#;an innocent smile holds dark secrets

[secret-engima]

Ardyn doesn't know his own strength and accidentally helps Niflheim topple Insomnia like, eleven years too early. So he scoops his tiny would-be killer out of the rubble and smuggles him to the Nox Fleurets, presumably to stash for a few years--only, Tenebrae soon falls too, with the rumors of them harboring Prince Noctis (who the Emperor rather badly wants dead, as the Crystal still. won't. accept. him). So now Ardyn has to figure out how to semi-raise Noct into something NOT hopelessly (1/2)

alyss-spazz-penedo

said:

(2/2) civilian and strong enough to fight the gods and fulfill the Prophecy, even as he definitely still hates the child and would quite enjoy seeing him suffer. On Noct's part, he totally knows who Ardyn is and what he wants (thanks Luna), and sure he's glad he wasn't cut down in the raid on the mansion but he's SO unhappy to see Ardyn again.

Me: Oh my word do you even KNOW how angsty I could make this ask? DO YOU EVEN KNOW????? Of course you do you just want to see me suffer.

But just- this could get SO DARK. So abusive. So brutal and even though I would not go full dark there’s still so much ANGST no matter how you look at it.

The worst part is I actually have a bby AU very much like this. Does anyone remember the slightly unstable Imperial!Noctis that showed up in my All Nocti Dissidia AU blurb?

This is basically him.

A Noctis who grew up having lost his home TWICE. First Insomnia, then Tenebrae, both to the same Empire and the same Accursed, and then the Accursed had to RAISE HIM and it was- it was hard. It was brutal. Ardyn raised this Noctis to be a weapon strong enough to destroy him, a politician cunning enough to overthrow him, a scientist smart enough to outthink even Besithia. His only light was Luna, who Ardyn allowed to visit to keep Noctis on his “destined path”, and partially Aranea, who drifted into the young “Chancellor’s Nephew” orbit out of happenstance and then later pity, because she could see the brittle sharp glint in the boy’s eyes and knew an abusive situation when she saw it, and if him hiding in her airship sometimes gave him respite, if that was all she could do to help because Ardyn wasn’t someone she could arrest-.

She tried. At least. She did what she could.

And one of the most angsty bits of this is-

In some warped way, Ardyn and Noctis grow to love each other. Because there are days when Ardyn’s sickness loosens it’s hold enough to let bits of the Healer King and Big Brother shine through, and his touch becomes gentle and his teasing words lose their poison, his hands card through Noctis’s hair and do not scrape at his scalp, and when he speaks of Prophecy there is longing there for rest and repentance rather than poison and mockery for the fate that awaits them both. This is the Ardyn that peaks through when Noctis falls sick after climbing up a mountain in a snowstorm for training, or when he’s too sore to move after a night battling in Ardyn’s daemon training arena learning how to forcibly purify the creatures even though purification is Luna’s magic and not his. This is the Ardyn that holds Noctis close sometimes and sobs apologies into his limp, shivering nephew’s hair because he is aware, at least for a moment, that this child-teen-young-adult is not Somnus and does not deserve to be molded into a weapon of Astral and Accursed alike. This is the Ardyn that Noctis calls Uncle and bitterly, angrily loves in his heart, the one he looks for in the Chancellor’s every morning and quietly mourns when he cannot find him.

The Accursed trains and molds a weapon, a politician, a cunning, sharp mind that can rival his own and someday kill him.

But it’s the little bits and pieces of Ardyn that raise Noctis, a king and a nephew and a son that holds on to the morals Luna gives him with an iron grip, that makes sure Noctis is not completely drowned beneath the Chosen King.

And in the end it is the work of both sides, Accursed and Healer King, that raise up the one who saves the world. It is the Accursed who forged the weapon that hunts down the weapons of the Lucii and steals the lost ring, who steps into the Crystal without flinching and comes out ready to kill.

