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The winter moon is quiet above Lucis, as nights fold themselves unto one another in its silver light. The day’s labor among the wreckage and ruins from the Long Night still in the rimy breeze and settle into a slumber before the crack of dawn many still cannot face directly with eyes accustomed to total darkness.
In the day, the rustle of the uniforms of the Kingsglaive mingles with the clanks and chimes of restorations and repairs across streets of stone in Insomnia. Stories whisper through its winding roads; tales from Leide to Vesperpool on the lips of survivors and hunters with the glint of fiery swords as tall as the statues of the old Kings in their eyes. The longer the sun remains, the less their hands shake, now holding onto hammers and chisels in the Night's wake.
They watch as trucks ride into Niflheim to search for those who remain and they watch as they return nearly just as empty. An empire Lucis had feared and fought for a century, now a shell carved from within, holding nothing but the echoes of millions that perished within its walls. Gralea is a ghost city; endlessly bleeding ash into the sky from the bodies of the hordes of daemons lying dead in its streets, as if the Six themselves have abandoned it.
Lord Argentum of the Kingsglaive leads the efforts, organizing camps and shelters for the rescued and guiding the Crownsguard through the maze of the empire’s capital city and the Zegnautus Keep. Blue eyes strained and pained as the handful they find in basements and deep within caves, burst into tears at the sight of sunlight they haven’t seen in years. He stares at the ascending ash over the city and the blighted buildings piercing the sky and wonders if the Six had ever held dominion over these lands at all.
Lord Gladiolus Amicitia walks beside the King of Tenebrae, Ravus Nox Fleuret, last of his line, as they set out of the Fenestala Manor with a few retainers on the long journey to Insomnia for the Merger of Three Nations. Sylleblossoms adorn the path out of the once royal seat of the Nox Fleurets, cracked and singed with old fire, now partially reclaimed by ruin and phantom nature.
The Long Night brought with it its own kind of fauna, leafless and white with spikes and tendrils, weaving itself along sublime columns and delving into the ground like headless snakes only to burst out from the feet of a crumpled statue yards away. Dodders and ghost pipes gleam under the new sun, already half-swallowed by moss and weeds. Pale welwitschias sit spilled across the once lush woods like knots of ghastly tongues, licking across the earth amidst fresh greens timidly drinking the day’s light as they relearn to grow roots.
The pair stop by the grave of Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. They stand side by side before her pearly headstone, one dressed in stark white, one in full black and pay their respects to the Last Oracle, to the sister whose sacrifice helped vanquish the Night. Gladiolus glances at his charge, Ravus with his tired eyes and heavy left arm glinting amber under the afternoon sun. Standing before the Oracle, he imagines what it would be like to visit Iris’ grave and wonders how far he would go to keep her safe. Sylleblossoms dance in the wind and they both flinch at the sudden smell, Ravus closing his eyes and sighing into the wind.
Gladiolus looks away, allowing him his moment of grief, unable to convince himself he wouldn’t go as far as Ravus had, knowing how far he was willing to go for his King.
Noctis’ magic is a mere shadow of what it used to be. With the Crystal destroyed and its power absorbed to banish the Scourge, Ignis can hardly feel its reach along his nerves, now just tenuous currents at the edge of recognition he suspects most of the Kingsglaive can no longer sense.
He hasn’t needed his daggers in months and yet sometimes he summons them at night. The conjuring feels heavy and reluctant as if they materialize with the same listlessness of frosting dew, rather than the quick, crystalline blink into existence from their youth when the magic was a loud, rushing river of a thrum through his bloodstream.
Sometimes the magic finds him in the dead of the night, not feeble enough with how attuned Lord Ignis Scientia is to his King. He feels it reach into him, quiet and familiar, nestling close to his beating heart and he wonders if his King is also lying awake at night, with his hand on the hilt of the Sword of the Father, conjured as an anchor to chase away the endless nightmares that won’t leave him. He has lost count of how many nights he has stood at his King’s door since the Dawn of Ten Years, listening to his wakeful pacing or found him in the kitchens with his hands around a cup of tea when rest would refuse to claim him.
