his high cheekbones. Like the lines around his eyes; eyes that were a very, very familiar shade of green if Regis dared place gil on the slightly dim picture. Green like his eyes. Like his father’s.

 He had the same jawline as Regis and Noctis, or did he? Was it simply him seeing traits he wanted to see? 

 Did he want this man to be a Lucis Caelum? 

 Was this wishful thinking, or true familial resemblance?

 The man was wearing black. Which should not have mattered so much, but it truly made for the picture of a Lucis Caelum. Wearing the royal colors, with so much of a resemblance to his family? Regis stared into those eyes through the screen, as if they’d blink back at him. As if the man would speak. 

 This man who…he thought, in his own opinion, looked very much like he could be Regis’ brother.

 “Damnit, Dad,” he murmured, and Titus was kind enough to not comment on it as he dragged his hands down his face to break eye contact with that man through the screen. Until it was confirmed, it was best not to get ahead of himself, “Titus, has he been questioned by your Glaives?” 

 “Define ‘questioned’, Your Majesty,” the Kingsglaive Captain said flatly, then sighed when Regis arched a brow at that, “Regis, my operatives can only ask so many questions before it becomes very obvious what they’re investigating. Without a DNA test being done, we cannot confirm anything this man tells them. All we can know is that he was sighted at a majority of the reported magical events in the last several years, that he’s some sort of vagabond that has traveled much of Eos, and that he bears a striking resemblance to you and the late King Mors.”

 “What’s that phrase?” Regis pondered aloud, again finding himself staring at the picture of that man, “‘Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck - ?’”

 “If they outright ask him if he is a member of the Lucian royal family, it will be offering him information on a silver platter,” Titus Drautos reminded him, and sounded rather tired while doing so, “Even if he does figure out why we’re interested in him, until we know him, it is best to keep as many of our cards close to our chest as we can.” 

 Even if he looked like a Lucis Caelum, even if he showed up at sites of magical activity.

 Even so, Regis steepled his fingers and stared over them at him. 

 Wondering if he truly could have a brother he’d never known existed. Noctis, an uncle. Oriens, a great-uncle.

 “He came along quietly?” Regis asked, a little disbelieving because he would’ve assumed anyone would be worried about being apprehended by a team of Lucian Kingsglaive, yet in the photo? He hardly looked worried at all, “He had no questions? No demands?”
 
 “My Glaives believe he realized he was being tailed,” Titus admitted, a bit reluctantly, looking annoyed about it, “That he let himself be cornered. Their report suggests he wasn’t surprised at all, and agreed to speak to them. The questions he was asked, about being tied to multiple magical events and his identity, he answered vaguely. He also didn’t seem bothered by the suggestion that he return to Insomnia with them, so I’ve given them the go-ahead to do so.”

 “Well, that’s…” 

 Regis wasn’t sure what would fit best, to finish that sentence, so he let it trail off.

 He, who they believed to be his father’s secret bastard, was being brought to Insomnia willingly. Regis had so much to deal with, and on top of that he would need to worry about a stranger joining his small, small family. It was a success. It was almost scary. It was scary. Regis sighed heavily, and reached for one of the picture frames he kept on the corner of his study’s desk.
 
 A picture of his father, Mors Lucis Caelum, when he was somewhat younger and Regis was as young as Oriens was now.

 Holding it up, beside the laptop’s screen and the picture of this mystery man, he glanced between the two.

 There was a resemblance. There was.

 He sighed again, and set the picture frame back on his desk.

 “Well done, Titus. Please inform Clarus and Cor of these developments as well, when you can. But before that - a final question?” 

 “Of course, Your Majesty.” 

 “Did this mystery man give his name to your Glaives?” 

 “He did, Your Majesty. He said his name was Rexus.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 When Drautos updated the Shield, he went to update the documentation he’d gotten in order for this mystery man who’d soon be brought to Insomnia.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When Drautos updated the Sword, he took the photos to look over himself, comparing them to photos he also had of the late King Mors.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When Drautos was on his way to update Nyx, because his lieutenants needed to be kept in the loop, he happened to turn down the same hallway as Queen Lunafreya seemed to be using. Her Majesty was heading the way he’d just come from. And he did as was polite; bowing his head as they passed each other by, ignoring her entourage of faithful.

 But then the clicking of her heels went silent, so he stopped. Not as far removed from her as he wished he was. The hallway turned tense. Neither of them looked back at the other. Neither of them acknowledged this encounter. Neither of them could take it back. Any of it.

 “Captain Drautos.” 

 “Your Majesty.” 

 The click-click-click of those heels of Her Majesty’s continued, and Drautos stayed where he was until the sound had faded into silence again. Adjusting the laptop tucked under his arm as he exhaled. Yeah. That was…another thing. Aside from all the other troubles Queen Lunafreya’s presence meant, and despite the fact that he’d managed to avoid her until then -

 The fact remained Her Majesty knew his sins.

 He steeled himself and kept walking.

 It was far harder for him than it would be for an innocent man.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Staring, hard, at the documents his Uncle Cor had handed off to him, Noctis was trying just as hard to remember everything he could about…this. All of this. Being a prince. His duties. Public and political relations, trade agreements, treaty arrangements. His dad had agreed to let him get involved, but one look at the documents which had made no sense whatsoever to him?

 And Noctis was already reluctantly trying to think of another way to be of use.

 Without having to meet with Lunafreya.

 He was still staring hard at those documents, when Nyx came back from wherever he’d been called away to. Nyx seemed surprised when he found his amatus sat at the desk in his bedroom. Which was fair. Noctis had hardly used it at all since his return. It was just barely kept from getting dusty by the housekeepers who came to clean things up every week.

 Now he was actually sat in his wheelchair at the thing, looking over documents and being all…official. Like proper royalty. 

 Like something he wasn’t.

 “Going okay, inlustris?” His Glaive, his favorite Glaive, asked as he sauntered on over. Shrugging off his uniform’s jacket and tossing it over the back of the couch and something about that was just so comforting to see. Noctis set down those documents.

 Sighed, but still smiled when Nyx leaned his hip against the edge of the desk and got comfy right there.

 Picking up one of the documents to skim through, then dropping it back on the desk in favor of smirking down at his inlustris.

 “It’s all,” Noctis made a motion with his hand, waving it about, earning him a bit of a laugh, “You know. Strange. I honestly never thought I’d be doing this sort of stuff again. I was never any good at it anyways. Paperwork. Documents. Signing things. And then my dad had his…health scare, and now she’s here…”

 He let his complaints trail off.

 He could hardly even say her name, after everything. But Nyx knew who he was talking about, judging by the sudden sharpness in those stormy eyes of his. Noctis hadn’t gotten the whole story, but he did know Tenebrae’s Queen had done something to offend the Glaives. That it had cost her a lot of the respect the Galahdian community held for her, for how she had reclaimed her home from Niflheim after the war as they did the Storm Islands.

 He’d heard the Glaives guarding his rooms whispering about it.

 “She won’t be allowed near you, inlustris,” Nyx swore, Nyx meant that, “Not for anything. Nothing Her Majesty says will convince your father to allow that. Not after all the new colors of hers she’s been showing. Everything from now on will be entirely up to you, and what you’re comfortable with.”

 “Do you think…I’m being immature?” The raven-haired man asked, covered in scars and the father of a son he hadn’t asked for but loved anyways.

 But sometimes he remembered that…

Lunafreya also hadn’t asked for Oriens.

 “I think you are so brave I am amazed by you, starlight,” but then Nyx pushed off from his desk’s edge with his hip, and Nyx leaned over, and Nyx cupped his cheek and chased the beaded braid in his hair and he didn’t feel so selfish after all, “I would’ve snapped far sooner. And more harshly by far. You are being remarkably graceful, while dealing with her and her self-centeredness.” 

 “And the other Glaives?” Noctis checked, still without the full story on whatever Lunafreya had done to offend them, “Do they feel the same way you do?”

 He had grown to…respect, the Glaives. Far more than he had respected them when he was younger - arguably when they deserved that respect the most. 
 
 He didn’t want them to feel he hadn’t defended them.

 “Oh, my inlustris,” Nyx brought his other hand up so he could cup both of Noctis’ cheeks, not nearly so pale anymore, almost healthy even, after a year of proper dieting. Gazing into those blue-blue eyes, “You do not need to doubt the Glaives. You do not need to wonder if they will ever question you.” 

 Noctis tilted his head to the side questioningly, which looked so cute with Nyx cupping his face, and he couldn’t ever have restrained himself from bending down.

To press a kiss to his star’s forehead.

 “You have the loyalty of the Glaives, because you have all of my loyalty, Noctis. Because I love you.” 

 Noctis’ cheeks grew rather warm under his palms, and Nyx grinned at the red color that bloomed on his skin. Grinned all the more, when his star snaked a hand up around the back of his neck. To tug him just a little, little lower. So he could press a kiss to his forehead in return, and whisper in his ear after -

 “Thank you, amatus.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Clarus sighed when he got a response to his earlier email, half of him relieved and three-quarters of him dreading it. That was bad math. But bad math felt fitting, at the moment, with all that was happening. So he accepted that his feelings on the matter weren’t exactly the best and worked on drafting another email, hammering out all the details for…the dreaded interview. 

That he had agreed to, in Regis and Noctis’ names.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was a man who had false papers in Altissia, who was able to board the ferry without any trouble at all. A simple knapsack slung over one of his shoulders.

 The Glaives escorting him exchanged glances.

 Then joined him on the ferry.

 It seemed they hadn’t needed those false papers from the Marshall after all. Rexus had had his own prepared.

 Which just made him all the more suspicious. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 The day passed slow, but it did pass. Hour by hour.

The Queen of Tenebrae spent most of the day in the Citadel. Contained to a corner of it, really. Just a tiny corner of it. Away from the public. Far away from the Old and New Royal Wing. And she was passed off to the Lucian Royal Council to be dealt with, on top of all of that. She was offended. She had a right to be offended. King Regis hadn’t even cleared an hour of his daily schedule to meet her in person and listen to her arguments.  

 Did he intend to ignore her until she went away? 

 He would be sorely disappointed, if that was his plan.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis sighed. His schedule grew. The list of secrets he had to keep grew. The list of those he had to protect grew. There was always more. And Regis swallowed some of those pills he had been prescribed, and chased them down with a glass of water. All under the watchful eye of his Shield. Who had been very, very, very watchful when it came to those pills. 

 Regis had never had a problem controlling his usage of prescribed pills…but his father had.

 Clarus had told him so firmly and so gently that they weren’t taking any chances.

 If it meant he had to let a brother of his hold his medicine, Regis didn’t mind. 

 “An interview?” He repeated, weary, so weary, rubbing at his forehead as the simple idea of that started to summon a headache, “I trust your judgment, Clarus, but are you sure Noctis is up to that? The most he’s managed thus far was answering a single question during the live broadcast before the gala.”

 “I believe he’ll be able to handle it,” his Shield told him, conviction in his tone, “We need to steer the narrative at least somewhat, Regis. Queen Lunafreya has taken too much of a lead in that since she arrived in Insomnia. You and Noctis appearing on Insomnia Nightly for a special segment will draw far more eyes than her few appearances have.”

 “...”

 “Ruby Cantil is a fine young woman, Regis,” Clarus went on, reaching out to lay a supporting hand on his king’s shoulder, “She is qualified. She has integrity. She has been vetted more than even Noctis’ presence might deem necessary, she has never overstepped, and they knew each other - ”

 “Once,” Regis cut in, already shaking his head, “They knew each other once, years ago, during highschool. Noctis may have been fond of her then, but she was a girl then. Not a woman. And he was not the biggest news story a reporter could ever hope to have, in this decade or even the next.”

 Could he really do that? 

 Focus on a TV interview with his son, when Lunafreya was in the Crown City? Was putting so much stress on his son, his grandson?

 “...The interview is set for tomorrow, at noon,” his oldest friend told him, softly, squeezing his shoulder, “Regis, you and Noctis can handle this. And Ignis is even more cutthroat about interviews than normal right now - trust me. Trust him. Trust our ‘Guards and our Glaives, and trust in Noctis.” 

 Well, when he put it like that.

 What could the King of Lucis do except nod and surrender?

 

 

-----

 

 

 “An interview?” Noctis repeated what Iggy had come to tell him, wide-eyed. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was late.

The hour was late, was probably a better way to phrase it in the city that refused to sleep. Insomnia. The Crown City. There were stars sparkling across the night sky, and the Wall around the Citadel was like a shimmering beacon, going in and out of sight. It was night, but many were still awake. Including many in the Citadel. Including all but one Lucis Caelum. 

 Oriens was tucked, comfy and cozy, into bed with his favorite starry quilt drawn up to his nose. His hands that were hugging his chocobo plushie as he slept were still dyed blue.

 Carbuncle chirped as he bounded through the princling’s dreams.

They were dreams as whimsical as the dream guardian could make them.

 Regis was sorting through a final few piles of paperwork before he would be ordered off to bed by Clarus and Cor, who were literally counting down the seconds until the curfew his doctors had recommended for him.

 Noctis was planning to relax with a bath. Which he needed, if he was going to be doing a live interview the next day. He wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t. There was only one difference between now and the gala. One person who was too real now, who he couldn’t ignore now. 

He pushed aside those thoughts in favor of thinking about his bath.  

…

 He was out of the soap he liked most, he realized when he’d wheeled himself into his bathroom and found the soap dish empty.

 So he went to ask Nyx - who was playing some sort of card game in the hall with his fellow Glaives that involved dice and pebbles? - if he had any more of that soap. Since it had been Nyx’s to begin with. One of the Glaives playing the game let out a cheer when he asked, and mentioned making sure the craftswoman who made the soap knew he favored it.

 Nyx swatted the cheery Glaive over the back of his head, before far more kindly telling his star where he could find more. 

 Noctis left them to their card game as it turned into a bunch of wrestling Glaives taking up the hallway.

 Digging through some of the bags of Nyx’s the Glaive still kept piled up against the side of the couch he’d slept on for months, Noctis was sure he had said the black, leather duffle bag with a Kingsglaive insignia on its front face. The zipper on the back. The soap from Little Galahd that smelled like electricity and rain and Nyx should’ve been in it. 

But despite how sure he was?

 No soap.

 Noctis had no idea when it had even happened. When he’d started using the same soap as his Glaive, when they’d started to smell the same. Sometime after moving in together, most likely. Sometime after they fell in love, most definitely. And now his favorite soap was gone and the raven-haired man just really wanted a bath to relax and - 

 His hand brushed something. Not soap. He didn’t think. He pulled it out of the zipper anyway, where’d it’d been shoved down into the very corner of the pocket.

 He confirmed. Not soap.

 A photo. Folded up, in half, and then bent a bit on one corner because of how it’d been shoved down in there.

 Noctis tilted his head curiously, unfolding it, straightening out the corner too. Duffle bag and the promised soap temporarily forgotten. Normally he’d never look through Nyx’s private things. But the photo hadn’t seemed hidden. Just, forgotten. And it was just that. A photo. Nothing hidden-worthy about it. A photo of three Kingsglaive all standing together against a deployment van, grinning at the camera.

 Nyx, and two others. A man. A woman. Both Galahdians, judging by their braids.

 Nyx looked young. Early twenties. Barely any beard scruff on his jaw, and far less braids in his hair, but also he seemed…brighter. Somehow. His arm was around the man’s shoulders, yanking him in close. The woman had one hand on Nyx’s chest for balance, and the other was in the middle of swatting him over the head. She was wearing heels and still had to go up on her tippy toes a little to do it.

 They all looked close. As close as Nyx always was with members of the Galahdian community. Or closer. There was something in the way he was gripping the man’s shoulder, something in the way Noctis noticed his other hand was cupping the woman’s hip to help her balance even as she swatted him.

 There was real love there, as they all grinned at the camera.

 And Noctis had never seen either of those two with Nyx.

 “Inlustris?” A familiar voice said faintly, and he lifted his blue-blue eyes from the photo that had bore his curiosity.

 Nyx poked his head through the doors to the bedroom they shared, and seemed a little surprised to see him still sitting there with his duffle bag in his lap. He came inside. Paused only to lean back out of the room and make a likely rude motion with his hand to one of the Glaives stationed outside. The sounds of shouting and roughhousing out in the hall quieted after he shut the doors behind him. 

Then he came to Noctis grinning.

 It definitely wasn’t as bright a grin as he wore in the photo from a decade or more ago, but it was Nyx. 

 That was what mattered.

 “Sorry, I think I actually put the soap in my other toiletry bag,” he apologized, grabbing a smaller, still black bag as he passed where it was set on the couch rather than beside it, “Funny. A few years ago, I never would’ve even imagined myself having multiple toiletry bags to move around between two places to live, and - “ He stopped.

 Staring down at the photo held between Noctis’ fingers with those stormy eyes of his.

 “Inlustris, where’d you find that?” Nyx asked. Nervous that he maybe had found something hidden, all of a sudden, Noctis motioned to the duffle bag in his lap. Watching his Glaive just shake his head and sigh a little, deflate a little, “Of course. Was wondering where that picture had gone. Thanks for finding it, starlight. Gotta say I wasn’t expecting it though.” 

 When he reached for the photo, Noctis had no reason to refuse or keep it so he let Nyx gently take it from him. He held it so carefully. Straightened out the same corner Noctis had. 

 He stared at it, for a while.

 “Who are they?” The star asked, because the man he loved was looking at that photo like he had loved the people in it and it was a love completely lost, and his heart hurt seeing that. Hurt seeing Nyx hurt.

 Nyx didn’t even smile a little when he said, “Family. My brother. My sister,” then something like realization flickered across his face and he corrected himself for Noctis’ benefit, “Not by blood, inlustris. By bond and braid and battle, but not blood.” 

 For Noctis’ benefit, he crouched down next to his wheelchair. He finally smiled a little. Huffed a little. All of it was just a little. 

Tilted the photo towards the royal so he could better see, as he pointed to the woman first and said in a fond sort of tone, “That’s Crowe. Crowe Altius. She was one of the best damned mages out of all the Kingsglaive. Fiery. Fierce. Always the little sister - she had such a habit of sneaking up on people to freak them out. Translated well to stealth missions.” 

 Was.

 Dark hair, vivid eyes, a grin that said mischief. Noctis thought he might’ve liked her if they had met.

 “And that,” Nyx’s finger moved to the man, husky, blonder than Nyx, looked a little awkward maybe winking at the camera, “is Libs. Libertus Ostium. We grew up together. Our families were friends; his branch of Ostium lived in the Ulric Clan for a while. We got out of Galahd together, survived the beaches together, came here together, enlisted together, fought together, saved each other’s asses so many times….” 

 Reaching out, somewhat uncertain this once, Noctis laid a hand on Nyx’s bicep. Wanting to soften the blow of the memories inside his amatus’ head.

 Nyx glanced up at him, a wry smile already tugging at his lips, and it wasn’t a lie. But he could tell it wasn’t the whole truth either. There was sadness there. Buried. And Noctis wanted to know, because he loved this man and hated not being able to be there for him. Like Nyx had been there time and time and time again when the unstable royal was falling.

 Literally falling.

 Nyx sighed, suddenly looking so much older than he had a minute ago.

 “Crowe…we lost her. After the war. To a fucking - a car crash, out of everything,” he confessed, reaching for that thick, decorated black braid of his. His mourning braid and Noctis ached for him, “After everything? All those battlefields we walked away from? The bombs dropping, the daemons in the night, the MT infantries, the war - after everything? We lost her to some idiots on a joyride speeding down the street. It was senseless. It was…”

 “I’m sorry,” Noctis offered, because what else could he say? Nothing, nothing, would make that loss less. Would make that better.

 “Mhm. Me too, inlustris,” then he sighed, this great, frustrated sound that filled his lungs and Noctis blinked, “As for Libs? He’s an idiot. A big, dumb, stupid idiot,” and Noctis wanted almost to chuckle a bit at the child-like insults Nyx was using with a tone of great annoyance, “He owns a bar. In Little Galahd. But he’s…after we lost Crowe, it was like something completely snapped in him. He turned to drinking. And drinking. And drinking.”

 Noctis cringed, realizing what his favorite Glaive meant.

 An alcoholic.

 “We don’t talk anymore.” 

 “Oh, Nyx,” resting his palm flat over Nyx’s heart, he realized why it was a love lost now, “<Your pain is my pain.>” 

 “<Thank you, starlight.> Sorry,” his love added, stowing the photo away in his back pocket while shaking his head and finding his smile again, “You just wanted more soap, and instead you got - “

 “They’re a part of you,” Noctis said simply, because they were, there were two braids in Nyx’s dark hair that matched perfectly to braids worn by both his brother and sister through bonds, “Don’t apologize. I like knowing you, Nyx.”

 “I like knowing you too, Noctis.” 

 Even after months. Even then, they were still getting to know each other. Maybe that was a little bit of what love was. Maybe that was a little bit of all they had shared. Would share. Wanted to share, with each other, because they cared about each other’s stories.

 Nyx rested his hand on the arm of his wheelchair when he leaned up to kiss him. Short and sweet. And smiling after. That photo in his back pocket. Those people in his past, their braids in his hair, his family. And there was still so much Noctis had to get to know about the Glaive who had caught him once. Saved him once, and then again and again. 

 And he looked forward to getting to know every bit of him, from his beads to his bones.

 And every moment he saw fit to share.

 That was a little bit of what love was, wasn’t it?

 

 

-----

 

 

 The bath was well-worth the search for soap.

 Nyx joined him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “‘Living together.’”

The Oracle repeated that, voice so cold it could’ve frozen running water as her attendant bowed lower, and lower and lower and lower. Shivering from how the air had turned white and frosty around them following her report. A report not even from her - from the young intern in the Citadel they had bribed, who only confirmed the most irritating of the rumors they had heard tell of.

 Including the rumors of Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum and that Kingsglaive of his.

 An Oracle was meant to stay composed, always.

 But Lunafreya Nox Fleuret stood, stood in her hotel suite across the city, her expression twisting into one of the deepest frustration as she ordered, “Leave me.” 

 Her attendant left. Fast.

 And the Oracle held her breath for a few moments to try and regain her composure as snowflakes began to fall on the carpet of the room. ‘Living together.’ It kept repeating in her mind, and she kept getting worked up again. A flight of fancy, a bit of personal enjoyment, a toy to play with - all of those had been options for what their relationship would be after she had heard tell of it.

 She had not prepared for love to be an option too.

 With a deep breath, she grabbed the edge of the round table, piled high with dessert towers of berries and sweet things.

And she flipped it.

 And she listened to the shattering of glass towers, as the room grew colder.

 The berries were red, everything was red, and she was so tired of the red.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was late.

 And so many of them were tired.

 

 

-----

 

 
Titus Drautos did not want to think about it. 

…

 Titus Drautos really, really did not want to think about it.

 Thinking about it was counterproductive and pointless before - before it was his Glaives getting involved, but when he had first been brought into the loop about a potential royal bastard? His disbelief had kept him going. And after, his determination to find out the truth had. It was a mission from his king, but it was also a personal mission. For so many reasons.

 Reasons nobody else could know.

 But. This man. The one in the photos his Glaives had taken and sent to him, the one in the small snippets of videos they snuck while he was distracted, the one suspected to be a son of King Mors nobody had known existed? 

 Was so painfully of the bloodline that Drautos’ head hurt knowing he existed. And, of course, it went deeper than that. Went back to the night his Glaives contacted him with confirmation that they had the man in their sights. Were tailing him. This Rexus Lucis Caelum, as he declared himself later. And after his Glaives had him in their custody too? He’d gone to his king first. Of course he’d gone to his king first. 

 But then, this night, he’d gone to his quarters in the Kingsglaive Complex.

 Where a bundle of dream-blue fur had turned one of his pillows into a bed and was shedding everywhere. And the bundle had lifted its head to blink sleepily at him, chirping.

 “You couldn’t have warned me, Lord Carbuncle?” He had asked, a hint hysterical maybe, about to start pacing maybe, and the dream guardian had just chirped at him again in answer.

 “Your warning was that a small thing, here or there, could be different because time travel is never exact,” Drautos had defended himself against the fluffy bundle’s unimpressed stare, “Never what it seems. That going back may alter a small thing. A detail, rarely, almost nothing.” 

 He’d thrown his hands up in the air in his most exasperated decision he’d made in decades.

 “A whole new Lucis Caelum is not a small detail, Lord Carbuncle!” 

 And Carbuncle had actually unfurled himself. Stretching out, spine arching, holding the pose until his little paws shook and he yawned, then settled down on his little pillow declared his. Had actually answered properly, in chirps and chips and trills.

 ‘~Who’s to say?~’ The dream guardian had said, calmly laying his tail over his tiny paws, ‘~Who’s to say that Rexus Lucis Caelum did not exist in the timeline prevented, and was simply never discovered? Or died young? Who’s to say what’s a change, and what’s simply the ripple of your actions moving outward from your decisions? Who’s to say? You? You, who slayed your past self and took his place to make amends for the monster that he was? That you were?~’

 Chastised properly, the former General Glauca had hung his head low, and gone to kneel on the floor beside his bed.

 The idea that this ‘Rexus’ may have existed all along and simply was never discovered or hadn’t survived was…too plausible to dismiss. And he had deserved that chastising. So he accepted it. Taking his time on his knees to think about what he’d been told. For if the dream guardian spoke in favor of the mystery Caelum…

 Did that mean he was of satisfying character?

 No threat to the House of Caelum? To King Regis’ throne? To the Princes? 

 Did Carbuncle speak in favor of him?

 Drautos stared at the fluffy deity that was again furling up on his pillow. Going back to sleep, where he spent most of his time. He. It. Drautos had never quite figured out what the dream guardian was, or how he existed. It existed. But he was a vague thing. Talking in riddles with his chirps. Amused. And unwilling to make anything easy for Drautos, which he deserved.

 But surely he wouldn’t be encouraging Drautos to let this ‘Rexus’ into Insomnia if he was a threat to the royal family he held so dear? 

 This night, Drautos had much to think about.

 This night, he fell asleep kneeling beside his own bed, dreaming of blood spilled by bitterness.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Come morning, the Citadel was preparing for a royal interview and the Queen of Tenebrae was sent a very strongly - and politely - worded notice at Caelum Via that there would be no time for her to visit the Citadel at any point that day. Please and thank you. Stay the fuck away. Please and thank you again.

 The ‘fuck’ bit wasn’t actually included, but if Cor had had his way it would’ve been. 

 It was a very good thing that Clarus had learned and learned well to check all notices his little brother wrote out years ago.

 This was a big deal. The first interview the royal family would be truly entertaining since Noctis’ return from Mistveil Keep. Return, rescue, both. The first time they would be answering any questions, carefully picked and chosen questions or not, that the public had for them. The first time. And it was a big interview besides. An interview for Insomnia Nightly, the most famous news company in the Crown City.

 A room was being arranged specially for the interview. Complete with many Glaives to stand guard.

 The reporter, Ruby Cantil, would have to go through several rounds of being checked by ‘Guards before she would be allowed anywhere near the royal family. 

 The final list of questions she was allowed to ask was being approved by His Majesty, and that list was then gone over during breakfast. So they would have answers pre-prepared. Ori kept looking between his grandpa and his dad, and looking at his plate, and looking at them again. 

 He was being kept far away from the interview, due to not only the usual security measures but also if anything went wrong…they did not want Ori involved.

 Noctis smiled so his son would not be as nervous as he was that morning.

 In sweeter and sweets news for the morning though, Noctis’ rooms received a delivery. Specially from Little Galahd. It wasn’t the first time, since all of Nyx’s deliveries had started being rerouted to the Citadel after they started living together, but this was the first time the delivery was addressed to ‘Prince Noctis’ instead. A delivery of baskets. Lots and lots of baskets, with cloths laid over them.

 Freshly baked bread.

 Freshly baked muffins.

 Scones and pastries and pies.

 Freshly picked berries and fruits picked from the gardens of Little Galahd.

 Even a bouquet of flowers. Flowers of Galahd. Which Noctis immediately found a vase for, and arranged on the bedside table between his bed and Nyx’s cot.

 All from the Galahd community. And he was so touched; struck silent by the emotion of it all as he accepted the baskets one by one from a whole line of Glaives at his doors, ordered by their kin and spouses and children to see them delivered safely to their prince. It was so very Galahdian of them. 

 Not even a single one of them seemed annoyed. They just grinned and dipped their heads gratefully when Noctis accepted each basket with his own thanks, then went on their way. It was the way of their community. That was just how it was. Favors. And doing things. Helping out, giving gifts, offering a hand or two or twelve. Nyx would help out around Little Galahd, like searching for a missing pet or fixing a fallen canopy or moving furniture, and he would come home to Noctis with similar gifts of thanks.

 He would often share those gifts, since Noctis was his amatus and it was only right.

 But today, the gifts were all shows of support. 

 For the one who Ramuh had wept for.

 The one their last Ulric Chieftain loved.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When Noctis was in the middle of getting all dressed up in his mirror, on his own two feet and buttoning up his shirt, Nyx came up behind him.

 And leaned around him to kiss him.

 And Noctis couldn’t feel as worried anymore.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Do not panic,” Regis reminded his son, reaching out quickly and carefully to straighten his tie and flatten his shirt’s collar. And brush off his shoulders. And adjust his glasses to be a bit straighter on his nose - it was enough to make his son’s eyes crinkle in amusement.

 “I’m not panicking.” 

 “You know all of the silent signals you can use if you need to stop,” Regis continued, speaking a little faster and flattening Noctis’ collar again and then again, despite it being ironed to perfection already. Dear Ignis had seen to that. But he still kept flattening it and flattening it and - “If need be, the Glaives will stop the interview by force. Nothing happens without your consent, Noctis. You don’t have to say anything. You may stay silent if you wish, and I will take the attention off of you. She - “

 “Dad. It’s fine.”

 Catching his dad’s hand, holding it gently in his own, he smiled up at his dad with all the ease he had never thought he’d feel again.

 “We’ll handle it. Whatever happens. However it turns out.”

 Regis sighed, small and fragile as he stared at his nightlight all dressed up and prim and proper and handling this so well. Regis sighed. And Regis was proud.

 

 

-----

 

 
 Noon rolled around, and the royal house had an interview to attend to.

 So they went.

 And Noctis couldn’t help but notice that there were stormy eyes watching him along the way. Closely.

 “Nyx? What is it?” 

 “I just enjoy seeing you walk, inlustris,” Nyx told him honestly, the two of them walking side by side and Noctis supposed…that it was still a very new thing, wasn’t it? His ability to use magic to move his body had clicked into place so naturally for Noctis, he hadn’t thought about how strange it probably was for others.

 The back of Nyx’s hand nudged his, and Noctis smiled to himself.

 Feeling even more ready for this interview than all of his father’s worrying had managed to make him.

 They all arrived together.

 There were already people there, in the room that had been picked for the interview. It was a modest drawing room, by Citadel standards. Nothing too ornate. Nothing too rich. A set of black, cushioned armchairs with golden tufting that faced a matching couch. A camera had been set up to face the whole scene; so carefully manicured a scene. This felt familiar in a way Noctis liked less. He had never enjoyed seeing how controlled every moment of his life was as a child.

 It was all framed like a movie, with grand windows and drapes in the background, and royalty playing at being normal people in the foreground. Nothing but a table separating them from other, ‘normal’ people.

 While out of frame, there were at least twenty Glaives lining the walls of the drawing room. 

 Uncles Clarus and Cor would be standing off to the side, and Nyx went to join them, and his dad waved him towards the armchairs where they would be sat. Posed like dolls.

 And Noctis sighed, more to himself than anything, but he went. It was all something he was more used to now, than when he was a child. 

Like he was used to the eyes on him. The camera crew for Insomnia Nightly all stopped what they were doing, when they realized who had joined them in the drawing room. Had all turned to stare. Just to quickly turn back to what they were doing when more than one Glaive cleared their throats, loudly. It helped. A little. It helped a little.

 The first thing his dad did when he joined him was straighten his tie, again. And brush off his shoulders, again. And tuck a bit of Noctis’ hair behind his ear, while adjusting his glasses to sit better on his nose, again. It was enough to make Noctis sigh, but fondly. He knew his dad cared. 

 He didn’t mind his dad showing that.

 “Are you ready, my son?” 

 “As I’ll ever be.” 

 Time to let Eos see their once-Chosen King.

 They sat in the armchairs. His father tucking away his cane into the Armiger, and Noctis a bit hesitantly crossing his legs. One over the other. It wasn’t a thing that came naturally to him anymore, after years without doing so. And it was more his magic that moved his legs than him. But he did it, and he settled back, and he took a deep breath.

 And across the room, the doors were opened to let in a woman. Big, red hair. Red lips. Perfect makeup and perfect teeth and a foxy gleam in her gaze. She really hadn’t changed at all, since they went to highschool together, had she? Veronica. 

 Or, as Insomnia knew her now, Ruby Cantil.

 “Your Majesty, King Regis” she gave a perfect bow to his father, not wobbling at all despite those heels she was wearing, and then she turned to Noctis and bowed again exactly the same way, “Your Highness, Prince Noctis.”

 A small smile, from her to him.

 And he returned it, because Veronica had always been…almost like a friend.

 “Camera in one,” a member of the camera crew called out, and Ruby took her seat on the couch across from them. Crossing her legs too. Adjusting her skirt. Noctis was honestly happy for her. In highschool, she’d always talked about how she wanted to be a famous reporter, and look at her. Interviewing royalty. For Insomnia Nightly. A far cry from the girl who would paint his nails sometimes in-between classes as she shared the latest gossip with Prom.

 “Camera in thirty.” Still her though. Just, grown up. Like they all were.

 “Ready?” His dad asked him a final time, as they settled back to play the part of royalty.

 “Ready.” 

 The man behind the camera held up his fingers silently to count down from five, and they all relaxed. They all smiled at each other. And they all waited. For him to put the final finger down, and for the red light on the camera to start blinking at them as all of Insomnia and all of Lucis and likely most of Eos tuned in to watch this first proper interview, since Noctis had been proven innocent. 

 This first proper interview in over ten years.

 “Hello Insomnia!” Ruby said to the camera with a TV-worthy smile and a reporter’s flourish to her words, “Today, as promised, a very special segment just for you, the people! We’re here in the Citadel of Insomnia at the moment, and I’m sure you can see who’s been kind enough to join us for your viewing pleasure. Our dear King Regis and Prince Noctis!”

 Father and son nodded at the camera as it focused on them, and it was impossible but it almost felt as though they could hear the cheering of their people.

 “Well, first off I would like to thank you both for making time for this interview,” Ruby said, drawing their attentions back to her, “I know that must’ve been hard, especially with a fellow royal guest visiting our precious Crown City as well. Where do you find the time?”

 Huh. Starting off with a mention of Queen Lunafreya from the beginning.

 Noctis shifted a little, then purposefully sat still. Reminding himself that looking off to the side to check if that was an okay question would be too obvious.

 “We have a very dedicated staff, of course,” his dad took the question, keeping his tone lighthearted…so as to hide how thought out his words were, “The new Lucian Royal Council has been invaluable to us. The Citadel has never run smoother. And our schedules have never been so easily managed. Even unwelcome surprises are dealt with swiftly, thanks to all those loyal to the Crown.” 

 “And the people are surely safer for it,” Ruby nodded, her smile turning just a tad sharper around the edges, “Unwelcome surprises are always unpleasant, so it is a relief to hear the Crown will see them dealt with as they deserve to be.”

 Noctis felt a bit like he hadn’t been prepared for this interview after all.

 His dad had briefed him on the subjects they’d be discussing, and even the stances they’d be taking on certain…matters, right out of the gate.

 But.

 They weren’t being subtle at all, were they?

 “A new Royal Council for Lucis, an upheaval of the established systems with them, and the highly successful Caelum Charity Gala. Your Majesty, you must admit you and yours have been making waves in recent months. What do you have to say to those who believe you intend to start bolstering Lucis’ military might? To the rumors that claim Lucis intends to go on the offensive in the coming years?” 

“Well, Ms. Cantil, I can safely say that Lucis has no interest in - “

After so many years, Noctis had forgotten how frustratingly polite interviews were. 

Ruby would ask a carefully leading question, and his father would answer in a mildly kind tone. Always the fatherly ruler of Lucis. She would lead the conversation into the next question, and the next. Asking about the new council while carefully navigating around what had happened to the former council. Asking about the changes in the Crownsguard without a single mention of Noctis. 

Implying there was somebody unwelcome in Insomnia, without saying her name once.

It was artful, was what it was. And still frustratingly polite.

 And now that he was older, Noctis was begrudgingly impressed too, which was frustrating in its own way. A way that made him feel old. 

 He’d have to start embracing his silver hairs sooner or later.

Several questions passed by, none of them directed at Noctis. His dad took them all from his hands and answered flawlessly. He just had to smile and nod when his dad looked at him, which would earn him a pat on the hand or the knee, and the interview would continue. Flowing easily. Veronica was good at her job. And it was clear she was enjoying it.

 She was making them enjoy it too.

“And do you intend for your son to take on more duties going forward, Your Majesty? To ease the work even more?” Ruby eased them into Noctis joining the conversation, getting him to sit up just a little straighter at the mention of him.

 He was mostly there to be a symbol, but he’d have to speak eventually.

“My son has already taken on duties - probably duties that could wait, but he’s never been the sort to sit by,” Dad answered with a wave of his hand, fully leading Noctis into the conversation, “He’s taken quite a liking to the Kingsglaive, and has started to help with the management of them. Also a fair bit of paperwork, and a few more weights that I wish I could still carry, but alas.” 

 ‘Managing the Glaives.’

 Was that what his dad was going to call his and Nyx’s dates from now on, or - ?

 And they both knew Noctis was terrible at paperwork.

 Both of those little lies made him smile.

 “I cannot do as much as I wish I could,” and finally, Noctis got to speak. And he did so holding the full attention of Eos. And he spoke the truth, “I don’t think I ever will be able to. But what I can do, I will. For my father and for my son.” 

 “Surely none would ask more of you, after everything?” Ruby probed carefully…and that just went to show how planned out the interview was. Because the more ‘intrusive’ question had been all but scripted.

 Just like his dad taking care to call Noctis his son, and therefore confirm he was still fully family and a Lucis Caelum, struck from the line of succession or not.

 Just like Noctis taking care to return the sentiments, making it clear his father was still his father and Ori was still his son.

 All so scripted.

 “They don’t need to ask when I offer it willingly,” and he had offered, had all but taken the weights he could from his dad, like he took the Ring of Lucii off of his very finger, “If I can help, now that I’m recovering, I will.”

 The Ring of Lucii that was clearly on his finger in this interview. Not the King’s. 

 Let the people come to their own conclusions now.

 “Speaking of,” Ruby pounced on the next conversation hook, “how is your recovery coming along, Your Highness? Forgive my forwardness, but you look well, all things considered.” 

 “Well, physical therapy is a pain, but that’s the way of it,” Noctis hummed, didn’t even mean that, because honestly this was some of the least painful physical therapy he’d ever endured. He got long baths, tasty food, and the only time he had to ‘suffer’ it was his dad gently helping him stretch or Nyx pressing his hands along his spine, apologizing quietly even as he did nothing but help.

 But that was too intimate a thing for him to bring up on television.

 “I’m doing much better than I was,” he settled on saying, feeling the proud look his dad shot him even without looking, “I still have a ways to go, and I’ll likely never get back to where I was…before, but that’s life. And I’m grateful for what I have of it.” 

 It wasn’t imagined; the flicker of something sad in Veronica’s eyes when he said that.

 Maybe it was empathy. Maybe it was something older, something from the years they shared attending the same school. The time they spent together in class.

 Whatever it was, the reporter pushed it down and led the show on.

 “Do you also approve of the new council, Prince Noctis?” 

 “I do.” 

 “Do you feel this is the right path for Lucis to take, going forward, as your father does?” 

 “I do, yes.” 

 “Seeing the Crown Prince and how he runs circles around the Citadel on the daily must be a delight for you.” 

 “Of course it is, and I couldn’t be prouder.” 

 “Any chance you could tell us, Your Highness, if there’s any truth about a certain hunk of a Kingsglaive stealing your heart? The rumors since that gala have been wild, and I’m sure a word or two will help settle them down somewhat.” 

 “No comment.” 

 Veronica did an exaggerated ‘mhm’ noise after that answer of his, and he had to press his lips together to keep himself from chuckling. It was like when they were in school, and somebody would be called to the Headmaster’s Office. Every other student would look at that in that, ‘Oh, you’re in troooouble,’ sort of way. By refusing to say anything? 

 Noctis had basically confirmed there was something going on between him and a Glaive, but that had also been planned out ahead of time. Give the people a dash of secrecy and scandal, and they’ll latch onto that more than the political side of things discussed.

 “And Your Majesty, what do you say about the rumors of - “

 It was a very well-rounded interview. It was almost frightening, but that was Iggy’s skill set in general. Frighteningly efficient. He’d had a day, at most, to put together this interview’s ‘script’. And they’d already easily touched on the fact that a certain queen was very much unwelcome in Insomnia, the new council, the ‘Guards, the Glaives, the gala, the rumors of Lucis’ military intentions, Noctis, Noctis, and Noctis’ love life - oh, and now Dad had taken control of the interview again to discuss the religious upheaval for Lucis as well.

 Frighteningly. Efficient.

 Noctis, for the most part, just had to sit there and look comfortable and somewhat sane.

 Which was easier when he noticed movement over Veronica’s shoulder. Nyx. Quietly and slowly shifting around the edge of the room, out of sight of the camera, to place himself in his star’s line of sight. So they could smile at each other. That definitely put some healthy color in Noctis’ cheeks.

 It was all going really well. They reached the halfway point of the interview without issue.

 “We’ll be right back in a minute, after this commercial break!”

 A moment passed.

 And the red light on the camera stopped blinking. 

 And they all exhaled.

 “You did good,” Veronica, not the persona ‘Ruby’, immediately told Noctis with a thumbs up, and he felt so much like a teenager again in that minute that he swore if he looked to his right Prom would be right there and giggling so cutely, “Just enough information, not too much. And you definitely come across as way more happy and stable than all the leaks made you out to be.”

 “Gee, thanks, Veronica,” Noctis said in a playfully flat tone. Not a teenager. He would never be a teenager again. They were both grown up, and that was life.

 This was life.

 With Veronica standing from the couch to head over to the camera crew, who were waving frantically at her, while his dad took the chance to reach across the armrests between them and squeeze the back of his hand. Pride in the action. In his expression. They were almost done, and he was doing well.

 And Noctis turned his hand over to squeeze back, taking a breath, and another.

 And looking to where his uncles were. Where Nyx was. All of them looked as proud as his dad, all of them were smiling at the Lucis Caelums.

 There were…not exactly raised voices coming from behind the camera, but voices that had pitched in a very specific way that interrupted the moment. And had all eyes from the House of Caelum turning to look. At the camera crew. That were now standing around a little stiffly. Looking away from Veronica. Who was holding a phone that she hadn’t had before.

 Looking frustrated.

 And worried.

 “Commercial break over in twenty!” The man behind the camera told them all, but even he sounded worried too. All of them did; their murmuring. It was enough to get Noctis’ shoulders tensing up. And enough to get Uncle Cor headed their way, a downright scary look fixed to his face that promised time in the Citadel’s dungeons if he didn’t get answers he liked.

 Veronica handed the phone to a member of the crew, and then pulled out a second phone from her, well, bra. Making a motion at the cameraman that seemed to mean he should wait. Extend the commercial break maybe. And then she sent an apologetic look and bow towards Noctis and Regis.

 Before hurrying out of the drawing room, dialing on her phone and putting it up to her ear as she stepped out. Now looking nothing but frustrated.

 Uncle Cor went after her.

 Uncle Clarus shifted closer to their little ‘stage’.

 And Noctis glanced at his dad, uncertain. Not liking the sudden uncertainty at all - which Dad seemed to notice since he squeezed his hand gently. Sending a look his Shield’s way. Just for them all to glance back towards the camera crew when the man behind the camera said again, “Commercial break over in twenty!” 

 Veronica still wasn’t back.

 And a man from the crew stepped away from the others…to approach the couch where Veronica had been sitting before. 

 Uncle Clarus scowled, clearly not liking this, but he didn’t stop the man. And Noctis thought he looked sort of familiar, maybe? Like he’d seen the man on TV before. Maybe he was a fellow reporter of Veronica’s? He was wearing a fine enough suit, and had his hair all slicked back, and a reporter’s smile for sure. 

 And when he sat down, he clearly wasn’t uncomfortable in front of the cameras as he gave the pair of royals a smile so wide it was unnervingly friendly. 

The man behind the camera again held up five fingers.

 “Ms. Cantil?” 

 “Phone call,” the man said quickly without losing his unnervingly wide smile at all.

 The last finger went down.

 The commercial break ended.

 And suddenly Noctis got the very vivid feeling that his father wanted him out of this interview, because neither of them looked relaxed anymore, and also because Dad had let go of his hand as if he’d been burned. Had tapped at his armrest three times. Uncle Clarus was already moving towards the camera crew, making motions with his arms that Noctis could see out of the corner of his eye.

 But the interview had already started again, live.

 “Welcome back! I’m Brandy House, continuing where Miss Ruby Cantil left us off with a more personal question for our dear royal family!“ Even before he got to ask anything, Noctis was already reeling back into the armchair’s cushions, and he already knew he wouldn’t like what he had to ask.

 Dad reached across the armrests again now to take his hand.

 “Tell us, Your Majesty! Your people are so, so curious! Do you see Crown Prince Oriens as a son of your own as well? And therefore as a brother to Prince Noctis? You did, after all, raise him by yourself these last nine years.” 

 Oh. 

 Noctis’ shoulders went tense. Really tense. So tense, he was almost trembling from how tightly he held his body in place, trying to keep from completely having an episode on live television. In front of all of Eos. 

 Regis leaned forward sharply.

 Taking the question as an insult.

 How dare they?

 “No,” he forced his calmness, but he was holding himself too tightly for it to be believable, like his son was, both of them were - how dare they? “Oriens is my grandson. Yes, I raised him, circumstances what they were, but Prince Noctis is and has always been his father.” 

 Mr. House’s lips pressed together; had he realized he overstepped? But he was still smiling brightly even with a closed mouth. He didn’t care. And Regis hardly knew a thing about the man other than he’d passed the security checks and rechecks of Cor’s, but he knew he wanted the man to lose absolutely everything he held dear for this.

“So you told the Crown Prince about Prince Noctis as he was growing up?” Mr. House probed, “It was not a banned topic in the Citadel?” 

“I - “

 “And you never once saw yourself as a father to His Highness, Prince Oriens?” 

 “I think this interview is over,” thank goodness for Clarus, trying to stop all of this in its tracks. But. Well. Regis had to confess, this was prodding at a very dark, unhappy place in his mind. And he had to confess he was only a man. Only a mortal. And he had his flaws.

One flaw he had was his inability to ever again take insults towards his boys laying down.

 Never again would he fail to support Noctis or Oriens.

 “Of course I see myself as a father to him!” He said, sharply, like all his actions were at that moment because he had to support his boys, “Because I had to be one! I had to be a father. As I had to be a mother, and a grandfather, and a grandmother, just as I had to be for Noctis because there was nobody else. And I will not apologize for trying my hardest for my boys!”

 The red, blinking light of the camera ceased blinking.

 Quiet filled the drawing room.

 Multiple Glaives closed in on Mr. House, who had his hands up and was already talking fast through excuses. Cor was back, Ms. Cantil beside him and looking absolutely horrified, directing ‘Guards. Already on his phone. Tone sharp. 

Probably ordering some idiot’s immediate execution, protective as he was.

 “Why would you ask such a question?!” Regis, the Father, snapped. Betrayed. And left on unsteady footing, as he went to hold his son’s hand so his Noctis wouldn’t drift away from him and so he wouldn’t panic and so he wouldn’t hate Regis for daring think of himself as Ori’s own father for years, “Who dared order you to ask that?!” 

 “The, uh, CEO of Insomnia Nightly, Your Majesty,” the reporter who had gone off-script told him, in a rush of words, finally sounding as if he understood he had done something that would have consequences, “I apologize. I meant no - “

 “Why?”

 Ms. Cantil was the one foolish enough to step towards an angry father and answer him, bowing deeply. Which wouldn’t save her if he lashed out.

 “Your Majesty, that was him on the phone. He was trying to order me to ask that question,” she said quickly, concisely, “He swore if I didn’t, I would lose my job. He said the company had been personally paid to have that question asked. When I refused, he said he’d have somebody else ask, and by the time I realized…I’m sorry.”

 Somebody had paid to have a hurtful question asked of them on live television?

 What weight could her apologies hold when she hadn’t stopped this in time?

 Regis Lucis Caelum took in a deep, sharp breath, ready to order her and her whole camera crew tossed out of the Citadel with their equipment and all future chances of working with the House of Caelum. And for Mr. House to be brought to the dungeons for harsh questioning. But a tug on his sleeve stopped him. Noctis tugging on his sleeve stopped him. And that was more important, so he turned to his boy who had to hate him now - 

 But Noctis was staring at Ms. Cantil. Looking sad.

 “Do you…want a job at the Citadel, Veronica? Maybe with the Media Department?” 

 More than one person in the room with them froze, overhearing that in the quiet of an angry king.

 And all across Eos, their audience wondered what had just happened.

 

 

-----

 

 

 And the man behind the camera vanished when everyone was in a tizzy and searching elsewhere, laughing to himself, as his form changed and he pulled a silly hat out of his Armiger.

 Pulling his phone out after, to wire the rest of the payment to that fool of a CEO.

 “You all make this way too easy for me, my dears~!”

 

 

-----

 

 

 They left the drawing room behind. And they were grateful that they’d thought ahead, kept Ori from watching the interview live. Ignis and Gladio were keeping the prince contained, away from the mess that had just happened. It gave them time.

 It gave Regis time to apologize.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Dad’s private study was probably the best place to have this conversation. For all the usual reasons; nobody could get close to it without authorization, only the most trusted ‘Guards were on duty outside its halls, it was repeatedly checked and doubly checked for any sorts of spyware, multiple times a day, and there were many, many, many locks on its doors. Not to mention the minor, magical barrier around his dad’s royal rooms that kept them and their contents protected.

 All the usual reasons.

 And one more.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum felt safe, in his dad’s private study. Because it was a part of his royal rooms. Because it was nostalgic, because it was familiar, because nobody could hurt him if he was with his dad in the same rooms he used to hide in as a child when the world and the Astrals wanted to see him harmed. The couch had not changed. The pillows had not changed. The family pictures had not changed. 

 And it all smelled of his dad’s cologne, which immediately put him more at-ease.

 Noctis wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen to Veronica. When he’d left the drawing room and that failed interview, Uncle Cor had been taking her into ‘cooperative custody’. The man, at least, was probably going to pay for this. As soon as he realized he was being taken into uncooperative custody, he’d started admitting the CEO promised him a generous amount of money if he took over the interview.

 Hopefully Veronica testifying that the CEO had tried to bribe her, and had bribed her fellow reporter, would lead to the arrest of a certain CEO. 

 Who was now an enemy of the Crown.

 It was a lot. Noctis wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it. Noctis wasn’t entirely sure how his dad thought he felt. He was leaning too hard on his cane, stepping too unevenly, glancing at him then quickly glancing away with a pinched expression on his face. Dad was worrying.

 Was prioritizing Noctis over a press release. 

 Dad’s study was warm. Noctis headed straight for the couch.

 That couch, he used to take naps on it as a teenager, while waiting for his dad to finish up one of his meetings that dragged on and on and on. Its pillows were the same patchwork of mothy fabric that he remembered. Noctis transferred himself from his wheelchair onto the couch, and immediately picked up one of the pillows to hold in his lap. Hug in his lap. He pressed the lower half of his face into it - it smelled exactly how he remembered.

 He hadn’t spent a ton of time in his dad’s study since Mistveil, but it hadn’t changed all that much. He adjusted his legs, adjusted the pillow he was hugging, and he turned to watch his dad. Murmuring quietly, quickly, angrily to Uncle Clarus and Drautos. 

 Insomnia Nightly might just be about to get hit by a Crown-sanctioned lawsuit. Oh well.

 He hoped the payoff to that CEO had been worth him losing his whole company, considering Noctis knew his dad would not forgive this. He was overprotective like that. 

 Dad dragged a hand down his face, tugging on his beard, silver and trimmed and silver. Too old to be so stressed out. Noctis wished he wasn’t. He nodded at the door, where Nyx was standing, some of his Glaives at his back. His brows were furrowed together. Like he was frustrated. But that look smoothed out when he smiled at Noctis’ nod, nodding back, which earned him a sharp nudge from Tredd beside him.

 Which led to him ruffling Tredd’s hair.

 Which led to Uncle Clarus clearing his throat, and also clearing out the study by shooing the Glaives away, Uncle Drautos step in step with him as he left.

 Shutting the door behind them, which his dad locked with a resounding click of the doors’ deadbolt, leaving the two of them alone in his study. For this talk.

 Regis didn’t speak right away. He didn’t have the words. So he just let his forehead meet the wood of those doors he’d just shut, and took slow, deep breaths. Was it better to start with an apology? For getting upset? For saying such things on live television? For how he felt? For how he’d failed his boys yet again? 

 Or was it better to start with an explanation? A reason why?

 Or was it -

 “Dad, come sit down if we’re going to talk,” his son drew him out of his head, patting at the leather of that old couch that was his father’s first, the noise and the sound of Noctis’ soft voice giving him direction. How smart his son was. Regis went, and Regis sent away his cane, and Regis sat. Sank into the worn-out bit of furniture, the two of them leaning back in their own corners of the couch.

 Staring at each other, in the familiar atmosphere of his study. Waiting on one another.

 His Noctis, his and Aulea’s precious child, he looked so grownup. All dressed up. All groomed. He was so very handsome, and Regis wanted to go back to before the interview. When he’d been admiring how far his son had come since Mistveil, and how dashing he appeared when he put some effort into his appearance. It was a rare treat.

 It was ruined, because Regis hadn’t held his tongue.

 His breath rushed out of him, with that thought.

 “Noctis, my son, I am so sorry.” He slumped over his knees, clasping his hands tight, feeling his failure weighing down on him heavier than any magic.

 How could he ever make up for what he had said, before all of Eos’ eyes?

 Noctis had every right to despise him, for this and for so much more.

 The Father had more than earned it.

…

 “Why are you apologizing?” Noctis’ quiet, confused question had Regis lifting his head, to find his son’s head tilted with just as much quiet confusion as his tone had held, “Dad, you didn’t say anything untrue. And I’m…” He glanced down at the pillow he was hugging to his chest, squeezed it, then glanced back up to meet Regis’ eyes, “I’m not upset with you.”

 Those words refused to make sense to the Lucian King’s ears.

 ‘Not upset?’

 “Noctis,” he started quietly, swallowing as he thought his son perhaps hadn’t understood the meaning behind his words, or perhaps he had dissociated after Mr. House's question, “I said…sweetheart, I said that I thought of myself as Oriens’ father.” 

 He held his breath. Waiting. Sure that this would be the part where his son understood and his magic would lash out with all the pent up fury of a decade of false imprisonment as it was wont to do. As it was so understandably, wont to do.

 But his sweet night light’s eyes just crinkled a little, around their corners.

 And they were both silent for a moment.

 And then?

 “Well…you…sort of…are, Dad.”

 And that so, so softly whispered sentence full of pauses hurt more than a heart attack had. Regis felt as if he’d just been assassinated. A sniper, a bullet, straight into his heart. Lodged there as it beat a few final times, and he could feel it lodged there all the while. He was dying. Slowly. Bleeding out. Before those blue-blue eyes of Aulea’s, of Noctis’. He couldn’t breathe right.

 But his sweet son was just smiling at him.

 “I mean, you raised him,” a second bullet, lodging itself in deeper, and Regis so shamefully felt his breaths turning ragged - wet - as he stared at his poor baby boy with eyes that were growing blurry, “I saw the pictures, Dad. You…you were the first person to hold him. And he…Ori was your everything. I saw. I never, said anything, I guess,” so blurry, he couldn’t see where his son was looking as he clasped his hands tighter to hide their trembling, “I maybe…was jealous, in the beginning, Dad.”

 A king gasped.

 And his son hesitated, before continuing.

 “I was jealous that you were there, when I was locked away…and being hurt.” 

 The trembling couldn’t be hidden anymore.

 “I hate you, Dad.” 

 Regis sobbed.

 “But I love you more, Dad.” 

 Noctis dragged himself across the old, ratty couch, letting the pillow slip from his lap to the floor, to hold his dad as the King of Lucis cried.

 “I was just happy Ori had a parent, a parent like I had,” it was forgiveness, for both of them, as the father and son grasped onto each other, “And thankful, and I - it was some of the only reassurance I had, there. That he had you. He had you. Thank you. Dad, thank you for raising Ori. For being a father to him. For being everything to him.” 

 It was forgiveness.

 “Like you were to me.” 

 And it was grief.

 And they let Lucis hold its own for a while, as they dozed off after a long overdue cry on that old couch, wrapped around one another. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 When a Shield and Sword went to check on their king and brother, their nephew, they found them on that old couch. And sound asleep. With Noctis' cheek pressed into his dad's shoulder, and Regis wrapped tight around his son, and they couldn't bring themselves to disturb them.

 They snapped a picture, and went to settle matters.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Hey!” Nyx Ulric shouted, after slamming open the door to the Kingsglaive Complex’s commons room with a smile that promised sharp weapons would be involved, “Who wants to hunt down a news station’s CEO with me!? ”

His comrades turned to answer him.

With cheers.

 

 

-----

 

 

“In otherwise startling news for tonight, dear Insomnia, Insomnia Nightly’s own CEO, Atony Turnus, has been arrested. Yes, you heard me right. Arrested. The fifty-nine year old who founded Insomnia’s most popular news station was dining with his wife, when witnesses report that a team of Kingsglaive entered the establishment that will not be named at this time, went to their table, and publicly slammed the CEO. Putting him in cuffs and leading him out.” 

“Leading him out to be paraded in front of a crowd of paparazzi, Heather - you can’t forget that part. Or the part where those paparazzi later claimed they’d been given anonymous tips ahead of time to wait there, if they wanted to have photos to sell for this up-and-coming scandal, whatever it may be.” 

 “Mhm, a scandal. You’re so right, Joey. In mere hours, the story has already been spun by so many gossip magazines, nobody can be sure of the exact details of why Insomnia Nightly’s CEO was arrested.”

 A pause.

 “But I think it is safe for many of us to assume it has something to do with this afternoon’s interview with King Regis and Prince Noctis, organized by Insomnia Nightly, and abruptly cut short due to the intrusive turn it took. Could King Regis be planning to place criminal charges on Mr. Turnus? Could this be the end of Insomnia Nightly’s golden reign over news in the Crown City? Tune in tomorrow, for further details.” 

 Cor scoffed, “You couldn’t have told your Glaives to be a little more discrete?” Not that the Immortal was actually upset in any way, he just wanted to whine.

 “When Prince Noctis was involved?” Drautos scoffed right back, crossing his arms, “Never. Those kids wouldn’t have listened to me anyways.”

 “You can’t call everyone a kid,” Cor muttered, “You’re not even all that old.” 

 The Kingsglaive Captain just hummed noncommittedly, and both of them went back to their laptops as the radio switched to some upbeat pop song instead, their work cut out for them.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A queen smiles.

 And a queen waves.

 And a queen does not stumble.

 And Queen Lunafreya clasped her hands so tightly together in prayer that she left nail marks on herself.

 Tomorrow. She would not take no for an answer tomorrow.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

This chapter was getting a bit too long, so we're going to call it here and leave Lunafreya for next time. The holidays have drained me so there's also probably going to be a few delays on the next couple of chapters. Sorry about that!

Chapter 24

Notes:

So sorry for the long delay, 2025 is turning out to be a very troublesome year so far. I hope you enjoy! And that this is a very satisfying chapter for all of you who wanted to see Luna humbled~! ;)

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

Observant, plus small, plus soft-spokenness - all of it added up to being Oriens Lucis Caelum. 

Certainly, he knew how to use his voice. Especially since he had gained a dad. Noctis probably hadn’t realized how much quieter Ori was before his return, but that was then and this was now. And Ori? Knew how to use his old quietness still. 

 He knew how to watch. And he knew how to listen. And that was all very well-known. Just like the little princling being in the walls of the Citadel was well-known, like his habit of slipping away the second eyes were taken off of him was well-known. 

 Oriens had known there was going to be an interview. And had known why he was being kept away from it.

 He had also known he wouldn’t be allowed to watch it. 

 And maybe a part of the raven-haired boy wanted to find a way to watch it anyways. Tired of the restrictions on his life, tired of how they constantly took away his phone and his tablet and kept him from the computers - from it all when they wanted to keep things from him. But Oriens had too many memories. Of being younger, of his grandpa picking him up and setting him on his good knee. Of telling him, ‘This is for your safety, your happiness, and my peace of mind, Ori. Do you understand, sweetheart?’

 Ori knew to behave, because behaving meant putting less troubles on his grandpa.

 So he was good! For the whole day, he handed over all of his devices and he found other things to do and he let Uncles Iggy and Gladdy distract him.

 And he thought if he was good, it would all go well and he would get to see his dad and his grandpa sooner rather than later, and they could move on and maybe…maybe they could finally…make her leave.

 Ori wanted to be good.

 He wanted to not worry his family, when they were already dealing with so much.

 But he couldn’t make himself forget she was in Insomnia. And he wanted her gone, he wanted her to go back to her own kingdom, he wanted the ‘Guards to no longer be whispering theories about how she was there to reclaim him or try and marry his dad where they thought he couldn’t hear, he wanted it all to go back to how it was before.

 He hoped the interview would be the beginning of that. It would go well, and from there everything else would go well.

 But he knew. He knew, when Uncle Iggy peeked into his rooms to check that he hadn’t turned his TV on, clutching his phone in one white-knuckled hand and eyes icy like frozen ferns - Oriens knew the interview had gone wrong somehow. He was left alone. And the Citadel fell into that quiet sort of frenzy where problems were being dealt with but they wanted to keep it all underwraps sort of. And Ori - Ori was just the young princling. 

 He had the Glaives and ‘Guards watching over his rooms, what else could be done? 

 So he was left alone. Nobody told him anything. He was just…left alone. Clutching his dad’s Carbuncle plushie close to his chest, because of course he’d gone and stolen it from his dad’s rooms the second his uncles were all off dealing with whatever had happened. He was still good, he was still staying put in his bedroom, on his bed, hugging Carbuncle. 

 It was all he could do.

 Staring up at the constellations painted above his big, pillow and blanket-covered bed, where he was all alone, wondering.

 Until he drifted off. Still wondering. Still pressing his face into Carbuncle’s fluff and whispering prayers to the blue of his dreams.

 He slept.

…

 He woke, when a thumb swept across his cheek just ever-so lightly. Carbuncle releasing him with a chirp so he could know. So he could yawn and rub at his eyes with his small fists and peer up hopefully. At Nyx. Who was sat on his bed with him. Who chuckled at his yawning, who reached out and patted his head and had this soft smile on his face - and that had to be good right? 

 That had to be good…right? 

 “Sorry to wake you, mane,” the man his dad loved told him hushedly, and Ori realized his bedroom was dark like night, like stars and stars and more stars, and the moon - and what had happened to his dad and grandpa? 
 
 Nyx ruffled his hair.

 “It’s okay,” he promised, voice gentle, touch gentle, there and there and Ori wasn’t alone, “Everything’s been dealt with, <little morning.>” 

 It was okay. 

 It was okay, so Oriens could breathe at last. And could grab Nyx’s big hand by its wrist. And could bring it down to nuzzle into his palm, taking in his slow breaths. Thankful to the man his dad loved. Mumbling his thanks. Sleepy and relieved and sleepy. And Nyx chuckled more at him. Urging him to lay back down and go back to sleep.

 So Ori did.

 But he kept hold of Nyx’s hand.

 So the Glaive had no choice but to lay down beside him, and let his hand be the princling’s pillow throughout the night.

 The prince’s hand was still dyed blue, from Nyx's date with his dad, when they'd all been together and happy.

 When they’d all been together and happy.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “A lot going on in Insomnia right now,” the man commented idly. That man. That Rexus - he commented idly, swiping his finger across the screen of a tablet the Glaives weren’t entirely sure if they were supposed to take from him or not. Insomnia’s social media pages were of course brimming with juicy scandals from what happened the day before, and they just exchanged glances as Rexus kept reading.

 On one hand, they were technically escorting him to the Crown City as a guest.

 On the other hand, the man was suspected to be…a bit too important to be letting him have unrestricted internet and technology access during the long ferry trip to Cape Caem.

 On that same hand, the man was such a contradiction, none of the Glaives really knew if they had the authority to take away the tablet. And they were starting to suspect he stole it from another passenger. Possibly a kid. He hadn’t had it in his luggage before boarding the ferry. They knew. They’d gone through his things in Altissia, when he left his bags in his hotel room. 

 Could they accuse a suspected - maybe - royal in his - maybe - thirties or forties of stealing some kid’s tablet when they weren’t looking? 

 Could they put a suspected royal in time out for confusing them? 

 “<Oh no, Nyx will like this one,>” one of the Glaives muttered in abject horror, staring the man who sat so casually there, now playing some sort of game on the tablet he may or may not have stolen from a child.

 A victory jingle sounded from the tablet, and Rexus did a private little fist bump low to his hip, looking smug.

 “Better luck next time, kids.” 

 A Glaive lifted his eyes in pleading towards the ceiling of their ferry cabin, though his pleas fell on the ears of only an amused Astral, “<Oh, Father Ramuh, have more mercy on us than this, please.>”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ramuh chuckled, for his children knew him better than that by now.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis woke up, and it was late, and he’d slept a long time, and he was safe. Was sure that he was safe. Because he woke up surrounded by the cloying smell of his dad’s cologne. And he woke up with his cheek smooshed up against his dad’s collarbone. And he woke up in a study he’d known his whole life, on a couch that had known generations of his family, and he was safe and it was okay and they were okay.

 Half of him felt like a kid again.

 The half he could still feel.

 The other half though, the numbness, wasn’t all that unfamiliar to him. Not after the last ten years. Ten, almost…eleven now, actually. Wasn’t it? Almost eleven years? Noctis had turned thirty recently - was it really only a bit more than a week ago? A bit more than that? It felt like the days since had lasted…so much longer. Months longer.

 There was a reason for that. She wore a crown. She wore heels. She wore her smile like it was a divine right, daring the world to be anything less than hers and perfect every single day. 

 She -

 Lunafreya was overwhelming, and Noctis could silently admit that to himself now as he shivered at the memory of their one meeting. Hiding his face in his dad’s chest like he really was just five years old again, just six, just seven, just eight - all his life until he was accused and then his dad wasn’t there to protect him anymore.

 Dad was warm. And soft. Softer than back then; age brought a bit of fatherly weight to Regis Lucis Caelum along with his silver hairs. Silver, going white. And yet with another’s white at the edge of Noctis’ mind, he’d rather focus on his dad’s white hairs.

 She liked to wear white, didn’t she? 

 Dad had lots of wrinkles. They weren’t unkind wrinkles. Dad had wrinkles from smiles. He had creases around his eyes, above his eyebrows, around his bushy beard. Dad still wore that same cologne. And Dad had raised Oriens - raised him well. Raised him to be kind, and to love, where Noctis knew so many other men probably would’ve raised Ori differently after everything that happened.

 Noctis peered up at his dad from the pillow of his chest.

 He could admit it now. That he hated his dad. That he loved his dad. That he wanted to tear his dad apart. That he wanted to build monuments in his dad’s name. That he wanted to set fire to the throne and make his dad watch. 

 That he wanted to brace the throne up, so his son would never feel unsteady sitting upon it.

 The House of Caelum, and all its flaws.

 All collected inside one Noctis Lucis Caelum.

 He was a contradiction in human form, made up of scars and curses and prayers for him to be born and die quickly. For Eos to know him. For Eos to lose him. And for Eos to lose nothing in him having existed, for the Astrals to gain everything, for the House of Caelum to have a final, fantastical fall that led to the sort of dramatic end that wouldn’t bore kids in history classes a hundred years from then.

 That was how it was supposed to have gone, in the time prevented. That was how it would’ve gone. That was all that was prevented, by a little deity who loved a boy too much to see him broken like that.

 Of course, Carbuncle wasn’t able to stop the breaking fully when forces greater than he wanted to set things right. 

 But their chains could only hold a free spirit for so long. And now he was free. And they would not be getting his dreaming prince again. 

 Unless they wanted to learn why carbuncles were once considered monsters in the history books.

 Letting himself become distracted by a loose string on his dad’s shirt that he started pulling at, lost in thought, Noctis failed to notice his dad was slowly waking up from the repeated feeling of his clothes being tugged at. Usually? That feeling meant Ori had had a nightmare and his grandson had come to him for comfort.

 Today, it meant waking up to the blurry sight of his son laying on his chest, humming a soft, Galahdian-sounding song to himself as he fidgeted with a loose button on his shirt.

 Regis didn’t speak, not right away, letting himself wake up first. To take in the relaxed way his son lay, the way their legs were tangled on the couch and the way Noctis was still close to being tucked up into his neck. Like he was a boy again.

 Maybe it was the old man in him - fool that he was - but Regis Lucis Caelum had to treasure these moments when they happened. 

 Even if the Ring of Lucii was worn by his son’s finger. Even if his back was stiff because he wasn’t as young as he used to be and this couch was not as kind to old men as it was to once-teenagers.

 Even so, he had to treasure it.

 And then he had to slowly, mindfully, reach up and make sure his reaching was noticed before catching his son’s hand. Stopping his plucking that was going to result in the king losing a button if he didn’t. And then he had the blessing of seeing his son’s, his wife’s, blue-blue eyes looking up at him from his chest.

 A reminder of so many happy years.

 And then he had his son’s smile, and he was the Father. And he loved the Son more than he’d ever cared if his title was Chosen.

 “Morning, Noctis,” he whispered to his boy, made young again by that smile, “How are you, sweetheart?” 

 “I’m…” He was relieved to see his and Aulea’s son putting some thought into his answer, considering himself, considering his feelings - not hollow - before a slow, little, fragile sort of smile spread a bit more across his face, “I’m okay, Dad. Still love you.” 

 “Ha,” Regis couldn’t help but sigh, couldn’t help but bending his sore neck more to brush a kiss to his son’s forehead, “I love you as well, Noctis.”

 There would likely be more for them to discuss. A single conversation, especially one spurred on so suddenly by a disaster of an interview like the day before would require…deliberation. Maybe, just maybe, Regis wondered if it was perhaps time to finally broach the topic of some help. Somebody. Somebody trained, somebody qualified. Somebody Noctis could talk to. 

 He’d discuss it first with his brothers, to be sure, but Noctis’ eyes were clear. So blue. So starry. Like they hadn’t been so soon after trouble like this in a long time.

 So he hoped he wasn’t presuming too much by taking that as a good sign.

 “Can we go check on Ori?” Was his son’s first request of the morning, when they were very, very, very aware of both their ages and trying to transition from the couch to sitting. Detangling themselves and moving like men far older than they actually were.

 But that was just part of being Lucis Caelums. The crick in your back and the stiffness in your neck and the silver hairs they both shared a bit of.

 “Of course,” Regis reassured his son, moving very slowly, and wondering if his father had felt the same way those few times they’d fallen asleep on that same ratty couch after sharing a few drinks when he hit his teenaged years and his dad was in his fifties, ugh, “I am - mgh - sure that we can arrange to have breakfast with him this morning,” a glance at the grandly crafted clock of his study, “It’s not all that late. And I’m sure Ignis and the others will have reports for us as well, if you’re up for that.”

 Noctis had to manually shift his lower half limb by limb to stretch, and he hummed noncommittedly to what his dad was hinting at. Part of him wanted to avoid business altogether.

 The other part of him wore the Ring, and knew he had chosen to wear it to take the burden of work at least a little from his dad’s aging shoulders.

 And watching out of the corner of his eye, how slowly his dad rose from the couch, even with his cane, groaning and trying to stifle noises of pain? 

 Even with everything on his mind, more than any of that he wanted to ease his dad’s burdens.

 Especially after finally telling his dad he hated him, warranted or not.

 “That sounds fine to me,” was the commitment he made, reaching for his wheelchair to roll it towards himself with a grunt, thanking his dad when he held it in place so he could transfer over, “Geeze. Dad,” he muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck roughly, “maybe next time, we can have our mental break in bed or something?” 

 Regis laughed.

 And they slowly managed to make their way back to dignity’s side. 

 And back to their son’s side too; the boy they both raised.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “An update from your Glaives?” Cor guessed - mumbled, more like, around the piece of toast he had shoved into his mouth - when he saw Drautos drag a hand down his face in slow, sure exasperation. Staring at his laptop’s screen like he’d just received another one of those notices about his Glaives setting something really important on fire.

 Cor was expecting an update about Mr. Turnus’ arrest, since that had gone spectacularly public in the less than twelve hours since it happened.

 Instead, he got Drautos sighing and turning his laptop to show the Crownsguard Marshall its screen too.

 An email. With a single line.

‘This one is worse than the other three.’

 Cor stopped chewing his toast. Confirmed that the sender was the alias of that team of Glaives that had gone off to Altissia, off the records. Reread the line. Then swallowed, and also dragged a hand down his face in slow, realizing exasperation. For once on the same side as Drautos. 

 “We’re fucked.” 

 Drautos bowed his head, sounding easily twice his age as he said in utter defeat, “I’ll…warn everyone. DNA test or not. We need to prepare. We’ve been lucky so far, with our Caelums. Looks like we ran out of luck.”

 “How bad can he really be?” Cor Leonis said, tempting fate so obviously that Drautos shot him his best death glare.

 “He could be like you.” 

 “...We’re fucked and fuck you, Drautos.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens woke up to his dad’s boyfriend grumbling sleepily on the phone with somebody, and whined to show his displeasure at being woken up at all.

 “Mmm - hold on,” Nyx told whoever was on the other end of the call in a sleep-throaty voice, and wiggled a little to look down at the princling using his chest as a pillow, started carding his fingers through his raven hair and making Ori wake up more - how dare he? “Mane, you up for breakfast with your father and grandfather?” 

 That.

 Was maybe worth being woken up for.

 Gripping Nyx’s shirt with blue-dyed hands, he nodded many times into the fabric, fighting to wake up - as awful as the experience was. 

 His dad’s boyfriend chuckling at him as if he were something small and cute and worth cooing over didn’t help either. It just filled Oriens with the fury of a dying god. He was a creature of the niiiiiight. How dare society expect its prince to wake up in the morning? Ugh. He pressed his face hard into Nyx’s ribs and let out a long noise of unhappiness.

 Nyx threw back his head and laughed.

 And after, Nyx helped him put the lone bead back into his hair, so he’d look presentable at breakfast…and so he’d match his dad.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx let out a low, amused sound when mane insisted on bringing his dad’s Carbuncle plushie to breakfast with them, and then decided he had to quickly groom said plushie before they could go anywhere. It was adorable; seeing the kid take a comb to it. 

 His amusement dimmed.

 And Nyx sighed as he pulled out his phone.

 The screen still read the same exact thing it had when he’d first woken up and checked it.

 (1) missed call from Libertus.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Send word to the Citadel,” Queen Lunafreya of Tenebrae told her attendants that morning, staring at the morning news station on the television that was not Insomnia Nightly any longer - at the footage of citizens flocking in the streets with signs claiming they wanted her to leave their kingdom, “I want an audience with King Regis today…and Crown Prince Noctis too.” 

 “Yes, Your Majesty.” 

 How far Lucis had fallen, from the grace of its gods.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Breakfast as a family was as informal as Noctis preferred it being. As informal as it rarely was in his childhood. There were no chefs that came to show off the food they’d made before they could eat - except for Iggy, soft-spoken and pushing up his glasses - and there was no long table stretching between father and son. There were no guards to line a ringing, cold dining room. There wasn’t Noctis, kicking his feet and pushing the food around his plate without eating much because he and his dad had a…complicated, relationship.

 Breakfast wasn’t that. Not anymore.

 Breakfast was pancakes, because Ori really liked stacks of chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream smiley faces drawn on them.

 That was enough of a reason as any to declare it the favorite breakfast of the House of Caelum, wasn’t it?

 Breakfast was pancakes made by Iggy, and it was in Oriens’ royal rooms, at a round table in a patch of sunlight by the windows. There was a vase of flowers no doubt from Gladio’s wife’s garden in the center of the table. And there were Uncles Clarus and Cor around, but they were eating the same as the rest of them while talking business quietly with Regis and Noctis.

 Gladio and Ignis kept their charge occupied in the meanwhile.

 It was a blend of business and pleasure, and Noctis…he enjoyed it. The sunshine was warm on his skin. The food was warm in his stomach, and tasted as incredible as anything Iggy ever cooked. His pancakes didn’t have chocolate chips because chocolate was almost too rich a taste for him to handle most days, now, but they were just as delicious with butter and syrup and a glass of juice. He got to sit there, and watch his little dawnlight, his Ori, giggle and draw shapes in whip cream on top of his pancakes.

 And he got to sit there, and enjoy a meal.

 And he got to sit there, and talk a little bit of business with his dad. Not too much. Just enough. Enough to make him feel useful. Helpful. Wanted.

 Oh, and? Before breakfast even began, he got a kiss on the cheek from Nyx, who’d been minding Ori for him throughout the night. That man. It made Noctis’ cheeks flush, from more than just the sunshine. Considering the day before - considering the evening before, and how that had gone with his dad? 

 It was really, just…a good morning.

 “Mr. Turnus will have to face the music,” his dad stated, firmly, cutting into his own mound of pancakes with a proper sort of etiquette that still made Noctis smile like he was a teenager, watching his dad eat a hamburger with a knife and fork, “He accepted a bribe to act against the interests of the Crown. Even after enjoying our favor for several years now, he still accepted a bribe. Insomnia Nightly’s fate we will leave up to the recommendation of the Media Department. Perhaps it will become a Crown-owned channel.” 

 Noctis snorted a little into his glass at that idea, “Because that won’t fan the conspiracy theories everyone seems to have, Dad.” 

 Rather than looking troubled by what his son said, Regis looked simply delighted.

 And Noctis felt a little embarrassed, knowing that it was because he was in a good enough mood to joke a little. When that happened, his dad just got so happy. 

 “We’ll figure something out, I’m sure,” his dad waved away the seriousness of Insomnia Nightly’s fate, literally waved his hand as he scrolled through the tablet he had set next to his plate to read more emails, “There are plenty of other news companies that are primed to step into their shoes. Though we will be stricter going forward,” said to Cor, who nodded, tapping away at his phone already as he took another bite, “That being said, Ms. Cantil is going to make a nice addition to the department, so not all is lost.” 

 “Miss Cantil?!” Ori piped up, distracted from his whipped cream artwork by her name, and it made his dad smile at how happy he seemed, “She’s going to be joining the Media Department?”

 “She is,” Regis chuckled, already well-aware that his grandson liked the woman. Had liked her, ever since she did his first ever ‘solo’ interview when he was eight years old, “and she’s your father’s friend, Ori. So you may just be seeing her around more often now.” 

 Ori let out a happy, squeaky noise, dear Ignis having to settle him back into his chair.

 And Noctis let himself smile a little more, hearing that he…maybe had a ‘friend’.

 A quiet, barely noticed ‘ding’ came from one of their phones. A notification. Regis only noticed it when Clarus made a huffy noise. Pulled his phone from his pocket.

 Clarus frowned at the device for a few moments, then tapped out a reply, then set his phone upside-down on the table. Shifting his frown to his king and brother. And adding an apologetic grimace to it too. Which made Regis raise a brow at the man, made him silently ask what sort of business they had to deal with that would make him so frowny. 

 Yes, well, judging by the look on his Shield’s face, he would not like it.
 
 “It’s Queen Lunafreya, Your Majesty. She is requesting an audience with you today. Again.”

 Regis flexed his worn fingers, reached to twist the Ring around his finger - except he no longer wore it. And he sent Clarus a baleful look when the man reached out to swat his hand. Trying to stop an old habit. An old habit that, if done too often in public, might be too noticed by people. Might be misconstrued as Regis missing the power of the Ring too much. He understood that.

 But he’d spent decades twisting the Ring of the Lucii anxiously around his finger, so Clarus would have to forgive him.

 Lunafreya - she really would call for another audience with him? Did she not grow tired? 

 Would she not learn? 

 Regis could just imagine what she wanted to discuss, and he rose from his chair at their breakfast table. Pulled his cane from the Armiger, paced several steps, back and forth thinking about it. What he imagined made his hand clench. Looking for a blade it wouldn’t be right for him to summon. How his thoughts on her had changed. It had only taken a handful of days, and now he reacted to her like he reacted to a stranger he was wary of, a stranger who could bring anything down on his family.

 “...Regis, she wants an audience with Noctis too.” 

 And then his Shield said that, and his blood turned hot. 

 She refused to listen.

 His son watched him pace. Watched the irritation fill him, and Noctis missed the warmth they had all been sharing in just minutes earlier. Missed Ori’s sweet presence - now gone. Gone at the mention of his…mother. It had made Noctis’ heart wrench. The sight of his son sliding out of his chair and hurrying to leave, mumbling an excuse the moment she was brought up.

 Iggy had gone with him, but still. 

 Oriens was such a curious boy, but when it came to that woman he wasn’t curious at all. He just became small and he just ran away and Noctis hated it.

 Lunafreya wanted an audience with him? 

 Could he refuse her? If he saw her again, would he completely shut down for a second time? He was angry with her, he thought he knew her, he had questions for her. Seeing her made it so hard to remain in the present, the here, the now, the time when he was thirty years old and scarred but loved. How much longer would he leave his dad to try and maneuver her out of Lucis without starting a war? 

 How much longer would his son have to fear her taking him? 

 And that was a fear Noctis had never - not ever - expected in a thousand years, but it was a true fear Ori had. That Lunafreya would take him. To Tenebrae. Take him from his own, take him and go and would be allowed to do that because she birthed him. 

 Noctis had tried to let her slip from his mind for the days and days she had been in Lucis so far, but…

 Seeing his sweet, sweet Oriens shrinking down into his chair, at a breakfast in the sunshine? Looking scared?

 The once-Chosen couldn’t just let her remain.

 “Dad…” The soft call for him from his son made Regis hold his tongue, and hold it between his teeth despite how badly he wanted to say what he really thought. What he really thought and more when he turned on his heel to see Noctis sitting there, so hesitantly brave, his sweet son, staring up at him.

 In his heart, he pleaded for Noctis to not ask for this.

 But his son was so strong, so he did so anyways.

 “I think I should meet with her myself.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Of all the ways, and all the days, why did it have to be this? Today? 

 Clarus sent the confirmation, and Regis gripped his cane’s handle too tightly.

 

 

-----

 

 

 His grandson was to stay in his rooms, distracted and guarded for the day. 

 His son went to get dressed for a meeting with Her Majesty, joined by a distracted-looking Glaive along the way.

 Regis went tiredly to take his medicine, and fret. As a father does.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Nyx…is something wrong?” In the middle of straightening his tie a little awkwardly in the mirror, Noctis asked that, blue-blue eyes looking at the reflection of his amatus hovering behind him. He looked troubled. He kept pulling out his phone to stare at it. He shifted, and looked up to meet those blue-blue eyes with one of his usual grins.

 His smile lines were always nice to see, but the royal wasn’t blind.

 “Just some stuff happening in the community,” Nyx told him easily, easing his phone back into his pocket and clapping his hands together - without sound. Well-aware by now that it would startle his star too much, “Now. Look at you, inlustris. So handsome.” 

 It wasn’t a lie, but it was a diversion. Noctis could tell. 

 He let his Nyx have his diversion, smoothing out his shirt. He wasn’t dressed up too fancy, but a proper, embroidered button-down and slacks and a tie was a bit fancier than his typical outfits. He had to…at least try. To seem together. To seem healthy and sane and capable of fighting back, if need be. This wasn’t - wouldn’t be, an interview. Like the day before. There wouldn’t be any cameras.

 But there would be Lunafreya.

 “Hey,” Nyx said, gentler now, coming up close behind his starlight in the mirror’s reflection, and waiting until he had properly noticed his closeness to hunch a little. Resting his chin on Noctis’ shoulder, his grin smaller but more sweet as he met those so blue eyes staring at him in the mirror, “<You got this. And you won’t be alone, starlight.”

 His braids tickled Noctis’ neck.

 He nodded.

 And he turned his head just a bit to duck a quick kiss onto Nyx’s cheek.

 

 

-----

 

 

 With his arms folded on the windowsill, Oriens Lucis Caelum watched from his bedroom as a convoy of white, Tenebraean cars entered the Citadel’s gates.

 The princling bit his lip, hoping his family wouldn’t let her take him.

 Carbuncle’s soft growling in his head told him that the dream guardian wouldn’t let him be taken either.

 And a woman - a queen - in white set her shoe on the steps of the Citadel.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It felt as though the closer they came to where Tenebrae’s Queen awaited them - a rotund and decorated drawing room - the more heavily Regis leaned on his cane. The more noisy it hitting the tiles of the halls seemed. The more he wanted to turn his son around and nudge him in the opposite direction. And on and on and on in that direction, and maybe send him straight back to Little Galahd even. Until this was sorted. 

 He was sure Glaive Ulric would offer up his apartment without hesitation, sure that his grandson would at least appreciate being outside of the Citadel at this time.

 But his son - 

 So earnest. So brave. Somehow so strong, still, even in the face of all the horrors he’d endured to claw his way back to home and mind and health.

 Noctis wanted to do this, and Regis was oh-so helpless in the face of things his boys wanted to do. He feared the reasons why Noctis wanted to do this. He feared that his son felt useless if he did not offer some benefit - did not offer to shoulder some of the burdens Regis carried. Was the Ring already not enough? 

 He feared it wasn’t. Not for his nightlight.

 He feared that his sweet son, his fragile son, would give more pieces of himself away than he could bear.

 The fact that it was his son leading their entourage to the drawing room was bold, was awe-inspiring, flanked by Retinue and Glaives, he looked a king in his own right. Would’ve been a king in his own right by now, if not for Mistveil. Oh, how Regis wanted to place his hands on his son’s shoulders and gently shake him and beg he leave Lunafreya to them.

 How he could do nothing, nothing at all, as they left an elevator and the doors of the drawing room came into sight. 

 Nothing, except ask one more time.

 “Sweetheart,” one more time, “must you do this?” 

 “...Dad,” one more time, “please, let me.” 

 So Regis bowed his head, and let him. Because it was what his boy wanted. He fell a little more in step behind his walking son - no wheelchair in sight, not for Lunafreya - nodding to the ‘Guards at the doors to the drawing room so they would not be put off by his brave, brave Noctis leading them. And he wore the crown, but he fell behind the group that entered the drawing room.

 It wasn’t the fanciest place for this meeting to take place, but they were tired of discourse echoing around the throne room, and they also didn’t think Queen Lunafreya should be awarded their best honors after everything.

 Noctis took a step forward. And then another. And then another.

 There she was. 

Queen of Tenebrae.

 Lunafreya.

 Luna - 

 He sort of hated how together she seemed. How together and pleased, she seemed. Pleased that he had agreed to meet personally with her. She wore white as always, embroidered with gold and sleeves flowing, long. Long like the train of her gown. Her crown was gold, and her hair had been done nice. Blonde curls, proper and bouncy curls, framed her face. 

 Her Majesty stood with her hands clasped demurely in front of her skirt, smiling softly - uncomfortably so - at Noctis as he walked towards her. Towards the arrangement of chairs centered in the room. Another stage. Another act to play out. 

 She was beautiful.

 He was uncomfortable.

 “Noctis,” Lunafreya said all soft and fond-like when he stopped and shuffled before her, peering at her almost out of the corner of his eye. It was, hard, to look at her head-on. Like looking at the sun on a cloudless day, “Thank you for meeting with me. I know it must be hard for you, but please. Just try. Just for a while. Sit with me.” 

 It was almost an echo of the sorts of things she’d say to him when he was healing in Tenebrae, after the Marilith. Urging him to wake from his coma, then from his long naps, then to try walking when everything hurt so badly. Try. Just for a while. For her, for his kingdom, for the Astrals. 

 Those memories made his skin prickle, and when she sat and patted the cushion beside her on the couch invitingly? 

 Noctis moved to sit. 

 In the armchair across from her. It made her lips thin, her smile dim. It made his dad rub his eyes too - the prince saw that behind her. His dad and everyone else was taking up respectfully not distant but also distant places around the room. Giving them ‘privacy’. They were really going to let him handle this. He almost wished they weren’t. 

 “How are you?” 

 “Not well,” her clasped hands twitched with his answer. His honesty. 

 “Perhaps I could offer my healing - ?” Lunafreya raised those hands in offering, an offer to heal, and Noctis couldn’t quite hide his cringing backwards into the armchair to murmur -

 “No thank you.” 

 She couldn’t quite hide the next bit of twitching in her hands as she returned them to her lap, looking less together now. Finally. Like this wasn’t going quite the way she’d imagined it would. Her, the Oracle, him, the Astrals’ Chosen. He could hardly imagine how she had imagined this going. Was she expecting him to offer prayers with her? To beg for divine healing? 

 There was silence for a prolonged moment, then Noctis worked his jaw and worked up the courage to get this meeting going and rolling and hopefully to an end sooner than later.

 “What is it you want out of this audience, Your Majesty?” 

 Some of her togetherness came back, when she was given a direction to go in, and Noctis fidgeted with the fabric of his pants.

 “There are many matters that have fell by the wayside in recent years, between Lucis and Tenebrae,” she told him, in a tone like she almost thought he was silly that he had to ask and she thought that was…something to be fond about, “Matters of national interest. We have let them stay by the wayside, out of respect for everything that intertwines our two kingdoms, but it would be beneficial for Tenebrae to take a step forward. And we’d like to do it with Lucis at our side. It can only be a boon, for both of us, and a turning point in our histories since the end of our war with the Empire. There are many subjects that need discussing, and have been delayed for years now. All must be addressed for Tenebrae’s continued healing and Lucis’ continued growth. I hope you can see how important this is, Noctis.” 

 That…was a lot of words. There was a slight buzzing in Noctis’ ears. Half of what she said went straight over his head. He wasn’t used to people talking, and talking, and talking to him. Unless it was Nyx telling him stories in the night, or Ori babbling about a topic that made him happy - most people kept their sentences short. Easy to comprehend.

 He hadn’t realized that until now.

 “I’m sure we can come up with something,” he offered, a little distantly since his mind had wandered, and Lunafreya made a noise of satisfaction that still sounded so darn proper from her.
 
 She said -

 “You are far more pleasant to speak with than your father, so thank you again for this, Noctis.” 

 A sharp feeling pierced the prince’s collarbone, causing his throat to close up at her words. It wasn’t shyness like when he was a child. It wasn’t frustration like when he was a teenager. It wasn’t even annoyance - it was pointier than that. And hotter. It wouldn’t be ignored. It was anger.

 “How rude.”

 He said that; the round drawing room went silent. Like lots of people had held their breaths all at once. He saw her attendants nearby put their hands to their mouths, shocked. And he saw Glaives around the room nod in agreement in his periphery, and he saw his dad tense worriedly behind Her Majesty, and he saw Her Majesty’s pampered fingernails dig into the cushion of the couch.

 But he stood by what he said. She had been rude, and towards his father too.

 So he tilted his head cautiously and waited to hear what she would say.

 “You’ll have to forgive my rudeness, dear Noctis, my manners may still be adjusting after spending so many years kept under the Empire’s thumb.” 

 A longer silencer, and this time the way everyone sucked in a breath to hold somehow seemed loud.

 And it made the sharp feeling piercing this star sharper.

 That was a line that would’ve elicited sympathy from anyone else, Noctis rightly assumed. But he was not anyone else. And he had not known peace these last years, the way much of Eos had. So all it did was strike the wrong cord within him, leaving him frowning, and something in his eyes and his heart hardening against her.

 His voice colder than even he was expecting when he spoke.

 “Right. That situation that ended nine years ago,” there was stiffening - from the Glaives, from his father out of his line of sight, from her, but Noctis felt frozen stiff and angry finally able to face the mother of his son so he did. Not. Care. “I must say the same though - my manners are beyond rusty after spending ten years in a windowless tower being beaten, tortured, and repeatedly abused by my own guards for crimes I never committed.” 

 Her painted lips thinned.

 Was it disapproval? 

 He was simply mirroring what she had said. This was…strange. Noctis felt so on edge. So on the edge of being angry like he hadn’t been angry in so long. Over the injustice of it all. He’d already been aware that the Queen of Tenebrae was no longer his friend in any sense of the word, but even he was surprised by how much his magic and sense of self disliked the woman now.

 This all felt like a battlefield before the battle.

 And he had things to say.

 “And then returning,” he continued quietly, rasping, angry, surely angry, “to find somebody I hadn’t even seen since I was a child had borne a baby of mine without my consent, only to use him as a bargaining chip. Abandoning him and acting as if he did not exist for a decade. Not even taking the time to see him when she finally had the chance.”

 A shoulder of hers flinched, beneath her fine white fabrics, and Noctis knew his magic was stinging her but he didn’t care. He felt angry.

 “The gods see all, and if they had disapproved they would have sent a message to Eos to show that.”

 “Oh? And what do your gods have to say about my false imprisonment?” Noctis snapped, nails digging into the cushioned armrests of the chair as she leaned forward to snap back at him.

 “They are your gods as well, Noctis! They chose - “

 “I believe in no gods,” he shouted, truly shouted, like he hadn’t since - since ever. He had never even raised his voice in such a way before Mistveil, when he was young and hormonal and a teenager angry about so many of life’s unfairnesses. But here, he shouted, and he meant every word he said, “I pray to nothing! And I will not force others to pray, when a single message from any of the Astrals would’ve proven me innocent! Would’ve saved me ten years of abuse - !”

 “You have been corrupted,” she hissed, wide-eyed and leaning back, back away from him now and maybe she was right to. Maybe he felt a bit dangerous right about then, as he leaned after her.

 He had so many things to say, and she was the perfect outlet.

 “No. I have simply stopped believing in worthless gods who do nothing,” he bit out, then stood. Fast. Magic just as fast in bracing him up so he did not stumble. He had things to say - 

 But any longer, and he may do something far more damaging to Tenebrae’s Queen than stinging her with his surplus of magic.

 “Others have been hurt,” Lunafreya snapped at him, literally and figuratively, snapped with her fingers even as she rose to meet him. Standing against him, standing against his family, and Noctis noticed forms around the room moving but was too bothered by how self-righteous the queen before him was acting to pay any close attention to what they were doing, “Others have suffered. Others have been through the exact same things you have, and worse, so why must you act like this is the end of the world - “

 “Queen Lunafreya - !” His dad’s voice was a vice wrapped around the queen, loud, louder than even Noctis’ shout had been, but she still. Spoke.

 She still damned herself with her need to have the final word.

 “Do not act as though you suffered so greatly - if you really hadn’t wanted it, you could’ve stopped it with your magic!” 

 The room seemed to freeze.

 There were bits of frost in Lunafreya’s irises. There was a chill about her. There was her pretty, perfect white gown swishing as she leaned back from Noctis, from the Chosen King, from her dearest Astrals’ Chosen, finally a flicker of proper, proper fear filling her eyes. Noctis wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t sure what he looked like. What his eyes, his stance seemed to tell her as he stared at her.

 But clearly it told her he was dangerous. People were rushing around now, clearly feeling the same thing she did. 

 There were weapons drawn, by someone, and answered by someone else. And the Tenebraean side of the room stood against the Lucian side, magic as old and older than the Astrals strung through the air. Cologne that smelled like safety and childhood hit Noctis’ nose, a hand softly landed on his shoulder; his dad was there. Others were there. But he was too busy to put his mind to any of that.

 Too busy thinking about slamming Lunafreya’s face down onto the couch’s wooden frame and breaking her nose.

 Maybe bloodying all of her damned whites would finally bring her back down to a sensible place. A place where mere mortals were on the same level as her.

 “Queen Lunafreya, you will leave,” Regis Lucis Caelum, King of Lucis told her in the most icy tone a man who had never cared for Shiva could hold, and it was anger. An icy anger.

 A promise of war if she kept this up.

 Noctis did more than make promises, though. Fed up. With her, with Tenebrae, with their precious Astrals, with the rest of Eos. 

 He took a step forward, and couldn’t have possibly cared less that he stepped directly onto her pretty, perfect white dress. Or that it kept her from leaning away from him and the lashes his magic was laying on her; all her tiny flinches giving it away as he shook his dad’s hand off of him.

 “What makes you think…I could’ve stopped any of it?” He rasped, voice lowering, memories of being hurt hurting him now, a shudder running through him, “They emptied my Armiger of everything. They were all Crownsguard, so they knew how to deal with King’s Magic. They left me exhausted, dirty, and starved. Weeks-starved. Months-starved. After a time I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t even push their hands away. I could only beg, and people are far too cruel to stop for something as meaningless as that.” 

 Something crossed her eyes. Something melted some of Lunafreya’s ice.

 Something like familiarity.

 But he couldn’t care fucking less if she knew exactly what those things felt like, because she could’ve chosen empathy over almightiness. Her Majesty hadn’t. So Her Majesty wouldn’t get any empathy back.

 “Get out of our home, Lunafreya,” he commanded in a soft voice, slowly shifting his foot off of her dress and pretending he did not see her shaking, “Get out. And don’t come back until you are invited. And even then, think about whether or not you want to risk ever coming near me again, because you will not be forgiven.”

It took a few breaths, but then her lips parted as if she meant to speak.

“I don’t care what your gods say or do,” so he interrupted her just as softly, “I just know they won’t save you if you do not get out.” 

She shut her mouth.

Her pretty, painted mouth. She really was beautiful. And once, she really was kind. But Noctis Lucis Caelum couldn’t possibly care less about either of those truths, because to him? Lunafreya Nox Fleuret would now always be ugly, underneath the shroud of her gods she clung to like she would wither away without its covering. He was done. He was done. This? This was done.

Noctis turned properly away, before she did, to leave the room on uneven feet. His magic upset. His magic still looking for a target to lash at. He was followed by Glaives, he was followed by Gladio, he was followed at a distance, and he went without really looking where he was going. Expecting his father to lead her out of the Citadel, out of their home.

 And he knew it wasn’t so easy an ask, but he hoped she would be led straight down the street. Straight back to Caelum Via to pack, to get right back in her convoy with her attendants, and be driven right back to Tenebrae without pausing anywhere in-between. The blood of the Astrals’ Oracle was no longer favoured in Lucis. Was no longer welcomed on their soil, their stones.

 The glow of the Havens died, at that moment, though they would not know it until later.

 So it was.

 The Oracle Queen was cast out.

 And the Chosen - the no longer Chosen - walked. And walked. And walked. There was no feeling below his waist anymore, so he couldn’t tell if he walked until his feet were sore. But he walked hall to hall to hall in the Citadel, followed at a distance by Glaives, by his once-Shield. By Nyx. He never turned to glance at any of them, to be conscious of any of them, but he kept walking. Opening and closing his fists again and again and again, and timing his breathing to the action. Like he was taught as a child. 

 Discomfort prickled along the back of his neck, sent shudders and goosebumps over his shoulders. She - she had overstepped. He thought of bad things. He thought of Mistveil, and it was all that he could do to not get dragged back under to the memories. Of being hurt. Of trying to stop things - he never succeeded. It wasn’t some easy thing.

 He was betrayed. By his magic. By his gods. By his kingdom. By his guards. He was betrayed and weak and hurt, and then they just kept hurting him so the lesson to not fight back stuck.

 He turned hollow, and only when they couldn’t enjoy his suffering anymore did they stop.

 Some vague, distant, childlike shred of who Noctis was before Mistveil Keep broke him was whispering something. About how she must’ve suffered too, under Niflheim’s cruelties. How she must’ve been broken too. How he could’ve met her authority with empathy of his own…but then he thought of her words.

 And there was no empathy for him to give her.

 He needed to go find Ori, to check on his son, to calm down.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ori wasn’t in his rooms.

 Noctis panicked.

 

 

-----

 

 

 None of them knew it then, but a curious princling had snuck out of his rooms. Worried about his dad. He ran through the walls, their age-old passages, following the sounds of commotion. Hoping to find his dad wherever the commotion was. Hoping to be able to help, somehow.

 None of them knew it.

 And then, Crown Prince Oriens of Lucis ducked out from behind a hanging tapestry in the grand hall that was the Citadel’s entrance. 

 He had followed the commotion.

 And it led to him scampering straight into a woman wearing white. Being escorted by his grandfather, by his Uncle Iggy, by ‘Guards. A woman wearing white, who turned to look down at Oriens in first blatant surprise, then realization, then a chilly sort of absentness. It was scary. It was scary. It was scary. 

 It was his mother, the Queen of Tenebrae.

…

 He looked like Noctis.

 She wasn’t expecting that, in some ways. 

 And her attendants tried, failed, to urge her to keep going. Keep leaving. Stepping forward to place a bit of themselves in front of the child that had just come scurrying up to them like a mouse out of its hole in the wall. So. This was the thing Noctis would not forgive her for. This child. She wasn’t sure why, if it upset him to have the child around they could simply make him the heir of Tenebrae and rule together in Lucis instead.

 The gods had promised her -

 The child hadn’t been part of their promises. She had to make amends for that.

 “Y-Your Majesty,” the child said hastily, ducking his head and dipping into a bow that wasn’t entirely graceless. But the stuttering made her fingertips twinge. 

 “Prince,” she greeted him coldly.

 It was inevitable.

 She would always, always regret -

 “Have you been keeping to your prayers?” She asked, perhaps stiffly but what was she to do with…him? A slanted look sent her attendants’ ways kept them all from cooing as they seemed about to do. How inelegant of them. 

 How inelegant of the boy, to keep his head ducked and shuffle his feet in such a way.

 “I, um…am not really required to pray here, Your Majesty.” 

 “‘Required’?” Lunafreya repeated, a tut in her voice, her harsh voice, that seemed to make the boy shuffle moreso, “Is that what praying is to you? Some minor chore for you to complete or not complete, depending on your mood? Is faith so disposable to you?” 

 “I - “
 
 Footsteps, and she noted disinterestedly that His Majesty was hurrying in her direction with a collection of people around him, but at this point she was just as disappointed in him as she could be so she paid him no mind. No mind at all. Lucis’ Crown Prince had her mind, and her ire.

 He couldn’t even stand up properly and straight. What had they been teaching him? Her and Noctis had been taught far more strictly than this.

 He had the same eyes as his father. And they were so wide, when she tapped her heel loudly on the marble flooring and he hurriedly looked up at her. 

 “And what have you done to help Noctis?” She asked suddenly, in the face of this wide-eyed, horrible innocence that grated on her, “Are you the reason he hasn’t reclaimed his title? Are you so selfish that you wouldn’t allow him to be the next King of Lucis, because you want it for yourself? Is that it? Is that how you have been raised? If you are so selfish, and you cannot even worship the Astrals properly, then you are useless as an heir of Tenebrae.” 

 The boy’s face crumpled, and there was a horribly affronted noise that came from King Regis, but before His Majesty might do more than step forward? 

 There were louder, much more pointed footsteps approaching the queen from behind.

 Lunafreya turned, and was helpless to her smiling when she saw him, “Oh, Noctis,” brushing off her dress a little, “I am so very glad you - “ 

 Her knees hurt, when they struck the marble of the floor.

 And her cheek stung.

 And her thoughts eventually caught up to the frankly unflinching fury rolling off of the Chosen King standing over her, Noctis Lucis Caelum.

 Who had just slapped her so fucking hard she had hit the floor.

 “Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, you will not speak to my son like that! You will not speak to him at all! You will not even look at him! What the fuck is wrong with you - to call such a bright, curious boy useless after coming into our home uninvited and making a pious bitch of yourself?! Get out!” 

 Had he really just - ? His words bounced from wall to wall in the grand hall. His curses bounced doubly as long, echoing after the others had faded. And it was hard to think, as Lunafreya lifted her palm to gingerly cup her stinging cheek. Her cheek that had just been slapped full-force by the Chosen. Nobody had ever dared - and him, of all people?

 What.

 What.

 “I - “ 

 “GET. OUT.” 

 Crystals, fractals, were shattering in and out of sight around the royal. Their shards were sharp. She flinched, feeling the cut of an anger he’d held back so far. He’d been so patient with her, she realized only now. He’d been so kind. And for that, his anger was even worse. Was horrid. Was enough to nearly make even the most devout doubt. 

 Surely anything that angered a man with such power…must be wrong? 

 Noctis’ old chamberlain rushed forward, some distant part of her noticed. Noticed him picking up the boy with Noctis’ eyes, taking him with him in a rush to leave this entrance hall of the Citadel. This place suddenly full of hostile magic - and for what? For her? Why? What had she done that was so wrong? 

 Ifrit’s fire blazed in those eyes staring down at her.

 “In all my life, never would I have picked you to be his mother!” The raven-haired man shouted - shouted words that had been stuck in his throat for months on months, ever since Ori had offered to show him how he could heal, and he was going to say them whether anyone liked it or not, “He is too good for you! He is too good for me too! But I still at least try to be a father to him, while we both know what you would try to be! Now, leave, my, home, Lunafreya.” 

 Tenebrae’s Queen, Eos’ Oracle, lowered her hand from her cheek, an ugly, ugly, ugly feeling crawling up her throat as he - her Noctis actually turned and went as though to follow that chamberlain and that boy.

 She remembered being too young, and too trapped to say no when she was told she was to carry a child, and she remembered her belly being so big and round and having nobody there and -

 She was owed something! Something to show for that, at least!

 “I won’t leave!” She screamed, scrambling to her feet, getting her heels underneath her as she gripped at the fabric of her dress in frustration and finally let herself be human for this, “I won’t! Not until you agree to marry me - !” 

 “I WILL NEVER MARRY YOU.” 

 The hall fell silent with that sweeping shout, Noctis whirling around on her, and that. That. That. That wasn’t the truth, that couldn’t be. Blue-blue eyes were more focused on the crown prince being picked up and carried away, staring back at the two royals stuck in a screaming match with wide eyes so young - too young, too innocent for what he was. It was - they were, Lunafreya felt herself fraying around the edges. Everything she’d kept together for so many years unraveling with a shout ringing in her ears.

 Her face felt too hot.

 The skin of her cheek still stung.

 “You cannot refuse me - Lord Bahamut promised us to each other, from birth! We were made for one another!” 

 “I could not give less of a FUCK what Bahamut promised you!” 

 “You were Chosen, Noctis - !” 

 “I never asked to be - !” 

 “YOU GO AGAINST THE GODS!”

 “I DON’T BELIEVE IN YOUR GODS!”

 “If you won’t marry me, then for what reason did I wait a decade for you to be proven INNOCENT?!” 

…

 “...What.” Blank shock, on Noctis’ face, in his raspy voice. He stared at her. At Queen Lunafreya. Who…had just said that. Something cracked inside his chest. Like her words were a hammer taken to him, and his whole body tingled. Numb and not and numb and not and he stared -

 “Queen Lunafreya,” and his dad’s voice, the King of Lucis’ voice, sounded so, so dangerously quiet as he took a partial step forward. Magic humming around them all, “you knew…my son to be innocent?”

 Lunafreya’s cheek was steadily turning redder and redder in the shape of a palmprint. And her hand had gone from cradling it - 

 To being slapped over her own mouth. 

As if she had said something she hadn’t meant to say at all.

 “Queen Lunafreya!” Lucis’ King snapped, taking a step towards her fast and hefting his cane in one hand, and she was so offended by the way she flinched from him herself that she lowered her hand from her mouth. Spoke. Tired of keeping it all locked up inside of her on a constant cycle of prayer and patience.

 “Lord Bahamut told me when I asked him for the truth,” and here was another truth, said before so many horrified gazes, “but…he proclaimed that your imprisonment was precisely what you needed, that it would teach you humility, Noctis - “ 
 
 Noctis Lucis Caelum, his father’s nightlight, was hopelessly deaf to the rest of her truth.

 Deaf to the sounds of alarm made around him as the tiles beneath his shoes cracked, and marble turned to crystal from all the pressure of his magic. 

 She knew? 

 She knew?

 She knew, that he was innocent? The whole time? The Astrals told her? Bahamut told her? And she…let him be imprisoned? She let him be locked away in Mistveil Keep? She knew? She knew? She knew, and she had Oriens anyways? Stood back while his father struggled, stood back while Lucis dragged his name through the mud and trampled on it, while he was erased - she had Oriens knowing he was innocent? 

 She left him in Mistveil knowing, with surety, that he was innocent? For ten years? 

 Because it would teach him humility? Because it would make him more malleable, to be shaped into the instrument her Astrals wanted to play with? 

 She knew? 

 She knew? 

 There was a thread, deep within Noctis’ cracked and bleeding heart. A heart of stone weeping. It was a thread worn thin by years and years and years more of abuse. Heartbreak. Hurting. It was home to that hurt. And it was home to his unwavering anger. So much anger, it stole his breath. There was shouting. Words, he wasn’t able to understand any of it. His dad’s voice was raised up high, bounding through the hall. His uncles’ voices, his Shield’s, his amatus’ - shouting and shouting and shouting.

 And Lunafreya’s attendants stood between her and them, palms facing up, pleading.

 Pleading for their queen’s life, perhaps? 

 How worthless a plea.

 The thread.

 It. Snapped.

 More shouting.

 His fingers twisted into golden hair, and Luna shrieked when he yanked. Taking her straight off her feet. Sending her to her knees onto marble floors. It probably hurt a lot. He didn’t care one bit. Shouting. People wouldn’t stop shouting. She screamed. She thrashed. Her crown fell off the crown of her head, gold catching in the light as it rolled away from her and was left behind. Her legs kicked, her attendants tried to come attend to her, and his magic slapped them so hard they went to the floor as well.

 All her struggling was making it hard to drag her along behind him, so he adjusted his grip. Grabbed more. It was long. She’d grown it out to a majestic length since they were kids. He wondered if Bahamut asked her to do that too. He wondered what lengths, big or small, she would go to please her precious ‘Lord Bahamut’.

 People followed. Shouting. There was a buzz in his head.

 Her nails dug into his wrist, her shrieking rising in pitch and pained when he hit the stairs of the hall and simply dragged her down behind him. 

 His wrist bled.

 The buzzing got louder.

 She knew.