But it is Noctis who spent years stealing away children from Besithia’s labs so they would not become MT units, who fosters the rebellion and organizes the factions of Lucian, Galahdian, Altissian, Tenebraen, and Niflheim rebels so that they become a more cohesive whole that the Empire cannot isolate and crush beneath it’s boot. It is Noctis who sometimes sneaks into Luna’s rooms at night so that they can just- hold each other, so that Luna can run gentle fingers down his back and remind him what it means to be human, not a weapon, not the King of Light, who shows him the innocent people he must protect and proves to him that they are worth fighting for and keeping safe when it would be so much EASIER to just wage his war and not care about the collateral.

It is Noctis who teaches his stolen not-MT units to be people and to stay safe, Noctis who clings to the sunshine soul of the one who names himself Prompto and follows on his heels into the maw of Ardyn’s brutal training without flinching. It is Noctis who finds Lucis’s Marshal Immortal deep in one of Niflheim’s dungeons and arranges for the rebellion (his rebellion) to break him out. Who gives the Galahdians his magic in the dead of night with a ghoulish mask and cloak to keep his identity hidden from them. It is Noctis who finds the Last Amicitia leading a rebel cell and offers him hope and gains in accidental exchange a protector and Shield. It is Noctis that is tracked down by a young man with glasses and green eyes and loyalty in every fiber, a man who says “I know you are our secret leader, let me help you” and Noctis who is still human enough to be grateful and say yes.

It is Noctis who orchestrated the Empire’s downfall long before he stepped into Crystal, and who’s forces have hemmed and imprisoned the Accursed in the ruins of Noctis’s first home during the ten years he is gone.

It is Noctis, not the Chosen King (weapon, war beast, broken tool) who gently pillows Ardyn’s head in his lap and pets red-violet hair and sings ancient, long-forgotten lullabies as the Accursed (his tormentor, his Uncle, his worst nightmare, his parent) breathes his last.

It is Noctis who ascends the throne of an Empire and reclaims the Crystal (with Luna and a Retinue at his side to keep him from becoming as heartless as the Chosen King that was forged from him) rather than rolling over and dying, because Ardyn gave him training and honed his mind and gave him access to all of Besithia’s knowledge, did he really think Noctis wouldn’t look for a way to weaken and end the Scourge without sacrificing himself for it?

(He thinks perhaps that Ardyn didn’t, that his Uncle-captor-Chancellor-father always intended him to find a loophole in the Prophecy so that he would survive, that even when buried underneath the Accursed, the Healer King still fought to protect the last of his family)

(Then he clutches the cane he has to lean on ever since that final battle and goes to find some wine, because he does not want to think those thoughts. They hurt even worse than his limp and his joints and the lifetime of scars he hides under elaborate black tattoos.)

There.

THERE.

ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

Or do you want me to ramble about how Cor feels the day he finally meets the mysterious head of the rebellion, who is now the emperor and how he’s suspicious and willing to keep fighting if this man turns out to be corrupt, because he’s heard this is the Chancellor’s nephew, only to feel his heart stop when he sees the profile of the man leaning heavily on a cane and thinks for one second it’s Regis’s ghost before realizing this man is younger and clean-shaven and dressed in a way that shows off the elaborate, scar-hiding tattoos on his arms and shoulders. How he makes some noise in his throat and when their mysterious Chosen turns to look at him Cor finds himself looking into armiger blue eyes and Regis’s face if it had been softened by Aulea’s jawline and made borderline feral by a lifetime of intrigue and abuse thinly veiled as training.

And Cor whispers the name of his best friend’s long-dead son, and the new Emperor’s eyes sharpen as he says, “How do you know my real name? I never told anyone outside my Retinue.” And something in Cor twists with realization.

And there’s also the realizations of Ignis and Gladio years earlier, who don’t KNOW at first who Noctis really is to them until he trusts them enough to reveal his magic and they realize THIS IS THEIR PRINCE. This is their long lost charge who they thought was dead, but has instead been raised by the man who hates him most and yet loves him dearly by turns and all that entails.

