#anonprompts

[jazzraft]

Your in weakness & in strength series is AMAZING!!! Top tier quality dad!Cor material with sunshine Prompto

thank you so much for being wonderful yourself, friend! i’m so glad you’re enjoying this little series! thank you for the request, please enjoy~

Prompto would never describe himself as “good in a crisis.”

Sure, his Crownsguard training had remedied any lingering ignoranceon basic first aid – though he’d had at least some practice before then,volunteering after school at his local animal shelter and helping strays offthe streets. And besides that, he’d needed to learn a lot of things to takecare of himself in the event of an emergency when absent parents weren’t thereto save him from scraped knees and bad tumbles.

He knew how to properly apply a bandage to stem bleeding andprotect from infection, knew how to make an emergency splint for minorfractures, and knew to elevate certain injuries to prevent shock, all beforeapplying for Crownsguard training. After, he was taught how to tie a tourniquetfor heavy bleeding, how to sterilize sharp objects for removing bullets orshrapnel or daemon claws stuck in flesh, and how to sew the right weave forstitching up big cuts on the fly.

In the event of an emergency, he had a sizable encyclopediaof practical knowledge to tap into and, hopefully, give an otherwise direoutcome a more positive prognosis.

All of that was good in theory…

But, as both he and a delirious Cor Leonis were bothlearning, was not such a smooth process when in practice.

“Okay, okay umm, just sit… like this – right? Right – and uh,stay awake! Stay awake by… talking, ah, well, you don’t talk much to begin with– period – so um, just concentrate on breathing or run drills in your head or…I know! You can tell me what I’m doing wrong!”

Because he was surehe was doing a lot of things wrong right now. And while he wasn’t the mostfunctional human being (though the subject of his humanity was debatable tobegin with) when he was under pressure, he didknow how to take orders. He wasn’t built to be a leader, only ever a follower –maybe it was a problem in his programming that left him with a lack ofinitiative.

But! Now wasn’t the time to have a philosophicalconversation with himself about who and what and why he was. Now was the timefor him to take his own threat to heart and “put up or shut up.” So, he shuthis mouth and he put up Cor against the stone-face bluff – and hedouble-checked his pulse to make sure his open eyes were actually functioningwith life’s blessed sight and not staring at nothing in sightless death.

Cor was still with him – if for the moment. His pulse wascharging like a frantic chocobo, skin hot and clammy under Prompto’s fingers.Though a helpful sign of life, it wasn’t exactly a comforting one, being thatit was going at the pace of an expiration date.

Poisons and ailments chanced upon in the Lucian wilds werelow on the table of contents in Prompto’s medical encyclopedia – woodland survivalwas Gladio’s expertise. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the luxury of moreexperienced professionals on hand at the moment. Nor did they have the addedbenefits afforded by store-bought antidotes for just such an emergency – they’dlost those when they lost the rest of their group in the skirmish, the moreexpensive curatives always left in the hands of the responsible parents of thegroup (aka Ignis and Gladio).

Prompto checked his phone one last time before finally acceptingthat battery power did not work in reverse if he stopped looking at it for longenough.

“State-of-the-art prototype of Gralea engineering and theycouldn’t program a wireless battery charger,” Prompto muttered to himself,shoving the dead device in his pocket and scraping the barcode on his wristagainst the denim.

“I don’t need your programming right now, Prompto,” Corhissed. “I need your focus!”

“Right! Yeah, yes sir! Okay…”

Water. Water camefirst, and lots of it. He needed to keep the man hydrated and he needed tocontrol the fever glistening in sweat-drops against his forehead. The thingabout these animal poisons that they’d all noticed – each of them had beenpoisoned at least once since leaving the safety of the Crown City – was thatthey wore off over time. The trick was having enough strength to survive for aslong as that took.

“We passed a river on our way here,” Prompto remembered. Hedarted to his feet and held out his hands. “Don’t move!”

Well, Cor couldn’t reallybe dying that quickly. He had enough strength to wither away Prompto’s grip onmortality and light a fire under his ass too, with little more than a glare.That was always a good sign!

Two carry-on canteens of water and some drenched bandanassacrificed from motley fashion choices later, Cor was less panty and moreangry, his straight lance of perpetual irritation creasing across the center ofhis forehead. And he was coherent enough to assemble a decent enough sentenceto tell Prompto why he was annoyed.

“I shouldn’t have put you in this position. The attack waseasily avoidable.”

Prompto could have sworn he heard a phantom “I’m sorry” at the end of that sentence –unless he was infected with a hint of that poison himself. Cor sat straight andsweaty, hours after their initial retreat sent them stumbling through thenoonday shimmer of Leiden heat in search of sanctuary at the closest haven. Hispulse had started to even out – Prompto constantly checked, contrary to Cor’ssharp insistence that he was fine now – and the worst of the poison seemed tobe stuck infecting the Cor of two hours ago rather than the Cor of the hournow.

“It happens,” Prompto sighed, finally allowing himself tosit down on the warm song of Oracle runes keeping them safe as the sun wentdown. “You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve had to do this for Noctalready.”

He laughed before remembering that he was in a company oftwo rather than five, expecting Gladio’s rough, grumbling laughter of agreementand Noct’s indignant defense of himself as Ignis slid in merciless daggers offacts to the contrary. Cor didn’t find the plights of the Prince quite asamusing. Nor was he as forgiving of his own failures in battle.

“Think of it this way,” Prompto tried – anything to stiflethe silence growing as night fell. “I owed you the help after you helped me outafter the Bandersnatch. This is the universe’s way of squaring us away!”

A heavy breath dropped from Cor’s chest, the glassy chill ofhis eyes focused on the darkness beyond the haven, and the tiny campfire ofdead grass and twigs Prompto had cobbled together as a signal to the others outlooking for them. Prompto really didn’t know Cor in combat half as well as hethought he knew Cor in training drills. In practice, he had other fledglingCrownsguard to critique. In real-time, he had only himself to be critical of.

In that sense, Prompto thought he knew him pretty damn well.And if he was anything at all like Prompto – please, as if he could flatterhimself with that comparison – he neededsomething to prove he wasn’t as hopeless as he thought he was.

“Might be a while before they find us,” Prompto said,scooting up against the rock next to Cor. “This calls for some vegging.”

He pulled out his camera and powered it on, only a little bit bitter that, between the twobatteries that could have died, it had to be the one with a communicationfunction that crapped out on him. His pictures stuttered across the digitalscreen, chance captures in-between the beats of combat he’d been teaching himselfto time for the most dynamic shots without sacrificing someone’s health in theprocess.

He had a few photos from this last fight, some of Noct, mostof Ignis – he’d been the last request Noct made to see more of – and good chunkof Cor – most war photographers were too intimidated to approach him for publicphoto ops; Prompto had to seize the opportunity to see him in action while hewas along for the ride.

“More photos?” Cor grumbled, voice even rougher than usual fromthe hours of clenched-throat groaning to contain the pain.

“Yup! Don’t want to miss a moment. I hope you don’t mind,but I wanted to get you for a reference.” Prompto faced a picture of Cor in thelast fight towards him, a frozen model of a sweeping swordsman, cleavingthrough the tusks of the pack that had jumped them in the scrublands. “Not thatI plan on picking up a sword any time soon, but, y’know…”

Cor lifted his chin in a nod, squinting through hisexhaustion at Prompto’s sporadic documentation of the battle. He didn’t tellhim to show him more, but the pointed stare, surveying the stance and slice ofthe sword, seemed keen on studying more. Prompto silently scrolled through thesnapshots, letting Cor search for wherever he’d gone wrong, even though Promptoknew he wasn’t going to find it.

“And here’s juuust before that sneaky little bastard got thedrop on you,” he said, lingering on the last picture before he dropped thecamera and jumped back in to back Cor up.

It was a pretty epic shot – if Prompto did say so himself. Asolid focal point with Cor standing strong in the middle, feet planted in thedust, two hands on the hilt of his sword, the long blade glinting red under thelight of the magic flitting across the field off screen. Beasts framed him onall sides, some fallen, some poised for attack. And Prompto knew if he’dsnapped one more, he’d have captured the clean arch of the sword throughbeast-flesh a moment later, killing all but that one.

“Pretty epic, right?” Prompto said, trying to needle thebarest thread of pride from the man for his own achievements.

It was hard to see, barelyeven there – Prompto could have blinked and he would have missed it – but he thought he saw the slimmest sliver ofacceptance in the implacably cold stare of the Immortal. He didn’t get todissect it for very long, before Cor jerked his chin again and said, “What elseyou got?”

Plenty more proof,Prompto thought. And it comes in blackand white, too!

