Chapter Text
He clicked his tongue, almost as if he was disappointed. A familiar amber gaze was fixed on her, the last woman standing in the middle of a village in flames. It didn’t seem so long ago that she had tried to rush in with the two people lying next to her in puddles of blood and black ooze to help the very man who was now staring down at her with a cold expression and a snarling smile on his lips.
“Too bad. You were so close this time, dearest Aranea. Mayhap if the King of Light were a person that already existed, you could have won.” There was black blood running down his face, staining his all too familiar clothes, and she choked. Whether it was on the fumes of the fire or on her own blood, she wasn’t sure. “Alas, that person is not here. Is not born. Perhaps the Six have abandoned you as they have abandoned me; and you are simply forced to live through failure after failure, lining up endlessly until they decide it is time for their new Chosen to arrive.”
She gagged and spat out blood. Her sight was swimming and the noise was already dimming out, but she had to say one thing before sleep took her again until the next Awakening. “Even… so… we have to… try… Highness.”
He slowly dragged his fingers across a deep cut on his face and looked at the black blood that now covered his fingertips. He looked rather disgusted for a moment, before waving his hand a little and turning around.
“The Accursed and his dishonest little retainers, and both of them spew lies just as these houses spew flames. I shall see you next time you awaken, Aranea.”
She collapsed, choking and gagging helplessly as blood filled her lungs and the world vanished into familiar white noise.
Aranea Animosa was no fool. That, her sharp wit, and her excelling skill with a lance had granted her a high position in the royal guard before one of the princes begrudgingly accepted his mother’s orders and picked up another two people to become his retainer for the next trip around the kingdom. She hadn’t even desired being picked, she had just arrived as her commander had ordered her to, almost as begrudgingly as the prince himself. Maybe that was how he managed to find her, with a scowl on her face and her eyebrows knitted together. She had better things to do than stand around in parade rest and wait for that sluggish young man to pick some unfortunate fools to come along with him. She let him know that much when she growled at him, and suddenly the irritated prince’s eyes lit up.
“Her. She will accompany me and mine.”
The other person – Aranea never learned his name – died about a week into the travels, throwing up black blood and sludge and convulsing violently under the prince’s gleaming hands.
It was about that time she opened up to this young man and his two companions and accepted her role as newest royal retainer.
She learned quickly that Ardyn Lucis Caelum was blessed with a most unusual power, one that he intended to use for good – as well as cursed with a half-brother whose competitive mother and second wife to the late king had ensured that said young man was equally nastily competitive. Granted, as Ignis Pacis told her one night at a campfire, it was to be expected from someone who was born to a Quasso; naturally Izunia Lucis Quasso would be nearly as competitive as his mother.
In fact, she learned a lot more about the world at large thanks to tagging along to the prince – her first curious but kind of idiotic question to Ardyn had been about his two last names. Apparently it was tradition that the royal last name was to be passed down, making everything kind of awkward-sounding, but that stood true for nearly every royal or high-up family across all of Eos. Given that Aranea, Ignis and Cor were commoners they had only their normal last name.
“Really, ‘twould be much easier if they just let me go as Ardyn Caelum – they insist on the Lucis, however.”
Years passed, and Aranea had to admit that it might have been for the best for her to arrive that day with a scowl and a growl. Despite all attempts, Ardyn had refused any more retainers ever since – he said he preferred a tiny group that did not attract too much attention out in the wild and in villages, and that he trusted his three more than anyone else. It would be an understatement to simply call them retainers; the three of them were warriors. Cor Vigilis was ruthless and skilled in combat when he needed to be and otherwise looked completely unassuming. Ignis Pacis was a devious tactician with a certain knack for magic. Aranea herself was swift on her feet and deadly from above. Between these three the prince barely had to do any defending.
Ardyn was more than grateful for that when his power waned and wavered the longer his travels continued. Whenever they were back in the capital he spent hours at the crystal, which neither of the three were allowed to approach. In the last year Ardyn had looked nothing but ill.
He was pale to begin with, but his entire face was ashen nowadays. He barely slept, he barely ate, and was dangerously thin. Yet he insisted on continuing his travels, claiming that the capital was too choking with his mother dead, his half-brother taking care of their deathly sick father, and his step-mother raging like a harpy because she had gotten thrown out of the castle. The retainers had agreed with hesitation, and still made certain he was as safe as one could be in the wilderness.