And there’s also LUNA. Luna who doesn’t die, but who grows up watching the gentle, smiling boy she first met in Tenebrae get shaped and sharpened and molded into a Chosen King and a beast of war and a tool of destiny, who could so easily become a monster just like the Accursed in all but name, but who FIGHTS it every step of the way even as his light falls away and Luna becomes his only cornerstone for years. His only reminder that there is a life and a purpose outside the Accursed’s plans and the Prophecy that Luna grows to hate, because if it did not exist then the Accursed would have no interest in her friend.

Luna who cries with relief the day the not-MT named Prompto glues himself to Noctis’s side and refuses to leave, because there is an innocent, stubborn light to the boy’s eyes that gently draws Noctis out of the armor that is the Chosen King even when Luna is not there. Luna who rails at the Astrals (at Bahamut, who prevents Shiva and Ramuh from acting) because they can SEE what is happening, yet they will not step in to rescue him, because even now Ardyn is pushing Noctis toward his “destiny” and that is all that matters.

Luna who, years after all is said and done, after the Accursed is laid to final rest and Noctis slowly dissolves the Empire back into free and healthy kingdoms, still has to hold him when he shakes and still has to talk the icy, too-sharp glaze from his eyes when he forgets to be human rather than weapon. Who pushes golden magic into his body even though she knows some scars can never be healed, and who has to talk Noctis down with Ignis’s help from the heights of his utter, visceral horror the day she tells him she is pregnant and Noctis realizes he’s going to be a father, but that he doesn’t know how, because what role model for fatherhood has he ever had and remembered that wasn’t the very man who took his real father away and made him the fractured mess he is?

...

There I think I’m done being brutally angsty now.

Happy notes for an AU like this would be-

Noctis and Luna both live. Ignis does not go blind.

Noctis and Luna have like- five kids and Noctis adores them all once he gets over his visceral panic. He is the gentlest, kindest father. Luna and Ignis and Gladio have to do all the disciplining because Noctis will not raise a hand or voice to them ever, and he has never looked more peaceful then when he is napping with his children in the garden.

Prompto has like- several hundred brothers because Noctis stole bby MT’s whenever he could. Prompto is the unofficial “oldest” brother of them all (even though chronologically he isn't) since he has the ear of the king, and all the clones have fun making themselves unique via hair and accessories and tattoos and clothes and weird names.

Gladio and Aranea are snark buddies, and neither are entirely sure how they got married but they’re pretty sure it was Biggs’ and Wedge’s faults and that Ignis officiated (which isn’t too far off).

Cor gets to spoil all of Regis’s and Clarus’s grandkids like crazy.

Galahd gets rebuilt and gets to be it’s own country. Nyx Ulric and Crowe and all our other fav glaives live and aren’t traitors.

Titus Drautos was one of Noctis’s most loyal double-agents during the rebellion, and frankly he isn’t sure how his retirement still involves him braincelling his Galahdian idiots, but their islands are pretty and its far, far away from any and all Niflheim/Lucian politics so eh, he’ll take it. Now if Nyx would just STOP using him as a babysitting service for the adorable adopted bby Ulrics of his newly remade Clan, that would help his blood pressure so much.

[ghafahey]

looks as though we’re running out of words to say. | rated G

Alone in the quiet of her apartment, Maryse reflects on the things she has come to know recently and those she has always known.

She’s staring at the way the candle flame leaves dancing shadows on the wall when her phone chimes. Her thoughts are racing through the things Isabelle and Alec have told her, a jumbled knot she’s trying to untangle even as it raises an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

The things she’s heard about Heavenly Fire are bad enough but it seems to be even worse than she could have expected. With her children sitting opposite her, seeing the tired look in their eyes and the way life has put a strain on their shoulders (a weight she put there herself years ago) how could she let them run head first into this? A few months ago, it would have been about duty, about the family name and honor and how they would bring them all down to ruins she wouldn’t know how to raise up again. But now? Now after the things she’s learned and lost and realized she couldn’t care less about the Lightwood or Trueblood name as long as her children are safe and never have to feel the pain she had to. Never have to feel as hollow and useless as she did the day they burned her runes off with satisfaction and kicked her through a portal.