[soulfulreverie]

Some said the world would end in fire, some said in ice. Some people even said with zombies. But no one could have known that "this" was how it all ended.

I guess endings have its own way of marking people.

Because I never thought that this is how it’s going to end. Never has it ever crossed my mind because I was too comfortable with the thought of you and me; I was too overwhelmed with the emotions we’ve deposited together that I forget a container, at some point will be full and you’ve drowned. You’ve drowned and for that, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I forgot to provide a big vessel enough for us to continue depositing our love. I’m sorry that I forgot that you have the probability of drowning. I’m sorrythat I forgot to tell you the possibilities. I’m sorrythat I forgot to tell you that love is just as cruel as the people who lives on Earth. No, I’m sorry. Love is not cruel. We are.

Maybe this is for the better. We have to part ways so we can grow as better individuals. Though I do wish we could grow as better individuals together. Maybe we just have to take some time being apart because I believe in the infamous quote “distance makes the heart grow fonder” and I hope you believe in that as well.

Believe.

Believing.

I believed in you, in us. But I guess things happen along the way and maybe we’ve tried to fix it or maybe we just forgot to fix it because another one appeared and we have a pile of it. Or maybe we just ignored it. Maybe we were too focused on the bigger picture that we forgot there’s a small one. Maybe we’re just not meant to be together. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s the universe’s way of telling us “better luck next time”. Maybe we just need to be stronger apart. Maybe we just need some time to think. Maybe all we need is to communicate and do not let other people’s thoughts control us. Maybe we just have to relay our thoughts better because we suck at doing that. Maybe we need to be mad, to know that in order to be sane, we have to be together. Maybe we like seeing each other happy on our own. Maybe we set our aims too high that we failed to achieve it. Maybe it’s just not the right time. Maybe, I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know.

[grindelwald-the-great-blog]

Writing Prompt: what would have happened had Ariana not been killed

 “Stop!” Albus Dumbledorehowled at Gellert over the screams of Aberforth who writhed under the cruciatuscurse, wailing in agony. He was desperate to stop the torture and rose his wandat Gellert. He had no spell in mind but instead burst a bolt of mindless magicalenergy at his target. Gellert cried out in shock and there was a blinding flashof magical energy as the spell struck followed by a very abrupt silence brokenonly by the sobs of Ariana. The quiet was almost more terrifying then thescreaming had been and Albus blinked desperately to try and clear the spotsfrom his vision.

               “Albus,”Gellert coughed in hushed surprised, “what did you do?” He slowly pickedhimself up off the moist grass. Mismatched eyes fixated on Aberforth who wasstill twisted in the throws of the torture spell but frozen in place. His eyesstared up at the tree canopy but they were dull and sightless. His mouth wasopen in a silent scream. Slowly Gellert leaned forward to check for a pulse. “Albus.You killed him.”

               “YOUkilled him,” Albus staggered a few feet away as he stared at the corpse of hisbrother in horror refusing to accept what he knew was true. Ariana backed awayhastily from the scene, sliding across the grass backward on her rear until sheran into a tree and could go no farther. She curled upon herself there sobbinguncontrollably.

               “No. Noyou did it,” Gellert got to his feet slowly, his wand held defensively and hiseyes cautious. “You tried to curse me and it – it bounced off or something,”his hand rose to clutch the blood pact pendant which hung around his neck. Theyhad sworn never to fight each other, never to do harm to one another. In theheat of the moment Dumbledore had attempted to break the unbreakable and attackbut the powerful magic had deflected the blow. Gellert had still been knockedoff his feet but the full force of the strike hit Aberforth again. Albusretched as anguish, terror and disgust welled up inside him all at once. Seizingonto the fact that Albus hadn’t continued to try and attack and blame Gellertspoke again, “if we find the resurrection stone… we can bring him back.”

               “Areyou SERIOUS right now?” Albus choked out as he wiped vomit away from his lips. “TheDeathly Hallows and your… your GREATER GOOD is what got us into this in thefirst place and you have the NERVE to bring it up again?” He bull rushed theyounger wizard, so furious he didn’t even think to use his wand or magic. Theair was knocked from Gellert and he struggled beneath the red haired Dumbledoreas hands groped and reached and tried to wrap around his throat.

               “No,”Gellert gasped desperately. “It was Aberforth who started it all for notagreeing with the cause. He was trying to stop us. I couldn’t let him stop usAlbus. We WILL find the Hallows and make the world a better place for wizardseverywh—“ His last words choked off as Dumbledore managed to wrap fingersaround Gellerts throat and cut off oxygen. The blood pact began glowing softlyand seeing it seemed to take the strength from Albus and he suddenly releasedGellert who coughed and hacked to try and get his breath back.

               “You’reright,” tears were streaming down Albus’ face. “I didn’t mean. I didn’t meanfor this.”

               “No. Ofcourse not mein liebling,” Gellert propped himself up rubbing cautiously at hisneck. The veins throbbed as they excitedly pumped blood back through to hisbrain.  He carefully reached out to pullAlbus into an embrace when there was no answer. “It’s okay mein schatz. We willmake this okay.”

               “How,”Dumbledores tone was strangled and he dared another glance at the body, “I’vejust killed my own brother.”

               “Theonly choice now is forward,” cooed Gellert. “You’ve killed someone now. Whenthe Ministry comes they will take you to Azkaban and what will happen toAriana? We must run from here Albus. We will take her  and find the Hallows; with the resurrection stonewe can bring back Aberforth and in the meantime we will keep Ariana safe. Wewill make the world a better place and show your brother when we return him tothis world. Yes?”

               Albuswas crying too hard to respond with words and he nodded his head throwinghimself into Gellerts embrace deeper. He buried his head into the blondegermans robes his fists clenching fabric as he shook with anguish. They stayedthat way for several moments before Gellert broke the sounds of silence and sobbing,“Komm jetzt mein schatz. We will get your sister and make our escape. I’ve gotsomewhere we can go to mourn and to hide while we ensure your brothers life wasnot lost senselessly.” Gellert extracted himself from Albus’ grip and got tohis feet before holding out his hand for the other, “komm mit mir.” Their handsmet and the pair gathered Ariana before disappearing without a trace. AlbusDumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald would not be seen again for many years.

[annoying-hangnail-blog]

AGONY IN THE HALLWAY

Summary based on this prompt: anonymous asked: Au where Dan isn't a YouTube and Phil is. Phil has an important video and asks Dan to not bother him in the bedroom and Dan is achy and sick and tired so he falls asleep on the hallway

Genre: Fluff/Angst/AU/Drabble

Warnings: None?? Sickness???

Extra Tags: AnonPrompt, Sickness, Hurt!Dan, AU, Drabble

Author's Note: This is literally a paragraph but I love it thanks.

Dan lay on the couch, lungs burning from throwing up. "I have to make a video, Dan." "B-But..." "I promised them, Dan." Phil wrapped the blanket around Dan and headed into the hallway, Dan stumbling behind him. "Phil..." "Dan, I'm sorry, but it's only for like, a half hour." "A half an hour..?" "Yes..I love you Dan, I'm sorry." Phil kissed Dan's forehead and went inside his room, closing the door and locking it. Dan sunk to the floor and jiggled the lock. "Phil...." But he could already hear Phil setting up. "Hi guys so..." Dan slumped against the wall, a tear dripping down his face, pain in his stomach clawing at his lungs. He pressed into the floor, wrapping the blanket around him. The smell of Phil surrounding him, his happiness and bliss covering him. "I love you too," Dan said, falling into a soft sleep on the carpet.

[hwamak]

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Mary Oliver

[jazzraft]

I love your fics so much! Can I request Nyx sneaking his own little letter to Umbra for him to give to Luna every time he comes to deliver her notebook to Noct? Just wanting to talk to her one time and she writes back, maybe starting a secret conversation between them?

apologies for the wait, anon! easter threw a wrench in my writing plans for a bit. I wasn’t sure if you were looking for this request to be shippy or not, so I ultimately decided to keep it neutral. it was nice to do some character building

Luna,

I’m sorry that it’staken me so long to write back. I hope you didn’t worry. Things have beenpretty hectic around here. Nothing bad or anything! Just busy. Really busy.

A lot’s happened sincewe last talked! I added a few of Prompto’s pictures to cover some of it in caseI forget something.

Thanks for thebirthday present! I’m amazed that Umbra didn’t eat the whole package. I know Isure did! You’ve got to tell me more about the fish you get in Tenebrae. Thestuff we have here is great, but that sushi was like nothing I’d ever hadbefore! Do you think it has to do with being handled by a Messenger and anOracle? Or are you and Gentiana just that good?