 Was she crying now? He had cried. It hadn’t spared him. Nobody granted mercy for tears. That was no fair trade. Servants, ‘Guards, Glaives - all blacks and grays and blues and watching him drag the Queen of Tenebrae out of his home by her hair as she screamed and kicked and begged.

 Eyes wide.

 Too shocked to open the doors of the Citadel for him.

 His magic opened them. Without restraint. They slammed into the old stone of the walls, like a crack of thunder. 

 Her Chosen dragged Lunafreya Nox Fleuret straight out of the Citadel.

 To the top of the steps where his innocence was told to Eos.

 Could’ve been told ten years earlier, if not for her.

 She could choke on this truth of hers now.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum flung her down the steps of the Citadel. Watched her fall. Listened to the crack of her bones breaking, and her pained screams that pierced the air. He still had some of her golden hair tangled around his fingers, so he shook out his hand emotionlessly. Waited until she landed, with her attendants stumbling down after her, all adorned in their dear whites and golds.

 His fury felt hot.

 “YOU ARE NO LONGER WELCOME IN THE HOUSE OF CAELUM.” 

 His words were a brand upon her bloodline. An oath, a punishment, and his magic ensured it. King’s Magic. It was a curse, whether he meant for it to be or not. But he watched as the magic pierced her like a thousand thorns. The screams started, and they went on, and on, and on. As the Wall surrounding the Citadel pulsed. She was within a home she was not welcomed in.

 She would suffer until she had left.

 “Take her out of the Wall!” His dad shouted, trying to spare her? Well, Noctis couldn’t care anymore. He was worn out.

 He turned his back to her screams of pain. To the queen being dragged away.

 She knew.

 Now, she would never forget that she had known.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum went back to the halls of his home, silent as a ghost.

 Feeling nothing.

 Just walking.

 Just…walking.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Heather Alleya here, of Insomniac’s News, and as you viewers can see we are still in front of the Citadel where yet another meeting between King Regis and Queen Lunafreya is said to be taking place. Now, we still haven’t been told the specifics of why Her Majesty decided to visit our Crown City, but I think we can all agree the rumors cover a broad array of reasons. Which one might be the truth? Well, maybe today is the day that - “

 “Heather - “

 “Um, Joey, what - ?”

 “Heather!” 

 The screaming started.

 The camera shifted from the newscasters, to between the bars of the Citadel’s gate. To the Citadel’s steps. Where - 

 “Oh, fuck. Cut the cameras - cut the - !”

 “YOU ARE NO LONGER WELCOME IN THE HOUSE OF CAELUM.” 

 The live newscast cut out abruptly.

 And all across Insomnia, the people of the Crown City felt the Wall’s pulsing as a curse was cast on the Oracle’s bloodline.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Noctis? Noctis, sweetheart, Noctis? Darling, I need you to stop, just for a moment - I need to know if you’re okay?” The King of Lucis kept up his rambling, stumbling along behind his son who seemed unable to hear him, who seemed unable to hear anything at all - like this world wasn’t even real to him anymore. And maybe that wasn’t the worst thing. But the emptiness in his eyes. The way his magic had folded onto itself, wrapped around his precious boy to shelter him, the way he was wandering through the halls of the Citadel?

 It made Regis so, so scared.

 It made the Father scared his son would choose to fall again.

 His cane was no help, was only a hindrance, so Regis had sent it to the Armiger and despite how his knee throbbed in complaint, he kept stumbling in a hurry after his son. Not too close. Not sure how Noctis would handle that, but what else was he to do?

 “Noctis, Noctis, baby, slow down, please, I need you to - “

 What else was he to do?

 

 

-----

 

  
 It was a winding path, but Noctis Lucis Caelum was slowly herded back to his rooms without saying a word or reacting to the world at all.

 Regis felt like a failed father when he couldn’t stay.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Glaives!” Drautos shouted, sweeping through the Kingsglaive Complex as a man on a mission and a mission he damn-well intended to complete as his Glaives flocked to follow him. Doing up their uniforms and tugging their weapons from their limited Armigers. Ready for the unexpected. Ready for if this turned into a day of battle, as they took the recruits under their arms and helped them along.

 Heading out into the city, to be ready to defend.

 Whether it was meant as an act of war or not, their prince had attacked Tenebrae’s Queen. Deserved or not. Deserved, so definitely deserved many felt, and Drautos knew his Glaives felt the same when he saw the anger scrawled across their faces as they prepped. They would prepare, for in case Tenebrae chose to react. 

 If this turned into a war, they would fight for the House of Caelum.

 Drautos paused, in shouting his orders. In sending his kids out to wait, to see if they would die today.

 He paused, so he could turn and place a hand on Nyx’s shoulder. Nyx, who had answered his call for Glaives to come back to the Kingsglaive Complex. Who had an air - a storm - of murder raging around him. But not the air of a man who was where he wanted to be. So Drautos took that burden of duty off of his shoulders.

 “Go to him. We have this.” 

 Nyx didn’t even try to say he wanted to stay. He just turned and flung his kukris over the heads of his comrades and warped. Was gone a second later. And Drautos went back to preparing his Glaives. Preparing himself too, a warning from a dream in his ears. 

 A warning he would have to risk regardless, because he wasn’t letting his kids face this alone.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The work began flooding in in less than fifteen minutes.

 Regis wasn’t able to stay with his hurting, haunting son.

 Clarus had to stay with his harried king.

 Cor had to gather the Crownsguard.

 Drautos had his Kingsglaive preparing.

 Gladio stayed, where his Uncle Regis wasn’t able to.

 And Ignis immediately shouldered his role as the Royal Advisor as every department flocked to him first before they would inevitably begin flowing towards His Majesty.

 The once-Hand had to make a momentary stop back in the Royal Wings twenty minutes after everything, buried under reports of a princling who wasn’t listening to the ‘Guards trying to keep him secured in his bedroom. And Ignis knew it wasn’t his charge’s fault. Knew this was all very confusing, and likely very frightening to him. Knew this was a lot, but that was just it. It was a lot, and he was twisted up into knots enough already, and he wasn’t sure where his glasses had gotten to, was still chilled by how cold his anger had grown in the hall where that had just happened -

 He was harsh.

 He was cracking, like a plate dropped from a height.

 Oriens was staring up at him beggingly, and his voice raised, shrill in the face of those blue eyes full of tears.

 “Your Highness, you will sit here and you will stay, because we don’t have time to deal with worrying about where you have run off to this time!”

 And he was locking the door, before rushing off again. A barrage of Crown Departments finding him the second he stepped off one elevator, another the second he stepped into a different one, and he was buried beneath the organized panic of a people trying to avoid going to war for the second time in a decade. As the Royal Advisor, it was his role.

 As a chamberlain, he just wanted to be with his Noct.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The question of if there would be a war hung over Insomnia that sunny day.

 The question of who would win wasn’t really a question at all.

 All across the Crown City, on every television screen, every screen - handheld ones and not, people watched a curse be laid on the Oracle’s bloodline. And it spiraled out from the Crown City to the rest of Lucis, to Greater Lucis, to the whole of Eos. Their star held its breath as they wondered if there would be a war. 

 The Citadel swirled with magic.

 On a ferry, Rexus was watching too, with Glaives crowded around his shoulders to stare down at the tablet he held in disbelief. 

 “Damn.” Rexus blinked, and turned his eyes with the Glaives towards the shores of Cape Caem that were steadily getting closer and closer on the horizon. They were almost there, and this was all happening now? “Maybe we should give them a few days to get through this before showing up on their doorstep.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Marshal Leonis had the ‘Guards, Captain Drautos the Glaives, the Crown-sanctioned departments of the Citadel had their people - 

 And Regis slammed down his personal study’s phone, working his jaw tight. There were so many other places he’d rather be - so many other places he knew Clarus would rather be as well, instead of there with him. Listening to a PR disaster hit, listening to the news of riots loud and static-y on the television, listening and managing and rather being with their children. 

 There was a sofa in that study that Regis had woken up on that morning. His back was still sore from it. His knees still creaky.

 But he remembered his son smiling lovingly up at him, and wondered how they had gotten here from there, as he talked another department through the measures he wanted to take before hanging up. Perhaps a bit too roughly. The plastic of the phone cracked from the strain. A lot like him. 

 He rose from his desk, and started pacing in the very rare moment where the phone wasn’t ringing ever-constant.

 “Your Majesty,” Clarus was quick to say, to try and calm the situation as if this could be calmed, raising his hands to his pacing king, “she was out of line, certainly, and she has to go, certainly, but we still must consider - “ 

 “I do not care, Clarus!” The Wall, it shuddered with Regis’ shout. So loud in the contained space of his study. His knee hurt, it hurt, like his heart hurt, like his whole chest now hurt from how breathless he was, how furious he was, and was so blinded in his fury he didn’t even see his Shield wincing at the sting of his magic as he whirled back around to continue his pacing, “I want her gone. Noctis has been deteriorating since she showed up, and now she dares do this? All of this - ? On top of that? She is a burden, she is a problem, and I want her gone.” 

 At this point, he probably would’ve inclined his head to her death if it rid his family of her - mad with her faith and her piety to her gods.

 Regis wanted Lunafreya Nox Fleuret out of his home, out of his city, and out of his kingdom.

 And little would make him want otherwise. So little, it was all but pointless to consider.

 He knew that was his fury speaking, but he also meant it. Truly. Lunafreya was no longer the sweet, sensitive girl her mother had borne and raised. She was an enemy. She was against the House of Caelum. And he was ready to let the girl he remembered die in his memories if it spared his sons her presence any longer.

 “Regis,” Clarus said, softer now, and the Father faltered in his pacing.

 Staring down at the floor as if he were staring straight through it and the rest of everything else straight to the core of their star, of Eos.

 “She knew,” he choked out, then, the truth laid bare in his study as he closed his eyes to this last betrayal he would bear from his gods, “She knew my baby was innocent, and she said nothing.”

 His Shield, his big brother, did not try to placate him again.

 Looked just as furious as any father would and should be when Regis met his eyes.

 “This is unforgivable.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 An angry citizen of Insomnia set fire to the Grand Chantry of the Crown City.

 A ‘Guard who had been there leaked the news to Insomnia, and thusly to the whole of Eos.

 Queen Lunafreya knew all along.

 And the people turned to cursing her gods, in defense of their falsely imprisoned prince.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He wasn’t aware all at once. He hurt - he was aware of that first. His body hurt. The pain made him feel like a real person, not a hollow puppet. He was there, he was alive, he couldn’t hurt if he was dead, and his wrist was stinging with pain.

 So he glanced down at it to find out why, just to find a familiar Glaive kneeling at his feet.

 Wrapping a white bandage gently around his wrist in slow, circular movements to hide the scratches that he had bled from. Hiding them. Testing the tightness with his fingers, then unwrapping and rewrapping it to be looser. It was methodical. It was something Noctis could pay attention to as he came back to himself, his fingers cramping from gripping something tight. Gripping her hair tight.

 He faded out, he faded in.

 He was real. He was hurting.

 She was gone.

 And she wouldn’t be coming back.

 In the bedroom that once belonged to Lucis’ beloved Crown Prince -

 “I wasn’t expecting to be raped,” Noctis said.

 And Nyx was kneeling at his feet, as his star sat on his bed, carefully nonthreatening.

 And willing to listen.

 Noctis had held back from saying anything about…this topic, for months and months now. A year. It was a silent tragedy between him and Nyx. Acknowledged only in the ways Nyx refused to touch him without checking that it was okay first, was always sensitive to Noctis’ comfort levels, was always polite and kept his eyes down and hands away when he could tell his star couldn’t handle being perceived by another person at that time.

 It was in the way he sometimes flinched from fingers, from eyes.

 It was in the way they hadn’t done more than kiss chastely after months of knowing they loved one another.

 Noctis kept the details to himself, because he hadn’t wanted to see them etched into those stormy eyes that looked at him with so much love. 

 He’d known, if he told Nyx, his amatus might look at him differently. Seeing him for what he was. Used and broken and thrown away. Better to be left behind. So he hadn’t told him. Hadn’t told anyone. 

 ‘You could’ve stopped it if you truly didn’t want it.’

 But…he needed…he wanted to get this off his chest, when the memories were twisting so tightly around his neck. A noose of the past.

 He didn’t look at Nyx with his blue-blue eyes as he spoke, under his breath, staring through the mattress that dipped under his weight - he couldn’t look at him. He couldn’t bear to see the moment the storm darkened, realizing he wasn’t worth all the patience Nyx had poured into his empty self to try and fill him. Fill him with care. With affection. With love.

 He didn’t look at Nyx…but he sensed that the man was looking at him. Sadly, probably. But attentively anyways.

 Always attentive to him.

 Always willing to listen.

 Even if this would hurt them.

 The Ulric Chieftain listened as Noctis described what he couldn’t have stopped.

 “It hurt.” 

 And his heart broke.

 “It hurt a lot. And I was always dirty, and itchy, and cold. So cold. And they’d always point and laugh at me. And my stomach always hurt. Both from the things they did to me, and because I was hungry. I was so hungry. I wanted to die so badly, but I swore I couldn’t. Just in case. Just in case I was believed one day.”

 Ten years later -

 “Stupid, isn’t it?” He rasped, staring at hands dirtied, at a body raped to ruin, “They’d already spent so long beating me, torturing me, scarring me. I thought I’d endured every humiliation. I thought it couldn’t get worse. I thought there was nothing else they could do to me. And then…when they started laughing, when they started stripping me - I didn’t even think…it wasn’t the first time they wanted me naked for some sort of punishment, and they just, and - and I - and it hurt, and it was so…and I just started sobbing, and then I just prayed it’d be over quickly.” 

 It wasn’t quick.

 It wasn’t the only time it happened either.

 “Inlustris…”

 “They got angry. At me. For praying. They were religious - who fucking knew,” he still remembered how much more it hurt when he reminded them he was just human, “Hit me for it. Until I stopped. Said not to bring their gods into this, because I deserved it and I was just getting what I deserved. I thought if I let - if I just didn’t fight, they’d finish and it’d be over and I could - I don’t know. Be alone. For a little while. Actually comprehend what they - they’d…and then they decided to call more of the guards in. I don’t even know when it stopped. I passed out more than once. They wouldn’t let me breathe.” 

 He hadn’t wanted to breathe.

 “I thought they couldn’t take anything more from me,” he remembered hollowly.

 Memories now years in the past. But never gone.

 “I thought the gods would save me.” 

 What a joke.

 What did being royalty mean, really? His blood was as red as anybody else’s. His blood had coated his body, like the grime, like their…and their touch. Crawling along his skin. Malicious whispers in his ears, tongues and teeth and breaths hot against his broken body as he tried, failed, to cringe away from them. He was just a kid. He was just a fucking kid, and then he was just a toy that wouldn’t entertain them anymore.

 Being royalty hadn’t saved him. Being one of the Astrals’ ‘favoured’ hadn’t saved him. Being a Lucis Caelum had meant absolutely nothing in the end, nothing - none of it saved him. None of it spared him a damn thing.

 Would his son one day face the same things? 

 The very idea - Noctis clenched his hands. Clenched them tight. His knuckles turning pure white, the bones of his fingers still seemingly so protruding even after a year of being fed. Being unstarved. Unabused. He thought of digging those fingers into the eyes of anyone who even considered hurting his Oriens. His little dawnlight. He would blind them. He would leave them crawling and crippled on the floor, screaming, begging, please. They would say please.

 And he wouldn’t grant them a damn bit of mercy, because nobody stopped when he said the same.

 Any threat to his family was not a threat he would stand for.

 Like Lunafreya.

 “Inlustris,” Nyx, his Nyx, his Glaive and love and amatus, kneeling before him still like his knees weren’t sore from it. Staring up at him. So, so soft. So, so sad. So, so angry. On his behalf, not at him, never at Noctis Lucis Caelum. He let him get lost in his thoughts, and then he drew him out by softly calling him ‘starlight’, and it reminded the broken man that there was a world beyond his hollowness that he was a part of, reluctantly, “I…can’t make this better, Noctis.” 

 Why did it have to sound like Nyx’s heart was breaking when he said that? 

 “...I know.”

 Candles, flickering. And blue-blue eyes shifted, distracted from the sensations of men and women using his body as they pleased to look at a small table. In the cornermost corner of his bedroom. Candles lit, their flames shuddering. The shrine to Ramuh he had never minded. His amatus’ shrine to the god he and his people believed in. God. Deity. Astral. Faith in them, what exactly did it gain? 

 “I can remove it,” Nyx offered without a hint of hesitation, following those blue-blue eyes so dim to where they were glaring at his shrine to Father Ramuh.

 A Galahdian Chieftain who did not give honor to the Stormfather; it would be a score through his braids.

 But he would do it, if it made his star feel more safe and comfortable.

 “...No,” so many complicated feelings were in his star, warring, he heard it in every small breath that escaped his barely parted lips. His rasps. His voice raw from how much he’d spoken that day, how often he’d raised that voice, but it didn’t seem as though the prince was forcing himself for Nyx’s sake, “I…don’t mind your faith, Nyx. You’ve never…never used it as a shield - like she did. You’ve never tried to make me faithful too. I don’t mind. I - don’t.” 

 A relief, was that.

 But. The relief wasn’t able to quell the war in Nyx. War Chieftain. Kingsglaive. Soldier, fighter, killer - his ears echoing with how his precious star had described those ‘Guards raping him for years. Years. And here he was on his knees, every one of his nerves pricking with the need to sink his kukris into bodies. With the need to spill blood onto the rain-watered grounds of Ramuh. A single life he had taken, when the executions happened months ago, but slitting one throat? 

 Wasn’t enough. Would never be enough.

 Nyx wanted to be able to go back in time. To when they were all still alive, still breathing, even if they had been damaged by others who were angry like him. All of them locked up in the dungeons, like fishes trapped in tidepools. Nyx would’ve made it slow. Would’ve cut their heels so they couldn’t run, couldn’t even focus on crawling away because of the pain taking over their mind. He would’ve bled them slowly.

 Starting with those who had watched, so the worst culprits had their turn to watch. Knowing exactly what was coming for them, and that they could not flee.

 Nyx wanted to paint the skies bloody with the slit bodies of those who had hurt the man he loved.

 But all he could do, was kneel there, watching shudders race through that man. Inlustris holding himself. Holding himself slightly away from Nyx, as if he couldn’t bear being even slightly touched at the moment. Which was understandable. So Nyx kept his hands carefully flat on his thighs, watching. And doing nothing else.

 Feeling useless.

 Feeling like he wanted to put together a hunting party to go after a certain queen.

 But all he could do was give his star space, and wait, and watch.

 It was all that he could do.

 

 
-----

 

 

 Like any father, the Father went to find his son. To check on him. To see him safe, to know he hadn’t gone hollow again. He knew Lucis was up in arms. There were already reports flooding in about the panic filling the city - he’d had multiple departments flocking to find him to ask about how he wished to handle the short broadcast that had caught his son throwing Eos’ Oracle down the steps of the Citadel and banishing her from their home. 

 All of Lucis. The religious versus the not, people shocked, people praying, people cursing the gods. How did he want to handle the media outpour, the news stations, the radio stations, social media - how did he want to handle the messages they were already receiving from Tenebrae? 

 As King, how did he want to handle Lucis on the brink of another war? 

 As a father, he went to go find his son. 

 As King, he chose to trust in his new council, and trust in his retinue who would handle this when he needed to see his boy safe.

 As a father, he went to Noctis’ rooms where he’d been sequestered away after what had happened. He felt aged by ten years. And that was without the Ring upon his finger, with its draining and the demands of the Lucii loud in his ears. He feared for his son. Feared the Lucii would be bearing down on him with all that had happened - they had always disliked the Oracles and they were doubtlessly loud now and such a great part of Regis wanted his first action to be taking the Ring from his son to spare him that.

 But in his son’s bedroom, he found just his boy. Sitting on his bed, legs twisted like he hadn’t really bothered to adjust them after being set there, staring at nothing in particular.

 Glaive Ulric was kneeling near the bed, watching, but never touching. Eyes pained.

 Regis felt a little as though he were intruding on the two of them, knocking quietly and entering with Clarus and Cor flanking him, but he had to see his Noctis. He had to know his nightlight was safe. He would fall to pieces if he didn’t. 

 He couldn’t bear anymore threats to his children.

 Noctis sensed him enter. Sensed the others with him; Retinue. He was half out of his mind, halfway to hollowness, staring through the backs of his hands as he sat crooked on his bed. Trying and struggling and fighting and failing to push away memories he’d managed to escape. Memories that had caught back up to him. 

 Touches crawling over his body that made him shudder sporadically. 

 And his dad was there.

 He wanted his dad.

 But also, there was somehow something so frustrating about him being there. Still raw from the memories, from Lunafreya, and from their conversation the evening before about Ori - it all bubbled up thick in his throat and left his vision blurry from tears as his dad reached for him with aged hands, cane vanished into the Armiger.

 It burst out of him like a riptide. 

 “Do you have any idea what they did to me?!” 

 “Noctis, baby - “ 

 “You don’t!” Exploded out of Noctis, a lie, because he knew his dad had to have received reports about it, had to know from the doctors that had been tending to him since Mistveil, but it was like poison he had to shout out or else he would drown in it, “You don’t, you don’t, you don’t!!!”

 “I - “

 “You didn’t save me!!!”

 Reaching, his fist closed around fabric, and Noctis let himself fling it at his dad - the pillow. It was soft. Soft enough that it wouldn’t really hurt his dad when he lifted an arm to block the ‘attack’, and he didn’t really want to hurt his dad but he needed to get these suffocating feelings out of himself somehow! So he grabbed another pillow, and another. And another. And another. Throwing them at his father with all the hate of a son hurt.

 “You did…what you thought was right, when you thought I was guilty,” he choked out, watching his dad stumble under the strike of another pillow, as Uncles Clarus and Cor both watched with pained eyes behind him, “I love you, Dad. I hate you, Dad. I - ! Aaaaaaugh!!!”

 The scream was senseless, wordless, as he grabbed his Carbuncle plushie.

 But instead of throwing the once-gift from his dad, Noctis fell onto it in the sheets. Shuddering and crying into its softness. Sobs shaking his sore, sore frame. Sore from living. Sore from anger. Sore from a day of deep disappointment and something snapping inside of him. So he just laid down. And let himself sob relentlessly into the softness of Carbuncle’s fur.

 Because she knew.

 And he hadn’t been saved, because the gods wanted to teach a child a lesson.

 So he cried and cursed the gods, like the child he was never allowed to finish growing out of being.

 He cried until the world went away, becoming blacker and blacker and blacker.

Yet another star that had died in the sky.

…

 “Prepare a convoy,” the King of Lucis commanded, carefully gathering and setting all the thrown pillows in a pile on the foot of his son’s bed. A bed that housed his son. His sweet, sweet son. Curled up and sobbing, a son who loved him, a son who hated him, and Regis deserved that. Deserved all of that. So he just let his son have the space he so clearly and desperately needed.

 Leaving Glaive Ulric to watch over him in silence, as he was wont to do. 

 “A convoy, Your Majesty?” Clarus asked as he swept past his Shield, to leave his and Aulea’s dear son - his and Aulea’s everything - to his sobbing, as much as it broke his heart to do.

 “We will be going ourselves to ensure Her Majesty departs without more trouble.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 The people of Insomnia crowded the streets, murmuring.

 A picture of Queen Lunafreya leaving Caelum Via was posted online, her attendants following loyally behind her with her luggage in their hands. 

 And the murmuring grew louder.

 

 

-----

 

 
 The convoy of King Regis’ met another royal’s convoy at the gates of Insomnia. Gates that had been cordoned off from the public for this. Gates that had a line of white, Tenebraean-make cars waiting along the road for their final departure. A set of black, Lucian-make cars came along to match, lining the side of the gate still within Insomnia. Their Crown City. 

 A queen stood under the gates, gowned in white, crowned with gold. Fair in a pale way. With faint scrapes along her shoulders, her arms, and her cheeks from where she’d struck stairs she was thrown down.

 Her left arm was wrapped in white bandages and splinted. Broken.

 Her eyes were frozen pools of ice, cracked with hurt pride as she scowled at the king who approached her, leaning heavily on his cane and looking aged by a few years.

 ‘Guards, and Glaives, flanked King and Retinue, and a breeze blew through the opened gates of their city.

 This was a farewell with no cameras.  

 “I will hope that you heal swiftly,” the King of Lucian offered, needlessly, since he knew as well as everyone else did that the Oracle would heal herself as soon as she was safely cocooned in her own palace in Tenebrae. Where it would not matter if the healing weakened her. Where there would be no enemies. Where she would be free to emerge from that cocoon of hers when she was ready; not a single minute sooner.

 “...You will not even apologize?” The Queen of Tenebrae countered, after a moment of nothing else being said, making His Majesty sigh.

 “Your Majesty, you…were warned. And you crossed a line,” hand tightening on his cane, the old king sighed, “You do not deserve an apology.”

 Her lips pursed.

 The wind blew, and her hair seemed impossibly golden under the sun’s glow. 

 “Then you choose war?” 

 “War is not our kingdoms’ only concession.” 

 “War is inevitable.” 

 “War would ruin what we have built in the years since the Empire’s fall,” Lucis’ King told her, tried to remind her, and her nose scrunched up as if she’d smelt something rotten, “Anyone, any soldier that has already fought enough, would feel the same. For our people, if for nobody else, we must not turn this into another war.”

 A queen with a broken arm that she had earned fairly, some would say.

 Versus a kingdom who would no longer follow the gods hers did. Who would fight for themselves, not the Astrals.

 Who would win, if it did turn to war?

 “Nobody would win that war,” Drautos whispered to himself, to them, to her, a thousand different battlefields bloodying his mind…and he knew he had made a final mistake now, on this day. Because of how her eyes slid to him and were sharper than any blade - the bite of frostbite scuttling across his skin. And he knew she was angry. He knew he had said the last thing Her Majesty wanted to hear.

 He knew what was coming, and he no longer had the pride enough to brace for it as he stared at her evenly.

 Tiredly.

 “You would say that, wouldn’t you,” those eyes were like the thinnest ice, and Drautos? Knew what would follow from the queen’s mouth before the twice-damned name was even spoken, before the ice in her eyes cracked, and she called him, “General Glauca?” 

 The phantom weight of a sword no man should be able to lift filled his hand.

 And silence was crowned there, as so many went shocked and still at what the Captain of the Kingsglaive had just been called.

 Well.

 He knew this time was likely to come.

 “...Captain?” One of his Glaives, one of his kids, said. Asked. Sounding angry. But not angry at him, at he who deserved it, but angry at the queen who was accusing him. He had their loyalty. Drautos knew that. Had known that for years. But seeing more than one of his Glaives reaching for their weapons, eyes furious that he would be falsely accused like this - ‘falsely’. 

 He lifted a palm, staying all of them.

 Lest they spill innocent blood. Or, as innocent as Lunafreya could be considered still.

 Whatever else she had done, whatever acts of hers that would not be forgiven, he still remembered. A girl. Just a girl. Small, and quivering, and crawling away from him in his old memories as he threatened her in her own home. After his attack had taken her mother’s life. After his bitterness had handed her kingdom over to Niflheim. Whatever else she was, she was still that girl somewhere in his mind.

 And he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her anymore than he already had.

 When he did not speak, when he only stared evenly at the Queen of Tenebrae…it could be felt. The uneasy ripple that went through the ‘Guards. The bristling of his Glaives who refused to believe her.

 The prodding of his king’s magic, as it settled along his spine.

 Feeling him out.

 Testing him.

 The silence tithered on. And Drautos stayed silent, because anything said would be a lie or a confession of guilt.

 “Captain Drautos?” And that was his king asking him now; his magic recoiling from the captain in unseen horror, unfelt by anyone else. He could not hide the truth. Not from the man, the brother, he had offered his soul to. 

 He didn’t want to hide the truth anymore. He was tired.

 There was distrust in His Majesty’s eyes for the first time in both of Drautos’ lifetimes, when he dragged his own eyes from Tenebrae’s Queen to him. He let his lips set. He had no excuse. He had nothing but guilt, and shame, watching a slow horror spread across Regis’ face. Disbelief on Clarus’ face, on Cor’s face. All three of his brothers.

 His Glaives, his kids, turning to stare at him in confused desperation.

 Begging with their eyes for him to deny this.

 “Fuck you, for killing my mother,” just a girl said, voice cracking as she was finally able to say it aloud, and Drautos hesitated for a moment…then bowed his head.

 Admitting his guilt with his silence.

 “Captain.” His king rasped, so Drautos found something to say, just to try and lessen the breaking of his brother’s heart.

 “I swear on the King’s Magic housed inside my body,” he swore, saw others tense around him as the magic grew taught and sharp on the breeze rushing through Insomnia’s gates, “I swear on my life, I swear my loyalty to the House of Caelum, and that I wish no member of the family harm for anything.” 

 The sound of crystals forming and shattering around him.

 And a tightening around his throat, around his wrists, as if he’d been clapped in chains.

 His vision faded out for a minute that left him unsteady, left his hands trembling faintly, and then Drautos could see again. See the hurt warring with other emotions on His Majesty’s face. Before all of it faded away to something cold and emotionless. Hearing what this captain had to say, and also hearing what he so carefully hadn’t said.

 He had never denied that he was Glauca.

 Or that he hadn’t wished harm on the Lucis Caelums in the past.

 But an oath sworn on King’s Magic was absolute, and he would’ve died where he stood if he had been lying.

 “You bastard,” the Oracle of Eos said so, so coldly at the gates of the Crown City, and a man with two lives inside of himself lowered his head more. Understanding what had her cursing him. After all, how dare he be loyal now but not then? How dare he change? How dare he grow? How dare he not be better before he took everything from her - what gave him the right?

 A little guardian of dreams gave him the right, whether he deserved it or not.

 “Queen Lunafreya,” and Regis’ voice sounded so dull and so tired too, as he addressed she who was once just a girl, and just his niece, and just another bit of his everything but was now cursed to never enter his home again for how she had hurt his precious son, “please. Just…go.”

 And so abruptly? 

 Her Majesty seemed just as dull and tired, slumping as the sun went away for a moment. Hiding behind the clouds in the sky. A shadow passing over them all, where her crown suddenly seemed too big to be worn by just a girl, and her gown seemed too long for her, and her eyes seemed too old for her. 

 And then the cloud passed, and the Oracle with a broken arm turned away from Insomnia.

 “I hate you,” were the final, parting words of just a girl, almost lost on the breeze, and they were directed at the entire world.

 And directed at herself, with how the breeze threw the words back into her face.

 And nobody was happy with this outcome, as Queen Lunafreya of Tenebrae left the gates of Insomnia. As they watched her climb into her convoy, joined by her attendants who all seemed pale and shocked. And shivering. And they all waited in silence as the cars of her convoy started, then one by one pulled out onto the main road that would take them back to the Kingdom of the Astrals. 

 The white of the cars, staying in a perfect line, steadily grew fainter and fainter as they made for the horizon, and it seemed nobody could bring themselves to move until the whole convoy was out of sight.

 It had only been a few days.

 But it felt as if it had been months.

 Queen Lunafreya was gone from Insomnia, soon to be gone from Lucis as a whole, and what was left behind? A damaged prince, a hurting princling, a troubled people - and a great many distrustful gazes turning from the horizon to a certain Kingsglaive Captain in their midst.

 One of those gazes was green, like a late king’s.

 Drautos slumped his shoulders just a little. Tired. Of pretending.

 “...We make for the Citadel,” King Regis of Lucis declared, loudly, shaking gazes from the captain accused, and things started moving again. Like the Glaives who took steps towards their captain just to be stopped by ‘Guards getting in their way. Expressions stern. And the air itself seemed unsteady. And maybe the road beneath their feet seemed unsteady too; Drautos could taste magic, the magic of his oath, stuck in his throat.

 So it would be, whatever this would be.

 Escorting the Captain of the Kingsglaive wasn’t a responsibility that could be left to his own Glaives. Not after…that. After an accusation he hadn’t denied. After what he had so carefully not said. Not when there were war crimes hanging so closely over Drautos’ head - when his Glaives might be seen as too loyal to allow this.

 This was a betrayal, practically any way a Lucian looked at it.

…

 Cor was the one to come forward. To grab Drautos’ forearm, tight, eyes narrowed and distrustful and refusing to look the captain in his eyes as he yanked him towards one of the Crownsguard-issued cars they’d arrived at the gates in.

 There were no handcuffs, which Drautos was slightly concerned about.

 If he had meant harm upon His Majesty, or anyone else for that matter, it would’ve been a most grave mistake. They had cuffs. Special ones, manufactured in secret from information they sequestered from Niflheim after the war - cuffs that blocked King’s Magic. That would take away his access to the Armiger, his weapons, his added abilities. It was almost foolish to not cuff him with those, when he knew Leonis had a set in his Armiger. King Regis had given each of them a few sets. A sign of trust.

 But Cor just kept yanking on his forearm, no cuffs necessary, leading him to a car that would doubtlessly be kept far away from His Majesty’s -

 Except, when Drautos settled in the backseat? 

 Regis and Clarus ducked into the car to sit across from him. From Cor. Both of their expressions scarily blank, and Drautos wanted to groan. This was such a security risk. He never would’ve let the three of them do this. He wanted to swat them all upside the head like they were misbehaving teenagers, and he was sure the look on his face was clear on that.

 Cor grunted next to him, the kid looking very put off now. 
 
 Things were weird, when the car’s doors were all slammed shut and they found themselves near-alone in the car. Save the driver on the other side of the front seat’s window. Whoever it was. It was too similar to a hundred other times the four of them had shared a backseat. It was too - too jarring, too normal compared to what had just taken place, and they all shifted a tad as they all felt it.

 His Majesty and his Shield both had crinkles near their eyes, even if they weren’t smiling. The same sort of crinkles they had during council meetings when a councilor had secretly amused them. Were they amused? No. The king seemed genuinely tired and troubled, crinkles or no. And Clarus had a shield resting on the leather of the seat next to him - like a shield would do anything if Drautos had designs on their lives.

 He couldn’t help it.

 He put his face in his free hand - the one Cor wasn’t holding with hardly any strength - and let out a very lengthy sigh.

 The crinkles deepened, even if they still looked troubled.

 “Please say you’re only doing this because I swore on my life,” Drautos mumbled into his palm, unable to look at the three idiots he had called brothers for decades, “Because if any of you would do this with another accused traitor, I will have a godsdamn aneurysm, I swear."  

 “Shutup, Drautos,” Cor mumbled next to him, which really, really helped not at all in making the Kingsglaive Captain see the Sword as anything other than a riled up kid. But there were no demands that followed. No intense questioning. Just the sounds of the car’s engine starting, and then the movements of it as it pulled away from the cordoned gate of Insomnia. Followed by the rest of their convoy.

 Still, there was the hum of a magical oath in Drautos’ throat.

 The oath that he was loyal. That his life was forfeit if he was not. He was sure Regis could physically feel the oath, thick in the car's backseat that Lucis’ four most powerful men rode in.

 But he said nothing. Just sat there, silently staring at Drautos with careful eyes, eyes Drautos had always hated for how similar they were to King Mors’, eyes that seemed to think they’d find the truth in the lies of Drautos’ life if they just looked long enough. But there was little to him but lies nowadays. Time travel did that to a man. Gods did that to a man. His whole existence was a lie.

 Could Regis see that, when he looked at him now? 

 Or could he only see the magical chains that declared Drautos utterly loyal to the House of Caelum? 

 It was a long, silent ride back to the Citadel’s underground garage.

 “I must check on Noctis,” were his king’s sole words to him, when they arrived and Drautos instinctively moved forward as Clarus did to help him out of the car’s backseat. He wasn’t stopped from doing so. From steadying his king. But Regis did not look at him again, in nodding to his Shield and his Sword, “Take him…take him to my study. I’ll be by as soon as I know Noctis is alright.” 

 “...Your Majesty,” the accused Titus Drautos couldn’t help but say in soft argument, confused - so confused and also so tied to years of security measures he had to get right or risk losing everybody he had come to care for again, “you and I both know the dungeons are where I should - “

 “Titus, please shut up.” 

 Drautos shut his mouth.

 When a king tells you to shut up, you shut up.

 Clarus and Cor refused to even grab his arms in escorting him to the study. Refused to even walk behind him, just led the way and he followed feeling helpless and very confused and very concerned and very ready to scold them. This was not how they should be treating a person - Captain of the Kingsglaive or not - accused of treason. He should be cuffed and brought to the dungeons for questioning, not -

 “Bourbon?” Clarus offered, digging through Regis’ desk to find the good bottle and glasses they all knew he kept there for long nights with his retinue. Cor tossed himself down onto the ratty couch with a loud groan, and Drautos? 

 Drautos was so confused all he could do was sit on the edge of his king’s desk and nod his head dumbly, because alcohol sounded great right about then actually, “Please,” he said with feeling.

 And drank with his brothers, while waiting for his king to return to them.

 And for his fate to be decided.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The House of Caelum hadn’t fallen because of the damned Oracle this day, but its flags weren’t lifted in celebration either.

 They had taken steps forward and steps back.

 And out in the falling night, hunters screamed as they were torn apart by daemons.

 The Havens no longer glowed with safety.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Chapter 25

~>-----------<~

 

 

 The Grand Chantry burned until the sun set, and then its blaze lit up the skies of the Crown City like a new dawn. 

 Signs were hefted into the air by protestors.

 Streets were shut down for riots.

 Glaives and ‘Guards alike struggled through the afternoon and then the evening and then the coming night to stop full-blown anarchy from consuming the streets of Insomnia. 

 Footage was played and replayed and replayed on every blaring screen across the city that never slept - of their innocent prince throwing the lying queen down those steps, heartbroken and angry and they stood by him. Now, when they hadn’t then. Now, when the gods hadn’t then. Now, when Tenebrae swelled with so many conflicting sentiments towards their queen. 

 He was innocent, and the Astrals had known.

 And they had done nothing, so their faith burned.

 Cosmology books fed the flames.

 Hunters screamed out in the night, but those screams were covered by the sounds of rioters calling for war. Fighting back soldiers who had already fought their wars in the past, trying to stop them from doing more harm. Pleading with them to calm, to protest peacefully, to not choose this way. They were the ones who would have to die if a war came. Not the citizens rioting. Not the citizens burning things and screaming.

 Insomnia was chaos in the night.

 Lucis was chaos in the night.

 There were daemons. 

 There were screams.

 There was a man in a silly hat who threw his head back and laughed - 

 And there was another marilith on the road.

 And there was another royal convoy scattered and burning near the sea’s cliffs. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis sat at his kingly desk, in his official office, he sat and his pen scratched paper and paper and more paper, and scratched the desk’s polished wood too when he got frustrated. Aware that he had to finish this quickly, because his brothers were waiting for him. Because one of his brothers had been accused of - because one of his brothers hadn’t denied he was - because - 

 Regis sat there, staring through paper. Staring through the desk. Staring through it all.

 He had to keep going, for his boys.

 But it was so hard.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There had been his dad, Noctis vaguely remembered. Sort of. A little bit. Glimpses of it, of his dad there, and tucking some of his tangled raven hair behind his ear, and forcing a shaky smile that never reached his eyes. His so tired of eyes. So tired. Dad murmuring gentle things to him, Nyx out of the corner of his eye following them. Him, in his wheelchair. Him, being pushed along. Him, a noise around him like a whine that Noctis hadn’t realized was coming from himself - 

 Until his wheelchair was pushed towards a set of doors he recognized, in a different wing of the Citadel than he’d sworn they were just in.
 
 The doors had carbuncles carved into their wood, such fine detail. Noctis swore he could hear the soft chirping of his oldest friend.

 Those doors gave him entry to his son. His little dawnlight, his Oriens, small and curled up in bed, sniffling with red, shiny eyes. Turning over to face them, hiccupping, looking at them like he wasn’t sure if he would be allowed to go to them, to Noctis’ horror.

 So he reached for his son.

 And Ori crawled from the bed with a loud sob ripping from his chest, stumbling towards his dad, blinded by his tears.

 Night had fallen, and Noctis wrapped his sweet son up in his arms. Tight as he could. Close as he could. Whispering every reassurance he’d ever wanted to hear at Ori’s age in his ear, petting at his hair, tearing up himself.

 There was so much hurt, in the House of Caelum.

 Because there was so much love, there just had to be. 

 You can’t love without being hurt.

 Regis had his precious boys moved a few halls over. To his own royal rooms. They would be sleeping in his bed that night, under guard of some of his trusted Glaives. Regis still had much to handle that night, but at least he knew his sons would be safe. It was all he could handle at first; getting his sons safe. Tucked into bed by somebody who loved him, even if it couldn’t be him.

 This failure as the Father.

 Him.

 In his royal rooms as well, but a few doors away from Noctis and Oriens.

 In his personal study.

 Where he found three brothers, drinking his bourbon in silence.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...”

 The silence felt deafening, as the four most powerful men in Lucis filled one meager room. Even Regis’ cane on the rug seemed oddly muted to all their ears. Even the sound of Cor pouring himself another glass of amber strength seemed distant. They were all in their very own headspaces, and all had their eyes on the King of Lucis. As he slowly limped his way through his study.

 To his desk. Without a word.

 As he pulled his chair out. As he sat in it. Without a word.

 As he dismissed his cane to the Armiger, with the shattering of a few crystals. As he folded his fingers together slowly on top of his desk.

 Without a word.

 As he watched Cor steadily drain another glass, sat on the edge of his desk like a punk teenager again. As he watched Clarus shift, set the bottle to the side, sat on the arm of one of the armchairs arranged in front of his desk. As he glanced at Drautos - sat in one of those armchairs, sunk down low and averting his eyes. Finally. A word.

 “We have much to discuss,” Regis started quietly, clinging, desperately, so desperately, to his composure, “Is everything else settled, before we start?” 

 There was a sort of nervous silence that filled the study after his question.

 And then Drautos made the mistake of asking in a wretched voice -

 “...How are you so calm about this?” 

 A mistake proven by the sudden slamming of Regis’ palms down on his desk, as he shoved himself right back to his feet.

 As he shouted.

 “Calm?! Do I really seem calm to you, Titus?!?!” 

 Loud enough to make all of his brothers straighten up. Loud enough to hurt their ears. Loud enough that they all got to their feet like the soldiers that they were, and just when their king went to clutch his chest. Breathing harshly. And all three of them thought of another time, another time when his heart had given out. All three of them moved towards him, with various noises of concern.

 Regis’ hand trembled, fisted in the fabric of his shirt, fighting to slow his breathing. And his heart.

 “Reggie, down. Down. Down,” Clarus urged him, taking one of his elbows while Drautos came to take the other and Cor moved his chair back so he wouldn’t stumble over it. All of his brothers. Helping him over to the couch in his study instead. That stupid, ratty couch. The one his father had liked. They were his brothers. They had fought beside him, they had bled beside him, they had led beside him. 

 He trusted them. He relied on them. He needed them.

 So Drautos couldn’t be…more.

 Regis wanted to believe he wasn’t more.

 “Titus,” he wanted to believe this was all a nightmare, and that those calls for war were memories of the past, and that one of his brothers had not betrayed him, “Tell me. Now. Tell me. I’m asking, I’m ordering you to tell me, so tell me.”

 Lucis’ King had no idea in another life, he died to his brother’s blade.

 “Were you…General Glauca?” 

…

 “Yes.” 

 There was a low-burning fire in the study’s fireplace, late autumn like it was. They were all near it, because that couch was near it, because their king was sat on that couch. But it suddenly felt so cold in the study anyways. Like all the warmth had gone out of life. Like all the trust had gone out of their relationship.

 It was like a physical thing. His Majesty lifted his head, and Drautos saw the light drain a little bit out of his eyes. 

 He’d rarely looked more like King Mors than he did at that moment.

 Nobody jumped him. Neither of his king’s most trusted guards rushed to pin him down, now that it had been confirmed. Clarus just stared at him. Cor just downed another glass of bourbon he’d gone and poured for himself, looking…distant. Like his mind was somewhere else entirely again. Regis was the worst - looking right at him. With those eyes. King Mors’ eyes. That poked a dead part of Drautos.

 The part that he had killed to change who he was when he was given a second chance.

 That part had needed to die. 

 “Why?” Regis whispered, so fervently, Drautos felt ashamed of a whole life he had lived. A whole death he had died. A whole death he had dealt his King.

 Crouching there, in front of him, he felt so small and worthless. When it was Regis who had given him a life. When it was Regis who had seen potential in him, Regis who helped him climb the ladders of the Crownsguard and then Regis who recommended him to lead the newly formed Kingsglaive. It was Regis who had supported him, Regis who had given him a family after grieving with him when he lost his first.

 It was Drautos who had ensured Insomnia would fall.

 It was Drautos who had killed him.

 But he couldn’t know those things.

 Not those things from a time that had been prevented.

 “I was angry,” Drautos confessed, falling back onto his butt on the rug, arms dropping to his knees, and he stared at nothing as he remembered an anger that had seemed all-consuming when he was young, that he could barely feel now, “I was…so, so angry, Regis,” and his hands were already covered in blood by then, “I blamed King Mors. You know…for what. Like everyone else, for pulling back the Wall. For leaving our homes unprotected when the war came.” 

 So much of Lucis had had reason to hate the previous King of Lucis, and Drautos had been one of them. 

 “I was angry,” he whispered, remembering, a time even longer ago for him than for them as they listened to this ‘explanation’ in tense silence, “Every time I closed my eyes, I - I saw my home, after the bombs had dropped. I saw what was left. I heard the screaming. I saw - and I…and all I could dream of every single night was cradling the pieces of my son, my baby, finding my w-wife’s arm, her wedding band…black from the explosion, I - “

 It had been so long.

 But remembering, it made his throat close up, even decades and decades later.

 And it made tears fill his eyes, because he had never managed to stop seeing it.

 “I was so angry,” he rasped, staring down at his hands and seeing them bloodied, seeing the pieces he had to hold of what was left of his family back then, and then he shut his eyes. And he heard a soft chirping. And when he opened them, the pieces were gone, “It wasn’t at you, then. But your father died, and I had nowhere else to turn that anger after. It festered, and festered, and then I was sent out across enemy lines…and they found me there.” 

 “Who did?” Regis asked, voice so quiet with his hurting.

 “...Niflheim scientists,” Drautos gave a halfway sort of shrug, reaching up to swipe at his eyes quickly as he did, then staring sightlessly at the floor as he remembered how it had all happened so long ago - him turning into a traitor to Lucis, “Besithia. A few others. All dead now. But they knew who I was. They knew what to say. They knew I was angry, and they…they asked all the right questions. Twisted me around so much all of my anger went towards King Mors, towards - towards you.” 

 They had made it sound so sweet a deal; making those truly responsible for his family’s death pay.

 And clearly Lucis was just so deserving of being attacked by the Empire, wasn’t it? 

 “They offered me power,” they had offered to make him strong, “they offered me revenge,” they had offered to make Mors’ family pay, “they…gave me a vial. Told me to consider it. That I could take it or leave it, and then they were gone. And I went back to Lucis, and it seemed like everything just kept getting worse. And I was angry, all the time.” 

 “What was in the vial, Drautos?” Clarus asked him, and he recalled writhing, inky-black, fighting to break out of the glass like it had a mind of its own -

 “...Scourge.” 

 All three of his brothers straightened up immediately, scanning him with their eyes. Slowly. And, really, Drautos wasn’t expecting the concern he noticed in all of them. Looking him over in search of any signs of the Scourge he was sure; blackened veins, yellowed eyes, paleness, twitchiness. They found none of it. Because it hadn’t been a normal strain of Scourge. 

 It had been worse.

 It had been better.

 “I broke the vial,” this traitor whispered his confession, undeserving of their concern, “I was angry. I threw myself into a battle, all by myself, I just wanted to hurt people, and I just broke it. In my fist. And the Scourge - it spread over my body,” it had covered him, it had drowned him in it, and then it had solidified, “It turned into armor. It turned into a sword. It gave me…abilities. Strength. I cut down so many MTs in that battle. So many. And I was,” he made fists with his hands, remembering the strength he had felt, “I was entirely unscathed.” 

 Nothing could touch him, and the feeling of invincibility was…sickening, now, looking back at it.

 “They were there. The scientists. They must’ve been keeping tabs on me,” their experiment, their ‘Project Glauca’, “I didn’t even care. I felt so powerful, everything else felt…insignificant. They offered me another vial. I took it. I used it, on another battlefield by myself. And it happened again, and then again. And then they told me that if I wanted another vial…I would have to fight on a Tenebraean battlefield. I would have to fight for Niflheim.” 

 Clarity had smacked him across the face then.

 Realization smacked all three of his brothers across their faces now, and they all looked at him like they still were expecting him to deny what they’d realized.

 “I said no,” Drautos admitted, shook his head, “at first. I realized what I was doing. Ha. As if it stopped anything,” he traced his palm that had always broken the vials, covered in small scars and so sensitive, “But…it was a drug.”

 It wasn’t something he could just stop.

 His hands started trembling, and he ducked his head down low as an old shame came over him. 

 “The longer I went without the Scourge, the worse everything got. I wasn’t just irritable, I was homicidal. It was on a hair trigger. Every moment, every day, everything made me want…want to hurt people. And I got weaker, and weaker, and angrier, and angrier, and it all was a constant cycle. And when I realized I was thinking about killing one of my Glaives that had just been late to a meeting - ! I - !”

 One of his kids.

 “I went to them,” he had given in, “I went, and I found those scientists, and I begged them for the vial. And when I had it, I didn’t even need a battle. I broke it just to get my fix. My armor. And when it wore off, they gave me another, and another, and then they sent me into battle. And I won - and suddenly Eos knew about the Empire’s new General Glauca.” 

 Back then, the Empire had been focused on annexing Tenebrae. Bringing down the Oracles. Without them, Lucis wouldn’t have the support of the Astrals that it would’ve had. And with the Oracles under their control, they could pursue ‘Project Godkiller’ too. They could undermine the legendary Chosen King, said to be the one to take away the darkness, the daemons that the Empire then relied so heavily upon.

 Back then, Drautos hadn’t directly harmed Lucians. Not yet.

 None of his Glaives either.

 That had changed…but that was a part of another life.

 “Drautos,” His Majesty spoke up, for the first time since his explanation began, and his brother and traitor lifted his head just a little to show he heard. Heard the underlying threat to his king’s words when he asked, “Were you in any way involved in the Marilith attack?” 

 “No,” that much, he could say truthfully, “I was not. I was not made aware of it happening beforehand either. As much as I was an asset to them, I was…a pet. And I wasn’t loyal, I was addicted. They didn’t trust me with plans unless I was to be directly involved and too…too caught up in the Scourge to even think about going against their orders.”

 He had been the Empire’s dog.

 “General Glauca disappeared after Tenebrae fell,” Clarus pointed out calmly, or falsely calmly, Drautos wasn’t sure how any of them felt, and this was halfway a lie - but it was also the truth, in another sense of the word. Time travel was confusing like that. He nodded his head. Cementing his story in this life. This time. 

 He had gone after Regis, after Noctis, during the attack - dazed by the addiction in his first life. But he had let them go. His target had been the Nox Fleurets, by order of his ‘handlers’. 

 The Lucis Caelums had been spared that day, even if they hadn’t fully realized it.

 “After…” He paused, cleared his throat, remembered the way he had grown sick when he saw what his attack had made of Tenebrae. When he saw Princess Lunafreya cowering from him on the floor of her invaded childhood home, “After, I saw it all. After, I realized. I slipped away. They let me go, they thought I’d be back. Lucis was in chaos. Everything was in chaos. I thought nobody would notice if…I went missing for a while.” 

 As far as anyone knew, he had been one of those missing in action after the fall of Tenebrae, and what they knew was that he had wandered home in a weak state a few weeks later. A few others had too. It wasn’t that suspicious.

 The truth? 

 Drautos had woken up from dying beside Nyx, in a fallen Insomnia, and he had seen General Glauca before him.

 And he had cut the bastard’s head off before the past Drautos could even turn around to face him.

 …And then, delirious from his wounds from Nyx, from the Scourge bleeding out of his body, he had hidden out in the burning woods of Tenebrae for weeks.

 “I spent weeks detoxing,” he gave them a little of the truth, remembering how terribly it had tore him apart inside and out, “I chained myself to a tree I found, slept in its hollow. Most of those weeks are a blur. I was screaming. I was bleeding the Scourge. If anyone had come across me, even if it…if it had been a small child or a mother and infant, I think I would’ve killed them without thinking about it. I felt like violence incarnate. And then I just felt weak. Like with any drug. The life went out of me. Felt like I was dying. Felt like it took years to get the Scourge out of my system.”

 Even remembering now, years and years later, Drautos ran his hands across his wrists. Remembered being nothing more than a ball curled up under a tree, sobbing with his wrists chained as he laid there and shook like a leaf. Feeling less than human. Less than worthy of living.

 A blue spirit sat beside him all the while, bringing him food and water.

 And releasing him from his chains, when he was sane again.

 “Lord Carbuncle freed me,” he professed, staring at those wrists of his, still faintly scarred from how horribly he’d yanked at the chains, wanting to rampage. Not noticing how his profession made Regis go still, “He stayed beside me. He brought me food on the trip back, because I was too weak to find my own. He led me to water. And then he led me back to Lucis. And I swore if I was ever asked, I would admit to being Glauca. Nobody ever asked.” 

 In another life, he hadn’t been killed by a future version of himself. In another life, Glauca continued his reign of terror, until he had turned to hurting Lucians, to making traitors of his Glaives, turned brother on brother, sister on sister, destroyed Lucis from the inside. 

 That wasn’t this life though.

 “...Queen Lunafreya knew you were Glauca.” 

 “She saw me without my helmet in Tenebrae,” Drautos said dully, feeling maybe a little bit lighter with all of that off of his chest after all these years, “She knew who I was, ever since Tenebrae fell to the Empire. I was expecting her to expose me when Tenebrae regained its freedom after the war, but she never did.” 

 “Another secret she kept.”

 He shrugged. He really had no idea what Her Majesty’s motives had been. Exposing him sounded like the right thing for her to have done, the just thing. Especially since her mother had only been killed because of the attack he led on Tenebrae. And although she didn’t know as much, Prince Ravus had only died because Glauca wasn’t there to fight by his side in a few deciding battles in this lifetime. 

 Whatever her reasons, they were beyond them now.

 They were just them, just the four most powerful men in Lucis. Three of them staring down at Drautos, who looked so tired and so defeated down on the floor. So haunted. So much like he’d just given up.

 “...What am I to do with you, Drautos?” Regis murmured after a minute of silence had passed, and his Shield sighed. Rose. And left. And came back with a glass of water and some of Regis’ heart medication. Which he swallowed down as he was instructed to. Still never taking his eyes off…of his brother, who was a little younger than him. Who had once been married, who had once had a son too, who had lost them both and so understandably lost himself.

 Regis didn’t even want to imagine what he would’ve done if he lost Noctis alongside his Aulea. 

 Drautos had loved her so dearly, hadn’t he? In that small town that no longer existed because of the bombs the Empire was so fond of dropping in the night. Drautos liked being called by his last name because it had been his wife’s last name, that he took when he married her because he had no family of his own and no real emotional connection to his last name before her.

 Regis had always respected that. Respected his little brother.

 Now he found himself torn between wanting to comfort him, and having to punish him.

 Glauca had been a war criminal, after all. And as soon as it got out that he had been the Captain of Lucis’ Kingsglaive? 

 Regis sighed.

 And he very gingerly lowered himself from his father’s couch to kneel on the floor in front of his little brother.

 Who glanced up at him with empty eyes, like he’d already accepted this was the end.

 Regis Lucis Caelum wrapped his captain up in his arms, shaking his head at the feeling of fingers curling into his shirt. Clutching at him. Not entirely accepted that this was the end, then. He sighed again against Drautos’ forehead, and stared into the flames of the dying fire in the fireplace as he said, “You are an idiot, Drautos. How can I save you now? Do you have any ideas? Hm?” 

 Drautos just started trembling in his arms.

 So Regis just sighed again, and held him a little tighter.

 As Clarus and Cor both poured themselves another drink.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A Glaive whispered to another Glaive.

 Who whispered to another.

 Who was smacked over the back of their head by Axis first, before the Glaive took off at a sprint. On the search for Nyx. Who had predictably found his way back to his star’s bedroom, laying on his empty bed, staring up at the ceiling like some lovesick character in one of those cheesy romance novels. He sat up fast when Axis burst into the room. Ready for anything. He thought. 

 Then Axis had to tell him about the confrontation he hadn’t been there for.

 “Nyx, the Captain - !” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Staring at the doors to His Majesty’s personal rooms, Nyx honestly wasn’t sure if all of his allowances in the last year also included allowing him to intrude here. Or if this would be where King Regis drew the line of him being just a Glaive. Just a man. Just a man, who happened to hold his son’s heart. But he was also a Lieutenant. Of the Kingsglaive. And this still involved his people, his comrades, his Captain. 

 His hands had a faint shake to them, when he clenched and unclenched them, and then lifted one to knock at the doors.

 His fellow Lieutenants weren’t far away. Were just down the hall, leaning on marble pillars of black and accented gold, eyes dangerous under the drawn hoods of their uniforms. Hoods most of them hadn’t bothered wearing in the Citadel in over a decade. Not since the House of Caelum gained their trust - thanks to their captain.

 And now, Axis brings him these rumors.

 Now, he knocks for all of them.

 And waits. Measuring his breaths. Trying so hard - so hard not to feel like a kid again. A teenager staring up at his new captain, after a rough night in the bunks, after a rougher day of being shoved around by the ‘Guards who thought they were so much better than him. Just another stupid refugee, a rat. One that Captain Drautos picked up himself and got all fancied up and then shoved even higher up in life - his captain who - !

 The doors were cracked open, just the barest bit. The Lord Marshal’s face peered out at him. Scanned him. Scanned the hallway and noticeably noticed the Glaives not crowding the doorway next to Nyx. It was late. There should’ve been questions.

 The fact that Cor didn’t even seem surprised, just resigned, said that there was a reason for them to have shown up.

 Maybe a bit of truth in the rumors, and that made Nyx’s jaw clench tight.

 “Noctis and Oriens are sleeping in His Majesty’s bed tonight,” the Crownsguard Marshal reminded him, and there was a drawl to his words that Nyx knew by now only came out so clearly when the man had been drinking, and his jaw clenched tighter even at the mention of his star, “Can you keep your temper under control, Glaive? Or will this have to wait until morning?” 

 This could not wait.

 “I can control myself,” Nyx said, nearly growled, feeling prickly and defensive and way too young for a man in his forties and he wanted answers.

 Cor just sighed.

 And opened one of the doors wide enough for Nyx to slip in.

 Wasn’t the first time he’d been in the royal rooms of Lucis’ King. Those other times had been business though - this? This was personal. As a Glaive. As a man. As somebody who had trusted in his Captain. This was almost more than personal. This was about all those nights Nyx had knocked on Captain Drautos’ door because nightmares wouldn’t leave him be.

 This was about hearth and home.

 The doors to His Majesty’s study were opened ahead of him, and Cor grunted as he slipped in there too. Not exactly sure what he’d find. Not exactly sure what the situation was either, just that the rumors were - enough. Enough to treat everything seriously. And what he did find? 

 Was fucking awful.

 Captain Drautos’ eyes were red. Like he’d been crying. 

 And he was sat on the rug strewn out in front of the study’s fireplace, leaning back against a frankly tattered couch, and he looked pale. And he looked tired. And the shadows the flames cast on his face almost made him look gaunt. He looked like a man. Just a man. No larger than life than any other - and it hurt. It hurt Nyx’s heart.

 So he came right out with it, feeling like a dumb kid all over again.

 “Captain, is it true?” 

 “...Yeah, Nyx,” his captain whispered, eyes falling shut as he shattered a corner of Nyx’s whole world, “It’s true. I’m…so…sorry.” 

 Barely even bothering to notice King Regis was there, sitting right next to the captain, to notice Lord Clarus was there, to notice the Marshal had gone and picked up a bottle of amber drink - Nyx stalked around the couch, and dropped. His eyes straining with - an attempt. A basically failed attempt. To not let them water. 

 “Why?” 

 If nothing else, his captain at least had the damned courage to look him right in the eyes to answer him. To sit up a little straighter. To be bothered, to be human about this. And to not mention Nyx’s trembling lip either, even as Captain Drautos reached out. And let his hand hang in the air between them both.

 “I was weak,” he confessed, rasped, suddenly seeming so…old, “I failed, in so many ways. I fell for the Empire’s manipulation. I fell into an addiction. I was weak, and I wanted to be strong. And they took advantage of that because I let them. I wanted - my home, my family,” he dropped his hand, dropped his head, shoulders trembling with a fresh wave of tears that Nyx guessed weren’t his first of the night, “I wanted them back.” 

 And. Well.

 Nyx, his clan, all Galahdians - knew exactly how that felt.

 It smoothed down something jagged inside of the Ulric Chieftain, even if it was a confession and didn’t actually make anything better at all. 

 “Tell me,” Nyx demanded. Because there was more to consider now than his own feelings before this father figure of his, there was all of the Kingsglaive to consider, and all of his comrades relying on him now. And Titus Drautos told him. An abridged version. An honest version, though. A story about just a man, who was only human.

 Who had lost everything, and lost himself trying to get it back.

 It was…a familiar story, to Nyx. And by the end he was sitting right next to his captain, leaning back against the couch too, a little out of order. A glass that Cor had handed to him mostly drained, being swished back and forth as he thought. Watching the amber liquid glow in the light of a nearly dead fire.

 General Glauca. Captain Drautos. One in the same? Unlike Tenebrae, unlike Accordo, General Glauca had never been a part of an attack on Galahd. He joined the war only after the Storm Islands were already taken by the Empire, technically. 

 The Galahdians had no great claim of hate towards the man, other than for him being an Imperial General…but there were Glaives from Accordo. Glaives from Tenebrae. Refugees like the Galahdians who were driven there by the Empire. By the Empire’s lapdog - by their own captain. That was. Too much.

 This couldn’t, shouldn’t, just be swept under the rug.

 “How do you plan to handle this, Your Majesty?” Nyx whispered too, suddenly needing direction before he started lashing out like a trapped coeurl, and he heard his king sigh heavily. 

 “There were far too many witnesses to simply deny everything,” he stated, a fact, and one that he seemed very frustrated over - would he really have hidden it without a word if there were no witnesses? The truth? “The truth, however, is that you were experimented upon, Titus.” 

 The weary man drooped between them, letting out a wet sort of gasp.

 “You did not do those things willingly,” His Majesty said, gentling now, putting an arm around the drooping captain and far more understanding than Nyx had genuinely predicted he would be, “You were drugged. You were out of your mind, and hardly sane. And you came out of it all on your own. Plus - “ King Regis hurried to say, shushing the captain who had opened his mouth as though to argue, “you made an oath of loyalty to me and to Lucis that cannot be understated. A magical oath.” 

 “Loyalty now does not dismiss disloyalty in the past,” His Majesty’s Shield spoke up for the first time since Nyx had joined their disheveled crew of slightly tipsy, powerful men, “General Glauca is a war criminal. Claiming insanity will not hold off Accordo and certainly will not hold off Tenebrae.” 

 “No,” His Majesty agreed, sighing into the captain’s short hair even as he ran his nails slowly up and down the younger man’s nape, “But it is indisputable. And just as the blank MTs weren’t blamed for their part in the Empire’s schemes, should he really hold all the weight of General Glauca?”

 “Regis,” Captain Drautos rasped, “I was the one who - “ 

 “Carbuncle has vouched for you as well,” the king cut in, quite firmly, and Nyx subconsciously reached up to clasp the pendant under his shirt. The one that matched His Majesty’s, and his star’s, and Ori’s, “That means a great deal of something to the House of Caelum, Titus.” 

 But did it mean enough for them to protect the captain after this came to light? 

 Chances were, he wouldn’t be able to remain the Kingsglaive Captain.

 There was quiet in the study. And maybe another glass or two for them all poured. There was a lot to consider. Almost too much. Cor stepped out of the study with a tipsy grumble when his phone started ringing way too loud for the bourbon they had all drank, and Nyx stared at his captain. Who looked aged beyond his years now that the truth was out.

 But…who also seemed to be the same sort of man Nyx had placed his trust in for years.

 Could he see past the armor to the man? He had never seen General Glauca in person. So it wasn’t very hard. But he had brothers, sisters, fellow Glaives who had seen that sight. And he had to think of them too. He had to think of the fact that Tenebrae would’ve never fallen if it wasn’t for General Glauca’s strength too - or wouldn’t have fallen as fast. 

 What would happen now? 

 What happened, was the doors to His Majesty’s study were thrown wide, and Cor came rushing back in as fast as he had staggered out, now seemingly sober as stone.

 “Regis! The Havens have stopped working!” 

…

 They were tipsy. And then they were all as sober as men who hadn’t drank a drop of alcohol that night, jumping to their feet and frantic - because that was a report they couldn’t comprehend. The Havens? Not working? That simply wasn’t a thing that happened. Nyx had never heard of that happening. That wasn’t a thing that - it wasn’t - Father Ramuh wouldn’t -

 “A select few of them?” His Majesty rushed to say, his Shield helping him up and pushing his cane into his palm, the buzz of an emergency in all of their ears, “Only some of them?! Or - “ 

 “Eight, nine - twelve,” the Lord Marshal bit out, still with his phone up to his ear and listening to a shouted report on the other side, “More. Too many. Meldacio is getting a flood of fuckin’ calls from hunters who were at them for the night, says - what? Hold on. Says the Havens stopped glowing and the daemons weren’t slowed down one bit by them after sundown. Regis, there’re too many hunters out there tonight.”

 The Havens, not working? It still wasn’t registering to Nyx, almost. The Havens had always been blue, thrumming with the blessings of the Astrals, there to protect the people of Eos.

 But they just…stopped? 

 “I know!” Cor said sharply into his phone, his tone shifting to commanding and the Glaive immediately felt a little less lost hearing that tone, “Assume all Havens are now no longer an option, Dustin. Tell Meldacio no hunters short of their highest ranked should be heading out - there will be no sheltering at a Haven if their fights go wrong tonight!” 

 “Hunters closest to towns or outposts must make a run for it,” thank Ramuh, His Majesty was in control too, had his desk’s phone to his ear and was dialing a number and Nyx stood still. Waiting for his orders, “We won’t get to them in time. They’re sitting ducks out in the wilderness if they simply wait for rescue - tell Meldacio to spread the word through Lucis that hunters will be seeking shelter wherever they can tonight - yes? Advisor Fareth, apologies for waking you. This is a Lucis-wide emergency, the Havens have stopped working, I need you to - “

 “Gladio, I need you to join the Crownsguard - “ Lord Clarus was saying sharply into his own phone at his ear.

 “Dustin, give the order for the ‘Guard to assemble. All of them. This is a national emergency now.“

 “Advisor Fareth, we need an emergency broadcast warning the citizens of Eos - “

 “Call your little sister, tell Iris now, and if you contact Aranea - “ 

 “We'll send a team to Hammerhead after. Meet up with my son. Tell Prompto - “

 It was a frenzy.

 King Regis looked up from his phone, at his desk, at all of them. Gave them a snappy nod, and then it was up to them as His Majesty continued giving cool orders into his phone’s receiver. 

 “Nyx, call all Glaives to the Kingsglaive Complex and - “ His Captain started to command him, Nyx started to listen.

And then the both of them stilled.

 Drautos swallowed, shifting his eyes a little lower, and towards His Majesty. Who had also stopped. They had all stopped. Phones still held. Still being spoken to through them. They were all exchanging looks, even at this most crucial time. Because the Captain of the Kingsglaive…could he even be giving orders right now? They hadn’t come to any conclusions about anything. But this was an emergency. And they would need the Kingsglaive, the Crownsguard weren’t suited for mobilization like this.

 They all watched His Majesty close his eyes tight for a moment of thought, then watched him open them with a renewed determination. A tired sort of determination.

 “We cannot afford to be split now,” King Regis said firmly, nodding to Drautos all the permissions a king could give, “Your oath was true, Titus. That is what I will trust now. We will deal with - those other matters, after this is settled. Every moment wasted with distrust is another moment where the Havens are failing to protect people who rely on them.” 

 So it was.

 The Captain of the Kingsglaive turned to continue giving his orders, suddenly so very sober, sweeping out of the study with Nyx at his heels and Cor not far behind them. 

 “Do you think this might be retaliation?” A Shield asked his King, tense at even the concept of the centuries-old protections of the Havens failing them now, “That somehow Queen Lunafreya has made the Havens useless, to punish us?” 

 “There were rumors of the Havens being untrustworthy months ago,” Regis reminded his brother, feeling old in his skin and his body and his mind, so many age spots on his hand as he took just this moment to center himself, lifting his phone to his ear again, “Rumors of it being so in Tenebrae as well, my old friend. It could simply be…that the Astrals have truly forsaken us, and today was the final straw.” 

 And the moment was over.

 And he had to be the King of Lucis again, hanging up after a few final commands, sweeping out of his study as his other brothers had, sure that it was about to be a very long and bloody night as the emergency lights of the Citadel started going off.

 “We won’t be getting any sleep until dawn, Clarus.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx let him lead.

 Drautos appreciated that. And he appreciated the trust the man was placing in him, to let him lead even after everything he’d just learned. 

 It probably said more that Nyx was following him when he entered the Kingsglaive Complex than any decree Regis could ever deliver to his Glaives.

 It was the way he saw so many sets of shoulders instantly relax when they entered the room where his kids had been ordered to gather. It was the way eyes went to him, then Nyx, then him again. And it was also probably the fact that he was still wearing his armor as the Kingsglaive Captain, and wasn’t wearing chains or had a minder following at their heels to keep him in check.

 He looked a free man. An innocent man.

 “The Havens have stopped working.” 

 Whatever rumors had spread, and no matter the Glaives that had been present for Queen Lunafreya’s departure, this was not the time or place and his Glaives knew it.

 “Nyx, Navi, Axis, Aren - I want you four leading four teams each,” Drautos ordered, never breaking stride, never hesitating as he went straight for his usual spot at the head of their usual meeting room, “Pelna, Lan - you two will coordinate communications with your usual teams. Pull in anyone you need, from any department. We need access to anything and everything as situations come up, and our people will be spread out all across Lucis. No cutting corners. No asking for permission either, if it slows you down - just do. I’ll handle sore attitudes later.” 

 He got nods. His kids knew what to do when he gave orders, his kids had gone through war with him.

 Well, some of them had.

 The younger Glaives still had shifty eyes on him. The way they were angling their bodies too was shifty. As in, distrustful. Unsure. They were taking their cues from the Glaives around them, and even then weren’t blindly obedient in the way true loyalty made Drautos’ older Glaives. Maybe that was a good thing. Later, it would be a good thing. Not now. Not when uncertainty would get hunters killed.

 “We’ve got an unknown amount of hunters out there,” Drautos cast his voice around the room, at all his Glaives roused from bed as the sun went down, and he met as many eyes as he could to show he meant what he said, “We’ve got calls for help coming in too fast to get all of them. We’re going to start with the Havens closest to Insomnia and branch out from there. Meldacio is sending their daemon hunters to assist, and branching out from Vesperpool - we’ll be meeting in the middle of Duscae.” 

 The daemons would only be out until dawn.

 But the hunters wouldn’t last that long.

 “Come dawn, the threat will retreat for a time,” he reminded them, clenched his jaw with his next reminder that wasn’t so favorable, “but remember. The Havens are down. Not working. Can’t be relied on. I know usually you could set up daemon encounters close to them to have somewhere to fall back to - that was always the strategy. That’s not possible now. There will be no falling back, unless you’re close to an outpost.” 

 There would be no safety from the dark now.

 He met eyes, he met loyalty with loyalty, like he’d always tried to do in this life.

 And he swore to do his best as he sent his Glaives out onto the road.

 “Go. For hearth and for home.” 

 “For hearth and home!” Dozens and dozens of voices echoed back at him, with trust in one another and their oaths, if not in him.

 Nyx echoed it.
 
 And Drautos swore to do his best.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx Ulric had gotten his orders. Had gotten fully fitted for the mission. Had gotten his fellow Glaives fitted and ready and given them their orders, and they were packing up the vans even now. 

 Nyx was rushing through the halls of the Royal Wing though.

 What an insane life he’d ended up living, where he could enter the rooms belonging to King Regis himself without any of the ‘Guards on guard confronting him. He could go where he wanted, where he needed. And he assumed His Majesty had struck out with Lord Clarus to coordinate everything that was suddenly happening, that night, out of nowhere and which they were entirely not prepared for - fuck. 

 But His Majesty wasn’t Nyx’s need.

 Inlustris was. His star, who had been taken to the king’s own bedroom to sleep that night somewhere he found soundly comforting, with mane to boot. 

 Nyx slowed just before he reached the doors. Steadied his breathing. Not wanting to startle his amatus, not wanting that at all. But still in a rush. He pushed the doors open with silent haste, wearing his full Kingsglaive uniform like he never wore except for missions. Pushing back his hood as he approached the bed, his mask’s metal cool on the back of his neck.

 His star was sleeping so…peacefully. Face pressed into his son’s hair. Like nothing life-changing at all had happened that day. This night.

 Oh, if only.

 Nyx sat on the edge of the bed - the King’s bed - letting it dip under his weight and the added weight of his uniform. And he looked at the one he loved so dearly. The one he had once caught, and cradled, and loved so surely ever since. 

 The one he reached a hand towards now.

 “Inlustris,” he said so softly, stroking his star’s cheek to make him stir. He felt guilty for having to wake him at all after the day he had had, but he would feel more guilty if his beloved were to wake and learn that Nyx had left him in Insomnia without so much as a goodbye, “Inlustris. My starlight. Wake up, just for a moment. For me.” 

 Lucis Caelums, and Noctis in particular, never were ones for waking up on command he knew. Chuckled about it despite the situation, as his star shifted and groaned in complaint. And tried to turn away. Pressing his nose deeper into mane’s hair to hide. Grumbling a little, even asleep. It was like the day’s, week’s, events hadn’t happened at all for a moment.

It was a time and place Nyx wanted to stay; heart so soft and so fond of this man and his son.

 Instead, he had to gently slip his hand around under his amatus’ neck, to lift him a little and shake him a little. Getting him to wake more fully.

 “Inlustris,” he repeated, thumb stroking at his neck, “<My love. Wake for me.>”

 There were those blue-blue eyes, fluttering open. So glazed over with sleep. With exhaustion. Probably with the wish to not have to wake and remember anytime soon as well, and the Glaive felt guilty again but not guilty enough still to leave his love without this goodbye. 

 “Noctis,” Nyx breathed out, low and apologetic like he rarely was, “I have to go. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” 

 “Nysh?” His star mumbled, slurred and sleepy, and his heart lurched. Wanting to stay. But his blood, his braids, roared with the need to go. To help, to fight, to defend and keep his oaths and his kingdom safe. 

 There were daemons that had to die, and he had to kill them.

 “I have to go,” he repeated, so much softer now it was barely audible, ashamed to see the flicker of memories filling those starry eyes - realization and grief and uncertainty, all sweeping away the sleepy peace that had been there, “Something has happened. I’ll be out on a mission for a while, inlustris. Do you understand?” 

 “Nyx?” And then, another reason for him to fold and fall into bed beside them, a smaller voice spoke up. Not as slurred as his star’s. And a tiny hand clasped onto his ribbon - violet and the color of the Ulric Clan that he decorated his uniform with, tugged on it, mane was awake, “Wa’s up?” 

 “Mane,” he whispered, and reached over with his other hand as well to ruffle the raven hair he inherited from his father, trying for a smile, “I have to go.” 

 And then inlustris’ hand caught the sleeve of his uniform, and tugged as well, and Nyx Ulric felt hopelessly and happily trapped by the father and son.

 “Nyx?” There was a dawn in his love’s eyes. Dawning fear. Dawning memories of what had happened, the day before, “What’s…happened?” 

 Nyx wanted nothing more than to stay. Nothing less than to leave them.

 But he had to go.

 “...The Havens have stopped working, starlight,” he told him so quietly it felt like it hadn’t been said at all, and his star was too sleepy still to put together everything that sentence meant right about now, but Ori let out a little, fearful noise that made Nyx ruffle his hair again, “I have to go help the hunters. I’m going now. I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?” 

 It still wasn’t quite clicking, but Noctis held his sleeve a little tighter, and Nyx leaned down to take a kiss for himself for the first time in their relationship.

 It was all him, pressing his lips so chastely to his star’s lips. Not taking more than a press, that was all. Yet it gave him the strength to go to war again.

 “Oriens,” he whispered, smiling sadly at them both who he loved, “Look after your dad until I get back, okay?” 

 He knew he didn’t have to ask. Mane would do it anyways, but it seemed to give their little morninglight a bit more bravery. Enough to nod and snuggle under his dad’s arm, grounding him to the bed and the here and the now as he stared at Nyx rising from the bed. Still a bit confused. Now a bit sad. A bit worried. A bit of everything, and nothing.

 “Nyx?” He murmured, a star dimmed.

 “I love you two,” Nyx murmured back, pulling up his hood, and down his guard, and giving them both a final smile - his family - before turning on his heel. To leave. To go. To do his duty, and be a Glaive…and leave them behind, for just a while, so other lives could be saved. Praying to Ramuh to shield them. Protect them. Guard them, in his place, when he was not there.

 Please, Stormfather. Keep them safe.

 He went to war with daemons, with his comrades.

 And Noctis held his son tight, staring at closed doors, cursing most of the world.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A convoy of Kingsglaive vans left Insomnia a little more than an hour after night had fallen.

 Screams filled the night, out there beyond the city’s shining lights.

 And they answered.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Prompto let out a breath of pure relief when he saw the Kingsglaive van squeal into Hammerhead’s lot, a smear of blood already across his cheek and his thigh holsters already strapped on. His rifle slung over his back. Screaming from the garage, where a few hunters were already being stitched up by Cindy. 

 It had been…bloody. At the Haven. That no longer glowed.

 They had been newbie hunters, planning to take it easy at a Haven for the night and then - well. Dang it.

 He marched towards the van, even more relieved when a second van swerved off the road to join them, and easily fifteen, sixteen Glaives piled out of them. Fully armed and uniformed. Hunters began to flock their way too. Glad for the rescue, and looking for orders of their own. Wanting to be useful. In this - this mess. Whatever this was.

 Whatever else this night would turn into.

 “Fuckin’ glad you’re here,” he said, throat already a bit raw because it had taken less than an hour after sunset for them to be swamped by so many calls that they were overwhelmed, and he’d only managed to clear the two closest Havens to Hammerhead on his own before he’d had to fall back, “We’ve already got a dozen injured hunters, just from the closest Havens. The ones further away…well.” 

 How fast the daemons had realized the Havens were no longer havens - it was almost terrifying.

Almost too smart of them, and he shuddered at the thought of how many hunters hadn’t realized before the daemons had.

“Aren,” he nodded to the Kingsglaive Lieutenant, glad to see it was one of the older ones he knew in command tonight as more Glaive-black vans sped past Hammerhead with bright headlights, to other parts of Lucis probably, “The store’s offering up potions, elixirs - whatever we need, for free tonight. You need any, you and your men can just go grab. Come on. Got a map. We’ll figure out the best way to split everyone up.” 

 “Glaives and hunters together,” Aren agreed, eyes dark and getting darker at the sounds of bloodcurdling screams from the open-doored garage, “Meldacio is sending theirs out from the north.” 

 “Yeah, heard over the radio,” Prompto muttered, remembered all the other things he’d heard when he was woken up from a nice, sunny afternoon nap with his girl, his wife - the screams that had filled their cabin as so many emergency calls went off and he had been scrambling out of bed and yanking on pants before he’d fully opened his eyes, “Gonna be a long night.”

 “A slow dawn,” the dark-skinned Accordian man agreed, and then they had the map spread out over some tinkering tables.

 And they had less than ten minutes to lay down a plan and follow it for the night, not willing to waste even a minute more.

 Well. One minute. 

 One minute, Prompto took. To go to Cindy, who had bloody smears all over her shirt and a threaded needle in her hand, and he kissed her. He kissed her good. Pressed his palms to the slight roundness of her midsection, which was where he wanted to keep his palms but he couldn’t. 

 “Go get ‘em, sugar,” his girl told him so fiercely, and he kissed her again.

 And then he shouldered his rifle, and he went. Perched with a few more Glaives and hunters atop the vans, holding tight onto the rack up there as they sped off down the desert road, their way lit by daemon-repellant headlights. Watching. Watching the miasma snake through the shrubbery of Leide’s landscape. 

 Prepared for a fight they’d definitely find.

 

 

-----

 

 
 It was a long night, for sure.

 Gladio was stationed with the ‘Guards at the gates of the Crown City, watching the darkness for any sign of the daemons that might suddenly be brave enough to make an attempt on Insomnia itself. Waiting. Watching and waiting - it was all that he could do. 

Be a shield.

It was all that he could do. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ignis stayed by His Majesty’s side, even though he’d far-rather be by the side of either of his princes. He was the Royal Advisor. So he would stay. And he would advise. And he would keep the Citadel running, somewhat smoothly, through this crisis. And later he would surely have some sort of breakdown, but for now that didn’t fit into his schedule so it would have to wait.

 He held, though the night. 

 Vicious, and hoping for something he might be able to stab eventually.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Havens weren’t working?

 The idea wasn’t really settling into Oriens like information usually did. The Havens had always been spread throughout Eos? And they had always worked. No maintenance required, no prayers required - nobody was ever worried that they would simply…not work anymore? It just wasn’t a concept of concern. So Ori couldn’t quite imagine what it was like for it to happen.

 But those emergency lights in the Citadel had gone off, soon after Nyx had left him and his dad.

 And his dad was struggling to fall back asleep. 

 Oriens was clung to by his dad, so he kept telling him it would be okay, they would be okay…hoping he wasn’t made a liar. If the Havens had stopped, after all, what else had? Or could? Or would? Would the daemons no longer be held back by the bright light barrier around the Crown City? Would the towns and outposts of Lucis suddenly lose all power, and their own lights, and the daemons would be free to simply destroy - to kill? 

 Ori didn’t know. He was just a kid, he didn’t know!

 But, he knew he had to take care of his dad. So he wiggled out of his dad’s arms so bravely, and out of Grandpa’s bed so bravely too, and he shushed his dad and promised to be back soon. Leaving Grandpa’s rooms on softly pattering feet. And there were ‘Guards at the doors. So he lifted his blue-dyed hands, and he ordered them to bring him his tablet. And his chocobo plushie. And his star blanket too, because his dad would probably be comforted by it. Also, his dad’s Carbuncle plushie. That could not be forgotten.

 He would take care of his dad.

 Until Nyx came back, he would.

 And when Nyx did come back…then, he wouldn’t have to be brave anymore, he hoped.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It felt like the longest night Lucis had ever known.

 Out by Cape Caem, a royal bastard pulled a sword from thin air and crystals to join his Glaive escorts, rescuing a group of hunters from another Haven that had stopped working by the shores. Daemons howled. And daemons snarled. And daemons fell -

 And together, they all ran for the safety of the lighthouse. Together, they all waited for dawn too.

 All of Eos waited.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Day.

 And tending to the wounded. And spreading the word. And rounding up the hunters who had been out in the wild since. Picking up the stragglers, and picking up supplies, and coordinating with Meldacio, with the Citadel, with the bordering kingdoms that suddenly announced as well that Havens had ceased protecting people. That Havens no longer thrummed with the magic of the Astrals.

 Night.

 It came slower. The darkening skies, the stretching shadows, the lines of hunters and Glaives and ‘Guards that stood on the edges of safety - the edges of outposts and towns and light. Watching. The sun fall. And fall. And fall. And then night came.

 And the howls of daemons came again.

 And the Glaives of Lucis pulled their hoods up again, their masks down, and warped into the darkness. Crystals shattering as daemons fell to magic and blades. 

 It was a very long night.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx watched the dawn come with his kukris in his hands, on a battlefield with his brothers and sisters, panting as the light of morning reached them. The bodies of the daemons they had slayed melting - to goo. To miasma. And he remembered, for just a minute, that Libs had tried to call him. They used to watch a lot of dawns like this, together. With Crowe. He wondered what his call had been about. 

 And then the van pulled up to collect them, and they piled in. Off to the next battlefield.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Morning came, eventually.

 “Easy, Noct,” somebody steadied Noctis, but he wasn’t standing so he wasn’t sure why they thought he was unsteady. He was there. He was present. He was sort of alone. 

 He stared at nothing for a while.

 His fingers hurt a little. His throat too.

 He went and found a hoodie Nyx had tossed on the floor so casually, probably meaning to pick it up eventually. It was a little big. Noctis felt a bit more…more, wearing it. He remembered golden hair, and a golden crown, and he felt angry. And then he hid in Nyx’s hoodie up to his nose, holding his plushie of Carbuncle, and he felt less. He was a lot right now.

 He missed Nyx, he wanted to know what was happening.

 But he was doing what he could handle right now, and he couldn’t handle more or less than this.

 So he laid in bed in Nyx’s hoodie, and let Ori come and read one of his detective novels out loud to him. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 The sun was warm. The blood was sticky.

 Nyx dunked his head in the river like most of his fellow Glaives were doing, washing away the red in the small moment of respite they got now that the sun was up. Wrapping bandages around limbs and gnashing their teeth and cussing - and getting back into their uniforms to do it all again. They weren’t done yet.

 Nyx tipped his head back with water rolling down his skin, his tattoos, his throat.

 He looked to the skies, and he hoped his star and Oriens were safe.

 Then he went back to work.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Midday came, on a cloudy day, and Regis was exhausted. Voice rough as he spoke and spoke and spoke into phones, communications open with Accordo and Niflheim now. Trying to figure out what to do when Havens were no longer an option in any of their lands, and realizing with great distress how many of their people relied on Havens for a lot of things. 

 It was a mess. It was a mystery. He hadn’t been able to reach Tenebrae just yet, and he was scribbling out another memo to send to the Media Department that was currently all that kept the people from panicking -

 When the doors to his office were roughly shoved open. So hard they hit the walls and bounced off.

 “Regis - !" For a second time in as many days, Cor came with news for his king - this time though? He was even paler. And the hand clenching his phone to his ear was white as snow. So Regis rose from his desk in an instant. Barely feeling the strain of his knee locking up. Because his little brother did not go pale like that often.

 Because his little brother did not look haunted like that for no reason.

 “Regis. Queen Lunafreya’s convoy was attacked. On the coast. The night the Havens stopped working. They never made it to Tenebrae - they don’t know where she is.” 

 Have mercy - 

 “Regis, it was a marilith.” 

 Out there, somewhere, a man leaking the Scourge like pus lifted a wine glass to the cloudy skies. Chuckled. Mad with his delight. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Out there, somewhere, a golden crown lay in the twisted wreckage of a car.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Out there, on top of a lighthouse, Rexus saw the very distant lights of the Crown City on the furthest horizon as the horizon darkened.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum sat, useless, longing, in front of the arched windows of his bedroom. Watching the sky shift from day to night. Again. Loom in his lap, forgotten. The violet and blue fabrics twisting and twisting and twisting together, and he’d wanted to show Nyx. But Nyx wasn’t here. Nobody was here. He was alone, again, but at least he had windows this time…he’d grown spoiled.

 It wasn’t enough anymore.

 He wanted more.

 He deserved more.

 He twisted the Ring of the Lucii around and around the finger he wore it on, and there were the distant whispers of his ancestors in his ears. The distant pull of the Wall that he was sustaining subconsciously, day after day. But it wasn’t overwhelming. It barely drained him. It didn’t fight him at all, and Noctis thought of how tired his dad was.

 Maybe it was time for him to do more, if he could already handle this much.

 He could handle more. He had to. For his family.

 To protect his family.

 The Astrals had abandoned them. The daemons were a threat to all of Eos. The darkness was a thing to fear, for what prowled in it. His dad was too old for this. His son was too young for this. His Nyx was out there, somewhere, in that dark. Fighting. And he was there, slowly working up the will in himself to start weaving together fabric again. Thinking. About a lot. 

 A voice whispering in his ear, that he could shake off better now. Thanks to the people who loved him.

 He needed to take another step forward.

 

 

-----

 

 

The first snowfall of Lucis’ winter fell that night when the sun fell from the sky.

There was blood in the snow in no time at all.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

More plot bunnies have escaped - was fun to write a little bit of chaos. But somehow Drautos has become so interesting and I was not expecting that when I started this story. <3

Chapter 26

Notes:

Lots of Nyx in this chapter~ <3

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

 Duscae’s waters had a thin layer of ice lapping at their shores that morning.

 And there were snowflakes falling, cold on skin where they landed and melted.

 And Nyx stumbled out of the tent they’d pitched at the edge of the outpost, shirtless with a toothbrush between his teeth, buttoning up his uniform pants and shivering. Galahd’s jungles were warm, tepid at the worst of times. The Storm Islands did not know snow. Their ‘winter’ was rainstorms that sent waves crashing down on their beaches, winds that tore trees from the soil of the mountains. Lucis’ winters, with their snows, had been an adjustment for all the Galahdians when they first sought refuge there.

 Now, Nyx just rolled his shoulders and stretched, letting the chill of the snowflakes wake him up a bit more fully.

 Glaives in similar states of dress milled around their encampment, already packing up. Preparing to move out. They had a call to head deeper into the forests of the valley; search and rescue for a few hunters that had lost contact with Meldacio. And they would answer. 

 Before that, though, Nyx reached up to touch the pair of cords hung around his neck. A carbuncle pendant and a purple plume. Both gifts from his star.

 Somebody had given his star a phone.

 Because Nyx had woken up to a single, short text message from an unknown number that he just knew was from inlustris.

 Be safe.

 Oh, he damn-well intended to be. He wouldn’t allow himself to die. He wouldn’t do that to his star, who was so strong, but who would be broken by the loss of another person he loved. Nyx felt ready to fight off armies of daemons come nightfall after reading that text. He felt like Father Ramuh himself had blessed him with the strength of a storm.

 …And if there was another notification still on his phone? A missed call he had never answered? Nyx trusted that somebody from Little Galahd would contact him if Libs was…in trouble, or anything worse, so he let it be for now. He knew it would only be a distraction if he called his once-brother back.

 So for now he pushed his shoulders back instead.

 And he spat the toothpaste from his mouth, and he went to put on his uniform.

 He had a duty to do.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Daemons fell to Glaives, night after night.

 Each winter night.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When he was a teenager, a highschooler, a lifetime ago, Noctis had had a phone in his hand more often than he didn’t. Technology was his friend. And Prompto was his friend, and Prompto really enjoyed challenging him to sudden King’s Knight rumbles. Also texting him in the middle of the night to cry over overdue homework. Also sending him at least ten pictures of chocobo chicks every morning before the prince had even woken up.

 What he was getting to - was that he had been attached to his phone. Like anyone in the digital age.

 And then, Mistveil. 

 And when he’d returned, been brought home, been saved - he still hadn’t settled on a way to describe it - Noctis hadn’t had a phone of his own. Hadn’t needed one either. Ori offered up his phone if his dad needed tech for anything, and Nyx offered up his tablet, and Noctis was honestly fine with a tech-free lifestyle. 

 And then his amatus went off to war. Off on this deployment. To fight. Away from him.

 Because the Havens had stopped working.

 And Uncle Cor had come to him, holding out a phone for him to take. They hadn’t exactly been keeping him away from phones, TVs, so on so forth. But they also hadn’t offered up a phone right away. Even when he was doing better. Just a bit better. Now? Noctis accepted the phone. And easily accepted that it was probably bugged to hells and back. With multiple trackers and everything he did with it monitored. It was just life.

 More importantly, it had his family’s numbers already saved in the contacts.

 And Nyx’s number. 

 Was it weird to text him? Was it weird that the text was so short? Was it weird that Nyx never sent a reply? It had been a long, long time since Noctis was worried about…social stuff. Was awkward over a text, wondering if it was the right or wrong thing to ask, to say, to not say. But it covered what mattered most. What he wanted Nyx to know.

 He wanted him to be safe, so that’s what he asked of the Glaive that had caught his heart and kept it.

 And that was that.

 And Noctis Lucis Caelum had other things to worry about, watching smoke drift by skyscrapers and signs being hefted into the air as citizens protested at the Citadel’s gates.

 He had a lot to think about, in his loneliness.

 A text to send every morning, and short, sweet promises sent back when Nyx had a moment and phone service. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 A phone buzzed.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ori’s tutoring lessons had been put off lately, for obvious reasons. And his uncles were super busy. And the ‘Guards assigned to him were super quiet. Careful. Treating him with kid mittens. He hadn’t thought about it much, before, but now…now that Nyx wasn’t around every single day? Wasn’t there to help him put that little bead back in his hair after baths? Wasn’t there to make his dad smile? 

 He was…missed. And Dad’s room was way quieter now. More still. 

 Ori hoped Nyx came back really, really soon. Really soon. And safely. But until then, he lounged around with his Carbuncle plushie that Dad kept letting him sneak off with, kicking his feet and smiling at his phone and at the texts Sterling kept sending him.

 Sterlingsilver: You up for a rumble?

 Starsilver: In KK? Always! :p 

 
 King’s Knight music made sure his bedroom wasn’t quiet or still like Dad’s, and Oriens giggled over his best friend’s texts. Able to think about other things. Besides Havens, and Queen Lunafreya, and how little his dad was speaking right now. Just for a while. Praying to Carbuncle later, just a little, just if Carby didn’t mind, asking them to protect Nyx. For him and his dad. 

 Home wouldn’t be the same if something happened to the man his dad loved.

 It wouldn’t feel like home without him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “<Fuckeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer - !>” 

 “BEHEMOTH. BEHEMOTH. BEHEMOTH.” 

 “I see it, Tredd!” Nyx shouted, stumbling and warping with a stroke of his arm - just in time to avoid the mighty roar of the beast that had just knocked two trees down with a toss of its head and horns and - damnitdamnitdamnit - “KEEP RUNNING, <IDIOTS>.”

 “Tredd, I am putting a LEASH on you - !!!” Axis screamed, warping right into Nyx’s path so the two of them slammed shoulders before finding their feet and picking up a dead sprint again, chasing the rest of their team that was fleeing deeper into the forest, where the thicker trees would mean the old, one-eyed and cranky behemoth couldn’t follow them easily, “NO MORE POKING THINGS WITH STICKS.” 

 “FUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOU - !!!”

 It was a very, very interesting day for the Glaives in Duscae’s forests.

 “A leash?” Tredd panted later, hands on his knees and bent at the waist, like all of them - struggling to catch his breath. Running from behemoths was not how any of the old-timers wanted to spend the earliest hours of the morning, when they had yet another search and rescue assignment ahead of them. Too many hunters had been out on hunts when the Havens went down. Too many.

 More importantly for the moment though, with all the Glaives scattered around catching their breath?

 “I’m sure…Captain Drautos…would add it to the budget,” Axis heaved, half on top of Nyx and limp like he’d been swatted into one of the trees instead of just having to run for a good while. 

 “Hey!” 

…

 Elsewhere, in the Crown City, in the Citadel, during a meeting for the Lucian Council - Captain Drautos sneezed quietly into his elbow. Sniffing after. Wondering why he suddenly felt so, so, so exasperated. Wondering what his kids had done now, with a tiredness that made him forget all the sideways glances shot his way and whispers behind councilmembers’ hands.

 He really hoped Nyx was keeping his other kids in check. 

 

 

-----

 

 
 Tap…tap…tap.

 The King’s fingers sounded on the handle of his cane, and his brothers waited patiently. Still rather wound up from that council meeting - not because of the Lucian Council, like the case would’ve been a year ago. No. Their newer, younger council was still as polite and careful and loyal as anyone could expect, when they had seen their predecessors’ blood soak the steps of the Citadel.

 But the matters they had to discuss were troubling. In themselves.

 “The daemon population grew,” Regis repeated tonelessly, neither for the first time or the last, and Cor’s jaw worked as he tapped away at his phone. There was so much to manage - they barely had time for this small meeting in Regis’ office. 

 But they needed it.

 “Perhaps not ‘grew’,” Clarus considered, motioning back in time to the meeting and the speculation Lucis’ scientific departments had brought forth, “There could be other explanations, as they suggested.” 

 More tapping on the handle of his cane, and then Regis reached for his reading glasses.

 Sighing as he pulled them from the bridge of his nose to rub at sore eyes.

 “You are right,” he inclined, he hoped, because the other options were frankly terrifying in an Eos where they no longer had the Havens, “Their theory that the Havens had an ambient effect to the environment we hadn’t even realized - that they kept the population down…has merit,” and was damned less scary than the idea that daemons were suddenly going to begin reforming ten times as fast as they had before, “If this influx of daemons is just because they are now able to migrate to areas they couldn’t previously due to the Havens, or because they are coming up from underground now…then that is manageable.” 

 Still dangerous. Still terrifying for the people outside of Insomnia where their barrier of light kept daemons from forming.

 But manageable.

 “Any word from Accordo? From Niflheim?” Regis went on to ask, feeling old in a terrible way when he avoided the elephant in the room with them.

 “Accordo is reporting an increase of daemon activity in their wilds,” Cor answered, flicking through reports on his phone and quietly sliding away a notification from Prompto as he did - anything happens to me, take care of Cindy - grinding his teeth, “They say they have it handled though, and are accepting refugees in Altissia and their other cities until this is settled. They are not calling on our aid. Empress Stella has requested an exchange of research - whatever our scientists find and whatever Niflheim’s scientists find being shared, but she hasn’t requested manpower.” 

 Manageable. Yes. Very manageable. Despite their treaties, it was a relief to hear they wouldn’t have to choose between upholding them by giving up manpower and putting all of their attention on protecting their own people.

 But, the elephant.

 “Any word from…from the team we sent to investigate the wreckage?” Regis forced out with barely a tremble in his jaw, thinking of reports of a marilith on the road, of his baby boy laying on the ground in a lake of his own blood and the white of his bones poking through his skin - he thought of Lunafreya. Who he may not care for as he once did, but still. He once did.

 “My Crownsguard report - ” Cor started, stopped, sighed, and shook his head because this was all so messed up and he hated how old his older brothers suddenly seemed with every word said today and yesterday and probably tomorrow too, “This marilith was gone when they arrived, and the hunters who had seen it weren’t a high enough rank to risk tracking the thing along the coast, so they stayed at the crashsite.” 

 This marilith.

 As opposed to the Marilith. That had crippled their Noctis.

 “They have yet to find survivors in the wrecks, and their reports - their pictures, show that the convoy’s cars were…mangled. Many of the bodies are unrecognizable, due to mutilation or being burned by the flames,” he flicked to a specific photo sent to his phone just earlier, and sighed, again, heavier, “The only thing they’ve found so far to point to Queen Lunafreya, is her crown. It was pulled from one of the wrecks.” 

 The King of Lucis flexed his fingers, then slumped.

 Oh, but if he didn’t know how to feel. Worried? Neutral? Lunafreya was both unwelcome and an ally, Oriens' mother and Noctis’ enemy. He had his treaties to Tenebrae, and he had his loyalty to his son. And could he justify potentially losing lives in the pursuit of whatever this would be? 

 “Has Tenebrae - ?”

 “They are sending their own soldiers and members of the Oracle’s Guard to join the search, or at least bring home…the body,” Cor confirmed, “They should arrive at the crashsite today. And if you’ll sign off on it, we can send a contingent of Glaives to assist them.”

 “Do so,” Regis nodded, because in the end he had been dear friends with Lunafreya’s mother and he would offer this much despite her cruelty and lies.

 “Beyond that,” Clarus joined in, flipping through his own notes that were paper, as he preferred to phones and tablets, “there are worries from the citizens here in the Crown City, Your Majesty. That the Wall no longer covers the whole of the city, so they feel unsafe.” 

 A sigh, long and lofty, left the Lucian King at that.

 So much sighing today.

 It was hard to stifle it, when he remembered all those many, many council meetings years ago centered around the decision to pull back the Wall to just the Citadel after the war’s end. There had been so much backlash at the time. So much fear from the citizens, and scorn from his now displaced and replaced council. 

 But the simple truth was that Regis had been too old to hold the Wall around the whole city; a strain as it was, even in his youth.

 He had rarely cursed his lacking magic reserves more than in that year of arguments and judgment - he and his father both had not been blessed with a surplus of magic. And right when Lucis needed it most, many would argue.

 His father had pulled back the Wall to the Crown City, and Regis had pulled back the Wall to the Citadel when he couldn’t handle more.

 But Noctis…had the magic reserves one would expect from a member of the House of Caelum centuries ago. When magic was purer and more plentiful. 

 He held up the Wall, had held it for quite some time now, and although Regis had watched so very carefully for any signs of his sweet son deteriorating? He found no signs at all. Noctis hardly seemed to notice the burden. And hardly seemed to be disturbed by the Lucii either.

 It was a relief, and it was a fear-inducing thing too.

 Because what if - the prophecy Regis had thought rang false still held some truth to it? 

 “If any daemons do infiltrate the Crown City,” Lucis’ King forced those memories away, the Father, thinking of his son and grieving for his son and unable to bear more at the moment, “we will follow the contingency already in place. We will have Noctis expand the Wall to cover the whole city temporarily, which will destroy any daemons caught within its bounds, and then we will shrink the Wall again.” 

 Both of his brothers shifted their weights around. Neither of them dared to add to the elephants already in the room.

 The question of what if Noctis was capable of expanding the Wall even further than the Crown City, that the council had dared to ask - timid or not.

 There was too much else to consider.

 So much else.

 There was Drautos, and the rumors revolving him and his treason that were muted for now but would surely grow louder when they were not in crisis. There was the burning down of the city’s most grand chantry. There were riots still; in defense and against Her Majesty, Queen Lunafreya, since the people were not yet aware of her unknown fate but were aware of what had happened between her and their crown prince. 

 And those were just the Crown City problems - those never even touched on the Glaives and ‘Guards they had spread throughout Lucis, the lives on the line, the loss of the Havens and the lost lives of so many hunters who had been taken by surprise by all of this. Or the reports sure to start coming in from Tenebrae soon enough, whatever the fate of their queen because theirs was a land of faith.

 And if the Astrals did not protect the last of all their Oracles, if the Astrals did not step in now with the Havens failing and the faithful dying, like a tapestry Tenebrae would come unstrung.

 And it would be bloody and violent and there would be flames. There would be pyres. There would be stakes that heretics burned at, because history said as much.

 There would probably be a whole kingdom calling for his family’s death, soon enough, and Regis rubbed at his eyes so tiredly again. 

 Mumbling his thanks when Clarus set aside his notes to come and rub at his shoulders. To offer him some pills and a glass of water to swallow them, reminding him to take deep breaths. Try to relax. As if he could. As if there were time. As if they had that luxury. 

 As if Eos’ foundations weren’t shaken, and the world was changing around them all over again.

 “...We are a part of history, yet again,” a tired father whispered to the ceiling of his office, and two other tired fathers stood by him.

 For their children, they would write the history books.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Their star kept shining, kept moving forward.

 And they had to keep moving forward with it, or else be left behind.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Drautos scrubbed at his face, old and worn and worse than that - sober. Damn it all. It wasn’t a drink he wanted. It was strength. He had always hated himself for that, these last years. That even after everything, it was always there. This soft, whispering reminder in the back of his head. Telling him he could be strong again if he just gave in. If he just broke another vial. If he did that, he could take control of the situation and all would be okay again.

 He would be doing it for a better cause this time too - so wasn’t it okay? 

 Wasn’t it okay to still crave power? 

 A chirp. A short, ruby horn prodding at his calf. Another chirp. And Drautos smiled apologetically down at Lord Carbuncle who had been sleeping on his boots. The cravings fell away. He knew better, he promised he did. Just. Sometimes. He was tempted.

 He was in his office, in the Kingsglaive Complex. And there were two Glaives at the doors. Good, loyal Glaives. Not here to guard him but to guard him. 

 He was still trusted to manage his Glaives, to give orders, to coordinate their efforts. But he wasn’t about to be allowed anywhere without an escort. And he couldn’t blame Regis for that. It was for others’ safety, and his own.

 Lord Carbuncle blinked so very slowly up at him, and the thoughts in his mind slowed.

 He felt calm. Stable.

 He flexed his fingers, and went back to work typing at his laptop. Responding to the email report he’d received from the team sent to escort a certain unknown Lucis Caelum back to Insomnia. They were holed up in Cape Caem. Helping out hunters now - and they reported this Rexus could summon weapons from an Armiger. And if that wasn’t confirmation, well. Drautos didn’t know what was.

 Didn’t know how to feel either.

 “Another Lucis Caelum,” he groaned, wondering, whatever had happened in the former timeline to mean Rexus Lucis Caelum was never discovered - or wasn’t discovered before Drautos’ death. 

 He clicked at his mouse. And the email was forwarded to Regis. 

 He ran a hand through his hair, short-cut though it was. 

 “All I can do is take care of my Glaives now.” 

…

 One of the doors to his office was pushed open.

 And something smacked into Drautos’ forehead before he even had a chance to lift his head and check who it was.

 “Idiot.” Was all his younger brother had to say, and all he saw of Cor was a scowl before he was gone again and the door was shut tight. And Drautos stared after him, uncomprehending. Trying to catch up. Belated, when he reached up to touch his forehead. And then glanced down to see what had been thrown at him.

 He stared at the roll of toilet paper in complete bafflement that had unrolled itself after hitting the floor.

 And then he laughed.

 

 

-----

 

 

 An email. Regis opened it, already aware of what it was. That update on the progress of the team sent to escort his maybe half-brother to Insomnia. He was mid-step. And then he faltered. Planted his cane down with a sharp noise on the tiles of the hall, stopping his whole entourage of councilmembers and his Shield as well. 

 The word ‘Armiger’ stuck out in the email before anything else at all.

 “Your Majesty?” Clarus said with his own sharpness, and barely concealed panic, so Regis turned his tablet to his Shield.

 The same word stuck out to him.

 They did not speak of it in the company of the council; this information was still being kept so carefully underwraps for the safety of many. For the safety of the whole House of Caelum. But. As far as either of them were quite suddenly concerned? Regis had a half-brother. And he would be making his way to Insomnia before the week’s end. Which seemed so very, very, very far away and too close all at once.

 This would be an extremely troublesome week.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis turned the Ring around his finger. And turned it again. And turned it again. The Lucii. Those who held the title of Lucis’ ruler, throughout history. Kings. Queens. He had never really given them much consideration outside of his studies as Lucis’ Crown Prince. There were over a hundred of them. One hundred and twelve. And according to legend? According to his dad. Their souls were all stored in the Ring. A collection of magic throughout the ages.

 The battery that powered the Wall. That tied the Lucis Caelums to the Crystal.

 But they barely whispered to Noctis at all. He was their descendent. Their heir. Some would argue he was the Chosen King some Oracle long, long ago had prophesied would be born from their lineage too. But, they barely seemed to do a thing when he wore the Ring.

 He had taken the burden of it to help his dad.

 He had taken the burden of it to keep that burden from his son.

 Now, he spent a day and then another staring at it, turning it over. Hearing the quietest of the quiet hums from it that meant nothing at all. He wanted to do more. He was capable of doing more. Yet he was stuck wondering how he was meant to do more.

 Ori came. Sat with him. Braided strings of yarn while Noctis aimlessly wove fabric together, and wove and wove, putting his thoughts to the movements. Thinking, and turning the Ring around and around his finger. What was his answer? What was his purpose? What else could he do? 

 He hummed, and it was a Galahdian lullaby Nyx taught him. Not the humming of the Lucii.

 And he wondered.

 

 

-----

 

 
 Night fell again, and again.

 Winter was cold in the face of an autumn rather warm.

 And more than once, Noctis found himself laying on the windowseat in his bedroom, the one with a coeurl pelt laid over it, silky and spotted and Nyx’s. Staring out the frosted window. Watching the snowflakes fall, wrapped in one of the blankets Nyx kept on his cot. That Nyx wasn’t here to use at the moment. Life felt quiet, without his Glaive. Too quiet. Unnervingly quiet.

 It reminded him too much of Mistveil, and the time between beatings where the ‘Guards had grown bored with him. 

 He was used to Nyx and his low chuckles, Nyx with his smirking, Nyx with his quick humor and quicker actions. Nyx rousing him in the morning, Nyx bringing him food, Nyx talking to him as he weaved, and Nyx sometimes feeling daring enough - sweet enough - to ask for a single kiss. Two kisses. Three. He was used to Nyx joining him in the bath and used to Nyx helping him with his physical therapy and being there and loving him and - 

 …He missed Nyx. 

 He wrapped his amatus’ blankets tighter around himself, staring up at winter skies in the night, wondering when his Glaive would be able to come home to him.

 Slowly, so slowly, feeling something stronger unfurl inside of his chest, his heart.

 Slowly, so slowly, getting brighter.

 A star trying to glow bright enough to lead its partner home.

 

 

-----

 

 
 The Lucii were his sentries. 

 Watching, and waiting, for him. For once on the same side as the family. Their family. The House of Caelum.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “That’ll be sixty-nine by my count. Nice!” Prompto crowed, grabbing for another clip from his belt and reloading his rifle with the ease of a marksman who had done this a thousand times - and he had.

 “Still a teenager, no matter how old you get,” Aren muttered, wiping the Scourge from his daggers’ blades off on his uniform pants. Black on black; it’d be gone once the dawn’s sunlight hit the fabric. But he was more concerned about the Glaives he had limping or falling back to catch their breaths, “Opal! How many more?!”

 “Eh - a hundred?” She called back, shrugged, as carefree as ever even as she warped past the gaping maw of a daemon with lots of teeth, “HQ says the daemon population practically doubled! So we gotta cull a few more before heading back, sir!” 

 A hundred? Just a hundred? 

 Aren hummed, and then he readied his daggers as from atop the van Prompto locked his scope in on his targets. The daemons. Grinning. And laughing something mean. And definitely Marshal Leonis’ son alright.

 “Let’s get back to it then!” 

 “For hearth and home!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Scourge was black on the snows.

 Blood was red.

 Morning was a beautiful, beautiful ruby as Glaives and hunters and the people of Lucis as a whole looked to the dawning skies. Another night survived. Another pulse of daemons pushed back. And a bit more hope returned to them, even if the Astrals had given up on them. They did not need gods. They did not need the divine. They just needed to keep going.

 Laughing and slinging their arms over each others’ shoulders, and marching onwards.

 Standing by one another.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Standing by themselves each morning, because they didn’t need Astrals to tell them if they had the right to exist or not.

 They would earn it.

 Like humanity always had.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Luche. Luche. Luche.” 