She knows they already played a dangerous game the past weeks and Heaven knows how delicate Alec’s position currently is – but even that doesn’t matter. If the Clave is ready to kill one of their own special forces guards to keep this a secret they wouldn’t blink twice at the chance to get rid of the children of two disgraced ex-Circle members who have been a thorn in their side for months now.

It’s selfish and wrong, she knows as she rubs at her temples to massage away the start of a headache. She should care about whatever is going on at the Gard, she should care about innocent lives lost and it’s not like she doesn’t. But she cares about her own children more. If that makes her selfish then so be it – she’s been called worse, has done worse.

("You didn't raise us like that", Alec had said with eyes full of that fury to right wrongs. But she had. She had taught them to keep away from Downworlders and to stick to the rules and to not question the Clave's authority. And her children, beautiful and braver than she could ever be, had turned around and slowly shaken apart the confines she had put them in. It's kind of them to claim otherwise but Maryse is no longer blind to her own short-comings as a mother.)

And it’s only recently that she had managed to finally step away from the shadows of her past mistakes and find a small pocket of lightness even with a fundamental part of herself missing. It’s only recently that she had gotten to hear Isabelle tell her she loves her for the first time in years. Only recently that Alec had hugged her close and handed her the key to an apartment with that soft smile she had seen him exchange with Magnus at their dinner. Only recently that Jace had called her ‘mom’ again and she had realized how long he must have held back. Only recently that-

And here her thoughts wander, away from exhaustion and worry to a warm smile and sure hands holding onto her waist and a desperate sort of hunger she hadn’t felt in years. As if Luke had not left her with enough to think about tonight the moment had been overshadowed by her children’s secret. But now in the dark quiet of her small apartment, the memory comes rushing back and with it a flutter, easing away the knots in her stomach and spreading its wings like she hasn’t felt for over twenty years.

If she’d let her thoughts wander further maybe they’d come across a moment similar to this, not quite there but on the brink of something and squashed before it could ever grow. Back at a time when she was young and sure she had all the answers and looked with a narrow-minded focus towards a future that never came. In the end though, maybe they had to live it like this to find their place now.

Without realizing it a smile has crept onto her lips and she runs her thumb over it, almost unfamiliar with the feeling of it.

Her phone chimes again as if to remind her. She picks it up and keeps smiling.

Lucian: Thank you again. I’d say we still make a pretty good team. Good night.

And Maryse can’t believe that after the day she’s had she laughs out loud at a simple text.

[clairelutra]

stars are falling all for us (1/1)

Summary: In which Noctis saves Luna. Ageswap!AU

(ao3 link)

When Noctis met Lady Lunafreya of Tenebrae, she was eight, and he was twelve.

He'd thought she was kind of weird at first, with her too-formal way of talking and her somber stare and her talk of Kings and Oracles and destinies, but then he'd decided to call her 'Luna' and it had made her giggle, and a piece of her had lodged itself so deep in his heart he'd never dig it back out again.

Not that he'd tried much.

The thing was... the Oracle was invincible. The Oracle was a child prodigy who pulled off miracle after feat after triumph, otherworldly magic and worldly salvation poured into the shell of a young girl. The Oracle had awakened Shiva when she was ten, had begun traveling to cure the Scourge when she was twelve, had become a public figurehead when she was fourteen.

In the eyes of the world, the Oracle wasn't quite human.

But Luna was just a girl.

And it was that Luna that wrote to him in their shared notebook. That Luna was scared of the whole world and forging through it anyway, sometimes confessing her worries in shaky handwriting and apologizing with borders of animal stickers, sometimes sheepishly asking for advice after barely packing a tightly scrawled story within the confines of the paper, sometimes covering her whole page with sketched flowers and mountains and people and letting her innocent musings and gentle poetry weave through the cracks.

She was delicate and precious and vulnerable and it drove him up the wall that no one else seemed to see it—or care.

But if advising her and cheerleading her in secret helped, he could do that. If she needed consoling or reassuring or sympathy, he could do that too. If offering to kick the ass of anyone who made her sad meant that he was offering to take on the whole world for her, well...