The guys got me somereally nice things, too (there’s a picture). Took me to a bunch of my favoriteplaces around the city. It was nice and quiet, which I like.

The day after was thewhole citywide ceremonial thing. You probably saw it broadcast, right? Thepeople here are mostly nice about it, but it’s still stressful. All thatsecurity and costumes and people I don’t know. You’re a lot better at this kindof thing than I am. I still remember your last broadcast. Do you know what tosay by yourself or do you have someone write it down for you like I do? Becauseyou’d never know if it was. I don’t know how you do it!

Once the birthdaybusiness was over, it was back to the regular Council attendance and princepractice. I know you and everyone else keeps saying that the Council is crucialto keeping Insomnia free, but damn, it’s really hard to understand why when I’msitting in there and listening to them yell over each other about nothing.

I’m not cut out forpolitics and yeah, I know I’ve been saying that for years. I like fightingbetter. I’ve still been training with Dad’s Kingsglaive. It can be scarysometimes, but it’s fun once I get the handle of the warping tricks they showme.

Other than that, it’sjust been a lot of the same. More meetings and training and I just fell behindon a bunch of stuff. I think Umbra was getting annoyed with me that I hadn’tsent him back to you yet. I hope that I haven’t annoyed you, too! And I hopethat everything’s been okay on your end since.

Talk to you soon?Sooner than I did?

Noctis.

“Now Umbra, why would you make him worry like that?”

The shaggy Messenger huffed into his paws and remainedotherwise unrepentant. Luna smiled and scratched his head, giving his ear alight tug to scold him for his unwarranted guilt-tripping. She hadn’t worriedherself too badly, wondering about Noctis’s delayed response. She knew that hewas safe so long as he was among his friends and his father and underneath theprotection of Insomnia’s Wall.

Though she still sympathized with his circumstances. Noctishad never taken to the Crown as well as his forebears – and it wasn’t even yethis to wear. And while Luna only knew of the Lucian Council through distant studyand filtered newscasts, she could imagine how trying a room full of peopledebating politics could be for someone like Noctis. He had a gentle heart, onebetter suited to seaside lounging and friendly outings. She couldn’t say sheobjected to either of those ideas herself some days.

Luna reached for a pen and turned the page. And she wassurprised to find that Noct’s was not the only correspondence waiting for herto read.

A small, folded note was creased between the pages,coffee-stained and crumpled, the notebook lines of it made crooked with theharsh treatment. Luna assumed it to be a postscript from Noctis, hastily shovedinto Umbra’s sash just as he was on his way out from Insomnia. The unfamiliarchicken scratch which greeted her promptly told her otherwise.

Hey. I’m probablybreaking every rule of every book here and the Astrals might smite me just forsaying hi to the Oracle, but fuck it. (The expletive was scribbled out. Asif she couldn’t read between the frantic criss-cross of lines. Or never saw theword “fuck” before.) Whatever. I’m moreworried if you or Noct will mind. I train Noct sometimes, that’s how I know him.Probably shouldn’t have done this, but just wanted to give it a shot. Just tosee. I dunno what though.

The note was so crumbled and worn that Luna expected thisperson had talked themselves out of sending it more than once. Certainly morethan twice. Luna smoothed it out against the notebook as best she could,studying the smudges and the stains and seeing all the strife that went intodeciding on spiriting the message away with Noct’s letter.

“Awfully generous of you to share, Umbra,” she teased. Shegot nothing in response but a fluffy cold shoulder and a swish of his tail.

“I’m more worried ifyou or Noct will mind.” Such fretful folk from Lucis. The duplicity didn’tbother her. Not so much as the familiarity with which this stranger referred totheir prince did. They “trained him sometimes,” was it then Crownsguard orKingsglaive? What could she ask if it was either?

Luna tapped her pen against the note. She turned it over andstarted to write.

—

Nyx didn’t actually remember sending the note.

He remembered always seeing the dog around the Citadel. And,more immediately, he remembered having to wrangle the rowdy creature out of thekitchens a few times when they were both younger. He remembered his achingmuscles at the end of marathon sprints through the old Queen’s gardens, taskedwith trying to tackle the hellacious hound to heel. He remembered the quietcontention between himself and the canine – and the extra drinks he would orderfrom Yama at the end of a day army-crawling through bushes and warping alongtree branches trying to catch the damnable creature.

He saw Umbra more often once the Prince started practicingunderneath the Kingsglaive. The dog parked it on the stairs and toasted away inthe sun while his master sweated it out on the sands. He was quieter now thathe was older – worked off all that adolescent energy by putting Nyx through hispaces, he supposed.

It was hard for him to think of Umbra as anything more thana pet. Especially not as some celestial spirit-dog sent down from the gods toferry messages between their anointed royals. It was harder still to think ofNoctis as anything of the sort, too.

Nyx liked the kid, which was as much of a surprise to him asNoct’s aptitude for warping – which in hindsight, Nyx supposed shouldn’t havebeen that much of a surprise; Noctwas the King’s son, after all. That was what was so hard to believe though.That Noctis was royalty was obvious from his abilities and his genetics alone.But his temperament was so much different than what Nyx expected when he wasbriefed on the lessons.

Noctis was fun. Shy, but spirited. He didn’t talk down tohis tutors or expect special treatment or give up after the first crash intothe dust. He was determined to learn, but also his biggest critic. Half of histutelage was unlearning his own doubts in order to achieve the distances he wasexpected to reach.

They had a good relationship, Nyx thought. Good enough totrade stories over cooldowns in the shade, and poke and prod and tease eachother like friends more than mere colleagues. Enough for Noctis to tell him alittle more about Umbra when Nyx relayed all the grievances he put him throughas a puppy.

When asked about the little notebook poking from Umbra’ssash, Noctis would stutter and redden and mumble about his old friend Luna. Theday Nyx connected the dots between pen-pal Luna and Princess Lunafreya, the beloved Oracle ofTenebrae… Well, it wasn’t his proudest revelation, given how long it took himto figure it out.

It was part curiosity and part daring over the buzz ofFriday night drinks at the Hut that ultimately tempted Nyx to challenge theauthority of the gods. To his shock – and mortification when he remembered whathe’d done – the Oracle wrote back.

He hadn’t even made it to Malbo Smul’s yet to get throughone beer when Umbra had padded up to him with a vaguely familiar piece of paperheld delicately in his muzzle. He couldn’t blame imagining the neat script onthe back of the note on the alcohol, but he would most certainly blame thewords if he ordered himself a second bottle later that night.

To Anonymous,

I am pleased to meetyou and admire your bravery. It takes much and more of it to risk the wrath ofthe gods. But worry not. I sense that you shall be forgiven for such a brazen actof postal service rebellion, by the Astrals as well as by Noctis. And, as youcan surmise, by myself, included.

Noctis mentions histraining only ever briefly, but sounds as if he enjoys it a great deal. Are youof the Kingsglaive, then? Have I you to thank for helping his experience to bea pleasant one? If I may – and if you are – I humbly ask that you continue tokeep him safe, as well as happy with his practice.

I was intrigued tofind your note, though your words convey a certain amount of uncertainty. Ipray that your sight affords you the clarity which you seek. If there are anymore words that I could send to aid you, you are welcome to write me again, withoutfear of any mortal smiting, divine or otherwise.

Regards,Lunafreya.

Nyx laughed. He wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe it was thesincere wit of her forgiveness or the sheer ridiculousness of his own actions thatgot him. Or maybe it was her blunt perception, reading so diligently betweenthe lines the things that Nyx didn’t even know he wanted to ask that made himnervous enough to laugh.

He’d never been much for faith. Not the same sort thatdeified children and ripped whole nations asunder for the boon of the gods. Andespecially not after Selena had died with the rest of Galahd.

Nyx patted Umbra on the head and took the note home with him.He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it when he got there. Burning itwould probably be the wisest choice; pretend that he’d never been stupid enoughto intrude on the childhood correspondence of his royal charge and ask forabsolution from a stranger from another land. As if he was as desperate as thefawning folk of faithful blindness to have all their sins purged away with thelight of the Oracle.

Nyx set the note on his desk and turned right around to meethis friends down in the district. He fully intended to let Crowe treat them allwith some well-deserved drinks, and then let the cheap beer muzzy up anythought of responding.

But the note was still there when he got home.

And while he was two bottles in, he had a few things to say.

—

Lunafreya,

You’ll have to forgiveme for the blasphemy, but I really don’t give a shit about the gods. Bunch ofhigh and mighty assholes throwing their weight around just because they’re big,if you ask me. Which you didn’t so… I don’t know why I bothered saying that.