“Nyx. Nyx. Nyx,” the Lazarus mocked, making gabbing motions with his hands that made Nyx roll his eyes. And cuff his ornery comrade over the back of his head. To which he cursed well enough that any Galahdian granny would’ve had soap in his mouth in a heartbeat had they heard.

“I’m almost done,” Luche muttered, ducking his head quickly when Nyx raised his hand again playfully at his still-hissy tone, “Hey! Come on! It’s been a long week, okay?!”

 The Ulric Chieftain hummed, noncommittal, but he lowered his hand. Watching their backs while Luche moved between trees, tying string lined with bells into place across the spaces between. The forest was darkening. They were far from any outposts today, and they still would be tonight, which was why they were setting up a camp up in the trees’ branches. The ones low enough they could warp up to, at least. Tying tarps overhead in case of a snow flurry, and tightening the hammock ropes they had. 

 And setting up an early warning system, just in case. Daemons didn’t usually look up, but they wanted to know if anything big or bad enough entered the area.

 Hence, the strings of bells.

 “If any of us fall to our deaths in the night, Nyx, I will haunt you,” Luche was still cursing quietly at him, and Nyx laughed. Reached to ruffle his hair good, at which he squawked and the sharpshooter twisted around to kick him in his shin. At which Nyx squawked, and then did the natural thing. Tackle Luche. 

 They rolled off into the bushes, brawling and cursing and trying to wrangle each other into a headlock that really just ended with leaves in their braids, and dirt smudged on their cheeks.

 And also, the two of them lying on their backs amongst a bunch of twisted roots, laughing up at the sky far above and beyond the branches of the forest. 

 Nyx pushed himself up first, still cuffing the younger man over the head for a second time because he could, and because he was older, and also a chieftain so he was allowed to. It was good to see Luche laughing. He’d been right; it had been a long week. And he knew Luche was also worried about his cousin, Navi. 

 Their team had run into trouble at the coast, and apparently his fellow lieutenant had ended up a little roughed up a few nights back.

But, all things really considered, they hadn’t lost any Glaives yet to this deployment.

They’d been really, really careful about things. When the threat was daemons, and the Havens were no longer an option, they had to be.

 “Ugh. Nyx. I can’t even bathe right now - seriously?” Luche muttered when his laughter died down, picking a branch from his uniform’s collar, a few leaves from behind his ears, and just for the fun of it Nyx shoved him back onto his back after he’d sat up. Just to see him sputtering, “Nyx!” 

 “I’m sure we can find you a lake, if you want to bathe that badly,” Nyx taunted, and scrambled out of range on his hands and knees when Luche grabbed for a branch to thwack him with. Screeching something about how it was winter, and he’d die of cold, or something. Nyx just stuck his tongue out and then laughed loud and amused when his ankle was grabbed to drag him back.

 And then the bushes next to them rustled.

 And Nyx had the hilt of one of his kukri in his palm before he’d even blinked.

 Dead silence.

 Neither of them moved. Neither of them even breathed as they shifted to crouch, summoning weapons to their hands. Watching. Waiting. And the bushes rustled again. The leaves were thick - too thick to see any hint of what was on the other side. And they were pretty deep in the forest now. Nyx knew better than to become careless.

 Peeking back at Luche to see if he was prepared, getting a firm nod in response, Nyx slowly reached out to push the leaves aside and see.

 And Luche reeled back behind him, letting out a punched-out noise that was understandable.

 They were either about to be brutally mauled to death, or about to adopt a murder cat.

...

 They were not mauled to death immediately, so Nyx being the smartass with a death wish he loved to be - he offered up his fingers. Making the same sort of coaxing noises he would use to call Princess Aurora to him. Pspspsps.

 “Nyx!” Luche hissed, sounding so exasperated it made the older man smirk just a bit, “Isn’t that - ?!” 

 “I think it is.”

 “And you’re touching it!?” 

 “I am.” 

 “...You want to take it home to His Highness, don’t you?”

 “...”

 “I am not explaining this to King Regis, you asshole.” 

 “Language, Luche.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Under the twisting tree they’d be sleeping in come night, Nyx and Luche’s fellow Glaives were all standing around. Shifting foot to foot. Looking a little uneasy, and a little like they were about to go out searching for the pair, judging by how their expressions all lit up with relief when they stepped into sight.

 And then they saw what their lieutenant was cradling in his arms like it was a toddler, paws hooked on his hips and everything.

 And they all paled.

 “Nyx - Nyx, is that - ?!” 

 “Keep it down,” Nyx frowned, adjusting his grip on the furry baby nuzzling into his neck and purring so strongly that small electric shocks were running through its short whiskers. It tickled, “You’ll scare him.” 

 He didn’t address the fact that his Glaives looked scared enough to be the ones to run instead, or Luche trailing behind him shaking his head and muttering.

 But also, besides the fear, he did not address their awe. Or their motions of prayers. And their terrible, terrible fear and respect. 

 “Um…where’s its mother, Nyx?” One found the voice and volume to ask, and Nyx just shrugged, which led to him making a strangled wheezing sound that sounded suspiciously like, “Oh Ramuh, we are going to die, this chieftain is an idiot.”

 What could Nyx say? He’d gotten used to having a cat around. 

 Coeurl cubs were basically housecats, weren’t they?

 And besides, black coeurls were sacred to Galahdians especially. Sacred to the Stormfather. And Nyx had this strange feeling - that he was meant to find this little one. So he kept him close, as night fell, and as they all kept their eyes on the lookout for a furious mama cat Nyx knew wouldn’t appear. Laying there, swinging in a hammock with the little one loafing on his chest, purring so strongly it rumbled through the Glaive’s whole body.

 Come morning, nobody had been mauled to death.

 So they let him keep the coeurl cub…reluctantly.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Morning’s light came, like a text from his star also came - asking him to eat and to take care of himself. 

 There was still the missed call from Libs…that he sighed and ignored. Again. 

 And then, when he was trying to figure out how to stop the small, feisty coeurl cub with black fur from using their combat boots as chew toys, a call came in. From their communications unit. From Pelna. With news and new orders that none of them had expected.

 “A crash? Pelna, we’re still on our last assignment.” Nyx repeated then said, feeling his brows push together with his confusion because, well, it sounded like the coastline was a bit far for them to be sent out to if a daemon had caused a car accident. And there was still the search and rescue operations they were right in the middle of - 

 “Another team is being sent to take over for you - Nyx. It was Queen Lunafreya’s convoy. Her fate is unknown.” 

 He sucked in a breath through his teeth.

 And Nyx hung up on Pelna as soon as he got all the information he needed, the click of the line hanging up joined by him turning and raising his voice loud to his team.

 “We’re moving out! Now!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 They pulled out of Duscae’s forests. They pulled out of Duscae. They were headed for the coast’s roads before the midday snow flurries hit them. 

 It felt like a far longer ride than it actually was.

 He ended up having some time on his hands to think about Tenebrae’s Queen.

 It was hard to tell how he felt about the situation. They were his emotions, weren’t they? So it shouldn’t have been so hard. Nyx was a Glaive, and as a Glaive he’d been given his orders. That was easy to understand. Investigate the crash, keep daemons off the Oracle’s Guard that had arrived, and send word back to the Crown.

 The hard part was the fact that Nyx Ulric didn’t like Queen Lunafreya. Couldn’t. Not after what had happened between her and his star, not after the way she hadn’t treasured Oriens, not after she had disrespected his people.

 Galahdians may send their prayers to Father Ramuh, but they had no special love for the so-called ‘Oracle’ of all the Astrals.

 So the fact that she wasn’t even a decent woman had been enough for Nyx to dislike her.

 He was pretty sure his team was in the same boat. They were definitely in the same van as him, swaying to the movements of the drive, all stuffed into the back and taking a breather with their hoods and masks down. Waiting. Tense and quiet…aside from the purring of the fluffball wound around Nyx’s feet. Gnawing a bit at the leather of his boots. He was going to have to explain those tooth marks when he got back to the Crown City.

 He wasn’t sure how to feel. 

 He may not like Her Majesty.

 But that was mane’s mother.

 And then the van came to a slow, rolling stop after a few hours on the road, and it was out of his hands. Only his duty remained. And him, and his team, pulling up their hoods and down their masks, and climbing out of the van. 

 Leaving the cub to curl up on one of their spare jackets and take a nap. 

 And them to the sight of the coastline, sun glinting off the rolling waves of the Cygillan Ocean. Blue. And stretching to the horizon. Where they were, they couldn’t even see the tips of the walls rising out of the ocean that would be Altissia’s walls of water. There was just them, and the guardrail along the road, and the ocean.

 And the wreckage of a royal convoy.

 Their liaison was already talking fast and low with some of the folk milling around. Folk wearing the white armor of the Oracle’s Guard. Their capes sylleblossom-blues. The lower halves of their faces visible under their helmets, pale. So pale. The road had been closed down for civilian traffic, and there were a few tow trucks lining it, hunters and ‘Guards in their greys gathered around.

 But what really caught the eye, what really made Nyx’s chest tighten, was the wreckage.

 He couldn’t remember exactly how many cars had been in Her Majesty’s convoy when she arrived at the Citadel, and he hadn’t been there when she left. And with the amount of pieces of Tenebrae-white cars scattered all over the length of the road they had blocked off, it was impossible to tell. A guess would be…maybe six. Or eight. 

 Or ten, if any of the cars had gone through that broken guardrail and met the ocean’s waves.

 There were the scorchmarks and soot of fire making most of the pieces black. Charred. There was very little white left, actually. One - he assumed one - car’s husk was crumpled like a can up against the stone cliffs rising up on one side of the road. Another was turned onto its roof and flattened like something heavy had slammed down onto it after it landed. Another was soundly sliced in half, maybe, it seemed like, or maybe it was pieces of multiple cars that had been ripped apart by a daemon. 

 There were a few of the Oracle’s Guard gathered around that broken guardrail, so Nyx felt it was safe to assume a car or two had gone over into the ocean. He hated that he could imagine it so well. In the dark of night, thinking your headlights were enough, driving along, when something just slams into the side of the car and you jolt and then you’re weightless - 

 And then hitting the water. The cold, winter water of the ocean. So dark you couldn’t see. Trapped. If the windows had been open, they would’ve begun drowning almost immediately. If not, they would’ve been trapped down there, slammed by the waves, waiting and knowing nobody would get to them in time as water slowly seeped in…it was a cruel end.

 Even if Nyx hadn’t particularly liked Her Majesty, it was too cruel.

 And if it had been any of her attendants? Her guards? Her servants? Then it was even crueler than that.

 “Nyx!” the call of the Glaive’s name took his attention away from the scene of the crash - of multiple crashes - and he already knew, Pelna’s report had said so, no survivors, and Nyx trotted over to Fae. The liaison looked weary. Motioned to the Oracle’s Guard who were still so pale, who inclined their head at Nyx as they were introduced, "Lieutenant Nyx of the Kingsglaive, leader of the Glaive team assigned to assist you. Captain Damon of the Oracle’s Guard, in charge of all the Oracle’s Guard, and Guard Barris of the Oracle’s Guard as well.” 

 “I’d say it was a pleasure,” Nyx greeted the both of them, his stormy eyes betraying him as he cast a look over the scene one more time, “but this…I’m sorry. What’ve you found so far?” 

 Captain Damon’s shoulders were drawn back, drawn tight, and there really wasn’t any hope in his tone when he spoke. Only tiredness, “Arriving yesterday, the scene had already been secured by Crownsguard and hunters, for which Tenebrae is thankful,” dipping his head to show as much, Nyx returned the gesture, just two tired soldiers in a bad situation even if they were different colors, “Eight of Her Majesty’s convoy have been accounted for. Two are…missing.” 

Eyes drifted towards the broken guardrail, and Nyx wished he hadn’t been right. 

He prayed to the Stormfather that they had died quickly.

“A few hunters were witnesses, and the final communications we had with Her Majesty’s guards confirm their story; a marilith slithered down from the cliff,” so tired, they all turned as he motioned to the cliff’s wall, and then motioned to one of the car husks a few paces away, “attacking without warning. Her…Her Majesty’s crown - was found in that car’s remains, after the fire died down. The bodies have all been too savaged or burnt for visual identification, and will be transported back to Tenebrae to be examined for dental records and DNA…”

None of them said anything the way his arm fell to his side, or the way his voice faded out. 

A marilith. Pelna had already said as much, but hearing it - Nyx thought of the horrific scarring on his star’s back. The way it didn’t even look like a human’s back. So savaged. And sure, some of that scarring was from Mistveil - but the base of it? Of it all? Was the Marilith attack. Nyx hadn’t been on active duty back then, had just been a traumatized teenager back then, but the way all of Lucis had shut down for weeks while they weren’t sure their crown prince would survive…it was impossible to forget.

 What were the chances of a second attack, on a second royal convoy, by a second marilith? 

 And even…so close to the same coast where it had happened the first time? 

 “Have the hunters managed to track down the marilith?” Nyx questioned, staring up at the tall cliffs. Cliffs on one side of the road. Cliffs on the other. Nowhere to run, for all that the view was stunning.

 “They managed to follow its trail a little ways into the forest,” Guard Barris jumped in, mouth grimacing like he was tasting something sour, “but the trail disappeared, so they’re assuming it already melted away and reformed elsewhere.” 

 So it had gotten away. A marilith had repeated the exact same attack that had crippled his inlustris more than two decades before. Had appeared, and vanished, and left a grieving kingdom in its wake. Terrified that they had just lost their Oracle and the last of -

 Nyx stilled.

 He was glad for his hood and his mask, for how they hid the realization that had gripped his heart in a fist and squeezed. 

 If Queen Lunafreya was dead, then there was only one heir left for Tenebrae.

 “I’ll send a few of mine to follow the tracks as well, just to see,” he offered, carefully pulling away before he could…upset anything. Or anyone. Besides himself and - oh Ramuh. He thought of little mane, so small and still so shy and so curious, and how he was the last with Nox Fleuret blood if Her Majesty was really gone. 

 Nyx wandered off, motioning for Axis and another to join the Oracle’s Guard, motioning for Tredd to get his ass up that cliff and start tracking.

 He thought of his star, and how Ori was the only thing that had brought him sanity after Mistveil.

 He watched the tow trucks latch onto wreckage after wreckage, terrified of the unidentified corpses on the road like death hadn’t terrified him since he was a child.

 Just this once, he prayed to Ramuh that Queen Lunafreya was alright.

 Because otherwise Lucis would go to war so inlustris could keep his son.

 

 

-----

 

 

 None of the reports from the road were good reports, and Regis had to take a breather, had to stop and take those breaths - that hour to calm down by going to hug his son, because otherwise his heart wouldn’t be able to handle itself. He did not tell his sweet Noctis what had happened. He did not tell his and Aulea’s nightlight that they were being tested by the Astrals, again - and again and again and - 

 He just went and hugged his son tight.

 Taking what breaths he could.

 Scared of what tomorrow and the next day and the next would bring.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Night came, winter-cold and with a heavier snowfall that the ocean’s waves rose up to meet. 

 There was no marilith.

 But there was no queen either, and Nyx tried to ready himself for war.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Queen Lunafreya was missing. Assumed dead.

 Tenebrae was wailing to the skies above, asking their gods why.

 A princling in the Crown City of Lucis heard the news because he snuck into the walls of his grandfather’s study. He was small. So he fit well into the passages of the Citadel. He was smaller, when he sat down and drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them tight. As tight as he could. Tears pricking at his blue-blue eyes, as he wondered if this was it. He would have to go to Tenebrae, to rule there, and marry and have babies so the Oracle line could continue, and he wouldn’t be able to see his grandpa or his dad anymore, or his uncles or his auntie or -

 His dad was silent, when he easily snuck into his bedroom later. Eyes scrubbed at with small hands so they wouldn’t be red anymore. He didn’t want to scare his dad.

 Dad set down the papers he’d been perusing at his desk, and opened his arms wide so Oriens could clamber into his lap without a moment in-between. 

 He felt safer with his face tucked into the warmth of his dad’s neck than he could ever feel anywhere else.

 He was almost ten now. He was old enough that he shouldn’t cry so easily.

 But his hands still shook where they were fisted into his dad’s shirt.

 The Ring on his dad’s finger was whispering.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was only a crown.

 And a tragedy repeated.

 And the Oracle’s Guard gathering up what wreckage remained of their hope, to bring home with them, a terror Nyx Ulric felt down to the roots of his braids reflected in their eyes.

 The days tossed and turned and fell by them.

 

 

-----

 

 
 Waking up in the night, in the cold, Noctis sucked in a breath and reached down to adjust his dead legs and then reached for his glasses that he’d taken off before bed - 

 And turned on the phone Uncle Cor had given him. With only one text conversation in it still. All short, simple, scared texts. 

 And out of breath, and lost in the darkness, and not sure where to find his light, it was the middle of the night and the moon was bright and that was the only reason Noctis was able to steady his fingers enough to text the Glaive he loved and missed having by his side. The moonlight was his only tether. The only reminder he had for a moment, that he was not a prisoner in Mistveil anymore.

 He remembered a hundred nights before where Nyx had knelt by his bedside and promised he’d stay - 

 Tonight was a night that Nyx was woken up by the quiet buzz of his phone receiving a text, somewhere in Duscae again.

 A single text.

 I love you.

 There was a coeurl cub curled up against Nyx’s hip, soft and furry and chirping curiously when its bedwarmer moved. When Nyx pushed himself up from his bedroll, and crawled from the tent before he woke up anyone else, out into a moonlit and snowy night. Barely realizing it was fear closing up his throat before his thumb was already slamming down on the call button, and he was out there shoeless and shirtless in the snows.

 Staring up at the stars as the phone rang.

 Then clicked, and was answered to his great, great, great relief.

 “...Nyx?” Inlustris’ soft, shaky voice came through the phone, and Nyx collapsed back against the cold metal of the Kingsglaive van he’d shuffled over to, exhaling. Silently. The frost on the metal rooting him back into his body as he tried to push away the barely-realized fear that his star had tried to fall again - 

 “I love you too, inlustris.” 

 “...Will you talk to me?” His beloved asked, sounding so drained even through the slight fuzz of a phone call with spotty service, and Nyx caught his breath, and caught a few snowflakes on the tip of his tongue while he was at it, “Until I fall asleep? Will you…talk?” 

 “Of course, starlight. <Of course.> You would not believe the mess Tredd made today when he thought it was a good idea to try and make ash bombs inside the van. You ever see those scenes, in shows, where mad scientists have their experiments blow up on them and there’s soot and smoke everywhere? Well - “ 

 He talked. And he talked. And Nyx talked.

 He talked into his phone until his star’s little puffs of laughter trailed off into slow, sleepy breaths. And then into the quietest of snores. And then he kept talking anyways, whispering stories to his favorite star in all the skies, even if he couldn’t feel his feet and even if his nose had gone numb, he kept talking.

 He talked until crunching snow - footsteps - approached him, and Axis was there. Actually wearing his boots. Actually wearing a jacket. Frowning at Nyx’s state of undress but not saying a single word as he draped a jacket over the Ulric Chieftain and then herded him to at least get into the van’s front seat. Kneeling to dry off his feet and rub them warm.

 Nyx kept talking.

 Laying back in the front seat. Letting Axis take care of him.

 Nyx kept talking.

 Until he also fell asleep.

 

 

-----

 

 

 His star was still safe and shining.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He was glad to do his duty.

 But honestly, Nyx was ready to go home.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “How long do you think this deployment will last?” One Glaive asked another, and got an unsure shrug in response.

 “Well, we’ve gotten the hunters clear. The Havens are down, and we can do fuck-all about that. And the daemons,” another shrug, “we can’t get rid of. They’ll always come back, even if we cut down their numbers good. I can’t see why His Majesty and Captain Drautos would keep us out here for much longer.”

 “...Speaking of the Captain, do you think - “ 

 “Glaives,” Nyx Ulric, Ulric Chieftain, cut into the conversation between two younger Glaives with a sternness reserved for deployment, that made them squeak. Damn. They really were young, weren’t they? “If you’re finished there, go offer your help to the hunters. This deployment ends when we’re done, and we’ll be done faster with some more hands working.” 

 “Yes, Lieutenant!" 

 Nyx stood by and watched the two young Glaives jog off, calling out to offer their help to the hunters loading up supply trucks. Good kids. Gossipy kids. Nyx sighed, and reached up to tug at his braids, because he couldn’t muffle all of the talk. He couldn’t bury all of the rumors. His older Glaives were keeping quiet now because he had asked and they respected him.

 His younger Glaives were caught up in the thrill and scandal of their captain being a secret war criminal.

 Scanning the temporary outpost they had set up while there was still a sun in the sky over Duscae, Nyx knew he had bigger problems to think about. Knew that Captain Drautos’ past was a problem for the future, and all the battles he’d warped into over the last days had kept him distracted enough from it…but. It was. Personal.

 “Nyx!” And here came another distraction, Luche stomping towards him with such a sour expression twisting up his face, “You found it! It’s your responsibility, man, so come cuddle the little twad!” 

 Well, a furry distraction was better than Nyx was expecting.

 A very soft distraction.

 He wondered if he should name the cub before he brought him home.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Havens weren’t going to start magically working again.

 And they still had no idea what Queen Lunafreya’s fate was.

 But the hunters and people of Lucis were as safe as they were going to get.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It had been more than a week, closer to two, all in all. And that was far - so far - from the longest deployment Nyx Ulric had ever been on. During the war, there’d been deployments that lasted months. Even one that neared a year. In active warzones. Without even the freedom to rest during daylight hours, like they’d gotten this time. Honesty, this one? This deployment? 

 Had been easier than the war, in some ways. And so much harder in others.

 Back then, even if their star was fighting for its life, even if they were fighting for their right to even exist, Nyx had had all the people who mattered most to him right there at his side, through every deployment. 

 This time, he’d had to leave behind two of them. 

 His heart howled to go home. Home to his stars. Noctis. Oriens. Starlight. Morninglight. So when he got that call, when he got those orders, when it’d almost been two weeks and he was bruised, and he was sore, and he was tired? Nyx slapped his hand on the side of the van, and shouted for his Glaives to pile in. They were headed back to Insomnia. Back home. 

 Back to his stars.

 They’d done all they could for this deployment, so they were finished.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Another Kingsglaive van, closer to the Insomnia, also was piled into. And set out. 

 Escorting somebody their king had been waiting to meet.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A week feels like forever when you’re waiting for it to be over. 

 When you’re reading the reports, and sitting at your desk, and watching the hands of a clock tick-tick-tick onwards. Each second so much longer than that. Things were not fixed. Not even close. It almost felt as though things would never be fixed again, but Lucis was stable, somewhat, for the moment, Regis felt. So he did not feel ashamed about counting down the seconds to a certain arrival. 

 He was in the garage beneath the Citadel. Somewhere out of the way, somewhere without a crowd. And he was joined by his Shield, by his Sword, by his brothers. 

 They were alone, together, because they did not know what this would be.

 And they had gotten word that a Kingsglaive van had entered the city, coming from Cape Caem.

 There was a man in that van, wringing his hands and staring at the floor, and wondering what this would be. Just like they were. But they had no way of knowing that. They were all just holding their breaths. They were all just waiting. They were all just - hoping, maybe. To see something. Something worth that hope. And there were Glaives laughing, nudging at a man who had made himself at-home with them in a lighthouse for a week.

 And there was the King of Lucis, waiting, not so far away from where he would’ve been murdered in another life. 

 He was old now. Older than then. And this was something new. Something changed.

 And from his office’s window, Drautos kept an eye to the streets. Which paid off when he saw the van heading for the Citadel’s garage. There was a small deity sat on the windowsill beside his hip, and Lord Carbuncle chirped and chirped, and bounced back and forth to welcome another Lucis Caelum home.

 And the van disappeared underground.

 And in the garage, Regis straightened up at the sound of tires on cement, the sound of trouble and questions and wonder approaching.

 What would this be? He wondered.

 The van was black, like all the Kingsglaive’s. Unmarked. Here. Breaking only a few strides from the old king, and full of the usual laughter and banter of Glaives. He was patient with the men and women piling out of the back, riled up and saluting him and heading for the elevators; aware their part of this job was done with. Their boots loud. Their voices fading.

 Regis gripped the handle of his cane hard, watching the back of the van, still wondering.

 And maybe daring to hope.

 As a final figure hopped out, boots scuffing on cement, the man huffing and straightening up and rolling back his shoulders. Stretching his limbs. Slowly, lazily, like he hadn’t noticed them at all until he tilted his head to crack his neck, and two pairs of identical green eyes caught on one another. 

 And Regis saw his own face, his father’s face, the face of family - staring back at him with these uncertain, dull eyes.

 “Hey.” 

 “Hello, Rexus.” 

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

Rexus has arrived~! Noctis and Nyx are so sweet on each other, I enjoy writing them. And Nyx is such a good stepdad. <3

Chapter 27

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

 Rexus was taller than him.

 That was the very first thing Regis’ mind latched onto. It was silly - strange, in some sort of way. Maybe it was because those photos the Glaives had sent in with their reports hadn’t made it clear just how tall the man was. Maybe it was just part of Regis’ hopeful thinking; Rexus was tall like most men in the Caelum line were.

 Save Noctis. But that was because of malnourishment that lasted years, his mind sadly reminded itself before he shook such thoughts away.

 Right now. Right here. Right in front of Regis Lucis Caelum.

 Stood a man…all but confirmed to be his half-brother.

 And what an awkward man he was. 

 It was…an affectionate observation. A surprising one on Regis’ end, as well. The Glaives’ reports called Rexus ‘unbothered’. Confident. Carefree. Unbothered by them, or their presence, or their orders to bring him to Insomnia. Bring him before the ruling King of Lucis, like he now was. 

 But Rexus kept glancing down at his shoes, and shuffling a little, and looking away when Regis tried to catch his eyes. Their father’s eyes. The very same green. 

 A half-brother? 

 It had been a real possibility for months now. But maybe Regis hadn’t really accepted that possibility until now. This moment. The two of them, face to face, in the slight coolness of the Citadel’s underground garage. There were only a few paces between them. And they had the same features. The photos had not been faked, as far as he could tell. As far as he could confirm now.

They had the same pepper-dark hair that was mostly white on Regis’ head now, though Rexus’ was longer and looser and curled a bit around his ears. And they had the same green eyes of course - the same green Regis used to see glowing with pride when his father, King Mors, praised him. The same green that made his chest feel warm.

 The same fair skin. The same sharp cheekbones. The same nose. Rexus’ face had been shaved clean in the photos, but it seemed being stuck at Cape Caem for almost two weeks had led to him growing some stubble.

 He wasn’t wearing black either. He was wearing grey jeans, a white shirt, so casual.

 Maybe it was awkward, how long Regis stood there. Taking him in.

 Rexus was snatching quick looks at him while he did, so he assumed the man was also comparing their appearances.

 The likeness was undeniable. A Lucis Caelum likeness.

 Clarus, Cor, the both of them stayed firm and silent slightly behind him. Already having agreed to leave all of this to their king. This family reunion, as it just might be. Just maybe. Perhaps. A half-brother. Regis was terrified of the way his heart skipped a beat at the thought of how close he was to having such a connection be confirmed - now, when he was so very old already.

 Family. For him. For his son. For his grandson. Support for his boys.

 Perhaps.

 The heating systems of the garage whirring noisily as they started cycling out cold air was sudden, and made Rexus’ shoulders jump. They relaxed. But even that one reaction told Regis that the man before him - looking to be in his forties - had not lived an easy life, free of all burdens. He felt silly for the way he wanted to reach out and drape an arm reassuringly across his shoulders.

 First…yes.

 First.

 First, Regis cleared his throat gently to get Rexus’ proper attention back on him, and motioned with one hand for him to step closer. Trying to put that reassurance into his expression for now. The man was not young, but he was younger. Around Cor’s age, it seemed. And Regis had the unfortunate ingrained need to take care of his younger brothers already written into who he was as a man. As the Father.

 Goodness. Regis couldn’t stop, just, taking Rexus in. 

 First -

 “To save us quite some time, I think we’ll get this out of the way now, quickly, hm?”  He smiled for this new younger brother of his that - well. Had crystals and magic in his blood and closed the distance just a bit between them, “Something simple. Pull an object from your Armiger,” Regis reverse-demonstrated by dismissing his cane to his own Armiger, motioning for Rexus to follow suit, “Like so.” 

 The test wasn’t even necessary. Not anymore.

 It was physical, between them, with the lessening distance.

 The magic they shared, buzzing in their throats as family lineage recognized family lineage.

 Rexus, however, had his brows push up a bit. Surprised? That Regis was so readily going to get the test out of the way? That his magic recognized magic? This most possibly was his first time being near another Lucis Caelum, so that was probably it. The magic would settle as they adjusted, though he hadn’t the mind to reassure him of that right then.

 Lucis’ King motioned again at him, encouragingly, a pace between them and no more.

 Less, when Rexus hesitantly lifted a hand.

 Flexed his fingers.

 And then closed them around thin air, that with a shattering of crystalized magic, was no longer thin air.

 A polearm appeared in his palm.

 A half-brother stood before Regis Lucis Caelum.

 “Hello, Rexus,” Regis repeated, breathy with a realization he’d had already, but that had been completely confirmed now. Crystals, magic, blue and swirling lazily in the air around each of them as he reached for the core of this new family member. And this core was shy, retreated from him, but Rexus’ own magic was reaching for him as well and the man seemed very surprised now.

 Was staring at Regis as if he had done something unbelievable.

 “Tell me,” Regis probed gently, reaching out his own hand, to cup the hand holding that polearm separating the two royals by coincidence of how it was held horizontally, so gentle the old king tried to be, “do you…know who your father is?”

 Rexus’ magic was a curious existence, poking at Regis’ core, and he could already sense how playful this younger man must be.

 Rexus’ magic also seized nervously at his question, and retreated from Regis’ senses after it was asked.

 King Mors’ son hardly minded. The retreat, or waiting while an answer was considered with shuffling feet, with fingers that he had cupped twitching. He understood it was a personal question. That he did not know Rexus’ past, and he was very blatantly pointing out…that he was a royal bastard, at this very moment, perhaps abruptly.

 But Regis wanted to move past the pomp of meeting a son his father had potentially not known about as fast as possible. Or a son his father had hidden.

 He wanted them to move on to being family, and getting to know this stranger, as fast as possible.

 “...When you…have magic,” Rexus spoke up, quietly, and then flexed his palm in a pointed way as he dismissed the polearm back to his Armiger, leaving Regis just cupping the back of his empty hand gently, “like mine, for as long as you can remember…you sort of figure out what family you belong to preeeetty fast.” 

 There was the playfulness Regis had sensed.

 And the shyness.

 Peeking up at him through his lashes, with an awkward half-smile. As if Rexus still wasn’t entirely confident that he wasn’t about to be arrested for daring to exist as a royal bastard. So the old king squeezed his hand, trying to put any fears of that sort to rest, because this man, this curious, curious man - 

 Was his half-brother.

 “Did you ever meet our father?” Regis probed, just a bit more, just to get a shake of the head as his answer.

 “No. And by the time I realized what - who I was to King Mors, he had already passed,” there was that awkwardness again. Like Rexus had realized belatedly that bringing up the late king’s passing might make Regis upset.

 Regis just smiled apologetically at this sibling he’d never known he had, but who was here now.

 “We’ll have a DNA test done, of course,” he promised, for he would have to be blind to miss the longing in those green eyes that matched his own - longing to know his place in the family, perhaps? It made something protective inflate in Regis’ ribs, “but the Armiger is a proof of birthright all on its own. You are welcome here in Insomnia, as a guest if that’s all you want to be.”

 Hesitating, more because he wasn’t sure what Rexus wanted from this, Regis was gentle all over again in shifting his hand to the younger’s shoulder and giving him his support.

 “And if you want to learn what it means for us to be family, then that is also welcome, Rexus Lucis Caelum.” 

 Well, his younger brother - his third younger brother at that, wasn’t able to hide the hope bright in his gaze at such an offer.

 And although it probably made Clarus and Cor so very antsy, Regis gave in to his helpless desire to slip an arm across Rexus’ shoulders. And tuck him a bit closer to his side. And resummoned his cane from the Armiger with his other hand, so they might be going. Off to learn whatever this was and would be.

 But Regis hoped - 

 It was and would be family.

 “Whatever you are looking for, I will stand by you.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rexus seemed so very in awe of the Citadel’s interior, and Regis was helpless to how adorable he found it. 

 And helpless to how exasperated his retinue was, trailing after him. Resigned to the fact that their king had already decided Rexus was theirs, even if he was trying for others and for himself to pretend otherwise. It was useless. It was already written. It was just the way of the House of Caelum, and it would be what it would be.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Now.

 Another Lucis Caelum might’ve not reacted so kindly to learning their father had surely borne a bastard son. As a matter of fact, Regis knew from studying his family’s history that plenty of the Lucii hadn’t. That there had been multiple generations of the House of Caelum that culled bastard branches - even after the original branching families were put to the sword so they could not threaten the main line’s claim to the throne of Lucis.

 When a king could not keep it in his pants - well. 

 On one hand, months and months ago, when suspicions of Rexus’ existence had first cropped up because of Clarus and Cor’s investigations, there had been the very real possibility that history would repeat itself.

 And Regis had not forgotten that they needed to find out if Rexus’ DNA matched to the DNA used to frame Noctis for crimes he had not committed. He had not forgotten at all.

 But he was daring to hope too. Because he was a sentimental, worried old man who would benefit so much from family at this very moment.

 Their first act was to find a comfortable seat for Rexus to take, so Cor could call another set of hands and have the Crown-employed nurse take blood from the new Lucis Caelum. It was quick, painless, and then left behind them as Regis hobbled his way slowly through leading his new half-brother to a sitting room that had been specially set up for this.

 He was afraid he was already getting ahead of himself. 

 He also couldn’t help himself, and was grateful for the way Clarus kept shaking his head whenever Regis tried to talk to fill the lingering silence between them. Before and after Rexus’ blood was taken.

 He needed to remember to be careful. That was what he had his Shield for.

 Yes, another Lucis Caelum might’ve hated learning so many decades late, that their parent had had another child they were never aware of. That they had a challenger to their throne, their family, but despite Regis’ initial fears? Nothing in Rexus’ magic had felt malicious. Depending on how that first meeting had gone - depending on if he even had use of an Armiger like the reports claimed - they had agreed to take things from there.

 And things had gone good, so Rexus was taken somewhere comfortable instead of somewhere more foreboding. Like the dungeons. Which had been prepped for a magical prisoner.

 Just in case.

 Needlessly, for now.

 The sitting room was modest, warm, somewhat sunlit, and already had several platters of treats on the coffee table as well as coffee itself. But most of all, it was private. The room. The halls outside. The whole path they had taken up from the Citadel’s garage had been. That nurse was the only soul to see the new arrival so far, aside from the Glaives that had gone ahead to report to Titus. And that was by design; the design of them keeping Rexus’ presence quiet. For now. At least until the blood tests came back.

 There was a lot of ‘for now’ happening.

 Regis tried to regain his composure and control, while watching his fellow royal - free of any line of succession - take in the sitting room, and then take in the trays of treats Ignis had doubtlessly prepared, and immediately light up a little. Reaching for little cubes of Altissian fudge that he hummed happily at after biting into.

 It seemed Rexus had a sweet tooth. Did he favor the Altissian fudge because he had grown up there? That was where their Glaives had tracked him down to.

 Regis found he wanted to know the answer.

 “You…don’t seem as surprised as I thought you’d be?” His father’s son spoke up after devouring no less than six cubes of fudge, looking a bit awkward to be the one breaking the silence of Regis just watching him enjoy the rich chocolate, waving a hand around, “I mean, you knew about me, but? I’m?” 

 He then waved at himself, as if that was a point against himself, and plopped another fudge cube onto his tongue and Regis knew this was a dangerous situation.

 He was already so ridiculously fond of the man.

 “We’ve been aware of your existence for months now,” he said simply, noticing the way Rexus’ brows went up like, ‘Oh really?’ A very expressive man, he was, “And our Glaives have kept in contact since they contacted you, so our likeness, your access to the Armiger? Already known.” 

 “Yeah, sure,” Rexus said, savoring his current fudge cube just a bit more slowly as he spoke around it in a mumble, tilting his head, “but, you don’t seem…upset?” 

 “Should I be?” 

 “Uh. You’re confusing me.” 

 Slapping lightly at his knee, his good knee, Regis couldn’t help leaning back against the cushions of the couch to laugh. Just a little. Because his half-brother looked baffled. And it reminded the elder of his boys. 

 A scoop of sugar. Two scoops of sugar. Three scoops of sugar. A scoop of sugar piled high and counting for three more scoops all on its own, all plopping down into Rexus’ cup of coffee before he mixed it. Glancing at Lucis’ King and glancing away. Glancing at him and glancing away. And then dumping a generous amount of cream into his cup as well.

 By the time he lifted his coffee to his lips, Regis was willing to bet it didn’t taste like coffee at all.

 It made Regis chuckle to himself.

 Did Rexus truly believe he’d be upset? Maybe that would be the reasonable reaction. And of course, of course, he wasn’t missing the glares Clarus sent his way again and again when he was too unquestioning, but Clarus couldn’t feel their newcomer’s magic the way his king could. He would understand later. 

 And Regis wasn’t mad at his father. If that was also a question. Mors maybe had been far from the most benevolent King of Lucis, and maybe he had been hated by their kingdom, by their people, and seen as cruel or harsh - but Regis had just known him as his father. Not his king. And he had known his father had lovers as well, after his mother’s passing, so a child from one of those lovers? Wasn’t as hard a thing to swallow as one would think.

 “Your mother?”

 “...A…complicated birth,” a half, sad sort of smile. And Regis could wholly sympathize when his own mother had met the same, sad fate. His beloved wife as well, “I was adopted by two men. They were my fathers in pretty much every way that mattered,” a slow, blank-faced sip of his coffee and a shrug later - “They’re gone now, too. It’s why I wasn’t so concerned about you finding me. There’s no one…left to protect, I guess?” 
 
 “I’m so sorry.” 

 “So am I.” 

 Rexus grabbed a pastry from the treat trays, something berry-sweet with frosting and not Altissian fudge, and in the meantime? Clarus’ hand came to cup Regis’ shoulder. To get him to sit back less casually, so his Shield could lean over the couch’s back and murmur in his ear.

 “The lab reports his DNA to be confirmed Lucis Caelum DNA.” 

 Squeezing at his shoulder.

 “Regis…it’s not the same DNA used to frame Noctis.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rexus’ DNA matched him as family to Regis Lucis Caelum.

 But not as the man whose DNA had been used to convict his son.

 There was another member of the House of Caelum, somewhere out there…wasn’t there?

 

 

-----

 

 

Something was up. Something important. Something big. Noctis may have been a bit…distracted, but he hadn’t been distracted enough to miss the Glaives guarding him doubling in number. Or the guards in the halls doubling with them. Or the request from Iggy that he and Ori stay in his rooms for some time - for reasons. Reasons that weren’t shared with the prince or princling. 

 They were being protected, even if neither of them knew what from.

 More importantly, from Noctis’ point of view, was the text he received shortly after all of that hubbub started up. One text. Short, to the point, like he had set the precedent for their texts being. 

 One text.

 Entering the city now.

 Nyx had returned to Insomnia.

 Knowing that, the raven-haired father and son couldn’t care less that something was up. Nyx was coming home. It had been forever, and Nyx was coming home. And it took only a glance at the text on his phone for Ori to look at the Glaives guarding them consideringly, and then cup a hand to his dad’s ear and suggest softly they make a run for it using the passages. 

 Noctis was honestly willing to take that route. If, if, they weren’t given another option. He brushed some of Ori’s hair behind the boy’s ear, and pressed a kiss to the crown of his head, and then turned his stare on the Glaives as well. Younger Glaives. Ones he didn’t know as well as all those familiar ones who had been deployed to fight. And he transferred himself from his couch to his wheelchair, in a seamless move that immediately caught their attentions.

 “We’re going down to the garage,” he told them, and they tensed up at that. Looked at each other. Looked at the royal wheeling his way towards them with Ori bouncing along on his feet right beside him.

 When he started to circle around the tense Glaives, they started waving their hands hurriedly at him.

 “H-Hold on, Your Highnesses! Just a moment! One moment!” 

 Two Lucis Caelums stared flatly at the flustering guards assigned to them, waiting. Waiting as they spoke into their comms, asking if the princes were allowed in the garage right now - which definitely told the both of them that something was happening. Maybe another arrival they weren’t supposed to know about? But that didn’t change that Noctis wanted to be there to greet Nyx. That he wouldn’t be stopped.

 They wouldn’t be able to stop him, even if they were ordered to.

 “I…yes sir. Yes sir. We’ll escort them,” one of the Glaives nodded, even though whoever was giving him orders through his comms couldn’t see him doing that, “Yes sir. We’ll stick to the Royal Wing’s halls. Yes.” 

Later, Noctis was sure his son would be beyond curious about whatever was happening. Later, after they’d reunited with Nyx. Later, after Ori got over whatever had made him cling to his dad for the last couple of days as if he feared being taken from him. As if Noctis would ever allow that to happen. As if anyone would survive trying to do so.

For now, they got the nod telling them they could continue on down to the Citadel’s underground garage.

So continue, they did.

Out into halls full of younger Glaives and grey-uniformed ‘Guards who kept their distance from their displaced prince, who had never quite learned to trust them again. Out, and down, in the elevator that led down to the underground garage. Ori bouncing on his toes, still sticking so close to his dad and holding onto his sleeve or the handles of his wheelchair as much as possible. Out. Down. 

Out in the heater-warmth of the garage, the whirring of said heaters louder than usual; chasing away the wintery coldness that had come in. Come in with the Kingsglaive van parking not too far from the elevators. 

 Even without the heater, Noctis felt like…he’d still be so very warm.

 Watching with barely concealed eagerness as the van’s key was turned, the engine cut off, and the doors on the back of it flung open.

 The first one to jump out of the van was Noctis’ Glaive.

 His amatus.

 His starcatcher.

 His Nyx.

 “Inlustris,” said his Glaive, breathy and happy and it wasn’t just Noctis’ own hopefulness painting Nyx’s reaction so. It was Nyx’s broad grin, all toothy and smile lines, and a bushier beard than he’d left with, and braids that Noctis looked forward to seeing him undo and rebraid in the peace of their home - and it was Nyx. Nyx forgetting everything else to go straight for his starlight.

 It was Oriens. Scampering out from behind his dad’s wheelchair and running headlong, straight into Nyx’s legs. Hitting with an oof. And with Nyx’s arms automatically coming down to hold the boy to him, chuckling and whispering his hellos as Ori rubbed his face into Nyx’s stomach. Such a child-like reaction. It made Noctis feel warmer still.

 “Hey there, mane. Miss me?” Nyx asked, carding battle-roughed fingers through their son’s hair.

 And Ori’s response was muffled by his face pressed hard into Nyx’s shirt, but his nodding gave away what it was anyways.

 “Let’s go to your dad, yeah? <I missed him too.>” 

 Instead of waiting with patience for the princling to pull away, the Ulric Chieftain simply lifted Oriens into his arms. Hooking the boy’s legs around his hip with a quick kiss, like Noctis had given him earlier. And then those stormy-gold-brown eyes shifted all of their glow to the star sitting there. Waiting for them, for him. And they were so content. 

 “Inlustris.” 

 “Nyx,” and Noctis finally felt whole again, shifting forward in his wheelchair. Tugging at his magic without much thought needed at all. Ignoring the glow of the blue wisps bracing his legs up, as he stood. To meet Nyx walking towards him on his own two feet. To be able to stand there and smile at the man he loved and finally say what he’d been hoping to say for so many days now.

 So many days.

 “Welcome home.” 

 The Chosen lifted a hand, to join Nyx’s in pressing it against Ori’s back and keep him steady as they turned their bodies into one another. As Nyx immediately wrapped a strong arm around him, tugged him in close, and smooshed the father and son to his chest so he could kiss Noctis’ head too, then Ori’s again, then Noctis’ again. Letting out an emotional breath after that the royals were kind enough not to point out.

 “I’m back,” Nyx mumbled to his amatus’ forehead, his star, so bright and so sweet and still in one piece - thank Ramuh. He kissed him again, and couldn’t help his chuckling when he felt Ori snuggling into his neck like a small child should, then cringing back and letting out a noise at how Nyx’s beard felt on his cheek, “<I’m here. We’re together. Everything is well.>” 

 Everything was well.

 “<I love you both.>”

 “<We love you too,>” his star mumbled, mumbled against his lips as he tilted his head up for a small, loving kiss that Nyx could’ve never, ever, ever refused him. 

 “<Love you,>” Ori added, stumbling just a bit over the pronunciation, but it was enough to make Nyx bounce him on his hip and murmur praise. Touched that they would both respond in his tongue. In Galahdian. Just another show that their words rang true; that they did love him. And what their love was worth, oh, what their love was worth.

 He was home.

 He needed a shower. He was worn down. He missed his cot in inlustris’ bedroom. He wanted nothing more than to take the two of them upstairs, up to that bathroom they shared, and pour an unreasonable amount of bubbles into the bath and melt in the heat of actual warm, running water with his star and morning - Nyx promised himself that that would come. Eventually. 

 For now, he nodded over inlustris’ shoulder at the young Glaives staring at him with something like awe, and stuck his tongue out on his team ducking into the elevator while making exaggerated kissy noises at him, and just held his family close to him. 

 Then, he heard a quiet chirp. Reminding him of something.

 Shifting his weight back onto his heels, his starlight recognized the movement for what it was and settled back himself. Back into his wheelchair with a calm, present smile. Which was so much better than part of Nyx had been fearing his state would be, after two weeks apart. He bounced mane a final time, bumping their heads together to make the kid giggle before setting him back on his feet by his dad.

 “One moment. Have something for you,” for them, for both of them. His princes.

 That chirp was one he had heard quite a bit over the last few days; it was how a lonely cub called for attention. 

 And with an easy flick of his wrist, he’d summoned a kukri of his from the Armiger and he tossed it toward the van and he was there in a sudden warp. Too excited to simply walk the few paces back to it. Everyone else had already cleared out with all their things - leaving behind just the lieutenant's uniform jacket that he’d tossed on the floor.

 So a sleepy cub could curl up on it and nap.

 Black fur was way easier to hide on the Glaive uniforms than white fur, that was for sure.

 The cub began purring the moment it laid violet eyes on Nyx, rolling over and wiggling all cutely, chirping again. Whiskers and tail waving about. And Nyx huffed in amusement at the adorable baby, humming low like he’d already confirmed the cub liked him doing - and then picking up the cub. Jacket and all. Laughing when the cuddly thing immediately pushed his head up into his jaw, purring enough to shock.

 Okay. Maybe he should’ve put more thought into this, but. Well.

 It was so worth it for the way mane’s blue-blue eyes went astronomically wide and starry when he stepped out from behind the van’s opened doors.

With a black-furred coeurl cub in his arms. 

 The Glaives behind his two stars squawked, immediately making praying motions and backpedaling but Nyx wasn’t focusing on their reactions. Later, he’d apologize to the community’s elders later - for now? He was focusing fully on Ori’s grabby hands, and bouncing, and wide-eyed excitement as he barely seemed to contain his squealing. Inlustris was staring at the cub with his brows almost to his hairline, which was fair.

 “OhmygodsNyxpleasecanIhugit?!”

 The cub chirped at all the attention he was getting. 

 And Nyx did check with a glance at his star if this was alright. And his star tilted his head, still looking absolutely surprised, but it took only a single look at Ori who was vibrating with excitement. And how could either of them say no? 

 Crouching down in front of mane, Nyx mimicked a chirruping noise in his throat that made the cub wriggle around in his arms. His jacket stayed resting on the Glaive’s thigh, while the cub’s paws found the cold cement of the garage’s floor. Ori stepped in immediately. Reaching out. Not waiting at all, all but glowing with magic at how excited he was.

 Now, it was a cub - 

 But cubs were rather…large, coeurl-wise.

 Oriens took the cub’s big, gangly front paws and lifted them up so they rested on his shoulders.

 And the cub chirped, standing on his hindlegs, as tall as the ten-year old prince.

 “Hello. I love you,” mane declared solemnly to the coeurl cub, and his star wasn’t quite able to keep down his laughter. Nyx grinned. Leaning away to avoid the lashing tail of the excitable cub as he kept up his chirping. And as mane pressed their noses together, seemingly forgetting that this was a baby murder cat at all in that moment.

 Thankfully, at this age? Coeurl cubs couldn’t shock anything…significantly. It would only tickle.

 “Does he have a name?” Inlustris spoke up, leaning forward in his wheelchair and around Ori to better see the apex predator his son was currently forming a lifelong bond with, and Ori giggled happily when Nyx denied that he did.

 “Can I name him then?!” 
 
 “I don’t see why not,” Nyx hummed, shaking out his uniform jacket a little before tucking it underneath one arm, reaching forward to ruffle those fluffy-tipped ears and then Ori’s raven-black hair in quick succession, “He’s yours, mane.” 

 Okay, now his star’s expression was tinged with a bit of exasperation. They would have to talk about getting Ori pets in the future sense later. 

 For now, Nyx pulled out his phone to snap a quick picture of this illegally adorable meeting.

 “...Tenebris,” their Ori decided with a firm nod, and a sweet expression made sweeter still by the way he giggled afterwards and tried chirping back at the coeurl cub that had imprinted on him as he had imprinted on it, “Shadow, for short.” 

 Tenebris.

 Shadow of the forests.

 Looking at that black, shadowy fur of the cub, with its silvery spots and those violet eyes? It fit very well. And Nyx was touched that, yet again, a Galahdian name was chosen. It mattered even more now, with how sacred black coeurls were to his people.

 This was an oath and promise his beloved Lucis Caelums couldn’t even begin to understand. One more precious still than his braids and beads.

 And it was so good to be home.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Unbuttoning his shirt, staring at the buttons, then sighing heftily and leaving the thing halfway undone? Regis grabbed his cane to hobble his way out into his rooms’ commons, where his Shield and Sword were waiting. Leaning against furniture and frantically tapping away at phone reports despite the late hour so close to dinner. They put away their phones when their king hobbled out of his bedroom. And they didn’t seem all that surprised by his state of undress.

 “Another Lucis Caelum,” Regis repeated for maybe the fifth or tenth time - something like that, glaring at the rug beneath his shoes as if it would make the prospect disappear, “Not me. Not Noctis. Not Oriens. Not Rexus,” because he had a half-brother now, DNA-confirmed as a Lucis Caelum, “But another one.” 

 Another family member he had no idea about.

 Who had been involved in framing his sweet, sweet son.

 “It’s not all bad,” Clarus pointed out calmly, his actions only natural as he stepped in to finish buttoning Regis’ shirt for him, poking at his jaw to get his younger yet white-haired brother to keep his head out of the way, “We never would’ve even known to look for Rexus, without that DNA. Now we have looked, and we found him…and he’s here.” 

 Regis sighed. Recognizing the clip in his Shield’s voice for the distrust it was.

 “He has done nothing to make us treat him like an enemy, old friend,” he reminded him, trying to reach up to help only to have Clarus swat his hands away and Cor snort at the both of them, “He has been polite, forthcoming, and cooperated with us in every way.” 

 “Exactly.” 

 Regis sighed. Again. And Cor waved his phone at them to get their attention so he could point out huffily, “I think the point he’s trying to make, Regis, is that he’s too cooperative.”

 Yes. Maybe. So?

 “Can’t we have something go our way?” The elderly king whispered, trying to keep his desperation from being too obvious in his voice, “Haven’t we earned that much?” 

 He could tell from the way Clarus rested his hands supportingly on his shoulders, from the way Cor moved closer to them with creased eyes, that he hadn’t succeeded.

 “Another sibling I know nothing about,” Regis murmured.

 Clarus cupped his face in sword-worn hands.

 “Another younger brother I need to get to know,” he continued, closing his eyes.

 Cor tugged on his sleeve pointedly.

 “So much to deal with.” 

 They let him lean all his lean weight onto the two of them, as they only ever did. Catching him. Supporting him. Keeping him upright when he felt he would finally give under the weights of age and responsibility and pure strain. On his body, on his mind, on his heart. There was so much. There was never an end to it. And he had to keep going.

 He had to.

 He also had to call a meeting of his council, so late in the day or not, to explain to them there was now another member of the House of Caelum staying in the Citadel. Who was welcome. Who was family…maybe. Who Regis hoped was family. And after that? After that - 

 He had to figure out how to handle telling his boys. It would be a start.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The council’s youth was very obvious, very fast, when Regis presented them with the disaster that was their current situation. The failure of the Havens they had already, somewhat, accepted. The hunters out in Lucis had been stabilized. Their Glaives were home. It should’ve been the time for them to finally turn back to their previous problems - like the reaction of Tenebrae to what had happened before the Havens failed.

 Should’ve been.

 Instead? Regis took his seat at the head of their council table, waited for everyone to get comfortable, leaned back - 

 And told them that Queen Lunafreya was missing, perhaps presumed dead. 

 After their initial shouts and shock had faded just a bit, just enough, he also took a breath and told them that he had discovered his father had had another son, a bastard. Who was now in the Citadel as a welcomed guest and family.

 The shouts and shock came a second time.

And it was a very, very long day indeed.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...Nyx,” Axis huffed, flicking at the chieftain’s ear, fatherly exasperation there in his expression just like it’d been in inlustris’ before, “have you actually put any thought into this? I mean, aside from the cub being cute. It’s still a coeurl. And it’s going to grow up. <What will you do if your other cub can’t domesticate him?>”

 “You know as well as I do that there were plenty of times in our people’s history where we domesticated beasts for companions,” Nyx defended, maybe looking away so he wouldn’t have to acknowledge that he was exaggerating. Just a bit, “It’ll be fine. Father Ramuh meant for me to find this one.” 

 There were plenty of folktales in Galahd of warriors of the past, who raised beast companions from birth that remained loyal to them until the end. 

 Coeurls had…maybe really long claws, and the ability to harness electricity in themselves, and could kill a man before he even realized he was being hunted. And maybe coeurls were sacred to Galahdians, especially black-furred ones that were considered protected by the Stormfather himself, but. It was just a big cat, technically. 

 And Nyx was not going to be the one to tell mane he couldn’t keep Tenebris.

 Together, they watched Princess Aurora walk delicately across the tiles of the room, giving Ori and his new companion a wide berth to go to inlustris and hop up onto his lap. Purring. That white molly a princess - and queen - to them all, and clearly she knew it as she looked down at the new kitten in her territory. Flicking her fluffy, cloud-white tail. 

 Inlustris stroked her back so softly, staring at her, and staring at Tenebris, and staring at her. 

 So, maybe there was some worry about how Tenebris would react to Aurora. 

 Apparently, there was no need to worry. The meeting ended adorably enough; Aurora hopping down from his star’s lap and padding over to the oversized kitten she had decided had messy fur and that was just unacceptable - to start licking at the mewling coeurl cub. Who, despite his greater size, didn’t seem to realize he could just walk away from the bath if he didn’t want it. And what a sight it was. A delicate housecat mothering a coeurl cub with fur black as night. 

 Many photos were taken.

 And Nyx was maybe a bit smug, smirking at Axis afterwards who watched in disbelief.

 “<Only you would find the one coeurl in Eos that is as soft as its toe beans on the inside and out, Nyx.>”

 It was a fine way to end their day. No disasters. No harm done. Tenebris being surprise-adopted by their sweet and cloud-soft Princess Aurora. Inlustris weaving fabrics together and Ori rolling around with the playful cub on the tiled floors, chirping and making little roaring sounds, and Nyx swore he was going to get the kid another knife - it was how he showed affection. What else could he say? 

 Ori squeaked, pinned down by a loafing coeurl cub all but the same size as him, who had claimed the princling’s back as his new bed and was purring in victory above him. 

 “Dad!” He cried out, giggling between breaths, “Help!” 

 “Nyx,” his dad said easily, without any type of rush as he kept his hands moving, weaving, though he did glance up to check his son wasn’t hurt at all too, “help him?” 

 “I’ve got you, mane,” his dad’s boyfriend chuckled, coming towards them with a low rumbling in his throat that made Shadow warble in reply, tail waving. Then cheeping in complaint when the Glaive got his hands under those fluffy forelegs and lifted the cub off of the princling, allowing him to get up. Just in time to see the cub drop all of its gangly cub-weight on top of Nyx, making him go to the tiles with an ‘oof’.

 Joining in with a squeal, Ori scrambled over to crawl on top of Nyx too, and suddenly the Glaive was stuck under the weight of a ten-year old and a murder kitten. And it was all his own fault too.

 “Inlustris?” He called, amusement in his straining voice as he tipped his head back to the tiles and just giggled too, as if he wasn’t a grown man, “Help?” 

 “I think you’ve got it handled,” Dad told him, with a laugh of his own that made Ori so happy because his dad’s laughter was rare and wonderful. So he went completely boneless on top of Nyx, curling up there where he barely fit alongside Shadow. But they managed. And the man his dad loved just gave in; laying there like a starfish with this long sigh. And there he would stay.

 Until Nyx’s cubs had had enough teasing him.

 Oh! That was right!

 Ori still had to go show his grandfather what Nyx had brought home for him!

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Grandpa, Grandpa, Grandpa! Grandpa, look!” His grandson’s excited voice was loud and bounded all over his office and was such a pleasant thing to hear after hours and hours of droning talk at that council meeting, and - “Nyx brought home a cat for me!”

 Regis blinked at that, and then glanced up from his towers of paperwork at the same time as Clarus did - 

 And then wheezed.

 “Is that a COEURL CUB?!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis was less concerned that Tenebris would maul visiting dignitaries - as Clarus was - or that it would be impossible to potty train the cub - as Cor was - but was more concerned about the possibility he would have to take the poor cub away from his beloved grandson at some point, for his own safety. Because looking into those big, blue-blue eyes Ori had inherited from his father? 

 Regis knew he could never tell his boy no.

 So of course Tenebris was staying. Of course. What Ori wanted, he would get, so long as it was in the House of Caelum’s power - that was just the truth.

 So they now had a coeurl cub in their household. 

 Although Regis would need to pull Glaive Ulric aside to discuss him bringing home beasts to give as gifts to his grandson at some point.

 

 

-----

 

 

 By the following morning, it very much felt like things were moving along more promptly. Loose ends were being wrapped up, new troubles were being handled as best they could, Rexus had been given guest rooms a few floors down from the Royal Wing…at Clarus’ insistence. Which the man thankfully hadn’t taken offense to. Or maybe he just hadn’t realized he could take offense to it. He’d seemed genuinely surprised to be offered that much, according to Ignis who had been a dear and shown him to those rooms.

 With Regis and Oriens staying in the current Royal Wing, and Noctis staying in the old Royal Wing a floor down from them, Clarus had wanted at least a little distance between where the newcomer slept and where the rest of the Caelums slept.

 It was understandable. As much as Regis had taken to Rexus, he wasn’t blind to the unknown this half-brother of his represented.

 Breakfast was a casual affair in Regis’ study. Between him and his brothers, all of them going over scattered reports from across Lucis while eating at his desk, chairs pulled up and bits of biscuits tossed at one another as they inhaled multiple cups of coffee to start their mornings off right.

 Drautos included. Despite everything.

 After breakfast, Regis had had the captain call the Glaives that had retrieved Rexus to them - by then managing to make themselves look presentable as the most powerful men in Lucis.

 Rather than just brothers who’d been fighting over who got the last cinnamon roll five minutes earlier.

 The Glaives’ report wasn’t anything abnormal. It was almost line for line a summary of all their periodic reports over the last months of them searching for Rexus, as a matter of fact. But that wasn’t the real reason Regis had asked for them. His real reason was something a little more sneaky, and a little more selfish. 

 Their personal, off the record, opinions of the royal bastard they’d tracked down.

 Which they gave. And then, they were dismissed.

 “‘Carefree’ was used more than once to describe him,” His Majesty deliberated, twisting the fake ring around and around his finger in an old habit, “but he seems very shy and very careful, from my impression of him yesterday.” 

 Shy, careful, humble. Unsure about his place in the Citadel, in Regis’ life. 

 “Duh,” his Sword muttered, tapping away at his phone as per usual because there were ‘Guards to manage even so early in the day, “You’re the King, Regis. He’s not about to act the same way around you as he does around a bunch of easygoing Glaives.”

 “Hm,” he supposed anyone would be at least somewhat shy in the face of that; family relations or not, royalty was impressive to meet, “And did you notice that one Glaive? He grew to be quite flustered during his chance to speak, didn’t he?” 

 ‘Flustered’ insofar as he’d gone red around the gills and started tugging at his braids and averting his eyes; it had been very obvious.

 “I might have an answer as to why, Your Majesty,” Drautos said carefully. And also with no small amount of resignation as he stepped up and pulled his laptop out from under his arm, to set it on Regis’ desk in place of his paperwork. Opening it up with every bit of hesitation he had and could, “Unfortunately.” 

 Oh?

 With the tap of one key, a video that was already queued up on-screen started playing.

 And with the tap of that one key, Regis’ brows went up in disbelief.

 “Is that - ?” 

 “Yes.” 

 Music filtered through the laptop’s crackly speakers; the sort of music with lots of bass, lots of beat, and that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Insomnia’s many nightclubs. Not entirely surprising. Regis was aware the Glaives liked to let loose - liked to party - when they had the opportunity, and he’d always politely looked the other way. If they’d decided to party at Cape Caem while waiting for the go-ahead to finish their roadtrip to Insomnia, the king wouldn’t demerit them for it. 

 So the thudding music wasn’t surprising, and neither was the shaky camera movements that clearly said the cameraman was drunk as could be, and neither were the wild scenes of Glaives dancing and warping and juggling knives and breathing fire - okay, maybe Regis needed to speak with them about that. Drunk Glaives and fire should not mix. For the safety of all.

 What had Regis struck by disbelief? 

 Was the sight of Rexus. Dancing. On top of a kitchen table. With a Glaive dancing behind him quite enthusiastically and a beer in his hand. 

 Well.

 He supposed first impressions could be wrong. Sometimes. Or perhaps Rexus was one who got over his shyness quickly.

 Regis quietly paused the video, closed the laptop, and then stared at a tiny speck on his desk for a long, long moment. 

 “...I see we finally have a royal who likes to party,” Cor said flatly from where he and Clarus had joined him in watching from over his shoulder, and Regis hummed. Still staring at that tiny speck that was oh-so interesting. None of them said a word about how the video had ended; Rexus hopping down from the kitchen table and tugging that Glaive with him towards the stairs - towards the bedrooms upstairs. 

 It really wasn’t Regis’ place, was it? However much Rexus liked to party, or drink, or whether or not he used protection and practiced safe sex - damnit. The Lucian King slowly set his head down atop the laptop. Letting out a long, long breath. 

 All the stress of the last forever leaking out of him for just one minute, so he could go completely blank and reboot.

 Fucking Six. 

 “I don’t believe he slept with all the Glaives sent to retrieve him,” Drautos reported in the same flat tone Cor had spoken in, and Regis just hummed again to acknowledge that statement that made him do a second reboot, “...however. I got confirmation of at least three, so. We will have to be mindful of that.” 

 “We will have to keep him away from the city’s clubs, you mean,” Clarus pointed out in a frankly exasperated tone that contrasted all the rest of theirs, patting Regis on the shoulder so very sympathetically, “I understand, Reggie. Gladio was the same way in his early twenties, remember?” 

“He’s going to be such scandal bait,” Cor scoffed, already tapping away harshly at his phone and no doubt messaging Rexus’ guards to tell them to keep a leash on their newly arrived royal, “If we’re not careful, the tabloids will have photos of him dicking down half the Glaives before we’ve even announced him to be a member of the House of Caelum.” 

Regis reached back blindly at that, to slap at Cor’s thigh.

“As long as he gets tested to show he’s - clean,” the Father mumbled, feeling twice his age as he defended a half-brother he’d barely known he had for any time at all, “Rexus may do as he pleases. And find his pleasure as he pleases. He is a grown man. I would not begrudge any of you for who you slept with…as long as you can keep it discreet.” 

Yes. As long as Rexus could keep things discreet, Regis would leave it be. 

 …Maybe he’d have a word, or two, with him though. Just to check that everything was alright. And that he was using protection. And that nothing happened when he was too drunk to consent - actually -

 “Regis,” Drautos jumped in quickly, recognizing the darkening look on his king’s face, “Your Majesty, my Glaives are good men! You don’t have to interrogate any of them - I’ll handle it, okay? I’ll see to it that they are gentlemen about - all of this, okay?” 

 Regis hummed.

 If they weren’t, he’d have to remove a few more heads for a member of his family.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...Do you think he’s getting too attached, too quickly?” 

 “Maybe. But whatever else he is, Rexus is still soundly family, Clarus. And you know what the House of Caelum feels about family.” 

 “Everything.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Sterling, Sterling, Sterling!” Ori cheered excitedly the very second the video call connected and his best friend’s surprised face popped up on the screen of his tablet, propped up against the wall. Wasting no time in grabbing two fluffy paws too big for how gangly Shadow was, and lifting the coeurl up onto his hindlegs to stand in front of him with a big, toothy smile so brilliant it was blinding to the Glaives watching all of this with bemused horror, “LOOK.” 

 “Is that a coeurl?!?!” 

 “Yep!” Ori chirped, and Shadow chirped too, popping the ‘p’ as Shadow’s tail curled around his hip to help him balance - coeurl’s had strong tails!

 “...I am going to have my brother smuggle me to Lucis right now - “ 

 Ori giggled as Shadow's rough tongue lapped at his wrist, and he carefully let his new companion down so they could loaf together on the floor in front of his tablet, and so he could tell Sterling all about how his dad’s boyfriend had brought home a coeurl for him!

 

 

-----

 

 

 Elsewhere, in Hammerhead, an hour later.

 “What do you mean Ori has a pet coeurl?!?!” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx’s phone started buzzing with a phone call while he was spitting toothpaste into inlustris’ bathroom sink after finishing a nice, long, steamy shower…that inlustris may or may not have joined him for. Just to shower. No hands wandering anywhere below any waists. Anyways. He frowned at the sight of Prompto calling him so early in the morning, though not in a bad way. It just wasn’t a common thing? Prompto always called Noctis directly. 

 Either way, he adjusted the towel wrapped around his waist and picked up the phone, answering, putting it to his ear - 

 And immediately moving the phone away from his poor ear at Prompto’s shout of, “Nyx, what the fuck?!?!”

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Prom,” Noctis said sleepily, all but dozing at the feel of Nyx rubbing his wet hair dry with a towel, rubbing, and rubbing, and rubbing. At his scalp, his neck, his shoulders. He was a boneless slug under his amatus. Fighting shivers as he mumbled into the phone Nyx had handed to him with a slightly guilty look, “please, please…please, ugh, don’t go and nab a litter of coeurl cubs from some poor mama cat out in Duscae. We…mmm…we already talked ‘bout this; Tenebris was abandoned, so…Nyx…” 

 Yawning, he could all but hear the pout through the phone, and the laughter of fellow Leide hunters listening in in the background. 

 “But, but Sterling said - !” 

 “He’s not really going to stowaway on…a ship, Prom,” the raven-haired man shuddered all the way to his toes, when Nyx’s warm hands moved slowly downwards. To his thighs, to his knees, to his calves, to start doing the physical therapy massages Noctis had been missing for two weeks now and even if he couldn’t feel any bit of them after Nyx passed his hips, it was nice to have again, “Sterling just wants to meet Tenebris, so, maybe plan a playdate? Sometime?” 

 “...The Argentums still don’t know we’re in contact,” Prompto sighed, and Noctis winced at the reminder, humming apologetically which Prom waved off with no hard feelings, “Maybe I can bribe somebody in Altissia - his teacher, maybe. They won’t suspect a thing if his school just happens to have a field trip to Leide, right? Or, Cor would totally be willing to set up some sort of field trip to Insomnia. Hm.” 

 “Ngh - !“ Twisting around, the prince frowned - pouted - at the Glaive who’d just dared to tickle his poor, poor ribs while he was on the phone, and Nyx didn’t look apologetic at all. 

 “...Noct, what’s with all the sounds? Are you doing something naughty with Nyx on call with me or what?” 

 “I - Prom!?” He squawked, and his best friend’s laughter through the phone was like a hundred happy memories rolled up in one soft, sweet blanket burrito of a sound.

 Nyx crawled up the bed again to press a soft, sweet kiss to Noctis’ cheek.

 And despite everything else they’d had to go through these last weeks, home was finally beginning to feel safe again for the man who had already been hurt too much.

 

 

-----

 

 

 They yet waited on news from Tenebrae.

 So life went on. Eos tried to adjust to not having the Havens, even though it had only been half a month, and snow continued to fall steadily throughout Lucis. Turning the Crown City white. And putting a much firmer lid on the riots and protests they’d been contending with for many of the warmer months, which was at least a relief to the Crownsguard.

 Nobody thought it was warm enough to get riled up and protest when snow was falling.

 The year was almost at an end, and their future was uncertain. But they still kept going.

 

 
-----

 

 

 Really, if Drautos was a braver man, he would’ve done this before now. Before now, before then. But he’d felt like Nyx deserved to be a part of this, maybe more than any of his Glaives. So he’d waited for the man to be available, after catching up with His Highnesses. What did it matter if waiting made Drautos look worse? What did it matter if waiting meant more time for rumors to spread like wildfire? 

 His Glaives, his kids, were home from their deployments. 

 And he owed them answers, as their captain. As the Captain. 

 How many times across two lives had he done this? Stood in this very spot? In this very meeting room of the Kingsglaive Complex? How many times had he looked out at these very faces; some old and some new and many gone, but at least more had lived this time than last time - ? Drautos had a hundred, and a hundred more, times just like this flash through his head as he stood there. Under so many eyes. So much scrutiny. Which he deserved. He deserved more than they could ever know.

 This was Glaive business, and these were his Glaives, and they were his responsibility.

 The time had come for Titus Drautos to defend himself.

 So, looking out across the roomful of his kids, he opened his mouth. To start. To try. He opened his mouth…and nothing came out. No sound. Not a word. He shut his mouth to swallow, meeting eyes full of fear and hope and trust and anger and sadness and distrust - so many had placed their faith in him. And in another life? Drautos had been driven by own unfair bitterness to destroy them using that faith.

 He dropped his crossed arms back down to his sides, letting out a long breath. Dropping his eyes too.

 Regis had tried - oh, he’d tried - to insist Drautos have a Crownsguard team at his side for this. For his own protection. Of course he’d turned him down flat; his kids deserved better than to be treated like animals who would savage him at a few words and rumors. And he deserved to be savaged, if that was what they decided to do. 

 He felt old.

 Swallowing, again, enough to make his throat click, Drautos slowly caught himself back on the edge of the meeting room’s table as he dropped too. Going down, to sit on the floor, leaning back against a knobbed table leg. The carpet was really rough. Scratchy. He’d never noticed before. He noticed now, suddenly gazing up at a room full of his Glaives looking down at him.

 Splaying his legs out straight in front of him, the captain who had lived twice no longer had the strength to keep his composure. He had only his emotions.

 So he rested his hands between his thighs, picked at the carpet a little, and decided his people deserved the openness.

 Opening his mouth, this time to try again, Drautos was cut off by another thing. Not a thing from him, or a lack of words, or any of that. He was cut off by Nyx, at the front of all his fellow Kingsglaive, dropping down to the floor to sit too. Crossing his legs and staring at his captain - and then Axis beside him did the same. Tredd too. Pelna, Navi, Luche, Sonitus, on and on and on and all of them. Sitting their asses down on the scratchy carpet. Even the younger ones at the edges of the room, though they seemed a little more annoyed about it.

 Until the whole room, and all his Glaives, were sitting too. Staring at him. 

 Joining him, even now, even when he was so low.

 It was enough to make any old captain like him smile, shakily maybe, emotional maybe, but still. It was there. 

 Drautos cleared his throat to swallow down the thick feeling climbing it before he opened his mouth. To speak this time. Searching for the words.

 “So,” even if it was quiet, in the silence, he was heard, “I assume most, if not all, of you…have heard about what happened a couple of weeks back, with Queen Lunafreya’s sendoff. About what was said, and what wasn’t said. Yes?”

 Nods. Narrowing eyes. His kids, prepared to get up and face him on their feet depending on what he had to say because that was what he’d taught them to do, and Drautos was so proud his lips just had to curve up sadly. Taking them in. As he completely disappointed them.

 “I was General Glauca.” 

 Kids leaned forward, sucking breath in through their teeth. And kids slammed their fists down onto the carpet that scratched at their skin. And kids jumped to their feet, shouting, demanding, voices breaking as they cursed at him - and Drautos kept his eyes wide open on them all. Because he deserved their every reaction. So many of them, voices raising as they shouted at him, shouted at each other, as they were let down by the man - father - they had trusted.

 And Drautos knew so many of them. So many of them had come to him as teenagers who had lost their homes and their families. So many of them had come to him when nightmares made them toss and turn in their bunks. So many of them he had trained himself. At so many of their dinner tables, he had eaten, after they got homes of their own to return to. He had stood at their weddings, he had given some of them away himself, and he had had some of their children named after him - 

 So he just took it all. Because that was what a father should do. Bear that, for his kids.

 When one of his Glaives lunged towards him, Nyx and Axis were there gripping his arms to hold him back; blonde, angry, tears in his eyes and a refugee from Tenebrae who Drautos had called his own - 

 “Why?!” 

 Why? So many reasons. None of them really seemed to make much sense now, in a room full of kids he’d disappointed. 

 He called them kids, but some were older than he was. Physically. They were still kids in his mind, though. His kids. So he would do what he could for them, even if that meant opening up about…what the Scourge had made of him. Even if that meant, here, now, he held his palms up to them and tried his best to tell his story, with his and his late wife’s wedding bands still on his ring finger like they’d been for decades ever since the bombs dropped.

 “I…” He owed Regis though, too, so he would bend the story just a little, like his big brother had asked him to, “I was taken…and experimented on, by Niflheim’s scientists.” 

 Silence fell heavily over and throughout the meeting room full of Glaives, and he only hoped he could be forgiven for just being a man. Though Regis had said…Regis had said he really was taken advantage of, so - ? Maybe? 

 “Go on, Captain,” Nyx whispered, leading from the front as he always did, holding back his comrades for a man who never deserved that. A man who had killed him and he didn’t even know.

 But Titus Drautos took a breath, and told his story. Again. It was slow-going. He stared at his palms for most of its length, tracing the scars that came from glass cutting into his skin. He spoke quietly, so his Glaives had to be quiet to hear. He told them about how he was just human. Just flawed, and with a life - two lives - full of mistakes at his back. He told them that he had lived and he had lost and he hadn’t been fair or right after that. 

 He told them that Niflheim had known exactly what to say, to get him to break the first vial. And then the second, and the third. And after some time, he no longer needed to be convinced because his body hungered for the Scourge that made him powerful. For that armor and that blade and the blood he left in rivers at his heels.

 He told them that he tried, and that he failed.

 And that he gave in to the addiction.

 And that he didn’t stop…until Tenebrae.

 They had no idea how true it was; that Titus Drautos had had his head taken from his shoulders that day. But they had an idea of how he regretted. And about how he had detoxed, and about how he crawled his way back to Lucis and back to being loyal and how that had not wavered in all the years since. 

 But he had Glaives who were refugees from Tenebrae, Glaives who were refugees from Accordo, and he looked them in their eyes when he told them he was sorry.

 Even if he was just human, he should’ve tried to be better.

 “...The Scourge is gone from me, now,” he murmured, no louder than a whisper, in a room where crickets could be heard as he rested his cheek on the knee he had propped up during his story. Closing his eyes to the silence aside from his raspy, regretful voice, “But I was General Glauca. And I know that I have…that I have hurt some of you. And that no matter what was done to me, it is no excuse. I’m not asking for your forgiveness,” he added, whisper even harder to hear for how quiet it was, “I’m just giving you an explanation. You deserve that, and more.” 

 So much more.

 “Did King Regis know?” One of his Accordo kids spoke up first, a mix of emotions in his question, and Drautos shook his head against his knee. The fabric of his pants rubbing at his cheek.

 “No,” that, at least, was the truth, “His Majesty wasn’t aware of any of this until Queen Lunafreya’s sendoff as well.” 

 There was talk. Which he didn’t try to stop. He had no right to. He just sat there, watching, as Glaives gathered into groups, harsh words leaving their mouths. Arguing and agreeing and arguing and agreeing. In defense of him, and not, and in defense of him but also not. There were two sides to this coin, and every one of his kids had the right to flip it. 

 “Will you still be Captain of the Kingsglaive?” Pelna, one of his lieutenants, asked him curiously. And also directly. And a few of the Glaives near him quieted so they could hear the answer.

“That will depend on…well, all of you.”

“Us?” 

“His Majesty agrees that it is first and foremost a Glaive issue, and we should be able to sort things out on our own before anyone else is brought in.” 

Looks were exchanged. Lots of looks. And what he had said spread in whispers to the other groups talking amongst themselves. Doors opened. More than one Glaive walked out, either because they were told to in order to calm them down, or because they refused to be a part of this. Drautos couldn’t be sure of all their reasons. He wasn’t offended. He had no reason to stop them, either.

“What happens when we settle on a decision?” Nyx checked, having been the most silent so far, and quite a few Glaives fell silent in response to him speaking. Out of respect and something more that made Drautos feel proud, even if he didn’t have the right to feel that way.

“It’ll still be brought before the council,” Drautos admitted, no longer bothered by the idea as he’d been in the beginning. He deserved worse and he knew it, “There will be talks. And they’ll come to a decision; whether I will be tried as a war criminal, whether I will be imprisoned, whether I will be executed…or whether I will be considered innocent. But His Majesty has promised to take the opinions of the Kingsglaive into account before a verdict is reached.” 

There was some thoughtfulness in response to his words, and he settled back. 

Watched.

Honestly, his Glaives could probably do just fine without him. He’d already taught them everything he knew. And now that the Crownsguard was dishonored, as bad as he felt for Cor? It meant the Kingsglaive wasn’t going to be disbanded anytime soon. And now that they had more royals, younger royals? It also meant they weren’t going to lose Regis to the drain the Glaives’ magic was on him.

Whatever was decided, things would work out.

Drautos didn’t feel like he was in danger when Nyx casually warped over to him. Rolling and landing halfway strewn across his legs. Frowning up at him; hurt was in those brown eyes of the Glaive’s. The Glaive he owed so much to.

The captain blinked down at his lieutenant, then reached for him.

 Nyx let his captain pat him on the head, while the discussions kept up throughout the room.

 “I think we’ll be at this for a while,” the younger man admitted, and Drautos nodded. Didn’t mind at all. With Nyx at forty-two years old, there really wasn’t much of a difference between the two of them - he was barely younger at all anymore. In body. But he would always partially be that stormy-eyed teenager that Drautos had taken under his wing decades ago.

 “It’s fine. This sort of thing shouldn’t be rushed.”

 “Got a preference on the outcome, Captain?” Nyx asked him lazily, like he wasn’t tensing up over this whole mess of a situation even though he was, “You know, if you had to choose.”

 “...I’ve lived a long life, Nyx,” two lives, in fact, so Drautos just smiled down at the man who had changed one of those lives in the end, “Whatever the outcome, I’ll accept it. If I live, I’ll continue serving my king and kingdom. If I’m imprisoned, I’ll go quietly. And if I’m executed…I’ll finally see my wife and son again. There will be no loss, whatever the outcome.” 

 Nyx’s jaw worked, almost like he had something he wanted to say in argument to his captain’s calmness. But in the end, he just let his head lay down on Drautos’ knee. Listening to the murmur of their Glaives.

 There would be no battle across an Insomnia aflame this time.

 This time, Drautos’ battle would be remarkably quiet. 

 This time, only his life would be on the line.

 

 

-----

 

 
 For all that Drautos had done, all the crimes he had committed, all the blood he had drenched his hands in, it should’ve been no big thing. Deciding his fate. Picking a judgment for him. His Glaives; some of whom had personally suffered from his actions. Some of whom had lost lives from his actions. All of whom he had destroyed in another timeline. 

 Maybe it was because they knew not of that other timeline, but it…became a debate.

 There was actual consideration being put into his sentence, regardless of his own, admitted guilt.
 
 There were Glaives for and against him being punished.

 And there was Drautos, being dismissed by his own lieutenants with grim expressions because, ‘It will be easier if you’re not here for the time being, Captain.’ Sending him off to his office, off to where he was out of the way, so they could decide whether they still trusted him after everything they’d been told.

 That there was any sort of conversation to be had at all surprised him; he knew what he deserved.

 But Lord Carbuncle, who had claimed one of his pillows yet again, just blinked slowly at him when he stood in the doorway of his quarters, surprised. 

 A second chance meant a chance. 

 Drautos just didn’t think he’d done enough to deserve it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rexus considered the doors to his…rooms. Because he had been given a whole set of guest rooms no less grand than anything royalty might expect, and he was still slightly confused about that. Honestly? He’d thought it was reasonable for him to assume he was being taken to Lucis to be imprisoned maybe. Interrogated definitely. It had been so awkward to arrive, and just…have his Glaive escorts leave him in the van. 

No cuffs? Seriously? They already knew his safeword. 

No, nothing. What the Six. 

Instead, he’d been allowed to hop on out of the van whenever he felt ready? What the Six. And the King had been waiting for him with patience, and with his most trusted at his back but still - that was only two to stand between him and any weapons Rexus might’ve used for whatever. You know. If he had been planning to skewer Lucis’ King for some reason?! 

And then he was invited to have coffee and chocolate with him -

And then he was just allowed free rein? Of a whole set of rooms. For a whole night, and morning, and given feasts of food his stomach could hardly stomach when he…maybe hadn’t been eating as well as he should’ve in recent months. He’d been busy, okay? And there wasn’t exactly anybody around who would’ve reminded him to do things like take care of himself.

So, he considered the doors to his rooms. Feeling skin-crawly like he was out of place. Wondering if there would be ‘Guards on the other side if he opened them. Or, hells, Glaives. According to Lucis’ general news, they had taken the Crownsguard’s place as the Crown’s primary protectors in the last year after - yeah. 

Yeah.

Rexus turned right around, and abandoned the doors.

Why risk a social interaction that would obviously feel awkward as all stars, when there was a perfectly fine balcony attached to his rooms? Right? Right. If they hadn’t wanted him to go warping off a balcony five floors off the ground, they wouldn’t have given him one. So with a toss of his polearm like it was a javelin, Rexus was gone from his rooms.

It shouldn’t be a problem if he just, took a walk, right? He really needed to shake off this awkward mood everything had put him into. 

Maybe he’d find a drink along the way. 

He’d like a drink, please and thank you, Astrals.

 

 

-----

 

 

“I’m sorry, he what?” 

“...Stole a cask of wine from the kitchens, Lord Amicitia. I’m told the Glaives assigned to his room are trying to sober him up now,” Dustin reported dutifully, just to get the baffled Shield turning around to face their king with an accusing finger up and Dustin was quick to duck out of His Majesty’s office. 

 After all his years of service, he knew when to get out of the way of their antics. Their words echoing after him until he had gotten far enough away to plead plausible deniability.

 “It’s not even noon - Your Majesty, you wanted him, so you’re taking responsibility for him!” 

 “But Clarus - !” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx Ulric frowned. Overwhelmed, maybe, truthfully. 

Just a bit.

 He had watched a few Glaives rush past him, laughing to one another about a ‘Rexus’ being hilariously and understandably drunk - a name that rang all sorts of bells in the chieftain’s head. Bells that’d had him stopping in his tracks, then silently banging his forehead against the pillared, stony walls of the Kingsglaive Complex for a moment. Things had been busy, sure.

 But had they been busy enough for him to have an excuse to forget about the secret Caelum one of their teams had been tracking down? And apparently brought back? 

 Okay. Maybe things had been that busy. 

 In his defense, he’d been more focused on daemons and taking care of a baby murder kitten full of literally electric love, so. That wasn’t his fault?

 He should just be glad that any of his fellow Glaives had it in them to laugh after that disastrous meeting of Captain Drautos clarifying all the rumors. Not clarifying. Confirming. Oh, Stormfather. Spending the better part of his day dealing with wronged brothers and sisters-in-arms had been an ordeal, but he’d done it.

 The decision they’d come down to - to give everyone a few days of thinking on things before doing a Kingsglaive-wide vote, that included retired Glaives they’d be calling in? 

 It was as fair as they could get. For the wronged, the loyal, and the restless.

 And the young, who didn’t really have all that much of a personal opinion on the matter; save those that were legacy Glaives. Children of Glaives that had trusted the captain.

 And on top of the uncertainty of mane’s mother’s fate, that pesky new royal he’d forgotten, checking in on the community after spending two weeks away from his people, bright spot that his inlustris was loving him like he did or not - ? 

 There was a lot.

…

 There had been a moment there, back in the meeting room, where he’d felt young and dumb enough that he’d turned to talk to Crowe and Libs. To ask their opinions. Only to be met by Axis and Tredd who, granted, recognized the action for what it was. He’d done it lots back when they first lost Crowe. Back when Libs first left. And he’d done the only thing he could do. Gone to the Captain.

 Even after everything that had come to light, that hadn’t changed.

 Neither had the ease with which Nyx could pull up Libs’ contact information on his phone, even after months of no contact. Years of little more. There was still a missed call he’d never gotten around to responding to. It was strange to think about how many months it’d been since he blocked Libs’ number because of the way he spoke about his star, then unblocked him because that was his brother, then missed his phone call.

 Welp, seize the moment and all that? 

 Nyx hit the call button, and put the phone up to his ear as he just kept walking. Nowhere particular in mind to go. Just walking the halls of the Kingsglaive Complex, listening to his phone ring.

 Listening to it stop ringing.

 And a rough-sounding voice speak up, “Hell-o? Who’s this?” 

 “...Libs,” was all Nyx had to say. Finger already guiltily resting on the button that would end the call. Just in case this was another situation of his once-brother being drunk off his ass and wanting to cuss out Nyx and his amatus because he couldn’t let go of the past. And the bitterness that was sown into it. His name was all he had to say, and there was a hitch in the breath on the other end of the line.

 A, “Nyx?” Soft and hopeful and sweet Stormfather, grant him mercy, it made Nyx feel like a kid again.

 He already knew down to the roots of his braids that he wouldn’t be able to handle this conversation falling apart like their past ones had. 

 “You called,” was how Nyx started this uncertain conversation, even if that was the lamest thing he could’ve started with; reminding Libs he hadn’t been there for him when he called. It had his fingers curling tighter, guiltily, around his phone. But he pushed the guiltiness away. He’d done what he’d done to protect his star.

 He’d never regret that.

 “I, um, yeah,” he tried not to notice how gravelly LIbs’ voice sounded, like he’d just finished another nightlong bender…despite it already being so late in the day. But his words weren’t slurring. Was he just hungover? Or just not too deep in his afternoon bottle? “Yeah, yeah, I - sorry.” 

 Nyx blinked, listening to a lot of shuffling and rustling through the phone, and even a grunt or two. 

 “Just, your call woke me up,” Libs muttered, probably pulling on some clothes or something like, hopping around his bed searching for pants or a shirt - Nyx had seen the sight enough times with his own eyes to be able to imagine it easily, “You good? Everything good?” 

 Like he couldn’t be more surprised.

 Libs didn’t seem currently drunk and he was checking in on Nyx? 

 “Everything is…as good as it can be?”

 “Good, that’s good. Good.” 

 Well. This was just, awkward. Nyx wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say when he was returning Libs’ call, and apparently Libs hadn’t expected him to return the call at all? Or had finished up a really late night at the bar, and just wasn’t in the headspace for it right now? He reached up to tug at his braids. Roll his beads between his fingertips. This was, more complicated than he’d been expecting.

 He’d been expecting a fight, to be honest.

 Maybe…maybe it was about time they met up? Talk about things face to face? Would that help? 

 “You, uh, want to get a drink? Sometime?”

 “Hell no.” 

 Nyx froze midstep, lifting his phone away from his ear just to stare at it in surprise at how vehemently Libs had denied him. 

 “I - fuck, I mean - “ He put the phone back to his ear cautiously, prepared to pull it away again, just in case. In case Libs did end up cussing at him. Like he’d expected when he first picked up the phone. But instead, he got a long sigh that crackled through the speaker, and a faraway voice mumbling, “I, um, I. Fuck. I’m sober.” 

Nyx’s heart skipped a godsdamned beat.

“And I don’t - I don’t just mean right now, okay?” Libs’ slightly hysterical laugh tickled his ear, and Nyx stared down at the shapes of the tiles under his feet, hearing the call like through a filter. Like this couldn’t be real. Like this was a dream, “I mean, sober. Seriously. So no going out drinking - but! Something else. Something else is fine. Just, no alcohol, you get me? Um - “ 

 “How long?” Nyx whispered to his bootlaces, and heard the awkwardness through the phone of Libs shrugging his shoulders then stopping himself.

 “Three months, give or take,” Libs told him, and. That was? Nyx had never known his brother and best friend to go that long dry. Even before he began to have a problem. Even when they were in the middle of war, holding Galahd’s beaches as orphans with nothing but their knives and teeth for weapons. There’d been flasks they stole off of dead Imperialists. 

 “Why?”

 “...<Fuck, Nyx. What do you want me to say?>” Switching tongues back to Galahdian for the emotional end to this conversation, he heard Libs shrug awkwardly through the phone for a second time and dared to hope, “<You put a braid in your beloved’s hair, and I heard about it from drunks celebrating for you instead of from your own mouth. Nobody in the community even bothered to invite me to celebrate - some of them…some even threw me out when they saw me coming.>”

 “Libs…”

 “Puts things into perspective, you know?” Libertus’ laugh was wet, and neither of them drew attention to it as Nyx just reached up. To gently cup the braid they shared. That they had shared with Crowe, “Went home, got so fucking drunk I slept for a week, then I. Talked to some of the elders, you know? Talked to some of my clan. Got some help.” 

 “I’m proud of you,” despite everything, despite all those times Libs had tried to drag him down too, Nyx was telling the truth, “I’m so proud of you, Libs,” this was his brother, and he’d gotten help, “Crowe would be too, you hear? We’re so proud of you.” 

 “I - “

 Libs’ voice breaking over the phone put an urge in Nyx he hadn’t had in a long, long while. The urge to drop everything and go to his brother’s shoddy apartment in the Ostium neighborhood and tackle him with a hug he’d have no choice but to accept. 

 But it was too soon still, and both of them knew that.

 “I’m happy for you, you know that, right? Nyx?” Libs rushed out, like he just had to get these words out before they said goodbye, and Nyx found himself crooning softly at his brother in Galahdian like when they were kids who only had one another and nothing else - nothing besides Crowe. The three of them versus all the world, “And I’m so sorry, for the things I said about Prince Noctis. I was so wrong for that. It was disgusting. I deserved to be cut off after that - so don’t go getting some sort of guilt complex, Hero, you hear me?” 

 “I’m not guilty,” Nyx told him, as gentle as he could be, as honest as he could be, “I was protecting my inlustris. My star, my starlight. But thank you. For understanding that, Libs. I missed you.” 

 “Damn,” his brother chuckled wetly, gasping in a breath, “You’re gone on your amatus, huh? Never thought I’d see you mature enough to get into that romance shtick. Crowe - “ Another gasp, sadder now, “Crowe would tease you relentlessly, you know that? Right, Nyx?” 

 Humming to acknowledge that, the dark brunette-haired man closed his eyes. Waited a heartbeat. Then? 

 “I missed you too. So, so much. Ramuh, I’m so sorry Nyx. I’m so sorry.” 

 “I know. I know.” 

 It wasn’t a phone call that exactly ended with the two of them perfectly forgiving one another. Or a phone call that ended with everything good and right between them, and a plan to head out to the bars for a few drinks like it once would’ve. But it was a phone call with the both of them smiling, and both of them sober, and Nyx needing to go and sit down against the hall’s wall. Just for a while. Head between his knees and catching his breath.

 It ended just right for where they both were now. 

 And it ended with Nyx feeling hopeful.

 So it was worth it. For hearth and home.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There were braids and beads in Nyx’s hair.

 And in the rooms he shared with his starlight, there were smiles and laughter.

 And Nyx didn’t want to have to think about the future for now. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Late, it was. And late, it felt. Heavy and holding them down; Regis sat in his office. In that big chair, comfy and fit for a king. Waiting. Exhausted, after those meetings of the day and the terrible, terrible burden of waiting. Waiting for news, waiting for a verdict, waiting for things to settle down, to make sense. Always just waiting. These days, it was all that he could do at times.

 Waiting, for his Sword to return to him.

 Which he did, with words and with a message and with an even greater burden on his shoulders.

 “A message from Tenebrae,” Cor informed him solemnly, lifting a missive to hand off to his king who felt his heart sink so deep just from his Sword’s tone, “I have already doubled our security for the coming days, and spoken to the Media Department - but this will be a disaster no matter how we prepare, Your Majesty.” 

 The missive was shorter than past ones, and lacked all the flowerful wording that usually went into addressing royalty. 

 The information in it was stark and unmistakable.

 “...Triple security,” King Regis of Lucis commanded, crumpling the missive in his fist and tossing it into the bin, keeping his fist after no matter how it shook with his barely contained furiousness, “Put the Crown City on a soft lockdown. Inform the council there will be a meeting between my first and second meeting tomorrow, and tell my boys I’m sorry for cancelling dinner with them.” 

 “Yes, Your Majesty.” 

 “Regis?” Clarus asked, voice painted dark with concern as their younger brother swept out of the office, and Regis shut his eyes tight. Focusing on breathing through the fury…and the fear, “What word does Tenebrae send? What did their investigation find?” 

 One of two of the worst possible outcomes.

 “...DNA tests confirm one of the corpses found at the crashsite…to be Queen Lunafreya Nox Fleuret,” oh, Sylva, he was so sorry, “and Tenebrae requests that we open conversations about the future of Oriens Lucis Caelum-Nox Fleuret. And his role. As the heir of the Kingdom of the Astrals.” 

 His heart was heavy.

 And not because of the unfortunate loss of Lunafreya.

 They wanted to take one of his sons from him.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

Ori gets a murder kitten, Libs gets to be sober, and dreaded politics are happening. Plus, Rexus is here! A lot ended up advancing when this was supposed to be a short, simple chapter. XD

Chapter 28

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

 For the King of Lucis, there had been a lot to handle.

Between the political upheaval Noctis reluctantly knew he’d caused, and then the failing of the Havens. Between how Tenebrae was no doubt doubling down on reacting, and the uneasy murmurs murmured throughout the Citadel. Noctis had been doing paperwork in his dad’s name, and had been organizing a few things here or there when he had the energy, mostly overseen by Uncle Clarus - but he knew the big stuff, the real burdens, his dad was still shouldering.

 So he hadn’t minded that his dad was a bit too busy for him and Ori the last few days, the last week and more.

 And once Nyx had come home to them, and once they had a coeurl cub to keep an eye on that Ori had imprinted on immediately? 

 So many of his worries bled away, warm and lazily, leaving Noctis to just bask in a few spare days of finally being free from worries.

 Feeling stable, like he hadn’t in so long.

…

 Which, of course, was when his father sent a gentle summons for him. To come to his office. His proper, royal office. Not his private study in his rooms. Which was an immediate tell that something was…off, but Noctis swallowed down any anxieties he had to answer the summons with a smile that afternoon. Leaving Nyx to watch over Ori, as he tussled with the big-footed coeurl cub he now called his dearest companion. A tussle that started because Ori had been trying to stack as many of his plushies on top of Tenebris as he could, half burying the cub before Tenebris had broken free of his soft, plushy prison to bat Noctis’ son around as he giggled.

 The coeurl cub had been, reluctantly, so very reluctantly, allowed to sleep in Ori’s bedroom with him. With the promise he wouldn’t let the baby apex predator sleep in his bed beside him.

 And of course, Ignis had gone to wake his charge that morning, only to find the cub curled up with Ori on the windowseat instead. Where he’d slept. Two peas in a pod.

 They were soundly beaten.

 And Noctis was still chuckling to himself over it, when Iggy fetched him. Escorted him to his dad’s office. 

 Still chuckling when his Iggy hesitated, then bent at the waist to kiss Noctis’ forehead before herding him into the office properly and closing the doors behind him.

 Still chuckling when his dad circled his desk turned mountainous from the amount of documents and paperwork piled up on it. Coming to kiss Noctis as well. Slow, and firm, with grief.

 Noctis had stopped chuckling from the very moment he saw the expression on his dad’s face.

 And had only grown pale with the grief rolling off of his dad. His dad’s core unsteady, and fluttering like broken wings. So obvious, in a way their magic usually wasn’t at all. So impossible for any Lucis Caelum to not feel. Like a bird caught in a net, screaming out for its flock to flee - it made the hair on the back of Noctis’ neck stand up. And made his fingers clutch onto his dad’s jacket so he could not go far from him. 

 Scared by it. By his dad’s exhaustion, and fear, and grief.

 “Dad?” He rasped, feeling as if he were back in the dark for how his dad rushed to shush him, brushing his bangs away from his forehead and holding his face in his hands, “Dad, what happened? What’s happening? Dad?” 

 “I’m…so sorry, Noctis,” and his dad sounded so worn down, and the white hairs he had had never seen so purely white before, and the Ring hummed on Noctis’ finger with his need to do something to help, but it all turned into a vague buzzing sound that filled his head as the conversation continued beyond, “There is so much to catch you up on.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 So…Uncle Drautos was General Glauca, the Havens no longer working seemed a permanent thing, the number of daemons throughout Eos had increased, Lucis was in a heretical uproar, Accordo was closing down its borders, Niflheim was shoring up its territories just in case, Tenebrae was falling to pieces - because not only had Lunafreya never returned home, but her convoy had been brutally savaged by a marilith on the road, and they believed she was dead - 

 But none of that mattered one damn bit to Noctis.

 “They are not taking MY SON from me!” He raised his voice, like he had risen to his own two feet, standing opposing his dad and the message Tenebrae had dared to send along, the message his dad had spent the morning discussing with the council as if it was any sort of option, “Oriens stays! He stays!” 

 He wouldn’t give Oriens up. Not his little dawnlight.

 He would go to war - he would slaughter to keep his sweet son safe in the Citadel. In Insomnia. In his home. Never in Tenebrae. Never over there with those gods-worshipping cult members who wanted to use and abuse his son. He would tear down Tenebrae stone by stone and uproot every tree in their sacred forests and burn every sylleblossom field they prayed at.

 He would destroy the world to keep Oriens.

 He didn’t care what Eos would turn into, if he didn’t have Oriens.

 “NOT. ORIENS.” 

 Never Oriens.

 “No, no, never, Noctis. Never,” his dad - Dad - agreed, rushed and reaching for him with worn hands and the second promise of destroying their world in his voice, “Never. Oriens will never be handed over; it was not even entertained as an idea. I wouldn’t allow it. And though it may be cruel to say, if Tenebrae tries there will be war and they cannot hope to win against us. We would decimate them, cripple them, in a way the Empire never succeeded in doing.”

 Tenebrae had no ruler. No hope. No Oracle. No royal family left. They were embroiled in loss and panic and chaos, begging Lucis to hand over its heir so they could have their own. And though they had recovered somewhat since regaining their independence from the Empire, they lacked the military, the skill, and the resources to win any war they might initiate against Lucis.

 A kingdom with four royals now. Two of which would commit every single war crime in existence to keep their boy.

 “I have made it extremely clear to the council that there will be no negotiations on this matter,” Regis went on, moving his hands steadily up and down in a way Noctis followed with his breathing, calming. Just barely, “It is a firm no, nothing more. Oriens is underage, a child, still barely trained as a ruler let alone trained to wield any sort of true magic. He is not devout to the Astrals, and he has no desire to leave home.” 
 
 Calm enough to motion him back into his wheelchair, and for Noctis to sit. Barely calm at all, and wanting so bad to make it clear Oriens was off limits without a doubt…but how? 

 “...How exactly was the original inheritance going to work?” His son asked, sounding so worn out just from a brief spout of anger, slouching in his wheelchair and Regis circled him to rub at his shoulders. Feeling guilty for not being able to ease Noctis into this as well as he wished to, “You know, before all of this? I never asked.” 

 Before, he hadn’t wanted to know.

 “Truthfully? Our original intentions were for Queen Lunafreya to marry,” Lucis’ King let out a breath, and with it let go of the renewed realization that Lunafreya was dead, the poor girl, “At some point, Tenebrae should’ve arranged a marriage for her. She was old enough to marry, already wore the crown, and there was no reason she wouldn’t. She would marry, and bear children for her husband, and Oriens would become…a symbol. Of peace, and the ties between our families, and an emergency option, if anything ever happened to her and her husband and their children.” 

 The idea of his son being nothing more than a backup, a commodity, still made Noctis’ teeth clench, but he buried the motion. This was a lot to take in.

 Lots of words. 

 He wasn’t used to lots of words, but he tried anyways to catch them all.

 “The fact that Her Majesty never married,” he felt it in the motions of his dad rubbing his shoulders; his shrug. And heard the frustrated grunt from his Uncle Clarus, “well. It was…surprising. And the longer that went on? There were many concerns. But every time it was so much as mentioned, Queen Lunafreya promised she would marry. One day. And children would be born then. But the years dragged on…and we started to consider that Ori would become the joint ruler of Lucis and Tenebrae.”

 His sweet Ori, a king of two kingdoms? 

 He would be so proud but so worried if that happened.

 “...Did she…” Just the thought made Noctis’ nose wrinkle in disgust, but he had not forgotten all the things Lunafreya screamed at him after he had taken a hand to her, “did she intend to marry me, Dad?” 

 He tried not to. But his voice went all soft and shaky despite his best efforts. Just the idea - of a wedding. Of having to put a ring on her finger, of having to - to have children with, sleep with her, he almost gagged. Shaky and shaken and choking down the disgust before he could get sick from it. 

 Dad wrapped his arms around his shoulders immediately from behind him, bent and hugged him tight, murmuring, “I never would’ve allowed that,” in his baby boy’s ear.

 “She said Bahamut…Bahamut had promised me to her,” the poor prince pointed out, shivering, and Uncle Clarus hurried over to join his dad in hugging him, “She said she was waiting to marry me. That that was the whole point.” 

 She said she had waited ten years for him to be free so they could marry.

 “She is dead now, my son, my darling,” his dad hissed with almost ferocious promise to his forehead before pressing a kiss to it after, so much gentler than his words would suggest, “She is dead. And she can do nothing of the sort. And we will not let Oriens be dragged into anything of the sort either. Whatever plans she had, whatever reasons she had for keeping her secrets, they died with her.” 

 Died. Because Lunafreya Nox Fleuret was dead. 

 It felt as though Noctis still couldn’t believe it. She’d been something to him, once, long ago. And then she’d been nothing. And then she’d been a traitor. And then a terrible mother, and finally an enemy he had expelled from his home…but she had felt eternal in a way. Like he’d never be rid of her.

 But, she was just, dead. Because of a marilith on the road.

 Like the Marilith that had crippled him once. That he had survived, where she hadn’t.

 “Something feels off,” Noctis muttered, feeling as though that voice from the darkness was so, so close to licking at his ears as his father and uncle hugged him tight. Whenever that voice came around, it was never good, “There’s so much. Too much. I…I don’t - “ 

 “You don’t have to do anything,” Dad shushed him, squeezing him, as if that would stop his brave, brave boy, “You can leave it to us. Noctis, you can leave it to us.” 

 “I want to - to help, Dad,” the raven-haired prince pushed out, reaching to twist the Ring of the Lucii around and around his finger, feeling the power he had at his fingertips that he’d been too tame about using so far, “I don’t just mean paperwork, though I’m getting better at that. I want to do more for you. I want to ease things for you.” 

 Dad didn’t respond to his words other than to let out a strangled noise and squeeze him tighter, lovingly. Fearfully.

 Uncle Clarus responded though.

 “...You could take on the Glaives’ magic,” his father’s Shield suggested, faintly, flicking his king on the forehead when the man reared up to deny that idea immediately, “No - Regis. It’s a good idea. It is. The amount of Kingsglaive we have now is draining you, even with the Wall no longer resting on your shoulders. Noctis…has plenty of magic. More than any other Lucis Caelum.”

 The thrill of the idea of being able to help buzzed through Noctis, so much so he completely cut off his dad’s argument to say, “Yes! Make me the Glaives’ battery! I can do it!” 

 Regis choked on the term ‘battery’, and Uncle Clarus ruffled his hair.

 His boy, so young and so old and so sweet and so scarred. 

 “We…will consider it,” Dad said through a working jaw, clearly afraid of that idea, but Noctis was just grateful to have the option to help, “For now, we need to focus on Tenebrae’s response, ensuring Lucis has means to operate without the Havens, figuring out Titus’ sentence, and…figuring out Rexus.” 

 Noctis blinked, his thoughts full of endless worry for his son he was distracted from by that unfamiliar name.

 “Who’s Rexus?” He twisted his head around a little to ask his dad, and twisting around meant he got to see the moment the pure resignation blanketed his dad’s face. 

 “Right. One more thing to tell you.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “I have another uncle? How many brothers do you need, Dad?!” 

 “I - stop laughing, Clarus - Noctis, I - !” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis was firm. Beyond firm. Bordering on hostile. His orders were clear, his orders were thus; Crown Prince Oriens Lucis Caelum-Nox Fleuret would be going nowhere. His home was in Lucis, his place was in Insomnia, he was their heir and their son and their every hope, even if he could use the healing magics of another family. Even if the woman who had given birth to him had worn a crown too. 

He put his foot down with his council, who were all still far too aware of the fates of their predecessors to dare even weakly trying to suggest otherwise.

He put his foot down with Tenebrae. 

He gave the go-ahead for Lucis’ media to announce the tragic death of Tenebrae’s Queen, caused by the failing of the Havens and the daemons on the road. He let the whispering fill their streets. That the Astrals had not stepped in to save their Oracle, that the Havens had failed so conveniently for Her Majesty to be on the road at that time, that the influx of daemons had been just so. Convenient. How. Convenient. 

They weren’t secretive about putting Lucis on something of a lockdown.

They weren’t secretive about the fact that Oriens was the last of the Oracle bloodline.

They weren’t secretive about any of it, because they were the ones with the power.

And it was one busy, busy day for all of them.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ori was sent off to his lessons, and Noctis was finally able to let the fake smile slip from his face, watching Tenebris’ long tail swish as the cub followed at his son’s heels. As it now seemed would always be the case. Those two had bonded like siblings, even if one was a boy and one was a coeurl. Even if Tenebris made most of the ‘Guards and Glaives somewhat uneasy. And even if it had only been a couple of days and he already seemed to have grown bigger.

 Noctis stared down at the loom balanced on his lap, his yarns forgotten. There was paperwork he wanted to do to help his dad. There were responsibilities he wanted to take up to help his dad. He now had a half-uncle, one of his uncles was a traitor - Luna was dead, Tenebrae was - 

 Fucking Six.

 The Glaives and their language had been rubbing off on Noctis in more than one way, as the raven-haired man set aside his loom to instead put his face in his hands for a moment. Catching his breath so he didn’t end up going away. Catching his breath so he didn’t end up broken, because they didn’t have the time for that.

 Today…there had been…a lot.

 Nyx turned towards him the moment the doors had been soundly shut, as if he’d been just waiting to do so, stormy eyes dark with his worry. With his love.

 “Inlustris?” 

 “...They want to take Oriens away,” he told the man who loved them both, who defended them both, “They want an heir for Tenebrae, and he’s their only option. The only child left of the bloodline of the Oracle,” he spat the title like a curse, because to any Lucis Caelum it now was one, “Lunafreya had some stupid idea about her and I marrying, held off finding a husband and having more children because of that idea and now - now Ori is the only one left.” 

 Sucking in air between his teeth, Noctis paused because his throat hurt from the forceful words, because his heart hurt from the situation of now. 

 He could not lose Oriens. 

 For all the progress he’d made, all the months he’d survived outside of Mistveil Keep, all the support he had besides his son? None of it equaled his little dawnlight. 

 If he lost him, there would only be darkness. And Noctis would rather be hollow for the rest of his life than endure that.

 “They won’t take him. We won’t let them.” 

 Nyx’s promise was bloodless now, but in the silence after of the Glaive just being there for him, like he always was? Both of them knew it wouldn’t stay bloodless. Both of them knew the lengths they would go to for those they loved. Noctis wouldn’t love his amatus any other way, and Nyx would never back down from his star, bloody hands or not.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Prompto called to apologize, and apologize, and apologize - because his little brother, Sterling, had hacked into Ori’s media-restricted tablet so he could check the news. So he could figure out what was going on.

 Their tiny star was so pale when he came back to them.

 He knew his mother was dead, but he didn’t look for comfort.

 He looked for somewhere safe to hide, in every room he entered, and it tore apart Noctis’ heart.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Dinner was family, and quieter than usual, because everybody else was too busy to join Noctis and Oriens. Except Nyx. The Galahdian stew he had been given by one of the Glaives was good even reheated, and it was warm in their stomachs, and ordinarily everything would just feel warmer with the three of them together, laughing over dinner.

 But it felt oddly quiet.

 Like a curtain had been drawn.

 Ori reached down under the table to pet Tenebris’ head, subdued and peeking at his dad and Nyx repeatedly. Like he knew that they knew what Sterling had done. Like he was trying to pretend they didn’t. It ached; that every time they made progress or were happy for just a short while, they always had to fall back into trouble again so soon.

 Selfishly, the Ulric Chieftain swallowed a bit more stew, and reached under the table. Obvious enough that inlustris noticed.

 Obvious enough that inlustris glanced down to see the hand hovering over his leg, waiting for permission. Which he gave with a peek and a nod, and if his star had had the energy Nyx would say he was flustered by this.

 But none of them really had the energy to spare, so he just placed his hand on his thigh, and ate dinner in mostly silence.

 Stuck in limbo.

 

 

-----

 

 

 None of them said it aloud.

 It would make it too real, while it was still light out. 

 So they waited until dark.

 “Ori?” And in the dark, curled around one another on that windowseat draped in a coeurl fur, hugging his son as close as close could be - Noctis gave in to how quiet Oriens had been. And how he again didn’t want to go far from him. To let his dad go for too long. Ori just nodded into his chest when he called his name, when he carded his fingers through his hair.

 It was late.

 But sleep was always waiting patiently for Lucis Caelums, so neither of them minded. 