Someone had to do it.

But for eight long years, he was an ocean away. Words were all he had to give her, and the pain of helplessness set up shop right over that piece of her. She deserved all the good things in the world, deserved to be cherished and protected until she was ready, and if he could switch places her, he would do it in a heartbeat. If he could join her quest to keep her safe then that was all he dreamed of. If he could pay a price for her to wake up somewhere safe and warm with no prophesies or duties or pain to weigh on her slight shoulders, he'd have paid it ages ago.

And that was why he was so profoundly relieved to learn that they'd gotten engaged. Sure, it'd be on paper more than anything else, but even if he barely ever saw her, he could still do things like send the Kingsglaive with her, pay her way to better hotels, and make sure she had decent food on the road.

All he had to do was get to Altissia.

And then everything went to shit.

He wasn't quite paying as much attention as he probably should be to his battle with a literal god, but the altar where Luna stood was crumbling with every one of the Hydrean's brutal passes and he was milliseconds from warping down there, grabbing her, and getting the hell out, city be damned.

(The flicker of the look on her face when she'd met his eyes after her speech was still stuck in his mind—heartbreak and resignation and gratitude—and it was making him want to crawl out of his skin.)

But she was standing, standing, bleeding but standing, and there was a rampaging Astral in front of him who wasn't listening and technically he had bigger problems.

And then she wasn't standing anymore, stumbling to her knees and stilling, and Noctis went cold all over.

He was warping down before he'd made the conscious choice to do so.

A blink between and she was in her arms, unbearably fragile and terrifyingly cold.

"Noctis? The Hydrean—"

But Noctis was looking behind her.

"My, my. Saving the girl instead of the city? How downright heroic of you."

Ardyn, with all his slime and crooked edges and unscrupulous leers, was entirely too close to Luna, Noctis decided. That he was getting closer was untenable.

"Now what kind of look is that? I'm only here to he—"

Ultima materialized in Noctis's palm, the tip pointed at Ardyn's throat as close to the jugular as Noctis could manage with numb, slippery fingers and shaking hands.

The smile on Ardyn's face froze, then slunk away. "Tetchy, are we?"

"Get lost."

"Now—"

"Get. Lost."

Luna let her nose dip into the crook of Noctis's neck, her hands feebly fisting in the material of his shirt, silent and trusting.

There was a long moment in which Ardyn wasn't smiling at all, and the cold, calculating look it left behind was almost comforting in its honesty. It said that he was sizing up how easy it would be to kill them, and whether it would be worth it in the end.

That was okay. Noctis was analyzing what Ardyn's fighting style might be like and running through possible ways to get Luna to solid, unwrecked ground so he could fight without worry.

Then the tension released, Ardyn's oily leer making a reappearance as he rocked back on his heels. "Then might I offer the happy couple my congratulations?"

"No."

A flicker of irritation. "A few words of advice then."

"No." Noctis bared his teeth. "Get lost."

Ardyn shrugged it off in a too-graceful motion. "Have it your way, I suppose."

Noctis didn't lower his sword until Ardyn had reboarded the Niflheim ship and the whine of the engines had faded into the crashing waves.

"Hey," he said as soon as he could breathe again. "You okay?"

Up this close, it was obvious to anyone who cared to look that Luna wasn't. Even below the new pallor, her eyes were fever-glassy, her grasp painfully weak. Her own breathing rasped, sitting like her body didn't want to hold her up anymore.

"Leviathan—" she started, then blinked and gave her head a little shake. Behind them, the waves claimed another few of the altar's stones. "No, the— the ring. Your father sent me to deliver the ring."

The ring.

Noctis felt sick.

The Ring of Lucii. The ring that no one but Lucian royalty was supposed to wear, that smited all others—if Luna had been carrying it since Insomnia went down...

She fumbled a chain from around her neck, pulling it over her head and setting its makeshift pendant, the thick-banded ring Noctis had seen on his father's hand all his life, in her open palm. On some metaphysical level, it smelled like death.