Sometimes the magic whispers unexpectedly through him during the tedium of the day, in the middle of trade deals and summits and restoration plans with dozens in attendance and Noctis’ hand fists around the armrest of his chair, his breath hitching behind a cordial smile he maintains. Ignis knows then to formally step in, requesting his King for an urgent matter and sealing off the closest available hall as Noctis leans his head back into cold stone, his chest heaving. Ignis reaches for him, hand on his shoulder, telling him to let it roll through him until his hands stop shaking.
What’s left of the King’s magic is no longer enough for Ignis to heal the turmoil that haunts him and yet he stands beside him as he has done countless times in battles his King had needed him. A hand to guide, a hand to sustain. A hand to ground… He is the Hand of the King.
Time is a concept made oblique and unreliable for the last King of Lucis. He has a vast, ceaseless stream of memories flowing through his mind, a hundred and thirteen kings speaking in tandem behind his weightless thoughts and visions of thousands of years of history; vibrant and tined, moments of futures past, futures lost and futures yet to come. He misses sleep the way Eos had missed sunlight.
He wanders through the halls and high chambers of his palace at night, his footsteps echoing through galleries of his ancestors while their spirits accompany him in silence and in mayhem. From moonless nights to small hours drenched in silver light, Noctis Lucis Caelum, the King of Light, chases the ends of the boundless darkness in his mind.
Ignis, his Hand, his advisor, the first of his Kingsglaive, waits for him at the elevator to the Royal Wing. The magic surviving in him senses the same exhaustion in his advisor’s bones that he feels in his very being. Ignis misses sleep the way he was missing light in another life that haunts Noctis in his dreams.
He enters his chambers and motions at him to come along. They share many nights in quiet company, sitting side by side in front of the gold warmth of his fireplace with each a cup as their hearts count back to sunrise or poring over papers of whatever awaits them in daylight. He finds a stillness in Ignis’ presence that quiets his mind, an intrinsically open door in his sharp green eyes without an ounce of judgment that sees and accepts the whole of him, even the parts he won’t communicate.
Sometimes I can’t sort out everything I have seen in the Crystal, he admits one night. Ignis looks up from his empty cup, eyes betraying almost nothing of the surprise he feels at hearing Noctis bringing it up.
Would it help to talk about it, he asks cautious and kind. Noctis knows his question does not have an ounce of selfish curiosity because Ignis Scientia will never breach a line, no matter how vague it has become in nearly three decades of shared life.
I saw my ancestors, he tells him. I saw wars waged across fields of sylleblossoms. I saw the stone arches of Duscae trembling beneath the feet of the Astrals. I saw kings and queens ruling Lucis as their lives were drained by the Ring to one day serve a king they would never meet.
He raises his hand, the Ring on his finger glinting in the gilded light. So that the King could defeat an enemy created by the very Gods they worshipped. He deflates, his hand dropping.
I saw, he meets Ignis’ eyes, his voice subdued and mournful. I saw my own death, he tells him. Impaled at the throne by my father’s sword.
A flash of pain flickers in Ignis’ eyes and he looks down, his jaw clenching with restraint. Noctis reaches for his hand on his knee, ungloved in the night with protocol abandoned and tightened into a fist over his plain bedclothes. I know, of all people, you know the weight of a vision the best, he tells him gently. Ignis clears his throat and Noctis knows that he is swallowing around the flash of memory imparted unto him by Pryna. That’s why I would never think to ask, Ignis returns quietly, his hand relaxing under his King’s.