Yeah, I’m Kingsglaive.I don’t know how much credit I can take for Noct. He’s talented all on his own.Hard on himself though. I do what I can to help with that. Hopefully it’senough.

Like I said, I don’tknow what I was expecting when I wrote you. Not a reply, that’s for sure. Anddefinitely not a nice one. You’re not what I expected. In a good way. I think.I don’t know… I don’t know a lot of things. Like what happens after we die.Like whether or not you can see the other side because you’re the Oracle andthat’s your job or something, right? Can you just talk to the Astrals? Or isthere more you can see that the rest of us can’t?

Is it good? The otherside? Do the Astrals even care about our souls? Or are we just left to wanderwhere they don’t have to look at us anymore. All the people that died for theEmpire’s war… Is there a place for them over there? Are they safe? Are theyhappy? Or did they just trade one hell for another?

—

Dear Anonymous,

You ask a great dealof questions. All of which are important. Many of which have been asked sincetime immemorial. Some of which I believe I can answer. Perhaps not all, but itis my hope that they will be enough to soothe your own soul, if only a little.

You are not what Iexpected either. You’re rather crass and very curious, but I appreciate that.You’re honest, and honesty is difficult to come by in these times. I amgrateful to you for guiding Noctis. For your friendship, I feel I owe you ashonest of answers as your questions deserve.

Please, do not ask forgivenessfor questioning the gods. To question is to be human, and there is no shame inthat. As Oracle, it is my duty to make the will of the gods known to mankind.It is no more and no less than that. You need not fear any judgment from me.

Death is a difficultquestion to answer. While I may hear the voices of the gods, I cannot see pastthem. I have the power to ease the suffering of the living, but not those dead.However, from what I have been allowed to see of the Astrals and their realm, itis a quiet existence. It is my hope that the Astral Realm serves as a safeharbor for the souls of the departed, as well.

I cannot assure youfor certain that those you have lost are in one place or another. But it is mybelief that there is no fear in death. I cannot force you to believe the same,and I am aware that words without proof often come as little comfort for grief.Your answers lie in what you believe, not in the beliefs of others that tellyou what you should.

I am sorry that Icannot be of more help to you. I will beseech the gods for guidance in thismatter on your behalf, but I cannot guarantee the answers you seek.

I hope to hear fromyou again.

Regards,Lunafreya

Nyx ran a thumb across Selena’s face, folded and faded andas old as Nyx felt. The Oracle’s elegant script whispered up from the desk.

It was a long time before he wrote back.

—

Two weeks later, after three round trips from Umbra and nosecret notes tumbling around in his sash, Luna finally received a response.

She bit her lip and sat at her vanity, staring at the foldedpiece of paper and praying that she had said the right things. Few words wereright for the death of a loved one. The nameless glaive had a soul in conflict,she could read that well enough. She recognized it well. Her brother had feltmuch the same after their mother died. She hadn’t been able to save him fromthe darkness his grief took him to. She feared much of the same for thisstranger.

Luna took a breath, braced herself with a glance at herreflection, and read.

Hey. Sorry to haveleft you hanging. The truth’s a real bitch. Had to deal with it for a while.Thanks for not bullshitting me though. I was kind of expecting you to just say thatI should have faith in the gods and it would all turn out dandy. We were both kindof expecting a lot of things different about each other, huh?

I don’t really knowwhat I was looking for when I sent you that first note. I’ll be honest, I’mstill not sure. I think that’s because you’re right. This is something I haveto find for myself. I’ve always known that, I think. But I guess it takeshearing it in the words of a stranger who’s the authority on these things toreally get it, y’know?

I’m not sure if I’llwrite again and you don’t have to write me back, but I just wanted to saythanks. I really mean that. And I hope that this stalemate with the Empire endswithin our lifetime. Maybe then you could visit Insomnia. I know Noct missesyou. And maybe we’ll get to meet in person one day. I can thank you the rightway then. Maybe I’ll have my answers by then, too.

Thanks again.

Luna breathed out slowly, watching her chest contract in themirror. Her reflection looked more confident than she felt. She didn’t feellike she’d accomplished as much with her wayward correspondent as either ofthem may have liked. And whether her prayers for this stranger fell onlistening ears, she could not say.

She debated with her reflection for a long while aboutwhether or not it would be prudent to write back. She wasn’t certain that therewas any more either of them could say. And yet, it felt like there was still somuch more that they should.

—

Dearest Anonymous,

I hope that thisletter finds you better than the last.

I know that it is notenough, nor will it ever be, but I have prayed for your loss and imploredeverlasting peace for those souls which you grieve. I can only hope that theywere heard.

In the time it hastaken me to find the words to write back, I am reminded that hope is the betteranswer for belief. Hope is greater than any faith imposed by any entity largerthan ourselves. Should we call that blasphemy, do you think? I don’t think the godswould be very happy with me if they read that. Perhaps I’ll end up being theone who is smote after all. Wouldn’t that be a twist?

Teasing aside, I’dlike to amend my previous advice. Hope is the truest faith you can believe in.It is not reliant on a single object, it is not derived from a written word, andit is not biased towards one soul over another. It does not discriminate. Thereare no laws by which it should be abided.

If this is to be thelast letter I send you, these are the words I would like to be the last. Do notlose hope. Not in yourself and not in your lost loved ones. It is my hope thatyou are able to find peace in this. When I am lost, it is always hope thatfinds me again.

May it find you, aswell. And may we one day find each other to talk of this more.

Fondest Regards,Lunafreya

“Doesn’t give up, does she?” Nyx laughed.

He dropped the letter into his lap and stared up at the sky.Umbra sat patiently at his side, such a dramatic change from the rebelliouspuppy that caused him so much strife.

The arena was empty. He’d just finished up with Noctis,catching his breath against the stone pillar in the center. The Prince had goneoff with his friends, Nyx’s own were clocking out, and the Citadel was takingits last long breath of day before night fell. He could just make out theghostly shade of the moon rising behind the Wall, rippling with the King’s light.

Hope, huh?

It hadn’t gotten him much. But then, he supposed he neverreally tried it. Hope was hard to come by when he didn’t know what it lookedlike. Though, if seeing was believing, he supposed he wasn’t really listeningto the Oracle’s instructions then, was he?

Nyx closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He hoped that itwas enough. He hoped that it was what Selena would have wanted.

—

Thank you. I hope tosee you soon.

— Anonymous

[jazzraft]

your fics never fail to brighten my day. you're an amazing writer! if you don't mind, can I request a fic on how you would interpret prompto's first day training with cor would go when he joins the crownsguard for the first time? I always imagine cor thinking prompto doesn't have what it takes, until he eventually grows to respect him and his skills.

thank you for the compliment, anon! it makes my day to make your day =) enjoy!

Cor’s first thought when he met Prompto was, Well… I’ve started with worse.

As he began training him though, that thought was becomingmore and more dishonest.

Prompto was a scrappy, stick of a thing, standing sostraight for his initial inspection that Cor was half-certain he might snap inhalf at the waist if he so much as poked the kid in the forehead. He was allskin and bones, gangly limbs and tender muscle. He took care of himself though –he wasn’t worrisomely thin nor overweight. But he was unrefined, relativelyordinary, not unlike most of the new recruits Cor was sometimes tasked withinitiating into the Crownsguard.

Cor needed to get a little muscle on him, blood him a bit;the standard fare. He fully expected that Prompto could be molded into a goodrecruit – at least decent enough not to get himself killed the first day out onthe line of duty. Cor just needed to whip him into shape, same as the rest.

The Marshal quickly realized that it wasn’t Prompto’smusculature that was going to be the problem.

“Hit me.”

“What? No! I can’t do that…”

“I’m an Imperial assassin that you’ve just seen pull a knifeon Councilman Ferrinas on his way to his car. If you don’t hit me right now, Sir Ferrinas is going to bleedout in the parking garage, the Archades district is going to lose a much belovedlord, and the King’s table is going to be missing one of its most supportivechairs on the Council. Hit me.”

This was a new one, even for Cor. He’d learned to expectlessons on how to temper violence outof a recruit, not urge it into them.People often came into the Crownsguard raw with nervous energy. Usually, theirfirst impulse was to hit something. Usually, they were looking for an outletfor some deeply embedded anger at something or another – faulted patriotism, emotionalinsignificance, traumatically reduced self-confidence; you name it.

Cor had gotten good at training those furies, using them tomold a Crownsguard out of a greenhorn. He’d seen a lot of chips on hunchedshoulders, thwarted a lot of revenge fantasies once out in the field, kept agreat deal of the downtrodden and the spiteful from running straight intosuicide raids; he’d grown accustomed to violent tendencies and he knew how tohumble them. He knew how to take that rage and teach it into honor.