 What the raven-haired father minded was how clingy his son had been the last couple of weeks. Tenebris’ arrival had distracted him for a short while, but now here he was again. Being clingy. And it was adorable and it was worrying, and Noctis pressed a long kiss to his son’s hair, staring out at the dark, nighttime skies past the window. Past the lights of the Citadel. Past the Wall he was keeping up. 

 Past the falling snow over it all.

 He wasn’t sure what was bothering his son, but he was sure he wanted to help. If he could.

 Shifting his eyes from Oriens when he didn’t speak up, the blue-blue irises were met by Nyx. Nyx’s stormy eyes. He was on the phone, talking quietly to Libs - and Noctis was so glad his boyfriend had something good happening there - but he had also been quietly worried about their mane. 

 Tenebris was laying across Nyx’s feet. Napping.

 It was quiet. Calm. Their bedroom was as peaceful as it could be, but Noctis still felt there was something in the air besides moonlight, starlight. 

 “Ori,” he had to know, so he could help, “is everything…alright?” 

 “...Yes.” 

 Pursing his lips, then forcing them to flatten out, the crown prince’s father really didn’t want to have to point out how much of a lie that sounded like. Ori’s voice was shaky. He felt ready to hurt somebody because of it. How dare anything in Eos ever make his son sad? Or scared? Or whatever he was feeling - Noctis couldn’t know because Ori wasn’t telling him.

 Blue-blue eyes went to Nyx. Again. This time looking for help. 

 The Glaive turned his head to say a quick apology to Libs, to say his goodbyes a second later, and then hung up the phone. Turning all of his attention back to the father and son he loved. Speaking up so smoothly, so easily, Noctis was so grateful for the man, “Mane? Maybe we can help if you tell us what’s bothering you.” 

 Ori shifted against Noctis’ chest, peeking out at Nyx. Then peeking up at his dad as Noctis continued carding his fingers through his hair, running them down the back of his shirt, trying so hard not to panic at how nervous his little dawnlight looked. 

 “Whatever it is,” he found himself saying, trying to remember all the things his dad would say that would make him feel safe as a kid, “we’ll be on your side, Ori. We’ll keep you safe.” 

 …That hadn’t ended up being as true with his dad, though he understood why.

 For Ori, Noctis really would destroy the world if it meant staying on his side and keeping him safe. He had no doubts about that.

 He watched, those eyes that were just like his. And he saw the moment his son made the decision. The decision to trust. To be loved. To be protected.

 “Th-They…” Felt the moment as Oriens sank completely into him and squeezed him tight with all his ten-year old strength, “They want to take me away, don’t they?” 

 Noctis’ hug on his son tightened. So much. 

 “Who?” He said, growled maybe, Tenebris lifting his head with ears perking up from Nyx’s feet but all he cared about was keeping hold of his son -

 “Tenebrae,” Oriens mumbled into his dad’s shirt, and Noctis swallowed. The growl. The anger. The desire to lash out at the whole world to keep his baby boy safe. To bring down the gods from their skies, if it meant Oriens wouldn’t be threatened anymore. He just hugged him tight. So, so tight. Breaths shuddering.

 He wanted to do so much harm.

 The thing was, his son wasn’t wrong.

 “Before, even after you hit Queen Lunafreya,” Ori mumbled so shakily into Noctis’ chest - and Six, he hadn’t thought about how Ori had witnessed him hit his mother, whether he loved her or not, “Tenebrae wouldn’t have been able to force it. But…but now that she’s dead - I’m the only Nox Fleuret left, aren’t I? Aren’t I, Dad?” 

 Noctis wound himself into as much of a shield as he could around his sweet son.

 Trying to keep the whole world away, from this child of his who viewed the death of his mother not with grief but as a threat.

 “I won’t let them,” he swore, thinking of darkness and chains and pain that never ended, thinking about how his father had let them, even if he had forgiven him, “I won’t, I won’t. Ori, I will never let them take you. You aren’t theirs. This is your home, this…this is your home.” 

 Tenebrae could claim Oriens belonged to them by right of his Nox Fleuret blood as much as they wanted. They could beg, they could plead, they could offer up anything and everything and they could even go to war for it. Noctis Lucis Caelum would never let anyone force his son to go anywhere.

 In that, at least he knew he and his dad were in agreement.

 “You’re ours, princeling,” Nyx added, approaching them on quiet steps despite his uniform boots. The storm in his gaze raging when both royals lifted their heads to him, “The Kingsglaive isn’t letting you go, even if Lucis tries to. They’ll have to go up against us. And I don’t think they’ll be much of a match, do you, mane?” 

 The idea of citizens versus the Kingsglaive seemed to make Ori giggle, even if it was shakier than usual.

 “N-No, heh,” the boy reached out, grabbing for Nyx’s shirt, and used the fabric to tug the man onto the windowseat beside them. Curling around them both. Holding them just as tightly. Nyx always did. Loved them as much as any Lucis Caelum could hope for, “Nyyyyx.” 
 
 “<Here, morning. I am here.> We are here,” his amatus promised, cupping Noctis’ hands already holding his son so close, adding to the protection, the care, the love, “We won’t leave you. We won’t let another take you. There will be war if they try.” 

 They were in agreement there.

 For a small moment, it seemed almost like Ori wanted to argue that idea, whining and shaking his head against his dad’s shirt. But the argument never came. And he settled. Safe, between the two of them. Even if Oriens was only ten years old, Lucis Caelums knew. It was written into who they were. Family.

 It mattered enough to go to war.

 Keep your children close, support your parents, watch the skies and wait. For now, only for now, were the Astrals their allies. But one day they would ask for one of their children. And one day a father would have to make that choice. Regis Lucis Caelum had had his turn, his choice.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum wouldn’t make the same mistakes the Father did.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum would not give up his son, who was his dawn and his heart and everything that kept him sane.

 His Oriens, who gently drifted off to sleep, finally able to relax if only for an evening, an hour. Held by him and Nyx. Safe between him and Nyx. Loved, by the chieftain and his amatus. So loved. Off to play with Carbuncle, off to dream, safe. If only for a little while longer. 

 While his dad was left there, awake, clutching his child as tightly as he dared without waking him, because there were people who wanted to take him away.

 “Tenebrae won’t have him,” the man he loved promised him, this time. Held him, this time. Kissed him, this time. Sure and soft and so sweet it put cavities in Noctis’ scarred heart. He sobbed, clutching his Oriens, “We will go to war for him, inlustris. For you. No matter what your father decides, no matter what the council might try to push - we will be loyal to you, to your son.” 

 Their son.

 “Tenebrae won’t have him,” Nyx made that oath on his braids, on his roots, as a Galahdian as a Chieftain as a partner and as a man - he made that oath. As he kissed his star’s forehead, so sweet, “He’s our little dawn. We won’t let him go. We won’t.” 

 If anyone tried to make them? 

 The promise of war was loud, like the lightning that night amidst a snowstorm.

 Nyx Ulric did not let them go til morning.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Dad. Tell Tenebrae no.” 

 “I already - “

 “Tell them again.” 

 “Of course, sweetheart. Of course.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Long nights were nothing new, long nights holding his royals were nothing new, and yawning on his way to a Kingsglaive meeting with his jacket slung over his shoulder was nothing new. Not for Nyx Ulric. Going a bit sleepless for his star and mane was no big ask. Wasn’t even something he regretted. 

 Glaives fell in with him, on the way to the same meeting. A meeting that was going to go unattended by their Captain. Because he’d been General Glauca.

 Damn. Nyx had rarely missed his old smoking habit more than these days.
 
 “How’s the mood?” He asked Luche, step in step with him, and the guy scoffed. Fair.

 “Nobody wants to be here, so that’s a great place to jump off from,” his fellow Glaive half-muttered, jerking his head to the Glaives in clusters following after them, “The kids are here for a bit of scandal, the retirees are here to defend their Captain, and we’re here to vote however we want; depending on if we’ve been wronged by the Empire or not.” 

 Nyx couldn’t blame Luche for how bitter he sounded. It’d been years since they thought they could finally stop being screwed over by the Empire. 

 Turns out there was one last screwing to be done. Even after they were gone, they’d managed to destroy a man who they had all put so much trust into. Faith into. A final rude gesture their way, that they all hated. Hated so much. That had them meeting today, without that man. So many of them. And so many more cued in on phones and laptop screens, when they got to the commons area.

 Full of Kingsglaive.

 Nyx tossed his jacket over a chair, not at all blind to the gazes that snapped expectedly to him - as a lieutenant, as a chieftain, as one of the senior Glaives. There was a certain expectation to go with all of that, so he joined his fellow lieutenants at the head of this meeting. Leaning his hip back against one of the long tables with his arms crossed. 

He really didn’t want to be here.

Captain Drautos was…like a father to him. 

He really didn’t want to be anywhere near this.

The murmuring of easily a hundred Glaives, shoved into a single room, talking to and over each other was something that got louder and louder and louder the longer Nyx passively watched. He looked at his lieutenants to the left of him, and his lieutenants to the right, and when he got nods from them all? When the doors to the commons area were shut tight? 

 Nyx pushed his hip away from the table to step up.

 “Alright!” He called to a room full of Glaives, wondering how the Captain handled this so often when all those eyes shifted straight to him - this was a new sort of pressure, on or off the battlefield, and now wasn’t the time to feel even more admiration for the man they were here to judge, “You all know why you were called in. You all know what this is about.” 

 Nods. Lots of nods.

 Nyx saw new Glaives and friends and friends that had already retired because their war was over, and he saw a lot of conflicting expressions out across them all too.

 But he was going to keep things simple. Because if he didn’t? 

 The brawl that would break out would probably knock down the whole Kingsglaive Complex.

 “Kneel, if you think Titus Drautos deserves the chance to be found innocent. Stand if you’re opposed.” 
 
 A Galahdian vote.

 A ripple of movement passed through the room, and Nyx followed it with his eyes. Still thinking about how the Captain was a man who had meant no harm, who had been manipulated but who had killed for the Empire, bowed to the Emperor who ordered bombs dropped on Nyx’s home, admitted to treason and murder and doing harm to their homes - Glaives knelt. They knelt. And Glaives watched the decision be made.

Watched as most of the Kingsglaive folded their knees under them.

There were still Glaives standing. There were Glaives holding up phones and laptops to show what those not present thought. There were also phones and laptops set on the floor. There was a moment, where the Lieutenants of the Kingsglaive stared at that all, and then the ones leaning against the meeting table with Nyx one by one by one lowered themselves to their knees.

And then Nyx sighed.

And folded his own legs to kneel.

It wasn’t unanimous. There were grumbles - shouts in argument. Mostly from Tenebraean Glaives. 

But the vote was made.

The Kingsglaive would ask King Regis to be lenient with their Captain, by majority rule. 

 Before that though, the first punch was thrown - they would have a brawl after all.

 

 

-----

 

 

When there was a knock at the door of his quarters, Drautos almost expected it to be the Crownsguard there with anti-King’s Magic shackles - maybe pitchforks and torches - to arrest him. It was a fair expectation, now that his transgressions had been confirmed to the council and Regis had confined him to his quarters until a decision was made about…what would happen to him.

 Whether his second life would end here, or continue.

 It wasn’t the Crownsguard.

 Nyx shouldered past the captain with a, “Scooch, Captain,” and made himself at home at Drautos’ kitchenette table. Lounging in the chair like some wildcat, two glasses pinched by his fingers and a bottle of something amber and hopefully strong held in his opposite hand. He made himself very at home, pouring them both generous glasses. The amber liquid catching the light of sunset and all but aglow as Nyx swished his glass.

 Watching with sharp eyes; the captain coming to join him at the table. A reflection of all those other meetings they’d had throughout the years, in these quarters, after nightmares had roused Nyx from his bed time and time again.

 After he’d come to Titus for comfort, time and time again.

 “Got a verdict, Ulric?” Drautos asked, swishing his glass but not drinking. Trying, no doubt failing, to distract Nyx from observing him too closely. From noticing how tired he looked. Reaching the end of the line will do that to a man, even a man who had lived twice and had gotten more chances than most mortals were allowed. Even a man who had seemed invincible to his kids.

But Cor was the immortal one out of them three brothers, not him.

Even in the overwritten timeline, Cor was the only one to get out alive.

“...Our verdict,” Nyx inclined his head, and Drautos wasn’t blind to how closed off  the man was, how careful his every movement, every sip at the lip of his glass, was. A far cry from the way being in his captain’s presence used to relax him. And he couldn’t blame the Glaive. At all, “The Kingsglaive will give our verdict to His Majesty, and he will try to encourage the council to reach the same one.” 

 “Sure,” the Kingsglaive Captain swished his glass again, and noticed Nyx picking up on his impassive tone. He’d taught him too well not to.

Lips twisting downward in a way that twisted the tattoos on his face too, Nyx leaned forward in his seat and set down the glass heavy on the table, “Don’t you care what the council decides, Captain?” 

“I care what the Glaives think,” just his Glaives, because the Lucian Royal Council was made up of young blood that meant nothing to him…and who honestly were likely to follow whatever verdict Regis led them to regardless. But Drautos wanted to know what his Glaives had decided he deserved.

 Their judgment was the only one that mattered to him, to his heart, to be honest.

 “...You would,” one of his dearest kids said, with a helpless snort and bitter smirk as he downed what was left in his glass in a single swallow, “wouldn’t you? You would.” 

 In this life, yes. A thousand times, yes.

 Titus Drautos had betrayed his Glaives once. Never again. 

 Titus Drautos had watched Nyx Ulric fade into wisps of magic under the light of dawn, in a city ruined, in a kingdom fallen. And he’d sworn, never again.

 “We voted for His Majesty to be lenient,” was his answer, and judging by the scrunch in Nyx’s nose he wanted a smoke just for having to say that. Still upset, even if he was willing to forgive. Still upset, even if he still cared. They say you can’t choose your family, but some people don’t realize that goes beyond blood too, “We voted for you to be shown mercy, Captain.” 

 Sometimes it ends up meaning the people you did choose. 

 “Cheers, Nyx,” Drautos said, raising his glass and downing the whole thing in one gulp. To which Nyx laughed, low and still disturbed, even as he grabbed the bottle to refill both their glasses. This was a more than one drink kind of night. This was a more than two drinks kind of night too, but that came later.

 Later, like Nyx grumbling, tipsy, into his arms about how mad he was. More about Drautos keeping the Glauca situation a secret than anything else. 

 Later, like Drautos reaching out to pat him on the head and apologize a bit drunkenly, telling him Lord Carbuncle’s fur was softer than his braids.

 Later, like Nyx drunkenly demanding Lord Carbuncle spar with him, because he wanted to have the softest hair for His Highness to run his fingers through!

 Later, like the two of them flopping into the captain’s bed all twisted up and beyond tipsy but not blackout drunk, groaning and passing out where they landed still with their boots on their feet. Soldiers that they were. Family that they were. It was that sort of night, and it was out of either of their hands now.

 So it was out of their minds now too. They couldn’t do anything about it anyways.

 Morning came with Nyx warp-tossing a pillow at his sleeping, hungover captain that ended with the both of them falling out of bed and hitting the floor. Hard. 

 Morning came with Cor the Immortal standing in Drautos’ doorway, arms crossed and scowling down at the both of them tangled up on the floor in a pool of discarded blankets. Six words for Nyx -

 “If you’re unfaithful, I’ll kill you.” 

 Six words for Drautos - 

 “Keep your hands off the son-in-law.”

 Nine…words?

 Either way, it ended with Cor getting a perfectly accurately thrown pillow to the face, and a hungover wrestling match on the floor between the Captain of the Kingsglaive and the Sword of King Regis. 

 And Nyx groaning as he crawled pitifully from the room, off to go find mane…and maybe to find out if the Nox Fleuret magical healing stuff - extended to hangovers.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It did extend to hangovers.

 And Advisor Scientia was absolutely fucking terrifying if you try to bring that up to Oriens’ face.

 Pills it was.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “He hasn’t met Rexus yet, has he?” King Regis checked, resigned, upon hearing the latest report from Cor about how Drautos and Nyx had passed their night away after the Kingsglaives’ vote. His answer was a negative, so he dragged a palm down his face, still resigned, “Let’s try to keep them separated as long as possible, yes?” 

 “Yes, Your Majesty,” Clarus and Cor intoned together, and he sighed as he turned back to his plentiful paperwork on hand.

 His dear Noctis didn’t yet deserve the stress that would be Nyx and Rexus meeting.

 "And tell Drautos he's free to leave his quarters again. I'll be speaking to the council later today about him."

 "Yes, Your Majesty."

 

 

-----

 

 

 Time is a strange mistress to bow to.

 Two weeks. 

 Two weeks ago the Havens had stopped working. For two weeks the Glaives were deployed to save as many lives as they could. For two weeks Queen Lunafreya had been dead though Eos was only just learning about that now, this week. They were half a week and a little more into after all of that, and another timeline was coming around the corner.

 Less than two weeks. In less than two weeks, there would be the Winter Solstice. Winter celebrations. A time of bright lights, big feasts, and exchanging gifts to show you cared for somebody. For everybody. For nobody. Less than two weeks, and just a bit more after that - and a new year would be beginning.

 Less than two weeks, and just a couple days more, and it would be Oriens’ birthday too.

 Current events being what they were, it hardly - didn’t - surprise Noctis to be told the Citadel wasn’t focusing much on the Winter Solstice this year. Typically there would be celebrations. A ball hosted by the Crown, a few charity events, of course the Solstice Market in the city and the smaller festivals held in each neighborhood. But there were still streets shut down from the months of rioting. And the grandest chantry in Insomnia was nothing but a burnt husk, when it should’ve been preparing for the Solstice masses. 

 The news was full of stories about the Havens failing, about the tensions between Tenebrae and Lucis.

 About the death of Queen Lunafreya, as Tenebrae had announced it.

 ‘Tensions’ was probably understating it.

 Eos was bracing itself for a war. Maybe not a long war, maybe even Tenebrae was aware of that, but desperate nations do desperate things. 

 Considering everything that had happened in the last month alone, it was no surprise Lucis wasn’t looking to celebrate the Solstice. It was no surprise the city wasn’t full of winter festivals. No holiday cheer, no rosy cheeks and presents tucked under every arm. The Crown City was, as his dad had explained, for all intents and purposes, closed. The restrictions to be allowed entry or exit were strict, and people weren’t even complaining despite the holiday season.

 Well, except for those few people who didn’t care what was happening in the news.

 It also wasn’t a surprise that Ori’s annual birthday ball was also cancelled.

 Noctis would be lying if he said he was especially sad about that. For the most part, he himself had always hated the birthday balls thrown for members of the royal family. It felt as if they took away some of the…personal sense, that goes into a birthday? It felt like they became a symbol, a sign held up to the people, a reason to place each royal on a pedestal for the whole day - whole month leading up to it sometimes, instead of an actual celebration of their birthdays. 

 He’d missed Oriens’ birthday the year before by just a couple of weeks. This year, he’d be there. They’d be together. They’d do something, Noctis swore they would.

 Just, cutting back on all the celebrations this winter wasn’t something he’d be complaining about.

 Nyx kept joking he’d intended Tenebris to be a birthday present, until Tredd popped up out of nowhere to wrestle with him and tell him he’d never be able to top that present again. And considering it was now normal to see the small crown prince walking around, with a coeurl cub always, always, always at his heels? Laying together, napping together, playing together? 

 The Glaives kept joking Nyx had gotten Ori a sibling -

 It was adorable. It was enough to let Noctis breathe, as he pointedly ignored electronics. Which meant he ignored the news. Which meant he could pretend nothing more was happening than what he saw right in front of him, doing paperwork in the evenings and listening in on a few reports his dad received at the meals they shared; that was the extent of where he was for now.

 Just for now.

 Because he was going to be stepping in very soon, to protect Ori. 

 He was going to do a lot of things, if it meant protecting Ori.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Mostly confined to his rooms, there was Rexus, who had resorted the last couple of days to passing time playing spin the bottle most nights with the Kingsglaive assigned to guard him. Maybe ‘confined’ was a strict word to use. And maybe there was a bit more than kissing going on, but it was stress-relieving. His Majesty - Regis, he kept insisting to be called but that was still…odd - had actually taken the time to come visit Rexus. To reassure him he was no prisoner. He was just a complicated situation.

 Story of his life.

 And they would politely prefer him to stay out of the way, until they could publicly introduce him, or at least introduce him to Regis’ kids.

 After the embarrassing situation that was the new royal getting so drunk off that wine cask he’d found in the kitchens? He was completely willing to stay confined to his fancy, comfortable rooms. Where food was brought to him, and condoms too, and he could relax for a while spending all his time snacking, being kissed by eager men and women, and pretending he hadn’t gone and let himself be kidnapped because he was curious. 

He hadn’t known how strong that wine was. He had apologized so many times to King Regis. 

 Rexus felt so out of place, in a place that was supposed to be his birthright.

 So he was fine with sticking to his rooms, for a couple of days…but he really wanted to get out a little.

 

 

-----

 

 
 Tutoring sessions over for the day, finally, Ori had a good mystery novel waiting for him back in his bedroom! Pops Clarus had given it to him. And what the back cover said certainly sounded interesting - a town that looks different to each person who enters it? Supernatural wasn’t usually the princeling’s thing, but Pops Clarus promised it had lots of clues for him to solve. 

 “Come on, Shadow!” He chirped, motioning for his friend to follow him. Shadow returned the chirp, but didn’t follow right away. Too enamored by some of the drapes in the hallway. Snarling playfully and gnawing on the thick fabric.

 Oops. Hopefully Grandfather wouldn’t mind.

 Ori just giggled and scampered away. After a week together, he knew Shadow would follow as soon as he realized he was alone. His giggles echoed off the marble; the tiles and the pillared walls. It wasn’t often these days that he was allowed to be without his attendants or a guard, but everyone was so busy - he found himself alone.
 
 …They were busy because Queen Lunafreya had passed away.

 The giggling died off with that thought.

 Maybe it was bad of him to be so…okay, with that. Did that make him a bad person? Did that make him an evil person? Grandpa had always said they shouldn’t wish for harm to befall anyone. Shouldn’t wish death on anyone. Should treat life as precious, and he had! He always had. Especially with the healing powers he was barely ever allowed to use. Oriens knew life was precious, and easy to lose, and exhausting to try and bring back.

 Like the dead birds that used to hit his bedroom window.

 Queen Lunafreya was dead, and he…didn’t really care. Did that make him a bad person? She was dead, but his dad was here. Nyx was here. That was all he really cared about - did that make him a bad person? 

 He wasn’t sure.

 Could he be okay with Her Majesty being dead, and still be a good person? Could he be not bothered by his mother being dead, and not be an evil person? 

 Could he be happy his mother was dead, and still be loved? 

 “Oh, Your Highness!” Lifting his head from how he’d lowered it, alone in the hall, Crown Prince Oriens was no longer alone. There was a housekeeper of the Citadel who had just walked out of the room ahead of him, looking startled. Ori realized too late he’d almost walked right into her. It made him fluster, even as she bowed and apologized.

 “No, it was, my fault,” he said, trying for the same regal voice Grandpa always used, but stumbling a bit too much over the words to make it work, “Sorry, miss.” 

 “It’s alright, Your Highness,” she tugged at a strand of golden-blonde hair, not yet rising from her bow, and Ori flustered more. Trying to motion for her to rise. Making more of a panicked waving motion that just made him feel embarrassed. He was pretty sure he’d seen her sometimes in these halls before - Uncle Iggy was going to sigh in disappointment when he tells him about this meeting, he just knows it!

 He had to get better about flustering.

 He had to -

 A hand with fingernails painted white rested itself on his shoulder, and he stilled, staring at it. 

 Usually…usually nobody touched him. He glanced back up at the woman, slower now. At her face hidden behind her bangs. He saw pale skin, he saw tired eyes, he saw stress. Guilt. The lessons he had gotten from so many of his uncles and guards rang like bells in his ears, and he swallowed.

 “Miss?” He asked, softer now, suddenly aware of the height difference between them even if the housekeeper was still petite, “Miss, it’s okay.” 

 “It’s not,” she told him, voice all high and strangled and the bells rang louder, her nails curled slightly into his shoulder. A second hand with white nails came to circle around his wrist, which seemed so tiny in her grip, and Oriens suddenly started to wonder why it seemed as though this hall was completely empty of guards.

 “I think it’s alright,” the princeling whispered, trying to flex his wrist, feeling small in a way he hated when she didn’t let go of him. She didn't let go. She was trembling, shaking her head, looking sick and scared and upset - she didn’t let him go when he flexed his wrist with more of a tug. 

 Danger, everything he’d been taught cried at him.

 “I’m sorry, Your Highness.” 

 Oriens gasped, as she yanked him towards her suddenly.

 

 

-----

 

 

 He hadn’t been told he was allowed to wander after the wine cask incident…but he also hadn’t been told he wasn’t allowed to wander. And besides! His room was full of hot, supremely hungover Glaives. A good few of them after the night they’d had. So wander, Rexus did. There was a lot to see. Whatever DNA was in him, whether that made him royal from birth or not, the ‘royal’ treatment was definitely a new thing. Weird too. 

 So, Rexus wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be wandering around, which was fine. He just, sort of, expected to be found by some Crownsguard eventually and escorted back to those fancy rooms they had given him.

 What he wasn’t expecting was to turn a corner, while his hands were shoved into his pockets and he was taking in the view of the skyline outside of the window, and come across a kidnapping scene.

 Rexus shifted his feet apart immediately.

 Maybe it wasn’t a kidnapping scene, but he took stance either way.

 There was a woman, holding a struggling child with his arms pinned to his sides.

 “What’s going on here?” Rexus spoke up, stern, and the woman lifted her head with a gasp. Golden-blonde hair and everyday looks. There was nothing special about her to catch his eye, and judging by the uniform she was wearing that he’d already seen and flirted with at least once, Rexus recognized her as a housekeeper of the Citadel. A cleaner.

 The boy she was holding was where most of Rexus’ attention snapped to.

 Struggling and kicking, with raven-black hair and the bluest eyes Rexus had ever seen in his life, he knew exactly who the kid was in an instant with a surety that went down to his soul. His blood and his bones, and a soul that hummed with the magic of the Crystal. Magic shared by the boy.

 Oriens Lucis Caelum.

 Struggling against a housekeeper, who had her hand over his mouth so he couldn’t scream.

 The shattering of crystals was a harsh sound in the air of the strangely empty hallways, and suddenly Rexus’ fingers were closing tightly around his lance.

 “Let him go,” he commanded, because there was no good reason for anyone to be holding any child so harshly, for trying to keep them quiet like that - let alone Lucis’ Crown Prince, his grandnephew. 

 “No, I - I was just trying to - !” She was just trying to defend her actions, and Rexus thought he was decently skilled at reading people. He looked at her and he thought she was no skilled kidnapper, no heartless assassin. But whatever she was, she was threatening his nephew's son - a son who seized his chance when she lifted a hand to wave at Rexus. To plead with.

 Releasing one of Oriens’ arms from where she’d been pinning it to his side.

 Like Rexus, his grandnephew was royalty. And for a second time, the shattering of crystals sounded in that hallway of the Citadel. 

 He saw the narrow, thin blade of a stiletto dagger flash.

 And the woman was letting the prince go with a sharp scream of pain. A line of red appearing along her forearm where she’d been slashed at. Droplets of crimson-red hit the marble tiles, red, so red - Rexus shifted his weight forward, the shout for guards leaving him before he’d even thought to call out, reaching out for the princeling who flicked his wrist to throw his stiletto dagger, to warp before he could hit the floor after being dropped.

 Bleeding out of the black marble and shadows of the hall then, a form leapt at the woman. Rexus nearly threw magic its way when he heard the snarl and recognized that spotted pattern on its fur.

 But he had a weight hitting his arms that he held close like it was precious, because it was, he had a kid hiding his face in his neck, a dagger on the ground, a coeurl cub digging its claws into a would-be kidnapper’s ankles that made her scream and cry and beg not to be eaten - 

 And he had so many people warping into a defensive line between him and her, ‘Guards in their grey uniforms and Glaives in their black, as he held his nephew for the first time.

Held him close. 

 Watching the cub prowl forward and get the woman - would-be kidnapper? - to drag herself back into a corner where she stuffed herself between a pillar and a wall, bleeding and begging for him to be called off. For them to not let the cub eat her. Praying to the Six between every sobbing breath. 

 Rexus pressed his hand to the back of his nephew’s head, trying to hide him from the begging while backing away from her.
 
 The kid was shaking, so he shushed him as best he could, protectiveness welling up inside of him like a well dug into spring grounds.

 “What’s happening here?” A Kingsglaive demanded, pausing a moment to take in the actual situation which was appreciated, but also, the man looked torn. Like he wanted to take Prince Oriens out of Rexus’ arms, like he wanted to stay away from the quietly snarling coeurl cub, and like he wanted to avoid both options at the same time - and Rexus really wasn’t any better.

 Had King Regis - Regis - informed the Kingsglaive about who he was? The Crownsguard? Anyone? Was he being viewed as a threat? 

 Where had the coeurl cub come from? 

 And also, he had his grandnephew shaking in his arms, face pressing into his neck, and Rexus wasn’t about to let go of him, so he’d really rather not have to put down a few ‘Guards and Glaives to keep him.

 “She,” Rexus decided to go the route of explaining, and he’d go the route of using the lance he thrust in that woman’s direction if they pushed, “was trying to take the Prince somewhere he didn’t want to go. It looked like a kidnapping.” 

 Just like that, every single one of the Crownsguard and Kingsglaive who’d answered the call were turning entirely towards the woman sobbing in her corner. Bleeding. A mess, but a kidnapper nonetheless. Hands went up to ears as they contacted others throughout the Citadel, and Rexus curled over the kid he was holding.

 Rocking him as gently as he could, as he sent his lance back to the Armiger and stepped away from the situation.

 Well.

 This was one way to meet his grandnephew, he supposed.

 

 

-----

 

 

 On its charger, Nyx’s spare comm crackled to life, and Noctis’ only thought about that was that his amatus must’ve forgotten to turn it off before he went out to eat lunch with some of his fellow Glaives.

 Then the crackling turned into words.

 Into a report.

 Oriens’ name was said.

 Paperwork scattered across the floor, and a door slammed, and Noctis Lucis Caelum was gone.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Lunch had been good for them.

 Nyx was walking through the hall with Axis and Sonitus, getting shoved for his teasing and his braids yanked on for teasing them more in response. It was simple. Easy. Familiar. Better too, somehow. Maybe it had to do with his night of drinking with the Captain that healed their relationship a little. Maybe it had to do with how damned relieved he and the other old Glaives were since hearing Libs had gotten sober. An invisible line had been erased between them all, and Nyx was happy to just saunter through the hall.

 To spin on his heels and walk backwards while teasing Sonitus about the new braid in his rows of hair, the Bellum going stoic and silent. And pretending so hard his cheeks weren’t coloring.

 It was nice.

 And then there was the chiming sound of a warp in all their ears.

 A sound that made any Glaive alert. A sound that made Nyx twist back around. Just in time to see his starlight grabbing one of the kukris from his spare set from thin air, crystals and King’s Magic swirling around him, and it was just a glimpse but Nyx saw the panic etched into his star’s face, it was just a moment but he saw the way his star stumbled, it was just a moment but his star was running - 

 So Nyx was running too.

 Axis and Sonitus right behind him.

“Inlustris!?” His shout echoed, echoed so far, but his star never even looked back so he ran faster. His star was moving like he’d never seen him do before. Ever.

 They skipped the elevator.

 His star lunged out onto a balcony and tossed the kukri he must’ve taken from under Nyx’s pillow, up, up onto a balcony a floor up. Then another balcony, another floor up. 

 Three Glaives right on his tail.

 Into the hall there -

 Black. So much of the Citadel’s decoration was black. Black and accents of golds and golden-bronzes. The colors of the House of Caelum. The colors of their house. But so rarely did the Citadel seem colorless the way it did that day, at that hour, that minute, that moment when Noctis threw a blade not his own and warped with the desperation of a dad driving him forward - 

 The way it did when he twisted down one hall, one hall not so far away from where Ori’s tutors held their lessons, one hall too far away from the Royal Wings, too far from him.

 Colorless. Blackness. Lightless. 

 Not home, until he laid eyes on his son.

 Noctis’ stop was a skidding one, grabbing for his son who was grabbing for him, crying out for him, snatching him from arms that he didn’t put a face to, clinging to his Oriens who was so small and so scared - he was shaking - !

 “Daddy!” There was so much emotion in Ori’s whisper for him. So much emotion in the strength he used to twist his small fists into his dad’s shirt. So much emotion in his magic, loose in the air surrounding them like it never was, full of sentiments, full of surprise-panic-fear-fear-fear-Dad!

 So many reasons for Noctis to never let him go again, staggering back from the scene already being handled by ‘Guards in grey, Glaives in black. Staggered back into a solid chest. Staggered back into another’s magic he recognized, Nyx-Nyx-Nyx his soul sang and he fell into him and his support. Into his arms that wound around the father and son, and tugged them out of the way of the guards responding to this emergency.

 This kidnapping.

 “Ori, Ori, Ori, Ori, Ori,” he found himself repeating, senselessly, cradling his boy as much as he possibly could, his poor dawnlight. Running his fingers through his hair, down his back, under his legs. Searching for wounds that weren’t there, but that could’ve been if this had all gone differently, “Ori, my Ori, it’s okay, baby, it’s okay - “ 

 Muscles and fur wound around their legs. Tenebris wound around their legs. The little family that tucked themselves out of the way.

 Nyx whispering reassurances in Noctis’ ears for the hours - the minutes - it took for the Marshal of the Crownsguard to show up with some desperate warping of his own.

 “Ulric! Lockdown!” Was the single order he barked, which everyone in that slightly bloodstained hallway responded to.

 Which Nyx responded to, by gently cupping his inlustris’ braid and coaxing him to come. Come, “Come on, inlustris, come with me. <With me.>” 

 Nudging him away from the culprit being rolled off in a hospital gurney, away from the bloodied tiles of the floor, the bloodied pillar she had grabbed at while screaming. Away from all the chaos of so many guards showing up and taking stance and orders being given and orders being followed - away.

 There were secure rooms on every floor of the Citadel. 

 Rooms that locked and would not be opened until things were safe for the House of Caelum.

 Every single Kingsglaive was expected to have the hundred or so locations memorized before they could consider their training complete. The Ulric Chieftain had completed his training a long time ago. Had some of his best Glaives flanking them, when he placed a palm so, so carefully on his star’s lower back to steer him along as he focused all of his attention on the shaking princeling in his arms. One hall down, two halls down. 

 Being passed by other teams of guards in greys and blacks, rushing back the way they’d come or rushing ahead of them to clear the way. 

 Silent, flashing red lights tucked up close to the arched ceilings began to go off; the Citadel’s lockdown alarm. Nyx picked up the pace. Running his hand up and down his inlustris’ back in a steady rubbing motion to try and keep him there - keep him present. A coeurl cub following at their heels. One more hall. Just that one more.

 A tapestry on the wall, depicting one of the past Kings of Lucis.

 Sonitus grabbed onto its fine weaving and yanked. Bringing the whole thing down from the wall. And revealing the doorframe and keypad behind it. The keypad’s beeping was almost musical as the code was typed in, and then the door was unlocked, and then they had it open and they were in, and Nyx’s shoulders still didn’t relax even a little until Sonitus and Axis declared the saferoom clear. 

 In, door shut, door locked, room soundproof -  

 Nyx let his star go, glancing back at the door that wouldn’t be opening again until they had confirmation that there was no threat left in the Citadel.

 “Well,” Axis said beside him, rueful, “guess I’m going to miss out on that feast my wife was cooking up for tonight. Shame.”

Sonitus grunted, and Nyx reached over to shove his fellow Glaive good and hard.

Outside, the silent lights kept flashing.

And inside? The only thing they could do, was wait.

 

 

-----

 

 

 That day was the worst time in weeks for Regis’ knee to be having such a bad day. A day where he wasn’t able to get away with throwing his cane to the Armiger and running. A day where he had to send Cor and Drautos on ahead, when they received word that there had been a kidnapping attempt on his grandson, and Regis’ heart strained so hard he swore it would give again. But there wasn’t time for that - there was barely time for him to painfully jog after his Sword.

 Supported by his Shield.

 Even when the report came through the Citadel’s comms that Oriens was secure, that the kidnapping had been thwarted, Regis refused to slow. Despite Clarus’ insistence.

 When they arrived, too late, far too late? 

 They were met by bloodied tiles, bloodied walls, a dagger discarded on the floor that he recognized as the dagger his grandson had shown off so happily from his day in Little Galahd with his father and Nyx - they were met by bloody coeurl pawprints leading away from the scene. By ‘Guards securing said scene, and Glaives off to secure the Citadel at large. By Cor and Drautos grim-faced and looking tired, but not overly concerned about the situation which helped Regis’ heart in ways they would never realize - 

 Most interestedly, they were met by Rexus. 

 Standing off to the side, leaning on his polearm, watching everything with careful eyes.

 And as Regis learned very swiftly thanks to the report from his younger brothers, his younger half-brother was the one he had to thank for his boy being safe at all. 

 It was not appropriate. Especially when they had yet to formally announce who Rexus was. And it was not appropriate, when there were people in the hall already watching him suspiciously because they weren’t sure why he was there. And it was not appropriate, but Regis knew his sons were safe a few halls over and he didn’t care.

 So he hobbled his way over to Rexus, who immediately dismissed his polearm to the Armiger in a show of magic that definitely would cause gossip amongst the Crownsguard, reaching out for Regis as if to steady him.

 And Regis took his hand gratefully.

 And tugged Rexus towards him even more gratefully. To tuck his newest little brother into his arms, and hold him as he murmured, “Thank you,” into his hair.

 The man seemed hesitant, up until Regis cupped at the back of his neck and held him tighter. Then he sank into the old king’s embrace with all the grace of a lazy wyvern.

 “You’re welcome.”

 An embrace only interrupted by Retinue; by Clarus, Cor, and Drautos coming to surround the two Lucis Caelums in a semi-circle that had Lucis’ King straightening up. Looking to them and their dark expressions expectedly. They had bad news for him. He knew they did. But it was worse than that.

 “Regis,” Clarus, his ever-loyal Shield, told him with war in his voice, “the kidnapper - she was from Tenebrae.” 

 There was war in all their heartbeats echoing back after hearing that.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

Oooo, Tenebrae you're in troooouble. XD

Making an enemy of Lucis now that the Empire gone is the fastest way to get wiped off the map, so they're not exactly making smart choices in their grief. Especially now that they have more than one angry papa bear as their enemy and Ori has a protective murder kitty following his shadow.

Chapter 29

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

 Hate is an easy emotion to feel. It’s easier to feel hate than it is to feel empathy. It’s easier to let those flames, that fire, grow. And spread. And lead your actions. Regis’ father had taught him that, and taught him well. Hate was easy. Empathy was hard. Mercy was the hardest thing in the world for a man to show another, and his father had not always managed to overcome his hate. Regis had never loved Mors any less for it.

 Regis had tried to be better, after witnessing first-hand how unsettled his father’s rule was because of it.

 How hated.

 But right now, it was so much easier to feel hate. 

 Right now, it was so much easier to shove away any and all empathy he’d had left towards Lunafreya’s death. Unexpected? Yes. A tragedy? It should’ve been, by all accounts. By his own accounts, on account of his deep friendship with Sylva years ago. Family was almost what they were. So it should’ve been a tragedy -

 But for the House of Caelum, it was now only an inconvenience. Because that was what Tenebrae had made it for them.

 There had been an attempt to kidnap his grandson. His boy. His Oriens. Their home had been invaded, and Oriens had been alone, and he had almost been taken - and that? That was not a thing Regis Lucis Caelum could forgive. Would, even if he could. But he couldn’t. He could not. That was his boy, that was a child of his, that was a child of the House of Caelum and there was no mercy to be found.

 There was no high road to take.

 There was only magic, boiling in his veins, in the veins of Retinue and of Kingsglaive. And there was no mercy. There was no mercy at all.

 His children were hidden away in a secret room in their own home for their safety - he did not know the meaning of mercy right now.

 What the Lucian King knew, was that his canes broke far, far too easily. He’d broken too many of them since his son was freed from Mistveil Keep. He stared at the splinters of yet another one, broken furiously in half by the way he’d swung it at the mantle in his study, cursing in a way he hadn’t done since he was young and dumb and spending time in Altissia for diplomatic reasons around all of those sailors and their tongues.

 Regis rested a hand on the mantle after, then bowed his head until his forehead was resting there too. Feeling the eyes of his Aulea, her portrait above, gazing down at him.

 Feeling as though he could hear her voice. Maybe. Almost. A memory of her voice.

 Memories were so fallible. Memories failed.

 He no longer remembered exactly how his queen’s voice had sounded. It had been too many years.

 His heart hurt. But Regis had already swallowed down the pills Clarus had pressed into his hand, and he had already sat and listened to the report his Crownsguard and his Kingsglaive had assembled for him on the kidnapping attempt of a few hours ago. That was enough rest. He couldn’t handle more. He had only meant to stoke the fire in his study’s fireplace, to watch the flames dance for a moment as they fought off the winter’s faint chill - and then there was the crack of polished wood meeting stone.

 And a broken cane at his feet.

 “Oh…Aulea…” The King of Lucis rasped to the mantle where he rested his head, wishing with everything in him for just a moment that it could be his queen’s lap once again instead. Like when they were young. Like when everything seemed brighter, happier. 

 When the world seemed kinder to them.

 “I…am so old now…aren’t I?”

 

 

-----

 

 

 The report had helped no one. 
 
 “Not a kidnapper. Or a spy. Or, anything,” Cor had reported, hunched over Regis’ desk and picking through hastily written notes and documents compiling all of the information their people had managed to collect in so short a time. But it brought the old king no relief. 

 “If not that, then what?”

 “She was just a housekeeper,” no relief at all, as his brothers all stared at the documents with him with his same tiredness, “a religious one. According to the texts on her phone that the Glaives’ Communications pulled, her church pressured her into trying to kidnap His Highness. Or else they would curse her in the Astrals’ eyes and excommunicate her. She was just chosen because she had a job here at the Citadel, and her family joined the church in pressuring her, so she felt…she had to.” 

 “She’s receiving medical care at the moment,” Clarus added, troubled, Regis could tell by the shape of his frown, “Tenebris didn’t exactly maul her, but she’s got some bites and scratches that will scar. Plus Prince Oriens’ own strike against her.” 

 This report helped no one.

 A scared young woman forced to commit a crime in the name of her church. Regis wanted so much worse a reason, almost. 

 So he’d have an excuse for how harshly they would punish her, and he wouldn’t feel guilty about it later.

 “Their plan?” 

 “There were others,” Drautos grunted, added a few extra packets to the pile of documents and looking even more worn down than the three of them after the weeks he’d had, “Others their church had threatened to excommunicate, who lived in the city. They were waiting just outside of the Wall, with a van. Disguised as a street crew - pretty shoddily, but able to pass for a little while without being noticed. They were taken into custody once we knew what we were looking for.”

 Civilians. All of them.

 “So,” Regis had said, toneless, staring down at the pictures of Lucian citizens who had prayed to something greater than the royal family, from their point of view, “it was not a plot against Lucis - at least, not set into motion by the whole of Tenebrae. Just one of their churches.” 

 One of their desperate, god-fearing churches.

 “But Tenebrae still will not apologize for it,” the greyed king whispered, more to himself, as he clasped his hands tight and stared through his desk, through everything. Angry and numb and both and neither. 

 “No. They won’t.” 

 They wouldn’t, would they? Tenebrae wouldn’t apologize. Whether it was a plot organized by their royal household or a plot organized by one of their churches, the goal was the same in the end. Obtain Queen Lunafreya’s heir. Bring him to Tenebrae, where they would keep him - why not? He was sure they had so many excuses thought up for why it was okay to steal his grandson. Lucis had three other royals - two that they knew of - after all. They could always have more children, while Tenebrae only had Oriens.

 He could imagine that being their argument so easily.

 So easily.

 The report really helped no one.

 It only led to a broken cane. To hate. To no mercy.

 To Regis Lucis Caelum staring into flames, planning when he would be ordering Lucis to go to war for his boys.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The saferooms weren’t designed with comfort in mind, they were designed with safety in mind. Like the name implied. Though Nyx was sure the modernized saferooms of the Citadel were definitely an improvement on whatever, dungeon and stone and darkness the original were, a long time ago, when the Citadel was a castle fit for old fairtytales. 

 They weren’t designed with comfort in mind - but they were still fit for royalty.

 By Ramuh; the saferoom was fancier than his own apartment in Little Galahd.

 Maybe not as spacious - obvious and made more so by the coeurl cub pacing the singled-roomed space. Violet eyes slitted. Blood on his whiskers, on his claws. Nyx was really hoping that the rug wasn’t expensive décor, since there were now bloody coeurl pawprints running its length back and forth. Tenebris’ bloodied whiskers were sparking too. Faintly. A low rumble in his throat.

 Nyx was proud of the cub. Of the fact that he was pacing in front of the couch where inlustris and mane were sat together, holding onto one another.

 Soundly between them and the only entrance. And refusing to put his hackles down for now.

 The cub knew how to protect those he’d imprinted on. And knew how to attack folk who meant them harm. He may have been a very spoiled furball, and a purring kitten to them - but when their princeling had been in trouble, Tenebris had responded. Had painted the hallway red in response. Nyx was allowed to be proud of that.

 Even if Axis and Sonitus were watching the black-furred coeurl cub pace with a wariness borne of knowing what coeurls were capable of fully grown.

 The Ulric Chieftain wasn’t so wary.

 Didn’t even hesitate in walking straight past the territorial cub, who didn’t so much as hiss at the man. Just kept prowling the length of the saferoom. Marking their ‘territory’ out in blood and fur and swishes of sparking whiskers. 

 They were still waiting for their comlinks to come alive with new orders from the Captain. To stay, to go - however this situation would end. In the meantime Nyx had been stuck there, tortured by the sight of mane trembling. Hiding in his dad’s chest. Clutching at the fabric of his shirt so hard inlustris’ buttons were about ready to pop off. 

 Was it unfair to say he was surprised how stable his star seemed? How present he seemed? Was it unfair that Nyx was expecting to need to calm the both of them, and then got the shock of seeing inlustris take control of the situation from the start? Shushing and reassuring his son, keeping him close, magic agitated but not unrestrained? 

 Probably not unfair.

 But still a surprise.

 Nyx went to them when a good half an hour had passed without further orders. How this day had turned from him out with his friends, getting lunch and getting teased - to an attempted kidnapping on their mane? Wasn’t fun. But his reassurance was seeing Ori right there. Safe, and alive, and without a single scratch on him. 

 The scratches in his sense of safety would last longer, but being physically okay was a start.

 “Mane,” he murmured, nice and low, softly, taking a knee next to the cushiony couch. Next to his starlight’s knee. Where he didn’t have to reach far to run his hand up then down the kid’s back, scanning him again for any injuries he knew he hadn’t missed but he had to make sure anyways, “How are you feeling? Does it hurt anywhere?”

 Mutely, Ori shook his head. Nyx couldn’t tell if that was the truth from his expression because his face was firmly planted in his dad’s chest.

 His star, for his part, had distant horrors playing out in his eyes that seemed so alien and still so blue at the same time. Like he was on a whole other planet in his mind. Watching their son getting kidnapped and unable to stop it like it had been stopped this time. So the Glaive put his hand just above his star’s hip, just above where his sense of feeling ended, giving him the most gentle smile he could summon when Noctis glanced down at him.

 It must’ve been really gentle, since it made inlustris come back from outer space and rejoin Nyx’s orbit.

He saw it in those blue-blue eyes. Noctis returning to him, here. Now.

 “<It will be handled, beloved.> Promise,” Nyx promised, his star and his heart and his reason to keep going strong this last year, and Noctis took a second. To pick apart the Galahdian words. Then nodded. Not so distant. Not so distracted. Right there, with them, where he needed to be. And despite the situation, Nyx was so proud.

 “Do…you know who that man was?” Inlustris whispered, rasped more like, voice all rough and splintered. And Nyx figured he meant the man who had been holding mane when they showed up. So he shook his head.

 He wasn’t sure of who that man had been -

 But judging by what he looked like? He had a guess.

 “I wouldn’t…have,” mane piped up quietly, bringing both of their attentions to the glassy-eyed princeling, “been able to get away…without him.”

 Reaching out, ruffling the kid’s mussed hair, Nyx swore he was watching his star’s fragile heart break right before his eyes. Embracing their little morninglight as close as close might be, hiding him against his heart, hiding him from all the world. And staring at some vague and misty future that hadn’t come to pass. A future where their son had been stolen and they had been too late and everyone had been too late.

 An uncertain future, full of bloody, bloody mists.

 Tenebris purred wildly behind the Glaive’s black, trying to self-soothe or trying to soothe his fellow cub who was so obviously exuding distress. Even to a coeurl’s senses.

 Nyx swallowed, at the idea that if he hadn’t brought Tenebris home to gift to their Ori -

 No.

 Dwelling on those thoughts would only make him bitterly paranoid. He’d seen enough of that in soldiers, enough of that in Libertus, for years to know to turn away from the what ifs. He was here, in the now, this present blessed by the Stormfather where their mane was not successfully stolen. And that was the only present he would want to stay in. 

 “I saw you used the dagger I got you,” he whispered, as coaxing as he could drop his voice into sounding as he started petting lightly at their little Highness’ hair, “You did good, filius. I am proud.”

 Inlustris went a tiny bit stiff.

 And Oriens nuzzled deeper into his dad’s wrinkled shirt, silent for a second, clearly thinking while the Ulric Chieftain kept petting at his hair with a single bead gifted to be worn in it. Then, the brave, brave child pulled away from his dad. Just a little. To nuzzle instead into Nyx’s hand, keeping his eyes down as he whispered - 

 “That means…’son’, Nyx.” 

 He grinned, proud and bashful at having been caught because Ori had really been taking his Galahdian lessons with the Glaives seriously.

 “It does.” 

 The boy ducked his head to follow his eyes, falling back into silence. But he caught the hand that was petting him. Small, small fingers circling Nyx’s wrist. And he took that hand, to hug it to his chest, and he snuggled back into his dad’s side where Oriens Lucis Caelum could safely hide from all of Eos. 

 Noctis wanted to smile, he saw it in his amatus’ darling blue eyes - but there was too much sadness for him to get it out.

 Nyx just knelt beside that fancy couch, and lowered his head to pray in thanks to Ramuh. For the blessing that was Tenebris, who had saved their son for them. Who had ensured an oath this chieftain had made was not fully broken.

 Tenebris kept pacing, hackles up.

 And they waited together. As a family.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Pelna’s voice came through their comlinks a while later, mane’s head resting on his father’s thigh as inlustris ran his fingers through his hair to coax him to rest.

 They were allowed to leave.

 They were allowed to leave only to the King’s rooms.

 Nyx escorted them there. Hand hovering over his star’s spine protectively as he carried his son where they were headed. The halls of the Citadel had never felt more dark and dreary, than after seeing what red looked like spilt all across its black marble and how unsafe little mane acted, clinging to his father with all the desperation of a child who had had promises made to him broken.

 They had promised Tenebrae wouldn’t get to him.

 They had almost been made into liars.

 Nyx was itching to plunge his kukris into somebody, anybody, to keep his promise true. And he saw it reflected in those bluest eyes he’d ever seen before. 

 Inlustris was ready and willing and just waiting to kill for his son too.

 

 

-----

 

 

 They had a guard accompanying them. A whole, armed, angry guard ahead of them. Behind them. At their sides, and hovering in each and every shadow of the hallways they passed through. Nobody was taking any chances. Least of all Nyx’s Glaives, who fell in with them like this was war again. The Galahdian figured that all of the Citadel’s staff had already been rounded up and taken away for questioning - he didn’t see any of them in the halls.

 He didn’t see anyone outright Tenebraean-looking either, anywhere.

 All the way to His Majesty’s rooms in the Royal Wing, they were escorted. And even as they entered, their guard lined every pillar of the hallway outside with weapons at hand. Hoods up for Glaives, serious, furious, ready for an attack. Any attack. At any moment. Just in case. 

 Nyx faltered, just long enough to salute his comrades who were here to defend his stars. Then he shut and locked the doors to His Majesty’s rooms.
 
 His Majesty’s rooms weren’t empty.

 One of the doors within was cracked open, light spilling out past the doorframe, and Tenebris stalked in ahead of them. The blood had been cleaned from the coeurl’s cub-soft fur while they were waiting in the saferoom. His big paws were as silent as any predator's on the rugs of the floor, but the way he shouldered the door fully open was noticeable. Enough to draw attention as two royals and Nyx followed his lashing tail.

 The most powerful men in Lucis were gathered in King Regis’ personal, private study. And there were a lot of fast-talking murmurs to be heard before the door was shouldered open. The Nyx Ulric of little more than a year ago was still shocked that he’d ever been welcomed so easily into these rooms of the King’s.

 The Nyx Ulric of now focused only on his Noctis and Oriens.

 On his starlight setting a suddenly wiggling Oriens down, on the kid’s own two feet, once they’d entered. Mane was making grabby hands at his grandfather, all of his earlier sleepiness falling away to distress. Of course, of course, Ori had been worried about his grandfather through everything too. He cared so much. Too much.

 The princeling scrambled over to his grandfather, crawling up into his lap as the king sat in his grand, leather-brunt chair. 

 It was a repeat of earlier. With mane seeking comfort from his father and Nyx.

 Nobody dared to interrupt it.

 Lucis’ little Crown Prince clearly needed the comfort now, letting his grandfather’s fingers worn by age thread through his hair, whispering all sorts of promises and reassurances in his ears, holding him close, holding him tight, holding him in such a possessive way even gods would hesitate to think they could take the boy from his grandfather.

 The day was late. The day was almost not day anymore at all. 

 Dusk’s violet hues were sneaking into the study through the windows, and mane started to slump. Started to sniffle, and sigh, and rub at his eyes sleepily. Still clinging to His Majesty’s shirt with one hand no matter what. Nyx felt for the little spot of morning’s light. Little mane. At least he had been in his teenage years when the Empire destroyed his sense of safety in the home he’d known his whole life.

 Mane was only two weeks off from turning ten.

 “Grandpa?” Ori mumbled, resisting when his grandfather pressed a painfully loving kiss to his brow, then tried to separate from him, “Grandpa? No.” 

 Advisor Scientia stepped forward, around Nyx and inlustris still standing near the doorway, bowing to the both of them, bowing to the men gathered there, and going to his place to take the sleepy prince into his arms - but mane clung to King Regis’ shirt so hard the buttons threatened to unthread themselves.

 “No,” the prince said, sharper now, and His Majesty again kissed his brow as his Hand rubbed at his back, trying to encourage him to let go.

 “Your Highness,” Ignis Scientia coaxed him lightly, pulling on the boy gently - so gently, “It’s alright. It’s alright. Gladiolus and I shall put you to bed in your grandfather’s bedroom. You will be two rooms away - no more. No more. Should you need them, they’ll be right here. And Gladiolus and I shall not leave your side through the night.”

 Ori let out a little whine, but his grandfather found a smile from somewhere for him, all thin and sad, but enough. But enough.

 And he let go, breathing in noisily through his nostrils.

 Like he was trying not to cry.

 Advisor Scientia held the prince delicately, as if he were a priceless treasure of Lucis - he was - and bowed to the men of the study. Then started heading for where the Shield, Gladiolus, was waiting stone-faced in the doorway behind them. 

 Watching with stormy eyes, Nyx saw his star’s fingers flex - 

 And he extended an arm to halt the Hand in his steps. He would never blame either Hand or Shield for how they tensed. Almost as if they were expecting an attack. Those were instincts that would keep his…his son, safe. Yeah. Yeah, there had been no arguments about Nyx calling Oriens his son earlier, so, it should be fine for him to honestly consider the princeling that now, right? At least sometimes.

 As if he hadn’t already.

 Slanting his eyes towards his star, he tried to tell the royal with his eyes something. Something simple, something so true, ‘You should say goodnight. You should always say goodnight, while you have the chance.’

 His brave and bold inlustris understood.

 Nyx wished his younger self had understood that too, while he had the chance.

 “Dad,” mane murmured, so obviously trying to fight how his lower lip wobbled and Nyx let the father and son have a moment. Everyone let them have a moment. Feeling…feeling love, for this child, this child of his love’s, this child he had come to love, Nyx watched them embrace, watched them say their goodnights.

 Reaching up for one of his braids.

 “Here, <for you, beloved child,>” Nyx Ulric, Chieftain, said lowly when his star had pulled back. Taking his place beside the boy being held by his Hand, and with reverence bending forward to knot a new bead in his hair. Hair still too short for proper braids of any sort. But still with the gifted blue bead that matched his father’s there, behind his ear. 

 And now?

 With a little golden bead knotted in next to it. One that Nyx was even more tender with.

 One from a braid of his own. The braid he used to share with Libs, with Crowe. The braid of family united not through blood, but through choice and unchallenged and challenged love. He was sure Crowe would be honored. He was sure a sober Libs would understand.

 He was sure their mane looked just a tad braver, as he sniffed and reached up to touch his new bead with all the care in Eos.

 “<Thank you,>” he mumbled, scrambling a little in Advisor Scientia’s arms. To get an arm around Nyx’s broad shoulders. And another around his dad’s. And hold both of them, tight, tight as a kid his size could, his trembles less noticeable now, his fear less now, his love more now, “Love you. Both. Dads.” 

 There was more than one gasp that sounded in His Majesty’s study.

 And there was more than one hug left in the tiny, fragile family of three.

 And Tenebris followed Advisor Scientia and Shield Amicitia out, when they went to lay the princeling to bed in the King’s bedroom. 

 And then it was just them, and those most powerful men in Lucis. Family, to his star.

… 

 There was a man with them - standing with the rest of his family around his dad’s desk - Noctis had never properly met. Aside from the part of his mind that reminded him that that was the man who’d been holding his son like a savior. Back in that bloodied hallway. A man with dark hair. And high cheekbones. And a way of standing. Oh. And, his dad’s eyes. Green like Grandpa Mors’.

 Noctis, suddenly, knew exactly who the man was.

 “Uncle Rexus.” 

 An eyebrow was arched at that greeting. It wasn’t a judgmental eyebrow. If eyebrows can be judgmental. Noctis meant, it wasn’t a rude reaction. Or offended. Or anything negative that would’ve gotten his hackles up like Tenebris’ had been for hours. The eyebrow seemed to say, ‘That’s weird, but okay.’ Like it was his first time being called somebody’s uncle. Maybe it was. It probably was. Noctis was…getting off track.

It was…just that, seeing him, seeing Rexus - 

It was hard to tear his eyes away from the man.

It was like looking at his dad when he was young.

Dark hair bordering between a deep brown and black, depending on the lighting, that must’ve been dyed at the roots because he was old enough to have silver hairs but there were none. Their family’s cheekbones. Their family’s nose. A trimmed beard that was just barely past the point of stubble. Smile lines, and light eyes, and wearing the same sort of high-waisted pants with a button shirt tucked in that his dad used to wear in old magazine photos. 

 Casual clothes, but also not. 

 All business and openness and Caelum-ness, and Noctis thought this was what his dad looked like a thousand years ago, before him. Before him, before his mom, before he wore the crown too. Back when Regis Lucis Caelum was a crown prince and not a king. Not the Father. Or, having just been given his epitaph of the Father? Back when he was young. 

 There was a youngness to this new uncle.

 There wasn’t the weight of royalty on him.

 It almost hurt, to look at him.

 But regardless of him being family, this was also the man who had saved his little dawnlight from being kidnapped. So Noctis would look at him. And would thank him. Even if his thanks was a little raspy, a little subdued, and more important things were at hand. Even if it was probably a little rude to jump from meeting a new uncle to other things entirely.

 “Thank you…for saving Ori.” 

 “Of course. It’s nice to meet you, Prince Noctis,” his dad’s half-brother greeted him, seemingly not offended at all that right now their meeting could only be as simple as that, and they turned back to his dad.

 The eve of war made for a hard time to get to know new family members.

 “Noctis, sweetheart, how are you?” Was the first place Dad went, and it was so familiar and so predictable in the most fond of ways that Noctis couldn’t help his smiling at the worry-toned question.

 “I’m fine, Dad,” for now, he was, because his son was still safe, miracle of miracles, “We’re fine. We just need to worry about what comes next.” 

 And if that was war? 

 Judging by the unforgiving expressions of all present, war was what they would have without complaint.

 “...So, Tenebrae is planning something,” Lucis’ King hummed, folding his fingers into one another, and they all went stiff at it being said aloud. Unhappy. With the idea of dealing with a Tenebrae thwarted. The magic of three unhappy Caelums? Was not a pleasant thing to be around either, “Malicious or not, that should be considered indisputable. Captain Drautos? How soon can you get Glaives into Tenebrae’s borders unseen?” 

 “Two, three days?” The Kingsglaive Captain considered it, narrowing his eyes as he made plans in his mind, “We’ll have to do this covertly, and depending on how they’ve changed up their guard at our border - probably closer to three, Your Majesty.” 

 Three days felt like too long. Far too long.

 So much could happen in three days.

 “Not Tenebraean Glaives,” Cor piped up, looking up from his phone and miserably serious about it as he frowned at the captain, “As much as I want to have faith in our own, keep them as far away from this operation as possible. They could be pressured by their churches and families too, if we’re not careful.”

 Ghosts passed through the captain’s eyes, but he nodded. Murmuring in agreement.

 None of them wanted to consider they may be further betrayed, but they also weren’t willing to tempt fate. Not now. 

 “Oriens is not to leave the Citadel - not to leave the Royal Wings, even,” Regis added, flipping through papers as his phone rang, and he pressed a button on it to send that call through elsewhere, instead, “I want quadruple the guards on our wings. And for Rexus to be moved to Noctis’ floor. That’ll make two royals on each one. It’ll be easier if we’re split into pairs.” 

 His half-brother shifted a bit at the mention of him, but he nodded. Not seeming all that bothered about having to leave the rooms he’d just been given not all that long ago.

 “The woman,” he added, with a bitter twist to it and he couldn’t help himself even if he knew she’d done it out of pressure from her family, “will be placed in the dungeons until further talks with Tenebrae are concluded. Her co-conspirators as well. Executions will be on the table for them.” 

 There were nods throughout the room.

 They’d already crossed that line. What was a little more blood spilled for the safety of the House of Caelum?

 For their family, wouldn’t they do anything? Everything?

 “Dad,” Noctis spoke up, magic lazy and deadly, swirling around his dead legs. Just in tone alone catching all of his father’s attention, because that sort of single-minded determination - “What about me becoming the Glaives’ battery?”

 Nyx’s head jerked to look at his star.

 Retinue tensed.

 Rexus looked confused.

 Regis clenched his hands into fists, grinding his teeth down brutally to stop the immediate refusal his heart demanded he respond with.

 They…had said they’d discuss it.

 And…it would help.

 And he would hate it with a burning passion worthy of Ifrit’s very own hells. 

 “...We will discuss it. Later,” Regis said, lifting a hand to halt whatever Clarus had opened his mouth to say in response, “Later. Before we send out Glaives, but right now we need to sort out the Citadel’s security. More than we need to move around the burden of supplying magic to anyone.”

 For a second, and with the flattening of his lips, it seemed like his boy was going to argue that.

 But Noctis just sighed and gave in. Settling back, gaze distant and murderous. No matter what the media had liked to say during the war with the Empire, Regis was no fool. No more than any other man, at least. He knew Lucis would benefit from having his son’s magic supplying the Glaives, like they benefited from having him supply the Wall. But right now? 

 The old king wanted nothing more than to keep his son unburdened for just a while longer.

 They discussed the security measures in depth. And time dragged onward.

 It always dragged onwards, dragging them with it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ignis was Astral-sent, as always. Returning to bring them trays of goodies and cups of coffee, checking on his charges by moving between two of the King’s rooms with feverish need. Never, ever not worried about Noctis and Oriens. But still the ever-composed man who easily tended to their needs without a hair out of place. At least, now that their relationship had recovered a bit more. Noctis knew he had been a bit of a mess when he first came back from Mistveil.

 The goodies were good.

 Jelly-sweet and buttery.

 And of course Ori came out of a passage behind his dad’s bookshelf, rubbing his eyes and clutching a plushie to his chest. Because his son was having a hard time sleeping on his own. It caused a bit of panic for Iggy and Gladio, but both of them relaxed when he revealed himself. Now so many of them - so much of Noctis’ family, were all gathered in a single place. 

 Not quite at peace, but just for a moment, allowed to simply…be.

 The coffee, both him and his new Uncle Rexus put so much sugar and cream in it couldn’t even be considered coffee anymore, and he heard his dad chuckle slightly at the sight of that. Them. Amused and fond, and Noctis couldn’t help but wonder what this man had done to make his dad accept him so readily. 

 Was it saving Ori’s life? That had…done it for Noctis.

 He felt he should’ve been more upset about his dad keeping Rexus’ existence a secret for months, but he’d been through too much in his thirty years of life to care about secrets that hadn’t hurt anybody. He had another uncle. And that uncle seemed to care. Seemed…decent enough. Liked sweet things, like Noctis used to.

 Like he was just starting to be able to again.

 They sipped at their sweeter-than-sugar coffees together, staring at each other over the coffee table. The clicking of his dad at his laptop the only sound in his personal study, aside from the lit fireplace and its flames and their swaying. The crackling wood. It would almost be cozy, if the situation wasn’t what it was.

 Night was drawing closer, and there was so much to do.

 Nyx leaned over the back of the couch, adjusting the throw blanket that Uncle Clarus had draped over his inlustris’ shoulders to keep his too-cold body warm, running his thumb over his beads while he was at it. Smiling at the way his star turned his cheek to be kissed so chastely. Just for a second. 

 He was so proud of his star. 

 For staying so composed today.

 For handling this all so well.

 Noctis, for his part, sipped more of the coffee, grateful that Ignis had prepared it caffeine-free for this time of night. Licking his lips after and turning his own small smile down to Ori. Curled up on the couch beside him. Using his thigh as a pillow. Sound asleep. A carbuncle plushie clutched in his arms. He ran his fingers through his son’s hair, soft and silky from a bath Iggy had insisted he take. 

 He slipped his hand down, to cup his son’s cheek. So round. Full of baby fat still. So young.

 He had almost been stolen from them, today. 

 Taking a breath, and another sip of his too-sweet cup of coffee by his father’s standards, Noctis listened to his uncles talk business with his dad while watching Rexus. Sat across from him. Sipping at his own cup. Tapping at a tablet on his lap with a frown drawing his mouth downwards. He looked older when he frowned, honestly.

 He looked more like Dad.

 “...Is it rude if I ask you about your mother?” Noctis asked, softly, so as not to stir his son. Dad’s green eyes flicked up to look at him - except they weren’t Dad’s. They were Rexus’. Uncle Rexus’. 

 “Not at all,” the man shrugged, also speaking softly, both of them pointedly pretending they hadn’t noticed all other talk in the study go silent. Or the eyes on both of them, watching like it was a sports game not a conversation, and they may just need a referee, “My mother passed when I was born. As far as I know, your grandfather never knew I existed. I didn’t realize I was related to him until he had passed too, either.”

Noctis hummed, trying to imagine such a life.

His own father, not knowing he existed? What…a sad life.

“This was probably a surprise for you,” Rexus’ lips twisted, a half quirk of a smile that actually reminded the raven-haired royal a bit of Nyx, of all people, bashful and confident all at once, “Sorry. I figured there was a good chance I’d be found eventually, but the timing was a bit of a surprise for me too. Took longer than I expected.” 

“You thought you’d be found by the Crown?” 

“Magic like ours doesn’t stay a secret,” Rexus pointed out, “and I wasn’t even trying to keep it hidden. Unless I was in Niflheim during the war.” 

Humming, Noctis took another sip of his coffee. Savoring the sweetness so overpowering in a way his tongue hadn’t been able to physically handle months ago. He tried, but he couldn’t imagine it. Being alone during the war. All alone during a war when the whole Empire was searching out sources of magic. Especially King’s Magic.

If he had ever ended up on some sort of roadtrip while the Empire was still at large, it probably would’ve been a roadtrip to hell and back.

“Rexus,” now his father spoke up, tone politely curious, drawing his half-brother’s attention his way, “I don’t believe I asked before, apologies, but whatever did you do? Before? As an occupation - or at least, wherever did you live?”

Noctis recognized the gleam in his dad’s eyes. Worry.

He must also be thinking now about how Rexus was all on his own, versus the Empire and so much more of Eos as well. Anyone and everyone who would benefit from getting their paws on a stray Lucis Caelum who had no support. No Shield or Retinue or Wall to protect him.

“I moved around,” Rexus shrugged one shoulder, waved one hand, looking a tad awkward now. Which made both royals more curious, and Retinue besides, “As for what I did - I, uh, guess saying I’m an archaeologist covers it?” 

 Eyebrows went up at that answer.

 Noctis wasn’t entirely sure why, but judging by the looks Uncles Clarus and Cor shared, that was one of the last jobs they would’ve expected.

 “An archaeologist?" The Father, meanwhile, just sounded delighted for the first time that day, sitting up a little straighter and eyes brightening, “Do you have a specific field of study? I honestly never would’ve suspected that!” 

 “Uh, old Solheim, mostly,” now Rexus just seemed embarrassed, rubbing at the back of his neck as he spoke, “I mean, a little of everything, technically. But what first got me interested was my own magic, and they say King’s Magic originated in Solheim like the House of Caelum did. So I was mostly looking for answers about my own history, I…guess you could say?” 

 Regis smiled, properly, for the first time in many hours at that. 

 It wasn’t that he’d been worried his half-brother was just a party animal…okay, maybe he had been slightly worried, due to the reports of how many condoms were found in his rooms when he sent some of the housekeepers to move his things to Noctis’ Royal Wing. But those fears were clearly unfounded, and he was far too judgmental!

 Cor cleared his throat.

 And Regis turned to slap his younger brother’s thigh because it sounded far too much like he’d just said, “Tomb raider,” beneath his breath.

 “Find anything interesting in our old history?” Noctis questioned, sipping at his coffee sweeter than anything, and tilted his head. Because the way his dad’s half-brother smiled just seemed secretive then. 

 “Oh, you can’t even imagine.” 

 Curious, Noctis kept sipping at his sweet coffee, but the conversation trailed off there.

 The winter night was full of snow.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A day passed, once they had gotten through the night.

 And then another.

 The Royal Wings stayed locked down. Oriens stayed in his grandfather’s rooms. The Wall remained stubbornly, firmly up, Insomnia stayed stubbornly, firmly shut down, and even Noctis Lucis Caelum didn’t go further than the Royal Wings for those days. Didn’t go far from his son. Didn’t go far from where Retinue and Glaives guarded him extremely closely. Because they couldn’t be sure that Tenebrae wouldn’t try something worse than what one of their zealot churches already had.

 It felt like a very strange few days.

 Noctis hadn’t felt ‘contained’ in this sort of way since Mistveil. Everyone got nervous even if he just wanted to go out onto his balcony. They let him, they had to let him, none of them - nobody in Lucis would refuse him his chance to bask even in winter sunshine. But he had to tell them ahead of time so they could prepare for…anything.

 Noctis felt like a bird in a pretty, golden birdcage. Sitting out on his balcony in his wheelchair. Petting Aurora as the white-furred princess of a cat purred and purred and purred.

 He’d largely forgotten his teenage feelings of being trapped by his royal status.

Of being a handsome thing kept around like a doll, with Lucis just waiting for the day his father would pass the crown and the Ring to him. An interesting story. The crippled prince. Pictures of his face always filling the magazine racks in the city, a camera always shoved in his face, always arguing with his dad to let him leave his guards behind so he and Prompto could go out to the arcade and just have some fun - 

 Now that he was a father himself, he understood his dad so much more. 

 He hoped Ori never became the bitter, stifled teenager he had been.

 Things did happen. Not much, but some things. Prompto called. He had to be ordered to stay with his pregnant wife when Cor told him about the attempted kidnapping. Ignis was stalking between the Royal Wings with his daggers kept holstered to his thighs in such a way that he looked like a very, very dangerous advisor. Gladio was never far behind him; the two of them taking turns watching over their princes.

 Paperwork was the same. Duties were the same.

 Things were restricted, but life went on.

…

 Dad tried to convince him each and every day that he could hold off on becoming the Glaives’ new magic source. 

 So each and every day, Noctis made his dad promise that they’d do the switch before the Kingsglaive left for Tenebrae.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ori was quiet. Really, really quiet.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rexus still felt like he’d shown up at the worst possible time, and kept a bit of a distance in some sort of attempt to not overwhelm his half-brother’s kids who…were so obviously hurting. In so many little ways. But he brought the small prince snacks Advisor Scientia made for him, and brought the smaller prince his plushie whenever the man noticed it had been left in a different room than Prince Oriens had left it in.

 He felt out of place, and awkward, and like his confidence could only get him so far.

 But somehow, for some reason, King Regis - Regis - kept telling him he was doing great. That he was happy to have Rexus here. 

 And Rexus spent his nights picking through the oldest of his old journals, piecing together information from ruins of ruins of ruins.

 It could…be useful, sooner than later, for this family that had accepted him with such ease.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Staring at the ceiling of your own bedroom gets rather boring after a while, Noctis was surprised to realize sometime around dawn. Yes. Genuinely, he was surprised…because few things could bore him after Mistveil Keep. The luxury of even having a bed not infested with rats or lice or, anything - it still left him in awe some days when he woke up. But his sleep had been restless the last two nights.

 And he had been awake for a while now, just staring up at the blackness of the ceiling high above.

 Like the last two days had passed by in stasis - like they were all just waiting. 

 A sigh left him. The prince outside of the line of succession. He was glad Ori had slept in his father’s bedroom that night again - with Tenebris, of course - because he would’ve been beyond tense the whole night if his son was within reach. That was worse than being restless. Either way though, he was left staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom without any idea of what to do.

 One more day, and Glaives would be sent to Tenebrae. 

 One more day, and he’d be using his own magic to supply the Kingsglaive. To supply Nyx.

 Pushing himself up, slowly, Noctis frowned at the light of dawn. Too bright. Even with the curtains drawn tight. He was…he needed…he found himself clenching his fists tight, in the silkiness of his blankets. He found himself lost, in his head, but not at the same time. He felt almost normal in how lost he felt now. It wasn’t dissociation. It was, something, almost okay to feel.

 It was the need to get up and do something. To act. To take a stand.

 He stared down at his dead legs and snorted.

 “Inlustris?” Nyx’s sleep-rough voice came from his cot, all low and sounding like he’d just woken up himself. Blue-blue eyes went to him, then down, away, because Noctis still blushed whenever he was suddenly met by Nyx being shirtless - which was also sort of normal between boyfriends, wasn’t it?

 Ugh. Being normal was weird and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Being traumatized was easier in some ways. Being distracted from that trauma for the reasons like he was now?

 He’d take being traumatized over his son’s safety being threatened any day.
 
 Nyx pushed himself up onto his elbows, his kukris resting next to his hip like they’d been all night long, and those stormy eyes looked over Noctis slowly. He always felt so seen. By Nyx specifically. And right now, with his brows furrowing like that, he felt even more seen than usual.

 “...If you were one of my Glaives,” the Galahdian man said with a quirk of a smile, “I’d say you were looking to have your ass kicked in the training rooms, inlustris.”

 The prince blinked down at his blankets.

 Then blinked up at his amatus.

 Then lifted his hands for a moment, staring at the Ring of the Lucii he’d taken on the burden of wearing for a time now. Was that it? Noctis, even as a teenager, had never particularly enjoyed his training sessions. Training with weapons. But sometimes, he’d get a bit of satisfaction from the workout of it all. Sometimes he’d wake up looking forward to it. 

 Was that what this feeling was? The desire to get up, get moving, feel his muscles burning? The ones he could still feel, anyhow?

 It had been years since he even considered feeling this way.

 “Starlight?” Looking back to Nyx, his amatus was crawling from his cot, readjusting the sweats low on his hips and stretching out the soreness in his muscles, watching him closely. And still unfairly shirtless. And muscled. And scratching at his stomach, which made those muscles flex, and his little, morningtime grin should also be illegal - 

 It wasn’t allowed; how sexy Nyx Ulric was.

 “That’s exactly what I want,” Noctis said instead, which made the grin die for a moment as Nyx comprehended what he meant.

 Which led to the Glaive’s eyebrows going up, “Oh?”

 Oh, yes.

 Noctis…wanted to be done sitting on the sidelines, waiting for awful things to happen to the family he loved. So he threw off his blankets, and he decided he would try to take this step today. Even if it was just a baby step. It would be a start, and it would…it would be something he could be proud of doing, at least a little. In private. If not with Nyx, who would surely be proud of him as well, as one of his biggest supporters. 

 Time for some ass to get kicked.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis’ ass, obviously.

 Nyx was too nice to start off with that, of course. Nyx started off with the two of them brushing their teeth. Insisted on it, actually. Joking that he didn’t want his victory kiss to include his morning breath. And then it was them breaking that request of His Majesty’s that they stay in the Royal Wings. To head to the big, unoccupied training room on the first floor. Simple in its tiled floor and mostly emptiness - meant solely for non-magic weapons training.

 They had to take a lot of guards with them, but those guards could at least wait outside the doors.

 Leaving Nyx alone with the once-crown prince. Alone, to insist that they spend plenty of time stretching. All apologetic with the way he glanced at Noctis, but he wasn’t really sorry. Was so gentle helping him bend to touch his toes, and helping him move limbs he couldn’t feel all that well anymore into stretches his body had forgotten, and even catching Noctis’ glasses when they slipped off his nose at one point.

 It was slow, and careful, and not what Noctis needed.

 So Nyx took a training sword from one of the weapon racks of the room to give him. Metal blade, but dulled so much it wouldn’t be able to cut an apple, let alone skin. The Glaive talked about taking it easy, stopping if he pushed himself, brushing a hand along his cheek when he promised a break after a few stance repetitions.

 And that wasn’t what Noctis needed.

 So he pushed a palm flat, firm, over Nyx’s heart. 

 And Nyx stepped back. Summoning his own kukris from his Armiger. Sad understanding in those brown eyes, so deep a brown, a land under hurricane they were - he spread his arms wide in invitation. ‘Come.’ That’s what his body language said.

 ‘Come. Get it out of your system. Use me to do it, because I love you and I can take it.’

 With a frustrated shout, Noctis swung the sword. Hard. Too hard; unbalancing himself.

 His feet tripped over one another and he couldn’t even feel it. And he lurched towards the unforgiving tiles of the floor - just for the chimes of a perfectly timed warp to brush against his ears.

 For fabric to brush against his ears, and along his cheek, as Nyx appeared.

 Arm easily catching under Noctis’ chest to keep him from hitting those tiles.

 “Easy, inlustris,” the Glaive hissed, all but into his ear, breaths hot and brushing down his neck and Noctis shivered even as he curled around Nyx’s supportive arm. Practically hugging it. Out of breath. Already? Already. He felt so - so worthless. In a way he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager. Mistveil had made him ready to forgive himself for a lot of things.

 But he needed to be better now. For Oriens. For Dad.

 “Again,” the prince demanded, sliding a hand up Nyx’s bicep so their eyes would meet in the middle, where Noctis’ fingers were tracing the black tattoos swirling around his limbs, “Again.”

 “Starlight - “

 “Nyx,” he cut in, desperation leaking into his voice as he met those eyes so deep a brown, golden in the light of storms, their depths flooded with love and it always took his breath away. Did now. Making his voice come out all high-pitched and pleading, and it was just the truth about how he felt as he said, “Help me.” 

 His hero was helpless to that. To him.

 Nyx set him back, stable, on his own two feet. Nodding. Seriousness filling those eyes Noctis loved to look into.

 “Alright,” he agreed, softly though. It wasn’t in his nature to be harsh. Not even if somebody asked him to be, “Take up your stance again. We’ll see what we can work on.” 

 What they were working with was a lot of scars, a lot of fear, and a lot of Caelum-ness.

…

 “<Careful not to overwork yourself, starlight,>” Nyx said, almost grinning, as they circled one another. In spite of his obvious concern about all of this, there was a movement to his hips, to the tilt of his head. A twinkle in his eye. It helped Noctis’ shoulders ease up a little. 

 Nyx was enjoying this.

 “<Careful not to hold back too much,>” the prince responded with, and his amatus tossed his head to laugh. Braids swaying from the movement.

 Nyx was way too competent. And confident. And hot. It helped make this whole thing feel more…plausible, the longer he coaxed his star into relaxing a little. Taking his time.

 Watching. Waiting for an opening. Blue-blue irises saw very few, except the ones Nyx purposefully put into his guard, encouraging him with a wave to take them. Definitely wearing kid gloves - or the equivalent for a thirty-year old man. But Nyx was just so kind about it. Noctis couldn’t feel upset. Slid his feet along the tiles, and warped. Stretching out both magical and physical muscles he hadn’t used in years like this.

 His blade was met by a crossed set of kukris, raised to guard.

 Metal hissing on metal as Nyx deflected his blow with ease.

 Noctis stumbled back, blowing a bit of hair out of his eyes as he frowned at his boyfriend. Who easily twirled his kukris, playing with their beaded cords and engravings. He looked amused. It made Noctis huff. And the huff made his hair fall back into his face which made the royal flush a little, reaching up to tuck it back behind his ear properly this time.

 “Good strike, inlustris,” Nyx complimented him, motioning for him to go again, “One more time. Let’s see what your body is comfortable with now. Let’s see what your fighting style is now.” 

 A breath, then Noctis did just that.

 Another hiss of metal on metal, and him again stumbling back.

 He frowned. 

 “<You alright?>”

 “Yeah,” the raven-haired man muttered, pausing to slowly rotate the wrist of his hand holding his sword. This way, then that. Besides the obvious fact that his wrists were both way too thin, even well-fed like he was? It was definitely strained by those two strikes, “Just, I’m not sure my wrists will hold up against any actual blows.”

 “Your bone structure was weakened by your malnourishment, starlight,” Nyx said, straightening up more seriously now. Approaching to take Noctis’ wrist tenderly into his hand. Feeling along its bony edges. Turning it even more tenderly when his amatus winced at the touch, “There’s a very real possibility you just can’t handle melee fighting.”

“Where does that…leave us?” He asked, brows furrowing together with his troubled thoughts - he hadn’t really thought he just, couldn’t use weapons anymore.

“More physical therapy, for sure,” Nyx said, rubbing gently at both of his inlustris’ sore wrists now to smooth away the strain, “Maybe more talk on those surgeries the doctors are recommending?”

 Sure, but those weren’t short-term solutions.

 He needed to be able to fight now.

 Nyx saw that. That need, that desperation, to be able to fight back, darkening those blue-blue eyes he so loved. And he considered it for a second. Trying to find a solution that would work now. If only a few times. Such thin wrists under his fingers, such cold skin, such…strong magic running in the veins pumping with blood under his fingertips.

 Nyx’s grin came back, wolfish and eager.

 “How about magic, my star?” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “You have beautiful magic, inlustris.” 

 “...Thanks.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 “There a reason you want this, Noctis?” Oh, but Nyx was using his name. That was serious enough to get Noctis to lift his head from where he’d rested it on his pillow. Catching his breath. That training had worn him out like nothing had in a long, long time. 

 He frowned Nyx’s way, not quite sure what his beloved Glaive was referring to.

 “Fighting,” and of course he recognized the frown for what it was, clarifying, “Training. This.”

 “Ori - “

 “Of course, for mane,” Nyx cut in so gently, smiling like he wasn’t shirtless and a bit sweaty, like he didn’t look incredible prowling towards Noctis on his bed, “But, you can leave it to others too, you know? You don’t have to push yourself. Hurt yourself.” 

 “I need to be able to rely on myself,” Noctis told him, tone hardening at the reminder that his son had nearly been stolen from their home, “I need to be able to fight back, if it’s just me. I need to be able to keep Ori and Dad safe. And…” His cheeks pinked a little, with Nyx’s palm sliding across his cheek to cup it in kukri-worn skin, “anyone else that I care about. You."

 “I’m flattered,” Nyx smirked, then let it slip into a more genuine curve of his lips, and in the soft lighting of the winter afternoon? There was something soft between them too. Soft like their hearts were for one another. Soft like their breaths felt on each other’s lips.

 Soft like the kiss Nyx bent to press to his mouth.

 Noctis reached up. Curled a hand around Nyx’s nape. Kissed back. Bold, like that. Like this; pushing himself up onto his hip more, pressing back a bit more, loving back a bit more with his fingers trailing through the hair on Nyx’s chest, following his Ulric tattoos. Breathing. At the feel of fingers in his hair. Breathing. At the feel of those fingers cupping the braid Nyx had given him. Breathing -

 Nyx’s knee pressed down on the mattress next to his thighs, and it felt life-changing. 

 Nyx’s forearm looping around, behind his spine. Getting him to arch back.

 Nyx’s lips.

 Nyx’s eyes, golden in this light, and peering down at him as the kiss went on and on and on and so soft Noctis Lucis Caelum was going to die from its gentleness.

 They broke apart. Barely. Not at all, really. Nyx’s lips brushed against his again, and again and again and again, he let out a long breath for Noctis to inhale, tasting like blue raspberry powerade and Galahdian spice, and his lips kept brushing, catching, pressing all around Noctis’ mouth. 

 “<Love you,>” he said to skin, to lips, to Noctis’ cupid’s bow, and the prince who was healing gasped. Mouthing back. Humming back. Kissing back. 

 He loved Nyx too.

 Maybe they’d find a way to make this all okay.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Elsewhere, not so far from Vesperpool but far enough to matter, a group of hunters out on the hunt for their bounty were close enough to the Tenebraean border. Close enough to curse at the idea that their hunt had crossed said border, and the bounty was now lost on them. Close enough to start moving as stealthily as hunters ever did, what, with the whole of Eos aware of the tensions between their kingdom and Tenebrae now.

 It felt like they were being overly cautious. One of them even made a joke about how they were hunting Astral-blessed bunny rabbits, clearly, to be creeping around like this.

 The jokes cut off with a gasp, when they had to shove themselves down low behind a log.

 When they came within sight of a less-traveled backroad across the border.

 When they saw the convoy, after convoy after convoy after convoy - of Tenebraean-white vans driving past. Not just vans, but off-road vehicles. Trailers full of supplies. 

 Tanks, with the Tenebrae royal insignia painted on the sides of them.

 And troops and troops and troops of guards. Oracle’s Guard. Given away by their sunbright-white armor and sylleblossom capes. Marching perfectly in time with a hymn sung from their lips, and the hunters pressed themselves deeper into the soil, watching the flags of Tenebrae wave in the breeze as the war party made their way past them on the road.

 It was a long wait until they had passed.

 And one hunter still waited even longer, for the echoes of their mourning hymns to completely fade away, before he slumped down into the soil. All of them shaken like deer caught in headlights. 

 “We have to get word to the Crown.” 

 Three hunters slunk back to Meldacio H.Q. through marsh and swamps, the hymns of a kingdom mourning their queen echoing in their ears the whole way there. 

 Tenebrae was going to war.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

Tenebrae is not learning their lesson, are they?

Chapter 30

Notes:

More of the plot bunnies are escaping!

Also, both Calling for Rain from FFXV and Warriors by ImagineDragons were the songs I listened to for this chapter. If that gives you the vibes~!

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

 Heads turned.

 Bowed.

 And kept turning, to follow the royal in their midst. Walking through a crowd of Kingsglaive to reach the dais of the throne. The throne of Lucis. His family’s throne. Lucis’ throne room was solemn in its silence, morning’s light shining down in pale rays through its great windows, and this wasn’t the first time all of the Kingsglaive had assembled here. Every single one on active duty. But that last time this had happened had been when the war ended, and King Regis had given them all his gratitude and honored them for their service.

 Now, they were assembled once more before the throne of Lucis.

 And King Regis was sat not on that throne, but standing at the bottom of those stairs winding up to it. Flanked by Shield and Sword and Captain. By Crown Prince and Shield and Hand. 

 Standing tall, despite his age. Head held high, despite the regret shining in too tired of eyes. Eyes that had seen too much already.

 Clasping his cane’s handle tight with both hands, to hold himself back from grabbing his son’s shoulders and shaking him. 

 Begging him to not keep taking on burdens he, of all Lucis Caelums, deserved to be free of.

 But down the black and embroidered gold of the throne room’s carpet, his son walked tall towards him. And he couldn’t keep this from him the way he wanted to.

 Nyx walking at his son’s side gave him some measure of peace.

 And though nobody else was aware, Rexus was watching from up on the dais. Behind the throne. Out of the way, if not hidden. He’d been curious, and Regis knew his half-brother was the furthest thing from a secret for the Glaives - who kept getting invitations to his bed. It was a funny note in the ceremony of it all.

 In the solemnity of it all.

 Made more solemn by the reports they’d received just before dawn, forcing all of them from their beds.

 His sweet Noctis stood in front of him, tall and proud and still so scarred. But still so determined.

 Tenebrae was entering Lucis with military forces as they stood there.

 They were out of time.

 And Regis was out of years to give up for Lucis’ sake.

 “Noctis Lucis Caelum,” the King of Lucis, the Father, Noctis’ father said loudly and clearer than crystal in the silent hum of the throne room. Looking into those eyes that were all the night skies of Eos made into a single set of irises, and his heart hurt - but he went forward with this anyway, “my son, Prince of Lucis - “

 Because he couldn’t ever refuse his sons.

 “Noctis, sweetheart,” and if his voice broke over his son’s name, if he let tradition slip away for just a moment, if his hand shook as he lifted it to place it on that slender shoulder of his darling boy’s? More the fool, was he, “King’s Magic is a weight we carry for our people. And a heavy one, it is. You will sag under its weight over time, and your knees will buckle, and your years…will fade - “

 The Ring of the Lucii whispered, softer than usual, on his son’s finger.

 Oriens let out a little whine, that Cor reached over to shush by petting at his hair.

 “But it is our duty,” he whispered, thinking of decades of exhaustion and regrets and watching family go grey years too early, and he forced his voice to stay even, “It is our honor. We do this not for the Astrals, any longer. We do this for our kingdom. Our people. Within and without Lucis’ borders. A duty that we cannot perform alone. A duty for which, we have Retinue.” 

 Shields, always. Hands, always. Swords in times of war.

 Hearts when they were blessed enough to meet somebody that embodied everything to a Lucis Caelum.

 “And also, more recently,” a king’s eyes shifted to the crowd of men and women standing tall throughout their throne room, to whom they owed more than they could ever say, “Kingsglaive. These brave people, who we gift our magic to, so they may help us in our duty, and help their homes as well. These brave people…who you will now gift your magic to.” 

 Noctis’ eyebrows knitted together, and Regis knew it was because his voice had wavered.

 He was so weak now.

 He found a smile somewhere in the memories of his family, though, and shifted his wrinkled hand from Noctis’ shoulder up to his face. To tuck a stray strand of hair behind his ear. And cup his cheek that pinked a little, shy still - still just his baby boy, even all these years later. He would never stop seeing Noctis as the son that seemed too small to survive, filled with all the night sky that he could see through the window of his eyes.

 “Are you ready?” He whispered, gathering magical threads from where they were connected to his soul, as some of them had been for two, almost three decades now. 

 And he felt the frayed edges of his son’s magic - still so terrified and scarred - brush his.

 “I am.”

 Regis wound himself around his son’s soul, and with regret, passed the Kingsglaive’s bonds to Noctis.

 From the first moment, it was obvious their weight was more than the Wall. 

 Noctis’ eyes fluttered, fast, and his whole body turned into a tense line under Regis’ fingers and magic. Shoulders rising. Falling. Curling inward, just a little, just enough to make the king lose his cane and frame his face with both hands as the blue of King’s Magic swirled around them both. Swirled outward from them. Into threads. So many threads. Connecting them, their blood, their souls, to each and every Kingsglaive in the throne room. Many of whom gasped at the feeling of their souls being set adrift for a moment - before finding an anchor in Prince Noctis’ heart and soul.

 Lines of stress etched themselves into his precious child’s face, and Regis shushed him more - it was all he could do.

 To distract himself from the concern that the threads seemed so much brighter than when he was the one offering up his magic to these men and women throughout the years.

 The threads were thicker too.

 The thickest of them was attached to the Glaive standing two steps behind his son too.

 Not the thread of a Glaive, but the thread of Retinue. Of family. A thread that almost seemed to make Nyx Ulric take another step towards his son; eyes on him. On nothing but him. Like his mind and heart were as well. It was a relief, to see their bond affirmed. It was a relief. Like the way Noctis breathed out slowly, carefully, and his shoulders uncurled.

 And his eyes met Regis’, as their foreheads thumped lightly together.

 His son was still shorter than him. And had so many of his mother’s features. And so many scars on his skin, and so much uncertainty in his soul - but it was all pushed aside for that indescribable love their nightlight had always held oceans of inside of himself. Oceans and oceans of star-reflecting waters. Of love for family. 

 What had held him together, throughout all the torture he’d endured for ten years.

 And what now, had him taking one of the final weights from Regis’ shoulders.

 It made him hate how much easier it suddenly was to breathe. As if he’d gone so many years laboring under the weight of the Glaives’ bonds to him, that he was left light as a feather with them passed to his son. Almost to try and take it back, he pressed his forehead more firmly to Noctis’. Eyes crinkling with grief. 

 He could feel the years adding up ahead of him, without the Glaives being his burden to carry. A good few years still, that he wouldn’t have had otherwise.

 Noctis Lucis Caelum took a deep breath - 
 
 His son took a deep breath.

 And Regis watched him relax, as his soul adjusted to the new weight. And as the murmurs of the Lucii grew louder. And louder. And louder. And…? Noctis smiled at him. Small and sad, but also a little - annoyed? Regis tilted his head, causing both of their hair to get a little messy pressed between their foreheads.

 “Annoying that they’d help me, but not you,” his son mumbled, and made an aborted motion to lift his hand, the murmurs of the Lucii sounding almost…sheepish? 

 Well. He’d known for a while that Noctis’ relationship with the Ring was different than his had been. Far different. In this case, it was just another relief for him to sigh over, and slump a little into his son who held him up. Stronger now than he’d been before, then, ever. Not that Regis was ever going to say his baby boy had grown up. He’d just…grown…a little.

 He pressed a kiss to Noctis’ cheek, and the prince tilted himself back to laugh, separating them - but not really.

 The King’s Magic faded away while they relaxed.

 And barely a second lately, both of them jolted a tiny bit when weight hit them from the side. A very short weight. And they glanced down at Oriens, who had run straight into their legs, and had an arm wrapped around both of their thighs to hug them. Smooshing his cheeks into their hips. Ordinarily, this sort of thing would amuse the fathers -

 But right now? It just made them coo apologies at the young princeling, and hug him back, and promise they were both okay.

 They would be.

 For a good few years, at least.

 And throughout the whole throne room of Lucis, the Kingsglaive lifted their fists to thud at their hearts, and lifted their voices too. 

 “LONG LIVE THE HOUSE OF CAELUM.”

 

 

-----

 

 

 Tenebrae was already within their borders.

 There were no celebrations like there would’ve been otherwise.

 There were just the Kingsglaive and the Crownsguard preparing to move out.

 

 

-----

 

 

 King Regis stood at a podium, on the steps of the Citadel, giving a live broadcast of him calmly telling Eos that Tenebrae had entered Lucis’ borders in force. Without notice. Without any message at all. And Lucis would respond. But that citizens should stay within their homes for the time being - that they should be prepared.

 It was a terrible thing. To know that less than ten years ago, his people had celebrated an end to the war they’d known for decades.

 And here they were again. Preparing. To die. Just in case…

 It made Regis Lucis Caelum furious on Lucis’ behalf. He remembered the celebrations. The parties that went on for months. The people who simply wandered down the street, cheering and crying from relief that the Empire was being disassembled and they would finally be free of that threat. That their children would finally be free. That they had futures again.

 And here he was, telling them it might just happen again. 

 Tenebrae was grieving, but that didn’t give the kingdom the right to wage war. Tenebrae was lost, but that didn’t give the kingdom the right to wander into conflict. Tenebrae no longer had any Nox Fleurets to lead them, for the first time in centuries - but that didn’t give that kingdom the right to steal a child, and kill any others that got in the way of that.

 Regis knew the Kingdom of the Astrals was falling apart. But the moment they marched onto Lucian land, he also knew he would do his duty as King.

 And he also knew it would be a very, very short war.

 He closed off his broadcast with a single promise to Eos.

 “This will be over soon.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “I’m coming with you,” Noctis told the old, old king that hobbled his way after the cameras went dark. After the broadcast had ended.

 “I’m coming with you,” Noctis repeated, when Regis accepted a packet of reports from Meldacio’s hunters, when the Kingsglaive set out to prepare for deployment and Nyx had to leave his hurting son’s side.

 “I’m coming with you,” Noctis whispered, creases all around his eyes and so much of his dad’s tiredness in his face when Regis sighed. When he rose from his desk later and limped around it to get to his precious, precious son who was so determined it hurt, and silently pulled him into a hug that mirrored hundreds of hugs given before.

 With the exception that the old, old king buried his face in his shorter son’s shoulder, and let himself tremble a little.

 The last place he wanted to place his baby boy was on a battlefield.

 But Noctis was no baby, was he? Not anymore. Not for too many years.

 “We’ll go together,” he rasped, this old, old king.

 And Noctis trembled too, as he hugged his dad back as tightly as his damaged body could manage.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Your Majesty,” Clarus rushed out in a stiff tone, as he moved faster to keep up with the king rushing along while managing a flock of frankly inexperienced councilmembers who were following him like baby ducklings, “Niflheim and Accordo have both sent messages - and will have messengers themselves following along shortly, but - they want to confirm their neutral status if this turns into a conflict. To confirm our treaties stand, and this will stay between Lucis and Tenebrae. Just Lucis and Tenebrae.”

 “It will. Assure them of that,” Lucis King said firmly, stopping so suddenly to address his Shield two of his councilmembers nearly stumbled into him. Stumbled away mumbling apologies instead, but both men ignored the young ones, “We will welcome their messengers, but make sure they’re aware - “

 Cor, strolling down the hall towards them, called out to get their attention.

 “ - this will be a very short conflict,” Regis finished, and turned to receive more reports.

 While his Shield emailed his words to Ignis.

 

 

-----

 

 

 An hour ticked by.

 Two hours ticked by.

 Three hours, and Regis carefully spared himself ten minutes in his schedule to talk to a certain half-brother of his who’d been staying out of the way, as far as he could tell. Rexus went where he was told to go by the Glaive sent to his rooms, waited patiently even when Regis ended up being three whole minutes late, and seemed vaguely worried in a flattering way - over how tired Regis doubtlessly looked.

 “What do you need me to do?” Were the first words out of this brother’s mouth, and even Clarus grunted in approval hearing that.

 Regis’ smile was tinged with regret that this was where their relationship had gone so fast. Work. Responsibilities. Duties.

 “You are not required to do anything, Rexus,” he made sure to tell this sibling of his he shared a headstrong father with, even though he knew it was hopeless from the moment he saw the same sort of determination in his gaze his son kept on showing him, “That being said…” A sigh, and a hand on this brother’s shoulder, “Another Lucis Caelum on any battlefield is a blessing.” 

 “Then I’ll fight,” Rexus offered immediately, before frowning a bit, “How many people know about me? Is this going to be an open secret; me being family, or - ?”
 
 “I’m sorry, Rexus,” so quick to offer, and Regis felt he could barely offer anything grand in return with the way things were, “In different times, we would take the time to introduce you properly to Lucis; press tours and interviews and a proper statement - “

 “I’m not bothered,” he cut in quickly, letting out a pitched laugh that absolutely rolled with awkwardness, and Regis smiled a bit at his brother’s shyness showing through, “Just, like, show off a picture of me and tell everyone I’m our father’s bastard. We can leave it at that and rumors after.” 

 “Rexus.” 

 “I don’t like attention!” 

 There was a scoff.

 And both sons of King Mors turned in unison to follow it to its source; a Kingsglaive standing several feet away. Who immediately swallowed at the attention and straightened his back. Judging by the handful of hickeys covering the man’s neck, just above his uniform, Regis could only assume he knew exactly how much ‘attention’ his half-brother enjoyed getting.

 “Do I have to gag you, darling?” Rexus asked, clearly rhetorically, with a hand on his hip - and. Well. Regis was not going to look into how red the Glaive who was younger than both of them turned at the idea.

 “You’re free to do as you please, as long as everyone’s happy and happily consenting to such things,” Regis started, grinding his cane against the tiles a little as he tried to find the words to not sound as if he was giving his younger brother in his forties the dreaded ‘talk’ - both of them leaving the Glaive to whatever self-discovery he’d just stumbled into make him squeak the way he suddenly did, “but, Rexus…if you could please try to keep such talk in adults-only spaces? Or at least, not around my boys?” 

 “I can do that,” his blush, at least, reminded Lucis’ King of Cor. And they both ignored Clarus’ exasperated groaning just as easily as he and Cor would as well, “I, uh, I just like…you know. Enjoying myself.” 

 “I’m glad,” Regis said, clearing his throat to put an end to that subject as he checked his watch, “Please go and see Marshal Leonis to get everything you need before this afternoon. Thank you, for your support.” 

 “Yeah, of course.” 

 Honestly, for a lot of other families, it wouldn’t be as easy as, ‘Of course I’ll go to war with you.’

 But they were Lucis Caelums.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Reports claimed Tenebrae’s forces had stopped a couple of hours from Cape Caem. 

 They were holding their position there.

 Waiting for Lucis’ response.

 Which, for Galahdian Glaives, was another set of braids in their hair.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There were duties of his own he had to perform, for Little Galahd. Like showing his face, as the last Ulric Chieftain. Like assuring his clan all would be alright. Like sitting in at the elders' gathering, as they cast their fortunes and picked through omens. Old. Older now than when it was the Empire's omens they had to pick through. And so relieved over theirs this time they wept in silence.

 Nyx spent the morning with the community, spent the morning with Ulric elders.

 And then, even though he thought they'd be, Nyx’s hands weren’t trembling when he pulled a pouch from the depths of his wardrobe. In his apartment. In his Little Galahd apartment. Which felt emptier than ever before, as he pulled another of his belongings from its walls. One he’d left behind intentionally. Over and over again, he’d left it behind. Because this? This wasn’t a thing he’d wanted to bring with him. To bring back to his stars.

 He clutched the pouch. Smelling the old leather of it, and the dust he’d set free by picking it up.

 Throughout Little Galahd, he knew his fellow Kingsglaive, the Galahdian ones - they were doing the same thing he was. 

 They were just…doing it with family.

 Last time…last time, Nyx had done this with Libertus and Crowe. On the beaches of Galahd. After watching the bombs fall. They’d still had tears drying on their cheeks. They’d picked the beads from the first bodies they’d come across, cursing and praying in equal measure, and they’d followed their traditions into the night where bombs lit up the skies of their home jungle. 

 The beads of the dead, of the murdered, braided into their hair with fangs and stones.

 War braids.

 Nyx clutched the pouch, his fingers faltering just before he’d opened it.

 He didn’t want to do this alone.

 So, he went to his star. His inlustris. His beautiful, brave, beloved prince, who had been so strong that day when he took on the weight of souls. He went all the way back to the Citadel. All the way back to his Noctis. Found him in his rooms, planning, quiet, tense - relaxing a little at the sight of Nyx returned and there really was nobody he wanted more. 

 Nyx knelt, and offered up the pouch to his star. 

 “<Help me?>”

 Noctis gave him his war braids, this time. With thin fingers that had broken and been healed wrong too many times. Pale, and covered in too many scars. Noctis gave him his war braids with steady hands, treating each bead with care. And Noctis gave him his war braids, but also gave him a kiss after. Cupping his face and dragging his nails lightly through Nyx’s beard, and leaning forward in his wheelchair to kiss his Glaive. 

 They would go to war.

 This time, though, Nyx Ulric had so much more to come back to.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens shivered. Arms wrapped around Shadow’s neck, cheek pressed into his silky-soft fur. He watched from his place sitting on the floor next to his grandpa. Watched from the second floor of the Kingsglaive Complex as Glaives marched past them down below. Warping into places, formations, teams, that only made sense to them. The low murmur of anger rolling through the hall. 

 The crown prince had never thought about it before. Why people would sometimes talk about the Kingsglaive all hushed and shifty-eyed, as if they made them nervous.

 He’d heard stories of the Glaives during the war. Of course he had.

 But it wasn’t until now that he thought, oh.

 This was why.

 Dressed in their full uniforms. Hoods up. Masks of twisted silver down. Combat boots so heavy on the tiled floors. The way they moved - it reminded Ori of Shadow. They moved like predators. And so easily together. In packs. There was this hum of magic in the air, and all he could see of the Glaives was their mouths under their hoods. Pretty much all frowning.

 Was this what it meant to go to war? 

 The Glaives had always been the fun guards. The ones who joked around, who played games with him. Who would help him ‘escape’ from Uncle Iggy, while giggling like they weren’t all adult-adults, and brought him all sorts of baked desserts from Little Galahd that their misses and misters sent along with them. He’d known they were dangerous - they had to be. To protect him.

 Ori wasn’t used to seeing that dangerous side turned towards other goals.

 “Grandpa?” The young prince asked, reaching to tug twice, just barely, on his grandpa’s pant leg. A grandpa whose eyes softened when they shifted from war-ready Glaives to his grandson, who looked so lost.

 Even Pops Clarus looked lots softer after looking down at the princeling.

 “Yes, Ori? What is it?” Grandpa looked tired. Everyone looked tired lately.

 “Did I - ?” He had a question. He did. And Oriens didn’t usually falter in asking questions; too curious a boy for that. But this time, his words caught down in his throat, and his mouth moved without him speaking for a second. Before he curled his small fingers tight in the fabric of his grandpa’s pants. And lowered his head. Then shook that head.

 Not wanting to tire his grandpa out more.

 “Nevermind…”

 Regis’ brows furrowed together, and a new, deep worry burrowed deep into his heart. His grandson had never been one to be so quiet. So small. To bury his own questions - he loved asking questions. Hearing, seeing, Oriens mute himself and withdraw, it made the king’s heart skip a beat. And he saw his worry reflected on Clarus’ face, out of the corner of his eye.

 He’d…have to ask for Oriens’ meetings with his therapist to be increased. 

 The sound of marching Glaives echoed all around them.

 And Regis hated that he didn’t have the luxury to do more than rest his hand in his boy’s hair, and pet him gently as they watched the Kingsglaive go to war.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It was probably a bit too late, but in a hastily started and finished meeting? Regis called on the council to pass their final judgment for Titus Drautos. Too many things had gotten between it before, and now it was just a formality. The cherry on top of several smaller, rushed meetings just barely more proper than this one. It wasn’t as if the outcome wasn’t already known. It wasn’t as if the Royal Council of Lucis would stray now from their King’s wishes.

 But they needed Drautos to be officially pardoned, to be free to lead the Kingsglaive into battle.

 The Kingsglaive, who had already cast their vote. 

 A vote King Regis had honored.

 So, before the Kingsglaive were given their full orders, their Captain stood before the Lucian Council, head held high to meet his King’s eye. It was not that he wasn’t ashamed, but that that shame would do nobody any good right now. So he kept his head held high. And he only bowed when Regis granted him mercy; his own killer, in another life. Granted mercy by him.

 Drautos swore to repay him for his mercy.

 For pardoning him of his regrets. So many regrets.

 He swept out of the throne room, a soldier on orders, off to prepare his kids for the worst. And the best. And every other outcome in-between. Because that was just the sort of father Drautos had always sworn he would be, so he was. 

 He was.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Look after him,” Gladiolus’ voice was gruff, with concern for the prince he couldn’t follow.

 A prince who wouldn’t have a Shield.

 But who would have a Sword.

 “There’s nothing on Eos I wouldn’t protect him from,” Nyx told the Shield who had caught his forearm in a tight grip and yanked him into an alcove, away from his team of Glaives, and his own voice was gruff. The rolling rumble of a coeurl on the hunt. And there was just something about it that made Gladiolus feel the need to shiver - not that Nyx knew that.

 If it took being scary to protect Noct, then Gladio hoped Nyx would be pants-wetting fucking terrifying on the battlefields to come. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Noctis,” Regis whispered, would plead, if he wasn’t already shutting his eyes with the resignation of knowing this wasn’t an argument he would win, was an argument he’d already lost, “baby, you can still stay here. In the Citadel. What comes next - “ 

 “ - I want to be there,” his son finished for him, determined - oh, how he had his mother’s undaunted determination. And even with the rasp of his permanently damaged throat, he sounded so steady. How could Regis ever refuse him? “I need to, Dad. I need to be with you this time. Ori…Ori will be safe here, with the Wall and the Kingsglaive staying behind. You’ll need me more.” 

 He wondered if his precious son was thinking about how the last time there had been war, Regis had wanted it to claim his life.
 
 Things were different now. He had Oriens, he had Noctis back. He had a half-brother he was still intent on getting to know. He had no intentions of dying.

 But he was sure the knowledge that he had wanted to die in the past would never leave his Noctis.

 So they packed. Together. Nothing much. When you went to war, you did not pack your most precious things. They packed more than most due to their bottomless Armigers, but clothes and weapons and supplies - and a few soft blankets and pillows because his son did not deserve to be deprived of his soft things even in war - was quick work to pack. Ordinarily royals wouldn’t be a part of the frontlines.

 But Tenebrae had yet to announce their intentions properly, were waiting on them, and more than that? 

 Things would be far faster if the House of Caelum entered this battlefield.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The sun was up, but the day seemed dark.

 Afternoon came, and went, with two more press releases. With no news from Tenebrae’s forces.

 And with a convoy collecting at the steps of the Citadel.

 The combat boots of the Kingsglaive hit step after step, loud in the way they were all out of time as teams split up between vans. As Kingsglaive Lieutenants shouted out orders, and everyone finished their final preparations to deploy. It was a sea of shifting, Lucian-black uniforms. The colors of clans. The silver glinting in the sunlight. Nyx was shouting orders too, as a Lieutenant. Orders Captain Drautos had given him to shout.

 Orders the captain weren’t shouting himself, because things were still tense there. 

 A few of the Glaives probably would ignore his orders.

 Nyx hated it, but for now he was all business in getting his own team together. Kicking their butts into the van, and feeling feral in a distinctly stormy way. There was a battlefield waiting for them at the end of this drive. Whatever hopes others had about Tenebrae seeing sense, he just didn’t believe they would. 

 And he was ready to fight.