Death that was connected to the Oracle's magic, and slowly but surely siphoning it away and taking her lifeforce with it.

Noctis picked up the ring, unceremoniously snapped the chain, and jammed it on his finger, shoving his own magic into it to sever the link.

The results were immediate.

First and foremost, Noctis had an intense urge to go take a nap. The demands of the ring settled under his skin like a cool mist, a gentle downer. It took him a minute to adjust to it, the press of other on his brainstem only coming to bear once the sleepiness had passed—and that was an unpleasant ordeal all on its own.

In the time it took Noctis to acclimate to that, Luna started breathing easier. It was impossible to miss it up this close. How much of it was because he'd taken the ring and how much of it was because the seas had calmed, he didn't know—

—because the seas had calmed. Leviathan had traded city-wrecking for just hovering above the altar, inscrutable.

Then she spoke, that screeching-grinding-otherworldly language of the Astrals, and Noctis was the one burying his face in the crook of Luna's neck this time, a splitting headache crashing over him in the waves Leviathan was known for.

And then it was over, and Luna had just enough time to shout a thank you! at the goddess before she was gone.

The tempest subsided, indiscriminately dropping boats and debris alike into the water.

"...Ow," said Noctis plainly.

The delicate shoulder that pressed against his nose shook with laughter. Quiet laughter, but clear laughter. Already her lungs sounded better.

He raised his head, and—

She was smiling. Dark eyelashes beaded with seawater, blonde hair plastered against her forehead and temples, full mouth resting in the happy curve it was just made for.

—and he wanted to cry.

"You're okay," he said, his voice cracking as the realization hit his numb chest in full.

"I am," she murmured, rasping but reassuring.

"You're okay," he repeated, trying to convince himself because this was all so real and yet not real at all. He cupped her face, feeling the soft give of her cheeks, the strength of the muscles in her jaw, the solid reality of the bone below it—she felt real. "You're okay," he marveled.

"Mhm," she agreed, her smile taking a turn for the fond.

The tears barely stopped as a lump in his throat before they were blurring his vision and making hot tracks down his cheeks through the wet chill.

He brought their foreheads together so he could feel the hot rush of her breath on his face, see those eyes up close. His voice broke into a whisper when he said, "You're okay."

There was a subtle strength coming back into her delicate fingers, and he could feel it when she reached up to curl them around his wrist. "And so are you."

And so they were.

She'd grown during the ten years he'd spent in the crystal.

Obviously—she was twenty-six now, not sixteen. If Prompto and Gladio and Ignis had changed and matured in the past decade, then it could only be expected that she would double it.

It still put a funny swoop in his stomach to see her like this, grounded and graceful and steady.

"You're staring," she noted with a musical lilt.

Noctis flinched, flustered. Power and wisdom of a hundred late kings and he still got shy around her. Smiling sheepishly, and he said, "You're... pretty nice to stare at."

It made her blush, and the sight sank into his heart about as much as his ego.

It was a quiet moment in the middle of the rebuilding efforts—one of those moments when he could slip into the apartment across from his and watch Luna press flowers or help her clean her counters or play human pillow while she napped—and it was in this particular moment that it occurred to him that... there was no reason why he couldn't kiss her.

Aside from the bit where she was all the way across the table from him and it would be a lot of work to get up and walk around to her side, but in general. In the spirit of it.

And in the spirit of that...

"We should get married," he decided, apropos of nothing.

She paused, paper-thin sylleblossom held halfway between the press and the big paper envelope where she was keeping them until she got a better storage case. "Pardon?"

Aw hell, even if kissing her wasn't jumping the gun, this definitely was. "I mean." He cleared his throat. "We're still engaged, aren't we?"

"That was not our choice," she said, bemused. Which was probably a clear enough answer on its own. "And the point of it is rather defeated at this point, is it not?"

"...Yeah, I guess." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as she put the pressed sylleblossom away. He didn't really want to give this up without getting a clear no, but what could he say?

Luna spoke again before he could decide. Blushing rosy enough to match the pink carnation in her hand, she confessed, "I... I think I'd rather like to marry you though, if you found it agreeable."