He wasn’t nearly as sure of how to plant that seed of angerfrom scratch.

“Knife’s getting closer,” Cor goaded. “Are you really goingto let me take him away from his husband? His kids? Are you really prepared tostand at his funeral, surrounded by those grieving faces, and knowing you couldhave done something about it?”

Prompto’s lip quivered, and Cor was just about ready toschedule a luncheon with Regis to bemoan his son’s recommendation to put a snifflingchild into Crownsguard training.

But the tremble was just a hairline fracture; an innatebreach of confidence slipping through the cracks before Prompto clutched down andbridled it. His mouth firmed into a decided grimace. The dewy-eyed horror inhis gaze solidified, tempering itself just long enough to reach the resolve heneeded to dart forward and punch.

At last. But too late.

Cor listed to the side. Prompto went careening into thedust.

“Well, you’ve distracted me long enough that if Sir Ferrinaswas feeling brave he could try and disarm me. But he’s still put in criticalcondition at Archades General, being overseen by the best care the district’staxes can pay for. I got away, the Council’s in turmoil, and you’ve either beendischarged or demoted. The former, if Clarus is bound to have his way.”

Not even with the mockery did Prompto get angry. He didn’tpunch the dirt or lash back or justify his failure with a “if I could just” ora “well, if you hadn’t” or a “I just need another chance.” Cor had heard achocobo ranch’s weight in shit of excuses.

But Prompto just got up, ducked his head, and simply said,“I’ll be better.”

Rarely, if ever, had Cor heard that.

—

Prompto’s greatest weakness was his mercy.

It was hard for him to hurt people. For the first few monthsof training – and Cor took it upon himself to work with him, if not by theinsistence of Noct’s pout, then by the fact that any other trainer wouldn’thave the patience for him – Prompto would seize up the instant he realized thatall he needed to win a spar was to deliver the “killing blow.” Every time, thatmoment of hesitation got him “killed”instead.

Outside of combat, Cor admired him for that compulsion.Prompto wasn’t driven by his carnal impulses, but his kinder ones. He sidled upto his sparring partner after a match with an ice-pack, a water bottle, and acompliment to the other’s ability, often self-deprecating to himself. He wasthe first on the scene with an emergency kit if a senior Crownsguard barked forhelp over the injured body of a trainee that failed to land a correct kick. Hejumped to his feet the instant he noticed someone struggling with a heavy load– moving exercise equipment, delivering file boxes, exchanging cleaningsupplies.

He was a good person.

But good people didn’t make great Crownsguard.

“I would lay down my life for Noct,” Prompto assured him oneday, catching his breath on the benches from another match he’d failed to win.“If it was him or me, I’d throw myself in front of a bullet if I had to!”

“There’s no question about that,” Cor agreed. “But the coreprinciple of the Crownsguard is right there in the name. Guard the Crown. That means seeing and stopping the danger beforeeven the King knows he’s in it. It’s about saving him in time, not gettingthere too late. That goes for the both of you. You want to die for your King,but only when there’s no other choice. And in all of your scenarios, you’vebeen choosing to die when you have the option to live and guard the Kinganother day. All you have to do is fight back.”

Prompto scraped at the label around his water bottle,watching his peers tackle each other down to the mats. Some of them were stillvery rough around the edges, roaring as raggedly as the paper edges he waspicking at when they landed a practiced blow. Short of putting Prompto upagainst an MT assassin, Cor doubted he could inspire the same ferocity out ofhim. Not against one of his comrades.

The next day, Cor had nearly decided to terminate Prompto’straining as an official member of the Crownsguard to instead serve Noctis ascasual a capacity as he had up until. It’d probably get him killed, and thatleft a sour taste in Cor’s mouth if he thought about it for too long, but hewas at his wit’s end trying to get the kid onto the level he needed to be towear the mantle of Crownsguard.

He never did rejections in person. Usually he just signedhis approval for a subordinate to do the discharging if a recruit didn’t makethe cut. Usually he didn’t train a cadet personally, if not because he wasduty-bound elsewhere from the Citadel, if because – if Regis was to be believed– he got “too attached, too easily.” Suffice it to say, he was steeling himselffor a tough conversation at the end of this session. Tougher still when he sawhow eager the kid’s smile was.

“Okay! I’ve totally got this today! I promise.”

Cor marked his skepticism with a raised brow. Prompto wasn’tdeterred, instead puffing up his chest and bouncing out his knees and readyinghis fists to defend the hypothetical noble. Cor tried to convince himself thatit wasn’t favoritism that wanted the kid to succeed.

He put forward the scenario – a visiting dignitary fromAccordo, her continental breakfast at the Leville ruined by a terrorist holdingher at gunpoint. He even allowed Prompto the upper hand – the assailant didn’tyet know that a Crownsguard was present, Prompto was in civvies at the cornertable so as to catch any would-be attackers off-guard.

Prompto was actually very good at stealth. He had a lightstep and was quick to the draw – figuratively and literally; they’d recentlydiscovered that he was most adept at firearms – as well as he was unassumingand small enough not to seem a threat to the enemy. Disarming the terroristwouldn’t be a problem for him. Separating the dignitary from their grasp wouldn’tbe a problem for him, either. It was what he did with the terrorist when he hadhim in his grasp wherein the issue lay. Most enemies would not show him thesame mercy that he was intent on showing them.

Cor was expecting the usual. He expected Prompto to crawl inclose like he had taught him to, get him in a headlock first to try and chokehim unconscious and bring him in for questioning before realizing that he wasgoing to put up more of a fight. He would play that he would rather die than betaken prisoner by Lucis, and if Prompto gave him the choice, he would take bothhim, the dignitary, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be in the way of hisbullet with him.

To his surprise, Prompto didn’t come in close like he’d beentrained to do. Instead, he put some distance between them, staying in Cor’sblind spot, and just when he thought he was clear to pull the trigger on hisimaginary hostage, he felt a sharp pang against the back of his head.

“Headshot!” Prompto crowed. “You’re dead.”

Cor rubbed the back of his head where the blank had bouncedoff, turning to scrutinize Prompto and the practice gun he was getting used to.Prompto smiled, and his voice was excited at achieving the gold, but there wasno pride to his eyes for taking a hypothetical life. Cor wasn’t sure how hecould criticize him for that. Before he could try, Prompto spoke.

“I know, I know. There might be situations where I don’thave this.” He spun the revolver in his hand, giving his fingers something todo – a nervous tick. “And if that ever happens, I won’t hesitate to do what Ihave to save Noct or the King or anyone. But, um… I’m not like…” His eyesskittered to Cor’s face, then back down again. “I can’t watch the life drainout of a person’s eyes up close like that. From a distance… it’s not perfect,but it’s the best I can do. Is that enough?”

Cor honestly couldn’t tell him. Despite how rigorous thetraining was, despite covering every possible scenario that had beenencountered in the past or could possibly be encountered in the future, therewas just no predicting what could happen in the field. There were no assurancesthat one way was the best way to survive. There was no way to be sure thateveryone would make it out alive whether a Crownsguard put himself in the lineof fire or not.

Sometimes, nothing was enough. But the fact that Prompto waswilling to compromise with himself, willing to take the shot and try topreserve his soul, knowing that his mercy was both weakness and strength and hehad to learn to live with that duality…

Cor placed a hand on Prompto’s shoulder.

“It’s better.”

[jazzraft]

May I request a Cor & Prompto fic where Prompto gets his wrist cut or injured and he tries to hide it because he doesn't want anyone seeing his barcodes, but Cor notices and helps him because he either knew about them or doesn't care. I love the way you portray these two characters, and really I just want more Dad!Cor and Prompto being his adorable self.

glad that you like papa cor and prompto, anon! i’m really enjoying their dynamic, too :) enjoy~

“Kick his ass for me, nerd!”

“Try not to hurt yourselves.”

Prompto took the rallying words to heart, bouncing out hisknees and grinning in anticipation. Gladio cocked a grin as quick as Prompto’sown gun, rolling his eyes at their audience. “Favoritism, huh?” he snorted.“Thought you were supposed to be teaching him how to be impartial, Iggy.”

“Thought youtaught me that there was no being impartial in a fight,” Noctis crowed backbefore Ignis could craft together an excuse.

“Yeah, um, about that fight? Is it going to happen hereor…?”