 “Nyx!” A pitched voice called his name, and Nyx paused in the process of following his team into the back of the van. A team that chuckled at his expense. All good-natured. All motioning him to go, answer the princeling they could see weaving around the legs of Glaives in a rush, trying to get to the Ulric Chieftain.

 Pushing away from the van, Nyx easily dropped down onto one knee to meet his beloved’s son when Oriens ran up to him.

 And threw his arms around his neck.

 Nyx wound his arms around the kid right back, something so warm and so tender softening in his chest as his little morninglight tucked himself into his neck. Not even minding the beard, or the hood of his uniform. Just hiding himself in the hood, in a way that made the Glaive chuckle lowly and rock them a bit. 

 “Mane, you know you’re supposed to be on lockdown,” he told Ori, and was squeezed harder by short arms as a response.

 “I had to say goodbye!” 

 “We’ll be back soon, mane,” Nyx promised, ignoring the glances their way that promised gossip later from other Glaives - as if his and inlustris’ love for one another had been any sort of secret in recent months. As if he hadn’t put another bead in Ori’s hair only a few days ago, “But thanks. For coming to see us off.” 

 “Will you? Really?” Oriens checked, all sorts of childlike anxieties in his tone as he leaned back enough to look at Nyx’s face through the uniform of a Kingsglaive, “Be back so soon?” 

 Those blue-blue eyes. He got those from his father. Nyx loved those eyes.

 They made him want to promise the star to this tinier star in front of him.

 “Of course we will,” he promised, again, again - even though the practical, soldier side of his mind told him it was a cruel promise to make when he couldn’t really guarantee such a thing, “Your grandpa, dad, and uncles are all coming with. We probably won’t even be gone for two weeks. Less.” 

 Honestly, there were whispers about how much power they were bringing with them, with all the grown royals and His Majesty’s Retinue joining them - about how unfair it was to Tenebrae.

 About how this war could be finished in a day.

 But Nyx wasn’t going to promise fantasies to their son.

 Their son.

 “Nyx?” Ori asked, softer-spoken now, small fingers fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

 “Yes, mane?” 

 “Remember what you said? About training me?”

 Warmth warmed up Nyx’s whole chest, and he thought of love and loss and hope and the past and past family - past tradition. He thought of lots of things. Mostly, he thought about how honored he still was that Ori wanted that from him, even after everything that had gotten in the way. So he took mane’s hands in his, and felt his breath shudder at how small they were, how smooth and soft and small - so…small.

 And grinned for this son of his and his star’s.

 “When I get back, filius. I promise.”

 Advisor Scientia was calling the princeling back towards the steps of the Citadel. Was calling the princeling back towards home. So Nyx pressed a quick, careful kiss to mane’s forehead, and reached for his hip. Twirling his spare kukri that he pulled from its sheath. Twirling it, until he was holding the blade between his fingertips and offering up the hilt to this tinier star he also loved.

The leather cords swung, and the beads clicked together, and those blue-blue eyes went wide.

“Nyx - !” Oriens squeaked, but still took the hilt into his small hand. Pulling it closer to peer down into the blade’s slightly blurry reflection. Not the most reflective metal, no. But strong. Which was the point - and so was Nyx bringing his hand down to his opposite hip to tap the matching sheath there. His other spare.

“Keep this one until I get back?” He asked with a charming smile, just for this boy he saw as his own now, through love and through hearts and through braids, “We’ll train together with this set then, and you can return it after.” 

Again, the princeling was called home.

But Nyx would treasure how bright his smile was, before he turned to answer the call. Running back towards not just his Hand, but towards his whole family waiting on the steps of the Citadel of Insomnia to say goodbye to the prince they did this all for. 

Nyx climbed back into the Kingsglaive van, to the solemn silence of comrades who’d had to witness a goodbye.

But before that, he caught a different pair of blue-blue eyes up on those steps.

And blew a kiss his star’s way, and was proud of how it made his inlustris laugh.

 

 

-----

 

 

The goodbyes were somber, but not final.

And a Shield and Hand both placed their hands on their Crown Prince’s shoulders as he watched his family go away from him. 

 Two fathers turned in their seats to watch the Citadel steps disappear through the rearview window, and then they turned to face what was to come.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The sun high in the skies over the Crown City, a royal convoy left its walls and gates behind them. Royal-black vehicles. Lots of them. Bumper to bumper, Kingsglaive vans at the front and at the back. Kingsglaive on motorcycles weaving between. Crownsguard numbering in the few. The precious three cars at the center of the convoy that the Lucian royals themselves were riding in - it all made for a sight. 

Any traffic on the road - which wasn’t much, thanks to their broadcasted notice -  pulled over for them. And anyone who saw them stopped to stare.

 It was imposing.

 And it wasn’t a sight Lucis had seen since the last weeks of the war.

 This was the very first time Noctis Lucis Caelum was to leave Insomnia in a year’s time. And because Regis and him had insisted, together, they’d stay together - they were riding in the same car. Regis couldn’t miss the way his sweet, scarred child was tense until they had long left Mistveil Keep’s roads behind them. He tucked Noctis into his side, and refused to let him go until they were well into Leide’s deserts. 

 Normally the protocol was for all royals to be split up between different cars. Rexus hadn’t minded -

 Regis and Noctis had refused to ride separately. 

 There was still a marilith somewhere on the roads.

 Clarus and Cor hated it, but they added triple the security around their car; not caring how obvious that made things. They weren’t going to get the father and son to separate. That was that, so they dealt with that as best they could. Drautos was riding with them all too; Regis’ whole retinue. They weren’t taking any chances. 

 Not after the last time.

 Watching the landscape blur by made Noctis dizzy, so he closed his eyes instead of looking out of the tinted windows of the backseat. His father’s shoulder ended up being his pillow. It wasn’t the softest pillow. He’d had so much worse, though. His lips twitched when his dad lifted his hand to hold it, sweeping his thumb across scarred knuckles. 

 He wouldn’t deny it made him feel safer.

 But it also made the raven-haired royal think of his son. Of Ori. Alone in the Citadel now. A thought that made his neck prickle with unease. Coeurl cub watching his back or not…anything could happen. Dad had promised they’d deal with this trouble with Tenebrae quickly so they could go back home.

 He’d end it even quicker to get back to his boy.

 The drive lasted hours.

 And the magic of an angry family just grew stronger.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Duscae had meadows stretching along the coast of the Cygillan Ocean. During summer months, they were full of long grasses that swayed in the ocean breeze and budding wildflowers and buzzing bees. During winter months, they were snow, and mud, and currently being occupied by Tenebraean forces. They weren’t all that far from the seaside road where Queen Lunafreya had been killed. 

 They weren’t all that far from the seaside road from where Noctis had nearly been killed, years ago.

Stretching out along Tenebrae’s side of the meadow were the Oracle’s Guard. Cohorts of them. In their white armor and sylleblossom capes. Line after line, and after that were their war machines, and their flags, and obviously they had been expecting the Lucian forces that pulled over to calmly park along the road. 

 The backs of the Kingsglaive vans were thrown open, and Glaives hopped out with just as much calmness. Stalking into the meadow in teams to form their own line opposite the Tenebraean forces - and Noctis watched it all through tinted windows. Shifting on the backseat’s leather very, very uneasily.

 It almost felt too calm. Too clean. Too collected.

 Too human.

 Noctis shifted his attention from the battlelines being drawn to the car’s interior when his uncles opened a door and climbed out. When his dad reached over to pat his thigh though he couldn’t feel it. When his silent unease was met by a tense smile. 

 “If they wish to talk, we will grant them that,” his father told him, almost kindly, despite the dark threat of his eyes when they shifted past Noctis to the Tenebraean forces waiting for them to exit the car, “And if they wish for war - “

 A king’s cane met snow and mud, as Lucis’ King got out of the car.

 “Then they will die.” 

 The energy throughout the meadow changed the moment Regis Lucis Caelum rose from the backseat, head held high and flanked by an Amicitia Shield, the Immortal, and General Glauca as well. They must’ve been expecting the King himself to show up, since they waited, but the ripple of his presence was still plain to see spread throughout the Oracle’s Guard.

 From the car parked ahead of them, a backdoor was pushed open without waiting for the Glaive moving to open it for the royal - and Rexus Lucis Caelum climbed out of his own backseat. Casting a coy smile at the flustered Glaive, then turning all of his attention back to the maybe-battlefield that was now full of murmuring even they could hear with a good distance between them.

 Were they wondering who this newcomer was? 

 Pulling on a magical debt he’d been owed, Noctis took a breath and then swung his legs out of the backseat to rise as well. King’s Magic swirling faintly around the dead limbs. He got up to stand right beside his dad, Ring of the Lucii on his finger and not at all the complete cripple he’d been a year ago. Or even whatever he’d been a few weeks ago. When Queen Lunafreya made herself an enemy of the House of Caelum.

 His enemy.

 Before she was killed unceremoniously by a marilith on the road.

 The murmuring on the maybe-battlefield grew quiet, as Tenebrae’s forces came to the steady but inevitable realization that King and Prince were there that day. And that an unknown was there as well, being treated like royalty. The air seemed still. It was that moment before a predator finished its hunt. They were the predators here. This was their hunt.

 Tenebrae knew that, but they did not lower their flags to surrender.

 Motors. The sound distracted the air from its own stillness, and the royals from their heads held high as they looked down over the wintery meadow. Heads turned. Theirs included. To see a line of four-wheelers in the meadow on the opposite side of the road from them, heading their way. Almost twenty of them. Some with multiple people, some with small trailers behind them, all of them mud and slush-splattered. 

 There was some tensing from the nearby Glaives flanking their cars, hands flexing, but then Uncle Cor’s phone buzzed.

 And the Crownsguard Marshal quickly lifted a hand to prevent any weapons from being defensively drawn.

 “Meldacio’s hunters,” he explained to Dad’s arched brow, nodding to Rexus who walked over to join them by their car as they watched the four-wheelers come closer and closer. A few of them had hunters perched on their racks, three or four people per vehicle which - Noctis was pretty sure - wasn’t legal even in Leide. But he wasn’t going to point that out as the long line of off-roaders stopped on the opposite side of the road and the good thirty or forty hunters hopped off.

 One of them immediately walked right over the road, heading their way.

 Even in the bulk of a fur-lined winter coat, scarf up to his nose, and goggles over his eyes - Noctis recognized his best friend.

 “Prompto,” and recognized that note of complete exasperation in his Uncle Cor’s tone.

 “Sup, Dad,” Leide’s best hunter said, popping the ‘p’ sound and reaching up to push his goggles into his hair. Showing off violet eyes. And a good few freckles, even for winter. And, yeah. Yeah. Noctis stepped forward as he circled the car without any arguments from the Glaives. He even high-fived one of them. And him stepping forward drew those violet eyes his way.

 Before they then immediately glanced downwards. At Noctis’ legs. Which he was standing on.

 “Geeze, Noct,” Prom laughed, and sighed, at the same time, somehow. Because that was just how he was - tugging down the scarf covering half his face to show off a smile Noctis hadn’t been able to see in person for far, far too long, “Look at you, unlocking secret skills like life is actually some sort of video game!” 

 “Prom,” he whispered, extending his arms.

 He was two inches shorter than his best friend, but when they hugged each other tight Prompto still rested his head on his shoulder. Like when they were teenagers.

 “What’re you doing here?” Noctis asked, stuck in the thrill of both having his best friend there and having his best friend there. When a war just might be about to start.

 “Supplies, reports - the usual,” Prom shrugged as they separated, but kept their hands on each other as long as they could, “Plus, me and my people are the best shooters Meldacio has. Might need us.” 

 A pair of other, older hunters stalked up to shadow Prompto. All scars and age and guns. Lots of guns. On all of them. Prompto alone had holsters on his thighs and hips and a much larger rifle slung over his shoulder. It was a bit startling. Nobody in the Glaives or ‘Guards really used guns, so Noctis wasn’t used to seeing them. 

 But he had faith that Prom knew how to use them.

 “Hmmm,” the blonde leaned around him to peer at the meadow where battlelines were waiting, like this really was some sort of game. Or like Tenebrae was honorable. As if, “We’ve been watching them for a few hours. They really don’t seem to be in a hurry - but don’t they have too much firepower?”

 “Part of Tenebrae’s treaties with Niflheim after the war was that they would provide them with military advancements,” Dad explained, an unhappy crease on his forehead as he, too, looked that way, “Obviously with the Scourge gone, they no longer had Magitek. But they still had technology.”

 “Like tanks.” 

 “Like tanks,” the king agreed, the corner of his lips twitching up, “Yes. I doubt they’ve brought all of their military power with them today.” 

 “And I doubt that half of those Oracle’s Guards were Oracle’s Guards a couple of weeks ago,” Cor muttered, motioning to the many in white armor that outnumbered their Kingsglaive. 

 They all paused.

 One of those in white armor, sylleblossom cape blowing behind them, was breaking formation.

 Walking towards their side of the meadow all on their own.

 “Well. It seems our time to catch up has come to an end,” the King of Lucis sighed, straightening up to his full height. Frowning critically down at the lone messenger. Then sighing, again. And leading with his cane, carefully, in the snow and the mud, “Clarus. Cor.” 

 “Your Majesty,” both intoned immediately, and followed his steady pace down the dip between the side of the road and the proper meadow. 

 There was nothing Noctis could do about the way his shoulders climbed, or the fidgeting of his fingers tugging at his pant leg. His uncles fell in behind his dad, and Glaives fell in behind them. And that lone Oracle’s Guard reached the centerpoint between their two lines then stopped. Right there. In his tracks. Waiting. 

 Waiting.

 All they could do, was wait.

…

 “...Your Majesty.” 

 “I am aware, Clarus,” Regis answered softly, feeling the magical turbulence at their heels as they walked away from the prince they were doing this all for. Not only Oriens, but Noctis too. And his sweet son was scared, “We will be careful.”

 More the fool him; wanting to have a bit of faith in Tenebrae still choosing another path aside from war. A short war or not. 

 Because if it came to fighting, people would die today. 

 The King of Lucis walked slowly, steadily, through the snowy and muddy meadow. Trying his best not to lean too much on his cane with how slippery it was. Glaives split to make a path for him through their line. Bowing and saluting and murmuring respectfully as he passed. He wondered how many of them would be dead by the end of the day, if Tenebrae chose to make this meadow a battlefield.

 He’d almost broken past them into the openness of the meadow when there was a low, “Your Majesty.” 

 He paused, tilting his head to show he was listening with an equally low, “Yes, Glaive Ulric?” 

 “That man is Guard Barris,” Nyx told him quickly, quietly, tilting his head towards the lone Oracle’s Guard, “He was one of our contacts for investigating the crashsite of Queen Lunafreya’s convoy. He seemed high enough up in the pecking order, but that man behind him at the front of their forces is Captain Damon. He’s the highest.” 

Regis’ lips thinned. He nodded thankfully to his son’s beloved - oh Astrals, those who didn’t listen, let Nyx get out of this alive for his son’s sake - and kept on moving.

It wasn’t a good sign if the Captain of the Oracle’s Guard wasn’t meeting him personally before the battle. Some would argue it was a sign they didn’t even need to talk. This Guard Barris wouldn’t have the authority to surrender or order a retreat, whatever Regis was to say to him. Which meant he was just waiting there to give his demands and hear if Lucis will follow them or not.

Which meant Tenebrae wasn’t looking for peace.

He continued walking though. Flanked only by his Shield and Sword as he left the Glaives behind with their comrades. 

The man was younger. Much younger. And pale under his helmet.

Regis silently clasped his cane with both hands, coming to a slow stop several paces from him.

“Guard Barris.” 

“King Regis,” the young man mumbled, bowing at the waist, then straightening up. Getting straight to the point in a move that only killed more of Regis’ hope without mercy, “Tenebrae apologizes for moving forces past your border without discussion, but we are sure you understand the reason why. We have received your messages about our Crown Prince Oriens Nox Fleuret, and would ask again that you reconsider.” 

“...I would argue, Guard Barris,” Regis said darkly at the very deliberate exclusion of calling his grandson a Lucis Caelum, “that considering it was your Queen who knew my son was innocent, and your Astrals who failed so many of us, and you who refuse to listen - Crown Prince Oriens Lucis Caelum is right to stay where he will be safe. With his family. In his home.” 

“I - “ 

“And,” he cut the even paler now younger man off, gripping his cane’s handle tight with a strength he’d thought lost to him before he let his son take more of his burdens, “that you will all be dead before dusk, if you insist on trying to steal my children’s happiness.”

Guard Barris paused. Throat visibly working under his jaw. And he turned just slightly, just enough to glance over one shoulder back at his Captain. Who didn’t even react. Nobody else could hear what was said, but it wasn’t hard to guess Lucis’ answer. So the captain just shook his head.

And the Guard turned back to Regis, bowing at the waist.

In another situation, the king would respect how steady his voice was when saying, “Tenebrae understands, Your Majesty. Please prepare for battle.” 

Disappointment filled Regis’ chest with coldness, and he caught a glimpse of the young man’s eyes through his helmet when he raised his head. They were full of a fear for and a fear of Tenebrae’s beloved Astrals. The fear of the faithful. The religious. Those stoutly ready to die if they believed they could hold onto their beliefs in death, instead of having to live losing the greatest anchor they’d known in life.

 Tenebrae would rather be burned to the ground than let go of their gods, wouldn’t they? 

 “...Very well,” Regis sighed, letting his brothers step forward to shield him bodily, as both he and Guard Barris lifted their hands. A silent signal that stilled the entire meadow. He felt the disappointment grow colder. And he felt the faintest twinge of regret, knowing how the blood spilled here would be written in his darling grandson’s name for the rest of history.

 Two lines.

 Black uniforms against white armor.

 And Lucis’ King sighed.

 But the Father dropped his arm without hesitation.

 And the meadow became a battlefield around them.

 Guard Barris died first. Impaled on Cor’s katana the second he had grasped his sword’s hilt. What a waste. Regis watched him fall, then lifted his head as Kingsglaive warped past him in a tide of King’s Magic and loyalty. Oracle’s Guard were rushing to meet them, but they met more towards Tenebrae’s side of the meadow than Lucis’. And were immediately on the defensive. Weapons met weapons and it was loud, and the meadow became more mud than snow, and the shouting that twined with magic in the air was awful and powerful - 

 And Regis slowly turned around, and hobbled back to the side of the road.

 Clarus and Cor guarded his back. Of course they did. 

 Dear Prompto was organizing Meldacio’s sharpshooters along the vans. Using them as cover, and their roofs as perches as they locked and loaded. Regis nodded to acknowledge the man sending a salute his way, and went on to rejoin his brother and son by the cars. A battlefield behind him. People dying behind him. This was always the hardest part…

 Rexus looked a little bothered. He had never looked less like their father, than with that amount of worry and uneasiness in his eyes. But he was standing firm near Noctis. 

 Noctis, who looked almost more uneasy than his half-uncle.

 “Shouldn’t we step in, Dad?” His dear son was questioning him the moment he was close enough to be heard over the battle, looking pained and looking past Regis’ shoulder.

 And oh, how Regis wished they could. They could end this so much sooner.

 “Remember your lessons, sweetheart,” he said softly, shaking himself out before he summoned the strength to turn around and face the muddied meadow once more. There were already bodies visible in said mud between throngs of legs, “There was a time when it was considered a war crime for Lucis Caelums to enter the battlefield without a threat that warranted it. If they had attacked me, that would be one thing. Or if they had a Nox Fleuret. But they don’t. So we will wait for now, to prevent exasperating things.” 

 Neither Rexus nor Noctis were happy with that response. He could tell from their frowns. But it was history, and it was best to learn from history than forsake it. 

 Historically, when Lucis Caelums stepped in to conquer battlefields against those who could not hold a candle to their power…things went badly for Lucis in the time after. 

 If too many of theirs fell, or if Tenebrae introduced greater weapons into the battle, then they could intervene. But for now? 

 It was their Glaives’ battle.

 

 

-----

 

 

 It wasn’t exactly late in the day.

 But the skies were darkening. What had been a sunny, cloudless day seemed to turn into a cloudy one in no time. The grey masses passing over the sun as His Majesty met Guard Barris in the center of the meadow. To talk. Nyx wasn’t sure what there was to talk about. Tenebrae was saying in every way possible without words that they weren’t interested in peace. In withdrawing. But Nyx stood firm with his team of Glaives, waiting. 

 Watching Guard Barris bow, and speak. And be spoken to.

 And watching Captain Damon across the meadow give the smallest of movements, that had something being settled between His Majesty and the Guard.

 Each of them raised a hand, and Nyx summoned his kukris to his hands. Same as so many of his fellow Glaives. Readying their weapons, their magics, their wills. Waiting. The air, still. The sun gone. Waiting. Their boots sliding in mud and slush. Waiting. Watching the hand of their King. Waiting, for it to fall.

 It fell.

 And Nyx was falling into the embrace of a warp before the Oracle’s Guard could take a full step forward. His comrades, his brothers and sisters, falling with him. King’s Magic twisted through the air. Arced with them. They reached His Majesty, and the blue sparks of magic and broken crystals filled the space between - and then they were past his shoulders.

 And the Oracle’s Guard lifted weapons to meet the onslaught of the Kingsglaive.

 Battle was a familiar dance by now. 

 Nyx heard a few of the younger Glaives gasp as they got their first taste of how easy it was to kill a person. He fell right back into that with familiarity. Kukris, bodies, King’s Magic, comrades. Adjusting to how slippery the ground was because he had to. Adjust or die. Adjust or join the bodies already covered in mud and blood and strewn around their feet. Most of them wearing white. 

 Nyx snarled, spinning into another warp, letting his blade find its softer target underneath smooth, white plates of armor. Let tatters of sylleblossom-blue fabric flutter around them. 

 Let the screams go in one ear and out the other.

 Let the pounding of his heart flow down to his fingertips, as he gripped his kukris tight.

 Let nothing else guide him but the fact that white was their prey and black was clan, and anything else - everything else - would be left up to Ramuh. It was faith and skill. And it was the freedom of not being one of the Glaive teams assigned to taking out Tenebrae’s tanks before they could set any of the storm-damned things off. He had his focus. That was where things started and ended for him for the moment.

 On a muddy battlefield, on this dark day.

 A darkness that only made him fight harder.

 Dark skies may have been a bad omen for these zealots of Tenebrae who’d gone all shifty and prayer-needy when the clouds came, but for Galahd’s Glaives?

 It was a blessing upon them.

 In-between twirls of his kukris, and the easy plunge of them finding flesh between pieces of armor, and the drops of blood decorating Nyx’s lips as he yanked them out just to spin into another warp, another plunge, another spray of blood - he smelled something primal in the air. And he wasn’t the only one. He lifted his face to the dark skies. Those rolling clouds.

 Watched them twist and turn, so dark it was almost as if afternoon had become dusk.

 The battlefield continued to rage around him.

 But he smelled lightning.

 And watched, breathless, with his awe, as a flash of purple lightning lit the dark skies. Illuminating the shape of their deity behind those stormclouds. 

 They were blessed.

 “<THE STORMFATHER IS WITH US!>” He roared to his brothers, his sisters, raising a kukri in faith. And so many voices echoed his among the clashes of black uniforms and white armor and red - red everywhere in the shadows of this storm. Nyx spun into another warp as easily as all the others, the cry of a Galahdian warrior in battle spilling from his throat and so many other Children of the Storm answered.

 Falling in behind him, as they ravaged the battlefield in their god’s name.

 A god proud of them, which was more than Tenebrae could say.

 Lightning flashed. Again and again. Violet, arcing, branching across the skies and showing the shadow of their beloved Ramuh with every warp and every war cry. They were blessed. Their elders’ omens spoke true. They brought down another of the Oracle’s Guard. Another and another and another - in each flash of lightning, more and more in white armor littered the churned up ground of the battlefield. 

 Fire sparked, spell casks exploded and the flames danced with the faster winds of the storm.

 Nyx felt lightning in his veins.

 And stood from where he’d crouched over four more lives he’d taken, pure chaos, beautiful and unwieldable, surrounding him.

 He saw Glaives on the ground no longer moving.

 And lightning flashed.

 And he warped again, as the Oracle’s Guard threw themselves broken and desperate at Glaives who had not nearly the losses they did.

 Life, death. Nyx wielded both of those things well enough. He wielded his kukris to live. He wielded his kukris to kill. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Luche took a sword to the shoulder after being pinned by a pair of Oracle’s Guard and he killed - he saved his brother-in-arms. Sent him off to behind the line, back to the medics, with a snarl of words and another warp. 

 He ignored the explosions of a tank or two being blown up by fire-wielding Glaives. Let the surprised, angry, surprised screams of Tenebraeans be muffled under the cracks of thunder that were his god’s blessing.

 Navi fell in beside him, and he swept the legs out of a bigger Guard while they went for the throat, and they’d both warped away in a shower of blood without another word.

 More familiar faces. All blurry, but he saw braids and beads and Lucian-black, and he fought. And that was all it came down to. Brothers of his. Sisters of his. The shrill cry of Tenebrae’s horns, and them kicking Oracle’s Guard ass.

 An Oracle’s Guard they had on the run.

 Nyx bared his teeth at the few brave fools who tried to come back for more death, so did many of his fellow Galahdians, whooping between the flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder. And those fools went back to running with their muddy capes billowing behind them. Limping. Dragging fellow Guards’ bodies behind them as Kingsglaive fell into line, getting their injured back to medics while holding where they were.

 Nyx panted, chest heaving for every breath.

 His face felt wet. Mud. Blood. Snow? 

 No, not snow.

 He raised his chin.

 Rain.

 Rain falling so fast, it stung Nyx’s chin when he lifted his head to the droplets. It was enough to make a Galahdian frown. Back away. Lord Ramuh’s storms were things of nature, unyielding and tough, sure. But his rains were not whips. The skies were dark, but weren’t flashing with lightning as much. It was enough to make Nyx and his fellow Glaives back away even more steps. 

 Ground ruined and muddy underneath them.

 A few of them slipped.

 As they stared up at the clouds, that almost seemed to be coming alive. Their dark skies twisting and thrashing and moving in an almost snake-like way as their flashes of lightning came less and less. The sound of the rain was loud. So loud. So, so loud. But. Still. It wasn’t loud enough to hide the hissing.

 A final flash of lightning illuminated something else behind the skies. No longer their god.

 But another.

 “FUCK!” 

 “Ramuh have mercy!”

 “Damn,” Nyx hissed at the sight, throwing an arm back to order his Glaives to run for their lives, as the shape slithering through the clouds let a long, wailing screech that came from oldest of ocean tales - and burst into the skies, into sight, onto their battlefield with scales of blues and whites that stood out so much in the storm.

 “IT’S LEVIATHAN!”

 The Astrals were picking their sides.

 And the angry, flying fish obviously hadn’t picked theirs.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

And the Astrals will get their time~! But the Leviathan is obviously the least patient. XD Hoping to unfold more BAMF moments and bring up a few more main plot things in the coming chapters! <3

Next chapter may be a bit slow. In the process of house hunting right now!

Chapter 31

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

 Like a legend brought to life, the Leviathan herself swam through the skies, cutting through grey stormclouds as if they were white-crested waves. Leviathan. Tidemother. Astral beloved by Accordo. For those not so faithful, a sleepy hag who had never shied away from the slaughter of innocents should she be angered. There were too many stories of the past where Leviathan had sunk cities to the ocean’s floor for no greater crime than waking her from her long slumbers. Malevolent. That was all she was.

 Selfish and arrogant and malevolent.

 And her rains were whip-like upon the muddy meadow.

 The Sword of the Father was gripped tight in Regis’ fist before the first of her wails had finished sounding. His throat clicked with his swallow. The other weapons of his Armiger appearing in shattering crystals behind his shoulders, as he scowled at the Astral above their battlefield. 

 His least favorite fish.

 Kingsglaive fled the battlefield, fled those rains, falling back to their royals with shouts while Tenebrae’s forces dared to raise their voices into cheers over the roars of the maelstrom Leviathan had brought down on them.

 She twisted through the skies. Throwing her head, wailing, screeching, whiskers whipping and eyes rolling with fury. Large enough to wrap twice around the Citadel’s spires. Large enough that when she thrashed her tail, it cut a gouge in the earth of a nearby meadow so deep underground springwater flooded half the meadow in her wake. Her next thrash nearly took out some of Tenebrae’s own forces.

 Some of their cheering died away.

 Regis scowled. Unable to find satisfaction in any fear they felt for bringing this down on them, somehow. Had Tenebrae invoked the late Oracle’s rights to ask the Astrals to ally themselves with the kingdom? To retrieve her heir? 

 He’d expected a few things of Tenebrae. 

 He hadn’t expected gods.

 Never taking tired eyes from what amounted to a goddess throwing a tantrum, Regis felt the presence of his half-brother and son stepping up to be by his sides. Rexus to his right and Noctis to his left. His family. His. 

 “Is this an escalation?” Rexus checked, tone curious, twirling his polearm with those steps forward he took to stand by his royal brother. Scowling up at the stormy skies as well. The winds turning so strong, the hair tie was torn from his hair and left it free to twist and tangle. Left him to look wild.

 Regis didn’t believe he looked less wild with his hand running through his hair, saying, “I do believe so, yes.”

 “Dad, can we fight gods?” Noctis asked, tone curious like his uncle’s, and Regis let out a small noise to soothe his son shuffling next to him.

 “Of course,” he promised, three Lucis Caelums watching a whole section of Tenebrae’s forces having to scream and flee when her fins cut into the earth with another of her thrashes, destroying one of the only tanks their Glaives hadn’t gotten to during the battle, reigniting some of the fires her rains had put out, “Our family has been preparing to do so for centuries, sweetheart.” 

 Nevermind that there had been a time when he’d given up on the idea of doing so, for his son’s sake.

 “Is she on Tenebrae’s side or isn’t she?” Another voice called out; Prompto running their way with his goggles pulled down to shield his eyes from the rain now, rifle shouldered, “Because, she’s doing plenty of damage to them!” 

 Another thrash, and a good chunk of the ocean’s cliff was knocked into said ocean, and the meadow’s size was shrunk a little as Leviathan dove into the Cygillan Ocean’s waters before rising again with one of her wails.

 There were those on Tenebrae’s side who were fleeing from the meadow now. Their screams overshadowed by the goddess throwing her fit.

 “Leviathan has her own side, in all things,” Regis said, tightening his grip on his sword as he raised a small magical shield around family and retinue to protect them from flying debris sent their way, “She doubtlessly finds us distasteful, but she will not care who else gets caught in the crossfire of her fury.” 

 The Astrals had always been such a way.

 It had just taken Lucis too long to realize it extended beyond Leviathan. 

 As heartless and as uncaring as the sea of mortals and their mortal struggles, Leviathan had never been mistaken as a friend of humanity. The others though? They had been able to pretend. For a while. For generations. But their chantries were burning now, as were their cosmology books, as was their faith. A faith the House of Caelum once practiced, once led the prayers for, faithful to the Crystal and their great Lord Bahamut for blessing them with it - 

 And now the House of Caelum stood opposed Leviathan, with that meaning weapons drawn for two of them. 

 And magic for the third. 

 “Somebody order sashimi?” Rexus joked.

 “Rexus, please,” Regis huffed, then snuck an almost-smile at that brother of his, “Don’t insult sashimi like that.” 

 “Great, now I want to go fishing,” Noctis mumbled, doing small stretches to unwind his damaged body at least a little.

 There were scandalized squawks from some of the Glaives and hunters behind them. And Uncle Clarus just turned around to press his forehead to the roof of the car, mumbling so many obscenities Gladio probably wouldn’t let him near his grandkids for half a year if he heard. A fair reaction. For all of them.

 The House of Caelum was done being a house of faith, though. They were at the end of that road. A road they started to leave when Noctis Lucis Caelum was five years old. 

 And Regis asked how many more had to die.

 And the answer was just one. His baby boy.

 “Fishing later?” His baby boy, his Noctis, pleaded hopefully, and let out a happy hum when his dad brushed a ringless hand against his cheek. Tucking some of his whipping hair behind his ear, even though it was useless with these winds. 

 “Later,” Regis agreed.

Three Lucis Caelums turned to the tantruming goddess.

 Unlike his dad or uncle, Noctis Lucis Caelum carried no weapon. Flexing his fingers. He reached not for his Armiger but for his magic. Feeling the threads of blue King’s Magic, of power, wind around his fingers like countless more rings as he watched the Leviathan wail again. Sort of annoyed about how high-pitched it was. It hurt to hear. He didn’t like it. He was going to make her be quiet. 

 If she was going to side with Tenebrae, with those who wanted to take his son, then she was the enemy.

 And he had only one way to deal with enemies.

 Training with Nyx had proven beyond doubt his body’s damage made melee fighting an almost impossibility. Fine. He was over a decade out of practice anyways. That went past rusty. Nyx had helped him figure out a new way to fight, that used the abundance of magic stored up inside of his core now. It may have resulted in his amatus hitting a few walls, or the ground - 

But it had been worth it. 

 His father raised the Sword of the Father, and his uncle hefted his polearm, and Noctis? Noctis reached for power. He reached for the debt owed to him. He demanded it. Digging deeper than he ever had before, because he was faced by an Astral and if he’d ever needed magic? It was now. So he reached - 

 And the Ring of the Lucii grew louder. Louder. Louder, than he’d ever heard them. Their voices many and rising over the howl of hurricane winds.  

 It made Noctis pause. Lifting his hand to stare at the ring centuries of family had worn before him. The hum of the Ring was strong enough he felt it even with his damaged nerves, and the voices weren’t quite discernible. The words either. He had no idea what they were saying, but he felt the intentions behind them all.

 In his soul. In the King’s Magic a hundred generations had wielded before him.

 Anger-family-protect-protect-protect.

 A gift.

 Noctis gasped. A sudden thing that drew Regis and Rexus to turn their heads over their shoulders, despite not being able to hear such a small sound over this storm of the Leviathan’s.

 There was blue.

 There was King’s Magic.

 Wrapping around Noctis’, Regis’, Rexus’ - all their bodies, like lines of ribbon. The bluest color any had ever seen, and that was in the wailing face of the goddess of all oceans and seas. It was brilliant. Enough to blind, and make all witnessing it cover their eyes. Enough to blind the Leviathan herself. Three lights on the surface of the star of Eos bright enough to overcome the Astrals.

 And fading.

 To leave those three stars protected, in the blackest of armors.

 The Armor of the Lucii.

 All three Lucis Caelums startled, lifting their arms and taking in the sight of the armor their bodies now wore. Gifts. From the Lucii, the family that came before. Noctis made a strangled noise when he shifted and felt metal-magic-history move with him. The armor was slender and elegant, like murals of old kings. The designs in its black - metal? - were impossibly detailed. It reminded him of the Ring’s design.

 It reminded him of the halls of the Citadel.

 The throne of their family.

 He reached up, armored, sharp fingertips brushing over where his lips should’ve been. But there was just the song of metal on metal. The faceplate carved almost in a mimic of their family’s high cheekbones, and when he tipped his head back he caught sight of a crown of woven metal floating over his head. Magically following the crown of his head whenever he moved. The cape hooked into one shoulder he wore was the bluest fabric he’d ever seen, and seemed to shimmer with stars when he turned to try and see it more.

 And there was a violet ribbon dangling beside that cape. The same violet of his amatus’ ribbon. 

 It was power.

 And it was love, because it was family.

 “Noctis? Sweetheart?” Looking to his dad, his Lucii Armor was similar. Just with parts of his raiment joined into the metal. With the swirling shape of the Lucian Crown beside his temple. The Sword of the Father in his grasp - as if his father had walked straight out of one of the artworks of the Citadel’s art halls. 

 “That’s…new,” Uncle Rexus said, and his Lucii Armor was slightly different. Like his faceplate. Which was more a mask over his eyes, with the lower half of his face unarmored. His armor was even more lithe than father or son’s, and there was no fabric. Just the stark line of an ancient dragoon - like from the stories of nations past. 

 “Uh…I don’t…know how I did that,” Noctis admitted, staring at the Ring. Still visible on his finger. As if the armor was unable to cover it. 

 There would’ve been more conversation, most likely, if Leviathan hadn’t decided now she was truly offended to the highest degree.

 And wailed like the greatest of ocean storms.

 Arching through the skies, in a perfect curve, that led to her plunging headlong towards them from the stormy skies above.

 “We’ll look into it later,” the Father said, throwing an arm out and with it a thousand blades.

 “Right. Time to kill a goddess,” the Lost added, taking stance.

 “...Be careful,” the Star told them both, bringing up a proper barrier in place of his dad’s shield to protect their people, as the Leviathan’s pointed fins fanned out and she screeched at the family with all the fury of an angry ocean goddess. For that was what she was. But more than that, she was an enemy of the House of Caelum. Which superseded all else. 

 Including her right to live.

 His dad and uncle shared a glance, then took to the stormy skies with a burst of their Armigers. The chime of King’s Magic seemed like music across the battlefield. And the clouds themselves seemed to reel back in preparation. Noctis lifted his chin and watched, magic wild around him - 

 Watched his dad and uncle meet Leviathan. 

 Heard her scream.

 Watched Dad warp out of the way of her whipping whiskers, with an ease his bad knee wouldn’t allow him on the ground. The Armiger pure blue and swirling around him in a constant summons of blade after blade. He watched the Tidemother raise her beak, screeching - still screeching - to twist away from Uncle Rexus’ lance driving into scales near her eyes as black as the deepest parts of the oceans.

 The once-Chosen watched them steer the Leviathan out of her dive, sending her swimming in another direction, tail churning up another long chasm in the meadow. 

 There were screams.

 Noctis frowned.

 His magic, and the Lucii, responded.

 He was no longer a weaponsmaster. All those years of training with so many tools of war were pointless now, with his wrecked nerves and muscles and self. But what he still had in abundance was magic. More than any Lucis Caelums in recent memory. And it was what he wielded, looking up at this battle that most watched through windswept bangs wet and plastered over their eyes.

 The Crystal.

 It was more than just the Astrals’. Than Bahamut’s.

 It was his.

 He pulled on magic from so deep the earth churned under his feet. The mud solidified, like sand heated so hot it turned to glass. And the blue wisps of magic brushed over his armored body as Noctis shut his bluest of eyes -

 His family clashed with a goddess - 

 As Noctis opened his bluest of eyes, and King’s Magic answered. 

 Spires of crystals rose from what was mud. Blue as blue can be. Catching the rays of light reflecting off of raindrops, and he glared at the Leviathan. Letting his magic do the rest. Letting the spires grow and climb and letting the Leviathan twist her way into their points, ear-piercing screeches his reward when she felt their sharpness and swam in another direction. 

 When his dad and Uncle Rexus met her there, with blades and polearms.

 When she twisted again, trying to swat them with her lashing tail, just for them to warp out of the way and send another barrage of the Armiger down on her. 

 When she lurched sideways, and one of the crystal spires pierced her behind her fin.

 When she threw her head back to scream to the maelstrom of her creation all around them.

 She was so beautiful.

 She was so dead. Because she’d sided with Tenebrae, who plotted to steal Noctis’ son.

 Pinned, pierced by a crystal spire, Noctis raised a hand. And across all the skies above that least favorite fish of his, crystal pikes appeared. Like an array of weapons from the Armiger, but formed from nothing but magic. They glinted, catching rolling pearl eyes as the Tidemother thrashed. Dad and Uncle Rexus warped out of the way.

 The pikes rained down.

 The witnesses of this battle understood now. Why Lucis Caelums being on a battlefield had been considered a war crime for centuries.

 With a mighty extra thrash, Leviathan broke the crystal spire, dislodged many of the pikes jammed under her scales, and Noctis didn’t move an inch from the falling fragments of crystals. Watched them fade fractal by fractal before they could crush him.

 Watched his dad appear before the Tidemother’s beak and harness lightning at his fingertips with skilled ease that coursed through her enough to leave her twitching and far slower. Trying to shake off the shocks. Trying to evade his uncle plunging down from the skies with magic twisted around his polearm - his lance.

 Noctis let the spires fade to crystal fractals.

 And summoned something finer. More delicate. 
 
 A net, woven by crystals. 

 Right in front of the legendary Tidemother, who wailed helplessly as she swam straight into its center and the net closed around her scales and fins. Her whiskers just getting her more tangled up in it. She curled, uncurled, and let out a final echoing screech it felt like all of Lucis would be able to hear as she went to the ground in a steady, slow fall.

 Uncle Rexus’ next plunge from effortlessly floating near the stormy-grey of the clouds caught her on the end of her beak, turning the Leviathan away from the Cygillan Ocean that she’d been falling a bit too close to.

 Turning her to the mud and slush, and blood spilled all because of the Astrals.
 
 Where Dad slowly lowered himself to, to stand right beside Noctis as tall as any king.

 Leviathan screamed.

 “No,” Noctis told her.

 The hook of a lance.

 The net of King’s Magic.

 And when Leviathan was pinned to the muddy meadow, thrashing her great tail and wailing for help from an ocean she was just barely too far from - when she was grounded, when she was caught, when she had to look two angry Lucis Caelums in the eye and glared because she had not learned her lesson - the blades of a father. The Father.

 Their greatest mistake was naming him that.

 While it was Regis’ greatest pride.

 And it was his many, many blades that were summoned from the Armiger, filling the skies behind father and son, crystalline and chiming and bright on this darkened afternoon. It was him who had begged the gods before. And now it was him who begged no longer as his little brother warped clear of their prey.

 And it was Regis Lucis Caelum who loosed his Armiger on the Tidemother.

 Caught in the net of his son’s great magic, and helpless as blades rended scales from seafoam and flesh. 

 All three Lucis Caelums stood beside the head of the awe-inspiring Tidemother, close enough to feel the final breaths forced out of her gills. Close enough to see the reflection of them three in her black pearls of eyes. Close enough to feel the heat of a dying goddess, as her fins shuddered a final time, and her whiskers fell limp, and the body of the Leviathan was split into pieces by the blades of a king.
 
 And she died, looking into the eyes of a family that would take no more pain from her or her pantheon.

 The Tidemother was dead.

 The ocean’s storm died with her.

 This battlefield was silent. 
 
 This battlefield was finished.

 There was a shift. In them. In the witnesses of a goddess’ death. In the skies, that lost some of their greyness. In Noctis, his little nightlight, crowned with stars. And pulling back whatever force of nature - force of magic - he’d wielded to do those things he’d done. Summoning crystals in a way Regis had never heard of a Lucis Caelum doing before. Like they were weapons.

 The crystal net dissipated fractal by fractal from how it was wound around the Tidemother’s scales. Filling the air with little sparks of blue that floated off, fading, towards the ocean.

 They had killed an Astral.

 “Should we turn Shiva into a snow cone next?” 

 “Rexus.” Regis had to chide his younger brother, just a little, for that one. But Rexus just shrugged a shoulder his way. Came to stand by them.

 “...We just turned the Leviathan into sashimi, so I think we’re fine,” Noctis spoke up, and Regis swung his son’s way. Trying to portray his exasperation - fondly - through the blank appearance of the Lucii Armor he wore, “I mean - Uncle Rexus said it first, Dad!”

 “Don’t throw me under the bus,” Rexus complained, casually hefting his polearm to poke at the Leviathan’s cheek. Catching its point under a few of her finer scales. Which shed away from her without any force needed at all, falling to the muddy ground of the meadow. Almost too pure a color to be on a battlefield. And shiny too.

 Noctis wondered if it would be too blasphemous for him to bring a few back for Ori.

 Probably?

 But after killing a goddess, who really cared about blasphemy? 

 “Uncle Rexus, could you get me a few of those?” He requested, and his uncle hummed with understanding. Knelt to start slowly pulling palm-sized scales from the dead goddess’ cheek.

 His dad lifted the Sword of the Father and thumped his forehead against the blade. Again. And again. And again.
 
 All of them felt a little frayed around the edges of their sanity. Hysteria.

 “Don’t you think Ori would like them, Dad?” Noctis checked, fidgeting with his cape’s blue-blue fabric a bit, and Regis lowered his sword. Sighing. Not that the sound was very audible behind the faceplate of ancient, incredible, magical armor like they were all wearing -

 “...Get a few more, Rexus, darling,” Lucis’ King suggested, giving in, because it made his sweet son relax and it would be a gift his grandson liked, “Just, be careful.” 

 There had been horror, years ago, widespread throughout Eos. All because of the news that had spread that Niflheim had ‘killed’ Shiva. Her body still remained where they had felled her, as far as Empress Stella had ever shared. And the area around it was still ladened with snows year-round, though not as badly as it had been when she was first felled.

 The old king cast a glance towards the ocean’s cliffs. Really not so far from where the Leviathan’s corpse was cut into pieces. He hoped idly that her body resting here would not have the same effect on her domain. 

 “Noctis,” moving on, he had greater concerns, like his boy, “How do you feel? Are these armors draining you?” 

 “Um…no?” Noctis tried, with no confidence at all, lifting his cape and its impossible blueness and starry-ness, not to mention the literal crown of night floating over his head. Black woven metal with stars twinkling - magic? Or actual starlight? “I mean, I don’t even know how these…? The Lucii just offered them, and I didn't even take them - they just did it on their own.” 

 Regis hummed, absorbing the sight of the Lucii Armor they’d all apparently been ‘gifted’. 

 Rare were such gifts. As a matter of fact, the House of Caelum had never been able to wear such armor in life. Their family’s armor was supposedly a thing only gained through death. A final bestowment from the Crystal. Viewable only through the use of the Ring. For them all to have been given such armor, to kill an Astral…it said a lot about how much their ancestors favored Noctis.

 And it said a lot about how serious things were likely to turn.

 …And it also raised questions of why the Crystal would give them such gifts to go against one of Bahamut’s own. Had the Lucii always had the power to do this, offer this, and just hadn’t? Or -

 “Noct, I was joking about the whole, ‘life is a videogame,’ thing.” 

 Regis’ worry turned to an old fondness as dear Prompto’s words ridded them of the silence over the battlefield. The rest of their family wasn’t far behind the son of his Sword, but he’d always been a fast one, hadn’t he? Reached them first. Grabbed Noctis into a hug first, squeezing hard once before backing off. Looking the Armor of the Lucii up and down and circling him -

 A thing his dad, Cor, copied exactly with Regis. In a way that made the old king chuckle as he was circled.

 Clarus looked so unimpressed with them, he wondered if his Shield was finally going to request retirement after today.

 Clarus’ unimpressed attitude only grew when he looked past his brother and king, to Rexus. Kneeling next to Leviathan. A pile of scales held in one flat palm, that was starting to grow rather tall. Oh yes. His Shield definitely wanted his retirement. Now, most likely. Effective immediately, please - and Regis just giggled. Just a bit.

 Which made his son giggle just a bit.

 Which made Rexus’ shoulders shake, as he hid his own laughter.

 Yes, they were definitely a little frayed. 

 Regis sobered somewhat at the sight of a Glaive jogging over to them, bloody, and clearly tired, and also on the edge of stasis - but he motioned with his hand. And everyone else cleared out of the way for Glaive Ulric to head straight for his son, because they both had earned the reassurance of one another.

…

 Nyx had blood speckled on his lips.

 “Inlustris.”

Starlight. Nyx’s name for him, from the moment he’d been caught when he chose to fall. It had been so long since then, hadn’t it? That’s how it felt, when Noctis turned away from his dad and uncle to face his amatus. His beloved. His…boyfriend. He was still getting used to that last title. Which was silly, since calling Nyx his beloved should’ve been more embarrassing but no.

 There was something so normal about ‘boyfriend’.

 Even after killing a goddess, it was thinking of Nyx as that that flustered the once-Chosen King. 

 Nyx had blood speckling the lower half of his face. Not just his lips. Some of his beads. Mud all over his boots and a bit on his ribbon - but he looked good. Unharmed, not attractive. But also attractive. Very much so, when he was smirking like that, and walking like that, and - ah. Yeah. 

 Noctis stepped forward to meet his Glaive, and turned easily into the hands that framed his hips. Running slowly over magical armor. Exploring all the grooves and shapes and details. Lingering a little on the violet ribbon that mirrored the chieftain’s own. Eyes softening there. Smirk softening too. Smirking was attractive - 

 But Noctis really preferred simple smiles.

 “The Aranahe Clan is going to be so jealous of this color, inlustris,” Nyx told him with an almost-chuckle, brushing fingers he’d wiped clean across the blue-blue fabric of his cape. So impossible a blue, no mortal dyer could mimic the color on fabric. It was pure magic. And almost ridiculously so, “Look at you. My starlight. Literally, like this. <Starlit King of the Night.>” 

 Warmth filled Noctis’ cheeks with color under the faceplate of his Lucii Armor, and he unwound his magic.

 Because right now he really just wanted to kiss Nyx.

 With the unwinding of his magic, a subconscious thing, something else was let go of. Like a rope the raven-haired man hadn’t known he was holding. And the armor covering his body steadily started to drift from him in the form of crystal fragments, bit by bit, and so blue. 

 And Nyx reached forward quickly to catch his hands at the sight, almost looking afraid.

 As if he thought the royal was going to disappear with the armor.

 But no. It was just the Armor of the Lucii. Vanishing in a slow upwards climb of his form, until Noctis was closing his eyes to the feeling of it reaching his face. Brushing over his lashes. And opening his eyes, to find Nyx, barely an inch between them, his breaths so warm like the color in Noctis’ cheek. Breaking against his lips. The tip of his nose. The pinked skin of his cheek. 

 His lips again - 

 Finally, his kiss.

 He’d have to kill more Astrals, if this was the sort of kiss it got him.

 “Love you,” Noctis murmured before their lips had even parted, and Nyx hummed, held his hips closer, firmer, rubbing at the grooves of his hips through his star’s shirt, so in love -

 “Love you too,” he said right back, no hesitation. Nodding when their foreheads thumped together and his uniform’s hood shadowed their faces, hiding them from all the rest of this world full of gods and lies and injustices - but also them, and also a son who was waiting for them, “Let’s not do this again, hm? Please and thank you.”

“I’ll try,” the raven-haired man told him, but he couldn’t promise anything. Because of what this world was.

“I know.”  

 “So, is it - ?” Noctis started to ask, moving back, making half a motion towards those of Tenebrae who had started surrounding the Leviathan’s body and dropping to their knees, crying or just staring in shock. Disbelief? Disbelief. The faithful weren’t ones to believe a deity can be killed, after all. 

 “I would like to say that this conflict is over, yes,” Dad hummed, slumping a bit to rub at his bad knee that had to be acting up after, well, fighting the Tidemother herself, “Shall we - “

 A crack of thunder cut the Lucian King off.

 Heads lifted to the skies.

 Lightning, violet and magnificent, cut across those skies after.

 Illuminating dark stormclouds. And the silhouette of another within them. A towering, haggard form, ears pointed and beard part of those dark stormclouds. So, so big. As if the figure was hunched protectively over this finished battlefield. It was enough of an imposing sight to make the Ring of the Lucii murmur uneasily. To make them reach for their ‘gifts’ again.

 But Nyx, Glaives, his fellow Galahdians - they dropped to their knees in an instant of pure, blind faith. They dropped in mud and blood and slush, some reaching for prayer beads braided into their hair while others clasped their hands together in verbal prayer, but the outcome was the same. Mass on this battlefield. 

 Noctis stared at the silhouette of the Stormfather. He felt the Lucii’s uneasiness as his own.

 But he thought of all the mornings and evenings he’d watched Nyx pray devotedly to this god at his little altar to Ramuh. And he forced the uneasiness back. This was no threat. It wasn’t. It wasn’t. He stepped once to the side, and placed a hand lightly on his amatus’ shoulder while he knelt. While he prayed. Nyx tilted his head to rest it against his star’s forearm, praying, still praying.

 So much faith that Noctis would never ask him to lose.

 As much as the falsely imprisoned one hated the Astrals, Ramuh he had learned to accept in the name of the man he loved.

 And Ramuh seemed to be siding with the House of Caelum in this.

 Whatever that meant.

 “...Can we go home now?” He asked tiredly, in light of the Stormfather’s silhouette fading from the clouds. Feeling the weight of the day like a bookshelf fallen on his shoulders. He’d done that once as a child; warped into a bookshelf and caused it to topple over. Iggy had pushed him out of the way. This time he hadn’t had Iggy. He’d had his own ‘Noct’ to protect, back home. 

 And he’d done that. So he really was ready to go home to Oriens. 

 Dad turned to answer, tired himself, but his mouth opening was cut off by the sudden shout of one of those Tenebraeans kneeling beside Leviathan, “What about us?!” He wore the white armor of the Oracle’s Guard, his cape was tattered, muddy, and Noctis barely glanced his way as he let his dad step forward to handle this because he’d reached most of his limit for today.

 “What about you?” Dad asked so calmly, so tiredly, summoning his cane from his Armiger in place of the Sword of the Father, and the Guard sputtered, “You have lost, have you not?” 

 “But - Prince Oriens!” 

 “You have lost,” Dad repeated, sharply now, and Noctis also straightened up at the mention of his little dawnlight from an enemy’s mouth, “have you not?” 

 “Tenebrae is lost without him!” The man wailed, scrambling in the mud, with the sobbing of fellow Guards in mourning filling the air around him; survivors of Tenebrae’s attack force all scattered around and hopeless, “And you - the Tidemother, you - !” 

 They all looked down at him. Without sympathy. Without a hand to lend.

 Because Tenebrae and the Astrals had started all of this. They were just finishing it.

 “There are three of you!” He cried out, pointing at Uncle Rexus in an extra accusatory way as the man slipped stolen scales into his pockets, “Three! Surely one of you can have more children still? We only have Prince Oriens! Only him! Why must you be so selfish?!”

 Selfish?

 Selfish?

 A rush went through Noctis’ ears. It blocked out whatever his dad responded with. He’d say it was the roar of a stormy ocean, except they had already killed the goddess of that. Selfish? It was now selfish to want to keep his own son, after being denied years of holding him? Raising him? Watching over him? It was now selfish to want to keep a family together, instead of selling off Oriens to Tenebrae who was only so lost because of Queen Lunafreya’s mistakes? 

 He was being selfish? 

 He was done. 

 Too many times, Noctis had had to hold his son as he trembled lately. Too many times he had seen his son cry. Too many times he had had to hug Oriens tight and promise over and over again that Tenebrae would not steal him. And they had still tried. They had still dared to try and steal his son from their home. Even after they had been shown so much mercy. 

 He was done.

 He was completely done. 

 He was. Completely. DONE.

 The Crystal owed him a debt it could never repay, and he called on it. And even a kingdom away, he heard its singing in response. In answer. In agreement. Another debt, paid, in this way. One way. That led to a burst of light over in Insomnia, and a burst of magic-power-regret-air rippling outwards from the Crown City like a puddle would ripple when stepped in. 

 Heads turned when the burst hit the destroyed meadow, the grave of the Tidemother, even those without magic sensing -

 The Wall.

 The Wall and its opal-like surface. It touched down in the mud the blood and the slush, without a sound. Without stirring anything. It simply was there, now. Immovable and impenetrable. Just beyond the Leviathan’s body. It settled as easily as a blanket over sheets would; the Wall over Lucis. The Wall reaching Lucis’ borders for the first time in decades. For the first time since Regis’ grandfather’s time. 

 It stretched horizon to horizon, out into the Cygillan Ocean and in towards the wilderness of Lucis’ mountain ranges. All of it bordering the edge of Tenebrae’s great forests.

 Silence weighed heavy on this finished battlefield. 

 Shock did.

 Awe did.

 Blue-blue eyes slid shut, and Noctis knew down his soul and the core of himself that was his magic that the Wall was his. His. And it was heavier than the other burdens he’d chosen to bear so far, yes. But still. It wasn’t so heavy that he couldn’t hold it. So what if it would cost him a few years of his lifespan? It would protect his child.

 For Oriens, a few years was more than worth it.

 “Noctis!”

 “Noct!”

 “Your Highness!” 

 “Inlustris!” 

 Standing beside the corpse of a goddess he had helped kill, Noctis let his eyes flutter. Opening them again. Dad’s hands were clasping his shoulders, with such a grip it nearly hurt. His uncles were crowding around, Prom was pressed against his back and clinging to his coat, Glaives were surrounding them, Glaives he’d grown close to - Nyx. Was pressed right up against his side, arm hooked around his lower waist like he thought he’d have to hold him upright.

 They all looked terrified for him.

 Noctis blinked, and reached up, around, all over - to brush his chilly hands against as many of them as possible. Mumbling that he was fine, it was fine, everything was going to be fine. He just felt a little tired.

 The Wall seemed so bright under the shadowy skies of a stormy, battle-torn dusk.

 His irises seemed just as bright, though he couldn’t see that for himself. 

 There were so many stars in his eyes.

 “Noctis, baby, it’s too much,” his dad rasped, something in the king’s voice and maybe his chest breaking, and Noctis found a smile just for him. His dad. Because he loved him, so much more than he hated him, “Let the Wall fall. You don’t have to do this. You don’t. Let us protect Lucis. Let us.” 

 “Just for a while,” Noctis whispered shakily, trying to adjust to the feeling of such magic resting on his soul, “Just a little while, Dad. For Ori.” 

 For Ori.

 The stormclouds dissipated. Unnaturally fast. Leaving behind skies of dusk, of soft purples and burning oranges and wispy pink hues - of beauty. They really were. They were beautiful. There were a few stars too. They were amazing. Noctis had missed these sorts of skies for so many years. It was hard to not just melt into the muddied meadow and stare up at them all night long. It would’ve been harder, but -

 They had divine company.

 Taking up those skies, on the other side of the Wall.

 “Ramuh,” Nyx said with faithful fervor, and more voices joined him.

 “Holy Shiva, it’s Shiva.” 

 “Is that Titan?!”

 “Lord Bahamut?” 

 “Fuck off,” Noctis muttered to the big, overgrown lizard with all his also stupidly big swords floating around him like some sort of divine halo. Stupid. Just, stupid. He even lifted a hand reflexively to do a very insulting hand motion towards the Astral that the Glaives had taught him a while back. Not on purpose. But, just by watching them, you pick up a few things.

 There was more than one facepalm, and more than one person squeaking because they thought they’d surely be smited.

 “Noctis, sweetheart,” his dad said warningly, as if they hadn’t just killed one of the Astrals as a family bonding activity, and Noctis was just really done with today and he wanted to go home, okay? And his dad stepping in front of him protectively just made him more prickly because any Astral that tried to touch his dad was going to get added to his list of gods he’d killed that day. 

 “Your Majesty?” Uncle Clarus sounded so strangled, and it just made him more prickly. 

 The Astrals couldn’t leave them be for five minutes, could they.

 Bahamut had to be at the front, because of course he did. And no amount of times in Noctis’ life that he’d had to look at the lizard’s imagery in chantry windows could make him feel inspired by the sight of him or his armor or anything. Let him float there like a lizard angel. It didn’t make Noctis feel anything except annoyance.

 Shiva was floating near his shoulder, perfectly icy in appearance and expression, and she was a very unwanted reminder that Astrals could reform after their main forms were killed.

 Titan was kneeling on the edge of the meadow, amongst the burning wreckage of Tenebrae’s tanks and fallen Guards. Stone-faced. Not literally, but it wouldn’t have made a difference anyways.

 Ramuh floated still closer to the wisps of clouds in the skies. Skies extra purple where his robes swayed, almost physically separate from his own pantheon. Still hunched over. Noctis only looked at him longer than he looked at the other Astrals because Ramuh was the one holding Nyx’s attention. And…he wasn’t going to read into the fact that the elderly Stormfather looked almost sad.

 No sign of Ifrit, of course. Banished from the pantheon as he was.

 And of course Leviathan had been turned into a sushi dish.

 What an imposing sight.

 But what the hell did they actually want?

 This silence was heavier than a meteor pressing down on all present there that day. It was weighty with the fact that nothing was being said, but somehow it felt like the Astrals were still saying something. To them. To each other. Noctis scowled. Then absolutely snarled when Bahamut finally deigned speak to mere mortals like them.

 ‘YOU HAVE DISAPPOINTED US, CHOSEN ONE.’

 “LIKE I CARE!” 

 Dad grabbed his upper arm in a grip that was terrified.

 Bahamut's voice had been booming. His silence was somehow louder. Wings of weapons, whirring almost inaudibly despite his size. He just floated there. Perfectly centered and emotionless and there was something - something about him. About standing and having to look up at him that made Noctis think of a thousand masses in the Citadel Chantry. Of stained glass windows. Perfect inconsideration. Divine abuse. 

 His innocence not being proven.

 And the first thing the leader of the Astral Pantheon says is that he’s disappointed?

 ‘YOU - ‘

 Noctis turned his nose away. Very pointedly. And maybe he said a Galahdian curse or two the Glaives had also unintentionally taught him. Point was, Bahamut shut up. Good. Noctis didn’t care about religion or past deals or whatever the Draconian was here for. He was done, he wasn’t doing this anymore, he wanted a nap, and no self-centered arrogant scaly god was going to come down onto their battlefield and tell him he was in the wrong.

 He had been a kid.

 He hadn’t deserved what happened to him.

 And no god who believed he had, who allowed it to happen to humble him, he would entertain.

 A rumbling noise, through the air, through the earth, like something shifting. And Noctis turned his head back. More out of surprise than care. And found himself blinking at the sight of the Titan tumbling apart. Rock by rock. Rocks that seemed to burrow into the mud, and there was still that rumbling sound, and - 

 A few startled shouts behind them.

 So he whirled around to find the Titan reforming. At their back. In the meadow on the other side of their forces, rock by rock assembling into the form of the Landforger that just sat there. Legs crossed. 

 Glaives wheezed -

 And eyes went skyward to see Ramuh floating overhead. Robe billowing and the feel of lightning behind their teeth when he passed. To float near Titan. Just over his shoulder, actually, and doing nothing more. Both Astrals just settled. Staring down at the once-Chosen passively. Which. Dad’s grip on him got tighter, then dropped, and Noctis pressed a hand to his face.

 Just for a second.

 To collect himself.

 Was this the Astrals’ ways of saying they were siding with the House of Caelum? Well, it wasn’t any more appreciated than them opposing his family, because they were inside the Wall and that just made Noctis even more prickly with thorns for magic. Ramuh floated calmly over their convoy, and Titan was sat with his legs crossed in the empty meadow beyond the road, and both of them were staring down at him expectedly.

 Bahamut let out a very loud, very offended snort.

 Shiva’s snowflakes turned into icicles. 

 Noctis really didn’t want to have to babysit gods.

 “Be good,” he told the Stormfather and Landforger, debating whether or not his dad would mind him retreating to the car to nap all of this away. Probably not. Dad would support anything he decided to do. Would he support him putting a pair of gods in timeout? Probably. 

 He was just so done.

 Turning back to Bahamut and Shiva, and all of that floating sass they shared between the pair of them, he sniffed, “Go away.” 

 The pair of disgruntled gods shattered into crystal fragments. Just like that. If he had the energy, even Noctis himself would be startled. But he really only had the energy to be a bit annoyed about how pretty the crystal fragments looked in the skies as they turned to night…and that was it. He was done. He really was. He wanted a nap. He wanted to go home. He wanted to hug Ori, and curl up under his blankets and not have to leave his bedroom for at least a month.

 “I need a nap,” he whispered, and, yeah, he hated how raw his voice sounded. As if he’d swallowed gravel. As if he was about to start crying. 

 Thank…Ramuh and Titan, he guessed, for Nyx. 

 Who shook himself out of the pure disbelief he’d been struck by like everyone else, to immediately loop an arm under Noctis’ back and another under his knees and lift. His arms were a nice place to be. The raven-haired royal didn’t even mind all the metal and bloody bits of his uniform, just sighed and let his head roll against Nyx’s chest as the night started to fall properly over them.

 “Daemons will be forming soon,” his Glaive’s solemn reminder seemed to reverberate under Noctis’ cheek, shaking more onlookers out of their shocked states, “We have to retreat to Cape Caem, Your Majesty.” 

…

 Regis tore his tired, tired, tired eyes away from where the Stormfather and Landforger were slowly dissipating into crystal fractals. Catching the last light of a coming sunset. Were they leaving because Noctis wanted them to? Would they return when their house needed them? Was it something else, some other reason - ?

 Those questions would have to wait, because Nyx was quite right.

 Night was falling.

 Daemons would be forming soon, and they had a whole military force to fall back to Cape Caem with before that could happen. Not to mention - 

 Noctis. His sweet, sweet little nightlight. He looked so small in Nyx’s arms. Curled up like that, stubbornly hiding his face in the Glaive’s uniform. He looked paler than his usual paleness. His cheekbones more prominent. The Wall was overhead, at the very border of Lucis and Tenebrae, and Regis was terrified of what sort of price that would have.

 Technically…technically, using a bit more magic, Noctis could kill all of the daemons within the Wall. However far it was now stretching. But to do that cost even more strength, even more years off of a Lucis Caelum’s lifespan. It was one thing to use that ability when the Wall surrounded only a city. But if the Wall covered even a quarter of the kingdom - ? That was too much. 

 Which didn’t even get into the fact that they’d killed the Tidemother. And had absolutely earned the ire of Bahamut and Shiva. 

 Or that Ramuh and Titan had seemingly sided with them.

 And that this could possibly become a war between Astrals.

 But - all of that? Wasn’t more important than Regis running a hand along his son’s forehead to check for a fever he didn’t have, then nodding to Glaive Ulric. They didn’t have time to spare here. They didn’t have any time at all. Everything else would have to wait for Cape Caem, or for home. He gave his nods to those standing closest to him - to Cor, to Clarus, to Drautos. 

 To dear Prompto.

 He turned back to the Oracle’s Guard still scattered around the fringes of them, on their knees, looking shellshocked. Regis almost felt sorry for them. They had lost so many more than Lucis had in this battle. And then the Leviathan had come to their aid - summoned or not - just for them to have to watch her be killed. And then they got to bear witness to the rest of the pantheon seemingly picking sides.

 And now they were just left there, defeated, and realizing truly just how powerless they were in trying to take his boys’ happiness.

 “You had best make for the nearest Tenebraean settlement,” he said softly, but not kindly, turning away to head to the convoy so many others of his were already making their way towards, “The Wall will let you pass through to leave, but you will not be able to enter it again without the permission of my son.” 

 He assumed there was no hole maintained in his son’s Wall, the way there had had to be for Insomnia’s gates to allow exit and entry. Which brought about the concern of people being trapped because of the Wall.

 But those concerns would have to wait until morning.

 Cor hung up his phone, calling another number, and hung up again to call another - collecting reports and giving updates. And Clarus was on the phone with dear Gladio from the sound of things. And Drautos had his Kingsglaive handled. Prompto and Meldacio’s hunters were joining them for the protection. It all went fast now. Don’t think, just follow orders.

 Regis slid into the backseat of one car. The same car Nyx had crawled into with his son, who the Glaive was now carefully buckling into place. He seemed about to leave when he was done, so the king motioned for him to stay. Stay, with his son. Stay, because Noctis loved him, so stay. So Nyx stayed. Buckling himself in right next to Noctis, and letting his son use his shoulder as a pillow.

 Clarus joined him in the backseat. Drautos joined them a moment later. Cor took longer, finishing up a phone call even as he crawled in and sat himself on the floor rather than in an actual seat. 

 And then Rexus slid in, looking a little like he wasn’t sure if this was where he was supposed to be as he closed the car door behind him.

 Regis grabbed his younger brother’s arm and sat him down in the seat next to him.

 It was horribly silent, after Cor hung up his phone.

 The car’s engine hummed to life.
 
 It was still horribly silent between them after.

 Clarus’s sword-worn hand slid hesitantly under his, and Regis took it with care. Squeezing. And the greyed king also looped an arm around his half-brother’s elbow, which Rexus was quick to hold onto. 

 Cor reached up to place a hand on Drautos’ knee, since the captain was actually sitting on the seat beside him, and of course Noctis was pressed entirely into his favorite Glaive’s body as best he could be.

 None of them said anything, but the actions spoke for themselves as the Lucian convoy got back onto the road.

 Leaving behind a meadow of mud and blood and the body of a goddess.

 Headed for Cape Caem.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Royalty never really had to care about minor things like the speed limit. But they definitely broke it, racing against the night to reach Cape Caem on time. And with the added four-wheelers tearing their tires on the pavement of the seaside road, weaving in and out of the line of Kingsglaive vans, the convoy seemed more chaotic than it had earlier. 

 The longer they drove, the higher their levels of unease grew. 

 Regis kept his gaze fixed out the window, on an ocean gradually turning into darker and darker waters as the sun set, and on the road ahead.

 Not daring to even start to relax until the lighthouse’s light came into view.

 Too large a part of him was convinced this was where their luck would run out.

…

 …But they reached Cape Caem safely. Somehow. By the will of something.

 Just in time too. Thank…Ramuh and Titan, Regis supposed, specifically. Stepping out of the sleek, royal car just in time to be able to watch with his own eyes as the last sliver of sunset sank below the horizon. The shadows spread in an instant. Dark and twisting and winding, like an ocean’s tides. Flooding over all the coastline that Cape Caem’s light couldn’t touch. 

 Ordinarily, they would park along the road. Where the Haven’s safe glow used to beckon anyone who was forced to stop at the cape for the coming night. 

 But there were no Havens now. So the whole convoy drove up the cape, bringing their vehicles as close to the homestead as they could. All of the yard’s lights seemed to be in working order. That was a relief; with how isolated Cape Caem was, there were times it needed repairs nobody was aware of until they tried bunkering down there. 

 Kingsglaive vans pulled up on the grass. Four-wheelers and motorcycles parked on the fringes wherever they could. And the trailers the hunters had brought - they made for a good barricade. Parked around the edges of the light’s reach. Just in case. 

 Just in case.

 “Insomnia?” He checked with Clarus, flexing fingers around his cane. The strain of the day, of killing an Astral, was certainly starting to hit him. His bad knee, specifically.

 “...The Wall is confirmed to stretch past the city’s walls in all directions, Regis. No exact measurements yet,” his Shield reported, motioning with his phone and a troubled brow, “The city is prepared. The Citadel is on lockdown. There was brief panic when the Wall faded away, and then suddenly burst from the Crystal anew, but it’s mostly handled. Though the media definitely isn’t sure what the limit of speculation is that they’re allowed to report.” 

 “Oriens?” 

 “Lockdown. Under the strictest guard.” 

 “Ori?” His son’s soft, rough voice asked, and they turned back to the car that Noctis was slowly, carefully, dragging himself out of. Looking like he needed a nap. A nap that would last a few days. More drained than he’d looked in a while. Regis again worried so deeply for how much the Wall and the Glaives and the Lucii and the Astrals would cost his son who had already paid too much.

 “He’s safe,” Clarus reconfirmed, losing his rigid tone in the face of his godson and nephew, “He’ll be fine, Noctis.”

 Rexus hopped out of the car with a quick tousle of Noctis' raven hair, running a hand through the very tangled waves of his own hair after.

 And already on the move again.

 “Okay with you if we set up the bedrooms for the injured, Regis?” His half-brother asked quickly, as if he wasn’t already off to do so with or without permission, heading for where Glaives were carefully lifting the wounded out of the backs of the vans. Thankfully there were few of them.

 “Of course, give them what they need.” They had gotten lucky with their lack of wounded. Things could’ve gone far worse with an Astral entering the battlefield than it honestly had. Regis felt fond of the way Nyx pressed a kiss to his son’s cheek then hurried after Rexus to help his fellow Glaives too, felt fond of Clarus’ little harrumph at Rexus taking the lead like he had, felt fond of his precious Noctis staggering out of the car’s backseat and stretching and yawning -

 And simply going to snuggle into his side, in a way that made him seem so much smaller. Which he really wasn’t. Their height difference wasn’t that great, but still, Regis still hunched defensively over his child that had gone to war today.

 Even if it was a war that had only ended up lasting the day.

 His Sword joined them from the car’s backseat as well, hanging up a call on his phone and immediately in charge. As he was.
 
“You three are sleeping in the grotto,” Cor said plainly, with no room for argument, already stalking off to arrange that with a wagging finger sent back the two royals’ way, “Just, stay. No wandering off. And save the fishing for later!”

Regis wasn’t able to muffle his laugh all that much, too tired to be bothered about being ‘proper’. Noctis was leaning so heavily into his side, he swore his son was about to fall asleep standing up. Oh, how tired he was. How exhausted. How Regis wished with all his heart that he could spare Noctis the strain they were both under now. As…Kings.

 Of course, his sweet boy had to let out a sleepy little hum and nuzzle against his shoulder, while mumbling, “Fish…ing?”

 Regis held him extra close. And then closer still.

 “...Tomorrow we will deal with the repercussions of today,” the King of Lucis sighed softly, threading his fingers through his sleepy son’s hair, “And that is tomorrow. Tonight, we will do what we can for our people, and we will recover ourselves. That is our responsibility for now.” 

 Cape Caem’s lighthouse illuminated the dark coastline.

 And in a meadow a couple of hours away, a goddess’ body lay near crashing waves. 

 And for tonight, the only thing they could do now was recover themselves.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Some stories say if you wish on a star, it’ll come true. Oriens was pretty sure one of his wetnurses had told him those sorts of stories when he was small. Really small. Really, really small. He had a good memory, but those memories were nothing more than glimpses now. Of sparkling stars, and warm smiles, and a sense of safety even if he was a little lonely. Because even then, he knew his family was important. 

 And it would be selfish to ask for more than he was already getting.

 Stars wouldn’t judge a child for being selfish, though. Star wouldn’t scold him. Or correct his behavior. Or shoo the little prince off to bed. 

 So it was stars that Oriens looked to, this night, this first night where he was without family in the Citadel of Insomnia. Life moved so fast, the princeling thought, staring up at the stars filling the sky. More importantly, staring up at the lack of the Wall. Because it had suddenly changed in the late afternoon and the Citadel was on lockdown again and -

 Oriens clasped his hands tightly together. 

 He hoped…he prayed, that his family was alright.

 It was difficult to wrap his head around. That he’d gone from having his first sleepover away from the Citadel a few weeks back, to being entirely alone in Insomnia like this. He felt the loneliness. It was cold. A bit heavy. Not even his dad’s blanket, that he’d dragged over from his bedroom, kept him warm.

 Not even the fact that he was staying in his grandpa’s bedroom instead of his own made him feel surrounded by the family not there for him right now.

 Maybe if he made enough wishes, maybe if he prayed enough, maybe if he was good enough - 

 Maybe Grandpa, and Dad, and Nyx, and all his uncles would be able to come home sooner.

 “Hello there, Young Prince.” 

 Head shooting up from the window’s chilly, frosted glass, Oriens shivered. Finding the bedroom suddenly so much colder as he twisted around. Surprised by the sound of somebody there, in the room with him, when he’d been alone. Surprised, wary, confused - 

 There was a lady standing in the starlit light of the window. He hadn’t heard her enter.

 She had long, dark hair. And eyes that were open but pale and murky, like ice. And she was wearing a gown that seemed snowflake-like in its delicateness, almost see-through. It was enough to make a boy with proper manners blush. And she smelled - the whole bedroom now - smelled like snow. Cold. Harsh.

 The snow lady’s lips slowly curved up.

 Oriens wasn’t sure who the snow lady was, but she was really pretty. Almost too perfectly pretty. It reminded him a bit of his mother, Queen Lunafreya. Flawless skin and serene eyes, a weightlessness to her delicate step forward, hands clasped in front of his dress’ flowing skirt - it reminded him a bit of his mother. Of divinity. Of the Astrals he’d never really been required to pray to.

 He didn’t really like the way the snow lady was smiling.

 That reminded him a bit of his mother too.

 “...Who are you?” The princeling asked, wary, and trying his very best to hide the way he slid his hand underneath the pillow beside him. Where he’d slid Nyx’s kukri earlier. Its handle felt cold in his palm when he wrapped his too-small fingers around it. It was made for an adult to wield.

 But he could still cut somebody good with it, if needed. Like Uncle Iggy had taught him.

 Blue-blue eyes slid past the snow lady to the movement of Shadow. Lifting his head slowly, so slowly, from where he’d been napping happily in Grandpa’s bed. His violet eyes caught starlight and seemed so much more slitted than usual as they got stuck on the snow lady. His ears shifted forward. 

 There was something scary about the way Shadow slunk from the bed. Something predatory. Slipping into the shadows of the bedroom with an ease and silence that would lead to the death of lots of people if this were a hunt, but Oriens wasn’t the one who felt scared. He knew Shadow wouldn’t hurt him. It was the snow lady’s shoulders that drew up all tight, like she sensed he was there.

 “Ramuh’s blessing, you accepted, I see,” she said in her whispery voice, and Oriens’ whole arm twitched when her pale, pale eyes drifted to it. Snuck under that pillow. With Nyx’s kukri, “And the Child of the Storm as well, I also see.” 

 Ramuh’s - ?

 Shadow and Nyx? 

 “This one,” she continued in her whispery voice, snowflakes seeming to hang in the shafts of starlight around her, “is Shiva. This one is the Glacian.”
 
 Snow lady.

 “You know this one.” 

 Shiva. The Astral.

 “Your mother knew this one,” Oriens sucked in a breath that shuddered in his lungs, the fact that he needed air to breathe forgotten for a minute, because - she was Shiva? And he couldn’t even doubt her. Because the moment she said so, it was so true no mortal could deny it; Shiva was standing in front of him, “She was…dear, to me.”

 An Astral was visiting him?!

 “Your father caused her death.” 

 Ori reared back. Knocked out of his momentary revelry by that one sentence. 

 “No! Dad didn’t!” 

 “Silence.” 

 “No!” Oriens raised his voice, scrambling to his feet to stand rightly in front of this lady - this goddess - blaming things on his dad that were accidents, “Dad didn’t! He didn’t! She died in an accident! From daemons on the road! Because the Havens don’t work anymore! That’s not Dad’s fault!!!”

 Those pale eyes were…chilly now, as he quieted down. Hands clenched into small fists that shook by his sides. 

 A shiver ran down the Lucian Prince’s spine as he wondered vaguely why the Glaives guarding his grandpa’s rooms hadn’t burst in yet. 

 “I would argue,” a new voice dipped into the argument between goddess and little prince, “that he was responsible, in a way. Responsible for the lack of belief the people now carry for the Astrals, that is. But what can you do about such outdated ideas fading with time? Maybe it’s just…your time, Shiva, my dear.” 

 A new voice. A new person. Stepping out of the shadows thick in the corner of Grandpa’s bedroom. A man. With a patchy coat, and frilly sleeves, and a really weird hat - and almost violet-red hair wild underneath it. He looked weird. Like his hat. He dressed like a grandpa, but, like a grandpa from Grandpa Mors’ time! Or older.

 Shadow darted out of the shadows, winding around Oriens’ legs so fast, the princeling wobbled, gasping. His hand went down to catch the coeurl’s scruff, and he felt goosebumps cover his skin from the sound of his growl.

 It was almost worse than silence.

 So was the fact that Shiva took a wary step sideways, to put more space between her and this new man.

 “Now, how about you leave the darling thing alone,” the weird man drawled, waving one frilly sleeve lazily, “before I am forced to make you, my dear.” 

 Oriens may not…have the best survival instincts, considering it was hitting him now he’d just yelled at the Glacian.

 But when a goddess is afraid of a man, even the princeling knew he didn’t want to be alone with him. Or when Shadow is growling like he was. Tail wound tight around Ori’s hip. So tight it almost felt bruising. Putting snarling fangs between him and the weird boots the man was wearing - but those fangs wouldn’t do anything if he was really dangerous. Like his uncles were. Strong.

 There was a pause, where starlight hung in midair. 

 Then there was a cold front. And snow, and frost, all swirling with the starlight around Lady Shiva like a curtain. 

 And then it settled, and she was gone. There were only snowflakes and glittering ice fading away as if it’d never been there in the first place. 

“There!” The weird man said, sounding very satisfied with himself, “Much better, don’t you think, darling little dawn?” 

 “...Who are you?” He asked, because Nyx’s kukri was now slightly out of reach. He asked, because Shadow’s growling had deepened and now sounded feral. He asked, because there was something slithering along the edges of his magic’s reach, something slimy and that smelled sweet. But in a gross way. Like moldy strawberries. So he asked, and the weird man did a twirling motion. 

 Dropping into a really proper bow at the end, that felt…sort of mocking, somehow. Oriens hadn’t met lots of people who would mock him, but the old council had dared a few times, so -

 “Ardyn. Ardyn Izunia, here to provide some insight for you, darling thing.” 

 “...I don’t think I need insight,” Ori said, quieter now, burying his fingers harder into Shadow’s scruff with his wondering of where the guards were, “I think I’m fine. Thank you.”

 “Ah, but that’s because you chose to forget you had a question, little prince!” The weird man - Ardyn - was keeping his distance, sure. But his every little movement felt grandstand-y? And Oriens just, didn’t like him. The longer he was around, he just - “A question about your father? About why he wasn’t around your whole life?” 

 Dad?

 Ardyn’s smile grew all the sweeter when he saw he had the boy’s full attention.
 
 “Don’t you long for answers, apple of your fathers’ eyes?” 

 The reason…Dad was never there? Grandpa had told him it was better if he never asked, never dug around - that if there was one question he was better off not asking, it’d be that. Maybe he’d be told when he was older. Maybe. But, Dad was…there was so much he didn’t know. And everyone just kept adding to that, because he was just a kid to them. 

 He wanted to know why Dad didn’t want him before. Or what kept him away, if that wasn’t the case. He wanted to know it wasn’t…

 His fault.

 “I say it’s not fair for them to keep such secrets from you, little prince. Especially secrets about your dear father! You’re too smart to be excluded, aren’t you?” Shadow’s growls switched suddenly to purrs, loud, and rough, vibrating up through Oriens’ body, but - he wanted. He wanted to know, “Would you like to know why, darling thing?”

 Oriens never said yes.
 
 But he never said no either.

 And Ardyn let out a very cheery hum, reaching into the folds of his patched coat to pull out - 

A laptop? 

 Which he opened and flipped around to offer up to the Crown Prince of Lucis. Kwehtoo was pulled up on the screen. A video. Paused right at the start. Shadow purred desperately as Oriens leaned forward just enough to read the title, trying to soothe…and blue-blue eyes widened. 

 And he hesitantly reached out to take the laptop.

‘Lost Innocence’. A Noctis Lucis Caelum Documentary.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

More plot advancements! I always thought it was a shame we didn't get the Armor of the Lucii for Regis or Noctis in the game, so I'm bringing back them getting magical girl transformations. And the Astrals - I wonder what they're up to...I wonder why Bahamut didn't argue. Hm.

I have IDEAS.

For now though, poor Ori.

Chapter 32

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

The morning after they’d killed a goddess as a family was strangely normal.

Okay, so they weren’t in the Citadel that morning. That was different. But Cape Caem wasn’t the worst option away from home. Noctis would consider it as nice as Nyx’s apartment in Little Galahd. A little more dusty, maybe, but the ocean air? The sound of the waves? The ripples of waterlight in the underground grotto, as Noctis sat at the pier’s edge and kicked his bare feet in the water? 

Maybe he couldn’t feel the water. Maybe it was all a puppet show, in a sense.

But sitting there, a few hours after dawn, watching his dad’s old boat rock on each wave and hearing the movements of his family doing what needed doing behind him? It was nice. Calm. Which was the furthest thing from what part of him had been expecting the night before, when he dozed off after being set on the cot by Uncle Clarus. 

An Astra was dead.

The Leviathan herself. The Tidemother. The Astral of these very oceans.

But here he was. Calmly lifting a leg from the water, to watch all the droplets fall from his skin back into the waves they came from. No bite. No blood in these waters. No retribution from those who would be called gods, only the Lucii in the Ring. Whispering softly words that made no sense to the ears of the living. 

But the feeling of their pride, and their still there hesitation, was almost a physical thing wrapped around the once-Chosen’s fingers, wrists.

What did it mean? What were they waiting for? Why had Bahamut and Shiva accepted his disrespect, when two Astrals - even against two other Astrals - would’ve been enough to decimate them and their forces? Noctis wasn’t used to having so many questions. Felt that, in how tired asking made him. So he let his questions drift away. Like the waves.

Rolling in and out, and in and out, and the air smelled of salt, of the ocean, and he could hear the cries of seagulls out there over the beaches. 

And it had been so long since he thought he could ever have this again.

The urge to pull his fishing tack from his Armiger was strong. Strong like it hadn’t been in so long and so, so selfish of him. But that was fine. Noctis was okay with being selfish. It was healthy for him to be a little selfish, even if he did nothing with the urge to fish on Cape Caem’s shores right now - the fact that he had it? Was nice. In a way. A thing for himself. 

Not at all matching up to his urge to get home to Ori, but still. It was something.

 Uncle Rexus joined him. On the edge of the pier. With a mug of coffee that was steaming and that he had his face directly hovering over. His dad’s half-brother barely looked awake at all. His eyes were open only in thin slits, and he let out a grumbly sort of greeting as he joined Noctis. 

 And also dropped both his legs into the water beside him. With his shoes on. And his socks. And his pant legs not rolled up to his knees the way his nephew’s were. Just, plop, straight into the salty water without a single reaction from the sleepy royal. Uncle Rexus just kept drinking his coffee in tiny sips, sighing from the feel of warm steam on his face.

 Noctis totally understood.

 Lucis Caelums were just like that.

 His uncle shifted, and suddenly produced a napkin with toast on it that he offered up to Noctis. Where did it come from? His Armiger? Noctis was also still too sleepy to register much of the waking realm besides toast. In front of him. And he was sort of hungry. So he let out a grateful little hum and accepted the toast smeared with butter and jam, then took a big bite. Chewing slowly.

 Killing an Astral takes it out of you, you know?

 “Good morning, my dears.” 

 The shuffling of feet and then a sleepy greeting announced Dad coming to join the both of them. Purposefully coming around to ruffle Rexus’ hair, then Noctis’ hair, then carefully leverage himself down onto the pier too. Mindful of his bad knee even more than he usually was. But he at least had no socks and no shoes and had his pant legs rolled up to his knees. It made Noctis giggle even though he couldn’t explain the joke.

 When his dad turned his sleepy but fond eyes onto him, Noctis just pointed at his uncle’s legs. Submerged in water. Still fully dressed. 

 Dad blinked extra slowly. 

 And then Uncle Rexus produced another napkin with toast out of thin air to offer up to his dad, and this son got to watch his dad very blatantly decide he wasn’t going to start this conversation so early in the morning. He just accepted the toast with gratitude. Smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when he flicked a pinky up while taking a bite, getting crumbs all over his beard -

 And Noctis couldn’t hold it in anymore.

 He fell onto his back on the pier, giggling and clutching his stomach.

 His dad looked pleased, and his uncle sipped more of his coffee. But with crinkles around his eyes now. 

 It maybe wasn’t home. And he maybe wanted to get home to son more than anything. But it was a relief, a respite, and a hopeful sort of morning after the battle they’d fought the day before. After killing a goddess, and challenging Eos’ faith itself, Noctis Lucis Caelum was glad that his family was still the same as it always was.

 The last thing he wanted was for things to change in the House of Caelum.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...Why am I all wet?” Rexus mumbled tiredly later, after doing a few wakeup stretches, looking completely confused about his drenched pants, and socks that squeaked when he walked, and shoes that left puddles on the floor of the grotto wherever he went.

 And Regis turned to Clarus with the same sleepy energy to stick a thumb in his half-brother’s direction as fondly as he only ever could.

 “And you thought he was a threat.” 

 “Regis, please - “

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx woke up feeling hungover, sweet Ramuh have mercy, and was sore and nauseous with the most pounding headache ever - so yes, hungover. As was the side effect of falling into stasis. He hadn’t paid a ton of attention to how much magic he was using the day before, during the chaos of the battle. He had just felt…so much more magic? At his fingertips, like his magic reserves were deeper than ever and he hadn’t had to pay as much attention or be careful about it.

 He also hadn’t paid a ton of attention to how many ethers he had summoned and crushed in his fist before plunging his kukris into the soft spot of another and another and another enemy’s armor.

 He was paying for it now.

 He remembered slipping into a cot with his star the night before, after hours of helping bind wounds and deliver messages around Cape Caem and sorting out the hunters with Captain Drautos - and then he remembered being shaken awake sometime before the sun rose again by the captain. To deal with a meeting between him and the other Lieutenants. 

 And now he got to wake - hungover - plastered half across Axis and half across Luche, in a mound of other Glaives that had crashed wherever there was space as the night turned darker and darker.

 And he regretted everything.

 He also regretted nothing.

 Prayers to Ramuh that morning, by him and his tired, tired people, were more hushed than they usually would be after a victorious battle. But watching a divine being be killed by their own royals would do that to them. Nyx knew some felt wary. He knew some were unsettled by the power the Lucis Caelums held, and that they had been reminded of that in a deeply visceral way after watching that battle.

 But the Stormfather had stood on their side.

 So Nyx simply prayed. Thanking his god for rewarding his faith.

 Off to go find his inlustris with a toothbrush shoved in his mouth and no idea where his pants had wound up, but that was fine.

 When he found his star down in the cape’s grotto, he kissed him anyways.

 It tasted like clay toothpaste.

 It tasted like unconditional love.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Cape Caem had served them well. Had held up against the night, and the daemons lurking in that night. But they had to go home now. They wanted to go home now. Theirs was a ‘war’ camp with lots of sleepy faces, and half-dressed soldiers, and royals who looked worn down but still strong despite battling an Astral the day before. Theirs was a camp on the cape, where Regis Lucis Caelum stood on a small porch, its wood peeling and weathered, with his younger brother and son beside him as he thanked those soldiers for their service.

 His Kingsglaive, and his Crownsguard.

 Those hunters of Leide and Duscae.

 Retinue.

 Under the shimmer in the sky that was the Wall, raised up to cover Lucis once more, Regis gave them all his genuine thanks for meeting Tenebrae on the battlefield. Even if it was only for a single battle, and even if their losses were thankfully few, he thanked them as heartfelt as he ever had during the war with the Empire. Rexus nodded, still mostly a stranger to these people so he was fine fading into the background. Noctis?

 Noctis wrung his hands just a little and tried to meet every set of eyes he could to give them his gratitude by nodding. It was still hard to do that for the Crownsguard, but his Kingsglaive? Nyx’s Kingsglaive? That was easy. The hunters weren’t so bad either, because they were Prom’s.

 Prom, who he went to after.

To give the biggest hug he could, and get squeezed extra tightly in response as they just clung onto each other a little. Missed each other a little. Said goodbye to each other, finally back in those places in each other’s life.
 
 Pressing their foreheads together, Noctis whispered, “Tell Cindy I said hi. And the babies too.” 

 “I will,” Prom whispered right back, smiling crooked and freckled and with an old love in his expression, as the hunters started packing up their gear and four-wheelers to head on home now, “And you. Give Ori a big squeeze for me, okay? Send him Sterling’s love too. We need to have a day when you two come by and visit us, ya hear?” 

 “‘Ya hear,’” Noctis joked softly, poking fun at the Leide accent his best friend had picked up, and Prom gave him a little shove and a lovely laugh - and then they pulled away from each other. The raven-haired royal took a step back. Right into Nyx’s chest, and his amatus immediately wrapped an arm around his waist as he grinned at his star’s Heart.

 “If you need any help from any Glaives, just let me know,” Nyx offered, waving a hand in a general motion, “Always happy to help out you hunters. You, specifically, too. We miss having you around our shooting ranges, Angel.” 

 “Miss having your records broken, I think you mean,” the blonde teased, reaching for his thigh holsters to adjust them, and waving to the hunters beckoning him away. Beckoning him home. His smile was a little melancholic after that, turning back to them, but it was also so clear that Prompto Argentum wouldn’t trade his life of now for anything, “You two. Take care of yourselves, okay? Take care of each other.” 

 Noctis tipped his head to look up at Nyx.

 And Nyx tipped his head to look down at him.

 Beard brushed beard, and the royal giggled just a bit at the sensation, and before they knew it? Both Prince and Glaive were grinning at each other like a young couple more in love with each other than historians would ever be able to describe in a hundred years. 

 “<Always.>”

 “Of course,” Noctis said at the same time as Nyx, and it made the both of them chuckle.

 When they turned back to that best friend of his who had never really changed, Prompto had a camera suddenly in his hands, in front of his face, finger on the shutter button like it was his only mission in life. The way he lowered it with a bashful smirk just made Noctis grin. And grab for the camera, which he got with a quick, “Hey, Noct!”

 “Tredd!” He shouted to a nearby, familiar redhead, “Catch!”

 The camera was caught. Of course it was.

 And Noctis Lucis Caelum threw an arm over his best friend’s shoulders, dragging Nyx alongside him by his hip this time, pressing the three of them together as his Heart threw back his head to laugh and Nyx pressed his nose happily into raven hair with a grin, and all of them looked at the camera with bright eyes as Tredd lifted it.

 And took a picture with the lighthouse of Cape Caem in the background.

 In the end, they were all glad for where they’d ended up.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Crown City was waiting.

 Insomnia was waiting.

 Home was waiting, and Lucis’ forces packed up Cape Caem by midmorning to be homeward bound.

 Even a war that had only lasted a single day felt like too long for too many of them.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Crown City was celebrating. Insomnia was full of cheers. Home was a place, a city, overflowing with Lucian citizens raising signs with supportive messages and throwing bouquets of flowers onto the streets and kids skipping school for the day to run alongside the royal convoy. Waving and swinging their bags around, laughing, excited. It was a far cry from so much of the reactions the royal family had gotten in the past, during the war with the Empire. Until that war was done. Until they were victorious.

 Eos knew Lucis, knew the House of Caelum, had crushed Tenebrae’s attack - invasion - in less than a day’s time. 

 They knew that their losses had been minimal. They knew that there had been a cost, but not to Lucis itself. 

 They knew it had cost Eos Leviathan. There were already photographs circulating; photographers who had gone to take pictures of the finished battlefield. Of the Tidemother’s corpse left to rot just inside the Wall. Which, the Wall. A whole other shock and awe and scandal for Eos. It had disappeared from around the Citadel in an instant, and then burst anew to cover far, far, far more of the kingdom than it had in generations. Reports were rolling in that Clarus got calls about, that he then delivered to his king.

 Reports that the Wall covered Lucis coast to border.

 And not just Lucis.

 The Shield looked pointedly at Nyx, still feeling somewhat awkward riding with royalty, when he reported that the Wall apparently covered the Storm Islands off the coast too. Which had also not happened for generations. But meant so much more, in light of the last war, of Little Galahd and the Kingsglaive and Nyx -

 Nyx slipped from the car seat in his shock, to kneel in front of his star and take his hands and kiss each knuckle, honored. And in love.

 And worried, but his inlustris’ eyes were clear. Gentle. So the Ulric Chieftain did not blanket those worries on his dearly beloved right now. He just drew his thumbs across the knuckles he’d kissed, so scarred and so bony, and made sure Noctis knew he was grateful. The actual consequences of the Wall covering all of Lucis and Galahd again, he was aware, would be great. 

 His Majesty was already talking quietly with Lord Amicitia about trade agreements and the concerns about Lucian citizens being trapped outside of their own kingdom.

 But the Wall. His star had raised it.

 Had raised it to protect all of their homes.

 So Nyx just showed his gratitude for that in all his little kisses, and his decision to give inlustris another bead from his hair. Another addition to his braid. It was pale, opal, a lot like the Wall. It was a bead to show his inlustris was a protector, and he climbed back onto the seat to braid it into that raven hair as they finished the drive back to the Citadel.

 All was well.

 All was better.

 Nyx let himself be dropped off with his fellow Kingsglaive at the entrance of the Kingsglaive Complex, kissing his star’s palm one final time, letting it linger with the look between them before he climbed out of the car and joined his fellow soldiers in celebrating. In getting their injured into the complex’s hospital. In planning which bars they’d be storming tonight.

 All was better.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ignis was waiting on the steps of the Citadel for them. Which wasn’t strange, Noctis thought, with their royal-black cars full of said royals approaching him. Approaching home. His once-Hand looked as perfectly composed as always. Put together and calmly waiting there for their cars to come to a stop. So…the raven-haired royal never considered anything might be wrong.

 Until Uncle Cor stepped out to hold the car door open, and Noctis slid himself across the seat to climb out, and he realized when he was half-out of the car.

 Ignis was alone.

 And he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

 Noctis paused. Scanning the Citadel steps. Dad hummed curiously behind him, asking without the words if he was alright, a hand smoothing up and down his back. And blue-blue eyes noticed, noticed Uncle Cor also was slightly tense, also was scanning the Citadel steps. And he heard Uncle Clarus, behind his dad and him, asking where Gladio was.

 What none of them said, what all of them noticed -

 Oriens wasn’t there.

 Noctis moved faster than his magic was almost prepared for. The blue of King’s Magic twisted tighter around his legs as he rushed from the car, heading straight towards his Iggy with the root of fear growing in his heart, his hope, his sanity. His son wasn’t there. His son wasn’t there. Where was he? Where - 

 “Where’s Ori?” The question came out as harsh as he was capable of sounding, after so long, after a day, without his son in sight.

 When Iggy dropped those eyes of his that Noct remembered being so fond of because they always looked him in the eye, unlike so many people, he was ready to kill more gods. He extended his arms. Grabbed Iggy by his forearms before he could bow, before he could put anything above his son, and he held on. He held on.

 With more force than he’d held onto that slippery Astral the day prior.

 “Iggy.” 

 “There was…a situation. He’s safe,” Ignis Scientia had the sense to swiftly say, before magic could rip him to shreds, loved or not by Noctis Lucis Caelum - nothing was enough protection when a Lucis Caelum thought their child was in danger, “He’s fine. He’s in his rooms. There’s no danger, as far as we yet know.” 

 “Then what,” and Dad was here, Dad would help handle it, Noctis knew in his heart, but he still held on tight to his Iggy until he had his answers because if he let go the Citadel might not survive his rampage to get to his son, “has happened?” 

 Iggy hesitated.

 Noctis curled his fingers in, feeling the magic like electricity curling around his teeth.

 “Somehow,” his Hand, his Iggy told him in the gentlest voice he’d only ever had for two. For his Noct and Ori. Reaching up just as gently to clasp onto the frantic father’s wrists. Even though he was addressing the King now, not Noctis, his eyes on his dad told him that much. Full of hidden meaning, “His Highness…managed to get ahold of, and watch, a certain documentary while you were gone, Your Majesty. He is…very upset. With all of us.” 

 Dad let out a strangled sort of noise.

 “He’s refusing to leave his father’s rooms,” he continued, massaging Noctis’ wrists still so gently, “He’s also very adamant about the fact that he’ll only see Noct. Nobody else.” 

 Dad let out a second noise, that sounded more understanding this time, if upset? Was his dad upset? 

 Noctis wondered that, but more than that? 

 He wondered more, wondered out loud too, “What documentary?” 

 And everyone cringed on the steps of the Citadel.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...There was a documentary…about my time in that place.” 

 “Noctis, sweetheart - “

 

 

-----

 

 

 A documentary. About that time, those ten years, where he was imprisoned in that place. Mistveil Keep. A documentary that had gone viral. Had been famous across all of Eos. Watched by millions and millions. A documentary his dad had allowed to exist, to put a stop to wild rumors; to allow something that was at least mostly factual answer the people’s questions. It had been calculated, and oh - it wasn’t that Noctis couldn’t tell his dad regretted it. Regretted that it’d been necessary.

 But he still felt…icky, about it. Like he hadn’t been allowed to bathe in too long.

 His son had gotten ahold of it. Had watched it.

 Part of Noctis needed to watch it too. Needed to see what was said, what his son had heard. Part of him never wanted to think about it again. The part of him that knew he would set back his healing by months if he watched it. If he didn’t take it, allow it, and then let it go. Let it all go. How could he? His Ori had watched a documentary about his abuse.

 His dad, father, the whole way - Dad was apologizing softly to him. Holding his hand in an even more worn and wrinkled hand. Explaining his reasoning. 

 Reasoning backed up by his uncles, by everyone except Uncle Rexus who had politely gone his own way when Noctis got uncomfortable. Needed more space, less people. Though it was obvious enough just at a glance that his dad’s half-brother wasn’t exactly approving of his dad’s actions. Which helped. A little. Somebody who didn’t say ‘it was for the best’.

 Despite so much of his family being around him.

 He felt lonely, heading to his son’s rooms.

 They were on his side. Of course they were on his side. Of course he never doubted that truth for even a second. They would kill for him, live for him, die for him. They would destroy other lands for him, for his son. But they would also do what was best for him, regardless if he was alright with that or not. Or if he agreed. They would put him first even above himself. So he felt lonely.

 There were two Glaives guarding his royal rooms. He recognized them. They were Ulrics. 

 They bowed deeply at the sight of Nyx’s amatus stalking towards them. They also made themselves scarce. Kingsglaive were very good about doing that. Recognizing when there was a family matter to be dealt with, and dipping. He appreciated it, he did. He appreciated it so much, he did. He took a deep breath. Dad urged him to wait, to talk, to -

 Magic sought magic.

 He sensed his son beyond those doors.

 The doors were being thrown open by two different sets of desperate King’s Magic before Lucis’ King could finish his sentence. There was a boy there. Just a boy. He was almost ten now, wasn’t he? Noctis stretched out his arms, reached for him, and had barely taken two steps before his son had warped and was leaping up into his embrace. Scrambling to hold onto any bit of his father he could. Making tiny noises, and clinging to him like a burr. Like he never planned to let go again.

 Noctis clung to him too.

 He had killed a goddess, and still this was a more incredible moment to him than the Tidemother’s death could ever be.

 “Ori, I’m back,” he choked out, choking on the desperation of twenty-four hours - not even that long - of not seeing his child. He pressed his hands wherever he could. Pressed kisses wherever he could as well, “I’m back, baby, I’m back. It’s okay. It’s all okay.” 

 Noctis swore he’d never let go of his son.

 Then, Ori wiggled.

 And he of course let go of him because that was what his son seemed to want, though he still kept him close to his hip, still ran his fingers through very messy hair that hadn’t been brushed that day, still scanned over his boy, still held him, thinking nothing of the way those eyes like his shifted past him and narrowed and locked onto family -

 Locked onto Dad.

 The way Ori puffed up and wrapped his arms around his dad’s leg.
 
 The way he squeezed his eyes tightly shut when he opened his mouth to scream.

 “I HATE YOU!”

 Noctis watched his dad’s heart break before his eyes. The heart of this son dropped too, hearing that. Seeing the way his dad’s eyes widened, then turned so pained, so bright with tears a king isn’t supposed to shed, the way he leaned heavier on his cane and looked like he just wanted to cry and hug Oriens and nothing more.

 And Noctis found himself grabbing Ori by the shoulder, firmer than he’d ever been before with his son, to keep him from trying to drag them both into his bedroom and locking the door.

 Pushing him towards his heartbroken dad with a sharp-toned, “Oriens Lucis Caelum! Apologize!” 

 Because that was his dad. That was his dad, and that was his son’s dad too. Because he hadn’t been there. Because Oriens had nobody else. And his dad had wanted to die and all he had at that time was Ori, and Leviathan herself had not terrified Noctis the way this moment did where he had to watch his son’s face screw up, splotchy and red and emotional, had to watch his dad start to murmur reassurances that that wasn’t necessary -

 Had to stand there and watch his sweet son burst in hiccuping tears.

 Heartbroken too. He was heartbroken too. His sweet, sweet son was heartbroken too, and Noctis hadn’t even seen it. This son’s heart didn’t just drop, realizing that. It fell into a chasm so deep and so dark Noctis wasn’t sure how he was supposed to fish it out. That chasm cut. Deeply. It filled him with coldness, starting somewhere in his chest and radiating outward. To all his body.

 He couldn’t even feel his hand on Oriens’ shoulder.

 He could only see his son crying. Truly, loudly, crying - so many tears. Hiccuping.

 In a way and at a volume he’d never seen or heard before.

 His son.

 His little dawnlight.

 His Oriens.

 It took a while for Noctis to realize he was crying too. And not silently, like he usually would. He was on his knees on a tiled floor. Unable to hold onto his magic. Unable to hold onto himself. Those doors had been closed. And it was just him, and it was just Ori crawling over to him, putting small hands on his thigh to rock back and forth like he was trying to shake his dad out of this episode of his.

 But he couldn’t. Because he was crying. His Ori was crying. There were tears shimmering on his cheeks. The whole world, it was wrong now. It was too cruel.

 “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy - Daddy, I’m sorry, I’msosososorry, please! Please!”

 Everything was wrong.

 His son was crying.

 His son was hurting.

 His son had learned to hate.

 His son. 

 His - 

…

 Magic had forced away King. Retinue. All. Sent them stumbling. And with a strength he hadn’t known he held, Oriens had tugged his dad backwards steps and steps by the sleeve. Magic slammed the doors to Dad’s rooms shut. Magic locked those doors. Magic made sure nobody would be able to force their way inside, because Dad was crying and Ori had to fix it. He had to fix it. He had to make it better, because he hadn’t helped his dad at all, just left him in that awful place, had been born - how dare he have been born?

 Dad crumpled.

 Oriens crumpled too, babbling words he didn’t hear, crying tears he didn’t feel, pawing at his dad to be hugged. A hug he got. Dad curling around him on the tiled floor so firmly, rocking them, hiccuping and apologizing.

 One of them. Both of them. Apologizing. 

 One of them. Both of them. Thinking of a certain place not even their worst enemies deserved.

 One of them. Both of them, sons of Regis Lucis Caelum.

 Apologizing for being born.

 Sons of the Father.

 Who hated and loved him more than anyone else ever had or will.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Clarus pressed two tiny pills into his palm. Regis swallowed them without water. Or thought. Or care. Stuck in place, sat in a chair across the hall from his son’s rooms, that his Shield had pushed him down into earlier. So firm and so carefully calm and barking orders to Crownsguard on a phone call - but Lucis’ King heard none of it. All he heard was one thing. Three words. Shouted by his grandson, his second son, their dear Oriens.

 Sweet Six - Ramuh, Titan - what had he done?

 Oriens had shut the doors. Locked them too. Locked them out, crying, like Noctis was, both of his boys were hurting and he couldn’t do anything about it. Not without invading the ‘safe space’ his Oriens had set up. Because that was inarguably what it was meant to be. A safe space. For him and his father. 

 Because this wasn’t just Ori rebelling, or being upset, this was Ori learning what it meant to be a Lucis Caelum.

 To feel that soul-deep desperation to protect family. To protect his father. Even if it meant protecting Noctis from Regis himself…because Oriens knew now. Why he’d grown up without a father himself. Without a mother. With only Regis, surrounded by whispers and side-eying guards, confused and full of questions but told not to be curious. Not about this.

 There was no happily ever after at the end of that line of questioning.

 Until there was, until Noctis was here and home and healing, and then this old king had thought so foolishly they could push away what was. And never look back. He had thought so foolishly they would never need to tell Oriens of how they had failed his father. How they had hurt him. How they had broken him, and were just now barely finding enough pieces of him to put back together again.

 He should’ve known.

 He should’ve known.

 He stared at those doors, and felt he should’ve done better by his boys.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens put his dad to bed. Because he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do, and the soft, silkiness of the bedsheets always seemed to help when Dad went all quiet and glassy-eyed. So he put his dad to bed. With his favorite plushie of Carbuncle and the chocobo one Grandpa had won for him too. Wiping the tears from his eyes with his sleeve, and wiping the tears from Dad’s eyes with a handkerchief. Dad hadn’t known about the documentary.

 Dad hadn’t known about the documentary.

 Uncle Cor had told him that, rushed to say that, just before the doors closed.

 Oriens was on a constant flutter around his dad’s rooms, double-checking that the doors were locked, that Dad wasn’t hungry, that Dad wasn’t sad, that Dad wasn’t trying to find the documentary when he left him alone because that would just make Dad sad again and that was the last thing Ori would ever want -

 His intentions hadn’t been to tell his dad about the documentary. He’d thought Dad already knew. He’d thought -

 He didn’t want to subject Dad to that. It was sad. It was so, so sad. Ori had spent hours and hours crying over it last night already. Hours and hours, and then morning had come, and his face had been all red and puffy, and Uncle Iggy had come to ready him for the day but…he’d been so upset. So angry. None of them, not one, had defended his dad. None of them had saved him from that awful, awful place.

 The weird man had disappeared at some point the night before, and the visit from a goddess was the last thing in this princeling’s mind as he took care of his dad.

 Who was fighting to stay here for him.

 Fighting so hard.

 He could tell. He understood better now, than he had a year ago, why his dad was hurting so very much. Why he went away sometimes. Why he couldn’t handle life sometimes.

 That just meant the little, raven-haired prince had to take care of him, didn’t it?
 
 So he took care of him. In the quiet, simple, sad darkness of his dad’s bedroom. Scrambling up onto Dad’s big bed, all soft with fresh sheets he’d smoothed out that morning, running his small hands through Dad’s hair like he always did for him. And laying beside him in the dark, mumbling sorries and pressing kisses to Dad’s forehead like he always did for him, because it made him feel better so maybe it would make Dad feel better too -

 Until Dad started dozing. He could tell because his breaths went all shallow, and his head lolled, and he laid there for a long time.

 A long time.

 Eventually, though, the low chirp of the couerl sat like a sentry watching over their bed drew him from it. And he crawled off. And he went over to his fellow cub, where he could slip to his knees easily and hug Shadow tight. So tight! And press his whole face into his super soft fur. And hide from it all. All the mistakes he and his grandpa had made.

 “Shadow, what do I do?” He mumbled into the mouthful of fur his face was pressed to, squeezing his eyes shut. 

And that was when he heard it. The quiet clack. Of something hitting the window. Which had him lifting his head and frowning at said window; the tall, arched windows of Dad’s balcony. Hidden by the curtains he’d dragged in front of them.

 Shadow’s tail swished. Ears perked forward.

 Clack. Something else hit the window.

 Shadow rose to his big paws, the prince sliding off of his silky-soft fur, and padded over to the curtains. Nosing at them curiously. Investigating. And Ori glanced back to check his dad was still asleep, before he also crawled over to join the coeurl cub. Cautiously pulling at the blackout curtains just a bit. So he could peer out and learn if it was a bird pecking at the window or -

 Clack.

 Ori flinched a little when a tiny pebble bounced against the glass right in front of his nose.

 Nobody was on the balcony. 

 Considering his options carefully, Ori shared a look with Shadow. And Shadow shared a look with him. And he reached up slowly to pull on the door handle overhead, disappearing completely behind the curtains and out of the room with the balcony doors being pushed open just enough for him to crawl outside. Shadow prowling low beside him.