Noctis lets out a breath through his nose, looking down. Gold of flames and the silver of moonlight embrace his cup on either side as he puts it back on the table. He lifts his eyes up at the ceiling, listening to splitting wood and watching the dance of light across stone and marble. Shadows move among high arches, hypnotic and slow like Liches hovering midair in the groves of Myrlwood. His thumb skirts across the band of the Ring on his left hand. I saw you too Ignis, he says into the glow as the silver of the moon folds itself in the hollows of firelight. His magic quivers within and Ignis draws a quick breath beside him. Me, Noct? he asks, voice hesitant and low.
I saw your fight with Ardyn, Noctis says, reliving. I saw how badly you were hurt. I saw him throw blade after blade at you. Dozens, maybe a hundred, he shakes his head, voice cracking for the first time, a nigh inaudible fray none would notice, save for his Hand. He nearly killed you, he meets Ignis’ gaze. But you had the ring and you stood before him. You told him that this world meant nothing to you, that he could do with it whatever he wished and that… you would-, Noctis stumbles with a shaky exhale, unable to continue.
That I would not let him take you away. Even if it cost me my own life to save yours, I would pay that price, Ignis finishes for him and although Noctis knew deep in his heart that the vision was true, hearing Ignis say the words kicks the air out of his lungs. His shoulders sag as his heart twists in agony and breathless hope. The winter night holds its breath in quiet premonition and Noctis looks into the ever-steady green of his advisor’s eyes, seeing the whole of him in return.
A part of him breaks asunder at the realization that although his fate had been ordained and he had lived for twenty years without being told that he was meant to die and although he himself had resigned to it in the end, was ready and willing to be the sacrifice the world needed, Ignis was the only person who had chosen him, chosen Noctis and not the prophesized King of Light, over the world. They had all loved him, he knew in the filaments of his still-beating heart, his father and Luna, Gladio and Prompto, Cor and Iris and everyone else, they had rallied for him, fought for him, sacrificed for him and mourned for his death even before his fate had claimed him and yet, Ignis was the only one to defy Gods and his ancestors to keep him alive, only one to renounce his fate, no matter the cost. The only one to try.
It was Ignis that had saved him.
Noctis doesn’t realize he is crying until he feels tears fall. Ignis opens his mouth, almost reaching out before he stops himself. His hand goes up to his own heart instead, clutching his shirt around a deep inhale. Noctis, he whispers and Noctis realizes that his magic is reaching for him, vibrating in sparks, as weak as it is, responding to the King’s heart. Why, he asks without any attempt to hide his tears. The magic in him aches.
Ignis draws a tremulous breath and blinks a few times, firelight gleaming off the emotion in his eyes. I will not disrespect you by offering you anything but honesty, he tells him, voice hoarse and tight. He holds his gaze. Those were my true feelings. And if I were to make the same choice today, Ignis reaches for his King’s hand, taking it in both of his. He brushes a thumb over the Ring of Lucii and his sacrifice echoes in Noctis’ mind, both memory and vision, the searing pain of his death, eyes of spring green glazed in ghastly white and the crumbling body in his arms he knows he couldn’t save so many other times. I would again, pay the price, whatever the cost, Ignis says and Noctis lets out a sound shot between a huff and a sob, smiling through tears. He touches Ignis’ face with his free hand. This is the first time I am seeing you cry, he whispers. He doesn’t add, in this life.
Ignis sighs and clenches his jaw with the effort to hold back. It isn’t the first time you have brought tears to my eyes, he says and Noctis runs his fingers under his eyes, feather-like, wiping his tears away. Through shuddering breaths and the sounds of cracking wood, they sit turned to each other, foreheads inches away, Noctis’ hand in Ignis’ as the magic flows through them in tides.
I want to show you something, Noctis says, pulling back to look at him. Ignis meets his gaze and Noctis sees a boundless depth in his eyes, all of him bared and open without guard for him to see and his heart springs alight and he remembers the first time he had lifted off the ground in the Regalia, the memory of flight suddenly razor sharp.