Prompto was eager for the practice. He’d only just startedventuring into sparring matches with his friends, finally feeling confidentenough in the results of his own training to challenge them. It was mostly withGladio when they did spar, the Shield having the most experience and patiencefor the practice between the four of them. He knew how to adapt to the distinctstyle of each opponent that he was tasked with schooling, making him both aneasy board to work off of and a fair challenge for advancing one’s owntechniques in order to conquer him.

Gladio huffed out a breath like a dualhorn readying itscharge. He called his greatsword and slowly advanced, eyes snapping forward andturning hard as he focused. Prompto braced himself with a breath, summoning hisgun and loading it with dummy rounds while Gladio gave him the time. Once thechamber snapped shut, Gladio’s pace quickened and he brought the blunted edgeof the practice sword down with barely a warning shout.

Prompto ducked low and rolled left, tumbling smoothly acrossthe soft dirt and leaving only a kick of dust for the greatsword to cleavethrough. He lifted his gun for a quick shot too hastily, misjudging Gladio’sbalance. The swordsman pulled his blade along the dirt in a heavy arc,following Prompto’s retreat and forcing him to make another as it hit theground, right at his heels.

One of the earliest things his teachers in the Crownsguardhad taught him was to keep his distance. Once his proficiency for firearms becameapparent, his lessons were tailored toward evasion tactics first, precision shooting next. His goal inbattle would always be to get himself clear of a skirmish in order to bully theenemy from afar. Get enough distance for the sliver of time he needed to takethe shot. While his bullets were virtually limitless in the vacuum of Noct’spower, the Crownsguard taught him never to waste one. He might have anotherbullet, but he may not have another opportunity to use one if he missed.

He was put on the defensive immediately, which was exactlywhere Gladio knew he needed to be. The match consisted of more tuck n’ rollsthan sharp shooting, but Prompto didn’t mind. Noctis was rooting for him at theedge of the arena, calling out tips and cheats he’d learned himself for takingdown the Shield. The battle even had Iggy’s attention, keen eyes attuned toevery detail of movement, gauging the development of Prompto’s skills withsubtle little nods of approval. And he even had Gladio breaking a sweat foronce, exhausting him the more he forced him to move and catch up with hisevasions.

He was flying high, tossing out tiny taunts here and thereto instigate Gladio’s heavier attacks, only to dance clear of the blows to popoff dummy shots where he could take them. While the battle wasn’t his yet,Prompto felt accomplished, felt like he was finally starting to come into hisown if he could last this long against Gladio. He felt like all the sweat andscratches and his own searing resentment for all that he couldn’t achieve wasfinally paying off. He’d been patient, he’d worked through it all, and now hehad the Prince’s favor and his friends’ respect.

He was happy. He fit.

At least until his arm was caught beneath the blunt tip ofGladio’s sword, chipping himself out from under another blow a little too lateto avoid the bruise. Gladio seemed to feel it well before Prompto, and hehadn’t even been the receiver of the hit. He hissed through a curse, just ahair before Prompto registered the pain and let it burst out in a howl. Hebounced in a circle, shaking his arm as if he could shake off the future bruiseand sounding like a dog yapping from a stepped on tail.

“You gonna live, tough guy?” Gladio’s lips turned up in asmile, apologetic and amused by the animated flailing.

“Yeah! Yeah, fine… Oww! It’s cool, just gotta – fff – walkit off…”

Warm laughter preceded Noctis as he warped quickly to jointhem in the middle of the arena, leaving Ignis to shake his head inexasperation and follow like a normal person across the dirt. “Thought helopped off a limb for a second,” Noctis chuckled, extending a hand to Prompto’sbruised arm. “Here, let me call up some ice to put on it, just to be safe.”

“No! No, err, it’s fine. Really. Not even a flesh wound.”

He gripped his wounded wrist, careful to keep his fingerstight over the wristband concealing the afflicted area. The growing bruiseached hot and huge beneath his skin, but the cold truth of the ink above itstung far worse. Prompto laughed it off, shaking out his arm and flexing hisfingers and pretending that it didn’t hurt like all hell.

“Nice hit there, big guy!”

He deflected, praised Gladio in spite of every protestagainst it. But Noctis needled into the man and Ignis offered his constructivecriticisms, and the spotlight was turned off of Prompto. He’d gotten good atthat. He poked in a few wisecracks amidst the easy cajoling and camaraderie,holding his arm behind his back as casually as he could, careful to extend theone that wasn’t hurt to accept the water bottle Gladio offered.

“Quick on your feet, I’ll give you that,” Gladio said,batting him on the shoulder as he walked by.

“Just that?”Prompto whined. “Come ooon, you can give me more than that, can’t you?”

“You get one for every match,” Noctis told him. “No more, noless.”

“Someone’s got to teach you some humility.” Gladio curved asmirk at Ignis, another jab at his supposed failure in educating the prince.

“Must leave at least somework for you to do.”

“Don’t go doing me any favors.”

“You guys can fight about it at the arcade.” Noctis flittedbetween them, picking up his jacket from the sidelines and bouncing towards theexit tunnel. “There’s a new Justice Monsters machine for co-op. Best two out ofthree and one of you wins.”

Ignis rolled his eyes, but no one missed the indulgentupturn at the edges of his mouth. “A pinball machine is hardly a decent judgeof academic character.”

“What? You afraid it’s going to give you a bad grade?”

They made their way down the tunnel, elbows prodding intoribs and palms clapping over shoulders. Noctis paused mid-step when he noticedthe absence of Prompto’s airy touch at his back, his erratic, bobbing orbitsurrounding every step he took. His eyes turned confused as they cast back insearch of him. Prompto was ready with an excuse before he could ask if he wasalright.

“Sorry, I forgot something.” He made a vague gesture back atthe training yard and all the rooms that trickled off of it. “I’ll catch upwith you in just a sec!”

He hurried back down the tunnel, waving his arm to encouragethem to go on ahead. He could feel their eyes following his retreat, could feelthe whole city, the whole damn country watching him. Trying to find what he washiding.

He ducked into the locker room, afraid to cross the field tothe infirmary lest his friends see him and insist on trying to help. Howquickly that kindness would curdle if they saw that he was lying to them.

His breath abandoned him in a shiver, feeling the coldtendrils of fear slipping between the ridges of his spine. It was so easy toforget it was there some days. Some days, just like today, where he let himselfget drawn into the illusion that he belonged where he was, that he let himselfthink he deserved this every day complacency by right of being born Lucian, he wouldforget everything he saw in the mirror each night. It was so, so easy to follow the ease with whichhis friends joked, so easy to make them laugh, so easy to pretend that was whathe was made to do.

“Damnit,” Prompto muttered, pressing against the barcode ashe tested the pain over the locker room sink.

He could practically see the bruise already. He could feelwhere the boundaries of the pain ended, could imagine how the black welt wouldspread over the ink. Maybe the bruise would be dark enough that it would hidethe code completely.

It hurt worse than he let on. Gladio would feel awful if heknew just how much. Prompto cringed at the thought of how he would feel if heknew what he had hurt. Would hisfurrowed brow turn down into a vengeful V? Would he take pride in the wound overpity? Would his soft frown turn into a snarl? Would the big paws that cradledhis arm for a careful, apologetic examination, suddenly grow claws? Dig intothe branded skin and scrape it clean?

“You’re making it worse.”

Prompto nearly jumped right out of the skin he was sodesperate to escape. The low thunder of the Marshal’s voice was a familiarsound over at the Crownsguard base. It was not, however, easy to get used to.Especially not when it just came out of nowhere like that.

Prompto pressed a hand to his chest to try and contain his hearthammering against it. He spun around to find Cor standing in the middle of theroom as if he’d been there for an eternity. He stood as still as one of thestone effigy’s guarding the Citadel, eternally stoic and motionless andimmovable. He looked like he’d been grown right from the cement floor, theweathered lines of his face as cracked as old earth, but just as stubborn asit, staying right where he thought he ought to be.

“Shiva!” Prompto swore, trying to compose himself – which wouldalways be a failure before the man that looked like he was born with thatindifferent scowl on his face. “I mean, hi Commander! Or, err, sir. Umm…”

He tried to arrange his limbs into the proper position forgreeting a superior officer and gave a clumsy half bow. Cor didn’t seem overlyendeared by it. The inscrutable silence was always too much for Prompto tobear. Cor was always there at Crownsguard training when the warfront didn’tdemand his command. There were days where Prompto never outright saw him, buthe knew he was there. Somewhere. Overseeing the recruits and the officers both.Sometimes he only revealed himself with a deep, barking correction to a trainee’sform, startling the poor whelp more than helping them. Most times, Promptothought that was the whole point. The battlefield was unpredictable. They hadto be ready for anything. Other times, Prompto thought that Cor just got somesadistic satisfaction out of hearing the runts squeak.