The campfire crackled quietly in the fair summer night, and Aranea leaned backwards a little. The silence that covered the haven was occasionally interrupted by a shuffling noise and the odd quiet groan, but otherwise no one else spoke for a good while. The stars above seemed to glimmer stronger than usual – which never was a good sign. It told stories of a gods’ choice; even though none of them had been born when Solheim had fallen there were elders still alive that told of the quiet nights with a bright star-blazed sky on the night before the fall. She could see that Ignis noticed that too, and the silence became an uneasy one once they realised that they were all thinking about the very same thing.
It was Cor who eventually broke the silence by clearing his throat.
“… He doesn’t have much time left.”
Ignis sighed heavily. “We know that. Black blood is usually the last stage before a transformation.”
The fact he was already uncomfortable in a haven was enough of a warning sign, one that had manifested nearly a year ago. The people seemed to pick up on something being wrong, though they never really guessed it correctly and were still grateful for his help. The Starscourge was not a sickness to be taken lightly. That was what Ardyn always insisted on saying, no matter where they went, no matter which run-down crying mother begged him for help.
The three retainers sighed in unison and looked over to their protégé prince. They had been called back to the capital, urgently. Which only meant one thing: the king was on his deathbed. Izunia’s tone in the letter had suggested the selfsame thing, seeing as it had been written with a shaky hand. Even so… Ardyn hesitated. He seemed unwilling to return to Insomnia, to his dying father and his half-brother. They had no idea why the man would hesitate like that until a few days ago. And it was a truth they wished they had never learned.
Black blood, running down Ardyn’s face, mixed together with equally black tears – it was a terrifying thing to behold, and it had taken Aranea a fair share of power to not run away screaming. In the end her loyalty and the bond with her liege had won the internal fight she had had there on that very spot over the corpse of the slain Garula.
It also explained why the usually tame creatures had suddenly attacked.
The campfire crackled. It would be a sound that Aranea would come to love and loathe at the same time in the years to come.
The return to Insomnia was eerily quiet, and the castle was just about as empty. Ardyn was leaning onto Cor and eyed the white curtains.
Finally when footsteps clicked on the floor, they all froze with a certain sense of foreboding. It was Izunia Lucis Quasso, completely on his own. Izunia never went anywhere on his own, he was always followed at least by one retainer. Ardyn’s near blank stare grew dark for a second as he turned to face his younger half-brother and got nailed with a glare in return.
“He passed several sunrises ago.”
“I figured as much.” Compared to the clear and deep voice of Izunia, Ardyn’s sounded like he was minutes away from hacking out his own lungs in a coughing fit. “I--”
The normally rather shy Izunia suddenly raised his hand to shut his half-brother up. Something was wrong here, and the three retainers cringed slightly.
“You are requested by the council, Ardyn. I am to bring you there – alone.” He then clapped his hand, and a young man bearing the colour of Izunia’s personal guard hurried in. “Gemmae, please show my dear brother’s retainers where they can rest.”
The three of them watched as Ardyn slowly followed his brother. The skittish young man Izunia had called ‘Gemmae’ on the other hand nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Good grief. He’s barely half your age,” Ignis whispered to Cor as they followed the poor blonde who was no doubt very uncomfortable leading them to some unused quarters. He started shifting his weight again once he stood still, which made his messy blonde hair bounce around strangely. That guy was way too pale for Aranea’s tastes. Everything about this was filled with warning signs, and the poor young man seemed wholly incapable of not nearly breaking into tears as he unlocked that door to let them in. She looked at Ignis and Cor, who were looking back at her with a scowl and knitted eyebrows respectively – they too noticed something very odd about this. Aranea tilted her head to silently ask the de-facto leader of this group what to do, but all Cor did was shake his head.
Which meant they were to play along to this mess.
Surely enough, as soon as they thanked Gemmae and entered the room, the young man shut the door behind them and locked the door.
“Fantastic.” Ignis just sunk into a chair and rubbed his temples. “They swept His Highness away, and locked us up. What does that tell us?”
“We’re in trouble.”
“That’s saying it too nicely, Cor,” Aranea shrugged, “I’d say we’re in deep shit this time around.”