 Boy and couerl crept over to the edge of the balcony. Then peeked out past the stone slabs of the railing, down, into the snowy Citadel garden below. 

 Where a certain Kingsglaive was standing, gazing up at them with a tiny, barely-there smile.

 “Papai,” Oriens murmured before the thought had registered and could be resolutely dragged back into the shadows of his mind. And his face pinked. A child’s half-realized dream spoken aloud, when he’d still been working up to that point, and worst of all Nyx was down there and his smile became so much wider and warmer because he’d clearly heard the princeling say that in surprise.

 Say ‘father’ in Galahdian. 

 Because…it was Nyx.

 “Hey there, mane,” Nyx said in a soft tone of voice up to him, completely at ease, and completely warm in a way that made the princeling press into the railing’s stone edges, trying to hide from sight while still being able to see the Glaive his dad loved, “Tenebris,” Shadow chirped, “Is your dad with you?

 “Dad’s asleep,” Ori whispered down to Nyx, still pink-faced from calling Nyx his dad like that, “Were you throwing pebbles at the window?” 

 “Yeah, sorry about that. I was worried about you three,” a third head popped through the railing to peer down at Nyx with a very royal purr, white and fluffy and the Glaive corrected himself, “Four. Sorry about that, Princess. Do you mind if I come join you?” 

 The raven-haired prince frowned in thought, reaching over to pet Aurora’s fluffy ears and fluffier tail that was like a feather duster the housekeepers used to clean in the Citadel. She was just so floofy. And clearly here to investigate why the balcony doors had been left slightly open, losing interest and padding off. Back into Dad’s bedroom no doubt. Probably to take a nap beside him.

 Ori turned so he was nose to nose with Shadow’s nose, staring into violet eyes. Trying to find his answer there. On one hand, Nyx hadn’t protected his dad either, had he. On the other, Nyx could answer his questions about the Wall, about the battle, about whether or not Dad knew about the documentary. Maybe clarify a few things too that that documentary hadn’t been super clear on.

 Plus, Dad loved him.

 They wore his beads as a show of that love.

 That had to mean something, didn’t it? So Ori leaned through the railing a little further, confused why it made Nyx so tense as he leaned out to tell him, “You can come up. But only you.” 

 No more needed to be said. The Ulric Chieftain pulled a kukri from thin air and casually tossed it up, over the balcony’s railing. Following in a warp that chimed and chimed and chimed, and ended with his boots slightly scuffing the sunny tiles of the balcony. Ori and Shadow sat on them. Staring at him with all the warning kids, cubs, could summon.

 Nyx was examining him. Obviously. Ori didn’t mind. Much. He just lifted his chin a little, frowned a little, puffed up a little. Some of his magic made an appearance too. A reminder that he was a Lucis Caelum, that he could defend his dad too. And instead of seeming uncomfortable over that the way some people were? King’s Magic and the power of royalty - ?

 Nyx grinned even more for real, and knelt down low. 

 Making a rumbling noise in his throat that Shadow chirped at him for, and that - for some reason - made Oriens relax. Weird. But…it was nice, too.

 When Nyx offered him a hand, a big hand, full of big scars and magic burns, Ori placed his smaller hand in it. 

 And he held on, when Nyx helped him to his feet, and they went to peek in on his dad.

 The anxiety of a child led to the princeling pressing closer to Nyx’s hip. Hiding a bit in the fabric of his half-uniform. Wondering if he’d done things too wrongly while his dad’s boyfriend leaned into the bedroom, holding aside the heavy curtains like they weighed nothing, stared at Dad for a long moment…

 Then let the curtains fall back over the frosted windows, and ruffled a hand through Ori’s messy hair that shook him like a startled chocochick.

 “You did good, mane.” 

 Oriens wrapped both of his arms around Nyx’s waist and squeezed. He was warm.

 “I…have questions,” he mumbled, unsure how that curiosity of his would be received, but his hair was simply ruffled again. Slower this time. Gentler.

 “I’ll answer what I can, but I wasn’t really important enough back then to know all that much, filius.” 

 With a tiny nod, Ori showed he understood that. He was just trembling with the relief of maybe getting some answers finally. And from being told he took care of his dad good. He did good. He did good. He’d do better in the future, but for now, he was just so relieved to be told he did good he melted into Nyx’s side as much as he could.

 Nyx, who called him ‘son’.

It wasn’t the worst. It wasn’t the worst at all. Even if it was chilly out. Cause it was winter. 
 
 “Oh, Nyx?” The princeling then said, in a half-forgotten reminder. Pulling back and pulling from his Armiger crystal fractals and a kukri. Nyx’s kukri. That he had given him before going off to a war that lasted only a day. He offered it up, a little unsure if Nyx’s former offer still stood after he had acted so childishly in so many ways, “This…?” 

 Part of him, the part of him that was Lucis’ Crown Prince, expected Nyx to take the kukri back. Along with his offer to train together.

 Instead, Nyx’s lips curled upward. And he took a knee in front of the boy. And he reached out, to curl Ori’s fingers back over the hilt of the kukri. Holding them. So gently, with all the care of a man who knew how easily children could be killed by a soldier’s hands, “Keep it, mane. We’ll train together when this is sorted out. It was my promise to you, and I’d like you to keep it for me until then.” 

 Staring down at his faint reflection in the dark blade, the blue-blue of his eyes were still pretty clear there.

 And so was the motion of his smile, as Ori nodded happily, “Mhm!” 

 And held the kukri back to his chest. Because it was a promise, from the man his dad loved to love.

 So Ori loved him too.

 “How about we get you some hot chocolate, mane, and you can ask me whatever you need to? Hm? I’m sure there’s some in your dad’s kitchen.” 

 “Okay,” Oriens agreed, took Nyx’s hand again like it was the easiest thing in the world, and surrendered to his fate of hot chocolate and snuggles and sad questions that needed to be asked in the other room. Trusting. That this man would take care of not just him, but his dad too, so it was going to be okay. Somehow. 

 It was going to be okay, because he had both of his dads.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ignis was very close to swiping everything off of his carefully organized desk in a fit of…something. A fit. He was very, very close to that. Even though he knew it would only make everything worse as well. They had been doing so well. That disgusting documentary though, it had ruined so much. Had hurt Ori -

 Upset Noct -

 Had cost him another prince - ?

 Ignis took a deep breath. And caught himself. And silently shifted away from his desk to pick up his phone…and make a call to his therapist. Because that was what he was supposed to do in situations like this. And King Regis had given him leave to delegate anything he needed to in cases of an emergency therapy session. Gladio would help, he was sure. Because…he needed this, and…it wasn’t a flaw, or a fault. It was healthy.

 For him, and for those crown princes he had raised. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was a Shield standing guard outside of royal rooms.

 Gladio wasn’t going anywhere, and just stayed there, hands folded behind his back, listening through the doors to the occasional, muffled sound of a Glaive and royal talking. His place? Was wherever he was needed.

 This was where he was needed. So he stood guard.

 And waited.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was much to handle. More than much, to be honest. Not that Regis wished to be honest if it meant leaving his boys be when he needed to be there for them. But they had Gladiolus on guard for now. And they had Nyx with them for now. And they had Tenebris too, which, was something. Even if his grandson had locked those rooms down for anyone else. Even so. 

 There was much to handle. So much, that Clarus was pressing papers into his hands even as he apologetically herded Regis from that chair across the hall.

 The logistics of war, even a war that had lasted only the one day, were harsh. 

 There was Tenebrae’s official message, accepting their defeat in a single paragraph. No apologies. No honorifics either. No mention of their losses, or the Tidemother. Just an acknowledgement that Lucis had halted their invasion, had fully kept their claim of the Nox Fleuret heir, and that Tenebrae begged mercy. But it was stated so emotionlessly in the message too, that Regis had a feeling a whole kingdom had lost heart thanks to the House of Caelum.

 He would not apologize.

 But he did, tentatively, offer reparations and a reworking of their treaties in his message back. 

 Maybe it was his fool’s heart. But, Tenebrae was still also his grandson’s kingdom to claim one day. If he could support it, just a little, to stop his grandson from having to rebuild a completely broken kingdom in the future, he had to try. And in the end? Tenebrae was the easy part of things to handle.

 There was the Wall, which now covered all of Lucis, and had led to so many messages from their allies and trade partners, not to mention notices from citizens stuck outside the kingdom until they spoke to Noctis and taught him to create specific entrances for those who needed to come and go. There was word of fear from Accordo, careful consideration from Niflheim, a lot of messages - surprisingly - from wildlife specialists about how the Wall would affect migration patterns and separate animals from their own habitats, which, was also a ruler’s responsibility to figure out a solution to.

 Not to mention the general question from the public if this meant they could stop daemons from forming within the Wall.

 Which was another question to take up with his son.

 And closer to home? There was the Kingsglaive. Who he’d certainly be honoring as their main fighting force, of course, naturally - but there were their losses. Not as many as it could’ve been. But they’d still lost twelve of their number, seven of them of the younger persuasion, and Regis mourned for them. Would need to publicly address that. Add them to the Kingsglaive memorial, of course. Plus there was the fact that many of them were reporting an increase in their magic, which had to be tied to Noctis now being their ‘battery’, and had to be looked into properly -

 More of a problem, were the complaints in regards to Titus.

 Who may have been pardoned, officially speaking, but who was not considered innocent by still a large number of the Glaives who were anonymously making that known. Regis wondered how long his request to keep the Kingsglaive Captain’s past as Glauca underwraps would hold. He was sure Little Galahd already knew. And Titus hadn’t left the Citadel much in the last month since that past of his was revealed…

 But.

 It was raising the question - with the complaints from Glaives who had even voted he be pardoned - of how long he could remain the Captain of the Kingsglaive.

 So.

 Yes.

 There was a lot to handle. And Regis was just trying to get through it all, meeting after meeting, report after report, councilmembers and Citadel departments hounding his heels, desperate for orders, to be told what to do, how to fix this even as the whole of Lucis celebrated so many things that were only possible because of his son and that didn’t even go into the extreme terror the religious of Eos were reacting with after learning of Leviathan’s death -

 And that the other Astrals had made appearances too.

 That Ramuh and Titan had supported his family, but Bahamut and Shiva had seemingly been opposed to them.

 He handled it all, though. So his boys wouldn’t have to.

 

 
-----

 

 

 Noctis woke up.

 A mug of warm, marshmallow-y hot chocolate was pressed into both of his hands so carefully, by the man he loved who was smiling so genuinely and softly at him in a dark room. Its smell alone was almost too rich for the royal. But he had Nyx curled around his upper body, and Oriens napping using his hip as a pillow, and he was still so tired. Didn’t want to think about why they’d ended up here.

 Didn’t want to think about anything, but the hot chocolate he got on his upper lip, that made Nyx chuckle.

 And lean in to lick it away, which made Noctis’ nose wrinkle up and the raven-haired man laugh, and made him shake, and made him glad and sad and sure.

 That he loved Nyx. And that they’d get through this. 

 He just needed a moment, and then he’d deal with everything else. After the hot chocolate.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rationally, not that he wanted to be that or listen to those thoughts, Regis was aware that it was for the best to let Oriens have his space. With his dad. And that things weren’t at a point where he needed to fear for either of his boys, especially since Cor had reported Glaive Ulric - dear Nyx - had been the only one allowed to enter, to check on his boys, but even then at least it was something and a sign that they were physically well since dear Nyx hadn’t called for a medical team but the fact they’d even come to this point - 

 “Reggie,” Clarus. So sure, so there, always. Hand firm on his shoulder, all his age and wrinkles and old love there too. It put a stop to that downward spiral Regis had started to slip down into with a swirling glass of something smooth and amber.

 The decanter was halfway empty. Ah.

 He set the bottom of the crystalline glass in Clarus’ palm so his Shield could take it away from him. 

 Could take the decanter too.

 He wasn’t yet at the point where his need for a drink to smooth over nerves was a problem, but they all still far too easily remembered after the war. After Noctis. After an unjust sentence, after Mistveil, when there were those long months between that and peace and Oriens’ birth and it…came close. Like he came close to digging his own grave.

 It was around this time of year back then, wasn’t it?

 Orien’s birthday was in a little more than a week. The Winter Solstice was at the end of the week, a little before that, wasn’t it? 

 The snows of Lucis’ deepest winter months battered the windows of his study, and his Shield came back after he’d swiveled his desk’s chair to stare out at them. Clarus’ hands found his shoulders. Massaging at them with old practice he sank into. Tipsy and sleepy and unsure. Such a far cry from how the morning had started out; so remarkably hopeful in the face of killing a goddess.

 “We need to plan for Ori’s birthday,” Lucis’ King murmured, feeling a chill even though the windows to his study were closed tight. Even though there was a fire in that old fireplace his father had always kept lit for him. For himself too. The cold, the aches, they sank so easily into the House of Caelum, didn’t they?

 “We’re keeping it simple this year, remember?” Clarus reminded him, moving his hands just so in a way that had his king groaning and nodding along mindlessly in sleepy contentment.

 That was stolen away with a reminder of the last thing his sweet grandson had said - shouted - at him.

 “He hates me,” Regis rasped to the snowfall, and his Shield rubbed a little more firmly at his shoulders, let his hands slip a little more, up the back of his king’s neck. Into his hair all greyed and silky-smooth. Running over his scalp, down the slender nape of his neck, an old familiarity there because they were old now. But they were still here. Together. King and Shield.

 “He’s upset, Reggie,” and because of that, Clarus gave him whatever reassurances he could think up. For his best friend, for his little brother, for his partner in life and death, his Reggie, “He’s learned something very, very scary. And very, very hard for a child of his age to comprehend. But he doesn’t hate you. He could never, Regis, never. Oriens loves you. You’re all he had for such a long time.” 

 Regis let out a wounded, tiny, muted noise at that. But it was the truth.

 It was the reason why he considered Oriens his son as much as he considered Noctis his.

 It was the reason he and his own son were both fathers to that son.

 “I had hoped…that dreadful documentary wouldn’t haunt us,” he whispered, to the sound of his study’s door nearly silently opening and closing again a second later. And Clarus shifted. But did not withdraw, did not let him go, did not leave him, so Regis knew it was somebody welcome and kept going, “I had hoped that dreadful documentary would disappear once it had done its part, and we’d never need to acknowledge it again. How did Ori even manage to watch it - ? Some of the subjects in it - oh. Oriens…”

 It had not been considered a concern for months and months, no matter how viral it had gone when it was first released. Spreading throughout Eos the way it had.

 But clearly they had been wrong to not lock it down better.

 “Regis,” thank certain Astrals for Cor, here, and circling around his desk to properly join his brothers, a handful of papers clutched in one fist without any care for how he was crinkling them, “about that - I think we need to look into it,” at Regis’ confused, tipsy sway of his upper body he elaborated, “How Oriens was able to watch the documentary.” 

 “Did you find out how?” Clarus asked, voice turning stern. And even Regis straightened up, in his tipsy state or not, thinking it so. Only for the both of them to end up baffled by the way their youngest brother made a negative motion with his hand before tossing his fistful of crinkled papers onto Regis’ desk without a second glance.

 “No. And that’s the point,” Cor growled, plopping down cross-legged right there on the rug at Regis’ feet, scowling up at him the most exaggerated not-a-pout-this-is-serious look they had seen a while, “I thought maybe Sterling had hacked into his electronics for him again, so he could watch it. But I just got off the phone with Prompto and he swears on everything in Eos that Sterling hasn’t done that since…he accidentally revealed to Oriens Queen Lunafreya’s fate.” 

 All three of them winced, guilty still over how that had ended up being handled in the chaos after the Havens stopped working and Tenebrae’s Queen was killed.

 “I had our tech people confirm it too,” Cor continued seriously, vaguely referring to the Crown’s electronic experts they kept in the Citadel’s basement like lab rats surrounded by their favorite enrichment items, “His electronics weren’t hacked. But - I had Dustin search his rooms.”

 He held out both his hands, empty when he moved them into place in front of him, then there were the crystal fractals of the Armiger being used.

 And Regis’ Sword was holding out a nondescript laptop.

 One he had never seen before and did not look Crown-issued, but had been in his boy’s rooms.

 “He found this,” Cor said, eyes sharp and creased with how his brows were furrowed together, frustrated. And sobering for this King of Lucis. Who reached out to take the laptop as seriously as this situation deserved, feeling like he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol at all that night with Clarus leaning over his shoulder as he opened the unknown electronic up, “I had him bring that to our tech people too, and it’s not ours. It’s not even a personal laptop to an employee of the Crown or Citadel, so Oriens didn’t steal it. By all their accounts, it’s a burner laptop that never should’ve ended up in the Citadel at all.” 

 “A ‘burner’?” Regis repeated, frowning when the laptop instantly booted up without any need for a password. Any personalization at all. It seemed like a completely default device. And that was all.

 “There’s nothing on it,” his Sword confirmed, suspicion in the way he waved his hands accusingly at it, more frustration too, “Except for three things. The search history for the documentary, the documentary’s video on Kwehtoo, and then multiple Moogle searches about Noctis’ false imprisonment and innocence being proven. Which we can assume was all Oriens.” 

 “So where did the laptop come from?” Clarus asked what all three of them were wondering.

 Cor’s lips flattened together. He didn’t have an answer. None of them did. 

 “The security cameras in his rooms malfunctioned around the time the search history says he watched the documentary and started to Moogle information on the trial and Mistveil,” the Sword said unhappily, and Regis the rather sinking feeling low in his gut that they were missing something important, “We’re still looking into it.” 

 Regis also got the rather sinking feeling low in his gut that they’d need to ask his grandson if they wanted to know what they were missing.

 Which meant he couldn’t give his boys as much space as he’d hoped he could.

 “Please tell the boys I’ll want to talk to them tomorrow morning,” the Father commanded, staring at an entirely blameless laptop that he gripped tighter - and tighter and tighter and tighter, “Tell them…that I love them, and that it is important.” 

 Tighter.

 And the laptop cracked and snapped and broke under the grip of a king and his magic. Plastic casing and circuits and pieces falling all over his lap and study’s rug. Thankfully, his father had taught him not to mind when things got a little messy for the sake of the family.

 They had already killed the Tidemother.

 There was little else Regis Lucis Caelum wouldn’t kill to ensure his sons were both safe in the walls of their own home now.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The day passed into night.

 And the winter night was chillier than usual.

 And the Winter Solstice was on its way.

 And, two dads, laying with their son, to tell him something of a story about innocence being stolen. As much as a child could understand it. 

 

 
-----

 

 

 The House of Caelum. Divided. A horror story for history. Past examples of it were parent against child, brother against brother, Lucis against itself, against others. This example of it was a desk. Between them. While they were sitting on either side, in the far too formal office of Regis’ decorated for meetings between guests, councilmembers, not family.

And yet.

 Regis sat behind his desk, drinking in the sight of his boys after a day apart with his eyes, with all the need of a man thirsting in the harsh desert. Rexus stood beside him. Despite his concerns that this wasn’t his place, that he would be intruding on private matters. As if he weren’t a brother. As if he weren’t family who had fought beside them. As if he hadn’t also said with those eyes of their father’s that he would come if Regis needed the support.

 He needed it, so here they were. 

 Behind that desk, with Noctis and Oriens sat opposite them. In two chairs in front of that desk.

The desk between them held treat platters that nobody was going to touch in a horrible offense to dear Ignis’ baking abilities, but that couldn’t be helped. Not this time.

 An outsider would look at this scene and think this an argument between a father and a son, about how his grandson was being raised or something similar. An argument between Regis and Noctis. 

 But not this time.

 This time, all of Regis’ attention as the Father and the King of Lucis was fixed onto his dear grandson. Who was dressed all proper, and sat up with his shoulders back. Head high. Hands clasped impersonally over his lap, staring at his grandfather with a challenge in his gaze Regis would be proud to see in any other situation…was a bit proud of regardless. Look at him. Their baby boy.

 So protective over his dad. So grown up. 

 By comparison, Noctis was withdrawn next to his son. Was carding bony fingers through his raven hair. Slow. Steady. In a rhythm. Eyes going nowhere else besides his son and his tiny movements; twitches and tenses and pursing lips he kept thinning as he recalled his etiquette lessons no doubt, oh, how could Regis not be proud? Of either of them?

 No matter the situation, both of his sons were so strong. So brave. So driven.

 But both of his sons had also been hurt.

 And Oriens Lucis Caelum was looking at his grandfather, and his half-uncle, and all of his other uncles with eyes of distrust.

 “Ori,” his dad spoke up, soft and voice rough with emotions he could no longer hide as easily from a child who had learned things, “it’s alright. It’s alright. They didn’t know any better. They - they’ve apologized. For so many things.” 

 Ori shut down that reassurance with one stern question.

 “Have you accepted their apology?”

 Noctis Lucis Caelum pressed his lips together. There were tiny scars around the edges of them. There were tiny scars all over his skin. And less tiny ones too. And as an answer, he had only silence, because he could still feel every one of those scars. He averted his eyes. To look at the rug beneath their shoes, to keep carding his fingers through his son’s hair and nothing else. Nothing else.

That was an answer as clear as one screamed.

 Ori puffed up in indignation because he knew that answer.

 “Why would they ever believe you could do such a thing?!” The princeling’s voice turned shrill, sent his family wincing with his realization that this world was unfair and unkind, “It was obvious you wouldn’t! Didn’t! You were so sad, Dad! You were so sad!” 

“Because people who act sad don’t always mean it, Oriens,” Noctis reminded him, solemn, “People can pretend to be sad to get out of trouble for bad things they do.” 

“PEOPLE ARE STUPID!”

 Tears welled up the young royal’s blue-blue eyes after that shout of his, his composure lost.

 “Daddy!” No matter how proper, how composed, Oriens was still a child. Just a child. Just nine years old, almost ten. Upset on behalf of his father’s wrongful sentence - throwing himself into Noctis’ chair and arms where he fit like a babe, small and pinked and sniffling, “I’m sorry! I wasn’t there to protect you!” 

 “I forgive you, baby.”

 “Really?

 “Always.” 

 Always.

 The greyed king had promised the same once. But staring at his boys so tangled together because they didn’t trust the world, he had to face the fact that he’d broken that promise. As he had a hundred, a thousand times before. And he had to accept that, then bury it down deep. Because his boys needed him at his best.

 His youngest? Needed an answer.

 “Ori,” Regis addressed their boy hiding his face in his dad’s neck, glaring out distrustfully from the dark, warm space at his grandpa, but the king’s voice was kept as tender as he’d always be for his beloved family, “I know what you learned from the documentary. And I’m sorry you weren’t told sooner. You’re so smart. It’s not that I, or anyone, believed you couldn’t handle it.” 

 Those narrowed eyes clearly demanded to know why, then, if not that? 

 So the old man, old king, answered him, “You’re only a child, Oriens, sweetheart. Even if you’re smart, that shouldn’t have been a burden you had to carry.” 

 “I - “

 “Your father is innocent, Oriens,” Regis finally told his grandson to his face, looking straight into eyes his beloved, late wife had given both of his boys, and he meant it, “Your father was framed. And we were ashamed. We didn’t know how to tell you that. We didn’t want you to hate us. We didn’t want you to hate.” 

 Another set of blue-blue eyes drilled desperately into the Father’s cheek, and his smile was purely broken-hearted.

 Because he could finally say with his full chest and heart, “Your father should’ve never been imprisoned. He should’ve never been found guilty. He should’ve never been taken from you, and - and we…will never stop being sorry for that.” 
 
 Noctis was past the point of needing apologies.

 But here, when he had come so far in his healing…it felt…better.

 To hear that from his dad’s mouth. Because he loved him. He always had.

 “Why, then? Why?” The small prince asked so desperate to know, to understand, to be given a reason he could accept to project all of these ugly feelings onto.

 And though he was young, and had already learned so very much more than they’d ever intended to tell him, Regis sucked in a subtle breath. Then let it out far less subtly. And reached for the simple folder sat on his desk. Opening it, and flipping through it as he came around to approach his grandson. To kneel with the creaking bones of an old, old man. And pull out a picture taken during a certain live broadcast a year before; a snapshot from cameras. 

 A man on the Citadel’s steps, weird hate held over his heart, in the middle of a mocking bow.

 His grandson went completely still.

 “Because of this man, darling,” Regis told him so, so gently, burying his hatred remarkably well for the abomination pictured in his hands, “He’s the one who disguised himself as your dad, and committed the crimes he was accused of. He’s the reason your dad was imprisoned…and he’s also the one who confessed, and led to him being freed a year ago. He - “

 He had more to say, in his so gentle a voice.

 But Oriens interrupted with a soft and hushed and horrified -

 “He’s the one who showed me the documentary, Grandpa.” 

 And Regis’ blood ran colder than the ice of Shiva.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

Ardyn is about to be an 'it's on sight' enemy to all of Lucis, Eos too. This Winter Solstice is going to be very muted for our House of Caelum, but Nyx is being such a good stepdad. That's his kid. He's ready to tear Ardyn apart too and he doesn't even know who the guy is. Ardyn is going to become the Kingsglaive's piñata.

Depending on how things go in the next week or so, I may be moving into the house I'm negotiating for right now so the next chapter might be delayed! So sorry if that's the case, but I'll get back to writing as soon as I can!

(Also, as an aside I'm writing out Prompto's adventures of being adopted by Cor as a mini fic too, so there's that in the works too.)

Chapter 33

Notes:

Sorry for the almost two-week delay! But I successfully bought a house, and I've been busy moving in the last week! The next chapter will probably have a small delay too as I get situated, but hopefully not as long a one!

Enjoy~! <3

~>-----------<~

 

 

 The shards of crystals are sharp enough to slit open skin with just a brush.

 Magical crystals, all the sharper.

There was no blood, maybe so. But. It still felt as though the office of Lucis’ King was full of crystal shards that - try as one might - they couldn’t stop brushing against. The shards were in the air they breathed. On every surface, walls and floors and ceiling, it was all sharp and unhappy and deeply, deeply furious. And those shards were all bits of Noctis’ soul.

Bits of his happiness. Bits of his innocence.

 The bits Mistveil Keep made of him.

 They fell from him like shavings of ice off icy cliffs. With what his son had said, they fell from him cold and harsh and ruthlessly unforgiving. They were accompanied by a whisper in his ears, a whisper that never left, never let him be, never stopped coming to him in the darkness and mocking, teasing, oh my dear, oh my darling, you really thought I was nothing but a hallucination - ?

 The doors were locked.

 The magic was like its wielder, like Noctis; unforgiving.

 There were raised voices thundering behind the closed doors of a king’s office that darker-than-light day in the kingdom of Lucis. But the voices were not raised in anger. At least, not solely. They were the raised voices of fearful fathers, they were the raised voices of panicking parents, they were the raised voices of scared dads, because that was who they were down to their cores after hearing the Adagium had come to their child.

 There were words said.

 And there was anger, but its basis was just more fear.

 “HE WAS IN OUR HOME. HE WAS ALONE, WITH ORIENS. HE COULD’VE DONE ANYTHING. NOW YOU TELL ME HE WAS AT THE GALA TOO?!?!?!”

 “Darling, please, not in front of - “

 “HE COULD’VE DONE ANYTHING. ANYTHING, DAD! AND NOBODY WOULD’VE KNOWN.” 

 “Sweetheart, we haven’t yet figured out how - “

 “I DON’T CARE HOW HE’S DONE IT. I DON’T CARE WHO HE IS EITHER. ACCURSED OR NOT, I’M GOING TO RIP HIM APART!!!”

 Glass shattered. Glasses. Glasses usually sat with a decanter on the edge of Regis’ desk, in his office. That were now just shards and amber drink, dripping onto the floor as he tried to calm his rampaging son. With his hands, with his endearments, with his apologies that Noctis surely deserved - even while his green eyes shifted constantly back to the corner of the office. Close to the closed doors.

 Where Clarus and Cor were standing in front of a small prince, who had his hands clasped over his ears and his eyes shut tight. Because his dad had asked him to do that before he’d shoved himself up so hard from the desk his chair had careened back, slamming into the floor on its side. Before Shield and Sword had grabbed Oriens and risked their very lives moving the princeling out of the way. Before all of this.

 The shouting.

 The half-explanations.

 The pleas.

 Noctis’ promises of rending the Accursed limb from limb, as he paced like a wild thing on one side of Regis’ desk. The rug literally smoldering under his steps. And there was the magic of a scared dad in His Majesty’s office that morning. The shattered glasses, the shattered decanter, were followed by a vase some random diplomat had gifted Regis long ago - shattering with the lash of his son’s magic looking for anything to target.

 All with their Ori in the room with them. Because now they knew the prince could be reached anywhere and how could they let him leave their sight now?

 “Noctis, baby,” Regis begged his rampaging son, “There was nothing to be done. I did not want to stress you unduly - “

 “And - what?” Noctis whirled around, snapped, with a snap of his teeth too and a Glaive-like fierceness that the Father would be proud to have seen later, “You stressed about it instead? You kept it to yourself, came up with no solutions for months - and after the gala, after you had your heart attack, you still didn’t think I deserved to know the one who framed me could show up without warning?!?!”

 Lucis’ King faltered. Blinked.

 Ah, he realized, his son was scared for him too.

 Angry, maybe. But scared nonetheless because he loved him nonetheless.

 “I could’ve known he was still lurking around our family,” his little nightlight burst out with, grabbing at his shirt, at some of his raven hair to yank on, fraying apart like threads coming undone, “I could’ve known he’d gone near our son! I could’ve known I wasn’t just imagining his voice when he came to me - !” 

 What?

 “What?” Regis breathed, flexing his fingers, feeling his own magic sharpen to a point, a point of threat, at the simple insinuation. That the Accursed, the Adagium, had not only been lurking. Not only been a phantom in their shadows, “Noctis. Noctis, has he - ? Have you - ?” 

 His son looked so scared.

 “I thought I was just imagining him,” was spat from his son’s tongue like he was ashamed, and the king staggered forward to get his arms around his baby boy, to pull him in as he trembled from so many different emotions none could stand at the forefront in this, them, “I thought I was just hearing his voice. Taunting me. Whispering in my ear. A glance here or there - not him. Just ghosts from Mistveil. But it - Dad, it - Dad - “

 He wrapped his son up tight in his arms. So tight.

 Cursing so many, including himself.

 “He was always there, always showing up when I was lowest, always whispering in my ear, never leaving me be. ‘Are you enjoying yourself? Isn’t this just lovely? You deserve this, you and your whole family deserve this.’ It never stopped, never, ever, not until I stopped reacting, stopped feeling, stopped completely and then he got bored and then he left. He confessed. I was free,” all of that, mumbled, cried, into a king’s shoulder as Noctis held on for all the life of him, “But he wasn’t gone. He wasn’t ever gone. He’s still been here, and I didn’t think it was real because I didn’t know.” 

 Forgive him.

 “I didn’t know.” 

 His son had suffered from his decisions.

 “He hurt me - “ 

 “I didn’t know, oh, baby,” another failure, to add to his others, “I am so unspeakably sorry,” and no amount of apologies, of saying how sorry he was, of holding his sweet Noctis - would ever be enough after months of him missing something small but so important that had been right underneath all of their noses, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

 The Adagium. Who had appeared and left and appeared again, and again and again and again. Throughout history, throughout their history, throughout just these last decades. Who Regis had fought and been crushed under the heel of, who the Father had never wanted to face again in his lifetime, he who had framed his beloved son and sent him to Mistveil in the first place.

 Who had snuck into the gala as an uninvited guest.

 Who had been hiding just beyond their sight for months.

 Had come, had been taunting his dear boy, had been mocking him at his lowest, had now come and stolen a preciously painful amount of the innocence Oriens Lucis Caelum had left by showing him a document that was meant to stay in the past of months ago - the Adagium. The Accursed. The one their family was meant to keep imprisoned and under guard. Who had been lost during his father’s reign.

 He had stabbed a personal grudge into the hearts of the Lucis Caelums now.

 And anyone who lived under that, did not live long lives typically.

 “We will hunt him down,” the Father swore, swore to his son, to his grandson, an oath that would be relayed to all of Lucis and all of Eos even, if that was what it took to bring the Adagium back under their heels. An oath mumbled determinedly against his scared son’s skin, “We will find him. We will capture him. We will make him regret ever even laying eyes on our Oriens. I promise. I promise. I promise.”  
 
 Oriens listened from his small corner, Pops Clarus and Cor between him and his grandpa, his dad, almost like they were a dangerous situation somehow.

 The princeling hadn’t been fond of the raised voices.

 The yelling.

 But once that finished, once it was just Grandpa and Dad? 

 Oriens felt safer than any Astral’s favor could make a royal feel, because he knew his family would never let anything bad happen to him. And he knew that any weirdos who tried what Mr. Weirdo had, would get a grave for their troubles. He was sure of that. So he just stood there, swearing to support his dad however possible.

 He hadn’t - and would likely never - forget how his dad had broken down after learning he had watched the documentary.

 He had to take care of Dad.

 And if in the process - 

 He ever encountered Mr. Weird again - 

 Oriens had a knife Nyx had bought for him in Little Galahd that he’d be putting to very good use. Many times. Repeatedly.

 Nobody hurt his dad on his watch.

 Nobody.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There was a lot for them to discuss, and only so far they were comfortable letting Ori stray from their sides now.

 Thankfully the princeling was fine sitting in his father’s lap while they discussed their business. Playing his part in helping his dad calm down. 

 As royals, there was always more left to do. More and more and more and more and more and more - it simply never ended. That simply was life. Their lives.

Those people who stood on the streets, who gazed up at the Citadel’s towers in awe, who wished to be royalty? Those classmates of Noctis’ almost two decades ago, those children that wanted all the attention and all the flashing cameras and all the glamorous opportunities they saw on TV? Or even those protestors, who gathered on the roads, waving signs, protesting the fighting, the Wall surrounding only Insomnia, the seeming ‘wastes of time’ they saw their royals luxuriating in day in and day out - ?

 They all saw the side of royalty they were intended to see.
 
 The fancy outfits, the carefully curated photographs, the interviews scripted beforehand, and the endless dream they dreamt. Rich and beloved and handsome, ruling a kingdom and making things happen with just a wave of their hand.

 Noctis had seen it before. Unfortunately.

 When he was young, when a councilmember was held hostage by a rebel group from Duscae, when they thought all they had to do was make demands and his dad could magically make it so. They were desperate people, taking desperate actions, destroying their futures for the sake of maybe making a change right then and there - and they all either ended up dead during the rescue to get that councilmember, or imprisoned. As terrorists. 

 Noctis had seen back then. Had watched from the wings. His dad whose hands were tied. He wore the crown, he wore the Ring, he held up the Wall and always seemed so endlessly kind and patient and loving from Noctis’ point-of-view. And powerful. He ordered people to do things and they did it, simple as that. Seemingly.

 That day was one of those days where it hit Noctis that they weren’t all-powerful. 

 That his dad couldn’t simply wave his hand, and change supply routes. He couldn’t alter trade treaties with other countries or kingdoms on a whim, he couldn’t adjust his political ties to answer angry, rebel fighters driven to desperate measures. He couldn’t do anything they demanded of the House of Caelum without many, many, many nights of paperwork, and backlash from his council, and backlash from tens of other sources because royals were not gods.

 They were not Astrals.

 They held power, they could give orders.

 But they were bound by so many binds. 

 They were subject to others as well. And they were held accountable. And not even in the name of an ‘innocent’ life could they change things.

 They were human. Powerful. Respected. Magical. But human.

 There was so much to be done, as always. Noctis’ throat…hurt. From raising his voice. From yelling. For that was what he had done. And he still felt the fury of before, still felt the anger driven by a sudden fear he hadn’t known to prepare himself for. Because the man who whispered had power, and that earned his fear fair and square. But, more…preciously. More dear to him; the fact that Oriens’ birthday was approaching.

 Two days after the Winter Solstice, which was merely days away now.

 There had been so many distractions. Noctis felt a little guilty for that.

 There was a dead goddess, and a Wall his dad needed to speak with him personally about - about opening routes of travel in it. Since he was insisting on keeping the Wall up, oh yes, surrounding Lucis and Galahd. There were questions from his Uncle Clarus and answers of his that were carefully written down word for word about how he felt, how his magic felt, did he feel drained or worn down or - ? Anything? And that was without the two hours spent discussing the Lucii Armor, which - yes. Yes.

 There was a lot for the raven-haired royal to do, and that was with him reeling in his fear, with him acting as just a ‘battery’ in general, with a kingdom on the brink of both one of its biggest yearly holidays -

 And panic surrounding Tenebrae. Surrounding the possibility of further war.

 Which Noctis dismissed. Because he knew in a wary sort of certain way that Accordo and Niflheim were not dumb enough to challenge them after Tenebrae’s utter defeat. Had no reason to. And once the rumors of them having three battle-ready Caelums on their side reached the two? They would be sending fruit baskets, and sweet letters, and all sorts of flatteries because that, Noctis Lucis Caelum knew, was what having power meant.

 It was a terrifying sort of power.

 He loved it, because it meant he could protect his little dawnlight.

 He loved it, because it made people hesitant to harm his family.

 He loved it, because it made the Astrals themselves nervous.

…

 Noctis Lucis Caelum told them about the whispers in whispers of his own, carefully cradling all of his joy and all of his love and everything good in his life - Oriens - the whole while. 

Uncle Cor was stoically stony, silent, and every bit of the Immortal moniker he’d carried through life.

 Uncle Clarus nearly broke in half the poor pen he was writing with more than once.

 And Dad fumed in silence, holding onto a brave face, holding onto the edge of his desk so roughly the fine wood was in danger of splintering. He spoke only of reassurances, of promises that it would be dealt with, of Noctis being kept informed from now on. But what he didn’t say was almost louder. What he didn’t say was written in the lines of his face. His wrinkles. His silvered hair.

 Lucis had a hunt ahead of them.

 The instant Noctis and Oriens left that office, there would be pictures flying through informant chains. There would be bounties worth jaw-dropping amounts posted at every single hunter outpost between there and the Niflheim mountains, there would be news reports declaring that Lucis as a whole had an enemy to find, there would be a pursuit dialed up to eleven all to find the one who had framed him. The one who had come to mock him, harm him, scare him. Scare Oriens. The Adagium. The Accursed. The shapeshifter who had started all of this.

 Noctis stayed a little longer.

 His throat sore. Regretting earlier raised voices.

 Dad forgave him, though.

 Dad always did.

 It wasn’t long after that when there was a soft knocking at the office doors. When there was a Glaive let in. When Nyx stood in those doors, slightly disheveled like he’d hurried straight there from the Kingsglaive Complex right after their training finished for the afternoon. Not like he’d run. But, disheveled. Shirt wrinkled and hair still a little damp from the steam in the locker room showers.

 Smile genuine.

 So Noctis let his amatus gently transfer Ori from him to him. Cradling the quiet prince close to his neck. Hand curled around the back of his nape, tickling the fluffy ends of his hair with his few small beads tied into it. Ori folded into him immediately with a content hum. Eyes shutting. Falling shut. Like all of the chaos had made him sleepy, and, well -

 It probably had. Ori was so small. So small in Nyx’s arms. So tiny and delicate-looking. His face was so round, his hands so cute clutching at Nyx’s shirt, his eyelashes long and dark and just young. He was so young. It lit a fire inside of Noctis Lucis Caelum. Where once he favored Shiva, again he proved he now favored Ifrit as he fanned those flames.

 Thinking of all he would destroy if it kept his son safe.

 Nyx’s stormy eyes flicked up to meet his. There was a hidden anger in them. That said he’d been briefed already. Probably by Uncle Drautos. He knew, he was angry, he was ready to bear his teeth - but he was holding their son so sweetly. As if Oriens was worth every treasure in the world. 

 So Noctis surrendered to being escorted back to their rooms by his amatus.

It was the easiest thing in the world to surrender to. Nyx always was.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Together, they laid their son down to sleep in Noctis’ bed for an afternoon nap he sorely needed with Tenebris. Who’d been waiting for his boy to return. And they stayed after. For a while. Noctis stayed. Curled around his little dawnlight, curling thin fingers through his hair, watching him sleep and wishing Ori would never need to know pain. Never suffer. Never fear. 

 Nyx sat on the edge of that bed of black silk sheets, watching them both with his elbows on his knees and hands clasped. There if his inlustris needed him. And there even if he didn’t.

 There, because that was what somebody who loved you was.

 Present. And willing to wait forever to be needed.

 The ‘forever’ part wasn’t necessary. Not this time. An hour, give or take, was what it was. Before his star settled enough. Before his breaths evened out. Before he sighed so softly, pressing his forehead to mane’s. Mumbling a few quiet promises to the child. Kissing his cheek. Lingering, a moment, as parents do. As Nyx’s parents used to. Before everything else; the war, the bombs, that night he lost his mother as he’d already lost his father. 

 As he used to do for Selena, because she was his responsibility then. He understood. He watched silently, and he understood, and when inlustris was ready? He simply offered a hand to help him from the bed. He wasn’t going to say anything…

 But his star looked tired too.

 Tired like he was drained. Tired like he needed a break. Tired like everything just kept adding up into heavier and heavier weights resting on his shoulders.

 So Nyx lent inlustris a shoulder. In the commons. On a velvety couch, where the pair wouldn’t wake up mane by talking softly to one another. Where his star’s head laid light on his shoulder, and he mumbled about all the things that scared him. Even after killing a goddess. Even then, he was scared of things. And even then?

 The door to his bedroom was wide open. Just in case.

 They couldn’t trust the darkness, after all.

 Nyx dared the darkness to try anything against his stars while he was there.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Ori woke up in the familiar silkiness of his father’s bed.

 He woke up rubbing at his eyes with a mighty yawn, and the vibrations of Shadow’s purrs almost numbing his legs through the blanket because they were so strong. Ruffling the coeurl cub’s fur, he was nearly squished under Shadow’s excited squirming and nuzzles. Oh no! What a terrible way to go! 

 Ori giggled quietly, playing ‘tug the whiskers’ just for a while with Shadow. 

 Tilting his head curiously when he heard the murmur of conversation from elsewhere in Dad’s rooms. 

 Shadow slunk from the bed like a living shadow, tail swishing towards the door ajar across the room. And Ori followed because he trusted Shadow. The tiles were cold on his toes, so he slipped his feet into Dad’s oversized slippers sitting on the floor beside the bed. Way comfier than his actual shoes sitting next to it with his socks stuffed into them. Though a bit big. They flipped and flopped, and made him way less quiet than Shadow was.

 But they slunk together over to the door leading to Dad’s commons. The living and kitchen space of Dad’s rooms.

 A pair of silhouettes were sitting on the couch, he found, peaking around the doorframe with Shadow. And the commons room was darker. The day later than he’d thought his little nap would last. Late enough to have missed dinner, which made Ori feel shy. Pressing himself against that doorframe, trying to gather his courage to go out there.

 He’d slept too long.

 Had Dad needed him? Had he not been there for him? 

 The murmuring of conversation he’d heard earlier wasn’t Dad and Nyx, Ori realized now. Shuffling in place in Dad’s oversized slippers.

 It was the TV. Because there was a TV in his dad’s rooms now. 

‘Now’ because Oriens knew, remembered, his brief confusion a year ago when exploring his dad’s rooms for the first time. Sating his childlike curiosity. He’d wondered why there wasn’t a single TV. It wasn’t the weirdest thing about the dad he’d only just met back then. Oriens had had his electronics restricted too many times for him to not understand sometimes media access was bad. But still. Even he had two TVs in his royal rooms!

 Grandpa had told him so simple a reason. That his dad didn’t want or need technology like that for now.

 And over time, Oriens realized his grandpa was right. 

 His dad didn’t even have a phone! Let alone any gaming consoles, or a laptop, or any TVs - he didn’t even listen to the radio! So he hadn’t questioned it much more than that. Other than the note his mind made when Nyx started spending so much time and then nights in his dad’s bedroom and Nyx’s devices became a common sight. Even if Dad never used any of them really.

 But, now, Dad had a TV.

 And peeking around the doorframe all sneaky-like like he knew he shouldn’t, Ori saw his dad and Nyx were both sitting on that velvety, less-used couch together. It was way less comfy than the one in Dad’s bedroom. They were sitting stiffly too. Staring at the new TV, that was playing a familiar video format. 

 The news stations’ format.

 Ori remembered rare nights being allowed to watch the news, bashful over how pretty Miss Ruby was.

 Now, he used his small size, clenching up his equally small hands into fists, and squeezed out through the open door. Just enough. To slip out of his dad’s bedroom unseen. Scampering on slippered feet across the tiles behind that couch. He tried to move like the Glaives always did. Super quiet, and super steady, and without letting them realize he was there.

 …Which was really hard wearing his dad's oversized slippers! So halfway to the couch, he kicked them off and continued his scampering barefooted.

 Success!

 For a moment, Ori forgot everything that had ever made him sad. Fist-bumping the air, and crawling his way around the back of the couch. The news lady’s words a bit clearer now that he was closer. He circled all the way around to the side of the couch on his hands and knees, barely holding in his giggles. Pinching himself as a distraction, grinned to himself -

 He peeked around the side of the couch.

 The news was playing videos taken from Tenebrae.

 Oriens’ face fell, watching them from where he was kneeling beside the couch.

 Videos of public addresses by Tenebraean Councilmembers. He recognized some of them. They’d made pilgrimages to Insomnia to meet him. They were taking turns standing at a podium, addressing the people of Tenebrae while Insomnian news reporters spoke over the muted videos. Talking about the attempted invasion, the defeat, the fall of a goddess to her grave, right there by the ocean cliffs -

 One of the councilmembers was holding a framed photo in front of herself. 

 A photo of Queen Lunafreya.

 The woman he should’ve called his mother. The woman who instead, just the sight of, sent a terrified jolt up Oriens’ spine. Caused him to grab at the couch’s cushioning and shrink into it with a tiny noise, lowering his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see those people holding up her picture in mourning. Wouldn’t have to see, hear, think of her, because - !

 “Oriens?” 

 Blue-blue eyes impossibly wide, widened even more when he tilted his head up to see Dad’s face peering over the couch’s armrest down at him. An armrest he’d grabbed onto in his terror. Which had gotten him noticed. And the murmur of the news was silenced by the click of a remote, and Dad leaned further over the armrest just looking concerned, and this wasn’t the way Oriens had wanted this to go -

 “Ori? Sweetheart?”

 But as easily as he’d forgotten everything bad, the princeling remembered everything twice as much.

 And he remembered that he was a bad person his dad couldn’t possibly love anymore.

 And he so easily burst into movement in scrambling to his feet and swinging his small fists and letting his voice splinter over the inevitable question that had been stuck, clawing at his neck and making it hard to breathe for so long now - !

 “I’m bad, aren’t I?” 

 “Oriens, why would - ?”

 “I’m bad!” The little prince interrupted, stomping a foot and looking completely ashamed, “I’m a bad person!” 

 “Ori, you’re not,” his dad said, shifting slowly from the couch to the tiles, crouching down, furrowing his eyebrows when his son stomped his foot again, “Why would you think that?”

 “Because I’m happy she’s dead!” 

 “...” 

 “Or…or not happy,” Ori backtracked, seeing his dad’s face fall and Nyx’s lips flatten into something upset-like, “but I’m glad! That she’s gone! That she can never come back again! And that’s bad and that makes me bad and I - I’m bad, so that means you - you can’t love me anymore, Dad - !” 

 Both of Dad’s kneecaps hit the tiles, which was enough to make Ori gasp out of worry, enough to make him jolt back, reach forward, mentally tumbling. Dad’s arms enveloped him in the warmest of hugs. And he squeezed. And it was almost a little hard to breathe, but there was something relieving about that as the princeling sucked in one struggling breath.

 As his small hands hesitated to hold his dad back.

 Was he allowed to? Would Dad want him to?

 Dad, and Dad, both of them, Nyx too, he circled the father and son. And came right up behind the raven-haired royal pair to kneel behind Oriens, and shush him as he hugged them both from behind, and he was surrounded. Surrounded in hugs. He was held, he was safe, he was warm - held and safe and warm.

 And how could he deserve those things?

 “But…but I’m bad?” Ori repeated, more to himself than his dads, who were surrounding him with every bit of love the princeling felt he couldn’t possibly deserve. He was bad. He was happy his own mother was gone, gone for good, could never ever come back. Of course that was bad. Of course there was something very wrong with him, and how could his family love him if that was the case? Like it was? 

 How could his dads be hugging him so tightly? How could they still care for somebody as wrong as him? 

 He was bad. He was bad? He was -

 “Oriens, you are my son,” Dad murmured into his messy hair, voice almost sharp with the pure conviction in it as he hugged Ori tighter still, with strength most would think he’d lost with his innocence, “Nothing comes above that. Nothing you think, say, or do would ever make me think you were bad. And you’re not,” he kissed the crown of Ori’s head, “You’re not.” 

 “Mane,” Nyx spoke up, running a sword-worn hand down his star’s back and another through that already messy hair to mess it up a bit more, holding the both of them, “Being happy she’s gone doesn’t make you a bad person. She was a threat to you, had hurt you, and it’s completely normal and human of you to be glad you’re free of that.” 

 But - ?

 But - 

 “But…I was never sad,” Ori sniffled as he tried to explain, elaborate, sure his dads just weren’t getting it because they were still holding him so gently. Reaching up with small, shaky hands to wipe at his eyes that had started to leak because - “I was never sad at all! I - I was just relieved.” 

 Dad began to pull back. Finally understanding, finally seeing he was bad, he was bad, he was - 

 Dad tenderly, but firmly, tugged him off of his feet. Bringing Lucis’ Crown Prince down, down onto his dads’ laps, between them and their arms and all their love that was like a crystal prism. Reflecting off one of them to the other, and to another, and to another. And all of his daddy’s soothing promises passed over Oriens. Heard. But not registering.

 He wasn’t bad? 

 But there were good and bad people in the world. That’s what the princeling had always been taught, that’s what all the fairytales say, that’s what all the legends of Eos are centered around. Good and bad. And good people weren’t ever glad about even their worst enemy dying. They were always good enough, humble enough, good enough to feel remorse even then. Grief even then. And they always got the happily ever after.

 They got the wedding, and they got the family, and they got to end every story smiling happily because that’s how it is.

 Oriens Lucis Caelum wasn’t that. 

 And he didn’t think he ever could be.

 “You’re not bad, Ori, sweetheart,” but his dad sounded so determinedly sure, and a bit like Grandpa too, swearing that with the young prince nuzzling into that dark, warm space underneath his chin where nobody could hurt him while he tried to figure this out, “You could never be. Not to me. Not if all of Eos agreed you were. You would never be bad to me.” 

Almost as if there had been a thorn stuck in his heart he hadn’t noticed until now -

When he heard his dad say that, a stinging pain inside of his chest, inside of his ribs, eased up.

There was still a faint numb sensation left behind. Like the thorn had been lodged in deep. Deeper than he was able to realize until it was gone and there was nothing but a hole left behind, nothing but space to fill with new morals. Created by family, not fairytales.  

 “...I’m not bad?” Ori asked, barely daring to breathe let alone hope.

 His little fingers curled tight in his dad’s shirt when he was squeezed.

 “You’re not.”

 The tears finally fell.

 And the princeling cried softly between his two dads, as long as he needed to, because they didn’t think he was bad for being human.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Three spent that wintery night in Noctis’ rooms. As a family.

 WIth the Citadel still on soft lockdown, it was easy enough for them to stay contained around only one another. For that day that followed too. With a light snowfall outside and a bright sun that reflected off every snowflake. That reflected off of Aurora’s fur as the fluffy princess sunbathed. As Noctis wove, as Nyx took his role as a guard very seriously by commandeering one of his star’s legs as a pillow oh-so bravely, oh yes - and also as Ori played with Tenebris quietly. Took a nap with the couerl cub too.

 Intermittently just, wandering on over to both of his dads.

 Crawling into their laps, looking for his head to be pet, for attention to be given.

 For love to be shown, so he knew he wasn’t hated.

 An impossibility, as far as either man was concerned when it came to the son they now shared so lovingly.

 Not that that meant Noctis wasn’t cursing up the late Queen of Tenebrae all the while. That whole day. For daring to put Oriens in such a headspace in the first place. Unforgivable. As far as he was concerned, no matter how manipulated she had been, no matter how much Lunafreya had simply been doing as she was told -

 This was all her fault.

 And Noctis would never grieve her in this life.

 

 
-----

 

 

 There was the creak of old, fine wood. 

 Not the bookshelf Regis glanced at out of the corner of his eye, out of habit.

 One of the doors to his personal study. It was the source of that creaking. Being pushed open just a crack - a crack that a blue-blue eye peered through. Met Regis’ eyes. And there was an adorable little gasp from the other side of the doors, that made the king’s delicate heart ache from how fond of it he was. 

 After the gasp, the door was quickly shut again with a dull thump.

 Regis straightened up. Setting his pen down in its holder, he clasped his hands together atop his desk and its many files full of paperwork. He stayed calm. He stayed reasonable. He tried not to hope. His boys owed him nothing whatsoever. And that included no forgiveness for the mistakes he had made either. No forgiveness for how he had failed. For how his failure had impacted both of his sons’ lives.

 He waited.

 And there were three fast knocks at the doors to his study.

 “Come on,” the grey-haired king called, perfectly properly, as if he had no idea who had knocked.

 There was the creak of old, fine wood once more. It still wasn’t the bookshelf his grandson usually snuck into his study through. Regis waited patiently, watching that single door creak open. Then watching a head of raven hair pop through. Eyes fixed on the floor, fingers twisting the doorknob again and again in a nervous way. 

 “Oriens,” Regis greeted the younger of his boys, his grandson, shaking away the memories of being screamed at by the sweet boy, “Please, sweetheart, come in.” 

 The younger mumbled something, Regis couldn’t make it out, but he entered the study. So he let it go. Smiling was far more important. Smiling for his shy grandson scampering across the study without lifting his head, without any more mumbling. Scampering straight around the King of Lucis’ desk.

 Wasting no time at all in climbing up onto said king’s leg - his good leg - and taking a seat there like it was only natural. And it really was. Regis would never turn him away. Never deny him. Never do anything more than hold him steady. Give him his ear. Give him his time. Give him everything he possibly could.

 In all the ways he wished he had raised Noctis.

 “Grandpa,” Ori started, swinging his legs, still keeping his eyes fixed on the ground even as he was steadied. Face flushed red with a lot of big emotions he hadn’t had to deal with often in his young life, “I’m…really, really, really sorry. For saying that I hated you,” Regis hummed, ran his fingers up Ori’s neck, was melted against a little, “I don’t. I really don’t, I promise. I was just…really, really, really worried about Dad. And I wanted to blame somebody, you, even though it wasn’t your fault. It was only that weirdo’s fault.” 

 Blue-blue eyes finally, finally met the Father’s green ones.

 “I’m really sorry, Grandpa.”

 “You’re forgiven,” Regis said immediately, no hesitation, no pause in-between, let his lips lift into a kindly smile when Ori looked so surprised by that. So wide-eyed. So hopeful. Curled deep into the arms around him, as this old king of a man rocked the boy on his leg, “You were forgiven from the beginning, Oriens. I could never hold your love for your father against you.” 

 It was pure relief that made those blue-blue eyes water now.

 “I have to protect Dad,” Oriens told him, all high-pitched and determined and close to tears, their brave child. All of theirs, “I have to. Dad’s already been through too much, Grandpa. I have to keep him safe! I have to make sure nobody can ever hurt him again!” 

 Ah, the age-old instinct to defend one’s family. For the House of Caelum, at least. That was familiar territory. Familiar enough that Regis hummed, shifting Ori over his good knee, nodding along. Who knew why the family was the way they were. Why the House of Caelum put family above almost anything else, so long as they could. There had been speculation in the past; an instinct borne of the Adagium’s creations. Borne of Bahamut’s prophecy, of knowing one of their children would be taken from them one day.

 Sure, there had been branches of the family that hadn’t had that instinct, had done harm to their own children and parents.

 But like his father before him, Regis knew that instinct. He knew it so well, it was like runes engraved upon his bones. The instinct to protect. To gather his family and keep them safe, no matter what, only amplified beyond reason when he gained his epitaph of the Father. When he became a father.

 When Bahamut declared his son would be the one the prophecy claimed.

 And that claim had not come for Noctis just yet, that prophecy had not come true, but Regis still felt the instinct. He always would. 

 Oriens felt that instinct now.

 “I feel the same way, Ori,” and even if he had failed in the face of the instinct already, he had to make it clear to this still-innocent son of his that he’d never let himself fail again, “I made a mistake. And it cost your father so much. I will never let that happen again, okay? I want to keep your dad safe too. As much as I want to keep you safe.”

 He tickled his grandson’s tummy, and Ori squeaked, squirming around on his thigh with child-pitched peals of laughter that just made the old king’s eyes crinkle.

 There was so much mirth to be found in that sound. 

 No, Regis would never let it be threatened again.

 “We’ll do our best, hm? Together?”

 “To protect Dad!” Ori agreed, giggling and trying to push his grandpa’s age-worn hands away from his tummy, in such better spirits now that Regis was proud of himself, “We won’t let anything happen to him!” 

 “No. No we won’t,” his grandpa agreed with him, and it was a bit more than that too. It was a promise he made to his giggling boy, attacking him with kisses and tickles as their laughter twined together in the warmth of a firelit, winter study. It was all his peace and all his love and all that kept him sane throughout the years; family. 

 Family he was willing to do absolutely anything for, selfish, foolish old man that he had become.

 All characteristics he would display proudly, if it saved his sons any bit of strife.

 

 

-----

 

 

 As ever, there was so much for royalty to do and see done. And as ever, Regis Lucis Caelum shouldered that ‘so much’ as much as he could. To keep the burdens from piling up on his boys’ shoulders. They were still too young…or, Oriens was too young. Noctis was simply already too burdened. It wouldn’t be right. It would never be right, to expect him to shoulder the incredibly normal duties of being a member of the House of Caelum. 

 Killing a goddess was one thing.

 Having to argue about royal budgetary restrictions and agricultural reports pre-spring with a royal council? Was another thing entirely.

 For Regis, there was so much to do. And with the Winter Solstice celebrations closing in? For Regis, there was another matter set on his plate by his apologetic Shield. The matter of those rumors. That there was now a fourth member of the House of Caelum. Stemming from the battlefield against Tenebrae, from those who had survived the battle, survived the slaughter of an Astral, and then survived the night against daemons.

 Them, and the hunters who had fought alongside them.

 They all spoke of another, fully grown Lucis Caelum. A mysteriously there-then-gone royal.

 It needed to be addressed publicly. 

 But Rexus…was his own man. And Regis had promised him he would have a choice when he arrived at the Citadel. 

 So he’d invited his half-brother to join him in his study after dinner. So they could have a talk that was slightly overdue by rational standards.

 A dinner now shared with his grandson who had come to apologize so adorably. And so needlessly too. As if there was ever a thing Ori could do that Regis would forgive him for, after what had happened to his and Aulea’s dear nightlight…

 As if.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rexus pressed a kiss to the corner of another Glaive’s lips as he left the royal rooms he’d been given, on the same floor as his nephew. 

 The Glaives were all so sweet on him, and he needed that sweetness like sugar, wondering just what his half-brother needed to ask of him tonight.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The laughter of a child had always seemed so precious to Regis, who hadn’t heard it often in his life. Who hadn’t grown up side by side with other children, who hadn’t left the Citadel much once he was grown, who’d only had the one, single son. The laughter he had heard had been from the sneaky children of housekeepers, had been Clarus’ children, had been children at charity events he attended to raise donation rates. And then had been Oriens.

 Oriens had not laughed much, of late.

 Dinner had been good - better than that - had been giggles and grapes thrown at one another that they tried to catch with their mouths, grandfather and grandson, what joy.

 But Oriens was becoming what he’d rarely been. A quiet child. He did not question as much, anymore. He listened. He watched things out of the corner of his eyes. He snuck around, warped around, like a little Glaive. 

 Regis wished it wasn’t so. Wasn’t a sign of his grandson’s innocence being stripped away, thread by thread. But here he was in his study, the fireplace lit, the paperwork finished with for the moment if not forever. And his grandson. Who hadn’t been allowed on his own since…the Accursed had made himself known to the boy. Because he had done that. And now it simply wasn’t safe to leave Oriens on his own.

 So instead of being in his own rooms for the night after the princeling’s apology and a dinner shared, Ori was sat on the rug in front of the study’s lit fireplace. 

 He had his father’s Carbuncle plushie under one arm, and his own chocobo plushie on the rug next to him, and one of his mystery novels propped up on his knees. And Tenebris had come, had curled up in a crescent shape around him, tail swishing in the same movements as the fire in the fireplace. It was far from a devastating scene.

 But it also was not entirely the happy, carefree scene from his grandson Regis would’ve seen a year ago.

 He was far more quiet when left alone, and far less obvious about how he was writing down clues and ideas for solving his novel’s mystery in the notebook next to his ankle. Like his mind wasn’t captured as much by the mystery as it used to be. Like he had bigger things to worry about. Bigger problems to solve.

 Like being a child was a hindrance to him, and he wanted to grow up as soon as he could.

 Regis was relieved when Rexus knocked on his study’s doors. It saved him from his retrospectiveness.

 “Come in.” 

 He was likewise relieved to see the man was in proper order, and seemed far less drained than Regis had feared he would be after the chaotic events of their last few days.

 “Hope I’m not intruding,” his half-brother said immediately, glancing at his grandson then away, and Regis fought with himself to make his smile a tad less heavy; weighed down by what they were.

 “Not at all, Rexus. I invited you.” 

 “Not for a social call, I’d take it,” Rexus said, already knowing, and Regis buried his guilty cringe. Behind a wrinkle of his nose and a sigh. If only it could be a social call. If only he could have a bit more time, free of concerns and duties and obligatories to get to know this brother who was still so new to him, alas, “It’s alright…Regis. I get it. Really.” 

 It made the old king smile; the way his brother was getting used to calling him by name alone when they were out of the public’s eye. This smile wasn’t as heavy.

 “I wish it could be all social calls and courtly gossip and nightcaps with family, dear Rexus,” Regis sighed, motioning his half-brother over towards the window and a bit further from his grandson’s ever-listening ears. He paused at the edge of his desk to grab from the drink tray he kept there. Decanter and glasses pinched between his fingers, he then followed Rexus to that frosty window overlooking his study’s desk like an archway to the winter gardens outside, “In the future, maybe it more often could be.” 

 “But for now?” Rexus prompted him, and he set his burdens on the windowsill. 

 The decanter’s amber contents seemed to almost glow, even so far from the fireplace now.

 “You will need to be formally introduced to the public, Rexus,” he informed his brother, not unapologetically, but also without much extra room for denial, “There are too many rumors spreading about your role in bringing down Leviathan. From both Tenebraean soldiers and Lucian hunters alike. Or,” as much as he abhorred the idea, “...you will need to cut ties with the family.” 

 Rexus turned to face him fully, face slipping from the almost-relaxed expression he had had to something that reminded Regis of their father.

 Regis turned to face the window fully, resting his hip and weight on the windowsill so he could avoid using his cane just for a moment longer. Just so he could be distracted for a moment longer.

 “...I would prefer the former,” he admitted softly, feeling their father’s gaze on him in the way Rexus stared at the profile of his face as he watched snowflakes fall outside, “I want you with us, Rexus. I want you to be family. I want you to be here. I want your support and to be your support. I want you to stand with the house, but it would cost you. And I want you to be aware of that too.” 

 “What would it cost me?” His father’s other son asked, the one who hadn’t been raised to wear the crown, and Regis answered.

 “Your anonymity. Your ability to walk on the street. Your innocence, in the eyes of Eos. Your freedom, in many ways. Your ignorance to act without thinking ten steps ahead. Your way of living. Your chances to travel. Your allowance to be subjective. Your privilege to be an individual. To be yourself,” in so many words, being a Lucis Caelum meant no longer being considered completely human, “If we claim you as family, you will be a public thing. A commodity, a celebrity, an icon the people will look to and point at and judge. You will not be able to escape that easily if you change your mind. It will never be easy.” 

 It was never easy. For any member of their house.

 “You will regret it, at times,” the Father whispered to the Lost, because he knew that more than most of the Lucii, “but you won’t be able to take it back. So think about it first. Think about what you want. Then, decide. Don’t rush yourself, I can - “ 

 “I already have my decision,” Rexus interrupted him, laid a hand on his arm, was so kind about it with his arched brown and quirked smile, and Regis frowned. Was silenced by his half-brother shaking his head, still so at ease, “I made my decision, Regis. When I let those Glaives stalk me for a week. When I let them corner me in Altissia. I knew what it meant, even back then. I’m not changing my mind now.” 

 Being born with the crown was already so much.

 “Besides - you think Eos is ready for me?” Rexus snorted. Regis smiled with closed eyes.

 Picking the crown was the bravest thing any person could do.

 “Oh, you’re not so bad,” the grey-haired king teased, opening his eyes and considering the decanter he’d set on the windowsill. Then turned. And carefully hobbled his way back over to his desk, bent down, opened the bottom drawer to pull out a more appropriate drink. Straightening was a pain for his poor back, but the fine bottle of wine was worth it. Wine pressed from the crystal grapes that only grew in Duscae. One of their father’s favorite years too.

 Rexus maybe had never had the chance to meet him, but Regis would share all he could about him, if only his half-brother asked.

 “That looks more expensive than I should even be allowed to smell, let alone drink,” Rexus chortled, which made Regis make the same snorting-chuckle noise as he popped the bottle’s cork with practiced ease to pour each of them a glass on the windowsill. So deep a scarlet color, it looked violet and blue in certain lighting.

 It reminded the old king of afternoons watching his father sip at a glass of it while they did paperwork together.

 He lifted one glass, offering it to his father’s other son - and if it had a more generous pour in it? Well. It was only fair.

 Rexus eyed the typical whiskey glass, teasing, “Aren’t you supposed to drink wine out of a wine glass?” 

 “Is that the rule?” 

 “You’d know more than me.” 

 “Regular glasses are fine, Rexus,” Regis told him with a low chuckle, recognizing that teasing for what it was as he swirled the glass pointedly. And his younger brother finally accepted it with one of those playful smiles he hid behind his likewise hidden shyness. Leaning in to sniff at the rim of the glass. At which his eyebrows lifted in surprise, and his smile turned softer.

 “Cheers,” he said, tipping his glass before sipping at it. An action Regis repeated after him. 

 The two royals leaned their hips casually against the windowsill, sipping on their wine for a time. Alternating between watching the winter’s snowfall outside, the darkening skies above Insomnia's skyline, and Oriens. 

 Who was still distractedly skimming through that mystery novel of his.

 Regis’ gaze shifted from the view of his grandson to peek out of the corner of his eye. At Rexus. Who was watching his grandson as well. Rexus’ grandnephew. And the Lucian King was still untellably grateful to the man for saving Ori from that kidnapping attempt not all that long ago. Grateful that he stayed. Grateful that he wanted to be family. Grateful that he hadn’t yet turned out to be a threat, no matter Clarus’ quiet concerns about how shady his past seemed.

 There was still so much he did not know about his father’s second son. 

 There was still time to learn, though, Regis knew. Sipping, savoring his father’s favorite wine. Thanks to Noctis. Thanks to the weight of the Ring and the Wall and the Glaives being taken off of his shoulders, he now had years left in him he hadn’t had before all of this. 

 Hopefully enough years that it would never be asked of Rexus to take the throne, even if only for a short time.

 Both of them stayed there. Like that. Sipping their wine between the frosted windowpanes and the lit fireplace, watching Oriens be a child with worries on his heart, for a while. A while, a while. Regis watching his younger half-brother closer and closer, as the wine settled in their stomachs. As they relaxed together.

 As he noticed a sort of quietness to Rexus that made him wonder.
 
 “...Rexus, darling, do you want children?” 

 A full minute seemed to pass between them in silence, before Rexus blinked slowly. Then turned his head from his grandnephew to the man at his side. The king at his side. His half-brother. Who was smiling softly at him, face a mask of simple curiosity. It confused Regis when Rexus looked away from him. Shoulders climbing. Then falling with the whole slump his body dropped into, free hand shoved down inside his front pocket.

 That reaction alone turned the confusion into something a bit more concerned, maybe a bit more guilty too. 

 Regis had meant it as an entirely innocent question, but it seemed the King of Lucis might’ve stumbled onto a touchy subject by accident? 

 When this brother of his shifted his whole body a bit to the left, a bit away from him, he felt worse. Making an apologetic noise in his throat too quietly for sweet Ori to overhear. 

 “It’s fine,” Rexus told him, just as quietly, green eyes he’d gotten from their shared father betraying that it was a lie. So much dimmer a green now. Still watching Oriens though. Despite the lines of an old, already mourned pain that Regis recognized well from bathroom mirrors - darkening his face.

 Without all that much thought, and with the reflexes of a father, the king reached out a hand to rest it on his half-brother’s shoulder. Leaving it to rest there when it wasn’t shaken off.

 Rexus’ next words took him so much surprise he squeezed.

 “...I used to have children.” 

 Emotions got stuck in Regis’ throat.

 ‘Used to’.

 “I’m so sorry, Rexus.” 

 He was. He was. He was. Regis gripped his drink’s glass so hard, he swore it was beginning to crack under said grip. It wouldn’t be the first time. That - that wasn’t where he’d meant for this conversation to go. That wasn’t even a thing he’d considered; how selfish of him. To not think Rexus had known pain like that, to not even wonder for a moment if his half-brother had loved or lost or both.

 Both, most likely. Judging by the grief hidden in those eyes Regis had seen in his own and in his father’s in the past.

 Rexus hummed over the lip of his glass, mouth twitching, and then silently took another sip of his drink. Nose scrunching up. Maybe not a wine-loving man in the end, but that wasn’t important right now. He didn’t say a word as Regis set his glass down on the windowsill, as the king turned his body more towards him. Not really separating them from the rest of the world, but tuning the rest of this world that had cost Rexus his children out. 

 Making a noise that had Rexus pausing in his next sip, pausing, closing his eyes - and sighing. Just a little, down into his glass.

 And also setting it down on the windowsill next to his. Turning his body to match his brother’s.

 Lifting a hand, Regis’ eyes, Rexus’ eyes, their father’s eyes - followed it as he reached underneath his shirt’s collar with his fingers. Hooking something with one, and fishing it out of the fabric. A chain. One was long enough to never have been noticed before, even when Rexus unbuttoned his shirts a little.

 Weighed down by four things.

 A pair of wedding bands, silver and simple and with no engravings that Regis could see.

 And two, small, silver charms. Star charms. 

 Reaching forward tentatively, when Rexus didn’t pull away the chain? Regis brushed his fingertips against those wedding bands and stars. Such small stars. Each one had a set of initials engraved on them, he realized, as they spun a little from his touching. The light catching on their obviously polished surfaces. Making them shine. 

 ‘D.L.C.’

 The bigger star.

 ‘S.L.C.’

 The smaller star.

 “I’m sorry,” Regis repeated, heart in this throat, on his tongue and in his words. A very hurting heart. Pounding hard as the realization struck him; he’d had niblings. And he never even met them. This new brother of his had had children. And he’d lost them. Before they were ever united, before they’d ever called themselves family face to face. 

 “...It was years ago,” Rexus said, almost in a flat tone, the sort of tone that came from years of getting used to a certain type of pain, “I - sorry. For bringing them up.” 

 He went to drop the chain back into his shirt, to hide it all over again, and Regis caught it. Those wedding bands. Those stars. In his wrinkled, worn palm. He caught them. And Rexus didn’t forcibly take them back - let the old king run his thumb over them. Slowly. Let him think of his own wedding bands. Stowed away in a memorial box in his wardrobe. His had been the traditional burnish-gold of the royal family. 

 Aulea. He had already lost her, but if he lost Noctis? If he lost Oriens?

 “Her name was Sarah,” was said into the silence of their heads bowed together, in privacy and in shared mourning, foreheads bumping together as well, “My wife. She was…everything.” 

 “My Queen was Aulea,” he shared, eyes crinkling in fond remembrance. Rexus’ hand coming up underneath his to cup it, as they stared at that so simple a chain, “She was wonderful. She was my foundation. And in the end, we got so few years together.” 

 “Sarah and I met when I was a stupid teenager,” Rexus chuckled, neither of them caring that the sound was strained, breaking, “I was just exploring old ruins I had no business poking around in, and she came along. Calling me reckless. A thrill seeker. As if she wasn’t twice as reckless as me!” 

 “Aulea tripped me into a pond,” Regis shared, and Rexus snorted with laughter that had the older man giving him a light shove, “Come now! It was an accident!” 

 “Are you sure?”

 “...Pretty sure. I mean, she had a fishing joke prepared for when she helped me out of the water?” 

 “So it was premeditated.” 

 Regis blushed terribly at the idea. Glancing towards the mantle of his study’s fireplace. The portrait of his late queen above. Oh, Aulea always assured him laughingly that it had been an honest mistake, but. Well. It also wouldn’t surprise the aged king to learn she had planned the whole meeting out. Aulea had been as smart as a whip, quick as one too, and so wonderfully blasé about ‘proper’ manners. 

 “Ah, I loved her so,” the greyed man giggled, so fond with the thoughts of his incredible Aulea filling his mind now. The greatest gift she had left him with had been their beautiful son, their Noctis. But Aulea herself had been a gift as well. A gift lost far, far, far too soon to Lucis. To him. To their darling, dearest boy. 

 Their tiny night sky, who she only got to hold the once.

 “...Did you lose your Sarah to…?” He let the question trail off, let him brushing those star charms on the chain finish it for him. 

 The loss of a mother was an unfairly common pain for the House of Caelum. A wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother. So long as they weren’t blood-related to the family. Like Regis had lost his mother, like Rexus had lost his, like Noctis had lost his before ever knowing how she loved him - his heart was hardened against that familiar grief. Expecting it.

 So his eyes widened just a smidge when Rexus shook his head, denying it.

 “Not to childbirth,” oh, but the depth of sudden, inescapable grief that filled his little brother’s voice then was enough to make Regis move even closer to him. The pain sliced into Rexus’ forced smile then like a knife wound was enough to make him reach up, both hands, to make him hug his newest family member. Tight as his old limbs could.

 What a torturous pain.

 And Rexus wore it as if he thought he deserved it.

 “One moment,” Lucis’ King whispered, close to his sibling’s ear when he heard Ori giggle from dear Tenebris lightly batting him over, the pair started rolling around the rugs on the floor - no doubt his grandson had already noticed their hushed discussion. So he pulled away, and started pulling Rexus with him towards the center of his study where they’d be able to sit. 

 They left their drinks on the windowsill.

 “Oriens?” His grandson, Tenebris too, glanced up at them.

 And his grandson was smart. Saw what Regis’ kind eyes were trying to tell him.

 The sweet, sweet child scrambled onto his feet with a plushie tucked underneath each short arm of his kid. Careening into Regis’ hip to hug his grandfather tightly. Rubbing his face into his stomach slightly, saying his goodnights and leaving his mystery novel and notebook after his hair was ruffled, head kissed by his grandpa. 

 “Goodnight, Grandpa,” Ori mumbled, running a palm down Tenebris’ spine as he and his couerl cub headed for the study’s doors, “Goodnight, Uncle Rexus.”

 “Remember - “

 “I know, Grandpa; have the Glaives escort me to Dad,” their smart boy nodded, waving at them before he ducked out of the study, Tenebris chirping goodnight before his long tail disappeared after Oriens, and Regis smiled at the final call of, “Goodnight!” Before the doors shut. Leaving him and Rexus entirely alone.

 To have this talk, brought about by fine wine and old hurt.

 They sat on that old, ratty couch that had been their father’s, though only Regis realized that. Only Regis had memories of laying with King Mors on this couch after long nights, tangled up together and content as Lucis Caelums tended to be around one another. Rexus had none of those memories. He could only hope his half-brother’s parents - those two men who had adopted him that he’d spoken of - had given him happy memories as well.

 But for now, they sat together on the couch. And Regis leaned back into the cushions to offer a listening ear, and Rexus drew his legs up to fidget with the fabric of his pants, but he told this story. Eventually. 

 Apparently, it only took a little bit of digging into the Lucis Caelum lineage to realize women outside of the bloodline who give birth to Caelum children had a very, very, very high mortality rate over the course of a hundred generations or so. And Rexus hadn’t been willing to risk his wife just to have children.

 How Regis Lucis Caelum wished he could’ve been able to do the same.

 “I didn’t have a bloodline to secure,” his half-brother admitted, shrugging his shoulders a little, ashamed a little, though Regis assured him there was no reason for him to be, “I had no need of an heir. I wasn’t royalty, even if I was of the royal line, so…we went with surrogacy.”

 Two pregnancies. Two births. A completely safe wife, and completely healthy children.

 “Deleantur,” Rexus introduced them, gently touching the bigger star, “our son. And Solaria,” gently touching the smaller star, “our daughter. They were perfect. We were the proudest parents in Eos. This…would’ve been five or six years after Prince Noctis was born?” 

 “Noctis,” Regis reminded him, softly. So softly. So soft, it seemed to make something behind his grieving sibling’s eyes soften too. Maybe it was his heart.

 “Noctis. Right. Sorry.” 

 A son. And a daughter. Noctis’ tiny cousins. In another life, maybe they would’ve been able to be raised side by side. Close as siblings. But in this life? In this life, they were on opposite sides of Eos until death did them part. Regis knew that part of the story even before Rexus got to it. There was just…too much grief. Too much pain, in his brother’s buried magic. Magic he reached for with his own as the story went on.

 Magic he wrapped up in his own magic’s arms, because this was a little brother of his and it was the only way he knew how to comfort them.

 Deleantur took after his father. Solaria took after her mother. They were everything, and then -

 Then, Rexus sighed so heavily his whole body drooped back onto the couch. Burying his face in the leather. And Regis reached out to take his hand, brushing a thumb over his knuckles, telling the younger father - because he had been, and would always be, a father - that he didn’t have to tell him anymore. He understood.

 Rexus stopped him with the muffled confession of, “It was my fault.” 

 Regis tapped his knuckles, firmly, telling him, “I’m sure it wasn’t.” 

 Rexus stayed quiet for a while. Some of the brightness of the wine he’d drunk earlier starting to fill those green eyes of his, of theirs. It was the haze of slight tipsiness that loosened his lips after that. After he turned his head so his face wasn’t buried in the couch’s leather anymore. Or…maybe it was the support the Father offered. 

 The Father.

 Once, Rexus had been so bitter that that was the title his half-brother had been given.

 Now, it was a comfort.

 “I wasn’t careful,” he mumbled, slurred, let slip between the familiar burning behind his throat and his eyes and his ribs, “I should’ve been, but I wasn’t. I found - something. In those ruins. I thought it was harmless. It wasn’t. I thought it wouldn’t hurt anything to let Solaria play with it. She thought it was pretty, and it wasn’t the first toy I’d found from old civilizations so…so…what would it hurt? What would it hurt?” 

 When Rexus started shaking his head, then kept shaking his head, it only took a tug from Regis to bring his little brother fully into his arms. Where he said more and more and more, all in a detached mumble that spoke of drunken memories. Dark memories.

 Things that no amount of hugs could heal, but Regis still tried.

 “I didn’t know it had the Scourge on it.” 

 Regis sucked in a breath, and clutched his baby brother tighter. His mind slipping back to the word, ‘surrogacy’, and he knew the end of this story already.

 “She shared it with her brother, and they were so small, it barely took the afternoon for them both to fall sick,” the Astrals truly had no mercy, did they? And Regis truly hated them, “Sarah didn’t realize what they were sick with at first, and nursed them. None of us realized until they started coughing up that black…that…and…and then, Sarah was sick too. All of them were sick. All of them, except me.” 

 Because Lucis Caelums were immune to the Starscourge.

 But his children had been conceived through surrogacy.

 “I am so, so sorry, Rexus, darling.” 

 “The only cure was an Oracle,” the mumbling continued, and Regis let him speak to get it out, to get this out. Carding his fingers through Rexus’ hair as he felt a wet stain begin to spread across his shirt where his brother’s face was pressed, “But the Empire was holding the only one hostage, and we were halfway across Eos besides, in the middle of nowhere of Niflheim's mountains because I wanted to look into a stupid legend, so - ! So…”

 Regis pressed his lips to his brother’s temple, the two of them completely tangled together now on the couch.

 Like Mors and Regis.

 Like Regis and Noctis.

 Like Noctis and Oriens.

 “All I could do was watch. We were alone, and all - all I - all…and…Solaria died first. My daughter. Our baby girl - and Sarah followed her. Couldn’t let her go alone into the Beyond. Deleantur clung on the longest. Even in the end with all the…with the Scourge, with what it does to the body, he didn’t want to leave me alone, my brave boy. My brave…brave…my…”

 Rexus wasn’t a loud crier.

 He was mostly trembling, muffled sobs.

 A lot like his precious Noctis, Rexus cried as if it hadn’t been safe for him to make sounds at one point or another when he would break down.

 There was absolutely nothing for Regis to do besides hold his little brother. Hold him until he passed out from the wine and the grief and the exhaustion. And then follow him to sleep, praying to Carbuncle to give Rexus good dreams. Dreams of the family he’d lost. Dreams he deserved, after all these years. 

 Dreams that Regis slipped partially into.

 Because of course Carbuncle answered the prayers of the House of Caelum.

 He stood in a field of fields. Of long grasses and wildflowers.

 He glimpsed a woman with beautiful, flowing hair a silvery-grey and eyes a violet-blue laughing. And smiling. And being spun around in Rexus’ arms, spinning and spinning and spinning until the two of them ended up tripping, and rolling down a grassy hill together. Out of sight. But their laughter echoed anyways. Loud and clear as wedding bells. And as he watched, past Regis?

 Ran two children. So small of children. No older than six, no younger than four.

 A boy with the hair they shared, that dark brown shade of Mors and his sons’ - with violet-blue eyes. And a girl with the silvery-grey hair of Rexus’ beloved Sarah. And green eyes that caught on her uncle’s when she glanced back at him on the hillcrest. When she waved at him with a tiny, toothy smile and giggle, and then her brother grabbed her hand and dragged her giggling over the hill to follow their parents.

 Regis slipped away from his brother’s dream, to let him have his privacy. The laughter of a family reunited followed him.

 Followed him, as he followed Carbuncle’s pawprints and tufts of dream-blue fur through the field, to find his own boys.

 To find where Noctis was weaving fabric together under a large, budding tree. And Nyx was being taught how to reel in a fish by Ori, down at the pond’s pier nearby. And Tenebris was bounding through the long grasses chirping happily as he chased after dear, delicate Aurora. Aurora, who came bounding up to him to leap into his arms -

 And Regis squawked as he was pounced on by a coeurl cub swiftly after.

 But even as he laid there on his back in the grasses and wildflowers, under two purring cats, and even as Regis heard Noctis calling his name, heard Ori calling for him, he didn’t mind staying right where he was.

 He was so thankful.

 And he would do anything to keep this.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rexus joined the group chat for cute photos of Lucis Caelums that morning, unwillingly, and courtesy of a very begrudging Clarus Amicitia.

 Maybe the brother drooling all over his King’s shirt wasn’t so bad. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Lucis’ media lit up with notifications that day that followed a drunken night between half-brothers.

 News media, social media, the radios and newspapers. Bounty papers hammered to the bulletin boards of hunter outposts overnight. A Crownsguard debrief. A Kingsglaive meeting Nyx led more than Captain Drautos did. More quiet and violent than many of the younger Glaives had ever seen their favorite teacher. There were notices sent out to Niflheim, Accordo, Tenebrae, Galahd - and every single smaller hub in-between and besides. 

 There was Regis standing, guarded, on the steps of the Citadel for yet another live broadcast. Explaining to Lucis, to Eos, finally in detail about the Adagium. An open myth. A conspiracy theory for those who’d thought they’d faked the shape-shifting seen in that video that exonerated his baby boy. An update in the public awareness of the Accursed of legend. The shadowy stain on the House of Caelum’s bloodline.

 The abomination cursed by the Astrals and locked away, and whose keys had been held by the Lucis Caelums for generations.

 There were questions. Rumors.

 And there was the Father standing there on those steps, promising royal favor and fortune on anyone who came forward with information that would lead to the Adagium’s recapture after all these decades.

 And elsewhere, in a dim room, with flickering lights and glass shards scattered across the floors of a broken-down lab, a man in a strange hat chuckled to himself.

 “Perhaps I should turn myself in, hm?” 

 The day passed in quiet moments of family sticking close together.

 

 

-----

 

 

 As did the next.

 

 

-----

 

 

 And the next…

 

 

-----

 

 

 “<I have something for you, starlight,>” Nyx took the chance to say when the atmosphere was somewhat calm - well, calmer - getting those blue-blue eyes on him. Such beautiful blue-blue eyes. His lips quirked up a bit, seeing the glassy look to them fade away. Long-since having realized that speaking in Galahdian helped pull his star even further out of his dissociating states. 

 Was it the extra thought he had to put into it? To translating what Nyx said? 

 Or was the language of Ramuh’s Children simply that much of an indicator that he was safe? 

 Whatever the case, Nyx wasn’t able to stop himself from feeling at least a little proud for having figured that out months back. For the way he was able to get close. Get near. Get dear. Get down on one knee, offering up the folded fabric he had in his hands. That he’d been given by a small group of Glaives before heading to inlustris’ royals rooms where they were now. 

 Glaives wearing every possible color and with every possible shade of dye dyeing their arms.

 Inlustris’ gaze drifted down to the fabric - the knitted yarn, soft as seasilk - and stared for a heartbeat. Then blinked as he seemed to realize it was being offered to him. Took it in his hands. Squeezing and loosening his grip more than once, blinking rapidly at just how soft he found it to be and Nyx beamed with pride for the skill that had gone into making it so. 

 “What’s this?” His star questioned in a lost tone of voice, kneading at the knitting with his fingertips. And then bowing his head. Just a bit. To rub his cheek against the extra, extra soft yarn. He even sniffed it. The Glaive found the sight adorable, found himself chuckling as he gave an answer.

 “A gift,” at inlustris’ blank look, he added, “From the Aranahe Clan, starlight. For you.”

 That just seemed to make the raven-haired man blank out more.

 He pinched the knit thing, and then lifted it. Letting lengths of it fall. Fall, unravel, unfold - into the knitted cardigan it was. It was big. And soft. More like a wearable blanket, to be honest. With big pockets. And knit together in three main colors that were more color than his star would usually wear at all. Starting with a deep, royalty-blue for the bottom, then a sweeter, yellow color like flower petals for the middle, then a familiar dream-blue shade on top that made them both think of a certain dream guardian. 

 “...Why?” His star asked, sounding confused, and Nyx couldn’t exactly see the man with that cardigan held up between them. But he heard that confusion. He did.

 And he saw for himself, the way his starlight’s shoulders lowered just a bit. The way he held himself a little looser, the way some of the stress of these last days finally dropped away from him. All because he had a little something nice for himself.

 Nyx owed the Aranahe Clan for giving his amatus that.

 “A thank you,” he told this man he loved, fond, of the way his star lowered the cardigan but hugged it close, adjusted his glasses, snuggled with the oversized thing as if it actually was a sort of blanket, “for honoring them, their clan, their ways. For learning. Their art, their traditions, their teachings. Inlustris,” he added when his wonderful, wonderful amatus just looked startlingly confused, “you’ve honored them so deeply, by taking after them and their art. They want to repay that. So the clan’s best made this for you.”

 Soft and lightweight and colorful.

 And enough to keep his star warm, even in winter.

 “...I didn’t do it for a gift,” his star said softly, pressing the lower half of his face into the cardigan, eyes going half-lidded, and Nyx smiled. Crawled his way up onto the couch too. Curled around his star who was still so humble despite all the power he had housed in him. Who still blushed over simple kindness.

 Who deserved all that kindness and more.

 “Still, a gift,” the Ulric Chieftain repeated, running his hand respectfully down the soft, knitted bumps and hills of the cardigan being snuggled by his beloved, “You can say it’s a Winter Solstice gift from the clan, if you want. Please, accept it. Accept it as a gift from another clan. Accept it as my amatus, Noctis. I want you too.” 

 Who still blushed.

 And was allowed to have a small moment of softness and color, amid everything else, as snowflakes swirled by the windows outside.

…

 The Winter Solstice was only a single day away now, wasn’t it.

 Noctis pressed his face into the soft, soft, soft gift Nyx’s people had given him. To thank him. Just for learning to weave soft things together. For those drawers he had filled full of squares of soft yarns woven together, for the silly woven bracelets he’d given to Iggy, for the woven arm circlet he’d given to Gladio, for spending time with his son and making his father happy over him being happy -

 For…

 “Nyx,” he whispered to his boyfriend’s braids, his beloved’s, feeling shy. Twisting his hands together and apart and remembering the cardigan so he smoothed it very carefully over his knees after setting it safely down, “I have…something for you too. If you want it.” 

 “Don’t you know by now?” Nyx teased, rubbing their beards together by leaning in as close as he could, “I’ll always want everything from you, starlight.”

That was enough.

Enough for the raven-haired royal to get over his shyness, and pull from the Armiger a small project of his own. Not nearly as pretty or perfected as the cardigan. There were pulled ends, and a few unfortunate knots that Noctis had tried and failed to fix, so, imperfection. Imperfection was what he could offer this man with stormy eyes and a stormier heart whom he loved. Imperfection was what he clutched tight, and then hesitantly unfurled his fingers to reveal to Nyx.

 The imperfection of a long, thick woven scarf. Not only of yarn, but fabric. The finest blues and violets fabrics that the Aranahe Clan were capable of dyeing, which the Ulric Chieftain remembered seeing his star buy in Little Galahd. Which made him go a little breathless. Made his heart skip a little beat, like hopping over a narrow stream. Trying not to slip. 

 It was soft, when Nyx pressed his scarred hands into it.

 It was colorful, when Nyx bent to nuzzle his face into it while his star continued to hold it.

 It was perfectly imperfect; he didn’t miss the nicks and knots and all the small mistakes.

 It was absolutely incredible.

 And Nyx grinned so widely his cheeks would be sore later because of it.

 “<Starlight, thank you so much. I adore it.>”

 That was them, wasn’t it? Perfectly imperfect. And Nyx helped his star into his new, softer-than-dandelion-fluff cardigan. And Noctis helped his Glaive into his new scarf, wrapping it twice as many times as needed around his head until Nyx was completely mummified by yarn and fabric and Noctis was giggling helplessly into his sleeves.

 “Wuv it,” Nyx repeated, muffled, and sent his magnificent star off into another peal of helpless giggles.

 The greatest Winter Solstice gift he could’ve ever begged for.

 So many things were uncertain right now, but…they’d be okay.

 They had to be.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

Rexus' backstory is sorta tragic, but was fun to write a bit of~! Poor Ori though. I feel like I type that a lot nowadays. But that's the way of things. They have to get worse before they get better. <3

Ardyn is just sitting with his popcorn, trying to decide if it'd be more fun to turn himself in or follow his original plan. XD

Chapter 34

Notes:

Happy holiday fluff ahead~! I'm nearly completely moved in now, so hopefully we can get back to the chapter every two weeks schedule I had before! <3

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

 The morning of the Winter Solstice.

 One of the most prevalent holidays of the whole year in Lucis, doubly so in Niflheim, and slightly less celebrated in Tenebrae and Accordo but commercialized nonetheless. A light snowfall, a white Winter Solstice. Beautiful lightshows. Big meals. Gifts underneath the Solstice trees, decorated in shiny tinsel and candy canes and ornaments reflecting happy, happy smiles. 

 It was whole families gathered together, children sipping on mugs of hot cocoa full of whipped cream and tiny marshmallows. Parents leaning pleasantly on one another, enjoying their own mugs of coffee and cappuccino.

 It was gifts being opened, wrapping paper flying, Solstice warzones and squeals of delight. Children laughing. Lovers kissing under the mistletoe. Enemies giving each other a day off…

 Even enemies of the royal family.

 A single day off would hurt no well-laid plans.

 There was music, festivals filling the streets, stalls full of tasty treats and day-of gifts and trinkets that shone and shined in glitter and gold and sterling silver. People bundled up in big coats. Soft hats. Fluffy scarves. Snowflakes stuck on their eyelashes, as they linked arms with those they loved or held hands through their mittens, pearls of laughter, of them running unworried through the snow.

 The Winter Solstice. Maybe it wasn’t as all-important as the year before, and maybe there weren’t the same celebrations as there used to be -

 But for a day, protestors put their signs down in favor of spending time with their loved ones.

 And for a day, even the royal household had something of a day off.

 Winter was halfway over. The year was nearly at an end. And in the Citadel, for the first time in a decade? Noctis Lucis Caelum woke up in his own bed on the Winter Solstice. There was the pale light of a snowy day streaming through his high, arching windows. The silky feel of his bedsheets that he snuggled into as long as he pleased. There were no irritated ‘Guards, upset they had to miss a Solstice with their family and extremely eager to take it out on him.

 There was a shirtless Nyx Ulric softly singing along to Solstice songs and bobbing his head, meowing back at Aurora who was a very chatty princess that day. 

 And there was a good half an hour of Noctis lazing there, enjoying the view.

 Calm.

 Happy.

 The jingling of bells announced his son’s arrival a short time after Nyx had shot him a grin, seeing him awake, and poked his head out of the door of their bedroom. Sending for mane. And, bells, because when Ori burst into their bedroom? Giggling and hopping on the balls of his feet? 

 Some funny Glaive had threaded a set of actual jingle bells in his fluffy hair for the day, and it was enough to send Noctis into unspooling laughter.

 His little morninglight scrambled up onto the bed with him, bright-eyed and bright-smiled and crawling up to him with a smear of hot coca near his mouth and pajamas soft. Hair fluffy in that way that said he’d just rolled out of bed and left it be. 

 “Dad!” Ori chirped, a sound of pure joy, and a chirp mimicked by the black couerl cub who also hopped up onto the bed beside him, “Merry Winter Solstice!” 

 His son’s arms wound around his neck in an embrace so nice, his giggles in his ear, his warmth, him -

 Noctis pressed his face into Ori’s small shoulder. Holding him back as best he could, and holding back his tears as best he could too. With a couerl cub loafing on his legs, and the curious mrp~ of Aurora also hopping up onto the bed to carefully pick her way across the wrinkled covers and loaf too, and Nyx coming over with a throaty laugh. To sit next to them all.

 To drape an arm across the raven-haired royal’s hunched shoulders, and ruffle their son’s hair in the same movement, and grin something wildly happy as he said, “What our little star said, inlustris. Merry Winter Solstice.” 

 And if father and son leaned more into the Ulric Chieftain, and if Ori peeked up from the safe warmth under his dad’s jaw, and if he smiled shyly up at the man his dad loved - ? 

 And if he hid a little deeper in the safe warmth - ?

 And if he murmured softly, “...Merry Winter Solstice, Papai.” 

 If Nyx went still, blinking in surprise, and then his face twisted into one trying to keep tears away too, it was nobody’s business except their little family’s.

 “Merry Winter Solstice, my stars,” Nyx Ulric whispered in a voice that was raw.

 And they held onto each other, for as long as they could, as hard as they could.

 And it was the best Winter Solstice in a decade, by all accounts.

…

 Nyx dressed. In a behemoth-leather jacket lined with fur, his usual combat boots, but most importantly a scarf his star had made for him. Thick. Yarn. Warm. He wrapped it twice around his neck and let the long lengths left trail behind him. It was still early in the day, and of course he wished to spend all of the Solstice with his stars, his amatus, their son because that was how Oriens called him now - 

 But while they were still tangled up together in inlustris’ bed, inlustris listening so happily as mane chattered about all the things he wanted to do that day? 

 Nyx dressed. And came over to press a sweet kiss to his star’s head before he went, because as the Ulric Chieftain he had his own responsibilities for the Solstice. In Little Galahd. Even if the Storm Islands had never celebrated the Winter Solstice the way the mainland did, they had spiritual beliefs tied heavily to the middle of winter and the tropical storms it would bring to Galahd.

 His love for his home, his traditions, those beliefs; the reason he wasn’t truly upset to have to go. His stars understood. They wished him well. 

 And Nyx left, to go to a Little Galahd full of winter arts and ornaments and Galahd’s own traditions painted in seashell shades and mountain silks. 

 And, before that, to meet a certain someone at one of the Ostium restaurants. 

 Libs had asked, hesitantly, over the phone in a whisper the day before if it would be alright. And Libs was still on the outs with his family, still a little shunned in the community, but Libs was sober and was his brother, and by Ramuh Nyx wanted to have a Solstice breakfast with his brother again. It would never be the same as when they had Crowe…

 But it would be a bit like they were home again.

 So Nyx dressed, and Nyx went.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There were royal obligations for the Winter Solstice. Duties for them to perform.

 Less this year than the last, thanks to Noctis’ return, but those came later. Later, after a shared breakfast for the family full of laughter and yummy food. After everyone had slept in as late as pleased, or simply stayed in bed for ages. After a night where they hesitated to hope, but did so anyways. Hope for a day without pain. Or grief. Or him.

 Those royal obligations would come after.

 After the House of Caelum came together at a modest kitchen table, stacked high with pancakes molded into festive shapes. King Regis pressing kisses to both of his boys’ foreheads after they’d sat, full of chuckles and still in his own pajamas as well. Noctis helping Ori pile up his plate. Ori positively bouncing in his seat with joy over having nearly his whole family there with them.

 Dear Ignis was, of course, delighted to be flipping pancakes and keeping the table stocked for the entirety breakfast, wandering around with an apron around his waist and an honest-to-goodness happy smile on his lips.

 How could he not? How could they not? 

 Hadn’t they earned this much happiness? Just for the day?

 A Carbuncle-shaped pancake was set on the plate of Lucis’ Crown Prince, and Ori got a bit overzealous about applying whipped cream fur to the yummy dream guardian.

 Rexus stumbled into the kitchen of Noctis’ royal rooms a little after they tucked into the feast of pancakes, bleary-eyed and stretching, and maybe a little hesitant too. Looking towards his half-brother to check that he was actually invited to join them - ? Which, he was, of course he was, sit, Rexus darling. 

 So he sat. And for the first time in a long time, Rexus Lucis Caelum also got to spend the Winter Solstice with actual family instead of some flirt of his.

 Many pancakes were devoured that morning.

 And many mugs of hot coco drank.

 And many mustaches of hot coco were worn too.
 
 And, yes, they had their obligations. Not nearly as much as years-past. There was no grand ball being held this year, for instance. None of those extra interviews had been arranged, nor a public tour through the city’s Solstice festivals. There would be a public speech later, broadcasted from the Citadel’s snowy steps. There would be the Crown-sanctioned fireworks shows come nightfall. And that would be all there was, since the House of Caelum was focused on family this Solstice.

 After breakfast, the older family members were barely given time to let their stomachs settle before their youngest had warped off - followed by plenty of Glaives assigned to guard him, as was always the case now - and returned a while later with the chiming of another warp. 

 No longer wearing his pajamas, but absolutely fluffed up in layers of winter clothing.

 A puffy, blue winter coat, woolen mitts, snowpants and snowboots, and a scarf wrapped snug no less than three times - Oriens looked like he was stuck in a permanent t-pose. There were so many layers. And the only skin visible on the princeling was around those eyes of his that he’d inherited from his dad.

 Eyes that were positively shimmering with excitement.

 “To the gardens!” Ori squeaked, muffled through his scarf, but still managing to make it sound like a battlecry, and of course. Of course. All three Lucis Caelums still sitting around the table barely contained their laughter as they rose, off to dress themselves for the snowy day. 

 Regis slightly failed to keep his laughter contained when he caught sight of his grandson waddling towards the door, and saw him fall over, then lay there flailing on the floor until dear Ignis hurried over and set him back onto his feet. Tutting. And the Hand went about removing just a few of the layers Ori had dressed himself with, to help, as was his duty and honor.

 Yes, they ended up out in the snowy gardens of the Citadel of Insomnia.

 Unused to the cold of snow, Noctis had gone outside very little since winter had come to Lucis, and the gardens below his rooms were like an entirely new place compared to the gardens him and his dad and his son had spent time in earlier in the year. The gardens where he’d first found and adopted Aurora.

 Not that the gardens were bad, just cold. The snow was pure and white and sparkly in the sunshine, the ground cushioned by layers of it and the path shoveled clear by Crownsguard and Kingsglaive recruits, as was one of their chore duties.

 It was…nice.

 It was nicer to see his son, Oriens, take a flying leap into a snowbank and disappear under all the snow, squealing. 

 “Careful!” Noctis called, bundled up in his own layers and staying close to his dad. Because Dad was keeping up a low-level fire spell, heating the air around them just for his sake; considering the raven-haired royal could no longer feel most of his limbs all that well.

 It’d be hard to tell when he reached the point of being too cold for his health.

 So they were taking extra precautions.

 “Let him play, Noctis, sweetheart,” Regis murmured to his son, reaching over to clasp gloved hands in his own and push more of his fiery magic to his palms, “He’ll come to us if he needs help.” 

 So he would. And they’d worked hard to ensure Oriens knew he could do that. 

 Together they watched Rexus meander over to the snowbank that had swallowed his grandnephew, stick his hand in it, and pull out a princling by his boot. Dangling him upside-down over the snow, to which Ori squealed and writhed around, “Uncle Rexus!!!” 

 They were content to stand back, follow along, and watch. But contentment meant nothing when their boy was asking for help, which was how they ended up rolling snowballs under Oriens’ orders a time later. 

 Snowbuncles were made in the snowy gardens that day. Which were precisely what they sounded like. Some were big, some were small, some were in the middle between those two sizes. With carrot horns and button eyes and stone noses. Oriens led the construction efforts with a mitted fist. Even dragging his Kingsglaive guards into helping turn the entire garden into an army of snowbuncles.

 Packing snow until his nose was cute and red, Regis sat on a bench and packed little snowballs to add as decorations since his cane prevented him from doing much of the ‘labor’. 
 
 Noctis sent Iggy to gather as many spare scarves as possible, wrapping them around snowbuncle necks so they wouldn’t get ‘cold’ because of how it made his little dawnlight giggle in delight.

 Somebody started a snowball fight.

 What, no, Rexus didn’t shove snow down a Glaive’s pants, he had nothing to do with that snowball fight! Nope! Never!

 Regardless of how it started, snowballs flew. Carrot horns were thrown. Noctis squawked when a snowball nailed him in the back of one shoulder, and that squawk turned into breathy laughter when a shield of his dad’s formed around him. Snowballs uselessly splatting against its surface. 

 “That’s cheating, Grandpa!” Oriens shouted from behind the biggest of his snowbuncles, perched on its back as if it were a mount of some sort, just to get nailed in the chest by a snowball and go tumbling backwards into a snow drift with a shriek of shock. And delight. 

 And Regis chuckled, checking with his son first before dropping the ‘cheating’ shield, “Sorry, my dear! Just trying to keep your dad on his - oh!”

 A Glaive got a lucky hit, nailing the Lucian King straight in the center of his back and sending him stumbling forward with bursts of laughter trickling out of him.

 Noctis went to steady his dad - 

 And both of them got nailed by snowballs in the crossfire. Sending them careening together and then down, into the snowdrifts too. They ended up laying on their backs. Watching snowballs fly overhead as everyone got worked up with excitement. Laughing as they laid there side by side.

 Laughing even when the breath got knocked out of them by a little, warping prince.

 Who appeared over them without warning and simply belly-flopped atop them. 
 
 “Grandpa! Dad!” Oriens managed between his endless, breathless giggles as he laid on them, “I will avenge you!”

 “Our hero,” Regis chuckled in his own breathy way, beaming down at his happy grandson. And rumbling with his pleasure over Noctis’ also breathless giggling, that he turned over to bury into his dad’s shoulder, snuggling in close to him as their boy scrambled back to his feet to lead a snowball ‘counterattack’.

 They just laid there as the fight went on, remarkably comfortable in their little snow kingdom on the ground.

 Rexus snuck over to join them after a while, shaking snow out of his hair’s curls, flopping down onto the ground on Regis’ opposite side with a groan.

 “What a brutal child,” his half-brother muttered, as if he wasn’t smiling so widely there were deep crinkles around his eyes, and Regis reached over to pat his sibling’s thigh.

 “We are oh-so proud, yes.” 

 It was all laughter and flying snowballs, and a happy Solstice morning.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Nyx, hearing his phone ping, pulled it from his pocket while Libs shoveled spice pancakes into his mouth. To check the new photos that had been added to a certain groupchat him and Retinues shared.

 Photos of three Lucis Caelums laid out on the ground, covered in snow.

 Photos of his star, beaming, with snowflakes clinging to his dark eyelashes. Pretty, pretty photos.

 “<Smitten bastard,>” Libertus sniped through a mouthful of food, not unkindly, and Nyx threw back his head to laugh. Casually lounging back in his chair as he smirked at his oldest, dearest friend, smug as the couerl who’d hooked a star out of the sky, “<Ugh, acting all sweet, disgusting. Crowe would’ve loved to see it.>”

 “<She would’ve,>” Nyx agreed softly, saving the photos from the groupchat to his phone, and then shoving it back in his pocket so he could focus on Little Galahd and Libs like a good chieftain, at least for a while, “<So, are the marriage offers rolling in now that you’re sober yet, or - ?>”

 Libs sputtered.

 And it was so good to be home.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The House of Caelum cleaned up nicely. There was a reason Lucis Caelums were repeatedly chosen as Lucis’ Most Eligible Bachelor. Regis himself had been chosen for the last eight years in a row, and several other times in the years before then, when he was younger. He had a feeling his son would be up for the running this next year if it wasn’t for his not-so-secret relationship with a certain Glaive.

 And he knew Cor had put money on Rexus being chosen in his place.

 Now that Rexus was about to become public knowledge, that is. 

 That was why they cleaned up nicely after their snowy garden fun. There was that speech the Lucis Caelums were expected to give on the Solstice. One of the few obligations they hadn’t slipped away from this year. Far less stressful an obligation than the others, for sure, but they still had to go through the trouble of looking presentable.

 Dressing in their black suits, their golden accents, all prim and proper and royal. 

 Regis smiled while straightening his tie in the mirror, Ori’s small hands tugging on his pinstripe suit. Waiting to have his own tie checked, and straightened by old hands, after which he preened proudly in the mirror right next to his grandfather. He looked like such a regal little prince. Having picked a plain, satin suit, he actually looked like an exact miniature of his father.

 Noctis was also wearing a plain, satin suit. All black. All softer than their usual material, warmer too, with extra lining to combat the chill of the snowy day. He straightened his tie himself, and spent some time sitting at the vanity seat redoing his Galahdian braids into carefully tamed ones. Polishing the beads with care before he threaded each one on.

 It warmed Regis’ heart to see his son so easily doing it all…himself.

 In the beginning, back when he’d needed help with absolutely everything, from eating to bathing - there’d been such a large part of himself that was terrified he’d never…

 But he watched his son thread beads onto thin, neat braids, checking with Glaive Arra that he’d done it correctly, and it was a sight for sore eyes. His baby boy. All neat, and groomed, and eyes brilliant with a life he’d been so afraid was ripped from him. A life he’d been so afraid Noctis would never be able to get back.

 This greying king closed his eyes, soothed.

 And there was a tap on his shoulder.

 Opening his eyes once more, he turned to find a certain half-brother of his standing to his side. Rather awkwardly. Smile crooked with nerves as he did a general wave around himself, him, what he looked like - which was rather like a super model, since he’d yet again chosen something more casual than the rest of them in high-waisted pants and a buttoned shirt with cardigan on top - and he still somehow seemed insecure in himself.

 To which Regis tutted softly, turning to his younger sibling to fluff up his curly hair, “Did you have something in mind for this? Or are you leaving it down?”

 “You pick - I don’t know anything about what I should be trying for,” Rexus huffed, hands wringing as Regis tutted again and got to work taming their father’s less-than-straight hair genes into something neater. Rexus would look handsome either way. That was never in doubt. Just as his son and grandson were both handsome. It was simply a part of being a Caelum.

 Still, he helped. Was only too glad to have been asked to.

 “Me next,” his nightlight’s voice suddenly came from next to him, and Regis blinked at his son who had popped up at his side out of the blue.

 “Me too!” Oriens joined in, popping up right next to his father’s hip and looking up sternly at his grandfather.

 “Noctis, sweetie, you already did your hair?” The old king reminded him, tipping his head as his fingers dragged slowly through Rexus’ curls, and then he frowned down at his grandson as well in the same sort of confusion, “And Ori, Ignis was kind enough to do yours already as well.” 

 “Me next!” Both his son and grandson repeated, mouths pursing together into almost pouts - and oh, how could Regis refuse? Even if it made no sense to him.

 “Of course, my dears.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Broadcast in ten!” The director behind the camera called out, and the absolute flurry of activity on the snowy steps of the Citadel started to settle somewhat.

 Drawing back his shoulders to the ‘proper’ posture Regis had been taught almost half a century ago, he reached with his hands. Wrinkles and age spots and all. Placing one on his dear Noctis’ shoulder to his right, another to his dear Oriens’ shoulder right between them, squeezing lightly, and then watching. Their media team lowering their fingers from the count of ten one by one, mouthing along.

 ‘Three, two - ‘

 Miss Ruby Cantil herself, in her fluffy fur hat and mittens, mouthed along to the final countdown with painted lips -

 The final fingers went down, the countdown finished, a red light blinked to life on the camera, and all across Eos people tuned in to see the House of Caelum. To see the King of Lucis and his boys, all sure and steady and strong. To the kindly Father, and of course his heir who was as adorable as ever - but most importantly? To see the prince who had been replaced.

 A prince far more steady than his last public appearances. A prince standing easily on his own two feet, for the wisps of blue magic swirling around his legs. Calm and clear-eyed. Confident, almost, he dared to be and Regis was unspeakably proud of his strong, strong son. 

 Who was no longer the hollowed shell of a man Mistveil Keep had made him into.

 “Lucis, Eos, a Merry Winter Solstice to you all!” The greying king got out through his suspiciously tight throat, smile genuinely wide for the camera, for his boys, for how far they’d come even if they still faced struggles. They would overcome those struggles. As a house. 

And they would be better for it.

 “For this year of M.E. 765, I, Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII, stand here to wish all of you a truly happy Solstice. Those of you both within our kingdom’s boundaries and those of you without. There are no boundaries on good wishes, so I do hope you will accept them,” his eyes twinkled when he felt his boys both twitch and smile at his overly kind words, “This year is nearly at its end. This winter is halfway finished. I know it has truly been a strange year, I do. And I am sorry for those of you who experienced losses over the course of it. I am,” he squeezed Noctis’ shoulder softly in a silent apology for the need to say it, “especially sorry to Tenebrae, whose loss of Queen Lunafreya was one with so many ripples, affecting so many things.” 