“You, uhh… been here long? …Sir?”

He didn’t like quiet. He’d lived alone with it for far toolong. It was poor company for a stranger in his own home.

Cor’s chin jutted towards Prompto’s arm, his neck barelymoving to make the gesture. “Don’t poke at it. That’s not going to make it goaway.”

Prompto’s mouth went dry and his skin felt cold. Of all thepeople he didn’t want seeing his arm, short of condemning himself to the King ofLucis, the Commander of the Crownsguard was his greatest pride and his greatestfear. It was Cor who decided if one was good enough to serve the Crown. It wasCor who held his future in his crossed arms. It was Cor who killed MT assassinsevery day that they threatened the life of his king. It was Cor who cleaned offoily black blood from that sword each night.

He would never deserve mercy from him. He lied about who hewas, infiltrated the ranks of the Crownguard, installed himself at the side ofthe heir apparent, gained his trust knowing full well that Noctis didn’t know what he was trusting himself to. Thebarcode branded him a traitor. That was all any of them would ever see if theyfound it. Prompto could feel his very blood quaking in his veins. He hoped itdidn’t translate to his skin or his smile or his voice. It sounded steadyenough.

“Right. I was just about to put some ice on it. I’ll be outof your hair in no time!”

Cor stared at him, unblinking and unknowable. His eyes didn’tleave his face as his head shifted in another nod, inclining towards thecorrect direction. “The infirmary’s back out there.”

“Is it?” Prompto knew his voice sounded higher than it wassupposed to. He cleared his throat to drag it back down an octave. “That it is.Must have gotten hit harder than I thought.”

He laughed like he always did when he was afraid. But itdidn’t work on Cor like it worked on his friends. The man didn’t laugh. He wasstarting to think he never did. Prompto gulped down his fear and dismissedhimself as politely and as quickly as his failing subtlety would allow. He didn’tknow if Cor had planned to stand as a barricade between him and escape when heappeared from the stone, but it served the Marshal well in catching Prompto ashe passed. He didn’t even see the man move, just felt the firm grip snap ontohis arm like an iron shackle.

Excuses immediately panicked themselves out of Prompto’sthroat, tumbling over the damning mark in a desperate avalanche, trying to buryit under all the cold it made him feel. It was just a tattoo, he got it when hewas younger and dumber, he was always dumb, everyone knew that, he was gettingit removed when he could afford it, he didn’t know what it meant when he pickedit out at the parlor because, again, he was dumb. It was nothing, just a fake,just like him, just playing pretend because he was stupid stupid stupid…

“I don’t care what’s on your arm. I care how you use it.”

Prompto had gone blind with the panic of losing his stolenlife. The words were unexpected, and they cleared the crackling darkness of hisfear from the edge of his eyes. Cor braced his arm between his hands, his eyessealed to the reddening mark between the printed lines of code. His grip wasfirm, but it wasn’t cruel. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t try to break off the armthat was crafted to kill instead of kid with men that were trained to killthings just like him.

“You got clumsy with your shots,” Cor said, sinking subtlepressure here and there to test the extent of the injury. “You could have hadhim down five minutes before he got a hit in.”

“Y-You’ve been here the whole time?”

Prompto didn’t know why he was surprised. The man was like aghost, immortal in undead scrutiny as he haunted the fringes of conflict bigand small. Cor didn’t answer him. He didn’t answer questions that peoplealready knew the answers to. It was a waste of words better threaded togetherfor something that mattered.

“Ice,” he said, curt and to the point. “Wrap a small packaround it until you get home. Don’t be stupid and twist it up on gamecontrollers. Use a potion in case of emergency, otherwise let it heal on itsown. You need to be at your best if you’re going to protect Noctis.”

He released his arm, letting Prompto push the wristband backover the mark. Cor returned to his default state, arms crossed, eyes forward,piercing right into Prompto’s own. There was no room for argument. Not thatPrompto was eager to.

“I understand, sir.”

“Do you? Because for a Crownsguard whose place is always atthe King’s side, you just let him walk off without you.”

Prompto paused, stunned for a moment. Because that almostsounded like the cadence of a joke. Cor’s face gave nothing away though,persisting in its impassive immortality. Whether it was teasing or not, it madePrompto smile. He nodded, bowed neatly, and left with more gratitude for theMarshal’s approval than he thought could fit in his own heart.

[jazzraft]

A fic where instead of Cor comforting Prompto, Prompto comforts Cor instead? Like maybe Cor's having a bad day or has too much on his mind, and just Prompto's presence seems to be enough to help him.

this ended up being me word vomiting a lot of cor angst

Everyone had a breaking point. Except for Cor Leonis.

Everyone was scared of dying. Except for Cor “the Immortal”Leonis.

No one knew where to turn for help, what to do withthemselves in this time of crisis. Except for the Marshal, Cor Leonis.

Everyone said he was their best chance for survival.Everyone said that they were safer with the Crownsguard. Everyone said thatthey had a fighting chance against the daemons because of him, because of hispeople, him and the ones he’d trained himself.

Everyone was lying.

None more so than Cor.

He couldn’t keep them safe. He couldn’t keep a whole citysafe, he couldn’t keep his own people safe, his own king and friend andeverything that had ever given him a purpose to keep moving forward. Hecouldn’t even keep the King’s son safe, his friend’s dying wish that he couldhear in every step he took without ever listening to it pass his bloodied lips.The boy he’d had half a hand in raising himself, gone, just like all the restbefore him.

In his dreams, he was only ever a boy still. Still smilingand starstruck by just how vast the whole universe was. He dreamed of big blueeyes like a looking glass, watching himself fail him every time he ever neededhis help and never asked for it. That was Cor’s own fault. He wasn’t whatNoctis needed him to be when it mattered. He was barely what Regis needed whenthe Crown fell to him. He’d let himself fall behind the masks made for him. TheMarshal. The Immortal. The edifices of his shame.

Yet still, he put those masks on when all he really wantedwas to cast them out into the dark. Let the daemons clawing at thefortifications take them and shred them to pieces so he could just be Cor. Hecould hardly remember the last time he’d just been Cor. He couldn’t remember atime before the Marshal and the Immortal, a time before he wore the markings ofthe Crownsguard.

He remembered the honor, though. He remembered the reasonfor pursuing his sword and chasing the ranks. He remembered his love for hiscountry, his hatred for the Empire’s conquest, gnawing over the land like agluttonous beast, never satisfied, never leaving anything behind for the restof them to live on.

But that remembrance had paled to a phantom in his mind. Itused to be all he was. It used to be his foundation, his battle stance, keepinghim upright and giving him the strength to lift his arms against any who wouldoppose the King.

Now, all he remembered was the bitterness where his honorused to be. All he felt was pain instead of pride in who he was and what any ofthem were fighting for. He didn’t remember what he was fighting for anymore.

So, he lied. He said he was the Marshal. He went out and hefound whoever he could to take with him to Lestallum. He lied, as the Marshal,and told prospective hunters that their sacrifice was worth it. That they wouldfind their King and he would guide them all back into the light.

The Immortal played at fearlessness. He set out with everyexpedition towards Niflheim’s borders and threw himself into every horde ofdaemons that came out of that forsaken city in the hopes that he could die withat least some of his honor intact. At least he could go down fighting, die forthe cause of the King no matter how badly he’d failed every one he’d outlived.

He lied about his breaking point. He pretended that therewas no limit to his patience, he told himself that he could wait for Noctis,that there was hope still for Noctis, the last king he would ever serve.

The truth was, he’d been walking towards his breaking pointall his life. It was just slow to catch up to it.

He didn’t break when Mors passed.

He didn’t break when Regis was murdered.

He didn’t break as he watched Insomnia crash down around him,watched the black spouts of smoke welcome in the warships, didn’t break at thedirty faces and reddened eyes of shattered families clotting onto the roads toescape the wreckage.

He didn’t break after waking to mornings without a dawn. Hedidn’t break when the terrified children he’d passed on the roads turned intoNoctis in his nightly absolutions. He didn’t break when he spent his dreamschasing the bouncing locks of his hair through tunnels of sylleblossoms that shriveledup and blackened as he ran by.

He broke when he killed a daemon.

It was just an ordinary daemon, just as unremarkable as anyother. Just a simple defense mission to a little shop out in Taelpar. Justanother day without light to mark the passage of time. And it just all crashedover him as he watched the grotesque creature melt into black, primordial ooze.Something about the scream, something about the color, something about just…all of it. It didn’t satisfy him. He didn’t kill enough of the things that hadstarted it all.