He holds Ignis’ hand in both of his, and summons the magic of the Ring. It doesn’t come nearly as easily as it used to so he breathes and focuses, pulling on the spidery threads of all that’s left of his magic into the Ring.
A flash of light and Ignis gasps. Before his eyes, memories of Noctis’ childhood gush in colors, reflected within luminous shards of glass, dozens of memories of him, playing with, eating with, sleeping with Ignis, dozens more of them studying together, training together, sneaking out of the Citadel, arguing over rules and protocol, come into focus and disperse, bringing with it light and sound. Flashes of memories unfold as they get older, Noctis watching him cook, savoring his dishes, asking his father’s Glaives when Ignis would be back from school, falling asleep holding his hand.
Six, Ignis whispers, voice wrecked, unable to stop himself. His hands are shaking.
Noctis shows him memories of their journey to Altissia, endless hours of car rides and meals they have shared, every moment he had nearly lost his mind with panic in a battle when Ignis was hurt, the pride of sharing his Armiger for the first time with all of them, the way he felt such a sharp, selfish joy at watching him wield the Katana of the Warrior. Falling asleep against him in the back seat of the Regalia. Reaching for him in the tents when his grief for his father was too much to bear.
Memories of their lives shimmer like crystals in the glow of silver light. Noctis’ eyes burn crimson with old magic as he allows Ignis into his heart, pouring into him all of he has ever been as his magic whispers around them, tangling in the firelight and casting quivering shadows on the walls. He ferries him through his memories as Ignis holds onto him tight, crying in earnest now, green eyes as vast as the Cygillan Ocean. He takes him all the way to the Zegnautus Keep where he found him dying on the floor with the Ring on his hand. But the memory shifts and rebuilds itself as Noctis calls upon his father. Through its glowing folds, the voice of late King Regis Lucis Caelum takes hold, clear and strong. Noctis closes his eyes.
I know you are angry, Regis says. But you must uphold this as your duty to the Kingdom.
Isn’t this supposed to be my choice, a younger Noctis counters, just nineteen.
I wish it could be, his father says softly. If there was another way, I would not ask this of you.
You can’t force me to do this, I don’t care what’s at stake.
We both know you don’t mean that... I thought you cared for her, King Regis says after a pause.
I do. But it’s not-, Noctis replies. That doesn’t mean I want to marry her.
I’ve already explained-, King Regis tries.
I know what you explained, his son protests. Why should I be the person to do this? You act like the world will end if I don’t. Why… how is it fair that, you get to be with the person you love and I- I have to-
The memory spins within the shards as silence falls.
Ignis doesn’t breathe.
The King’s magic holds.
I am sorry, I didn’t mean to-, the young Noctis mutters.
No, Noctis. You are right, Regis says after a sigh. I was lucky to have your mother. As brief as our marriage was, she had been my closest friend for many years. There is a heavy pause.
I know I am asking a lot from you. Every day of my life, I live with the thought of the burden I am placing on your shoulders, the weight you will have to carry soon. The King says, voice full of sorrow.
We are Kings. And sometimes, we have to let go of things we love the most for the sake of everyone else.
Neither the father nor the son talks for a long moment. Then Noctis speaks, his voice broken and overcome, I don’t want to let him go.
Within the gleam of memories, Ignis stares at his King through tears he will no longer hide. Noctis tugs on the filaments of his magic, eyes aglow, and his father's voice echoes across a decade, grievous and kind.
Noctis, listen to me. We are approaching a time where you will soon have to take my place, sooner than neither of us would have liked, as it is my greatest regret that I couldn't be as much a father to you as I was a King to Lucis.
The magic wavers, weakening. Noctis feels every moment of his life across all of time, throbbing in his larynx.
But the end is inevitable, for all of us. I've made my peace with it. And it is my biggest comfort that you have him by your side. I know that he is to you, what your mother was to me. And a bond like that is not breakable. No matter where your fate takes you, whatever dangers may be on your path and whoever stands beside you, you will never lose him.