 It had to be said. Politics and the like; to not even mention Her Majesty’s passing would’ve been seen as direct hostility to Tenebrae. Even if they were still currently crippled and scrambling to find their heads - and for the daughter of his dear friend? 

 Regis felt the need to spare a few words at least, even if both of his boys went a little unhappily tense over it.

 “This year, we gained back a Prince of Lucis,” Regis continued in a far fonder tone, after a short, respectful pause had passed, patting his son’s shoulder and smiling for how Noctis leaned into the touch like a flower towards light, “This year, my son was proven innocent. This year, my son came home, and he is recovering astonishingly well.” 

 His and Aulea’s little nightlight lightly cleared his throat and bowed his head to the camera, “A Merry Winter Solstice to you all,” he had to do it again to get rid of his rasp, but his eyes never lost their blue brightness, “It is…good to be home.” 

 Oh, his darling Noctis.

 Regis felt pride swell in his heart so much he feared it may burst.

 “And this year,” he continued, patting his grandson’s shoulder and smiling for how Oriens bounced excitedly under his hand, “my grandson has grown to be an even more impressive child than I ever could’ve hoped for our family to be blessed with. They are the prides of our house. They are my prides.”

Tilting his head, Regis shivered at the snowflakes landing his beard and knew it was time to begin wrapping up the pleasantries of this small, holiday-centered speech.

“...And as of this year,” he continued, voice turning stronger, firmer, for there could be no doubts about the thing he had left to announce, “the House of Caelum also has a new pride, dear Lucis of mine. One that we were unaware of until most recently, but one that we have accepted with open arms. One that is ours, and happily so - on both sides of this coin.”

 Footsteps, and snow crunching beneath them, came from behind the old king.

 And Regis half-turned, allowing his hands to fall from his boys who stepped to the side, leaving space between them for the man descending the steps to join them. The man Regis offered his hand to, to have it taken with a halfway shy smile that spoke leagues of how little his half-brother was enjoying this sort of attention but was resilient anyways.

 Rexus Lucis Caelum stepped down onto their step to join them.

 An echo of the king who came before Regis. An echo of their father. His features were undeniable, and no doubt being focused on by the camera, and this king?

 Draped an arm around his little brother’s shoulders, earning him a real smile that stretched into a grin as Oriens tugged at his pants, as Noctis shuffled closer to shadow him. 

 As his family closed in around him.

 “Lucis, may I introduce to you Rexus Lucis Caelum, second-born son of my father, King Mors Lucis Caelum, a child unknown to him and to us that has found his way home, and that I welcome wholeheartedly as a brother of mine. As a member of our house. As a Lucis Caelum. As family.”

 “Hello,” Rexus said so damn simply to the camera, and Regis felt his mouth twitch, fighting off the undignified giggle he wanted to let out. 

 No more than five seconds later, with the whole House of Caelum staring at the camera, that red light ceased blinking. The broadcast was ended. And the chill was great. And Regis chuckled gratefully to Clarus who had finally joined them for the day, draping a jacket over his shoulders as dear Ignis hurried forward to do for his charge. And Glaives came up to do the same for his darling Noctis and Rexus.

 “Damn, that’s cold,” Rexus hissed, rubbing at his arms and with arguably the least amount of layers in his outfit.

 “That’s a bad word, Uncle Rexus!” Oriens chirped, planting his hands on his hips judgmentally and pouting up at his great-uncle, and laughter echoed off the towering Citadel as the royals were herded inside to warm them up. 

 While all across Eos, citizens reeled in shock at the reveal of another Lucis Caelum.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Cor’s lips twitched into a smile.

 And Clarus really should’ve known better by now than to ask, “What is it?” 

 Turning his phone around to show the screen to the Shield, the Sword smirked, swiping up to show the pages of posts already posted all over Kwitter, “Our new royal already has thirst traps made of him with thousands of likes.” 

 “Nevermind.”

 Clarus was way too fucking old for these little shits.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “I feel…ugh,” Rexus scoffed, failing to find an answer for his royal sibling’s question of how he was doing. He resorted to flopping down on the couch like a damsel in distress, just to wind up in slight distress when a couerl cub hopped up to loaf on his legs. He cautiously gave the soft, black-furred cub scratchies while staring balefully up at Regis. Who seemed entirely amused by everything, “Exposed. Not in the fun way either.” 

 “I am sorry for how public it had to be,” the older man professed, reaching down to pat at Rexus’ bent knee which he’d gingerly freed from its loafing tormenter, “But especially now, with the Wall erected, we are in a bubble. And there are precious few places you could go where you would be out of the public’s eye for any length of time.”

 “Yeah yeah, it’s not actually the worst,” he huffed, waving away Regis’ misplaced guilt.

 It wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to be.

 The Wall surrounding all of Lucis and its oceans was a great point, but even if it was an easy matter to leave the new checkpoints they had put in the darn thing, where was he going to go? Back to hotel-hopping, ruins beneath their feet, wandering the streets searching for clarification on answers he already had?

 He needed to stay.

 They would need him…if they ever decided to ask the right questions.

 “...If it helps,” this unreasonably kind brother of his added, flexing his fingers on his cane’s handle and fighting off a smile, “Cor tells me you are already very popular with the people. Especially those of the younger persuasion.” 

 Rexus’ nose wrinkled; he wasn’t interested in being propositioned by kids, “Thanks, but your Glaives take good care of me already.” 

 One such Glaive, standing guard across the room, cleared his throat suddenly. Hood and mask of gilded silver hiding most of the color that rose to his cheeks, but not all of it. And Rexus shot him a sideways smirk and wink, just to watch the color deepen. Yeah. He and the Glaives were getting along just fine. No wonder his nephew was so happy with that Ulric of his. 

 “Should you need anything - anything else besides my Glaives in your bed,” Regis sighed, and it was a remarkably fond sound really, “do let me know, Rexus darling.” 

 “I will, I will. Should we get back to the kids?” 

 “That sounds like an excellent idea, yes.” 

 Kids who were playing board games with Glaives, as the whole of their family slowly started to arrive at the Citadel throughout the hours. With the rest of the Solstice theirs. The House of Caelum’s. Family and Retinue came to join them, as a snowy afternoon started to turn into a snowy evening and dinner was started on. All those hours passing by in hugs and small talk, given gifts and games played together.

 It was a lovely winter night.

 And it got lovelier still.

 

 
-----

 

 

 Dinner finished when the sun had mostly faded from the skies, and their pale light was becoming pale starlight. Reflecting off of falling snowflakes.

 And in one of the greater family rooms of the Royal Wing, there was a table set beautifully with all the elegance a royal feast was expected to have in fairytales. There were candles lit, swaying, and a lit fireplace surrounded by cushioned seats, and a grandiose tree decorated in shining golds and blacks and blues. It was a room filled with the murmur of talking, of laughs, of sighs, and of sweet remembrance.

 It was the Solstice, and they were all together for it this year.

 There was Ignis Scientia, ruling the kitchens and giving strict orders to the cooks like the most militaristic of commanders on this battlefield of a Solstice dinner. Not that he didn’t settle down and sit down and spend some time with everyone. 

 And end up being Noctis’ pillow at one point in the night, sitting on the couch with mugs of steaming hot cocoa in both of their hands.

 There was Clarus Amicitia, because there was no reality where the Amicitia family spent Winter Solstice away from their Caelums. Gladio with his wife, Cecilia, and a pair of twin sons between them that had kept them busy at her family’s home throughout the morning. With a prince who was obviously delighted to see his baby cousins who weren’t quite babies anymore, and Noctis keeping a politely eager distance from the sort-of nephews of his he’d still only barely met. 

 Oh, and Iris. Which had been a surprise and a half for Noctis; seeing her arrive with everyone else. Now a young woman in her mid-twenties with hair long, and hunter tags dangling around her neck, and a prosthetic arm but more importantly an engagement ring on her metal finger. 

 She promised he’d be able to meet her fiancé another time. And their hug was careful, gentle, and she’d definitely grown up.

 Despite being counted as a member of the Amicitia family by now, after all these years, Talcott wasn’t there this Solstice. But he was on a video call shortly before dinner; a video call all the way out in Leide.

 Hammerhead, technically.

 The Aurums calling to say hello. And Merry Winter Solstice too! Cranky ol’ Cid, and Talcott helping around the house for the holidays - Prompto and Cindy. Both looking flushed and healthy and whole and wholly happy. And on Cindy’s part a whole lot rounder stomach-wise. Very visibly pregnant now, after these last months. It was great to see.

 Cor stole the video call - stole the whole tablet and walked away with it - later on, to spend some personal time one-on-one with his adopted son and family. 

 Drautos popped his head in to check on things, and was mercilessly dragged into judging a competition between the Amicitias and the pies they had brought, exasperated…but eyes undeniably bright despite that exasperation. 

 And of course, Nyx snuck in behind his Captain.

 Snuck right on over to mane with a video call set up on his own tablet, with Sterling who had snuck away from the celebrations over in Altissia to spend some time chatting with his best friend, and Oriens gleefully took the tablet and scurried off somewhere to play with the Argentum boy over call. Followed by Tenebris; a shadow flitting through the celebrations, demanding slices of ham and turkey from every guest he crossed most horribly. With big eyes and soft purrs and chirps of triumph when he got what he wanted.

 Regis, and Rexus, and Noctis - all of them ended up lightly dozing on the couch together by night’s end. An end full of jingle bells ringing, and stuffed stomachs, and kisses under the mistletoe, and so much laughter their hearts buzzed with it all. The King of Lucis in the center of the couch, with his little brother asleep on one of his shoulders and his son asleep on the other, and his own head lightly pillowed on top of his nightlight’s. His sweet, sweet nightlight’s. Their son’s.

 All grown up. And at least a little happy, once again.

 Feeling left out, Oriens - bleary-eyed and sleepy and yawning every other second - slowly climbed into the pile of dozing Lucis Caelums. Wedging himself between his dad and grandpa, and joining the rest of his family in glorious sleep.

 And the pictures taken that night were many.

 A Winter Solstice none of them would forget.

 Not one moment of it.

 They wouldn’t forget.

 And they would all wake up with the messiest bedheads, suits rumpled and limbs tangled, together in Regis’ ginormous bed fit for a king and a king’s whole family evidently, some hours later. Yawny and sleepy, and yet feeling safer than the Wall had ever managed to make them feel.

…

 Each member of the family managed to make their ways back to their own royal rooms - or, at least Rexus and Noctis managed that. Their sweet Oriens simply burrowed himself deeper in his grandpa’s bed and refused to stay awake a moment more. Regis hardly minded, pressing kisses to each of his boys’ and brother’s cheeks before slipping back into sleep himself.

 Uncle Rexus slipped off, down the hall from Noctis’ rooms with a Glaive’s arm wrapped low around his hips and a throaty hum. But not before ruffling Noctis’ hair. Just a little. And wishing him a goodnight, in an awkward, unpracticed uncle-y way.

 It was sort of nice.

 The raven-haired royal woke Nyx when he staggered, yawning, into his bedroom. Yawning so wide his eyes watered. Nyx waking up was a good thing though; Ramuh knew he wasn’t about to get out of his suit with all its buttons and zippers on his own after such a boisterous evening. He was barely awake at all as his amatus got him dressed in proper pajamas. 

 He wasn’t awake at all by the end of being dressed.

 Dozing off to sleep, to Nyx’s amusement and a nose brushing his.

 What a Solstice.

 

 

-----

 

 
 A gasp, in the stillness of snowy moonlight shining through his arching windows. A gasp, and then shifting in the bed. Noctis, pushing himself up onto his elbows and then up, running a hand through his hair, tugging on his braids gently; a reminder. One that grounded him from that sinking-empty-hollow place within him. The one Mistveil Keep had built. The Ring of Lucii. Its faint whispers.

 Him, and it was late on the Winter Solstice. So late, it almost wasn’t the Solstice anymore. He hadn’t slept for long. Just long enough to remember, and then to wake up panting, squeezing his eyes shut, catching his breaths.

 Letting them go.

 Chilled, a little.

 He swore…the whispers, that man’s whispers -

 “Inlustris?” 

 Nyx was awake too, now, thanks to him. Waking. Was rubbing roughly at his eyes and rolling his neck and letting his blanket slip from his body, sitting up. Shirtless. Sleepy-looking. But also concerned, because he always was for his star. Noctis stared, at him swinging his legs over the edge of his cot, at him getting to his feet, at him and his braids shifting slightly to one side with the way he tilted his head.

 Blue-blue eyes reflecting moonlight, they trailed his braids, then his beard.

 Then down the strong line of his throat.

 The hair down his chest, abs, twisting around his bellybutton. His low-worn sweats.

 Him. Glaive. Nyx.

 He was just so physical, so present, he was an anchor all himself. He calmed Noctis down faster than any breathing exercises could’ve. Just by being there. Just by coming closer to the bed where the prince laid, just by letting out a throaty noise and sitting his ass down on the very, very edge of that bed. Careful about how he approached his starlight at times like these, as always.

 Always so careful with him. Always so caring.

 Noctis didn’t feel he really had to be, tonight.

 “Nyx,” he rasped, mouth a little dry, heart a little loud in his ears, he felt - he felt - he, shifted onto one hip to turn his body towards Nyx, and dragged his nails over the sheets in a ‘come here’ motion, “can you…please - ?” 

 “Mmhm,” the - his - Glaive made a sleepy noise, as if his stormy eyes weren’t already wide awake and fixed on him, searching for any signs of distress, even though that wasn’t what this was, “Inlustris, you alright? <You with me?>” Crawling across the covers towards him, taking it slow, like a lazy predator that nothing could threaten, “Want me to tell you stories til you fall asleep?” 

 Mouth definitely dry, Noctis let out a hum, curling his fingers deep in the sheets. Wanting. And thinking. And maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Hoping. Just a bit. That he had earned this - that he could handle what he’d earned. What he wanted. What he wanted was normalcy, and what he wanted after waking up from a horrid nightmare, amatus crawling towards him on the bed -

 “...Kiss me?” 

 Nyx stilled, stormy eyes peering between two blue-blue ones. That looked so soft and so bright in the reflecting moonlight. He wanted to press pause, to check when they’d ended up on this script, to check if this was really alright.

 But, damn, his star was a sight in the snowy moonlight. All propped up on one hip like that, pajamas disheveled, his braids in the man’s hair. He looked so…so fucking trusting, and open, and part of Nyx thought this had to be wishful fucking thinking. A fantasy. A dream on the night of the Winter Solstice. Their kisses were always so tame, a peck, barely more, and that was what Nyx took his star’s face into his hands to give him again.

 Tilting them together until their noses brushed.

 A peck.

 Pulling back to a respectful distance.

 Stopped. By a bony hand curled around his hip, fingertips so cold, and twitching like they hadn’t expected how warm Nyx’s blood ran. But they held on. And he peered at his star, completely still, feeling his exhales on his lips, they held on -

 Noctis Lucis Caelum let out a small noise.

 And dragged himself just an inch closer, to tilt them back together in that way where they fit best, to kiss Nyx back himself.

 The Kingsglaive closed his eyes to the feel of thin lips brushing his. Harnessing so much of his control because it was needed to hide how he suddenly wanted to groan and grab his star’s face and tug him in, intertwine them deeper, wanted to take this kiss and run with it because his heart was suddenly pounding so hard in his chest it sounded like a drumbeat to his ears -

 But he held on.

 He had to let inlustris lead it all.

 “Nyx,” was mumbled against his lips, against the hair of his beard when Noctis dropped his head just slightly, brushing their cheeks together, pressing a kiss to Nyx’s eyelashes, nose, cupid’s bow, and all the Ulric could think of was his star in the snow, snowflakes pale on his pretty, dark lashes earlier -

 “Noctis,” he breathed, wondered where it was safe to put his hands, politely placed them so, so lightly on his star’s waist and curled further over the man who bowed into his movements. Heart drumming, “Are you…alright?” 

 “I’m,” Noctis considered it, let their foreheads thump together and eyes fall shut, “happy. Truly. I’m,” was kissed under one eye, “scared. That man - “

 “Will pay for what’s he done,” Nyx promised fiercely, brushing his lips along his sweet star’s ear and feeling honored that he was allowed to without a single flinch, “No matter anything else, us Glaives will never stop hunting him. We will skin him and chain him in the magma of Ravatogh if need be. We will post guards for a millennia. He will not escape the punishment he has earned himself.” 

 A shudder ran so, so subtly through his star.

 A sigh.

 Cold fingertips grasping both of his cheeks so gently, taking a kiss Nyx gladly gave that and more of.

 He was honored. He was blessed. This was bliss. Surely the Stormfather was looking down on him favorably, to be granted this moment, this night of the Solstice. Where he could finally wind his strong arms around his star’s waist and not feel his body grow afeared, could finally fall into him and a slightly - just slightly - deeper kiss than any other they had shared in the last year together.

 “I never want to see Mistveil again,” was whispered against Nyx’s lips, and despite knowing better he gripped his prince’s body to his and there was a light fwop sound in that royal bedroom.

 Him, falling with his star down onto the silky sheets. Still kissing, still gripping, still his star felt safe somehow -

 “I’ll see it burnt to its foundations, inlustris,” Nyx swore breathlessly, kissing, swearing, getting somewhat carried away and feeling somewhat drunk on this wonderful chance he’d never dared do more than dream about the past months, “And then we’ll disassemble those foundations. We’ll drop the damn mountain on it if need be. Never, you’ll never have to see it again! Never - ngh!” 

Stormfather have mercy on him.

 He would. He really would. That was an order he’d gladly give his fellow Glaives without his King’s permission, for his star.

 For the way his star’s cold fingertips danced down his chest.

 “Nyx…”

 Kissing was nice.

 Noctis hadn’t known it could be that, until Nyx.

 And it…could go on for a while, couldn’t it? Was this what making out was like? Falling back onto the bed the way they had had knocked the breath from Noctis’ lungs, knocked the sense out of his head, the steadiness out of his heart - and gazing up at the man hovering over him. There had been. A moment. Barely that. Where, it was…bad memories. 

 But then it was only Nyx, and Nyx’s sinful voice, oh fuck, how late it was made it all gravelly and low and that did strange things to Noctis. Like tapping on a windchime. Sending jolts of what he once knew like…like…interest, zipping through his body down to places he couldn’t feel anymore. More than just an innocent interest. He wasn’t blind. The man he loved was drop-dead sexy. And prone to being shirtless way too often.

 And the once-Chosen adored the life they had already, the relationship they shared, without adding anything more to it.

 But something about seeing so many happy couples on the Solstice - Gladio and his wife, and servants sneaking off with lovers, and ‘Guards making pretty holiday promises into their phones, and Glaives being Glaives - had made him long. Maybe. A little. In a way he hadn’t really admitted to himself until they were here.

 And he was under Nyx’s sexy, sexy body.

 And…and…

 Lips tingling, it had to end at some point.

 It had to end when Noctis’ heart skipped a beat because he found himself helpless on his back, staring up at a ceiling, with somebody’s weight on top of him. So he pressed a palm to that chest weighing down on him. A heartbeat like pure thunder under his skin. And Nyx reeled back in a controlled sort of panicky way. Not that many would call it panic.

 But the royal would.

 Because he knew what panic for him looked like from his amatus.

 “Starlight?” Nyx checked, voice even rougher now, pushing himself up like he was doing an actual push-up in training, which made his biceps ripple and that really wasn’t fair. At all. Neither was how handsome the Galahdian looked, with his braids falling past his cheeks and lips all shiny like that.

 Any fears Noctis had felt faded away at the sight, but still.

 “That was…nice,” he breathed, a softer ask to stop than simply saying so, and his favorite Glaive eased up. The tension easing out of his shoulders as he shifted fully off of the breathy prince, chuckling.

 “Glad to hear it. I try.” 

 Shifting back onto his knees in rumpled sheets, a good almost-a-foot away from his inlustris, he looked absolutely stunning in the rays of moonlight catching on his flesh and muscle. Noctis knew he was a lucky man, to be wanted so dearly by the Ulric Chieftain.

 And, well, the way he was kneeling there also made those rays of moonlight shine on his…lap. And the shape. In his sweats.

 A very eager shape.

 What a Winter Solstice, oh my.

 Heat, and doubtlessly color, rose to Noctis’ face. A face he turned away. Adjusting his hips, to the sound of Nyx clearing his throat as he also caught on to the shape in his pants. Holy Astrals. Fuck them, but still, taking their name in vain and all that. Noctis swept a hand over his pajama shirt that was all disheveled and barely clinging onto its buttons now after Nyx’s handsiness.

 And then swept his hand lower.

 And hesitated before slowly lifting his covers to peer down at his own lap.

 Yeah. Yeah…that was pretty much what he expected. He sighed. Not that Noctis had put a ton of time into thinking about this sort of situation. But, still, when one was in a wheelchair half the time? When one could barely feel past his elbows, let alone anything down below? Noctis wasn’t really surprised to find he wasn’t…reacting to how Nyx had gotten his heart pounding.

 “Nyx,” he found himself asking after a hesitant bite at his lip and a flash of self-consciousness he really would rather still dissociate than feel, “does it bother you that we can’t have sex?” 

 “I - “ Eyebrows rising up, fast, Nyx lifted his eyes from where he’d been frowning almost scoldingly down at his own lap, getting his legs out from under him to settle into a more comfortable sitting position on the bed while leaning in his star’s direction. Tone nothing but serious all of a sudden, “Wow. Right. Okay, probably should’ve had this conversation before, inlustris,” and so unbelievably gentle too, “but we don’t have to have sex until you want that. We don’t ever have to, if you don’t want that. I’m not a factor in that.” 

 Well, Noctis would argue his general shirtlessness was a factor, but for now?

 He just set his hand atop the palm Nyx offered to him, and frowned at the telltale pins and needles of nerve damage that he always felt when the man locked their fingers together.

 “I can’t. I mean, I can’t feel anything below my…hips,” Noctis so softly reminded him, in response to this gentleness he still couldn’t believe he’d earned.

 “Inlustris,” and all Nyx had to say to that, to his insecurities, was, “I’ve had plenty of good and bad sex in my life. I’ve fucked and been fucked. Men, women, neither. I’ve experimented, I’ve had those experiments blow up in my face, and I’ve had spectacular drunken orgies I don’t even remember one damn lick of now. If you want to have sex…I’d want that with you, but if I live the rest of my life celibate I wouldn’t be missing anything at all.”

 Oh.

 “I want you more than I ever want to have sex again.” 

 Maybe in the broad scope of things, of love stories, that wasn’t the most romantic way to phrase that. Maybe it was a bit crass. A bit too honest. A bit wild. Maybe some lovers would falter in the face of being told that by the one they loved. 
 
 But those were all the things Noctis had fallen in love with Nyx for. His heart was pounding as loud as thunder in his ears, matching the beat he’d felt under Nyx’s skin earlier. And he felt warm. And he felt out of breath. And he felt like nobody could ever hurt him again, as he tugged Nyx Ulric closer by their locked fingers.

 And gave him a final, Solstice kiss.

 Slow. Sweet. And followed by a snort of laughter he finally couldn’t help but let escape after that sort of shameless declaration.

 “Love you.” 

 “I love you too, inlustris,” was said to his lips, with the tickle of their eyelashes brushing past each other.

…

 And Nyx went to deal with his overeagerness in the bathroom afterwards, while Noctis silently slid out of his bed. To step over and slip into Nyx’s cot, and curl up there satisfied and sleepy, and watching the shadows of falling snow flit across his bedroom until he dozed off. 

 He woke up safe in the crook of Nyx’s arms, crammed onto the small cot together.

 And it had honestly been the best Winter Solstice he’d ever known.

 

 

 ~>-----------<~

Notes:

Nyx and Noctis make me giggle and kick my legs. And of course the House of Caelum does too. I just really love them, and don't want to hurt them...

But it's not a very compelling story if we don't add more drama soon, right? <3

Chapter 35

 ~>-----------<~

 

 

 All of the tabloids in Lucis were covering the same topic in the days that followed the Winter Solstice.

 All of the tabloids in Eos were covering the same topic.

 

‘Breaking News: A New Lucis Caelum?!?!’

 

 News stations, radio stations, newspapers, social media, phone calls and texts and letters and even outpost bulletin boards - all of them. Every source of information. Every one of them. Parroting back to one another over and over again, ‘New Lucis Caelum, new Lucis Caelum, new Lucis Caelum!’ 

 So it was safe to say that their live broadcast made a bit of a splash.

That Rexus had made an…impression, on Eos.

 There was so much talk about that, that Eos seemed to have collectively brushed aside any gossip surrounding the Lucian Crown Prince’s birthday this year. And the distinct lack of their usual celebrations. Which Noctis and Ori, for one, were both sighing in relief about. Happy to let their new uncle take the heat away from them for a while. Nobody was interested in speculating about the father and son pair when they had a brand new royal to speculate about instead.

 What a juicy scoop! A secret bastard of King Mors’, who may not have been the most beloved King of Lucis, but who had been the father of Regis. Who was quite beloved. So a sibling to such a beloved man? Who was welcomed, and sure in his place in the family, and a complete enigma to the public?

 That was something for the media to salivate over.

 Rexus wasn’t minding the attention. Much. Though it mostly helped that his royal brother was using the excuse of the holidays to hide him from the - honestly - appalling amount of interview offers they’d received within an hour of that broadcast finishing. Interviews, public addresses, photoshoots, parties - Rexus was the hot new thing in Insomnia and everyone wanted a piece.

 He was rather happy being looked at from afar. No closer, no cameras, no scripts. 

 He just had to stand around windows, vaguely in a public space, and look irresistibly sexy. Which he was both very skilled at doing, and his Glaives were very much enjoying.

 Rexus dreaded the day he was asked to walk on a runway, like he knew his half-brother had done once or twice when he was younger, and was starting to wonder if he needed to get himself some sort of mediator to deal with all the offers he was suddenly getting just from going public. Nothing a bit of wine or hot and heavy games with his Glaives couldn’t help him deal with, but still.

 The public had their opinions. 

 Some thought it was some sort of conspiracy. Some were dubbing him the ‘Assassin’ already, making up wild claims that would get them slapped by lawsuits if they didn’t quit it. Claims about him being a secret asset to the Crown. Being a weapon, an assassin, who Regis had used during the war to ensure Lucis landed on top. Somebody sent in to massacre whole bases full of Nifs; massacres that were then covered up. 

 The rumors about them effortlessly bringing down the Leviathan together weren’t helping to dissuade those claims.

 A few were claiming a more tragic backstory for him. That he was specifically bred from King Mors - may the unloved king rest in peace - to power the Wall. Like a human battery. They had these whole storylines plotted out, about Regis wearing a fake Ring for years while Rexus was kept imprisoned in some dungeon beneath the Citadel, forced to keep up the Wall, to give the Glaives magic, to obey his crowned brother like some sort of spare royal whose purpose was there to be depleted and nothing more. 

 They claimed he’d had to reveal himself in the fight against Leviathan, so the Crown was hurrying to do damage control by introducing him first and acting like he was some newly discovered royal bastard - which he was - all as a coverup.

 There were other ideas, mostly ones born on conspiracy boards online, and too outlandish to even give any thought to.

 Either way, Rexus would happily admit that he’d been having a lot of fun lounging around in either his rooms or his brother’s rooms, reading about all the conspiracies. Some of them were really compelling! Sarah would’ve laughed over every single one, and that…was a thought that made him smile. His late wife had loved to read silly novels; the sillier the better. 

 There were one or two people who had met him throughout the years coming forward, some to brag about knowing him -

 Some to publicly scold him for breaking into historical sites and disturbing archaeological digs for decades, which, oops. Oh well.

That PR problem was no longer his problem, but the Media Department’s!  

 Rexus was having a bit of a blast with the whole thing.

 If it kept the public distracted away from his nephews on top of that fun? Then even better. The Winter Solstice had done wonders for their spirits. For everyone’s spirits. It was like a fog had lifted over the Crown City. There was still the awareness that the Tidemother had been killed weeks ago, that there had been the threat of war, that Tenebrae was in shambles even at the moment. 

 But it was all hidden, for now, under a cover of cheer and tinsel and presents, and hot cocoa with whipped cream.

 Under the Wall, that kept Lucis in its embrace now.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The morning following the Solstice, Regis called his boys and brother to share his breakfast. Every one of them lazy and sluggish. Sleepy Lucis Caelums half-asleep at their table, but none of them were without smiles. There were some reports to sleepily flip through on the king’s side of things, but more importantly there was his son. Whose blue-blue eyes kept going distant.

 But not in a dissociating way.

 In a - his eartips would turn bright, bright red and he’d smile down at his plate softly to himself, sort of way.

 “Did something particularly good happen last night, sweetheart?” The Father asked because he was a father, and also a terrible busybody who wanted to clap his hands when his little nightlight’s cheeks were painted that same bright red color by his question.

 “Nothing,” Noctis said quickly, shoveling a whole forkful of scrambled eggs into his cheeks, then another, then another, until he looked quite like a greedy squirrel. And was barely understandable, “Nuffin habbened. Ope. Uh uh.” 

His son was simply adorable.

“Uh huh,” Regis beamed at his boy, obviously entertaining his embarrassment, “I see. I suppose nothing must’ve happened at all, hm? I must be mistaken.” 

Oh, darling Ori, sat between them at the table and looking back and forth between them too, brows scrunched together as he tried to figure out what was going unsaid. The old king reached over to pat his head. To promise without words it was nothing serious. A promise of crinkled eyes, smile lines, and his grandson going back to his meal with a shrug and gusto! 

The green eyes of King Mors’ sons, both of them, flitted over to the Glaive on guard duty that morning. A Glaive who was more casually lounging in the kitchenette of Regis’ rooms, elbows on the counter and looking anywhere but at them when they each raised an eyebrow in his direction. Glaive Ulric did a full turn so his back was facing them. 

Clearing his throat, and going on a tiny lap around the room as if he were on patrol.

 Oh yes, nothing happened last night at all.

 The half-brothers exchanged smiles, and some chuckling, and then breakfast continued.

 The day was young, and they all felt like they were too.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Eos continued drooling over their new royal celebrity.

 Lucis drooled.

 Niflheim watched wearily from the sidelines.

 Accordo sent all sorts of goodwill wishes their way.

 Tenebrae called for action in all the subtle ways they could try to, only to go ignored.

 Anything further away than that? Was oceans. And oceans. And oceans. And lifeless rock, and the dark side of their star. A side that had had no bearing on them and their actions for millennia. Nothing came from that dark side. Nothing but miasma, but shadow and shade and cruelty lit in amber light, but daemons. And a scourge upon their star. 

 Though the Wall was raised around Lucis now, its weight rested on the once-Chosen’s shoulders, so those were things that had a difficult time existing in the Kingdom of Kings now. 

 It almost felt like things would be okay, to the people.

 Tenebrae still cried for justice, for war, for their heir. 

 There were still protesters here or there, disillusioned by the House of Caelum’s harshness in this last year.

 A religion still met its fate in pyres of burning cosmology books.

 But it almost felt like things would be okay, as the year came to a close.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis waited for the other boot to be brought down on somebody's neck. 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rexus waited for the right questions to be asked.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis relished in a sense of safety - of peace - like he’d never known, in the frost and frozen petals of winter. In the arms of a man who loved him.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Oriens was just glad to finally see his family together and so happy. It had been too long.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The Winter Solstice had been - was - such a special time for Lucis. Making it a special time for their royals. A holiday, celebrations, family. Together, safe, so many reasons to give thanks but with no Astrals left to give thanks to. There had been no prayers. There had been laughter. There had been smiles. There had been cute, memorable moments they shared, as a family, with their whole family. That was why the Winter Solstice was in any way special for the House of Caelum.

 But two days after the Solstice, there was a day that was arguably more special to the house.

 Inarguably. 

 Two days after the Winter Solstice was Prince Oriens’ birthday.

 Those two days felt so long. Those two days felt so short. There were more smiles shared in those two days than the Citadel had seen in months. There were more wary glances shared too. There were more guards - of the ‘Guards and Glaives kind - stationed around every corner, in every hall, following each royal than any time in recent memory. The most recent comparison would probably be the war. With the Empire. A decade ago.

 When they feared assassins every time Regis walked past a window.

 The cheer of the Solstice was a glimmer in their dark. The sun reflecting off freshly fallen snow, blinding people who would prefer to be blinded to what might be coming. The whispers of a malicious figure in the shadows, with his whispers and his habit of just sitting back to enjoy the show until he got bored. Nobody could really escape it. But they could pretend!

 They definitely could pretend. Especially for Ori’s very special, tenth birthday.

 They could pretend.

 

 

-----

 

 

 There were stars on the ceiling, when Oriens opened his eyes the morning of his birthday. Those stars, the constellations Grandpa had had painted above his bed, they were something to make him think of his dad the princling knew now. Even if he hadn’t known then. Hadn’t known Dad then, a year and more ago. Grandpa…always used to tell him he had his grandmother’s eyes. Like his dad had.

 Eyes full of all the sky’s stars. All their constellations, all their stories and emotions too.

 It was one of the only things Grandpa would ever consistently tell him about the dad he knew nothing about except that he was hated. Despised, really. That he had the night skies in his soul. That Oriens had inherited that and his deep, deep emotions from him.

 So the stars he saw that morning of his tenth birthday? Made him smile. Because they now made him think of his dad. Ori hadn’t always known whether to smile or frown at the stars. Hadn’t always known his dad was innocent. Hadn’t had the memories to make an informed decision on the matter. Now though? Now, he knew his dad. And he loved his dad. And waking up thinking about his dad was enough to make the still-young prince giggle, before scrambling his way out of bed.

 Throwing aside a starry blanket, and sending a few moogle and carbuncle plushies flying -

 There was an excited mrrrrp~ There was a coeurl cub prowling after him with his fluffy tail tip waving. Shadow batted at Ori’s hip when he went to his wardrobe to pick out clothes to wear. Then batted at his tailbone. The closest the cub could come to playing with a tail the Lucian Prince didn’t actually have. Common misconception, what a shame. 

 No tail, to whiskers, no ears, no normal ‘couerl’ way for Oriens to communicate with his closest companion. But he’d learned how to perfectly mimic the coeurl chirp that basically meant ‘pay attention to me now’. And how to bump their noses together to show his love for Nyx’s gift to him. The best gift ever. Shadow was the best. And waking up on his birthday to play with him was the best! And Shadow was just awesome - !

And the crown prince managed to get going. Eventually. Somehow. It may have involved an electric shock or two.

 He really, really, really loved Nyx for getting him Shadow!

 Best pre-birthday gift ever! If the cub counted as a Birthday gift. Nyx had joked about Shadow being all his birthday gifts for the next ten years, so maybe? Oriens was fine with that! He had a friend! A soft friend, that purred, that followed him around, that played with him and never ever judged him! It was amazing. He couldn’t wait for Sterling to be able to come to Insomnia too.

 Then both of his bestest friends would be with him!

 “Happy Birthday to me~!” Ori sing-songed happily to himself in his bathroom mirror while standing on his stool, combing through his hair. Which was getting long enough now that the ends were turning into little, raven curls. 

 He put extra time into polishing the precious beads strung along behind one of his ears. Treasuring them. Like they deserved, not just as gifts, but as symbols!

 Of Ori being his dad’s. Being Nyx’s. Being tied to them both, to the Galahdian community he’d grown closer and closer to the last couple of months.

 Jumping down from his stool, a certain princling was off like a fully trained Kingsglaive. Warping room to room, more giggles than magic, being followed by a living, breathing, purring shadow. He wanted to go see Grandpa, and then he wanted to go see Dad! And then he wanted to say hi to Uncle Rexus because he was pretty cool he guessed, and maybe he’d run into Nyx on the way -

 But first he needed his Carbuncle plushie from Dad - !

 And then he needed to dodge a few of the Glaives assigned to guard him, because they had all these rules he wasn’t up to following that morning. Just for that morning. It probably wouldn’t hurt anything!

 Oriens Lucis Caelum ran into a Glaive while dashing down the hallway towards his grandpa’s rooms though. Literally. He ducked around a pillar, and found himself forehead-to-knees ouch - with a Glaive Arra. One he recognized, while rubbing at his tender forehead with teary eyes. Earning himself a very fast apology. And some cooing. And the Glaive going down on one knee to check his forehead.

 It was Axis, one of his dad’s regular guards! And one of Nyx’s closer friends.

 “Sorry about that, Little Highness,” Axis said, rubbing gently at his forehead with the touch of a father. The concerned, stern, soft tone of one too. Using the nickname the Glaives had given him years ago, as his sometimes-babysitters, “Okay, looks fine. <Any pain, little royal?>” 

 “Nope!” Ori promised, batting the man’s hands away to his amusement, puffing up all big and important, “It was just a bump, Axis! I’m fine! Actually, it’s my birthday! So I’m better than fine! Mhm!”

 The amusement grew, and Axis suddenly snapped his fingers like he’d just remembered something.

 “Your birthday! That’s right, that is today, isn’t it?” He said dramatically, then couldn’t help himself about chuckling over the princling’s downright offended expression, cooing at him again in Galahdian. And then turning the coos into soothing words, “<I kid! I kid! Small star, how could I forget such an important and precious holiday? Here. I have something for you.>” 

 Blinking with wider, owlish eyes, so curious, Ori watched the Glaive’s hands as they reached behind himself -

 And indeed, he had a gift for the prince.

…

 Twisting his wrist one way and then the other, Oriens giggled. Just a bit. Just to himself. A skip put in his step by the bracelet he now wore; a gift. A birthday gift! And a gift given to him by one of his dad’s most trusted guards, one of his other dad’s most dear friends. Which made it extra special, on this extra special morning.

 He’d been in the middle of muffling a yawn behind his palm, and Axis had adjusted himself properly onto one knee. Making it more ceremony than coincidence.

 Ducking his head in deep respect, such a sudden change Ori had startled into hiccupping. Which had made him cup a hand over his mouth. And then he had nearly been bowled over by Shadow, who padded past them in the hall with a playful nudge and chirp right then. Unbothered by the Glaive.

 But Ori had known Axis in passing for years, had known him this last year as his dad’s guard and Nyx’s friend, so even if it wasn’t technically protocol to accept gifts?

 The princling had made an exception.

 Straightening up as best he possibly could while still wearing rumpled pajamas with small carbuncles printed all over them, and putting on his ‘proper’ air for Axis. For Axis, who seemed amused by the show of it all. For Axis, who was trusted by his family. For Axis, who was part of his house and part of his other dad’s community.

 For Axis, who offered up an open hand.

 “Happy Birthday, Your Highness,” the Galahdian Glaive told him with a kind smile; the kind of smile fathers wear best. And Oriens peered down at the gift in excited curiosity, “I know it’s not all that much, I know it’s not protocol either. <But I hope you like it, can accept it. My beloved made it herself. Wanted you to have it.>”

 Sure, it wasn’t golden and shiny. It wasn’t anything weighty or garnished in gems. It was a bracelet. With a series of beads strung along a strong thread, tied into a loop. Little blue and golden beads; same as the few beads tied into the princeling’s fluffy hair. And it was a perfect fit when he carefully slipped around his fingers and pushed it down onto his wrist. 

 Blue-blue eyes stared at it, and Ori found himself shuffling back a few steps. Ducking halfway behind a pillar.

 Mumbling into his pajamas’ collar, “<...Thank you, Axis.>” 

 The Galahdian words of thanks made the Glaive draw his shoulders back, and his smile only grow kinder.

 “<You are very welcome, small star.>”

 With a hop and a skip the princling carried on his way. On very important business to say good morning to his grandfather and good morning to his father after. Yes. So very important. Following the swishing tail of a furry companion of his, and admiring his new bracelet? Oriens felt rather on top of the world. 

 He stayed on top of the world for such a short time. Only long enough for his grandpa’s rooms to come into sight, down the hall from his own.

 Like there had been for days and days now, there were extra guards. Everywhere. Kingsglaive mostly, who Ori didn’t mind! Most of them were super friendly, and super fun to boot! Crownsguard were…a rarer sight. Especially nowadays. 

 There were greys and pale blues on the uniforms guarding his grandpa’s rooms.

 There were two familiar faces wearing those uniforms.

 They were Crownsguard. Ori had always liked them before, but things were different now. He knew things now. He knew what the Crownsguard had done to his dad because of all the online articles he’d searched up after Mr. Weirdo showed him that stupid, stupid documentary. He knew the Crownsguard were bad. Worse than bad. That they had hurt Dad, had broken their oath, had been disgraced and disavowed and that was why so many of them disappeared around the time Grandpa also disavowed so many of his councilmembers months ago.

Miss Monica and Mister Dustin had been around his family for a very, very long time. They were the closest things to ‘lieutenants’ the Crownsguard had, and served directly beside Pops Cor. Had, for decades. They were guarding his grandpa’s rooms even now. They went down on one knee each at the sight of him, even now. 

Fists over their hearts, intoning, “Your Highness.”

And Miss Monica and Mister Dustin were wearing those uniforms; the new ones. The grey and pale blue ones.

He remembered asking his grandpa right after the switch why. Why change a uniform that had stood for generations? Why take away the royal color from loyal Crownsguard? Curious, so curious, and Grandpa had said at the time that it was to differentiate them further from the Kingsglaive.

 That the Kingsglaive were going to last longer than expected, than anyone had thought ahead for, so they were implementing changes to help them stand apart more.

 It had still felt like snubbing the Crownsguard in Ori’s opinion. Taking away their family’s color like that. But the Kingsglaive were also so important, and they wielded their magic, and they fought through so much more of the war than the Crownsguard had, so -

 But.

 That wasn’t why they’d lost their former uniforms at all.

 They’d lost those uniforms for the very same reason Grandpa had held public executions months ago. Executions Oriens had no idea about until he went searching for answers.

 They had hurt Dad.

 So they had deserved it.

 And he may have been in a better mood that morning, and things may have seemed brighter with the rising sun, and the winter not so bitingly cold, and the bracelet wound around his wrist may have made him skip he was so pleased, but now the crown prince pressed his lips tightly together and drew himself up. To all his short height as a nine - a ten-year old. As of today.

 Because it was his birthday.

 “Your Highness?” 

 And because they were on their knees, it actually made him taller than these Crownsguard he’d known his whole life.

 Shadow prowled forward, winding around his legs, tail wrapping around his hip and whiskers just barely sparking with violet electricity - violet as his eyes. Staring with slitted pupils at the submitting ‘Guards.

 He may have been in a better mood that morning.

 But that wouldn’t spare these people he’d known his whole life who had failed. Like so many others.

 “Highness? What’s wrong?” 

 “...You - your people, hurt my father,” the princeling said, dangerously lowly and never more like a Lucis Caelum than that moment, glaring down at them. Young and betrayed and bitterly angry, “You knew them. You saw them so often, ‘Guards. Almost every day. And you had no idea that they were - were abusing my dad?” 

 Monica and Dustin flinched. Not only over how the young prince’s voice cracked, asking them that out of the blue, but over the low snarl from that ferocious coeurl cub at his side empathetic enough to sense how upset the royal boy was.

And to bare his fangs over it.

“Today is a special day,” he whispered, hands forming small fists trembling at his sides, “A good day. A better day. It’s my birthday,” his voice hopelessly cracked again, “And I want to spend it…with my family. Without anyone who has hurt us, so…so. Get up - “

The anger of a young prince is a remarkably quiet thing.

“And get out of my sight.”

But still as unbending as any royal order.

 “Yes, Your Highness,” Miss Monica says immediately, no hesitation, no defense to give. Only a bowed head. And the lack of black in her uniform. Mister Dustin echoes her, head bowed lower than hers, adjusting his glasses. Both of them shifting backwards on their knees as he brushes past them because Ori just didn’t have the patience to waste on ‘Guards now.

 Shadow growled enough for the both of them as they passed.

 The doors to Grandpa’s rooms open with a small hand twisting their handles.

 They shut with a finality.

 And though he’s not out there to see it, two Crownsguard do get out of his sight the second there is a solid set of doors between them and him. Dignified. Far from bitter too. They go because they are loyal, because they understand, because they are okay with being the targets of a princling’s bitterness when this is all new information to him still.

 When they remember months-worth of time where their Marshall would come back to them with bloody knuckles and the darkness of helpless anger carved into his scowls.

 It was healthy for a child to feel what he would feel.

 And even if their prince was ten years old as of that day, he was still just that. Just a child.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Well now, what is this?” Regis asks, with a glance up from documents and stamps and signature lines - oh my, so much work as ever - to find an extremely welcome distraction pittering into his personal study. A distraction wearing pajamas with tiny carbuncles dancing across them, and half-combed raven hair, and the bluest eyes any would glimpse and be snared by.

 His grandson, Oriens.

 “A little detective, in my study, scampering about?” Regis continues, hopeless to his fond smiling just as his grandson seems helpless to the sudden giggles that come over him as he crosses the room. And the old king sets aside his pen, sharing an affectionate look with his ever-there Shield while pushing himself back from his desk.

 Opening up his lap to be crawled into.

 “Good morning, Grandpa!” Ori chirps, a chirp mimicked by the coeurl cub right at his heels, pressing a kiss to Regis’ cheek that makes his heart melt like frosting on warm cake. Oh. How he loved his boys. 

 How he just had to brush their noses together to earn himself more of those giggles sweeter than song, and tickle at his grandson’s sides until he was squirming and squealing on his knee like the small child he still was. No matter how big he grew to be. Regis did not think he would ever be able to see him as otherwise.

Did not ever want to.

 “Happy Birthday, my darling boy,” wishes echoed by Clarus, the greyed grandfather brushed some happy curls from Ori’s brow as he asked, “Have you been to see your father just yet? Or am I your first stop of the day?”

 “I’m going to see him next!” The boy swore, up and down and bouncing, despite his very serious pout, oh, what would Regis do without his family and how they made the scars on his poor heart feel smooth again? “You were closer, Grandpa! After I go to see Dad, we can have breakfast together, and then we can watch that fishing documentary about Vesperpool like you promised, and then we can have cake and presents and spend time together - !” 

 “You have it all planned out, hm?” Regis chuckled, booping the tip of his grandson’s nose to get himself more giggles. They were just such a happy-sounding noise. 

 He’d listen to them forever, if only he could.

 “Our boy, growing up so fast,” and if there was a wistfulness buried under his smile and crinkling eyes? There was no harm to it. He still remembered when Oriens was like a little blueberry, swaddled up in his baby blankets and more squishy than solid. He still remembered when Oriens had toddled around his nursery for the first time, finding his footing quite literally in life. He still remembered when Oriens had lost both his front, baby teeth and spoke with a lisp for weeks after.

 Looking at him now, swaying side to side and humming a happy tune? He saw less baby fat on his cheeks to squish, a full smile of white teeth, and a new knowingness to those blue-blue eyes he got from his grandmother and father.

 He saw his boy was growing up. This thread to sanity of his, to staying alive years ago, was growing up.

 “I’m ten now, Grandpa!” Ori reminded him cheerfully, holding up both his hands with fingers splayed to show all ten of his fingers and wiggle them around, “I’m almost an adult!”

 “Oh, and just when do you think a child becomes an adult?” Clarus asked dryly from over his king’s shoulder, and it was a dry amusement truly, but it was hard not to feel that way when his honorary grandson gave him a ‘duh’ look and said matter-of-factly -

 “When I’m sixteen, and earn my epitaph!”

 Ah, yes, the epitaphs of the House of Caelum.

 Cupping the back of the sweet child’s head, Regis brought him closer. Just beneath his chin. So he could duck his own head and press a kiss to the crown of his head, threading old, duty-worn fingers through his hair that still needed a good brushing. The kiss lingered. And he remembered the ceremony of him receiving his own epitaph, the brilliance of the Crystal, the booming voices of a hundred ancestors at once declaring him the Father.

 He wondered just what their little dawnlight would be called.

 He wondered if he would live long enough to see it.

 “Your epitaph will have to be a great one, to be worthy of you, my dear,” Regis mumbled to raven hair that smelled like a flowery type of shampoo. That smelled like summers spent together in the gardens. Together. Walking. Hand in hand, and never far from one another…and a nose snuffled at his knee brace.

 Tenebris chuffed up at him, tail swishing and violet eyes so intelligent it would make the hairs stand on less men’s necks. But Regis just reached out to pet the cub between his fluffy-tipped ears, and laughed softly when impatience led to the dear thing grabbing a tiny mouthful of Ori’s pajamas.

 Trying to tug him off his grandpa’s lap, off, off to play or go see dear Aurora and therefore Noctis and Nyx this fine morning.

 “Coming, Shadow! I’m coming!” Ori squeaked, squirming to avoid being dragged straight off Regis’ lap while finding his way down onto his own two feet. Running a hand down the deadly couerl’s whisker like it was no big deal. Even when little sparks of violet electricity crackled in his wake, “Grandpa! I’m going to go to Dad now, and then! Breakfast!” 

 Spreading his arms wide with that final declaration, Regis was very happy to agree to his plans. The plans of the boy who turned to race a baby predator out of his study, out of his rooms, off to find dear Noctis and spend his first birthday with his family whole. 

 There was not a thing in all of Eos that Lucis’ King could’ve denied his grandson that day.

 “Shall we wrap this up?” Not his time, not his attention, not his love; Oriens Lucis Caelum would want for nothing. Regis would even destroy the mounds of paperwork he had before him in half the time, just to be timely for a birthday breakfast. And maybe Clarus hid a stack or two to help him with that -

 But that just showed he could trust his Shield. As he always had.

 Today was a day to be joyful.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Everybody had their own ways of wishing Lucis’ Crown Prince a happy birthday. They varied. And the lack of the Crown’s usual birthday celebrations hindered some of them; for the nobles and councilmembers at least. But for the public? There were celebrations along the Crown City’s streets, and a number of news stations telling Oriens Lucis Caelum’s autobiography of ten years, and not to mention the sheer number of social media posts -

 Birthday wishes were sent along from Niflheim and Accordo too. 

 Tenebrae simply sent a message begging, and Regis had it shredded into tiny strips of paper that were then burned to ashes in the palm of his hand.

 More importantly though, there were the Amicitias who had presents aplenty already prepared. They’d be by later for the birthday dinner. All of them, and Uncle Gladdy was bringing his baby cousins again even though they were still grumpy from the overexcitement of the Winter Solstice. They were always there. The Amicitias. And they always laughed the loudest at celebrations too; with their full chests, and their tattoos, and their loyalty. Ori was excited to see them.

 Uncle Iggy, of course, was there for breakfast and to recomb his hair and to dress him and to hover. Endlessly. With suspiciously vibrant green eyes behind his glasses. And hands that rested on Ori’s shoulders often. 

 Later on, he would video call Sterling, who would video call Uncle Prom, and they would all chatter together and maybe he’d hear more news about his newest baby cousins! Who had yet to be born, but still!

 Not to mention the Glaives. Little Galahd. Every time he passed a Kingsglaive, he had gifts pressed into his hand that he then gently dropped in his Armiger to sort later. Handmade jewelry, beads, charms, braided things. A blanket, a fur from the hunters, yummy snacks from the bakeries, clothing that was embroidered, a few new knives made of bones and leather -

 What a day. What a birthday.

 He was still small enough that it was a bit exhausting.

 But first, Oriens went down to the floor of the Royal Wing where his dad and Uncle Rexus’ rooms were. More gifts were pressed into his small hands by the small flock of Kingsglaive on guard within and without Dad’s rooms. Ruffled hair, pats on his shoulder, whoops, and even being tossed into the air by one just to be caught by another, and giggle at how the first was scolded by every single Glaive there until he was a bashful, blustering mess. 

 He felt adopted.

 He felt brave enough to hop on into his dad’s rooms.

 Dad’s bedroom was full of morning’s light. Soft. Gentle. Pale, and catching on little particles in the air, reflecting off the snow on the balcony outside. The air was calm. Still. There were only soft snores to be found in that room. And three lumps on the big, big bed. Ori padded over on silent feet like Shadow had taught him, a big smile stuck on his face.

 Dad was sleeping snug and soundly, tucked into the curve of Nyx’s arms. They were in bed together. That usually only happened when Dad was in a really, really nice mood.

 Aurora was curled up in the heart shape between their bodies, her pure white fur all over the covers, and ears flickering in sleep. 

 Oriens slowly, silently, crawled up onto the bed. Not wanting to wake the two of them.

 The third there already had one sleepy, light brown eye staring at him. Full of the morning’s light. And full of love too, which had taken a while for Ori to see was there but now? He never doubted it. He crawled onto that bed to be with Nyx as much as he did to be with his dad. 

 “Morning, Papai,” the raven-haired princling whispered, receiving a hum and more ruffled hair in response as he crawled right over his dad. Finding the perfect spot for him. Right above Aurora. Right between his two dad’s bodies. Because by now, he had fully accepted Nyx was as much a dad to him as Dad. And Dad loved him. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was treating Dad right.

 He felt safe squished between them, even if Aurora let out an unhappy meow at being woken by his stinky feet.

 The extremely fluffy feline got to her paws and bounded off the bed, chirruping to get Shadow’s attention where he basked in a patch of sunlight. And padding right on over to groom the unruly couerl cub who let out what could only be described as a baleful whine, and flopped down onto his side to surrender to the small, pink tongue.

 Ori wrapped his arms around his dad, while Nyx repositioned to wrap his arms around the both of them.

 And Ori kissed his dad’s cheek too that morning, whispering, “Good morning, Dad. It’s my birthday today.” 

 Then settled in for a nice, birthday morning nap until his dad had decided to wake for the day.

 

 

-----

 

 

 At breakfast there was a cupcake. A mountain of them, really, thanks to dear Ignis. And there was a game Nyx invented on the spot. And there wound up being lots, and lots, and lots, of photos of the Lucis Caelum family on the floor, in their pajamas, covered in flung frosting. How undignified. How wonderful. How happy they all were, fighting through The Great Frosting War of M.E.765.

 In the aftermath, with the lingering giggles, Nyx rolled over with one final, untouched cupcake held in his hand.

 Inlustris stared at him, then stared at the cupcake, then at him. Then he simply sighed. Rolled his eyes. Closed his eyes, as Nyx grinned and very slowly and very gently smooshed the cupcake against his thinned lips. Which were definitely, definitely fighting off a smile. He just knew it. A trail of frosting along one cheek, and over the bridge of his nose, and then Nyx brought the smooshed cupcake back to his star’s mouth.

 He hummed, taking a bite of the still-yummy treat without ever opening his eyes.

 And when he did, his star just looked fond.

 The frosting was blue, like his two stars’ eyes.

 

 

-----

 

 

 After the cupcake battle of the century, the whole family of Caelums had to go change. Clean up first, then change. Ori left his dad’s rooms held aloft by his Uncle Rexus, who kept tossing him up and down as though the princling were a sack of Leide peppers while he squawked.

Clean up, then change, then?

Movie time, in Regis’ rooms since he had the comfiest couches. And all the documentaries on fishing one could ever wish to watch. It used to be a thing for him and Noctis alone. Now they shared it with Oriens; the Vesperpool edition was nostalgic to watch. The rambles about lures, the light in his boys’ eyes - 

 Oh yes. Regis Lucis Caelum would spend the rest of his life watching boring fishing documentaries just to see his boys’ eyes light up like that.

 

 

-----

 

 

 They spent a lot of time together that day. As a family. As the family; the royal family of Lucis.

 Except rather than giving out rousing speeches or delegationary work , they played tag in the throne room. Warp tag. 

 Grandpa and Uncle Rexus shared a sloshy bottle of wine on the steps leading up to the throne. Clinking small, crystal glasses together as more and more Glaives were invited to join the rounds of tag. Pops Clarus, Pops Cor, and even Pops Drautos joined them. With glasses of their own. And drinks of their own, even though it was still only noon.

 They only stopped when tag devolved into a wrestling match between the Glaives that Ori warped his way into, ending up at the mercy of a hundred hair ruffles and tossed royal property - him, he was the property - into the air. He felt a bit like a baseball; being flung around Glaive to Glaive while Shadow tried to catch up to their warping was fun.

 Judging by the worried furrow between Grandpa’s eyebrows though, it was a game that was going to be banned pretty quickly. 

 Uncle Iggy kept the treats flowing too! Or, coming! On pretty platters, all sorts of sweets, sugars and icings and sprinkles. Ori felt like he constantly had some sort of yummy dessert pinched between his fingers, giggling evilly as he zipped around. Making sure the Glaives got in their exercise for the day! And more on top of that.

 So he was hyper, he was ten. He was ten!

 “I’m ten!” The Crown Prince of Lucis cheered, mid-being-thrown by a Glaive on one side of the throne room to the other.

 They were all pretty sure the Kingsglaive were going to wind up with extra duties after today, considering the tick in his grandpa’s eye now, but he just smiled indulging whenever Ori caught his eye. So he was going to milk it! 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Later, in the afternoon of one of the final days of the year, they were coming down from being super duper hyper. Well. Ori was. Everything had gotten really colorful there for a minute. Maybe an hour. Zippy too. Like, zoom. And maybe there was some nausea for him to waddle off, rubbing at his tiny, stuffed tummy and groaning. Nodding along empathetically to the scolding of Uncle Iggy. All about, ‘Let this be a lesson for you to not to take desserts from the trays every time I turn my back, Highness!’
 
 He rubbed at his eyes with curled fists, his yawn so wide it nearly steered him straight into a pillar of black marble that he barely stopped from bonking into by Pops Clarus’ hand on his shoulder.

 He apologized to the pillar, then continued stumbling on his way.

 “Sugar crash?” He heard his dad whisper, hardly a few steps behind his heels but he felt soooo far away with how spinny everything seemed! Ugh. Sugar. He was going to make it illegal. That would show it. 

 “Sugar crash,” Uncle Iggy confirmed, and for a second time Ori almost wandered away from them. Straight towards a window this time. Big. Pretty. Arching. Polished so well by the cleaning staff he nearly walked face-first into it. Nyx reached out this time. Tutting at his smaller star in Galahdian, and then simply hoisting the boy up. As though he were a much smaller child than Oriens actually was at ten years old.

 He still fit well on Nyx’s hip though.

 And seemed beyond content to nod off on the Glaive’s big shoulder, hooking his chin over it and snuggling into his new naptime place. Nyx ran warm. Like always. It was nice. Made the princling sleepy, and sleepy, and…yeah. He dozed off within minutes. Moments, more like. Letting out slightly-awake-slightly-not mumbles, and far from afraid to poke at Nyx if his carrier jostled him too much.

 They were just walking idly around the Citadel. To stretch their legs, and settle down after the fun had in the throne room.

 It was a nice walk. Full of softer chatter between family members, teasing here or there, Cor trying to trip Drautos down a staircase that one time, the usual. Their usual. It was a bout of normality they’d needed for…a while. Too long, maybe. A reminder that their home was their home, and family was what they were.

 Noctis cozied up into Nyx’s side opposite from where he had their little dawnlight hooked on his arm, murmuring. Just little, content noises. A lot like their furrier children. Purrs, if humans could purr. Turning his face towards the sun, shining through tall windows they passed in each and every hallway. He was a bit like a sunflower in that way. Searching out the warmth of sunlight. Basking in it.

 Beaming under it.

 He was beautiful under it.

 The whole moment was beautiful. Beautiful enough to be braided in Nyx’s hair for the rest of his life; he just might.

 It wasn’t broken for a good, long while.

 …But it was broken.

 When they were passing through one of the many public art galleries the Citadel hosted. ‘Hosted’. Funded. Same difference. There were probably over a hundred art galleries, scattered throughout the Citadel on its various floors. Art galleries overflowing with pieces of art from generations-past. Pieces worth more than entire skyscrapers in some cases. It was another of their duties.

 Protecting even the arts of old, of their past, their family’s past.

 When one grows up surrounded by priceless artworks, one grows blind to them in time. One - such as a certain father when he was very young - might even try to draw mustaches on old family portraits, to the terror of their chamberlain. 

 Gilded frames of gold, flaking oil paint, pieces preserved to the best of their abilities in the modern-day.

 In the brighter light of afternoon, light reflecting off of fallen snow collected on all the spires of the Citadel outside, these art galleries were cast in colors. Shades. Stories. They were a place where conversation naturally grew a bit more hushed, where talk naturally died away, where one became aware. Where one took them in, if they had the time.

 And they did.

 And Oriens gave a big, wide, jaw-cracking yawn that had him whining. Rubbing at his watering eyes. A chuckle rolled through Nyx’s ribcage against his chest. It was low, sure, a nice sound. A sound that always meant he was somewhere safe, held, wanted. So Ori was in no big hurry to wake up fully. He was content where he was.

 With Nyx’s braids tickling his nose, being gently rocked up and down as he batted his eyes sleepily at the shadows of an art gallery he’d been too asleep to remember entering.

 Portraits with curtains half-drawn over them, and protective glass the reflected light, and a half-destroyed sculpture; they danced in his sleepy vision.

 Laying his head down again, squishing his cheek on Nyx’s shoulder as he was spoiled by his second dad, it felt like the only logical thing for his sleepy brain to do. He even kicked his legs a little. Secure in the knowledge that his dad wouldn’t let him fall. 

 Or even if he did, one of his dads would catch him. No matter what.

 A sleepy blink.

 And another.

 And another.

 And -

 There was a large mural in this art gallery, wasn’t there? Oriens had…forgotten. Blue-blue eyes widened in remembrance now. His cheek was no longer squished to Nyx’s shoulder because he raised his head. Because he remembered. There was a mural. Mounted onto the wall. That’s right. One of his Tenebraean tutors had favored it. Had taken him here to view it, after some of their lessons.

 There was a curtain half-draped over the mural of stone, carved by a hundred devoted hands and taking up a large portion of the art gallery’s wall opposite the windows.

 Oriens remembered so suddenly, and his eyes widened so fast, because -

 The carving of Lady Shiva stared back at the sleepy princling.

 Expression fixed in frozen disappointment. Hands outstretched. Like she knew he would fail to meet her expectations, but was reaching anyways so she could stand morally superior to him after he failed - he remembered standing there, hiding behind his tutor’s legs because her carving unnerved him somehow.

 He was there now, held by Nyx.

 Remembering he had forgotten something super important.

 “Mane?” And he had gone so stiff Nyx had noticed, called him out on it in a concerned sort of way. Put a hand in the center of the princling’s back like he was trying to shift him away from his shoulder. Just for Ori to cling tighter to his dad’s boyfriend, fingers curling into his shirt, panicking.

 Oh.

 Oh no. 

 Oh no.

 The shift of the art gallery’s atmosphere was palpable enough for the rest of his family to take notice. To take notice of Nyx trying to coax their little morningstar into letting him go, cooing, chirping even, asking, “Mane, what’s wrong, hm? You okay? Do you want your dad? Your grandpa? <Whatever you need, little star.>”

 “M’sorry,” Ori mumbled into the shirt he was hiding his face in, the darkness of closed eyes, where all he could see was the carved mural and Lady Shiva and uh oh. Ah. Oh no, “M’sorry. M’sorry.” 

 “Ori? Baby? You never have to apologize. What is it?” Dad. Dad was there, Dad was hovering now, and the fingers brushing at his bangs were super chilly so he knew they were Dad’s, and he forgot. He wasn’t sleepy anymore, couldn’t be, how could he forget??? How could he just, never mention it??? Uh oh.

 He was going…to ruin it. All of it.

 “Nyx, perhaps you should - “

 “Don’t be mad,” Ori whispered, cutting off his grandpa’s suggestion, which made him peek up from Nyx’s shoulder and grandpa and dad and everyone was there so he hid his face again and burrowed back into the darkness of Nyx’s shirt, “M’sorry. Don’t be mad.” 

 “Mad about what, sweetheart?” Grandpa’s fingers were warmer than his dad’s. He felt them join his dad, curling into the hair at the base of his neck, scratching lightly. Gently. The way he always did when Ori was small-small. Super small. Super young. It wasn’t fair how it still made his breath hitch, how it drove away the cold of the memories.

 Her cold.

 “I forgot,” Ori murmured, terrified and wringing Nyx’s shirt and shivering, “Because of the weirdo, and then the documentary, I didn’t mean to but I did, Dad, Grandpa. I’m sorry. M’sosorry.” 

“You forgot what, Ori?” 

He forgot.

“...I forgot to tell you Lady Shiva was there that night too…”

 The icy fingers in his hair twisted, not in his hair, in the air, yanked away before they could twist-scare-hurt him. It was an action of anger, of magic, of shattering crystals in the air of the shadowy art gallery as his dad drew himself up with a thunderous look on his face that just spoke of graves needing to be dug.

 “She what.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...M’sorry. I ruined it.” 

 Nyx raised his head from where he’d had it ducked down, elbows on his knees, lost in thought. Turning towards the blue-eyed prince sitting next to him on the couch, he found himself chirping. Nudging him. Leaning in until he could peer under the bangs Ori had hanging over his eyes and ask, “What was that, mane?” 

 “I ruined it,” his star’s son repeated, so sure of himself, and so heartbreakingly clutching at the fabric of his pants with tears in his voice, “My birthday. It’s ruined. All because I forgot about something so important. Stupid. Stupid.” 

 Nyx’s heart clenched at what he saw, heard, felt. For his son, his heart clenched.

 “What, no. No. Oh, mane,” the Ulric puffed out a breath, and draped an arm across the boy’s hunched shoulders with his next inhale, “you didn’t ruin a thing, you hear me? And it wasn’t your fault you forgot. You’re still a kid! There was a lot happening that day. That’s not on you. And your birthday wasn’t ruined! We’ll…just have to reschedule the cake and presents part. That’s all.” 

 Mane sniffled. Wiped at his nose with his whole sleeve.

 Then frowned up at the Glaive, a tremble in his lower lip, a whisper, “But…Dad’s upset.” 

 Saying it as if it were a brand placed on the whole year.

 Which, fair, in Nyx’s not-so-humble opinion. Whenever his inlustris was upset it certainly felt like the stars were falling from the sky itself. The world’s end; his star’s sadness. An end he’d bring to the world himself, he was honestly starting to think, if it would ease his amatus’ hurt - but that wasn’t here nor there right now. 

 Mane was here and there right now.

 “<I am sure your father is…handling this, morningstar. We will wait for him, hm?>” 

 Maybe it took a squeeze, and some ruffled raven hair, but his smaller star hummed in agreement with him. Then snuggled deeply into Nyx’s side. As though there weren’t easily a dozen Glaives scattered around the rooms with them; a necessary precaution, considering what their son had told them. But. Still. If it was them versus an Astral?

 They would fight.

 And they would die.

 They would not win though, they would only buy their prince time to escape. 

 Nyx felt helplessness crawl up his throat, thick and bitter, so he fought to swallow it down. And just held his and inlustris’ little star close as he could. Hoping his starlight was having a better conversation than him right about then, and a conversation full of solutions at that, preferably.

…

 “She had him,” Noctis hissed out, low and furiously unforgiving like a mother couerl twice-hunted, cubs and all, or claws and all. Considering there were crystals forming and fracturing and refracting rays of light in grey and blue rainbows all around him as he dragged his fingernails across the desk in his father’s study, “She was there, she tried to take him. She thought she could take him!” 

 A goddess. Had come for his child, had been in the same room as him, had been in their home. No guards, no protection; just Oriens and a goddess.

 Fuck Shiva.

 He used to really like her, used to consider her his favorite Astral, but after this? She deserved another grave. He’d gouge it into the earth himself if he had to, and drag her kicking and screaming into it like he’d dragged Lunafreya out of their home, that pious bitch. Nobody was taking Oriens from him. Nobody was threatening him. Nobody was manipulating him. Nobody. Nobody.

 They’d die and then they’d be forgotten by history if they tried.

 “Shiva did not take him, Noctis, sweetheart,” Dad tried to tell him so soothingly, motioning with one hand for him to settle down while watching him gnash his teeth and pace, “Peace. We will deal with her. Oriens is safe here.” 

 None of the soothing did a damn thing when Noctis had to whirl around on his dad and spit, “She did not take him because the godsdamned ADAGIUM SHOWED UP TO MESS WITH HIM INSTEAD. IN OUR HOME. ORIENS. OUR SON.” 

 The target of both an ice-hearted Astral and the embodiment of the Starscourge.

 He ignored the small flicker of uncertain hope-hurt-grief that was in his dad’s green eyes when he called Ori ‘theirs’. 

 His chest felt too tight, too suddenly. But rather than feeling afraid, there was nothing but frustration and fury for the wronged-Chosen to feel these days. He had already brought down one Astral. If another tried to tempt his anger? Then another would be brought down as well. He did not draw the line between mortals and immortals when it came to protecting his family.

 “We cannot just wait for the two of them to make their next move,” he spat, surrendering to his dad’s hobbling around the desk to reach him, to the age-spotted hand that came to rest on his shoulder and bridge him back to a more solid mindspace, “We cannot just hold back. Pretending we’re not at war when we are, Dad. We have been. For months and months - for years. Even if we didn’t know it.” 

 Even if they wanted to pretend, even if it was easier.

 “Ever since the Adagium framed me,” Noctis Lucis Caelum hissed, staring straight into a king’s eyes, “we have been at war.” 

 “You are right,” his dad, Dad, he murmured. Nodding along even though he looked weary all at once. So weary, so worn down, so exhausted by the neverending fights, “You are right, my precious child. We all know it. We all…should not pretend any longer.” 

 They were at war.

 And they were losing.

 “As if the Adagium wasn’t tricky enough,” Uncle Cor sighed, but the Immortal was far and away from surrendering. Was closer to the katana he had plucked from his Armiger earlier, and kept gripped tight in his hand since, running his thumb over its braided hilt in an old bit of muscle memory that had kept King and Shield on their toes since, “It’s been months, still no hard evidence on where the bastard is, and now we have to nail down a goddess too?” 

 “Perhaps Empress Stella would have information to share with us,” Uncle Clarus suggested, jaw locking at the look of desperate need for such suggestions his dear nephew turned on him, “The Empire felled her just before the war reached its full swing, what, a couple of decades ago? Her corpse still lays just outside of Gralea, and their deserts are still tundras as a result. Perhaps Her Magnificence and Niflheim’s scientists will have more information.” 

 Lucis’ King nodded, taking the suggestion seriously. And Noctis flexed his fingers open, shut, open, trying to time his breaths so he could somewhat calm down as the conversation continued ringing around and around his dad’s study.

 “The Leviathan’s corpse has yet to do, well, anything,” Ignis confirmed for them all, swiping through reports on his phone as his glasses reflected the light of the screen, “Decompose, mutate - the only effect noticed by locals is that daemons refuse to approach her remains.” 

 “Wonder if we could use that for some of the hunter outposts or something,” Gladio muttered. Arms crossed snug across his chest.

 “After the battle with the Tidemother, the other Astrals acted as well, didn’t they?” Uncle Drautos reminded them, nose scrunching up, “They picked sides.” 

 Dad nodded, and Noctis wondered when he’d subconsciously started pressing into his side the way he was, safe under the drape of his arm, “Bahamut with Tenebrae.” 

 “Shiva with him.” 

 “Titan seemed to side with us,” Gladio pointed out, and although he hesitated to side with the Astrals at all, in any way, Noctis reluctantly mumbled - 

 “Ramuh…was with us, too…” 

 Looks were exchanged all around. Thoughts flitting through the air of the study almost like physical things, birds fluttering back and forth. From shoulder to shoulder, head to head. Ideas exchanged. And, well, they weren’t exactly overflowing with an abundance of ideas and answers and reactions for them to use.

 “Ifrit has been cast out of their pantheon, so that still leaves four out of six Astrals,” Regis summed up for all their sakes, thumbing at his little nightlight’s neck in thought as they all bowed their heads at those odds, “Two on the side of Tenebrae, or at least Tenebrae by coincidence. And two on our side. Gods, goddess, all of them.” 

 Summed up like that, it was quite the odds. Enough to bring them all to quiet, looking between one another, reaching out for comfort in the form of hands held and nudges wherever they found them.

 And then -

 “Well, they’re not technically gods or goddesses,” a voice drawled from the other side of a certain, patchy couch in front of the lit fireplace. And all heads swiveled in the direction of a certain, sprawling royal there. Curled towards the flames. Swishing a glass of wine back and forth, back and forth, breathing in its sweetness as if he hadn’t just declared…

 That.

 “...What? If not gods or goddesses, then what are they?” Regis asked, baffled by his half-brother’s words. And Rexus just leaned away from his glass of wine, sighed, then turned to peer at them all over his shoulder. Hair curling over his eyes and smile just this side of awkwardly resigned, and he grinned at them.

 “You’re asking the right questions now, House of Caelum.”

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Oops, cliffhanger. XD

The plot bunnies are assembling~ Though I wanted to let you all know the next chapter will be delayed for a time, since I'm getting dental surgery done next week. Ha. Ha. Yay. Save me - nah, but seriously, excited because we've made it pretty far into the story now! Plenty of plot to come, so I hope you enjoy~! <3

Chapter 36

Notes:

The surgery went well, so I bestow upon you this chapter~ <3

~>-----------<~

 

 

 Well.

 “...Ugh, you’re downright dramatic, you know that, right? It’s important to me that you know that.” 

 There was no cuffing his Sword over the ear like when they were younger men, it simply wasn’t polite to do in his son’s company to be honest. But Regis was tempted. So, so tempted. Stuck halfway between staring in bafflement at his half-brother from another mother, and staring at his younger brother that his father had technically dug out of a dumpster for him. Cor just stared back at him. Completely baleful.

 Completely unhelpful.

 Rexus just threw his head back to let out a single, loud, rowdy bark of laughter. Nodding along after, and swaying dangerously for a man who held a sloshing glass of wine in just one hand. Motioned with that hand too. At Cor, at Regis, at the rest of them in a sweeping motion that nearly led to wine sloshing on him. The man seemed completely content, lounging there with his wine and all the confusion in the room fixed on him.

 He even seemed relieved, maybe, perhaps Regis would say.

 For what reason? 

 Regis had come to think he understood his younger sibling, at least somewhat, over the last weeks they’d spent getting to know one another. Had come to welcome, hug, care for Rexus. A man with more baggage than he’d expected when he first learned of his existence. And they were working on that, together, as a family.

 But now, with the sight of his - their - father’s green eyes flitting around the room, resting on each of them then going back to his glass of wine? 

 Reflecting the firelight? 

 His brother looked weighed down.

 And Regis wondered if being born royal meant weights on you whether or not you grew up in a castle.

 “Rexus, what do you mean?” So he asked. 

 And not for reasons of suspicion, like his Shield clearly felt with fists clenched at his sides. And not for reasons of confusion either, not entirely, though there was confusion. Regis asked for reasons of this was one of his baby brothers. He was being weighed down by something heavy, something he would be buoyed by sharing, so Lucis’ King asked. 

 Wanting to take some of the weight off of his half-brother who had already endured so much.

 “You’re letting it get all twisted, all complicated,” Rexus sighed, into his wine glass, as if that were the greatest of all crimes they could’ve committed right then, “You’re thinking too much,” tapping at his temple, his grin was crooked, and Regis wondered just what sorts of truths his father’s younger son had yet to share with them to be so content in holding all his cards close to his chest still, “You’re missing the biggest factor of all right now, because of your doing that. Simple.”

 “And what factor would that be?” His Shield demanded, still prickly with a suspicion Regis grew tired of -

 His half-brother’s answer just made his blood grow sluggish in his veins though.

 “Straight. Simple. Take them out. Take the fight to them.” 

 “You would have us fight gods - “ Clarus scoffed, disregardful.

Only for Rexus to lean forward suddenly and get closer and look him straight in the eyes with his own - unnerving green eyes, King Mors’ eyes - to ask, “But are they gods?” 

 A beat of silence. 

What he was alluding to made no more sense to any of them than what he’d insinuated before. Of course the Astrals were gods. Divine. Creators. That was what they had always been. Before the modern-day, before Lucis, before Solheim; gods. As long as humanity’s memory lasted, the Astrals were those above and that fact was never challenged lest by heretics. Heretics who burned. 

 Rexus spoke of heresy.

 But Lucis was far from a religious kingdom now, so Regis would never allow him to burn. 

 Still, what he implied. What he was herding them towards; this answer. Regis’ hands trembled faintly just from the thought, his instinctive rejection of it, it simply couldn’t be. But. Here was a member of his family, a brother of his, who had caught onto the tremble in his hands and switched around to focus entirely on the greyed and greying King of Lucis.

 The words he had to speak made the trembling worsen. 

 “What actually gave them the title of ‘gods’, Regis?” Rexus asked, a fervor to his voice as if he’d been waiting and wanting to say this all aloud for ages, green eyes bright with passion, “But mortals. Mortals did. Mortals called them that. We called them that. What…what,” A tongue flicked out to lick at Rexus’ lower lip, “if I told you they were not gods, but simply powerful, arrogant beings playing at being gods for a millennia and more? What then?” 

 What.

 What.

 “What?” Regis rasped in the stillness of a study taken by surprise, the mere concept…rattling. For all of them. Them, who could not look away as Rexus set aside his wine glass with a sharp clink of said glass, as he stood, as he came towards the king’s desk and the king, as he started motioning with his hands, talking, talking, talking - telling them these things. That he seemed so invested in. So desperate, in a way, to make them understand. In a way they couldn’t help but wonder what if - ?

 This story of his.

 This secret. Eos’ secret.

 “The Astrals. Those ‘gods’. Or, so they’d have you believe. So they’ve had Eos believing. But they are not that. Once, they were nothing more than mortal weapons used by great families to wage wars on one another. Powerful, yes. But controlled. Dominated. But then tragedy struck, and us mortals needed something to believe in so they became that something - immortal as they were. They outlived the memory of what they used to be. What if I told you they may be powerful, but they are no gods? What if I told you that they were our own weapons once, at our whims and fancy?” 

 From a time before Eos was Eos.

 “What if I told you the Astrals were no more than summonable weapons playing at being gods to keep us in line, so we never realized we could take back our claims over them?” Rexus asked, keeping eye contact with Regis without faltering.

 With an almost pleading sort of note to his voice.

 Wanting to be believed by the family he had gained.

 “They are liars,” he said vehemently, slashing a hand through the air, “They saw our weakness and our need for leadership, and they took that position over us. They let us call them divine, as if we weren’t the ones who made them. And then they let us forget when they were anything else. Let us turn them into a religion to empower them, and any who sought the truth were burned for it. They…they’re just weapons, Regis. They're just man-made.” 

 Silence in the study of the King.

 Rexus stuttered at the end there. A bit out of breath from how impassioned his speech had been; a speech that faded away with his final words. Leaving only that silence. And Rexus staring into his half-brother’s eyes for some sign that he was believed. And Retinue stiff with shock. And Noctis staring at his hands. And Regis -

 Regis draping an arm over one of his shoulders. A draping that turned into that arm curling close, bringing Rexus close, towards him, bringing him into a hug he was somehow surprised enough by that he went along with it like he was boneless. Blinking at his half-brother’s shoulder that his face was suddenly pressed against.

 Barely daring to hope.

 That all the secrets he’d dug out of the dark corners of their star had been worth it.

 Worth being in those mountains with his family.

 Worth burying them there and moving on.

 “Uncle Rexus?” Noctis’ softly speaking voice. It got him to lift his head. To look over at his nephew, fingers curled tight into his palms and blue eyes nearly aglow - but not in the bright sort of way. In the flash of steel, steely flint sort of way, “Are you sure?” 

 Was he? 

 He’d buried his family for it.

 “I am.” 

 Those blue eyes were like the blade of a sword.

 “Then I am going to kill every last one of them.” 

…

 All of them eventually ended up sitting. On that ratty, patchy couch. On the armchairs surrounding it, throw pillows thrown aside. On the floor for Cor and Drautos. The drinks stopped flowing, stopped being poured. Sober minds prevailed…somehow. There were glasses of water, mugs of coffee. Dinner they missed, but dear Ignis had a simple meal brought up to them from the kitchens. 

 There were stretches of silence. A lot of them.

 Nothing to be heard but the clinking of glasses, or bodies shifting over leather seats.

 Could they be blamed? Rexus’ declaration hung as an impossibility in the middle of them all. It couldn’t possibly be true. Everything they had ever been taught throughout their lives pointed at it and called it heresy, deceit, a lie. 

 But Rexus’ sheer conviction.

 That felt like a proof all its own. 

 What man could be so sure about a truth, other than one that had seen the evidence with his own eyes?

 “This feels…like history happening,” Noctis murmured, safe and tucked under one of his dad’s arms on the familiar couch. There was still a bristling beneath his skin. Like quills or scales waiting for a chance to cut with their pointed edges. A new hatred fostered for beings who weren’t even gods, according to his half-uncle. A hatred he could gratefully endorse, for how dare they have remained silent when they weren’t even divine?

 How dare they have pretended he wasn’t suffering, and tried to claim it was for a greater purpose when they were no greater than a Glaive’s blade?

 “I may not have faith in them any longer,” his dad said, soft and shaken, and squeezing Noctis closer to his side with a shake of his head as well, “but I never expected…this sort of truth. You truly found so many ruins pointing to such history, Rexus darling?" 
 
 Rexus Lucis Caelum scoffed, thinking of mostly collapsed passages and murals rubbed away by time’s dust, and years of digging deeper and deeper.

 Of three graves he hadn’t visited in years.

 “Bit by bit, little by little,” he confirmed, bitterly but he confirmed, “I have plenty of research for you to pick through. Or for your scientists, your historians - whoever. Whatever. I’ve spent decades picking at these scabs now, and whatever I have is yours to do with as you want. It’s a history that was buried deep…but it’s still there.” 

 “How has nobody else ever noticed?” The king’s son muttered, sounding just as bitterly upset, fingers clenching, “You’d think somebody would’ve noticed by now that they were not gods, just - just weapons. Magical storage containers, basically.” 
 
 “Well, how did you feel, Nephew, when you were given the covenants?” Rexus asked idly.

 And blue-blue eyes blinked at him. And slowly, his nephew tipped his head to the side while his expression turned blank and troubled.

 “What covenants?” 

 Rexus straightened up. Blinking right back at his brother’s son. Both of them were being blinked at by everyone else in the room. There was a lot of blinking. Confused, surprised blinking. Which only redoubled, when the man made a few hand motions in his direction, trying to articulate the words he needed to - apparently - be gentle about?

 “Those Summons’ covenants? Their bonds? The ability to summon - at the very least - one of them? You have them swirling inside of you. I’ve been able to sense it since we met.” 

 Noctis cringed back, which was all at once an answer to the question Rexus hadn’t even thought to ask yet. His nephew’s hand flew up to his chest, pressing down. A hand he - they all - stared at as though they’d suddenly see some sort of physical thing emerging from him.

 Which made Rexus realize, with a puff of breath and him slumping back into the couch more than tiredly.

 “Oh. You didn’t ask for the covenants. You took them.” 

 “I - what - ?”

 “I was wondering how you were using such precise magic to be able to walk around and be so specific about how it worked. Guess you just stole the ties to those damned Astrals, whether they liked it or not.”

 “What.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Noctis Lucis Caelum plucked at the blue wisps of King’s Magic winding around and around his legs; the reason he’d been able to walk around as he pleased these last months. He plucked at them as if they were the strings of a strung harp. He plucked harder and harder. He hated. Hated that he hadn’t even realized he wielded the covenants of the Astrals, until Uncle Rexus pointed it out.

 It was a debt owed to him. A debt he had claimed.

 He hadn’t realized it meant he owned the Astrals and their power to some degree.

 He refused to engage in talks about it as the conversation turned in circles and circles, like a wheel, around his dad’s study.

 He just kept plucking at the blue wisps of King’s Magic.

 Imagining he was plucking the the damned Astrals, Summons, weapons - whatever they were, to pieces, with each and every strum of his fingers.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When the night was deep, and dark, and late in all regards? The gathering of Lucis’ most powerful men peeled away one by one. Some went seeking drinks. Some went seeking to research. Some went simply seeking their beds. None of them would sleep soundly that night though. 

 The Astrals were not gods, according to Rexus Lucis Caelum.

 They were simply man-made weapons.

 No.

 None of them would sleep soundly that night at all.

 

 

-----

 

 

 None of them did.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Contrary to popular belief, Lucis’ throne room wasn’t really considered ‘off limits’ to the general public in the Citadel. Or Crownsguard. Or Kingsglaive. It was an illustrious room; no doubts about that. And it wasn’t a room somebody unauthorized could hope to reach, just as a general rule. There were too many guards between the entrance and it for that to be the case. 

 But still, the throne room wasn’t typically locked with a key or under guard.

 During important events, of course it was. When Regis held court as well, of course it was.

 But outside of those times? The throne room was considered a place in the Citadel where people could freely spend time outside of their duties. The grand archways that were its ceilings, its windows, the glass crystalline with sun and starlight shining through. Of course the throne was imposing, all on its own, of course the throne room gave off an air that said the uninvited shouldn’t linger there -

 But in a way, that tested whether or not some had the metal needed to serve the Crown.

 So, when the throne room was put on lockdown and Kingsglaive were summoned by their captain, all of the Citadel knew something had taken place. Something had happened. There was some reason to ban entry to the throne room, to put that entire floor’s wing of the Citadel under a shutdown drill. Which wasn’t really a drill. The Glaives looked too serious for it to be so mundane a situation.

 The rest of the Citadel’s staff obeyed. Steered clear. Kept out of the way, when orders came down personally from His Majesty that the throne room was being commandeered for that morning.

 And in the throne room, most of the House of Caelum gathered, with Glaives most trusted.

 Nyx was in attendance. With his closest friends in the Glaives, he helped lead them to line the pillared walls of the throne room. Uniformed and at-attention. Waiting, as was Captain Drautos’ orders. The extent of those orders started at be present, and ended at be ready. For what? This Ulric Glaive was probably the only one present who had any sort of idea. And that was thanks to his star.

 Inlustris had been restless in the night, had whispered things about religions and ideologies and history to Nyx, late in the night. A cloudless night. A seemingly starless night too.

 When the whole world seemed dark, and he couldn’t even peer through that darkness enough to see his amatus lying beside him in his bed, telling him haltingly about…concepts that terrified Nyx, to be honest.

 Uprooted everything he thought he knew down to the first sprout of his family tree.

 His history, his people’s history -

 He kept his jaw locked, stood tall, at-attention, like he’d been ordered to. And he felt Tredd a pillar over. Tenser than him. Probably from how serious the chieftain was acting; taking his cues from Nyx like most of his fellow Glaives in the throne room. But he couldn’t exactly help it. His star had passed along so many new truths that his uncle had shared with them, and they were…difficult. To hear. To swallow. To even try to accept, not that he did.

 Not yet.

 He couldn’t, as the last Ulric Chieftain of his people.

 King Regis’ eyes he met completely by accident, casting his own around the throne room as things convened. His Majesty’s eyes were sympathetic. Painfully so. Part of that pain was the rebel in Nyx, the part that had kept him and his friends alive after Galahd was taken by the Empire, the part that made him want to bare his teeth aggressively at the idea that his people’s histories might be wrong.

 Instead he ducked his head, because that was his star’s father.

 His star’s father, flanked by Lord Amicitia and the Lord Marshall. And Captain Drautos was there with them as well, inlustris too of course, as well as that newcomer -

 Rexus Lucis Caelum. Who they were all looking to, talking to, motioning to.

 Their talk wasn’t loud talk. But in the throne room, talk echoed anyways. Up into the tall ceilings painted with murals of crystals and kings, out across all the pillars lined with Kingsglaive. Their words were heard. Easily. And the more of them that were spoken, the more tense Nyx’s fellow Glaives grew. Tossing wide-eyed glances his way. Chatting with little hand movements to keep their silence but still ask, ‘Are they serious?!’

 Stormy-brown eyes stared resolutely forward.

 Nyx…really wanted to avoid lashing out right now. He wasn’t the hothead he was in his youth. He kept trying to remind himself this wasn’t an attack on his faith, on the beads in his hair dedicated to Father Ramuh.

 “Damned Astrals,” the Lord Marshal cursed vehemently, at the foot of the throne’s daises.

 It still felt like an attack, and Nyx found his fingers flexing where his hands were clasped loyally behind his back. A movement he stifled immediately. Too aware that it could set off his brothers and sisters-in-arms. Which was the very last thing needed right now when every word out of those mouths drew them tenser and tenser.

 “If I have the covenants…why wouldn’t at least one show up?” His star asked, answering a question Nyx had missed in burying his frustration, “Right? They have to come, don’t they?”

 “That is a rather far leap to make, so soon,” His Majesty warned him gently, motioning with his cane towards the interloper who had caused all of this, “As Rexus stated, we have no way of knowing which Astral will answer. And we have no way of knowing yet if we can truly control them so completely, to be risking that.” 
 
 “Summons can still be unpredictable things,” said man agreed, returning the motion with his hand rather than a cane, “All the ancient records I pieced together alluded to there being times they…lost control. Or perhaps its was their vessels that the people lost control of, but either way those are not safe odds to be betting on, Nephew.” 

 It wasn’t as though Nyx hated the latest addition to his inlustris’ family. Rexus Lucis Caelum…

 A man whose reputation far preceded himself, who was just on the rightest side of confidently cocky, sexy, and composed. But he had that wild side that just made him irresistible to Glaives. Like catnip to cats. Nyx’s knowledge about him mostly came from his fellow Glaives bragging about his skillmanship in bed, and moments observed as he found his place in his family. But. Still.

 He had come from nowhere, conquered a hundred hearts, and then taken Eos’ religious beliefs and crucified them.
 
 That made it difficult to not challenge the man to a sparring session.

 “Well, how else will we get our answers?” His star asked, haltingly, unsurely.

 Nobody had an answer to him, and more conversation passed by while Nyx fought to muffle his irritations that seemed to grow the longer nobody acknowledged how many of his faithful people were present at that very moment - it was strange, it was inky, it was like black seeping into his ears, he found himself gritting his teeth with a strange anger -

 “Oh, what, so we’re just supposed to wave a hand and say, ‘Please come down here, O’Astral, we just want to chat,’ and expect one of them to show up?” 

 Warmth.

 Warmth.

 Warmth like the jungle beaches back home, back on the shores of the Storm Islands, back on Galahd. Like riptides and swimming competitions and juicy fruits that left juice dripping down their chins and chests when they bit into them - and home. Home. Nothing but home. All of that anger was buried by the landslide that was sudden nostalgia. And nostalgic memories. And nostalgic care-happiness-faith was like a village unbombed.

 ‘MAY I, MY CHILD?’

 Nyx let out a choked noise.

 Tredd glanced over, first in confusion then in concern when he found Nyx’s head bowed and eyes staring glassily at the tiles of the throne room. Polished to perfection, sure, to the point of being reflective, sure, but not enough to distract someone like Nyx. He spoke with his hands, quick, cutting movements meant to get his attention but not any others.

 Nyx didn’t react, which was right about when Tredd shuffled a half-step closer to the Ulric’s pillar, starting to get real concerned about the glassiness in those eyes of his. 

 Nyx was one of the most focused men he’d ever met. So it was alarming.

 Not nearly as alarming as it was for Tredd when the guy lifted his head, Ramuh have mercy on him, holy storm, and the Furia went ramrod-straight at the spine.

 Because Nyx’s eyes were vibrantly purple.

 And glowing faintly in the daylit throne room.

 “Oh you have gotta be fucking kidding me,” Tredd Furia rasped, respected Kingsglaive and respected member of his clan and still a smartass who refused to stop slicking up his red hair morning after morning, and he stared at Nyx’s form in exasperated awe - real awe - because he knew down to his braids and beads what this was, “<Idiot.> He’ll never let us live this down.” 

 He got down on his knees to bow to Nyx’s form as he casually shifted away from the pillar, and made for the center of the throne room where their royal house was gathered together.

 Other Glaives noticed first.

 Noticed.

 And then dropped to their knees respectfully as well.

 Tredd was going to tackle Nyx after this, he swore it. Or maybe he’d just dip all his socks in vinegar or something. Axis would probably help him after he told the Arra what the hells their Ulric idiot had gone and done. Maybe that. Later. Much later. For now? 

 Tredd just bowed, genuinely, to the Stormfather who had come to claim a chieftain of theirs as his vessel.

…

 Movement rippling outward, across all the throne room from a specific pillar, was sort of hard to miss. 

 Kingsglaive going down on their knees, bowing their heads and murmuring soft-spoken prayers? Was harder to miss. 

 Nyx heading straight towards them with glowing eyes as violet as live lightning?

 Impossible to miss.

 “Nyx?” The chieftain’s beloved star checked, looking twice, confused the first time and concerned the second. All around him, his uncles straightened up. Fingers twitching for the hilt of weapons. A response to something unknown approaching. His father, his father’s half-brother, both straightened up as well.

 But no Lucis Caelum there reached for a weapon. They reached for their magic.

 Magic sang back to theirs. Magic more ancient, more pure than theirs. It all chimed together for a moment that almost felt entirely physical in the air of the throne room. Sort of like a warp, yet nobody moved an inch. They saw, they reached, they recognized, they were surprised -

 Nyx Ulric’s body simply came to a stop a pace away from them all.

 Eyes glowing similarly to the stormy skies over a certain battlefield weeks ago.

 An Armiger sang.

 Noctis’ fingers clenched tight around the hilt of one of Nyx’s spare kukri.

 At the same moment as the King’s arm stretched across his chest, to protect, to halt him, to hold everyone in place without a verbal command -

 And at the same moment as the Ulric Chieftain bowed the upper half of his body just slightly forward. 

 Which made all the uncles present move protectively in front of their Lucis Caelums.

 There was a brief moment, like the silence between thunder and lightning, electricity hanging in the air between them all as the once-Chosen’s expression twisted into one of threat and fury and sworn bloodshed.

 Before from Nyx’s mouth came, “Forgive my sudden intrusion. I did not intend to startle, only to greet.” 

 A low snarling sound came out of Regis’ son at that, a sound the Glaives had definitely taught him. It was Nyx’s voice…but it wasn’t. It was overlapping, underlapping, with something sharper. Duller. Something other. Something like copper and blood and static making hair stand on-end. Pair that with his glowing eyes, the way he was standing even?

 And he seemed…other.

 Other was the sort of thing Noctis dragged out of their home without mercy, so he had to be restrained in a way.

 “You are forgiven,” the Lost spoke up for them all, chin at a curious angle as he looked the Glaive up and down with a slow, all but confirmed suspicion, “To what do we owe the honor of your presence, Stormfather?” 

 Stormfather.

 Nyx grinned.

 Ramuh grinned.

 “You called for answers. I came.” 

 There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky that winter day, yet when the Stormfather declared himself that same sky grew greyer outside of the Citadel. Cloudier. The lighting in the throne room dimmed, there was a flash, violet, lightning outside of the windows. The rumble of thunder before, after. A storm. Out of the blue.

 And an Astral in front of them.

 “Nyx?” Noctis asked, despite all of that, because that could wait when his amatus was being possessed by one of the gods who had not saved him -

 “My child cannot speak,” Ramuh told him regretfully, using Nyx’s own mouth, as if he didn’t sense the murderous intentions in their once-no-longer-Chosen, “Mind and body; both are outside of his reach until I go. As I asked, as he agreed to.” 

 Sue him, the raven-haired royal hated the Astrals and he’d made no secret of that fact. Ramuh had only been handled with kid gloves so far due to the Glaives’ large population of faithful Galahdians. Due to Noctis growing used to the Stormfather’s hymns being sung in his bedroom, the altar in the corner of that same bedroom, Nyx’s prayers. Devotion. Faith.

 All things Noctis was now frustrated over, if it meant his boyfriend was going to get himself possessed, and no he couldn’t help the hair standing on the back of his neck.

 They’d been discussing how to fight the Astrals and one of them had come down from a pantheon out of their reach to possess the man he loved.

 Any sort of wrong move, and he may end up lashing out like his Glaives had taught him to do to protect his family.

 “We are honored to have you here, to have your answers,” Regis put himself between an Astral and them all, ever the most diplomatic and most sensible one of them, “Tell us, Stormfather, are my brother’s theories correct? Of what you and the Six are? Of where you came from, of what he found?”
 
 Violet, glowing eyes shifted to move over the son who was not supposed to live.

 But he had. In this timeline he had.

 And the Lost was no longer as such, so the Glaive’s head was ducked forward in acknowledgment as he addressed the brother of the Father.

 “You. You ventured down, ventured deep, deeper than humans were meant to survive venturing by this point in history’s turning. Some part of you knows this,” if Astrals were capable of regret, it was in the Glaive’s overlaid voice when saying, “The fate of your family taught you this.”

 Rexus Lucis Caelum’s limbs all went rigid. A hand went towards his chest, the other twitched with need for his lance.

 A ‘god’ ducked his head again, apologetically this time, before continuing.

 “Your survival relied solely on the blood running in your veins. The blood of those blessed with the Crystal. The Caelums. Without that blessed blood, your body would lie in the mountains too.” 

 A hand slipped itself in Rexus’. It was worn, aged, and he swallowed as he held his half-brother’s hand. Allowing the magic reaching for him in. Allowing it to smooth away some of the aching. Some of the loss. Some of those broken pieces of him that were left in the mountains with three small gravestones under a sapling.

 “What is the Crystal, precisely?” Regis spoke up, asking. Sharp-toned. Warning, “If you are not all gods, creators, what purpose does it serve?”

 “The Crystal,” and he gained an Astral’s attention without spite, “The source of the Caelum’s blessing. The source of it all. The arbiter of our will, through combined reason but little else. The Crystal. The last shard of the Mothercrystals. The last of a time now forgotten. The remnants of what was; your family’s legacy to safeguard.” 

  'Mothercrystal’. Now, Rexus’ heart may have been acheful, but allude to something like that and anyone else would be just as distracted as he was by the concept. Every single one of them went straight in the spine even.

 ‘Mother’ implied…a lot of things. And the Crystal that lay in their Citadel was already rather large - how big must a ‘mother’ version of it be for the Crystal to be just a mere shard?

 They had just a shard?

 There had been greater crystals in their history?

 A history forgotten?

 “You have questions,” Ramuh stated, smiling plainly like a proud grandfather, a strange expression on Nyx’s face. Noctis reached and gripped for his own arms, and the expression fell away with an apologetic glance. The Astral continued. For his child’s sake, “Questions are good. Questions lead to great things. Great change. Curiosity is a gift for any child…however.”

 After so long thinking of them as divine beings, it was strange to see real regret from the Stormfather himself.

 “I have neither the time nor allowance to retell all of history’s passing unto you.”

 “That’s fine,” Rexus cut in, though it burned like salt in a physical cut because there was so much they had no clue about. But somebody had to be pragmatic. And they’d started this because they needed answers, so those answers needed priority. Even if the historian in him wailed and clawed at walls over it, “What we need to know about is you Summons. How to stop you.” 

 Bold of the Lost.

 Ramuh blessed boldness; had blessed his Galahdians for that very reason, long, long ago.

 “...The first truth for you to learn,” so here was the blessed wisdom of the Stormfather, “is that there were once far more of us than just the Six.”

 “...Six is already too many,” the Star mumbled.

 “Noctis!” The Father gasped.

 “I agree,” the Lost sighed.

 All three Lucis Caelums let out their own sighs for three different reasons, all at the same time.

 “The others,” Ramuh sought to reassure them, “you need not worry for. They were buried too deep, too long ago. One remains close to the surface. Close to being found. But Garuda is one with sense; neither your enemy or Bahamut’s.” 

 Looks were exchanged. Longer, if only they had. But Ramuh felt it already. The thrumming of Bahamut’s anger, the realization that he had done what they weren’t meant to do. Interfere. Interact. Change things. It was threading along the edge of his consciousness; the knowledge he would be made to pay for this.

 A price he would pay with dignity, if it meant his children would have a shepherd in what was to come.

 “It’s Shiva we need to know about,” the once-Chosen snapped, around their low murmuring, something fiery and deeply personal catching around the Glacian’s name.

 Ramuh answered.

 “Older than the others. More bitter than the others. A frozen heart doesn’t beat, even if it remains flawless in ice,” Ramuh let a hum rumble through him, reached up to stroke his beard in thought, then remembered this was not his form for his child’s beard was far more tamed than his own, “Shiva will kiss, blush, and flatter. She will promise. She will deceive. But she is not one who can act without an opening. Keep your hearts sealed to hers, keep your longings close, and she will not be able to send her frost over your minds.” 

 “But how do we deal with her?” 

 Violet, glowing eyes stared deep into the Star’s, and the Stormfather spoke with a storm in his tone, “The same way the Empire dealt with her. Infernian. Us.”

 The same means.

 Simple means.

 Unbelievably simple, if their shocked stares meant anything to Father of Galahd.

 “So the Astrals…we can literally just kill?” The Star whispered, as if death were an unreachable concept to him. Misleading. It was not. It was the furthest thing from that. Ramuh himself could feel the desire to kill, to strip lives bare, to rend - under the once-Chosen’s skin.

 Nyx’s head was inclined, and more looks were exchanged.

 “We can…kill them. Over and over again,” Carbuncle’s time traveler checked, confirmed, Drautos confirmed. And if his tone was full of bitterness? It was a bitterness definitely earned after two whole lifetimes being fucked up by the Six, “We kill them and they reform, then we do it again, and again, and again. Or we bury them so deep that nobody in the future ever gets their grubby hands on them?” 

 “We put an end to them. We make sure they never have power again.” 

 The Stormfather remained impassive, even at that concessive being reached. They spoke. More and more, on and on, while Bahamut’s anger merely grew but they knew that not. That was fine. They had been set on the correct path now. 

 They had the beginnings of what they needed.

 Yes. There. The children understood slightly better now, Ramuh thought, satisfied. The chance they wouldn’t had been slim. But it had existed. Therefore, there had been a chance. Yes. Ah. He’d forgotten how wonderful it was; to watch humanity unravel knowledge with just their own two hands and a dream. 

 It was a wonder Bahamut’s rules had taken from him, but no longer.

 Ramuh was quite tired of catering to that young one.

 Ifrit had had the right of things, had he not? When Solheim was gleaming gold and machinery, when magic and machine were as one, when they offered up knowledge. Gifts without strings. To their humans, who had survived and thrived in spite of all threats. So many, many, many threats. So many that had seemed world-ending at their times, and now went unremembered.

 Less than notes scribbled between the lines in history books.

 Less than a blink in their eyes, until a detail caught their eyes and they became involved.

 They were involved now. For better or worse, for or against Bahamut. Their charade as gods was falling to pieces around them in a ring of shattered glass, and all that Ramuh found reflecting back at him now? Were regrets. And pasts. And the faith of his children, who he had never ceased learning for. The Stormfather could be content with that enough, could he not? He could.

 He placed his child’s hand upon his own chest, feeling the thundering beat of his heart, the gusts of his breaths, the strength beneath his skin. In muscle, in magic, in faith. And love. Love for a man who deserved all of it and more, a man whom Ramuh had wept for. Time before and time again, and in the future. Most likely. He would weep more.

 Because standing by had gone against all that the Summons was.

 But was precisely what he had done.

 His child would keep the once-Chosen in good hands, however. And he believed that. Truly.

 So Ramuh let his eyelids fall shut. And let his breaths deepen. And let the tenseness drop from the form he inhabited, listening to the wonderful noise of the House of Caelum learning as a backdrop to this sleep of his. That he drifted off into with a hum, a tiny zap of electricity, and a wordless farewell to his children. 

 That zap of electricity was invisible and soundless.

 The way Nyx Ulric swayed slightly and groaned under his breath, though? Less so.

 “Nyx,” his star, was there, was immediately moving to be closer to him, drawn out of the ongoing conversation between royals and Retinue that went silent. Hands went towards the Galahdian Chieftain. And he stayed upright, despite the buzzing in his eardrum and the weakness in his knees, and he breathed, and he breathed, and he -

 “Ramuh’s storm,” he cursed, less because of being upset and more because he had been Father Ramuh’s vessel, “I - I…oh. Oh.” 

 Thin, cold fingers wrapped around his wrist. Slid up to his elbow. Slid up past his bicep, and a second set of the same fingers cupped the side of his neck. Sent pleasant shivers up and down his spine that felt as jittery as his knees right now. Like palm trees under storm.

 Blue-blue eyes met him in the middle; between him crumpling to the floor of the throne room and him warping off in a random direction to burn off this energy just rushing through his veins.

 He felt like a livewire.

 Like he needed to hit a few things, then lay down and not get up for a while.

 But his star was right there, holding onto him, so he’d rather have his hands skinned clean than cause any sort of disturbance like that in his vicinity.

 “Inlustris, I…I - “

 “Alright. It’s alright. It’s all okay, Nyx,” his star, such strength, such bravery. Such emotion in those pretty, star-filled eyes of his as their foreheads met and his Noctis held onto him as if he were something unspeakably precious, “It’s over. You’re free of him. He’s gone.” 

 That wasn’t a whine that left the Kingsglaive. No way. Mhm.

 But it was difficult beyond belief to articulate he wasn’t glad that Father Ramuh was gone, he was glad Father Ramuh had been there. Had chosen him. Had rewarded him like that -

 All concepts foreign to his atheist amatus.

 Which was fine, totally and completely fine; Nyx was the one who wore the beads and lit the altar’s candles and sang the hymns. His faith need not be his boyfriend’s faith. His affection for Father Ramuh need not be shared. But at this time, he hadn’t the words to explain to somebody who didn’t share that. So he was just humming, deep inside of his chest, clinging to his starlight to stay stable.

 On his feet.

 Sensible.

 Later, he would let it hit him full-force.

 For now though, there was just the murmur of talk around him, the lighting of the throne room, and the buzzing in his eardrums.

 And Nyx sank into that like it was a pool of rainwater. Freely and happily so.

 He was satisfied with those limits of his.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “I’m alright, inlustris,” the dark-haired chieftain swore neither for the first nor final time, but he swore all the same because there was worry darkening his amatus’ eyes and that simply wouldn’t do when today had been…indescribable for Nyx. A moment he would not forget. Not for the rest of his life, however long that may be. But still. He swore. Without hesitation.

 Because few things made his heart as heavy as seeing his star’s eyes go dim, feeling his skin grow colder than before. 

 Watching him withdraw. With questions and self-doubt and creases around those starry eyes. So pretty of eyes; deserving to be studied by astronomers. Yes.

 And after what occurred in the throne room, Nyx had every ounce of their attention. Even now. Moving around the bedroom that they shared as theirs, toweling off after splashing a good amount of water on his face. Finding and sniffing and determining a shirt he found crumpled on the couch to be clean enough to tug on. Neatening up his braids. Polishing his beads, even. ‘Prettying’ himself up, as Crowe used to call it.

 For a reason.

 Nyx Ulric had been given leave by His Majesty for the rest of the evening.

 And Little Galahd had called him home.

 Ducking into their bathroom to check himself over in the mirror, Nyx’s fingertips found themselves brushing over his tattoos as if they had a mind of their own. They dragged over ink, then over beard stubble, and then across his lips. The lips his star had kissed near-desperately, damn it, when they got back to their rooms. Had literally pushed him back against the doors the second they closed, to press up to him, to ask breathless and breaking and take in a show of initiative Nyx wasn’t used to from Noctis.

 Not that he couldn’t understand why. Why now. Why finally.

 Today had scared the man he loved. Father Ramuh had scared the man he loved.

 But he’d also never been happier to be pinned against something, up against someone, like that.

 That on top of the invitation from the community; talks with the Elders, talk of ceremonies, of a feast - all at a time when the Lucis Caelums weren’t leaving the Citadel for their own safety. So his star wasn’t even able to join him. Nyx understood. He understood. Part of him loathed it, but he understood, and part of him still felt floaty from the Stormfather’s presence -

 That part of him made him leave the bathroom, a small grin stuck to his lips, and his star was sitting on the edge of his big bed. Face creasing, and in his hands he held his glasses that he turned over and over again in a mindless game of distracting himself.

 “...It’s tradition, inlustris. It’s family,” Nyx breathed, battling to make it sound like anything other than an excuse as he stalked over to his altar to Father Ramuh. To relight some of the candles before he left, “<You would come with me if it were safe. You would be at my side, as my partner for life, if only the dangers were less,>” as he went to the star he had caught once and never let go of, to kneel at his feet and take his glasses, and set them aside to take his hands in his own, “<I would not leave you if it were not precious to me and my people.>” 

 A pause. Thoughts behind those blue-blue yes.

 And small nod.

 “I know,” and yet his star still sounded pained, so Nyx kissed the backs of each of his hands in turn, squeezing them in his larger ones, giving his inlustris all that he was while he could, “<The danger could be directed towards you too, though, beloved. What if something happens?>”

 “<Then I will be surrounded by some the strongest, most empowered fighters in the kingdom, starlight. And we will deal with the danger. We will call for help, too,>” he added solely because of the way his star parted his lips to add that exact request, watched the lips press together once more.

 Thought of being pressed back against the door and kissed willfully by this man he adored.

 Reached up. Selfish, so selfish, so wanting. He took Noctis’ face into his war-scarred hands just to selfishly comfort himself. To rise up on his knees. To bring his star down lower into his reach. To kiss. A kiss that lingered. Like the lightning was surely going to linger underneath Nyx’s skin for hours. 

 “Promise me,” his Noctis murmured, refusing to pull away, lips brushing lips and Nyx knew he’d have to tear himself away from this wonderful man who had deigned him with love.

 “I promise.” 

 Separation hurt less, when he had a skip in his steps from a kiss on his lips.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Little Galahd was alive. Little Galahd was summer in winter, was brilliance and laughter, and strings of lights lining each street of the community. Little Galahd was song. Was stories. Was tradition. Was the Galahdians’ island on land, was what they had transformed it into through blood and sweat and tears. Was their tropical garden sown in the center of Lucis. Their safety, their sanctuary - Little Galahd was absolutely everything to the last Ulric Chieftain.

 In some of the most painful ways, it was more precious to him than the Galahd they had lost to the Empire.

 It was a home he entered with his stormy eyes wide open, and his arms open wide too, to be greeted by claps on the back. Embraces. Kisses to his cheeks. Community. Clans. All with spirits soaring - higher than they had soared for the Winter Solstice. He was welcome. His star would have been welcome as well.

 Nyx walked into a Little Galahd full of the aromas of spices, of a feast being prepared, of traditions being practiced.

 Of eyes on him. So many eyes.

 And hands reaching out, to touch him, to merely brush against him, like he were something truly sacred to his people. He was. In some ways, now. 

 This, Nyx would allow. This worship. Not for himself, but for his people, for so many of those who had begun to doubt since the war’s end. Since the Astrals grew in their silence. Since the Tidemother had to be felled by their royals. He let them touch, and pray upon him, and murmur their awe after his back as he headed to meet with the Elders.