They remained in there for several days. It would have been so very easy to knock down their poor guard whenever he opened the door to give them rather fancy food, but they collectively elected against it. It would only cause Ardyn more trouble than they were worth, and so they remained. Eventually even Gemmae started questioning it and went as far as leaving the door open to speak to them on the eighth day.
“… Why?”
“Why what?”
He fidgeted. “You could have killed me seventy times over by now and escaped without anyone even caring about the fact that there’s a dead body sprawled on the ground. So… why?”
That poor kid, was Aranea’s first thought. He looked positively terrified; which apparently Izunia had known and assigned him that very spot. Perhaps he was counting on the fact that they would break out and trample over this poor servant. It made sense that Cor saw through that and thus gave the silent order to not do precisely as the other prince had thought they would react.
“We are not animals that spill blood for spilling blood’s sake.” That was all Cor had to say for the poor servant to choke back a sob.
The door slammed shut but they heard the blonde lean slam himself against the door and starting to cry in earnest out there. The three of them stood around kind of clueless, until at last Ignis moved. He was the youngest, and though none of them had siblings he knew how to handle someone younger than him. A soft knock.
“Gemmae.”
A choke.
“Did whoever ordered you to watch us claim that we were monsters?”
“… Yes.”
Cor and Aranea shared a mildly alarmed look.
“Who ordered us locked away?”
“...”
It was easy enough to guess – Izunia, seeing as Gemmae wore the colours of what was referred to as Crownsguard. The same colours that Aranea, Cor and Ignis sported whenever they were in the capital for longer than a few days. They heard the boy inhale slowly as he got up again and opened the door slowly. He looked thoroughly spooked.
“’Prompto,’ I was told, ‘those people are the same as him.’ I wish I had the courage to stand up to that, but I… I…”
Aranea raised her hand. “Him?”
“… H-His… His Highness Ardyn.”
She dropped her arm. All of a sudden she thought she heard the campfire crackle again, was moments away from having a familiar conversation with Cor and Ignis – she saw that the two of them thought of the same thing nearly immediately. Cor shut his eyes. Ignis curled his hands into fists.
“I-I…” A deep inhale. Prompto Gemmae still looked terrified, but at least somewhat more composed when he stepped into the room. “They will have told him that you betrayed him. Just as they told me that you are monsters.”
“Never!”
“Over my dead body!”
“What!?”
For someone quite literally scared out of his mind, Prompto managed to hold himself together quite well. It was something Aranea could appreciate; normally children and young adults that scared were bound to start screeching and running as she had learned during her travels. Prompto did nothing of the sort, an unusual paragon of collectedness.
“They found him guilty of treason, I heard. Master Izunia was shrieking about it for a day straight, and I think several servants paid for… foolish interference… with their lives. The crystal apparently… the crystal rejected your liege. Our liege. The one the king named his true heir upon his passing. They… the council… called for his execution.”
Icy silence. Aranea found herself standing in the back row in parade rest as the prince slunk around with a glare. She saw him grin at her once more, heard Cor and Ignis call for him and the four of them travelling the lands together. Saw the countless villages and villagers that begged for his help, how he still offered them his hands even though he was swaying and stumbling, even though exhaustion marred his face. All the times he bled for them, all the times he nearly died for them. All of that, all the sacrifices he made… for this?
“Wait! Wait, wait, wait. This is the eighth day or us being in here. They should have questioned us before sentencing him, we have spent years with him,” Ignis said, his voice barely shaking. Aranea once more found herself admiring his composition even in the worst situations. “Normally the eighth day… Gemmae!”
The blonde buried his face in his hands. “It is today. It has possibly already started.”
“No! Gemmae, we will have to--”
The door fell shut behind them. All four of them tossed themselves against it with a yell, but the only thing that answered them was the click of the door being locked again.
An hour passed. They were all four sitting on the floor in a circle, hands pressed together in silent prayer. Maybe the Six would answer them. Maybe the Six would call this off, save their chosen Healer, help him.
There was no answer. Another ten minutes passed, and Cor got up. The window in this room was sealed, and jumping out of it was simply impossible anyway. They would have died, impaled on spikes, or broken their necks. Still, he walked over to the window, his hands again clasped together. Seeing that alone was enough to drive Aranea near mad – he had never been one for fervent prayer and begging the gods for help.
He opened his mouth, apparently to say something, but before he could he dove out of the way with a scream. The window shattered as an Armiger weapon drenched in fire and blood burst through it and embedded itself in the wall.