"Yeah?" Noctis rose out of his chair. Suddenly, he found that it was worth the effort of walking to her side of the table for the sake of kissing her. Weird how these things happened.

She nodded, flushing a little deeper. She was always beautiful, but he could watch the little crease at the corner of her mouth for hours right now. "It... it would put the people's minds at ease if you were to take a queen, after all, and a wedding might be just the thing to lift their spirits in a time like this."

He half-leaned, half-sat against the edge of the table next to her chair. "That's pretty... rational."

She nodded, a slow, tiny motion, her fingers curling on the worn, polished wood of the old table as she stared at them like they held the secrets of the universe.

Not that the view from here wasn't pretty nice, but he wanted to see her face, and it gave him the perfect excuse to touch her. Trailing his knuckles over the curve of her jaw, he encouraged her to look up at him. "...Can I still kiss you?"

That corner of her mouth jumped into a shy smile. "...If it would please you."

If the words in themselves were cool, then the eager, almost possessive way her arms circled around his neck to yank him closer sure wasn't, her nails scratching his back through his thin t-shirt and her cheek warm in his palm.

Warm, warm, warm and heady, seductive in its innocence and calming in its fervor. It had him bracing his weight against the back of her chair before long, and then on the table too, that piece of her in his chest heavy and aching and needing and singing.

"All those years ago... I was so excited to marry you," she whispered between kisses. "I think the servants must have become quite sick of me by the time came, I could talk of little else. I... I loved you so, and I was f-finally going to see you again, and it was like this. I only wished..."

"Only wished what?" he asked in a croak. Maybe he'd give her anything she asked right now, anything at all, but that wasn't special. That was just a given.

He wanted a bed. Not for sex, just so he could wrap her in a million blankets and protect her from everything that came her way, But then, that was just a given, too.

The smile was back again, and he could taste it this time. "Only wished that you had been the one to ask me."

Of all the—

He pulled back as far as she would let him so he could squint at her.

She diverted her eyes, flushing deeper again. She looked distractingly kissed.

There was really only one reply he could give to that.

"Hey Luna," he breathed, resting his forehead against hers. "Will you marry me?"

It was unfair how delighted she looked. He was almost tempted to ask again.

"Yes," she breathed.

"Good," he said fervently, and kissed her again.

[highcommodorehighwind-blog]

Red Dragon

Aranea Highwind, Commodore of the 87th Airborne division of the Imperial forces, decided to spend the New Year in Lestallum.  Things had taken a decidedly dark turn with the Empire and she and her men needed a break.  As her red airship landed outside of the city, far enough to not cause alarm and close enough to easily make it into the city, Aranea was lost in thought.

She had joined the Imperial army in her 20's.  Quickly recognized for her strength and unique prowess in battle, she had been raised to the position of Commodore and had been given men to help her complete her many tasks for the Empire of Nifleheim.  She had very little memory of her parents, her family or of her home town of Deist.  That town had vanished long ago at the Empire's hands and Aranea couldn't remember a time when she wasn't raised by her Imperial family.  Her only memento of her past was the red stone set in a necklace that she wore around her neck.  She had always had this stone and now she fingered it absently.  The stone was a dark, blood red color and to the casual passerby it just looked like an ordinary garnet with a mysterious emblem.  She had been a child when both her parents died at the hands of the Chancellor of Nifleheim and she assumed that this was when her home town was also lost.  The one memory she had was of her father handing her this stone and telling her to keep it with her always.  She had hidden it in her pocket and had run, only to be picked up by Imperial troops just a few miles from her burning home town in the deep mountains.

As a young woman, her skill in battle was quickly recognized as her talent far surpassed even the boys of her age.  She was easily the strongest fighter with a lance and her talent for battle in mid-air had come to her naturally without a formal teacher telling her what was and wasn't possible.  Quickly known among her peers, she was often ostracized.  Chancellor Izunia was the first to know her for what she was, but he only alluded to her talents as being of a bloodline so ancient that it hailed from the time when Eos was comprised of the most primal of beings before even the Astrals had become truly involved with the people of the land.  