The crystalline shards of the memory slow their spinning around them and listlessly come to a stop. At once, they shatter into a hundred pieces like morning rime; specks of tinsels shimmering in the soft golden light as they dissipate.
The light of the Ring of Lucii dims. Noctis’s eyes return to their quiet pale blue.
The fire sighs.
Moonlight listens.
Ignis kisses him.
It is the warmth of first sunrise in his hands, burning on his lips. Noctis breathes him in as his hands cradle wet cheeks. Their shadow falls on the floors of gilded marble, entwined and captive, as they find each other at last, both haunted by memory and darkness but aflame in each other’s hold. It is slow, aches like the enduring stillness of healing, and sinks deep, deeper than their skin, with the complete abandon of belonging. They hold one another for so long, the firelight dims out in the hearth, the moon withdrawing before the silent arrival of dawn, leaving them in the misty haze of early bright. Noctis learns that Ignis kisses the way he advises, the way he protects, the way he lives; with all of his being. His magic coils around the heart of the man he loves as his fingers bury themselves in his hair and it is in the softness of his eyes, he finds the light that eludes him even in the morning.
Day finds them nestled before the embers of the firelight, wrapped in each other, chairs close, legs slotted, only a breath’s distance in between.
I want to be with you, Noctis says, quiet against his ear, dizzy with the warmth of him.
As do I, Ignis says, a hand in his King’s hair, the other woven through his.
Noctis pulls back, surprised. You won’t argue? he asks.
Ignis gives him a gentle smile. No, I won’t.
Noctis runs his fingers through the fringes at the crown of his head, watching him close his eyes at his touch. I’d prepared a speech, he tells him, light and tender.
Eyes of viridian green, alight under the encroaching sun find his. To convince me? Ignis asks with a soft smile, leaning his head into his King’s hand, faces close.
Yeah, Noctis says, watching him watch his lips before leaning in to kiss him, dazed still, that he can. It feels as endless as time, taking him in. As if nothing had existed before and would exist after but the taste of him in his mouth, the heat of him on his lips. He echoes through him and all the times that live within. I was sure you would say something about how I am the King and you are the advisor.
Ignis gazes at him for a long time, before lifting both hands to hold his King’s face. I have lost you once, he says mournful and full of so much love Noctis shudders against him, heart ablaze with a searing swell of emotion. I have watched you die and I have walked Eos in total darkness for a decade, from one corner to the other, waiting for you to come back without knowing whether I’d lose you again. His expression strains, brows furrowing. Hell with court etiquette and protocol, he breathes, making a dismissive gesture with his head. If you want me, Noct, I will not deny you this and I will not deny myself my heart’s greatest desire, as it has been for as long as I remember.
Behind him, dawn spills over Insomnia in full, winter sunlight pouring into its streets and alleyways, reflecting off the windows of the Citadel.
The King’s magic thrums within the Hand’s heart as Noctis quiets his own against his lips. They wind into each other until they are gasping for breath and then hush within the ascending light, holding one another close.
Your speech was better than mine, Noctis says as they watch the Citadel awaken.
I have had a lot of time to practice, Ignis smiles. He lifts his head from Noctis’ on his shoulder and brings his King’s hand to his lips. I would still like to hear yours, he tells him.
It isn't as impressive, Noctis hums.
Indulge me.
Noctis turns their hands and mirroring his gesture, brings Ignis’ knuckles to his lips with reverence, pressing a soft kiss before meeting his gaze. I love you, Ignis, says Noctis as the once Prince, as the King of Light and as the man, without distinction and an end. His magic shimmers and he can smell sylleblossoms in the air.
Ah, I see. Ignis draws an unsteady breath, swallowing tightly before he smiles, warmer than the memories of the summer sun in Altissia Noctis can still feel on his skin. That, is quite a compelling argument, he says at last and Noctis smiles into the green of his eyes.
I had a lot of time to practice.