The four royal retainers stared at the weapon as it burst into glittering shards – but the damage had been done. The curtains had caught fire, and it ate through the cloth and the wood around this place faster than they could react. They were trapped, in a room on fire.
Prompto was sobbing again, Ignis was patting his shoulders. Cor had his face buried in his hands.
Aranea prayed. She simply begged the Six to not let this life she had end like this – it had been a dream, a good dream, but she didn’t want to awaken in fire.
‘Open your eyes. Your prayer has reached Our ears, servants. The Six refused, the Seventh answered. While we could not grant the wish you begged for, we can grant you another power instead. Sleep, for now, sleep. You will awaken again, until time sweeps you here again. When the four of you are reunited in this place, again shall the tide carry you off, until the man we call Accursed will be swept along with you.”
She awoke to a familiar crackle, a familiar campfire. Aranea groaned and squeezed her eyes shut again, only to be nudged with a foot.
“Get up. We won’t have long ere the cycle pulls us back in.”
“I don’t want to, Ignis. It’s been six lifetimes and we’re still where we began – hells, he got madder between this time and the last time.”
She opened her eyes to stare at Ignis Pacis with contempt, but found him instead sitting next to her. The campfire crackled and she turned her head a little to see Cor Vigilis with his face buried in his hands. The man had died second this time around, taking a blow intended for her.
“Madder between this and last time…?” He quietly muttered into his hands, and Aranea finally sat up to look at her fellow former retainers. Out of the corner of her eyes she caught one more person on the edge of the haven that was the place they washed up on before the cycle pulled them back in.
“He said that we were close. Claimed that maybe the Six abandoned us like they abandoned him.”
Awkward silence spread across the haven as the other one moved in slowly, with the young man sitting down next to Cor and putting a hand on his back. “The Healer continues trying to fight his blood, then?”
“More like,” Aranea gestured at the older man who had moved in from the shadows, “he’s trying to keep himself from fighting it. Surely, he took us out like we were nothing, but we are not in those old days of all of us serving the royal family any longer. I was just a farmer’s daughter, for Shiva’s sake!”
Ignis hummed. “True. I was a farmer’s son as well. No training, no skills other than farming. What about you two?”
Cor groaned and dropped his hands. “Healer. Though people are starting to call these menders, or in some Niff regions ‘doctors’. No fighting, but I could mend broken bones.”
“Bred cattle,” Prompto Gemmae muttered as he patted Cor’s back slowly, “I didn’t want to follow the current Lucis Caelum’s call to arms and got executed for my troubles. I’ve been here for a while, all on my own. I kind of feel bad saying that it is good to see you all, but it.. is good to know I didn’t wash up here all on my own for all eternity.”
Aranea Animosa, royal retainer of Ardyn Lucis Caelum, had to hold herself back from shrieking. They were getting effectively nowhere, and their waking time was running out now that all four of them were here. Indeed, as soon as she opened her mouth she caught a glimmer on the edge of the campsite. All four of them stiffened and bowed their heads as the lesser known seventh Astral trotted onto the campsite and swept its long tail across the ground in one fluid motion as it sat down.
‘So you return yet again.’
In the distance she saw the telltale signs of unused, uninhabited havens against the dark, star-filled sky, and Aranea wondered if there were any others. Every time they ended up as complete group again there were no others. They could not leave this haven, the very last haven she had ever rested on in peace. The campfire crackled in the same way as it had back then, and she was certain that one day she would be able to laugh here again… but today was not that day. She still tasted her own blood slightly, and she narrowed her eyes at the Astral.
“Was there even a point this round around,” she hissed, “or are you indeed trying to play us for fools?”
‘We cannot change fate of blood non-royal. Whence you go forth from here you accept the fact that you might just return here mere hours later, for your new life died ere it began.’
A familiar haze set in, and Aranea shook her head. She couldn’t allow herself to fall asleep now. Beside her, her companions too tried to shake off the sudden sleepiness.
It was Cor who fought it off enough to raise his voice again. “Just… just one question...”
‘So speak.’
“The King of Light… will they be there… Carbuncle?”
‘We cannot tell. Neither can the Accursed. Nor can you. Only Bahamut knows, and he sleeps. All we do is watch the dreamers return whence they came, ensure their sleep until their memory awakens is peaceful, and see them off when they wash up here once more.’