 Tonight would be a night of belief. Of faith. Of not caring if the Stormfather was not a god in the traditional sense, for it did not change their history. It did not change their prayers. It did not change their pasts. It may change their future, but from the fondness Nyx had felt filling him through Father Ramuh?

 Those changes could only be for the better.

 Tomorrow, they would pick apart precisely what Father Ramuh’s words meant.
 
 Tonight, Nyx would be there for his people, and then return to his fallen star who waited on him.

 For now though, he beamed at the man who bled from the crowd to join him, hesitant though he seemed, and unsure though the community seemed too, Nyx threw an arm over Libertus’ shoulders. Keeping his brother close. Letting his other, fellow Glaives bleed out to join him as well. Putting up with the pushes, the exaggerated retellings of what had happened in the throne room, the pure affection.

 It wasn’t a hard thing to put up with.

 Family never was.

 

 

-----

 

 

 In the study of Lucis’ King, in its hushed silence, in what lingered after earlier, before, Astrals who were not gods -

 In there, Regis Lucis Caelum had his hands clasped over his mouth. Was staring at an empty desk, for the first time in a while for nothing compared in importance to this. Was not alone, but given the privacy by his Sword and Shield and Captain to pretend he was, if only for a several minutes. There were many thoughts that passed through his head then. There were many more thoughts he hadn’t the energy for, lingering around the edges of it. 

 Clarus came around to his shoulder, with a palmful of pills and a glass of water.

 Lucis’ King drank.

 And with the clinking of the glass being set down, he nodded. With finality.

 “We will kill Bahamut and Shiva.” 

 “Your Majesty,” three voices intoned in unison, in loyalty.

 One spoke up after, Clarus, not quite as forthright as typical, but then again his Shield had always walked on a spectrum of faith in the Astrals Regis couldn’t dare follow.

 “There will be…reactions, Your Majesty. This will not be a favorable decision for much of Eos.” 

 Regis’ smile was small, and grim.

 But his words were stronger than his heart or his body when he met each of their gazes, because he had to be heard. And perhaps it was time he reminded Eos of this truth he spoke.

 “Who cares about favor? We’re not heroes.”

 The House of Caelum had never claimed to be.

 “We’re royals.”

 

 
-----

 

 

 Two Astrals raged.
 
 Two kept to the side.

 And the rest were buried too deeply to get involved.

 But the Adagium watched in the maddest of delight, all of it, eager to see what was to happen.

 

 
~>-----------<~

Notes:

Royals becoming god-killers? Yes please.

Royals also being royals and not storybook heroes? Yes please. <3

The House of Caelum is all the shades of grey, and at the end of the day morals mean nothing when held over the heads of family and Retinue.

Chapter 37

~>-----------<~

 

 

 ‘Ramuh’s Chosen.’

 Picked.

 Blessed.

 A sign.

 Whispered in the colorful streets of Little Galahd was that, those things, when the last of the Ulric Chieftains walked by. Whispered about was he, Nyx Ulric, when he went block to block. Visiting each neighborhood of each Galahdian clan throughout the evening. Throughout the night. Being prayed over until his soul shivered, being fed from their tables until his stomach was too full to fit more, being a person blessed, hands clasping his as his people bowed over his knuckles and shed tears. Tears of grief. Tears of relief.

 For they had not been abandoned by their god. Their Stormfather. Father Ramuh.

 They were no longer of the Storm Islands, no longer of Galahd for their newest generations borne in Lucis and never to know the sandy beaches their parents had barely escaped from with their lives during the war -

 But Father Ramuh had not forsaken them. Had not left them. 

 The Galahdians who were there to bear witness spoke of lightning-violet, of a wiseness, of a humbleness, of a respect shared between the Stormfather and the House of Caelum. They neither spoke of the conversation that had been had nor their doubts, because their people had needed this. Deep down. Desperately. Like a seed beginning to rot in soil never given a chance to breathe, there had been doubt spreading through their community.

 About if they had made the correct choice. To stay. To place down new roots, when the Galahdians who had returned to Galahd-proper kept trying to tempt them back. Tempt them home. 

 But home was craters in their jungles, mountains turned to boulders, beaches where so much blood was spilled the oceans had yet to wash away the red.

 Home was not a place all of them could bear returning to, yet they had been tempted.

 Until now.

 When the last Ulric Chieftain walked amongst them, blessed by the Stormfather, braids and beads in his hair, faith in his heart. This was a kindness from their god, as they saw it. This was a sign, that they were right to stay if they wished to. Their new roots would grow deep, the seeds planted here would not rot, their saplings would be strong enough to withstand the storms of the future.

 Nyx may have found love in the Citadel, but he had never left behind Little Galahd.

 Nor his people.

 He had had his own doubts. His own fears. Created by so many things, so many reasonable things. By the loss of his father so young, the responsibility to care for his mother and sister as young, then the loss of them, the war, the realization one day while counting their dead that he was the last of the Ulric Chieftain families. That all the Ulric Clan was his now. To hold, to herald, to help. To lead. To nurture, as they fled their homes and started anew in a strange place with strange people.

 He had never lost his faith in Father Ramuh, but there had been times his altars had gone unlit, his beads had gone unpolished.

 His prayers had faltered.

 Now, though, a night was spent in his apartment in Little Galahd. Drinking away the night sky with his fellow Glaives, with Libs who was glared at but went uncursed or chased away, with his memories of all those doubts growing pale in his mind. Fading from thought. For he had been blessed by Ramuh, for he had been his vessel if only for minutes. 

 And it had been peace. It had been truth. It had been the most calm Nyx had felt in decades, lending his body to his god.

 It had been incredible.

 Come morning, the Citadel would still be waiting for him. Come morning, his star and their son would still be waiting for him. And come morning, Nyx might go back to juggling his duties as a chieftain, as a Glaive, as an amatus all at once. 

 And, sipping lightly on his drink as he watched brightly lit Little Galahd’s streets below his apartment, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Morning came slowly, in shades soft and Aranahe-dye-like.

 And Nyx hitched a ride home to the Citadel, slightly hungover but smiling.

 To give his star a kiss as sweet as Galahdian candy before heading off to training.

 

 

-----

 

 

 A meeting convened in Regis’ study that morning, both as a prelude for breakfast and for a proper discussion about what they should be planning.

 Because killing beings-like-gods was far more easily said than done. 

 Even if he would do anything for his family.

 “There must be an answer,” Regis sighed loftily, tapping at the wood of his desk, just to get a response from Cor that drawled on and on.

 “You mean somewhere between the Wall, the new trade agreements, the death of the Havens, the Tidemother’s death, Tenebrae’s instability, Accordo’s desire to stay neutral, Niflheim’s offers of a greater allegiance, reparations to the Hunters, Rexus’ announced existence, Noctis being pronounced and proven innocent and now being the wielder of the Ring, the Glaives’ magic, and said Wall, and also Rexus revealing to all of us that the Six aren’t even gods but man-made weapons we supposedly can take control of if we choose not to simply kill and bury them all?“

 Regis blinked at his Sword.

 Clarus blinked at him.

 Drautos blinked at him.

 Dear Ignis and Gladio both blinked at him as well.

 Rexus laughed lightly.

 And Noctis went back to silently moving breakfast around his plate with his fork, as though he weren’t paying attention at all. Regis hardly blamed him. Didn’t. At all. Never. Noctis still had days that were much quieter than others, and besides. Ignis had given him a new recipe for this breakfast; one that seemed far more flavorful than his dear boy was still used to.

 He should pay attention to what he pleases and little else. That was all the Father cared about.

 “What? Did I miss something important that happened in the last year?” Cor asked dryly, tapping away at his phone without looking up at all the stares he was subject to now. Then his tapping finger paused. And he actually glanced up to fix his own stare on his king and add quieter, “Oh, and you having a heartattack.” 

 That got Noctis to pay attention properly. Got the raven-haired royal to raise his head and flatten his lips together, turning his stare on the greying king who immediately motioned reassuringly at him, shooting a scolding look at his Sword for worrying Noctis on one of his worse days.

 “Dad, are you okay?”  

 “I’m perfectly fine, sweetheart,” Regis reassured his and Aulea’s boy, still motioning gently with one hand for him to settle, and shooting another, more exasperated look Cor’s way when the man rolled his eyes, “I promise. There’s nothing to worry about, and my doctors say so as well.” 

 He was telling the truth, so he didn’t mind when his son shot a questioning look in Clarus’ direction. Clarus who simply nodded to confirm that that was the truth. Considering he’d been to all the king’s doctor appointments with him and was the responsible one between them who organized all his medications, he was the best person for Noctis to check with. His heart was…as fine as was going to be. At his age.

 “...Okay,” Noctis settled, thank goodness, and went back to warring with his plate. Which Ignis seemed to be watching with mild distress. 

 It would get cold if his son didn’t eat soon.

 “...As I was saying,” Regis sighed, once his sweet son was back to not paying attention to anything except his battle with flavor and Cor had been cuffed over one ear by Clarus, “There must be a way, some disaster, that warrants the summoning of the Astrals. The Summons,” he inclined his head Rexus’ way, using the term his half-brother had taken to calling them, “Something. Nothing so far, except the battle with Leviathan and her death, has been enough to bring them upon us.”

 “Well, Shiva did technically come for Oriens,” his half-brother then pointed out, and Regis restrained himself to curling his nails into the center of his palms at the reminder. A reminder Rexus then winced over, shooting him an apologetic look.

 Thankfully his son stayed distracted.

 “We still cannot be sure Noctis having a…version of the covenants, at least, means he can summon them like the kings of the past,” Clarus stepped in to point out himself, seamlessly nudging Rexus just slightly to the side where he could sip at his glass of something darkly red without being noticed for a few moments, “The old covenants said an Astral might choose whether or not to show up, if given a worthy enough argument. Not that it was similar to - a dog on a leash, for example.” 

 Lucis’ King just had to nod to that, because true enough.

 Neither his father nor him had ever sought out the covenants. His father had been too waylaid by the loss of the Adagium just as Niflheim started gaining strength, and then the start of the war itself. While Regis had already…most unfortunately, shown that he simply hadn’t the magic reserves to wield the Ring, hold up the Wall, and then offer up King’s Magic to the Kingsglaive. A force they’d desperately ended up needing. The covenants took incredible magic reserves - a thing he simply didn’t have.

 His grandfather had supposedly earned the covenant of Titan, but as far as Regis was aware there’d never been a time when the man had called on the Archaean.

 Point being, the actual intricacies of the covenants had fallen out of memory for their family. Stories of course said the Astrals could be talked into fighting beside those who earned them, but the exact details weren’t quite clear. 

 Rexus said they were man-made weapons made to answer those with the strength of will to wield them.

 Religion said one must be worthy of the Astrals’ attentions.

 There had to be a truth somewhere between those two things.

 A small, muted noise interrupted Regis’ thinking.

 Heads in his study turned to find the source of that noise was Noctis. Who was covering his mouth with his palm, eyes wide and startled, with a blush slowly creeping up his cheeks. He noticed all the heads when he raised his eyes from his plate which he’d been staring at, and the blush crept along faster in view of all their curiosity.

 “...Sorry,” Regis’ dear boy mumbled, making him straighten up. Slightly concerned.

 “Noctis?” He asked, glancing between the plate and his son, “Sweetheart? What is it?” 

 “It’s just…” Blue-blue eyes followed the same path Regis’ green ones had just followed down to the plate, then back up, so bright with embarrassment, “really good.” 
 
 Oh. The concern was smoothed away, and Regis relaxed back into his desk’s leather-cushioned chair. A little sad and a little hopeless, but a lot fond. Watching dear Ignis skirt that circular table his son was eating at so he might hover over Noctis’ shoulder and peer at the dish he'd made. The advisor was practically vibrating with excitement. It was rather sweet, in its own way.

 “This dish is called cinnamelts, Noct,” Ignis told him his once-charge, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose in a very pleased sort of way, “A dessert recently popularized in Niflheim, it was recommended to me by one of the Kingsglaive. Similar to a cinnamon bun, the icing and cinnamon is melted in its entirely into the dough instead, making it very soft to bite into and very, very sweetly flavored.” 

 “Yeah, it's…really good, Specs,” Noctis repeated for his once-Hand, the blush’s red color seeping up into the tips of his ears even as he smiled up at the man. Earning himself a swift nod.

 “I shall go make more,” Ignis offered.

 And then Ignis Scientia was off immediately, swept away by his mission before Noctis could call him back. It caused some light laughter and plenty of grins in the study. And it left the blushing royal staring after him in dismay, then down at his plate in dismay, then murmuring, “I’m not sure…I can eat all of this, though.” 

 “Don’t worry, Nephew,” Rexus piped up, swishing his drink invitingly, “I volunteer as tribute.” 

 Some of the sudden worry bled out of his son.

 And Regis smiled softly at dear Gladiolus coming around the table as well, to lay a hand on his son’s shoulder and speak quietly to him. Probably about what would help Ignis most. He knew that that advisor of his had been having difficulties in the last year, and he was supremely glad Gladio and Noctis were at least still close enough to try and help the man through them.

 They’d never be as close as Retinue again.

 But they still loved each other. Anybody could see that.

 There were enough plates of cinnamelts for everyone, a short hour later, as it turned out. 

 And conversation easily soaked into the cinnamon and butter and deliciousness, as they moved onto lighter topics of the Crown for a while at least. Trying to make the morning move along a little faster in all the small ways, by spending time as a family. 

 Ori must’ve smelled the cinnamelts from a Citadel away, since he appeared early from his training with the Kingsglaive who’d offered to take care of him, and came into the study with his nose in the air, sniffing. He got a plate, of course. And told them all about his ‘training’ that was really more warp-tag. 

 It was a lovely morning.

 Regis wished more could be like it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The fact that they still had no concrete plan faded by the wayside of a breakfast shared with family, surrounded by nothing but the smell of cinnamon and sugar.

 

 

-----

 

 

 When there was a knock, unexpected, at the door to his personal office in the Kingsglaive Complex come noon, Drautos actually looked up from the paperwork he’d been filing on a certain Marshal’s behalf. Lazy brat. Ordinarily - he wouldn’t look up though. There’d always been an unspoken but there permission between him and his Glaives that they could pop by anytime, could consider his door completely open to any of them. All of them. He very rarely had other visitors.

 …That sort of openness had…slowed. Closed a little. Since the story of Drautos’ past was somewhat revealed.

 He understood why. He wasn’t upset about it.

 It was sensible of his kids to keep a certain distance from him now, for whatever reasons. Every reason.

 But because of that distance, Drautos wasn’t entirely sure who was knocking at his office’s door. He was curious, he refused to let himself be hopeful, he leaned back from his folder-scattered desk and called out an invitation for them to come on in -

 He sat up straight when Rexus Lucis Caelum poked his head of darkest brown-black hair into his office.

 “Good afternoon, Captain Drautos,” their newest royal and royal headache greeted him, almost cheerfully while peeking around his office with a few fast glances. As if Rexus wasn’t sure he was allowed anywhere near the pretty unremarkable room that Drautos had never exactly made unique. There were framed photos scattered around, of him and His Majesty and his retinue, of him and his Glaives, of his Glaives - but mostly it was a normal office with normal office items.

 The aesthetic of old wood and the tall bookshelves lining the wall behind Drautos’ desk, floor to ceiling, was the only reason it came across as ‘fancy’ as his Glaives were fond of calling it.

 “Afternoon, Your Highness,” he returned the greeting - title included - if only to could smile self-satisfyingly to himself over how the strange man subtly twitched. Still unused to being a ‘Highness’, which he was now that his existence was known to Eos, “What can I help you with?”

 Another subtle twitch.

 Rexus did not seem like the sort of man who was so used to being offered help on the regular, both Drautos and his Glaives had noted in the weeks since he arrived in Lucis.

 Too bad. Caring for the House of Caelum was their duty and their honor.

 He’d just have to deal with being cared for.

 “Maybe not ‘help’,” Mors’ second son said, more quietly now, shutting the office’s door behind him with a solid click that sounded loud in the space around them, “I know you’re a very busy man. Maybe just, lend a hand?” Green eyes slowly drew down Drautos’ body, “Or lend something else, if you’d rather…”
 
 Even without the wink, that lower, sultry tone of voice?

 Slapped Drautos across the face with what sort of atmosphere Regis’ new brother was shaping in his poor, poor office. Oh Six, no. The man’s steps across the office floor were soft, padding, while the exasperated Kingsglaive Captain slapped a hand to his face and dragged it down after a very, very deep breath. Rexus resembled King Mors far too much for this. 

 The captain puffed out his cheeks a little, when dropping his hand to find the new Caelum hovering by his side behind his desk, leaning in close, smiling all coy-like. He hoped he could properly convey how unimpressed he was while Rexus went through the trouble of tossing a long leg over his lap, ending up all but straddling the captain in his desk chair. 

 Lord Carbuncle. Why.

 Drautos’ lack of participation didn't seem to upset the royal, who settled back on his strong thighs, settled back against the edge of the desk, grinning a grin that Drautos hardly blamed his kids for falling head over heels for. He wasn’t blind. Rexus was an extremely attractive man. Who knew exactly what he wanted and had the confidence to go for what he wanted.

 But for one, he was Regis’ younger brother.

 For another, he resembled King Mors too much for Drautos to fuck him. Or get fucked by him.

 And for another -

 Rexus took one of his wrists in his fingers. A loose hold. Thrilling. Teasing. Leading.

 And inhaling sharply, Drautos gripped Rexus’ wrist right back. Harder than was necessary. Stopping the pull of his hand towards his body. Stopping everything it seemed, even the royal man’s breathing. They stared at each other, stuck somewhere in the eyes and irises and pupils, and there was utter silence, utter stillness, utter - stop. Everything stopped.

 And then Rexus’ eyes creased, and he apologized so, so, so unreasonably gently for a man who’d just been trying to seduce the Kingsglaive Captain with all the cocksure attitude of a wanted man.

 “Sorry. I never meant to force you,” his king’s half-brother murmured, lifting his fingers one by one off of Drautos until the captain’s hand was free. 

 And then the captain took his own hand off of the royal, exhaling softly. A breath he hadn’t meant to hold.

 The frustrating man in front of him leaned back, bracing himself on the edge of Drautos’ desk in a way that put him on display almost without even thinking about it. He had that, that thoughtless allure. The line of his body, arching slightly, eyes lidded, legs still straddling the captain’s thighs - and if Titus Drautos were another man, he would be panting with lust by now.

 But because he was Titus Drautos, he just sighed exhaustedly, slumping back in his chair’s leather. Causing it to creak and tilt.

 Which was noisy in the fresh silence of his office.

 Fucking Six. Yes, they weren’t gods. Yes, they were still an expletive Drautos was willing to use at times like this.

 Maybe to make it clear - the Kingsglaive Captain had no hatred for the newest royal in the Citadel. He had no problems with his overt sexuality, his seductive nature, or his slight playfulness. He was simply a Caelum. Drautos’ care for him began there, and wouldn’t end until his heart ceased beating. 

 But this? Wasn’t happening.

 Rexus tilted his head to one side, causing dark waves to fall across his eyes that he reached up to sweep back. So effortlessly stunning. His slender neck bending at an angle he’d almost call beautiful if he had any eye for art. Drautos wasn’t blind to the fact that the House of Caelum had lots of 'beautiful' people in it, that Rexus in particular had gotten those genes in spades, and if he wasn’t a taken man -

 But there was no use for ‘if’.

 And Drautos raised his left hand with slow intent, to make sure the dark-haired royal caught sight of the golden band on his ring finger.

 Green eyes grew wide.

 And then Drautos reached up, under his shirt, to tug out his dog tags. With the identical gold band that jingled softly, metal on metal, dangling from its chain.

 Green eyes creased with understanding, and grief.

 “Ah.” 

 Understanding seemed to be what made this new Caelum reached under his own shirt's collar, hooking a chain with one finger to tug free. A chain with two wedding bands dangling from it, and two small star pendants. 

 “Oh.” 

 Both of them stared in quiet for a moment longer, then took care to carefully tuck the chains back below their clothes again. A new understanding bridging the both of them. An understanding of love, of loss, of love lost. Even if they’d obviously chosen to deal with the losses in their own way, Drautos would not blame any man for their own choices in regards to this.

 “...Also, you’re sleeping with almost half my kids,” Drautos added bluntly in the quiet, so suddenly it made Rexus throw his head back and bark out a laugh that shook through his entire frame.

 “Not half,” the bright-eyed royal defended when he’d found his breath again, reaching up to sweep a hand through his wavy hair and properly show off a teasing grin that reminded Drautos far too much of a certain Crownsguard brat, “Twenty-seven...about. And only sixteen of them are regulars.” 

 “Twenty-seven of my kids,” Drautos stressed, feeling every part of an exasperated dad in that way only his Glaives could make him feel.

Regardless of if they felt the same for him anymore.

 “...Your kids are as good in bed as you are, I’m sure.” 

 “Don’t say that,” Drautos continued to stress, not nearly as bothered by the images he had to wave away from his head as he would’ve been years ago. He’d walked in on too many orgies in the barracks by now to be bothered by the idea of his Glaives being sexual beings, “What even drove you to try this, kid?” 

 One dark eyebrow rose, "Okay, we’re practically the same age.” 

 “Still younger.” 

 “Maybe I have a daddy kink, then,” Rexus said casually, earning himself another rather loud Drautos facepalm that he seemed almost proud of, “What I do know I have with you is a very hot, husky, commanding military man who works too hard and should be allowed to play harder. I know something happened before I arrived in Lucis, and slightly after since my Glaives still talk like you betrayed them, but also like you’re their father-figure, but also like they’re lost on how to handle you so. I figured I’d feel you out for myself.” 

 It was Drautos’ turn to raise an eyebrow, “Sure you don’t mean ‘feel me up’?” 

 “A nice side effect of what I was trying to do,” the man said, so calmly, as if he weren’t lounging in the captain’s lap like the royal to a throne he was, “You have to admit, sex works. I know at least one of the Glaives you sent to intercept me in Altissia had orders to seduce me, Captain, don’t think I don’t. People are way more open after a good night…or day, or whenever, naked in bed. Or clothed. Or wearing only your dog tags.” 

 Yeah, Drautos snorted. He could admit to the undignified and teenager-like noise that left him at that.

 Rexus Lucis Caelum was sneakier than they’d given him credit for when he first was found, that was for sure. He’d been showing more of himself day by day, especially since telling them about the truth of the Six, but he was still so casual a man.

 Drautos would find it appealing, he could be that honest with himself, if he hadn’t sworn himself entirely and only to his late wife and son’s memories. 

 “Don’t sleep with all my kids,” the Kingsglaive Captain pleaded helplessly to those swinging hips and long legs that crawled off of him with all the grace of if Rexus was getting out of a bed, and just facepalmed defeatedly - again - when the royal looked over his shoulder to wink at him. Again, again.

 Better to accept now it was helpless.

 Nyx was the only one he was confident wouldn’t be swayed by that man of bedsheets and kisses.

 “If you hurt my kids,” he called after his king’s half-brother who was on his way out, “I’ll let them use you for target practice for a few weeks. Fair’s fair.” 

 This time, the slanted look Rexus sent back over his shoulder was as deadly as his skill with a lance, as deadly as any Caelum as he grinned sharply at the captain, returning, “And if you disappoint my Glaives again, I’ll tie you up in a Caelum tomb and leave you there for a few weeks, Captain. I'm sure Regis wouldn't mind."

 Okay, so Drautos was begrudgingly impressed with the man who had caught his Glaives’ attentions.

 His office was silent besides that confession to himself, after Rexus had gone.

 A man to be reckoned with, for sure. Drautos had grown to be glad Rexus Lucis Caelum was on their side these last weeks. He had more strength to him than he’d shown when he was first brought to Insomnia. And a sharper side than he’d let most of them see, clearly. Sharp like his lance. Sharp like he’d had to become that in order to survive at some point in his life. 

 If they could come to an understanding, Titus Drautos wouldn’t mind calling that sort of man an ally to him and his Glaives.

…

 The captain’s office saw another visitor, not two minutes later.
 
 There wasn’t a knock this time, there was just the Crownsguard brat himself kicking in his door and stalking in wordlessly. Cor looked at Drautos. And Drautos looked at Cor. And Cor looked at Drautos. And Drautos looked at Cor.

 And Cor snorted, grabbing and dragging a random chair from across the room to twist around and plant next to the captain’s desk despite perfectly fine chairs sitting on the other side of it already. The Marshal sat his ass down on the chair, backwards, and rested his elbows on the backrest because he always had to make Drautos’ life exasperating didn’t he.

 “Was that Rexus I saw leaving your office?” 

 He just sighed at the kid’s growing grin.

 “Got yourself seduced by our new royal?” 

 “No,” if he wished really, really hard, would Lord Carbuncle put him to sleep for about a month’s time? Just out of curiosity, “He’s sleeping with twenty-seven of my Glaives,” Drautos added, when Cor looked like he didn’t believe him.
 
 “What a specific number.” 

 “He told me. I didn’t ask around, kid.” 

 “Not a kid, and really?” Cor did a full head tilt, resting his ear on his arms and peering through narrowed eyes at Drautos in a way that definitely made him look like that rowdy, disobedient teenager he’d been when they first met, “He just told you? Did you go all papa bear on him?” 

 “I’m not you,” Drautos rolled his eyes, earning himself an offended huff. 

 “I do not go ‘papa bear’ on Prompto,” the Immortal defended as if he didn’t very much do that several times over the years and left piles of bodies in his wake in the process, so it was Drautos’ turn to act disbelieving by crossing his arms and giving the kid a hard look, “And Prompto didn’t sleep with almost thirty of your Glaives!” 

 Maybe not, but that was misleading. Drautos knew that the kid had been dealing with a lot following Prince Noctis’ imprisonment, knew Prompto had gotten involved in things he shouldn’t have, and knew that those things had included sleeping with one or two of his Glaives to try and survive the hurt of those times. Not that he blamed their kid.

 “How is he anyways? Prompto?” 

 “Good. He’s doing good,” Cor shuffled around to lift his head and grab a random couple of papers off of Drautos’ desk where they were just sitting in wait to be signed and sorted like the rest, the man didn’t move to stop him, “Still a little guilty he hasn’t been by much, but Cindy’s pregnancy is progressing smoothly as far as any of Leide’s doctors have to say. And Talcott helped them finish setting up the nursery and whatnot over the Solstice.”

 He folded the paperwork. And then folded it again. Then a third time, into precise triangles that made Drautos’ mouth tick up at one corner.

 Fond exasperation. That was his main emotion for this kid brother of his.

 “I had planned to join them for a while, help out, but,” Leonis shrugged one shoulder while grabbing another paper to fold into triangles, “Situation as it is. Safer for me to stay here, and them to stay clear while we figure this out.” 

 Another paper. More triangles. Drautos sighed and resigned himself to the fate of an annoying little brother’s reactions before leaning forward in his chair. 

 Rescuing the rest of the still-flat papers Cor had stolen from his piles.

 The kid scowled at him, then lifted his current paper airplane and with an arc of his wrist let it fly. They watched it wobble, do a loop, then nosedive straight into the carpet to crash-land. 

 Cor grabbed his second paper airplane, wound up while looking Drautos right in the eyes, then let it fly too. That one managed a steadier glide. Made it all the way to one of the bookshelves behind Drautos’ desk and himself, before its nose crumpled against book bindings and it hit the floor. 

 Cor grabbed his final paper airplane and actually stood with it. Rolled his eyes while getting out of his backwards chair, leaving it right where he’d dragged the thing, and made for the door.

 “If your Glaives keep giving you trouble, let Regis know.” 

 “What?” The Kingsglaive Captain straightened up, surprised and staring at Cor’s going back because of that sudden subject change. 

 “They aren’t listening to you. Tell Regis.” 

 Drautos sighed, slumped back into the leather of his chair that cushioned around him, and closed his eyes, “It’s not that easy. I understand why they won’t listen. I deserve that much.” 

 A second silence later -

 Something slightly pointy and folded hit his forehead, pointy enough to make him twitch and immediately open his eyes. Just to find a paper airplane with a crumpled nose resting in his lap. And a younger brother glaring at him from the threshold of the doorway.

 “You don’t deserve it,” Cor Leonis said, with all the finality of a brat used to getting his way, then didn’t even give Drautos the chance to respond before shutting the door.

 Well.

 The kid could say he didn’t deserve it all he liked. The stares. The curses. The refusal to look at him. The disobedience. But he had disappointed so many of his kids, and that was without them even being aware of how willingly - in another life. That was another life. Not this life. But he had destroyed them in that life that came before. More than they’d ever known. Maybe Niflheim had targeted him. Maybe Drautos had been an experiment, a mindless dog, maybe it hadn’t been all his fault like he’d believed before -

 But he did deserve this.

 …He’d talk to Regis, though. Eventually. 

 So none of his kids would wind up hurting themselves trying to be disobedient.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis sat in a hallway’s windowseat, serenely staring out the arching window it was set in, while being less serenely stared at by Clarus. Who was very confused, he was sure. His poor Shield. Or, perhaps Regis should be jealous of his ignorance. Yes. Ignorance would be nice right about now. The old king wasn’t sure his heart was healed enough to be dealing with this sort of situation.

 “...Your Majesty?” Clarus tried to reach him again, leaning in close to Regis’ shoulder to peer along his line of sight and see whatever had his attention but it was no use.

 Regis was just staring at the sky. The shimmer of the Wall over all of Lucis. 

 Clarus had come along, had found him sitting there like that with a blank expression on his face, and there they had stayed for several minutes now. There they stayed a while longer, with his Shield clearing his throat. Settling back into standing beside the windowseat, hands clasped behind his back, still positively radiating confusion. Worry. Again, his poor Shield.

 “...Did you manage to speak to Drautos, Your Majesty?” 

 Letting out a very long hum in response to that question, Lucis’ King neither confirmed nor denied that he had.

 He simply sat there. 

 Thinking that, perhaps, in the future, it would be best if he knocked louder before entering certain offices. Or any offices at all, if he’s within the Kingsglaive Complex. That would probably be best. He hadn’t intended to spy. In essence he hadn’t, after he’d seen what he’d seen he’d shut the door rather swiftly for his age, and rather silently, but.

 He’d still seen what he’d seen.

 And what he’d seen had been Rexus sat reversed on Drautos’ thighs, arching back against the edge of the captain’s desk, shirt untucked and placing Drautos’ hand on his body. And both of them were very obviously invested in one another…and the scene was very, very, very blatant in what it was - and suddenly Regis wanted a drink. Desperately.

 Both of them were his younger brothers. 

 Both of them were free to do as they pleased in their private time, of course, and pursue who they pleased, of course.

 But Drautos was his baby brother beside Cor, and now Rexus was also his baby brother.

 And they were…pursuing that sort of relationship, despite Rexus already being in many such relationships with Drautos’ Glaives at the same time. Which was perfectly fine. 

 But the question remained.

 “...Which one of them am I supposed to give a shovel talk to?” Regis whispered to the sky, aghast. And Clarus swung around to look at him, startled.

“Who?”

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Clarus, could you please tell the housekeepers to ensure that Rexus’ and the Glaives’ condom supplies stay stocked up?”

 “Regis, why - “

 

 

-----

 

 

 His father and his uncles were doing their duties.

 Oriens was with his tutors, with Gladio and Iggy.

 Nyx was overseeing training at the Kingsglaive Complex.

 Glaives were right outside his rooms, guarding him.

 Noctis repeated those reminders to himself, while struggling to draw in his next breaths evenly.

 His father and his uncles were doing their duties.

 Oriens was with his tutors, with Gladio and Iggy.

 Nyx was overseeing training at the Kingsglaive Complex.

 Glaives were right outside his rooms, guarding him.

 Everything was well, he reminded himself. Despite those whispers, everything was well. The whispers were just memories. The Adagium wasn’t there. Wasn’t there. Wasn’t there. He was alone. He was safe. The whole of Eos was on the hunt for the Accursed. The whole Citadel was on high alert. The whispers were his imagination, weren’t that monster’s, he wasn’t really there. He was alone. He was safe. 

 Raising his bowed head, blue-blue eyes landed on the altar to Ramuh not far from his bed. Not far from his bed at all. And Noctis instantly dropped his head again, sucking in a sharper breath, beginning the reminders anew. Different ones. Harsher ones. More necessary ones.

 It wasn’t Ramuh’s fault, he reminded himself. The Stormfather was his amatus’ god, was his faith, his history, his traditions. Ramuh had sided with the House of Caelum. Sided with the family. Had done Nyx no harm when possessing him. Nyx had been honored, willing, glad of it. There were more sides to these things than just - him.

 They would figure it out. Somehow. How to stop Bahamut and Shiva.

 Ramuh and Titan would be…their allies.

 None of them would die for this, because they would kill the Astrals before it came to that. 

 Noctis made the mistake of lifting his eyes just slightly, to see out from behind his bangs, letting his eyes land guiltily on the altar once again. His evening breaths stuttered, and he ducked his head in shame.

 “Stop,” he whispered hollowly to his shaking hands, hating himself, hating the world in that moment where they didn’t stop for him, “Stop. Stop. Stop. Please, stop. Please.”

 His hands were still thin, even after the last year. The knuckles still unnaturally sharp. Their knobs still unnaturally prominent. Still paler than they should be. 

 Still shaking, and Noctis clasped them together by the fingers, staring feverishly at them like they would finally be anchored and stop. But the shakes, they continued. They spread down to his wrists, down to his elbows, up to his shoulders until he was trembling up and down his body and staring at his clasped hands with desperately bright eyes. Eyes that stung.

 “Please, stop,” he begged, lips, breaths, shaking. And the Ring sitting so innocently on his finger.

 He had to stop. If he didn’t stop, then what did that mean? That he had no control. That he was broken. That he had been affected, and no amount of nice things in this world could put somebody like him back together. He’d been better, he’d been better, he was so close to being so much better, he was - he had to -

 He bowed his head with a small sob, surrendering to the darkness behind his eyes. The stones, the cold, the lightlessness of Mistveil. It was always there. Today it had managed to sneak up on him. Today it left him pitiful and pathetic, sobbing again despite how he tried to hold the noise in. 

 Today he was broken. And all the pieces were too sharp to pick up without cutting himself on them.

 “Please, please, please,” he whispered, “please, please, please, please, please, please, please,” he used to say it so often in that lightless place, “please please please please please please please please PLEASE - “

 Hands wrapped around his clasped, shaking ones.

 Small hands.

 Noctis’ eyes shot open, tears fell free, just a few, just down his cheeks, but wiping them away was the furthest thing from his mind when he saw small hands wrapped around his. Small, but with strength. Strength enough to still the shaking. To stop it.

 Noctis stared into eyes Oriens had inherited from him, and felt small too. Smaller than his sweet, sweet child who was smiling softly at him up through the fringe of his raven hair. Smaller than a pebble on the ground of the garden. Small and meek, and sniffling. But the shaking came fully to a stop. The trembling ran up and down his spine one last time, then stopped too.

 Ori reached up with one of his small, strong hands, and made an equally small fist.

 He brushed it down each side of Noctis’ face, rubbing away the tears that had snuck their way into being allowed to fall. 

 “Hi, Dad,” Ori whispered to him, as if they were sharing a secret, as he went back to holding onto Noctis’ hands with both of his own again. Squeezing gently. The way Dad always did to reassure the two of them, “It’s alright. I’m here. Are you okay? Can I help?” 

 The shaking had stopped.

 “You…already did, Ori,” Noctis told him, this wonderful son of his somehow born of somebody like him, slumping forward far enough to rest his head on the small boy’s shoulder, “Thank you, sweetheart.” 

 “You’re very welcome!” The raven-haired royal - his son - chirped almost with pride, a sound then echoed by the furry shadow ever at his heels as Tenebris bounded up onto the bedspread. Black fur on black. Curling into a crescent-shape that fit snugly along Noctis’ hips, that warmed the numb feeling in his lower spine. The couerl cub’s chin rested on his thigh, and the purrs weren’t a thing he could feel through his leg but he heard them.

 Ori found himself a place too; scrambling up onto Noctis’ other thigh to sit. Curling in towards his dad’s chest, hugging him around the middle and squishing a cheek up to his chest and - he was just adorable.

 Noctis rested his head on his son’s. Breathing in the smell of his shampoo. The winter cold faintly clinging to him. The peace of it all.

 He felt bigger.

 Better.

 Safer.

 “Thank you, sweethearts,” Noctis repeated, softer with his voice, his hoarse and damaged voice none of the people he loved had ever minded. And he just chuckled at the feel of Oriens nodding deeper into his shirt, settling in for a long while of sitting on his dad’s lap despite being, well, a bit older than most kids who would.

 “You’re welcome.”

 The shaking had stopped.

 A chill still ran up his spine, one that the once-Chosen failed to feel.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Gentiana let her eyes fall shut, facing a broken mirror that once belonged to Her Majesty. Her reflection was in shards. As her heart was. As her hope was, that she would ever be granted freedom. Her ribs were fragmented bones, her skin shredded tissue paper, and she mourned for a girl forced to grow up.

 A dead queen.

 Gentiana could not summon her serenity. It was in shards too.

 All she felt was Lady Shiva’s cold, as her Lady demanded retribution.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

We passed 400,000 words!!! This story is turning out far longer than I originally planned, but I don't really mind. I'll be switching shifts at work starting next week as a heads up, so the next chapter may or may not be delayed while I adjust to working nights again! Thanks for your patience! <3

Chapter 38

Notes:

So sorry for the delay! I meant to have this up last week, but a few surprise family things got in the way! Enjoy~ <3

~>-----------<~

 

 

 “...A press tour?” Rexus Lucis Caelum repeated, very slowly.

 And he was just as slow when he slid one heel across the floor back the way he had entered Regis’ study, then slid the other back too. Like the royal thought he could hide his attempt to flee if, if he was just slow enough, then maybe nobody would notice. It made his kingly half-brother snort, then cover half his face with his palm. Pointedly looking away from Clarus Amicitia’s look of disapproval.

 Clarus Amicitia, who was also not above turning that look of disapproval back onto their newest Caelum.

 They may be royals.

 But Clarus Amicitia was the one in control of Insomnia when he wanted to be.

 “...Can I say no?” Rexus tried, weakly at that, while looking longingly over his shoulder at the study’s doors. Where one of his ‘special’ Glaives was grinning apologetically at him and shutting him in. Well. See if Rexus is on his knees for that handsome one again anytime soon. Hmph.

 “No.” 

 “Rexus, darling,” Regis interjected smoothly, waving away his exasperated Shield and choosing to simply stomp on the man’s foot when he was frowned at. Clarus hopped sideways. Grimacing. The picture of a much more obedient Shield all of a sudden, what do you know. Regis went back to smiling apologetically at his younger sibling who wasn’t raised in the Citadel the way he and their family were, “I know it’s a bit more attention than you’d hoped to receive, a bit more public, but it really isn’t as…daunting. As it sounds.” 

 “A ‘tour’,” Rexus repeated, “But not ‘daunting’. Sure,” clearly not believing him at all.

 Which was a fair disbelief. If there was one thing about their new, multi-faced Caelum they could all agree on, it was that he didn’t like the publicity royalty had to deal with.

 Even if he had agreed to the necessity of it when they revealed his existence to Eos, so he could remain by their side. 

 “You’re correct in thinking ordinarily a press tour for our family would involve visiting all the lands under our care,” Mors’ first son admitted, then immediately jumped in before Rexus’ eyebrows could climb any higher towards his wavy bangs, “Ordinarily. But this is not an ordinary situation. Eos has been patient to allow us time to settle after the Solstice and Oriens’ birthday. We must address you more fully, and if we address you now, situation what it is, uncertain as it is, we might just be able to get away with keeping your press tour restrained to just Insomnia.”

 “...”

 “Close to the Citadel.” 

 “...”

 “A few interviews,” Regis tried, struggling not to wince at the expression of complete and utter resignation darkening his half-brother’s handsome face, “Perhaps a photoshoot here or there, for some magazine or other. An appearance at a few dinners, of which there are remarkably few since the Royal Council was redrawn. I promise. It will be as small of a campaign as we can possibly get away with.” 

 “...Sorry,” Rexus said, and Regis’ heart sank like a stone in water at the sudden and ridiculous fear that his brother would decide being a royal wasn’t worth knowing their family after all, “I know it’s necessary,” but thank goodness Rexus found a smile from somewhere to give the Lucian King, before his heart could give out again, “I can handle that.” 

 And if that Lucian King had to take a few deep, covert breaths and place a trembling hand over his chest? He hoped the trembles were distracted from by the bright smile he gave his baby brother in response.

 Though that - this, all of this - did beg another sort of question from him, “Rexus, why do you so abhor being publicized? Can it be helped, somehow?” 

 Perhaps if there was an answer, if Regis had a direction to work towards, to make his son’s new uncle less of a sexy, mysterious recluse - 

 “Hm?” Said sexy, mysterious recluse blinked twice at the question, then his smile twisted into something helpless and smaller with a shrug of his lean shoulders, “Oh, no. I guess…I just spent so many years unsure if I should be acknowledged, and what that would have looked like. So many years hiding from cameras, so many years staying as under the radar as I could. It’s like a reflex, Regis. It’ll probably be dealt with naturally. By doing. More of that.” 

 His nose wrinkled up.

 “Bit by bit. Yeah?” 

 “Of course, Rexus,” Regis Lucis Caelum reassured this brother of his who had spent so long in the shadows he still struggled with stepping willingly into the light, “At your own pace, and not a moment swifter if at all possible.” 

 The very last thing Regis ever wanted to do was drag his family towards a light too bright for them, and leave them blinded and scrambling in it.

 “...Hey, do you think Noctis would like to join me?” 

 Regis was knocked out of his thoughtfulness as fast as if a spell had been tossed straight at his head.

 “Um.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 No, Regis realistically couldn’t assign every single Kingsglaive and Crownsguard in Eos to follow his son around ever and always, to keep him safe.

 But sometimes, Lucis’ King really wanted to.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Rexus made all sorts of good points towards Noctis joining him on his press tour. Starting reasonably around the idea that it would be a show of support from the House of Caelum towards their most recently revealed member, and ending less reasonably - in the Father’s humble opinion - around the fact that Rexus admitted it would distract some of the public attention away from him.

 Oh, yes, Eos was starving to know about the mysterious new royal they’d only seen brief clips and references of. 

 But for Noctis, Eos was still ravenous.

 Their once-Chosen, the crown prince who had been their hope embodied, their intrigue, their thrill, their guilt and shame, over his false imprisonment. A strong royal now. The father of the crown prince of now. A crown prince even more beloved than Noctis had been in his youth. Private. Personal. Recovering, but safely so behind the walls of the Citadel where cameras and questions couldn’t reach him easily.

 Sensible. Considering what happened the last time they opened themselves up to being interviewed by outside sources.

 Rexus made all the right points. That it would be beneficial for Noctis’ image, beneficial for Oriens to see his father do something so mundane by their standards, and beneficial for the public too. To see the man they placed so much on thriving. As best he could be, considering the circumstances. 

 “Plus, it’ll be nice to spend more time with him one on one,” Rexus added at the very end of his well-spoken reasoning…and honestly, was the reason why Regis folded like a deck of cards despite Clarus’ glaring.

 He wanted his brother and son to get on.

 That was simply the House of Caelum’s greatest weakness.

 Their love for their family.

 “I…suppose,” the greyed father murmured, because this was family, this was his boys, “If Noctis is wanting and willing, he can join you on your press tour, Rexus.”

 Following that was the difficult part; actually asking.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Sweet Noctis sicced a murder cat on them when asked if he’d like to join Rexus at an upcoming interview and photoshoot for a magazine interview the Crown had sanctioned.

 Tenebris - as all couerl cubs, Regis could only assume considering he wasn’t any sort of wildlife specialist - had grown fast since imprinting on his grandson. Was now nearly twice the size he had been a month and more ago. 

 Which meant the muscled cub was able to bring both King and royal bastard down to the rug in a single tackle, since they’d been standing side by side.

 “Oh! My!” Regis exclaimed, a bit out of breath, when he found himself on his back on the rug with his cane rolling out of his reach and a black-furred cub loafing half atop of him, half atop of his half-brother. The situation did bear him chuckling a little though, “Yes, hello, Tenebris. How big you’ve grown! And how - strong! Oof.” 

 The couerl cub purred proudly. A purr so strong it sent small shocks of electricity through his waving whiskers that made the royals’ breaths hitch as they lay there.

 It had certainly been hard to not notice Tenebris growing these last weeks, when he had been Oriens’ size upon arrival in Insomnia.

 But he seemed so much larger laying on top of the old-souled king.

 And his fur seemed less like kit-fluff and more like the sleekness a hunter deserved.

 And his fangs seemed sharper.

 But his violet eyes were no less amused, perched on his throne of two royal heirs and sons of the dreaded King Mors. 
 
 “Aw, there’s my - murder kitten!” Rexus wheezed, winded, on the rug next to Lucis’ King. Patting the cub on his spotted rump. Nice, heavy pats. Like you would give a chocobo for encouragement, which earned the royal another small shock, “Good form, cub! Could’ve - gone for the throat and everything if you had a mind for it - ugh. Were you always this heavy?” 

 “Ngh - Clarus?” Regis called plaintively, tipping his head as far back as was possible, dislodging his crown to sit crooked on his temple and staring upside-down at his Shield standing by the doors, silently pleading for assistance. His Shield just stared at the two of them. Shook his head. Then sighed and actually seemed to consider it, against his better judgment.

 No saving came before his dear nightlight’s voice filled his sunlit bedroom, though.

 “You…want me to go on a press tour?” Noctis rasped, stealing back every ounce of Regis’ attentions as he wiggled a bit to better see his son sat on the edge of his bed. And his expression was terribly troubled.

 “Yes and no, sweetheart,” Lucis’ King elaborated, flat on his back with a couerl loafing on his chest and his crown crooked, but nobody present seemed in a hurry to fix any of those arrangements so this was how the conversation would be had, “Rexus needs a press tour,” and Rexus definitely made a noise to show he wasn’t quite sure about that, “but it would be a case of two birds with one stone, if we also included ourselves in it. I’ll be joining him for an event or two, Ori perhaps too, but the public is still interested in what you feel about - everything. So perhaps - ?” 

 Oh, his sweet, sweet-hearted boy. Looking so unsettled by the idea.

 Not that Regis might blame him. Their first public event in the gala had ended up being intruded upon by that - that monster. 

 And the second, that interview, had been overtaken by a CEO with pockets to line.

 Even if Insomnia Nightly had gone under since then, that CEO had been convicted, and nobody would hopefully be foolish enough to try such tactics again after how public dear Ignis had ensured every second of the investigation and trial had been. 

 While waiting for a response, Regis’ bad knee started to twinge.

 Then, there was a little, muffled-sounding noise that reminded him of a yawn.

 Behind his troubled son, Regis spied a lump under the covers of his bed that he hadn’t fully noticed earlier. A misshapen lump. Small. And moving. Moving enough to confirm what - who - it might be when the lump sluggishly wiggled its way to the edge of the bed and a small hand poked out from under the covers. Then lifted, to tent the black, sun-warmed blankets enough to reveal the face of his darling grandson.

 A very sleepy, very disoriented face.

 The face of a Caelum who had had their nap disrupted.

 Which Regis knew would net them little chance of being saved from dear Tenebris.

 Sure enough, Ori blinked at them one eye at a time, those blue-blue eyes so beautiful, before he yawned so hard he hiccupped. And turned into a limp lump hanging halfway off the edge of the bed, hands dragging on the tiles of the floor, simply asleep. Just like that.

 Oh, yes. No paternity test needed there. That was his boy.

 His and Noctis’. Noctis, the dear, who lost all of his troubled feelings in favor of smiling softly down at his son as if he were looking at the world’s greatest treasure. Reaching down to pet through his ruffled, messy raven hair. Then curling an arm underneath the limp princeling’s chest and gently restuffing him under the covers. Until he was no longer hanging halfway off the bed.

 Resting his hand on the lump in his bed, his and Aulea’s baby boy made a thoughtful noise.

 An ashamed noise.

 “I’m…still not good, at the public stuff,” the equally raven-haired royal reminded them, slowly, as if they might’ve forgotten how hard being seen was for him somehow. From the floor, the rug, both fathers let out twin reassurances, murmuring every sort of reminder that that was okay they had on them, in two different voices and slightly different tones maybe - but it almost made Noctis look surprised.

 Maybe more by Rexus being a part of it, but his half-brother had made no secret of the fact that he cared for Regis’ boys.

 And he would always be a father, children buried or not.

 “You just need to work off some of your nerves,” Rexus told his nephew, to Noctis’ quite obvious disbelief, “You’ll feel better after. Have a clearer head. I’ve got an idea for that - works like a charm!” 

 The once-Chosen stared down at his father and uncle, pinned under a purring baby predator, a little like he thought they’d been drinking that morning. 

 Then Rexus shared his idea, and his son looked a little more like he thought they’d been knocked down so hard they needed a doctor.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Two royals were eventually freed from their entrapment under electricity and fluff, and Regis waited until his half-brother and son had wandered off to test his ‘idea’ that Noctis still seemed to be absolutely baffled by when he went - before he took a few limping steps towards his son’s bed.

 Settling down there heavily with a just as heavy sigh.

 Gently patting the lump in the covers that was his napping grandson, as Clarus came over on fast feet. Concern and a hint of regret filling his amber eyes.

 “I am fine,” Regis murmured, to his Shield, while looking at his grandson-lump.

 Tenebris sat primly beside the bed, peering up at him with deeply violet eyes and twitching ears, protective over his younger boy to the last. And from somewhere over by the sunniest patch of tiles near the windows, a white-furred cat bounded over. The culprit behind all the white strands that stood out so much on their family’s black decorating sense.

 Aurora hopped up onto the bed beside him, then proudly took up her perch atop his grandson-lump to loaf and purr while his precious child napped on.

 “Those two will be a force to be reckoned with whenever they get along,” he whispered secretively to the pair of felines, as if his Shield wasn’t standing right there, “I can already tell.” 

 “Should we not go oversee them, Your Majesty?” Clarus suggested, trepidation in his tone that Regis quietly shook away with his head.

 “Let them bond, Clarus,” he told his Shield who reached out with sword-worn fingers so sweetly to straighten the crown in his hair for him, then he snorted, bumping his forehead against his oldest friend’s palm as he pulled away after with a smile, “If they bond by causing chaos with the Kingsglaive, then so be it.” 

 So be it.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Slam.

 Noctis winced sympathetically, and maybe guiltily too, when he extended a hand and asked, “Are you alright?” 

 The Bellum Glaive he had just sent flying across the Glaives’ indoor training room and into a pillar got his knees under him, groaning, barely steady there on his hands and knees. But he gave their favorite royal a thumbs up regardless, while getting his feet under him and getting up too, so - ? He was alright? 

 Blue-blue eyes followed him on his journey of climbing back onto his own two feet, then limping towards the back of the line. Again.

 The line of Kingsglaive that wound around the edge of their training room.

 Very excited Kingsglaive.

 All lined up and eager to get their asses handed to them by Nyx’s amatus.

 “Um,” the raven-haired royal started, thought about it, then shook away his reservations for the tenth time since this had started as he took stance in front of the portly Ostium, bouncing like a puppy, next at the front of the line, “Ready?” 

 “Ready!” The overeager man cheered, at the same time as he charged forward with a greatsword swinging around shoulder to collarbone, and Noctis shifted his heels back.

 But other than that, he barely moved at all. Firm where he was in the center of the tiled floor of the training room, the Kingsglaive crest spiraling out around him, King’s Magic blue and bright swirling around his legs. Around his hips. Around his ribs. His eyes seemed to glow brighter for a moment, gleamed like the Ring shining proudly on his finger, and then he simply held out a palm to the charging Glaive.

 King’s Magic burst up from the titles. Cracking and overturning them. Forming a physical crystal, blue as the Crystal, that arched up in a melody of shattering glass.

 And the Ostium roared in surprise as he went flying backwards out of nowhere, greatsword hitting the tiles before he did.

 But he did.

 Hard.

 And groaning.

 “Alright?” Noctis called, lowering his arm, and with it subconsciously destroying the sharpened pillar of crystal that had sent the poor pup flying. Man. Not pup. The pillar disappeared with the same chiming one would hear when an item was sent away into the Armiger, turning to fractals of light in the air of the training room and then nothing at all.

 The Ostium Glaive shakily lifted both hands to give him a double thumbs up, before both of those hands immediately went to his back that he pressed down on to relieve the pain.

 Noctis cringed, shuffling around his shoes on a floor of tiles that he had shattered quite a few of already. This training room would need to be closed for repairs afterwards, he was sure. Hopefully his father had considered the need for that in the Citadel’s budget, when he went along with Uncle Rexus’ suggestion to try this.

 ‘This’ being…beating up Nyx’s fellow Glaives. Politely. Politely beating them up. They had formed a line and everything, and, well, they had seemed really, really excited by the idea when Uncle Rexus shared it with them. They’d called their friends and everything. Noctis had felt too bad about canceling the whole thing by then to not go along with it.

 It was definitely stretching his magical muscles more than he had in a while.

 And it was letting him get more used to the type of offensive magic he had at his fingertips; the type he’d used to bring down the Tidemother.

 Those crystal spires had been tall enough to pierce the Leviathan as she flew. By comparison? These ones were far smaller.

 But still very effective. 

 “Me next, me next!” A Furia, judging by his braids, yelled excitedly. Charging forward without even waiting for Noctis to stop shuffling his feet around and watching the previous Glaive pick himself up off of the floor.

 The Furia went flying too. This time into the line. He was caught and laughed at, and set down to lay dazedly on the floor with a twitch in his arm and a giggle high in his throat. 

 It made Noctis chuckle, which made the Glaives’ grins all widen.

 “My turn,” another muscled Bellum growled out, at the front of the line now, and Noctis resigned himself to this very strange workout routine that - even more strangely - seemed to be actually working. He felt far more relaxed than he had earlier. His muscles looser, his magic lazier, his smiles easier. So he braced, and he sent another Glaive flying to the tune of cheering from the Kingsglaive.

 While Nyx and his fellows lined one wall of the training room, watching it all in amusement.

 “<No surprise the Bellums agreed to this,>” Axis sighed, draped across the Ulric Chieftain’s one shoulder while Tredd was draped across the other like the lazy, bothering best friends they were, “<but how did you convince the others?>”

 “<Who said I convinced them to throw themselves at my star?>” Nyx snorted, jutting a thumb towards the other side of the currently-in-progress-of-being-destroyed training room. Where a certain royal man was lounging against the pillared wall. Lounging back against a nice, strong Bellum chest, that is. And being kissed softly by a Khara who didn’t leave the communications den all that often.

 They were almost hidden completely in the shadows of the training room’s many pillars. Almost. That ‘almost’ was probably why they were keeping things PG and above the belt buckle, above the clothes, so on and so forth. 

 Valens - the Bellum - flicked his eyes up to scan the training room from where his whole face was nearly pressed into Prince Rexus’ hair.

 He noticed them staring.

 And sent them a very rude gesture, to warn them off, which was almost hilarious since Nyx had heard from several of their brothers and sisters-in-arms that Valens had been completely resistant to falling for their newest Caelum when he first arrived. Now he was like an overprotective guard dog, spiky collar and all, unless he was scratched behind his ears by the casual royal lounging against him.

 “<The new royal really isn’t all that bad,>” Tredd sighed, almost dreamily-like, rolling his neck along Nyx’s shoulder to peer up at him, “<You shouldn’t glare, idiot. And this,>” gesturing towards the training happening, “<wasn’t a bad idea.>” 

 Glaring? Was he glaring? 

 The Ulric tried to smooth his expression out to something less antagonistic, shifting his gaze towards one of his fellow Ulrics charging towards his starlight. Truthfully he had no problem with Rexus Lucis Caelum. He didn’t. He felt like he was repeating that to himself a lot, though. 

 …It wasn’t His Highness’ fault that he came to teach Eos that their gods were false ones. That they were victims of a lie that outlasted any generation in memory. That they would have to change the future, for future generations, by acting on what he taught them. Nyx just - remembered too well how it had felt to be Father Ramuh’s vessel. The peace. The love he felt for the Galahdian people he had safeguarded for centuries.

 If that was how he felt, then how could the lies be a bad thing?

 How were so many of his fellow Galahdians able to get over…that fear? Of losing their stability again?

 Then again, he had had an even less stable life than most of his fellows.

 “Nyx,” Axis sighed, swatting him on his forearm to nonverbally let him know he was glaring again -

 And Nyx sighed too. Choosing the far more fun focus of his handsome, strong star, sending his fellow Kingsglaive flying one by one, then two by two.

 A chieftain, a lieutenant, and a leader or not -

 Nyx Ulric was only human.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Are you sure you’re okay?” Noctis repeated, worriedly, bent at his waist and hands on his knees as he joined a few of the other Glaives in surrounding one of the smaller Arras - one of Axis’ sons - who was curled into a ball on the busted tiles, squeezing his eyes shut.

 “Yeah,” the kid wheezed, without opening his eyes at all or untensing his body whatsoever, “I’m…good…Your Highnesses.” 

 “...There’s only one of me,” Noctis pointed out quietly. The young man groaned.

 “Uh oh. I hear…ten of Your Highness…ugh.”

Which was the point Axis himself stepped up to crouch calmly at his son’s side and check on him. Nyx stepped up too. Crouched down too. But he prodded at the kid’s side repeatedly, to the tune of groans and the young Arra trying to swat his offending finger away, whining all the while about his Uncle Nyx.

Noctis shared a small smile with his amatus over their heads.

Then they went back to checking on all the Kingsglaive the powerful star had pummeled while barely breaking a sweat.

 

 

-----

 

 

Later, quite a while later, sunset and later - after the training, after the training room was closed for repairs like Noctis had suspected it would be, after all the Glaives had stumbled off to their respectively favorite medics, after a shower and after dinner and after -

Noctis Lucis Caelum laid sprawled on his bed fit for royalty, peering up at the ceiling through his glasses, in a daze.

“...I’m strong,”  he whispered to that ceiling.

And Nyx, shirtless and tossing aside the shirt he’d been about to wear, stalked on over to that bed. To plant his knee carefully beside his star’s hip. To bring himself down, to hover over this wonderful, wonderful royal he loved. To reach out and gently remove the glasses sitting crooked on the bridge of his nose and set them aside.

To hover, and grin unabashedly down at his inlustris.

“You are, Noctis.” 

The grin that broke across his starlight’s face then was glory incarnate.

And Nyx bending, bowing, to meet it with his own grinning lips was a memory he would treasure always. Like he would treasure his star’s fingers threading through his braids with a new greediness, and like he would treasure the feeling of a rabbiting pulse under his palm when he held his amatus’ neck while they kissed.

Every moment with his prince, he wanted a bead to remember by.

Every one.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Dad,” Oriens addressed him, rather seriously in fact, during a family breakfast the following morning. Blue-blue eyes properly piercing. It made him look older, the sweet boy, “Uncle Iggy tells me you’ll be joining Uncle Rexus on his press tour this next week. Was that his idea?” 

 Even as he asked that question, his piercing eyes shifted from his dad quietly pushing scrambled eggs around his plate to his newest uncle. Who suddenly developed an interest in looking all over the room. Everywhere but his grandnephew. Picking his battles wisely, in Regis’ amused opinion.

 Few who picked a battle with his grandson survived.

 Mostly because of how protective their house was, but that was neither here nor there as the greyed king delicately ate another forkful of his own scrambled eggs. 

 Having already picked to stay out of this confrontation, Regis felt no guilt for avoiding Rexus’ hopeful glance. Hopeful that he would pull his half-brother from these blue flames. No. Indeed, he had been with him when speaking to his sweet Noctis about having a role on his press tour, nothing too strenuous, but he’d drawn his line in the sand. Mostly over being unsure about Noctis practicing his magic on the Glaives when he was already using his magic for so much else.

 A surplus of magic or not, surely it was too much? Even for him? 

 “It…was a joint idea, Ori,” his son settled on, diplomatically sacrificing a few scrambled eggs to chew on so he could draw the young prince’s attention fully back onto him, “I have hardly left the Citadel this last year. Neither have you, and…the people want to see more of me. Have to see more of our uncle, so. Going together is good, both politically, and for our safety.” 

 Regis Lucis Caelum nodded proudly over how his son had neatly said as much. 

 Spending so much time with the Glaives had led to his boy becoming very straightforward and blunt in his words, especially when he had so little energy to waste on the fanciful language a royal was meant to speak with. So hearing him actually reason, and put together more and more words in his conversations had been a delight to watch day by day.

 The old king may have had to hide his sudden chuckling behind another forkful of food after though, because of his grandson’s scrunched up nose and almost-verging-on-whining.

 “I don’t see why you have to leave the Citadel, Dad,” Ori mumbled, so adorably, cheeks puffing up and glaring dejectedly down at his barely touched plate, “The Citadel’s nice. The Glaives are nice. We can keep you safe here, we can protect you, I - “ Biting at his bottom lip, quietening, “I’m here.”

 “Oh, Ori,” Noctis said with emotion, reaching over to place a hand in his son’s hair and ruffle it, just a little, earning a stare from dear Ignis who was closeby and clearly already itching to summon a hairbrush from the Armiger for his charge, “You’re right. You are here. Which is why I’ve been so, so, so happy here.”

 His hand slowly came down, to cup at his son’s cheek, to turn that cheek towards him and catch the blue eyes Oriens had inherited from him.

 “But you wouldn’t want Uncle Rexus to face Eos alone, would you?” 

 Puffing up at once, their perfect little dawnlight’s nose flared with determination.

 “Of course not! He’s family!” Ori declared, as if he’d forgotten his earlier frustration towards his uncle altogether, which was likely, since at the end of all days? 

 What else was written at the beginning and end of the Caelum line, but family?

 “Exactly,” Noctis said, tone clearly proud, and a pair of blue-blue eyes flicked over to the shared uncle in question, who Regis had noted watching all of that with eyes almost too bright to wave off. And a palm clasping the center of his chest. Clasping a chain out of sight, under his shirt, “He’s family.” 

 That was all that mattered to them, at day’s end.

 “I would kill for you,” Rexus Lucis Caelum declared solemnly, closing his fingers around fabric, around buttons, around chains and charms and wedding bands, and three Caelums grinned brightly in response. All three of them. Noctis where he was ruffling his son’s hair once more, Ori who was sitting up straight and properly, and Regis who was sipping a glass of juice and mumbling around the lip of it.

 “I know,” all three of them said, as one.

 Breakfast was always the best time to threaten the world for family, wasn’t it? 

 

 

-----

 

 

 Iggy pounced on the opportunity to spend some special time with his former charge, for a few lessons on public speaking and whatnot.

 Noctis viewed it more as a time where he was constantly being fed some sort of meal or dessert or snack, but it was nice. To spend more time with Specs. It always would be. Iggy was more Ori’s than his, these days. And he wouldn’t change that, not if it meant taking his old Hand from his son, but still.

 It was nice for both of them.

 More than one of their study evenings ended with Noctis napping either on Ignis’ shoulder or lap, long, thin fingers threading through his hair with all the care a parent would show a child.

 Like when Noctis was a child.

 Because the truth was Iggy had been more a mother to him than anyone else in the world, for so many years.

 Their bond may have been broken, but their love hadn’t been.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “...We could hold the interview and photoshoot in the Citadel,” Lucis’ King tried, oh, he tried, turning his cane around and around in the center of his palm. His Shield, his Sword, and his Captain all gave him matching looks of sympathy. Headstrong sympathy. Ready to steer him straight; away from emotional decision-making, as they had for decades.

 This first interview and photoshoot felt like it had come too soon, since the conversation he’d had a week ago with his sweet Noctis about participating.

 Why couldn’t Eos give him and his family another few years to prepare for publicity again? 

 Regis, of course, had no need for all of his retinue to open their mouths and tell him why it was important to hold this event elsewhere. The Wall, for one, now covered all of Lucis. Not only the Citadel. In a sense, being within the walls of the Citadel wasn’t as impenetrable a safety as it was months ago. And for another reason - they were trying to argue the concept of how reclusive their family had become in the last year.

 Sticking solely to the Citadel for Rexus’ press tour wouldn’t help that argument.

 “One interview,” Cor repeated, slower now, like drawing out the words to a Leiden drawl would make it sound less scary to the Father, “One photoshoot following that. Safe, on the rooftop of Caelum Via. In and out through the underground garage, no advertising it beforehand, fifty guards - a blend of my ‘Guards and Drautos’ Glaives throughout the hotel. The city on lockdown. Every single person in that godsdamned building vetted down to the time of their birth. No Tenebraeans in the mix.” 

 “What Cor means,” Clarus sighed, taking that step forward he’d always been needed to as the responsible one out of all of Regis’ Retinue, “is that this is the safest public appearance Princes Rexus and Noctis could make. It’s barely public at all. In and out, Insomniac’s News has assured the Crown that there will be no bribery, and we will have the final say before anything at all is released.”

 The atmosphere tensed a moment, then eased.

 All of them remembering the last interview they had done, and the fate of Insomnia Nightly.

 “If that changes,” Drautos added, smirking a little at the idea of throwing a CEO-shaped chewtoy to his kids, “my Glaives will be happy to go on an arresting spree, Your Majesty.” 

 Regis sighed, for he was a king and a leader and an old man and a good friend to the best of his abilities -

 But he was a father above all of those things.

 And despite the reassurances, this old father feared he would fail his family yet again, somehow, someway.

 But still, he knew this had to happen. So he knew what his answer most needed to be.

 “Very well.” 

 

 

-----

 

 

 A hundred meetings. A thousand meetings. More, or less, across two separate lifetimes - and still. Still Drautos was capable of standing in front of his Glaives and feeling like he didn’t deserve them. Was capable of looking out, across the meeting room, full of familiar and fond and bitter faces, and thinking…he wasn’t even sure why a man like him was still alive. This time. Still alive, this time.

 He heard a chirp after that thought, faded, like through a dream.

 And he ducked his chin a little to Lord Carbuncle’s reprimand. 

 The truth was, he might have deserved death, but he had spent the last two decades trying to make amends for his past actions. And in so many ways he had. So although he couldn’t believe Lord Carbuncle when he was told his death would be a loss on this world? 

 Titus Drautos was willing to believe he had been doing his best.

 As any man only ever could.

 Breathing in, Drautos let his eyes fall shut for a moment. Listening to the overarching murmur of the meeting room. All his kids, gathered in one space. All the ones that had chosen to stay. All the ones that had chosen to stick it out. All those ones he had saved from his past decisions, even if some of them had died differently along the way - 

 Something practically weightless hit the Kingsglaive Captain’s chest. 

 Most of the murmur fell away to complete quiet as he opened his eyes. Staring down past his dangling dog tags in the center of his chest, down at the crumpled ball of paper on the carpet that had been thrown at him.

 Another hit his thigh just then.

 And another his shoulder.

 Three crumpled balls of paper felt scattered around his boots, and the captain sighed long and hard. Then raised his head, so Nyx and Axis and Tredd could see the arch of his eyebrow. Those three. Honestly. Grinning, unabashed, in their little trio that Drautos squinted a little at and swore he saw Nyx and Libertus and Crowe - but no. He’d never see those three together again.

 Life had moved past that point, and now he was dealing with this little trio of trouble.

 He opened his mouth, to reprimand them, maybe. To tell them to pick up their trash, definitely.

 And then Nyx’s smirk stretched to dangerous proportions.

 And all across the meeting room, balls of crumpled paper flew through the air. No, Drautos did not squawk. There was just a rumble in his chest. Definitely not a squawk. And the husky man raised an arm to shield his eyes, as easily a hundred balls of crumpled paper hit him or the table behind him or the carpet around his boots - and then they just kept coming and he couldn’t help it.

 His laughter.

 Belly-deep and bright.

 When the assault finally trickled to a stop, one paper ball at a time, Drautos risked lowering his arm, shoulders still shaking from his laughs. He peered around at the meeting room full of his kids. A hundred expressions peered back at him. Maybe not all of them were happy. Maybe some of them looked downright angry, downright furious at their fellow Glaives. At their Captain.

 But, miraculously, that was not the majority.

 “Something wrong, Captain?” Tredd asked him with all the sass that redhead had carried since he was a teenager, and Drautos opened his mouth to answer - 

 Only for a final paper ball to fly out of nowhere and hit him right in his eye. 

 He reeled back, froze, heard the crumpled ball of paper hit the carpet, then very slowly opened both of his eyes he’d reflexively closed. Letting out the longest sigh of his life it felt like. And with it, his determination to stand. Titus Drautos sank down to the carpet, leaning against the legs of the meeting table, head thunking back against wood and glaring playfully out at all of his kids.

 So many of them grinning back at him.

 “What am I going to do with all of you?” Drautos asked, resigned and heart pounding.

 “Tell us about the security detail for Prince Rexus’ upcoming press tour,” Pelna Khara responded from his place with the rest of the Kingsglaive Lieutenants, so casually, to the tune of laughter sputtering through their ranks. Then. One by one. So many of them settled on the carpet of the meeting room too, sitting or kneeling or lounging or tangled up in giant piles of Glaives -

 And Lord Carbuncle grant him mercy.

 He’d do anything for these kids of his.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Sure about this? <Comfortable with this?>” Nyx murmured, later and alone and so painfully in love with the powerful man lying next to him who had been brought down by all the world, but still managed to shine brighter than any city in Eos. Who still had the strength to walk into the light, and walk tall.

 His fallen star, that he’d caught.

 “Yeah,” his inlustris murmured back, holding the Glaive’s kukris-callused hands between their bodies, lost in the thoughts of what tomorrow would bring but still trying to be present. For Nyx’s sake, “Yeah…<as much as I can be.>”

 

 

-----

 

 

 The week he had to prepare passed faster than it had the right to. 

 Despite all of the support his family was willing to give him, Noctis Lucis Caelum wasn’t sure he was ready.

 

 

-----

 

 

 No big deal. An interview, a photoshoot, no more than three hours his dad had promised. Under as much guard as they could publicly - and then some - get away with. No chances would be taken. No risks not accounted for. Uncle Rexus was never, ever to leave his side, and neither was their Glaive escort, and Insomnia itself would be placed under a pretty strict lockdown while they were outside of the Citadel, and -

 Noctis sighed heavily, dropping his hands from where numb, cold fingers had been fumbling with buttoning up his shirt.

 If putting up with dreaded responsibilities meant keeping his family safe, he was willing to do it, wanted to do it, but he still hated…publicity.

 “You still sigh like you did in highschool,” a woman’s low, sweet-like-cherries voice told him, announcing her arrival alongside the click of his royal bedroom’s doors being opened then shut.

 “And how’s that?” Noctis asked.

 Turning to face the woman here to tutor him through an additional and rushed course of ‘acting like royalty in the public’s eye’. 

 “Like you’d rather be taking a nap,” Veronica told him with her cherry voice, laughter in her tone, and just like that Noctis was brought briefly back to a hundred and more days in classrooms. When they were young. When life was simpler. When there was pain, but not as much pain, and therefore living was a mercy and not a burden. Most of the time. Days of cleaning classrooms, days of studying together, days of Veronica rolling her eyes and helping him and Prompto and her other friends do their hair before school as they grew up and started caring about appearances.

 Young and dumb, and so in love he never realized when his first friendship had turned into him having hearts in his eyes for Prom.
 
 Until it was all gone, and Veronica had walked for graduation without him or Prom.

 “Naps are sacred,” Noctis teased, quietly maybe, but still teased. Returning to fighting with his shirt’s buttons until he had finished buttoning up those final two that had been giving his unfeeling fingers trouble, “Is there anything better?” 

 “You know, I genuinely think you mean that and it concerns me still,” the red-headed beauty teased right back in mock horror, waving around a tiny packet of papers to indicate him, as he was, but the atmosphere was relaxed. That was precisely why Noctis had asked his dad if it could be Veronica who ran him through his lines. 

 Or, as Eos knew her best, ‘Ruby Cantil’ of the fallen Insomnia Nightly. 

 Also, his son’s celebrity crush.

 “How has the Media Department been treating you?” Noctis asked, curious in spite of himself as he motioned her towards the couch and chairs surrounding a small sitting table, covered in the fur of a certain white feline and a few of Nyx’s shirt, and some of Noctis’ weaving materials besides - messy, maybe, to an outside point-of-view but home to him -

 And Veronica didn’t so much as scrunch up her nose as she folded her skirt neatly under her legs to sit, answering his question, “Like a shining star. I’m qualified, I’m public, and I’m known to you,” her red lips curved into a smile, “How could I be treated badly?” 

 Anyone can treat anyone badly, a part of the raven-haired royal’s brain betrayed him by thinking, and maybe it reflected on his face. Veronica’s fading smile seemed to say so.

 “I’m glad,” Noctis told her, simply, moving onwards and taking her with him by motioning then at her stack of papers. Their ‘script’ for his and his uncle’s joint interview at Caelum Via the following day, “Am I going to like this interview, or am I going to ‘like’ this interview?” 

 “Why not both?” 

 “It’s never both.” 

 Veronica and him hadn’t been best friends, the way he and Prom had been, hadn’t even been close enough for her to ever be invited over to his apartment in highschool. Then again, neither had anybody else aside from Prom. But if he had to say he had friends aside from his Heart, she would be one of them.

So he was pretty sure he was right when he thought she looked saddened by his words.

 “Some things never change,” Veronica said with a sigh, pinching some of Aurora’s fur off of the couch and letting it fall to the rug, “I’m sorry, Noctis. I had hoped I could change the way celebrities are treated, at least a little bit, when I joined Insomnia Nightly - “

 “You don’t have to apologize,” he told her, he meant that, because as far as he was concerned? She’d been far more respectful than most news-adjacent folk. And Noctis would like to think it had to do with their conversations about these sorts of things back when they were teenagers, “The script?” 

 She tapped the stack of papers with her long, red nails.

 Then nodded. Choosing to let it go.

 “Okay, first thing you should know about Insomniac’s News is that they’re scared after what happened to Insomnia Nightly - “

 And the Lucian royal clasped his hands, leaning in to listen.

 Because whether he liked it or not, he was stepping back into the light of Lucis.

 And he’d be damned if he didn’t try to be ready for that.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis Lucis Caelum felt like he needed a handkerchief, waving goodbye to the Crownsguard cars driving out of the Citadel’s underground garage.

 Then Clarus actually offered him one, and it startled him out of his drowning long enough for a hearty laugh.

 …They couldn’t live in fear forever.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Caelum Via. The hotel belonging to the House of Caelum. The hotel of their conglomerate. The hotel featured in every magazine and talked about by every influencer to step foot in the Crown City. As they say, ‘anyone who’s anyone stays at Caelum Via’. Where many of the year’s lesser galas were thrown, where celebrations were had, where trade agreements were signed by visiting diplomats…and where Her Majesty, Queen Lunafreya of Tenebrae had stayed during her visit, earlier in the year.

 From wedding rooms used by past generations of lording families, to far more regular suites that were still five-star on a scale. Any scale.

 Wealth, worth, prestige.

 Caelum Via.

 Towering over many of its fellow buildings in the Crystal District, with an incredible, gasp-worthy view of the Citadel itself at the center of Insomnia. Overlooking the Crown Stadium, shadowed only by the most expensive skyscrapers in the city, owned by the likes of Quicksilver Tech, Crowned Estates, and Lucerna Incorporated. Apartments suited for those of worth and wealth, penthouses overlooking venues so expensive many would never see them personally, only in photos. Offices for the smaller yet lucrative businesses the Crown had investments in.

 All of that to be summarily said, Caelum Via was exquisite. Expensive. 

 And extremely difficult to make reservations at, no matter your net worth or popularity. Many people who made their reservations are put on a waiting list that stretches months, or even years. Exclusive was an understatement when it came to the fancy hotel host to royals and the guests of royals.

 It with its stone architecture, it with its echoes of the Citadel’s own designs mimicked in the far, far lighter color palette of its halls. It with its awe-inspiring lobby, and atrium, and the aquarium that stretched upwards through all forty floors of the hotel. Forty to the Citadel’s fifty, making it ten floors shorter than the home of the royal family.

 The aquarium was a far more recent addition. Added in King Regis’ youth, when he showed a slight interest in fishing and his father decided the aquarium would help make him more interested in attending events at Caelum Via. 

 While it hadn’t worked well for Mors’ son, it had worked wonders for Regis’ own son.

 The envy of all the Crown’s other properties, however, was the rooftop of Caelum Via.

 Looking out over most of the Crown City, with that flawless view of the Citadel, the seaside beyond that, the Leiden deserts further inland, and with the aquarium’s dome sheltered by a beautifully carved gazebo at the crest of the building. The patios. The balconies. The rooftop garden, growing every one of the rarest breeds of flower the royal family could afford to nurture; all of them. 

 In some ways, it was more magnificent than the Citadel itself. Which wasn’t the strangest thing. 

 The Citadel was practical, needed, necessary. A daily grind.

 Caelum Via was fanciful, fluffy, ornate. The showroom floor. 

 Not that those same descriptors didn’t work just as well on the House of Caelum itself. 

…

 Caelum Via was shinier than Noctis remembered it being, as a teenager attending his father’s events.

Like they’d splashed it in brighter colors. Banners. Flowers. All brighter colors.

Or maybe he was just used to darkness, he thought, forcing himself to relax back into smooth leather, watching out of the car window as that view of Caelum Via was blocked by walls of cement. By the entrance to the underground garage. Still grand. In its own way. Designs imprinted on the cement; murals. Designed after some of the old, historical paintings hung on the Citadel’s walls. 

The hum of car engines were louder in the space underneath the hotel, but it was a space on par with the Citadel’s own underground garage. Pillars of white marble, with veins of gold. Nothing as gouache as parking lines painted anywhere down there, or curbs, and ceilings that arched into cathedral-like domes - it was all fancier than the Citadel, actually. And made Noctis snort to himself.

The others in the car seemed amused by the sound, as their entourage pulled up to the elevator in the center of the underground garage, more ornate than many a noble family’s foyer.  

 Three Crownsguard-black cars in a line.

 Stepping out of the first was a small Kingsglaive team, dressed up far fancier in proper suits and gowns to pass as nonthreatening at a glance. As if they were attending an event, not on guard duty.

 Stepping out of the second was Noctis, Nyx and Sonitus flanking him as his personal guards for this.

 And stepping out of the third was Uncle Rexus with two Glaives of his own flanking him, adjusting his shirt’s buttons.

 “Quite a place, Nephew,” his uncle commented as the three groups merged together, heading towards the elevator of literal, shining gold, guarded by a pair of Crownsguard who bowed in greeting at their approach, “Was it always like this?” 

 “I…think so?” The raven-haired royal hesitated, again thinking back to being a teenager with less responsibilities than he had now, less pain, less fear, no Oriens, “I was usually bored, being here, so I didn’t pay much attention.” 

 “Bored, inlustris? In ‘the most expensive place in Lucis’?” Nyx, piping up from behind him at his heels, sounding as if he were quoting a billboard they had passed on the drive there and amused, “Pretty sure the architects would weep hearing that, starlight.” 

 Wincing at the sight of those two Crownsguard guarding the elevator who had overhead him and were gawking, Noctis ducked his head down low. Then startled at an arm draping itself over his shoulders as they stepped into that elevator, peering up at his father’s half-brother who seemed perfectly relaxed, somewhat draped over the younger royal.

 “I mean, the aquarium was always…a highlight,” he mumbled, glad when the reflective, golden doors closed with those ‘Guards on the out and them on the in. Gazing at his slightly blurry reflection, with his new uncle huddling him close as if Rexus didn’t find that strange whatsoever.

 Had Dad asked him to watch out for him? Probably.

 The elevator’s button for the rooftop was locked behind a key. A key that Nyx inserted and turned with a slight hum, smirking at the sight of Noctis and his uncle. Then the button was pressed, and they were off. Up, up, up forty floors. Forty whole floors, surrounded by walls of reflective gold and standing on a floor of polished marble and Noctis - starting to feel very much trapped.

 It was short, simple, came on fast - a small space full of Glaives and people pressing just almost too close, breaths just almost breaking on his skin. Panic.

 Then, Uncle Rexus reached out and jabbed a floor number on the elevator panel.

 Twenty-seven.

 A second later, the doors popped open. Nyx and Sonitus were out in an instant, standing shoulder to shoulder, blocking the hotel hallway beyond the elevator doors. But more importantly, Noctis was out. No longer in a small space, on longer being touched since his uncle had let his arm slip off his shoulders, he was just standing there and breathing and safe -

 They folded themselves back into the golden box after he’d steadied the flutter of his heart. Such a fickle thing. The mind too. Logic told him he was safe, safer than he probably was on a regular basis, inside of the Citadel. But situation and trauma told him differently, and everyone had acted accordingly.

 Had pressed themselves a bit tighter to the walls in the elevator, to let him have his own ring of space.

 Uncle Rexus certainly didn’t seem to mind pressing up to a Kingsglaive who must’ve been one of his, flushed and blushing and trying to keep a professional face as his uncle laughed a laugh like summer. Warm. And bright. And worth basking in. 

 The next time the elevator doors dinged and opened, the brilliant blue skies above Insomnia were waiting for them. Not a single cloud in those skies. They were pure, and vibrant, and so blue it was almost disorientating this high up, where it could feel like one was on top of the world. Come sunset, the view would be painting-worthy Noctis knew from hazy memories of being a teenager. Tipsy on polite sips of champagne. 

 There was no champagne this time, at least not so soon in the day. 

 There was the rooftop of Caelum Via. Its rare gardens that were the envy of many gardeners, with planters lining its pathways to the patios and balconies overlooking all the Crown City, and the Wall protecting all of Lucis. At the crest of the hotel, the gazebo, and the shining blue waters of the aquarium dome Noctis could just catch a glimpse of from where they stepped out of the elevator. 

 Gazing around, absorbing it all for the first time in over ten years, the raven-haired royal extended a hand. Letting it run gently over the flowering bushes that lined the path to a nearby patio - full of people and business he knew they’d have to join in a moment, but first.

 “It’s winter,” he heard one of his uncle’s Glaives remark, breaking the awed silence and sounding incredulous, which made his mouth curve into a smirk. Thumbing at petals.

 The gardens atop Caelum Via never died.

 Some said it was King’s Magic. That his grandfather, or his great-grandfather, had imbued magic into the rooftop to keep the gardens untouched by winter’s freeze. For the woman they loved; whomever that had been. There was never an exact reason given, not that Noctis knew. He only knew that the flowers always bloomed, the greenery never wilted, and the snows never touched the top of Caelum Via. 

 Even if it did end up snowing later that day, not a single snowflake would land on them. Melting before coming close to covering the polished shinery of everything.

 Sometimes it was just like that. Sometimes there was just magic in the air, thanks to one or more of the Lucii.

 The Ring hummed in agreement on his finger as he pulled his hand away from the soft petals of flowers, and Noctis turned his mind back to the patio ahead. 

 Business.

 His Uncle Rexus walked right beside him in approaching; a scene of lights, cameras, flashes. A pair of couches of the finest black velvet, facing one another. Insomniac’s News’ brand scattered around on quite a few things. Water bottles and camera bags and lanyards, and whatnot. It was a scene of professionalism. Like the last interview Noctis had agreed to, though hopefully? With a happier ending.

 The patio was brilliant staging, in the center of several spiraling gardens, with the aquarium’s gazebo framed in the background. The blue skies, the blue waters, the day’s hour being late afternoon meaning sunset would likely hit as the interview ended. Noctis may not be as used to such things, but he’d spent so many years getting lessons on them as a kid that he was attuned to them regardless.

 Heads turned when they approached.

 Eyes widened.

 Bows were given.

 Eyes stayed wide as staff straightened up to stare at the two royals who had so seamlessly walked into their presence. More than a few shocked looks were shot at Noctis’ legs. At the King’s Magic openly swirling around them. He had considered using his wheelchair today, but had decided that it was already no secret that he went between using it and not. 

 And despite his dad’s attempts years ago, Caelum Via never had been fully updated to be wheelchair-accessible. 

 “Good afternoon,” Rexus gave a wide greeting, which Noctis nodded along to. Not shy in the least to all the stares. A little uncomfortable, maybe. But he knew how he and his newest uncle looked. All dressed up as they were; in tailored suits thick enough to weather the chilliness of being at so high an altitude in the winter, black, each with their little designs to show loyalty to the house.

Each with their beards trimmed, their hair styled, their eyes bright.

 “Afternoon,” Noctis echoed in the moments after where silence and stillness reigned, his braids neatly redone and beads polished by his dearest Glaive, a spot of pure white fur - albino behemoth - draped over one shoulder of his suit as a gift from the whole Ulric Clan’s hunters, and some Glaive had found the time since his suit was delivered the day before to embroider small, golden stars into half of the hem. Like embroidery had started appearing on Ori’s clothes. He felt adopted.

 And unique, even as a royal.

 He felt loved, and wished Nyx didn’t have to pretend to keep a professional distance from him while they were here, in the public’s eye.

 Rexus was dressed in a suit jacket, over a black sweater that wrapped snugly around his long, slender neck. His long legs seemed to go on for days, and had been tailored to cling a little, and his hair was swept into its beautiful wavy texture, and he really did just look appealing. Which was the point. Not that he needed all that much help in looking that way.

 The amount of people present who swooned when he winked proved that.

 A young man, early twenties, hurried to meet them personally. Despite his age, his suit was well-tailored and his hair just on this side of purposefully windswept, and he seemed perfectly comfortable at the center of attention when he bowed deeply to them both. Knowing better than to offer a hand to shake.

 “It’s an honor, Your Highnesses. Prince Noctis. Prince Rexus,” the man straightened, and his grin seemed honest enough, “Joey Lucerna, newsman for Insomniac’s News, at your service! I’ll be conducting today’s interview, if that’s alright with the two of you.” 

 “I have no complaints,” Rexus replied easily enough, glancing at his nephew and getting a tiny shake of his head, “We have no complaints. It’s our pleasure, Mr. Lucerna.”

 “Good, good, good,” the man seemed young enough, younger than Veronica that was for sure, then again Insomniac’s News was more ‘with the times’ from what Ignis had informed him of, “Shall we? While we have the light?” 

 Motioning to that pair of velvet-black couches facing one another, Mr. Joey Lucerna ducked out of the way respectfully to let them through the news station’s scene first. Which they took. Followed by their Glaives. The ones dressed up taking up positions around all the cameras, and the ones blatantly wearing their uniforms coming to hover just out of the camera’s line of sight.

 While Uncle Rexus wasted no time in draping himself tastefully lazily across the right side of the couch, patting the cushion beside his hip. Which Noctis took a seat on, brushing at his pants as he looked around at all of the - everything. Taking it in.

 Prickly, a little, maybe. 

 Still not entirely comfortable with groups of people, nor eyes on him.

 “Just a routine interview,” his uncle’s even voice knocked him back there, back onto the couch, in front of cameras, back to where he could turn his head and look at his uncle, who was watching him closely. Compassion in his eyes that made him look all the more like his dad, in the creases and the wrinkles and those green irises, “We’ve got this, Nephew. Short and sweet, and then we’ll be home before we know it.”

 “Ready the cameras!” Mr. Lucerna called, motioning to direct his crew where they needed to be to get this interview on the road. 

 And Noctis Lucis Caelum settled back onto velvety softness, not all that surprised when Rexus draped an arm over the back of the couch. Over him. 

 They prepared in their own ways.

 To have all of Eos’ eyes on them.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The interview process was very carefully framed, as Ignis had intended it to be. It wasn’t overly long, it wasn’t overly dramatic either. It was perfectly slotted to take place in the hour following most people getting off of work for the day, so they’d head home and turn on the news and watch when they were already too drained to nitpick anything and everything.

 It had been scripted for Noctis to sit on the side of the couch closest to the camera’s, putting him directly in frame. To keep the attention split a bit more evenly between both Lucis Caelums. So people would have to look past him to criticize his uncle too closely.

 It had also been scripted for Noctis to make his show of loyalty for the Galahdians blatant, which the gift from Clan Ulric and his amatus had helped greatly in doing. Lest rumors start to spread that what he and his Nyx shared was nothing more than a fling, a flight of fancy. Those small details said he was in this for the long haul, he was not ashamed, and he would say so aloud himself if asked.

 Caelum Via being the stage would remind Eos of their wealth.

 Rexus and Noctis together would make it clear their family hadn’t been secretly splintered by the appearance of a bastard royal out of the blue.

 And the script was precisely what they had given to Insomniac’s News. No more, no less, no bribes.

 Rexus Lucis Caelum’s first interview, to be later written in magazines and spread all across Lucis. After the customary photoshoot that came along with such things.

 For now though, Noctis’ only job was to stay present, stay relaxed, and let his uncle answer the ongoing roulette of questions in his usual casual way.

 As the sun fell further and further from the blue of the skies.

 “It is truly an honor, Prince Rexus. Truly. All of Lucis is eager to get to know you, as we are, I am sure,” was the sentiment repeated over and over again. Making it easy to leave a majority of the interview to his uncle who never showed a hint of being flustered by all the attention. Greetings. And compliments. And a few probing questions, nothing out of line, simply asking how he found Lucis, how he was settling into the Citadel, how it felt to be new royalty in one’s forties.

Noctis smiled encouragingly, nodded along, and listened. Because he was honestly curious too, in his own way, about his dad’s brother he’d only just begun to get to know.

Very little of his life came as any true sort of surprise to the royal nephew. Being raised by a pair of fathers who were deceased now, who he refused to name for privacy reasons. Being a wanderer. Being aware of his magic when he was young, but unsure if it would be safe to reveal himself with the war against Niflheim. Only learning of his relationship to Grandpa Mors after the man’s untimely death. Hesitating to approach his half-brother in the aftermath.

Rexus was honest about his role as an archaeologist, for the most part. Admitting magic and its history fascinated him.

 He was less honest just yet about the Astrals, or the many secrets he’d uncovered that way.

 “I’m sure there’s plenty of people at home right now,” his Uncle Rexus joked in the middle of all of that, “pointing at their screens going, ‘That’s the boy I caught trespassing, digging holes in my yard!’ And I want to apologize now for all those times anyone ever found me crawling my way through their favorite caves or climbing around ruins, scaring the pants off you. Next time, I’ll get a permit. Promise. Probably.”

Noctis snorted so hard he had to cover his mouth with his palm, and turn towards his uncle more to fix his expression away from the camera.

His uncle grinned proudly at what he’d caused, so he swatted the man’s shoulder, getting a laugh of his own.

Overall, it was a surprisingly simple story.

Years of wandering, years of uncertainty, years of digging, and then -

“When I heard what had…happened,” his Uncle Rexus, shrugged, eyes drifting Noctis’ way whether he meant to or not, “I figured, if they ever needed to know about me, now would probably be the time. So I went and revealed myself to a few Kingsglaive, and the rest is - well, not history. But the present. And the future.” 

And the future.

What a hopeful sentiment to set on this interview, as the sun hit the horizon.

And they wrapped things up, to the view of the blue skies above Insomnia being painted a thousand shades of hope.

Which would hopefully be captured by the photographers beautifully.

 

 

-----

 

 

“Wish Prom was here,” was a pointless wish, but Noctis still gave it a voice while watching. Waiting. On the photographers in charge of arranging everything. All the cameras dangling around people’s necks, the flashes going off as they tested things, the hurry of it all as they desperately tried to keep the sunset-lit view. It just reminded him so much of his best friend.

 All those years where he followed him around, sometimes being rushed despite him being literal royalty, and always for the sake of the ‘perfect shot’.

 There were few times Prom was prettier than that moment after his camera’s flash went off, when he beamed like the world was his to capture, when he cheered over a perfectly framed picture, and called Noctis over to check it out for himself. None of those photos had ever compared to the photographer himself. Noctis’ favorite photographer.

 Nobody would ever take that title from Prompto Argentum, even if the Adagium had managed to take the official title of Heart.

 “<When his child’s born, starlight, how about we call him over for a visit? A photoshoot?>” And there, his favorite Glaive, suggesting that so easily with an easy smile. 

 Nyx Ulric deserved a few pictures of his own; leaning back against the railing the way that he was. Head thrown back to a sunset-painted sky with an easy grin and his Kingsglaive uniform loosened around his neck. Handsome to the last.

 Those few photos that had been snuck of the Kingsglaive Lieutenant were going to be rounded up before they left, they always were. With a scolding for the photographers who took them.

 But the other Glaives were already scheming to get them printed and delivered to Nyx’s star, so all would be well.

 “Ready for you, Your Highnesses!” One of the frenzied photographers called loudly, foregoing politeness in favor of frantically waving the two royals their way. The sky so many shades of fading colors that they really didn’t have the time to linger if they wanted the shot promised to them. 

 They’d set up one of the rooftop’s balconies for the photoshoot. Scattered a few flower petals across the polished tiling. Banners and floral arrangements draped over the gilded railings. A flawless backdrop of not only the sunset skies, but the Citadel itself. Prompto would’ve approved. So Noctis did approve on his best friend’s behalf, snagging his uncle’s sleeve from where he’d been flirting very hushedly with one of the Glaive women all dressed up fancy for today.

 Photos were a bit more of an involved process than the interview.

 The raven-haired royal shuffled awkwardly, trying not to smoosh flower petals under his shoes as he straightened out his jacket and adjusted his braids. Almost jealous of his uncle’s ability to get right into position and pose himself. Head held high, smiling just right, tall and proud and perfectly royal, for a man not raised to be.

 Noctis found it far harder, and he’d been raised to do this.

 But no matter how he tried to find his own confidence the way his half-uncle had, he still slouched too much looking at a camera’s lens, still frowned too much, still pushed his brows together like he was in distress.

 One of the photographers scurried forward like she was in distress.

 Hands outstretched towards him, making Noctis cringe away on reflex.

 An arm was wound tight around his waist in an instant, and he was shuffled backwards by some pressure applied to his hip bone so his Uncle Rexus met the woman head-on in his stead.

 “No touching.”

 And Noctis had never heard his uncle sound so harsh while still smiling so handsomely.

 But he had heard the sound of several weapons being summoned from the Armiger all in unison before, which was a sound he hardly flinched at now. While the photography team from Insomniac’s News all went terribly still, like prey cornered by daemons in the dark. Smart. Good survival instincts. The woman backed away fast, murmuring apologies after a second had passed. She escaped behind the cameras again alive.

 And all of the Glaives present seemed perfectly content keeping their weapons in-hand. Grinning with all their teeth at every Insomnian who looked their ways.

 “Okay?” His uncle’s question was breathed close to his ear, bending their heads down near each other’s in some semblance of privacy when in front of what seemed like a hundred professional cameras all waiting on them, and after a little breath? Noctis gave a nod. Nudging their foreheads together.

 A simple photoshoot. That was all this was.

 He’d stood through a thousand of these when he was younger. He could do this.

 His uncle pulled back only far enough to put some propriety in the space between them. Didn’t move his hand off of his waist. Didn’t flinch under the eyes of a bunch of now-slightly terrified photographers here to do a job. He just adjusted where they stood, and adjusted the way his brother’s son stood, and then he smiled for the camera.

 It took a second.

 And then he tickled his nephew’s side with a wiggle of his long fingers.

 And a grin graced the boy’s face along with a laugh that echoed across the rooftop, the two of them mirroring one another.

 And a camera flashed.

 Both then, and in the moment after where his sweet-hearted nephew wrinkled his nose at him and glared over the assault. The second photo would be commandeered by his Glaives, Rexus was sure. For now, he brought both of his hands up to show he meant no harm, laughing secondly at the pouting his nephew was doing and the adoring looks from all his Glaives.

 One photo and done.

 One photo that would appear in the magazines with their short and sweet interview.

 Of the pair of Lucis Caelums, grinning in the echoes of laughter, standing in front of sunset skies and the Citadel they called home together.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Dad called. Laughed at Noctis’ pouting, long and for a while. 

 Suggested they stay for dinner. Or, more like, told them they were staying for dinner, considering how late it’d already gotten.

 Noctis knew his other uncles had probably arranged that, though. No way his overprotective father had decided they should spend more time out of his sight than necessary, and he noticed his dad’s heart wasn’t really in the suggestion. But still. The raven-haired royal hadn’t realized how…sort of…nice it was, to be outside of the Citadel for a few hours, until he was allowed to stay a little longer.

 Insomniac’s News’ crew had left, after they’d gotten everything. 

 The interview would be playing and replaying for a couple of hours. And by tomorrow night? The magazine would be printed and distributed throughout Insomnia, and later throughout Lucis.

 An hour or two of winding down sounded nice.

 

 

-----

 

 

 As soon as he was able to, while waiters from Caelum Via scuttled around the rooftop and the balcony being arranged for dinner, tablecloths being thrown and plates tinking softly as they were set down, Noctis Lucis Caelum escaped to the gazebo. To the aquarium’s dome. 

 The water was so very blue. And the various lights hidden inside of the watered decorations made it seem to glow, sending ripples of light dancing across the globed roof of the gazebo. 

 Blue-blue eyes lifted.

 Fish. So many fish. Swimming around inside of the glass. Schools of them, and lonesome ones, scales flashing colorfully whenever they caught the light. Slow and fast. Small and big. Noctis knew he could’ve named them all, if he wanted to. His head provided the names even without trying; years of fishing magazines flipping through his mind. He hadn’t been fishing since the snows had fallen, but his dad had promised. Spring - spring would be full of fishing as a family. He was looking forward to it.

 A flash of scales, and his eyes so blue became so wide.

 Even though it went against all of the rules, Noctis pressed both of his palms to glass. He was royalty. Who was going to tell him not to touch his own property? Nobody at all. 

 A mighty barramundi. Its darker scales flashed shades of deep violet when they caught on the lights of the aquarium, flicking its tail stronger to propel itself down, deeper into the hotel. And Noctis peered after it until he couldn’t see it anymore. Smiling softly to himself. He and his dad had compared Nyx to that fish enough times that he’d grown fond of it. 

 “Nephew, dinner?” Uncle Rexus’ voice came calmly from the steps of the gazebo, then there were the man’s own steps as he entered, coming closer to peer curiously into the aquarium as well, “Wow. Fancy.”

 “You.” The more lithe royal said simply, pointing at a lord trout swimming past. Scales a vibrantly shimmering green, petite and fast. 

 And Rexus laughed.

 And Noctis smiled.

 And together, they went to have dinner.

 He really couldn’t wait for winter to end, so he could go fishing with his family again.

Rexus would have to join them this time.

 

 

------

 

 

 Dinner was expensive, delicious, and private. On account of them literally being on the rooftop of Caelum Via, the most expensive and exclusive place any person in Lucis could pray to one day step foot, let alone eating there. The waiters had arranged a table on one of the balconies. Long enough for all of their Kingsglaive to join them. Three courses and dessert, of course.

The waiters kept their distance.

Noctis sat with his Uncle Rexus to his left, Nyx to his right, and the background of the Citadel under a darkening sky at his back.

Typically, back home, meals were all of them as a family. So he hadn’t gotten as many one-on-one conversations with his newest uncle. 

Now, he had more of a chance.

And what interesting conversations they were, as their Glaives feasted. 

 “Messengers aren’t chosen. They weren’t born simply to be Messengers, no matter what the churches liked to claim. No, it’s not fate. No, it’s not ordained by the Six, the Summons, whatever you want to call them now. Messengers are…coincidences, you could say.”

 “So Messengers are - ?” Noctis pieced together what his uncle hadn’t said, and got a pretty wide grin for the mental effort. An explanation too, which was pretty nice, and included his Uncle Rexus moving packets of ketchup and salt shakers around like pawns on a chessboard on the table between them.

 “They are vessels,” his father’s half-brother confirmed, tapping the salt shaker he’d set next to one of the ketchup packets. There were six ketchup packets laid out. Noctis figured out what they represented the Astrals, and the other shakers and mustard packets were probably meant to represent…the Messengers. Probably, “Much like your Glaive was, when the Stormfather possessed his body momentarily.” 

 Well, that reminder twisted Noctis’ mouth into a frown.

 Nyx’s elbow purposefully bumped his, in the middle of a heated conversation with Sonitus about weaponry.

 It helped smooth his fur down, in a manner of speaking.

 “Think of it this way, animals? Don’t have the willpower humans have. So if a Summons wants to use a vessel that won’t fight back against its influence?” He tapped the mustard packet under his fingertip, “An animal. Nice. Simple. No fight, a bit more incognito too, and from what I’ve researched? Able to house their power in a more literal way at times. Give the animals powers that make them more, without the trouble of giving those powers to humans with ideals and pursuits and ambitions.” 

 “Like Umbra and Pryna,” the raven-haired royal murmured, thinking of the pair of pups he hadn’t seen in - a decade. More now. 

 He wondered if they had passed away while he was imprisoned.

 “And humans - they offer their benefits too,” Uncle Rexus went on, tapping one by one on the rarer salt shakers he had scattered across the table. Only a couple, compared to the many condiment packets, “More power. More of a way to convey themselves. With the way the Six’s religion spread throughout Eos? They had plenty of options from their faithful - children raised to serve them, who probably viewed their attentions as an honor and never thought they could fight back whatsoever.” 

 The way he described that, the darkness seeping into his uncle’s voice -

 It made Noctis think, ‘Like puppets.’

 It made bitterness churn in his stomach.

 “Some are willing,” his stormy Glaive’s voice interjected softly, looking their way out of the corner of his eye, and Noctis again forced his ‘fur’ flat. 

 “Some are,” Uncle Rexus agreed, quietly though.

 The nephew tipped the other way, into Nyx’s shoulder, his space and his elbow and his self, him. Where he rested his head gratefully. Hiding his grin with a nuzzle into Nyx’s bicep when his amatus leaned over to press a kiss to the top of his head. A kiss that lingered. A kiss that was warm, in the slight chilliness of winter, even on a magical rooftop such as this.

 Dinner was lovely.

 The company was just lovelier, in Noctis’ humble opinion.

 

 

-----

 

 

 The drive home, there wasn’t much talk during. The day’s hour was late. After dark. Insomnia, the Crown City, was lit up by a thousand insomniacs. Skyscrapers glowing like beacons on the coast they called home. Folk walked on the sidewalks they drove past, unaware the three Crownsguard cars passing them held two different royals in them. Were headed for the Citadel.

 In the dark of night, the streetlights flitted through the windows with every turn. Even when Noctis shut his eyes, he saw their shadows pass him by behind his eyelids.

 Snuggling into Nyx’s broad chest, an arm thrown around him, he napped for the half an hour it took to drive home after dark.

…

 In another Crownsguard-black car, Rexus pleased himself with kisses from his two Glaive companions. Happily settled back into the chest of a Bellum man, and humming at the kisses sweet as honey from a Furia woman. Both of them, eager to paw at him and tell him how handsome he’d been throughout the whole outing. As long as he got his clothes in order before they left the cars, what was the harm? 

 Maybe they distracted their poor driver a little, whose mouth was dry, watching through the rearview mirror, but he certainly had no complaints.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Regis greeted them in the Citadel’s underground garage, despite the hour.

 They were his boys.

 His brother, his son.

 And he was proud of them both, which he told them, before they all retired for the nightly rest they all so dearly deserved.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Insomniac’s News impressed them.

 By breakfast the following morning, the magazine issue had been released in Insomnia.

 They knew because Uncle Clarus brought a copy to their breakfast table, and handed it off to Regis who wanted to frame it, looking beyond fonder than fond at the cover page being that picture of his dear half-brother and dear son, smiling together. 

 It wasn’t the worst way to begin Rexus Lucis Caelum’s press tour, that was for sure.

 The rest, though, Noctis intended to leave up to his uncle and the rest of their family. He’d had enough publicity for the next few months, thank you very much.

 

 

-----

 

 

 Braiding together string after string, dream-blue, royal-gold, a simple braided bracelet was taking form movement by movement in-between Noctis’ pale fingers. A new craft. Something to distract him from the business of lately. One of the Glaives had taken his hands carefully in theirs and taught him, and now he continued learning on his own. Sat in his wheelchair in a patch of nice, bright light. 

 In the Kingsglaive Complex for a rare visit, because after all of that business with his uncle - fun business, but business drained - he needed something calmer. Familiar.

 With a burst of magic, a Glaive was sent sprawling from one side of the training space to the other. Cursing vehemently when his head knocked against a wall.

 Okay, so the Glaives weren’t calm. But they were familiar. 

 “Very nice, Highness,” one of Nyx’s close friends, Pelna, a Khara, came closer to hover over his shoulder. To see how well the bracelet was coming along. And he complimented the raven-haired royal, which was nice. Pelna? Wasn’t around as often as Nyx’s other close friends because he was in communications, but he was a lot more soft-spoken than the others too.

 “Thanks,” Noctis murmured, getting comfortable with the constant movements of braiding, over and under and across and over and under and across -

 And oh, look, Nyx was shirtless again.

 Warmth reached up to pat his cheeks, and Noctis dropped his blue eyes back to braiding. Not shirtless. Right. He’d just, grabbed the hem of his t-shirt to wipe sweat from his forehead. Showing off very nice abs, that were also sweaty, and that. Wasn’t helpful for Noctis’ poor heartrate.

 “Congrats on getting all of that,” Pelna leaned nearer to his ear to murmur, motioning at Nyx Ulric as a whole because there wasn’t a single Galahdian who was blind to how incredibly sexy their Ulric Chieftain was, “<our chieftain’s star.>”

 “...Thanks?” Noctis wasn’t quite sure how to react to those sorts of congratulations, so he went back to his braiding.

 His amatus was super hot, though. 

 And blue-blue eyes proceeded to watch the Kingsglaive train for the next hour. The curses got louder. Skin got sweatier. Shirts got abandoned into corners, and Uncle Rexus stopped by for about five minutes to pull a shirtless woman from the mage group and disappear off somewhere together. That mage came back with kissmarks all over his breasts, and plenty of rude gestures for all the Glaives who whined how unfair it was that they hadn’t gotten the same treatment.

 The Kingsglaive were extremely comfortable with one another. Noctis had gotten used to that months and months ago.

 Skin was skin, naked was naked, none of them blinked an eye or tried anything on anyone who wasn’t interested. Nyx had told him once before that new trainees had to be trusted before they were given this sort of access to the older Glaives. The ones who’d known each other for more years than they hadn’t.

 It had made his heart flutter; to know he was trusted the same as Glaives who had known each other for decades.

 Then again, he would never ever try to proposition a single one of the Glaives aside from his Glaive, and they all knew it.

 A break in training came when one Glaive got tossed a bit too enthusiastically, and literally went through one of the arched windows of the training room. Glass shattered had Noctis’ shoulders tense, had him gripping his almost-finished bracelet for a moment, there was a pause as everything stopped - 

 Then, there was the muffled cry from outside, “<In one piece!>”

 That seemed to be a sort of unspoken message between everyone else to take a five. And for a few of the Glaives to meander on over to the newly broken window, to tape a big square of cardboard over the almost Glaive-sized hole. Which explained why two more of the windows lining the training room also had cardboard taped over them. He’d been wondering. Dad must give the Glaives a budget for training room repairs, right?

 He’d had the Crownsguard training room repaired after Noctis’ ‘practice’ in there, after all.

 Maybe he’d ask. Later.

 Right now, his amatus was heading right for him.

 “Starlight, steal me away from here,” Nyx groaned in exaggeration, sprawling himself out on the sunlit tiles right next to one of the wheelchair’s wheels, chest rising and falling rapidly, and completely shirtless now, “They are cruel, they are bullies, <take me, take me far away! Spoil me!>” 

 Pelna rolled his eyes and extended a leg to lightly kick Nyx’s shoulder, which made the Ulric Glaive groan as if he’d been shot and Noctis giggle softly. Secretly. Just to himself and his bracelet, and pretending afterwards he didn’t see Nyx open one of his warm brown eyes just enough to squint up at him. And smile a smile that was pure self-satisfaction. Pure happiness.

 All because he’d made Noctis giggle. 

 What a silly, silly man.

 “Nyx,” he called his name, setting his work-in-progress craft next to his hip on the wheelchair’s seat as he got both of those brown eyes to peer up at him. Absolutely sunlit with the patch of sunlit he was laying in. Beautiful, like amber or gold or sugary honey. Noctis leaned over the arm of his wheelchair, smiling softly, and crooked his finger. Calling Nyx to him in more ways than just his name, in the way he moved, in the way he shifted forward, in the way his smile grew.

 Nyx Ulric was utterly helpless to the call. His whole world narrowed down to his inlustris in a heartbeat. His starlight.

 He shoved himself up onto his elbows in that heartbeat, no questions, no care for his training aches, beaming like a fool up at the man he loved who leaned further over his wheelchair’s arm - 

 And kissed him.

 Nyx’s fingers curled, fingernails catching on the seams of tiles, a hum rising from his chest almost like one Tenebris’ purrs, and he closed his eyes to savor the feel of soft, thin lips brushing against his in his patch of warm sunlight and pure perfection and his star -

 He waited a breath, after those lips had left him, before he let his eyes open. 

 Stormfather have mercy, he was blushing over how proud and pleased he was. Proud of his star who was brave enough to give him kisses these days. Pleased because his star wanted to give him kisses. A noise climbed up his throat to follow that hum, and Nyx would neither confirm nor deny if it was a giggle. He just flopped back down onto the tiles and stared dazedly up at the arching ceiling of their training room as he made the sound again.

 “<See that?>” The Ulric Chieftain said smugly in his daze, to all the Glaives he could see lounging around them in his peripheral, “<He kissed me.>” 

 His brothers and sisters laughed at him.

 But Nyx felt as tall and powerful as Father Ramuh himself, and nothing could bring him down.

 

 

-----

 

 

 “Empress Stella.”

 “What is it, dear Aranea?” 

 “Reports. From hunters near the glaciers. The Glacian’s body, Your Imperial Majesty. It’s disappeared from Ghorovas Rift.” 

 Turning on her heel, the Empress of Niflheim frowned demurely at her most loyal of mercenaries.

 Then, she nodded decisively, “We must send our people to investigate the truth of that at once. Send an infantry, and a team of scientists to work in tandem with them. Contact His Majesty, King Regis of Lucis, immediately as well. I have a feeling this will have to do with the House of Caelum, dear Aranea…”

 So it would be -

 The ice began to thaw in Ghorovas Rift.

 

 

~>-----------<~

Notes:

Rexus got a little attention this chapter, but also there's plot! Seeping through the cracks! ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

Been a little under the weather due to a cold, so the next chapter probably won't be for three weeks or so, but I might write a few of the smaller ones in the meantime, so keep an eye out for that! <3

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Misplaced Innocence