How she had grown to distrust the Chancellor.  These days his mind was darkness and destruction as the Empire sought out conquest and burned the lands in its wake.  In her heart she knew that what the Empire was doing was wrong- and sending she and her men to capture innocents to turn them into demons was the last straw.

She knew exactly what happened when a man or a woman was turned into a demon at the hands of Verstael and his minions.  The soul of the human was burned by the infusion of demonic blood taken from minor demons.  Verstael had synthesized demon's blood into a serum that he used liberally in his experiments.  Aranea remembered the ear-shattering screams that came from the lab.  She had watched bodies be ripped apart as the demonic blood ravaged its human host, turning it into something unnaturally dark.

But those thoughts were not for tonight.  Tonight was a night of celebration for herself and her men; a well deserved rest from their nightmarish toils.  She had already discussed the possibility of leaving the Empire with her most trusted second in command, Biggs and Wedge.  They had agreed the time was close and that the men were disheartened and frightened at the most recent series of tasks assigned to their unit.

Her men quickly dissipated into the streets of Lestallum, heading to the marketplace and beyond to the loud, raucous music playing in the square.  Many went to the different restaurants to enjoy a good meal and good company that could be found among the female plant workers that lived there.  She, however, went to the hotel.  She had been surprised to run into a man she knew by sight- Gladiolus Amicita.  He was hard to mistake in a crowd, being a large man and the sworn shield of the King-to-be of Lucis.  Not long after she had spotted him, she spotted the Prince himself... and surprisingly, the young woman who was meant to be his bride.  What they were doing in Lestallum was a mystery to her, but in Lestallum, nobody asked and nobody cared who you were or where you were headed.  

Just for this time, Aranea let bygones be bygones and joined them in conversation.  Not surprisingly, they knew who she was.  And when it was evident that she meant them no harm, had turned casual conversation into a night of drinking and laughing.  After she let her guard down, Aranea realized she hadn't felt this ... free in a long time.  Perhaps that's the reason she didn't turn them in or contact the Empire immediately.  

Biggs and Wedge had both stared openly at the party when they arrived at the hotel, but taking their lead as always from Lady A, they had simply ignored who was present and what their significance to the Empire was... until Aranea received word via Imperial communication that the Chancellor knew the Prince and his retinue were in Lestallum.  She did the best thing she could for the Prince by informing Gladio that the Chancellor was on his way and had ordered the Imperial troops, hers included, to converge on Lestallum to capture the Prince.  

She reluctantly settled upon taking her men with her to Ravatogh to feign looking for the Lucian royal ensemble.  Of course she wasn't going to be obviously defying the Empire by carousing with the enemy in celebration of the new year.

It was upon returning to Lestallum to rendezvous with the Imperial forces that her suspicions were realized.  The Chancellor knew something was up.  She didn't want to give him credit for knowing things that should have been secret, but someone had told.  And now she and her men were in trouble.  

The red airship landed directly in front of the city and as the drop gate opened, Chancellor Izunia was waiting for her.  He had the usual casual smile upon his face, but his eyes spoke volumes of hatred and distrust.

"Commodore Aranea... I trust your journey here was a good one?  I heard you were in Ravatogh looking for the Prince of Lucis and his retinue."  

Aranea replied casually, knowing already that the secret was out.. somehow.  "The trip was fine.  I heard that the Prince was sighted here in Lestallum?"

Ardyn stepped close to her side and grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip, "Oh I am aware that you knew they were here.  The Emperor wishes to have words with you directly.  You are to take your men to Gralea immediately.  Oh, and just to ensure you don't take any detours, I will be traveling with you."

Aranea kept her face as neutral as possible, only stealing a quick glance at Biggs and Wedge, who both looked scared to death.  Without another word, she and her men set forth to the Imperial capital.  It was hard to ignore the icy feeling in her chest as fear tried desperately to take hold of her.  She brought her hand up to the garnet stone and as usual it brought her a sense of calm and comfort.