People always broke over the stupidest thing. It just piledup and up and up until one, stupid, simple little thing so innocently pushed itover.

He held it together in the truck bed as they headed back toLestallum. He gripped his sword so tight that the hilt was starting to feel assharp as the blade. He kept pretending to be the Immortal Marshal for thesweating, wild-eyed recruits that had accompanied him.

But as soon as he was alone, as soon as he found a quietcorner room in the Leville where there were no lights to break, no provisionsto destroy, just empty crates waiting for storage.

He took out his sword and smashed every one of them.

It was stupid. It was childish. It was impractical and itwas dangerous. It wouldn’t do a damn thing to make any of his failures hurt himany less, but it was more than what one daemon had given him. He had all thisanger still left-over in him. All this rage that he reserved for the missionsout into the dwindling wastes, that he packed into little parcels behind themasks his people depended on, then unleashed in a mass of slashes and splashesof scourge until he felt empty enough not to feel any of it anymore.

He broke everything that yielded beneath his blade. Hewielded it with two hands and hacked at every blunt surface he could see in thedimness. He used his sword like a kitchen knife, he dishonored everything itsymbolized, every King that it had killed for, and the master that had bestowedit upon him. He wanted it to snap in half. He wanted to hit something so hardthat it just crumbled in his hands. Just like everything he’d ever tried tohold onto before.

He saw Mors splinter and die in the wooden planks of thebarrel in the corner. He saw Regis cleaved in half under the slice of thecardboard box by the window. He saw Noctis burst apart in the feathers of anold pillow. He kicked things, he screamed at things with all of the recklessand spoiled abandon of a child’s tantrum. He thrashed and smashed and destroyedeverything that could be broken until his arms hurt and even after that. He keptfighting phantom kings until his body hurt as much as his soul. And he roaredupon the last dregs of his wrath, carving up the royal sigil on one of thesupply crates until he couldn’t see it anymore.

When he was done, when he had nothing left to give, when hewas spent and sore from his hate, he threw the sword aside and waited for hisbreaths to stop heaving. They came hard and fast and as shredded as all thedestruction he’d wrought around him.

It wasn’t enough. It never was.

“I, uh… think you might have missed one.”

He wasn’t even surprised that he wasn’t alone. It was yetanother failure for him to bear on his shoulders. The final death he’d beenwaiting for. The death of the Marshal and the Immortal, the death of all hismasks. He had been seen at his most raw, most mortal self, and it meant thedemise of all his lies.

He was relieved.

It was Prompto who he found when he could call up enoughstrength to move his body around to face him. He had been sitting on a brokenchair just to the inside of the door. Cor had walked right past him.

He wondered what he saw. He wondered what he looked like tohim. A maniacal fool? A dog gone rabid and mad without a leash to keep him fromgoing wild? His voice sounded bestial enough when he spoke.

“What are you doing hiding out here?”

Prompto shrugged, casting his eyes back down to the camerain his hands. The glow from the digital screen was the only light in the room.

“Needed some quiet. Can’t hear the generators in here. Can’thear anything.”

He gave him a quick glance, quick as a camera flash to givehim a picture of what he was saying. No one would have heard him break apart.It was safe down here. In the dark, of all places.

It took a long time before Cor could breathe again. He leanedon the sill of a window that had long since been boarded up, even before thedarkness came. It was getting hard to remember a time before that. That theonly thing people used to worry about was pests getting into their basements.Sweat closed cold against the hollow of his throat.

“I was just… looking for pictures to show Noct. He’s missingout on a lot, y’know? Gotta get a bit of everything to bring him up to speedwhen he gets back.”

He was just talking to fill the silence, Cor knew. Or maybehe really knew just what people needed to hear, slipping it as casually into asimple conversation as a summer breeze off the coast of Caem. When he gets back. Because he was comingback. He wasn’t dead, Prompto was saying. He would know, too, so intrinsicallylinked to Noctis beyond power alone that he was.

Noctis wasn’t like Regis, or Mors before him. Noctis wasn’tlike anyone Cor had ever seen die before. And neither were his friends. Theywere so sure. They were so sad, sounlike the boys he’d met in the tombs across Leide. But they were still sure.They walked forward with more conviction than he’d ever been arrogant enough tothink he had himself.

Even blind, Ignis walked straighter and taller than any manthat could see.

Even scarred and without an arm to defend, Gladio the Shieldstill honed himself every day.

And even Prompto, whose identity was a source of fear, whosegenesis was linked and resultant of everything that had cost Cor three kings,still smiled in all of the darkness. He still took pictures. He still crackedjokes. He still tried to be who he was, better even.

Cor had to follow his example. He had to be better thanthis. He had to be more than his failures… But he didn’t know how?

“Do you, um… want to help me go through these?”

Cor spared him a glance. Saw the invitation for more thanjust photographs in the look of his eyes. He’d help him if Cor did. It wasn’teasy, having hope when all of its prophets had been snuffed out in a year. Corcould see that in this brief moment of empty clarity, where he had no hate leftin him to keep him blind of the rest of the world.

He had to be better. Better for Noctis, and Regis, andPrompto. And most of all for himself.

Prompto had accepted who he was, a far more confusingrevelation than any self-doubt Cor ever harbored for himself. And he couldstill be his truest self. He crushed the mask of the MT infantry under hissmile. He was kind in spite of the cruelty that had made him. Cor didn’t thinkhe could ever do that. Not with nearly as much effortless grace as Prompto did.But he was going to have to try.

In the poignant blue planes of Prompto’s stare, there wasforgiveness for every failure. Forgiveness for the both of them.

Cor picked up his sword and put it in its sheath beforegesturing for Prompto to follow him out the door. Back into the light.

“Sure. Show me what you have.”

[jazzraft]

Nyxnoct with the prompt "you were never worth it"

whatever muse i have is apparently vehemently opposed to angst at the moment so, i took the opportunity to update an old silly thing instead

Noctis was staring at him.

Noctis was staring at him a lot.

Whether he was aware that he was doing it or not, Nyx was certain that this was his penance for acting like an ass the first night they’d met. There was no question in his mind that this was payback, that this was Noctis’ or the gods’ or some other unseen force of malcontent’s ironic breed of punishment for his drunken arrogance at the edge of Lucis.

Was this how awkward his staring had made Noctis feel in the tavern that night? Had the Prince actually noticed the provoking slump of a stare well before Nyx had confronted him with it? As if his slurred state of sloshed stupidity hadn’t been mortifying enough.

The rational part of his brain – the one that he was starting to forget he even had – reminded him that the whole, dumbass point of his antics that night had been because Drunk Nyx thought the pretty-eyed thing by the bar was paying him an abhorrent lack of attention. He couldn’t have noticed him. Otherwise, that doe-eyed look of surprise on his fine features was an excellent act.

But the altercation with the bandits was making Nyx doubt what he thought he knew about Noctis. Which was fairly little to begin with. He had his inebriated perceptions of him and Luna’s scant stories about him. He had a vague recollection of a prince’s reputation across the years, but he wasn’t even sure that it was Noct’s. (Luna called him Noct. It was getting stuck in Nyx’s head. Nyx hated it. It was far too sweet sounding for the little demon, but damn him if he didn’t want to say it. Over and over again. Right in Noct’s ear, rushing it through Noct’s soft hair, calling it against Noct’s smooth skin, speckled in the blood of Noct’s enemies…)

“Nyx.”

Luna’s voice startled him from his fogging thoughts. Startled him so badly that he nearly grabbed his daggers to defend them from the harrowing threat of burning campfire food. Nyx swore louder than was probably appropriate in front of Lucian nobility. It made Noctis smile out of the corner of his eye. And made Nyx’s teeth tingle with how hard he bit down on a scream.

Nyx pulled the boiling pot off the heat, letting the molten bubbles of briny broth settle before undertaking the task of tasting whether or not it had retained any edibility in the wake of his wayward attention. Hardly a dish fit for the King’s dinner table, but it would keep them fed while they were between towns. And not turn up in a less savory condition later in the night.

“Fish food for my esteemed Highnesses,” he announced, ladling the stew between three clay bowls. (“Always come over-prepared,” Luna had said when he was curious to find more than two bowls in their inventory, half suspecting she’d been expecting Noctis to join up with them all along.)

“Great! I love fish.”

Noctis accepted his portion with all the eager reverence of a kitten at mealtime, eyes big and bright and smiling as much as his lips were. Nyx had almost hoped that Noctis would beat the bowl from his hands, spill it down the front of his breeches, and throw a royal tantrum for being served like a commoner, just to give his chest a reason to stop doing that. That twisting, noisy knot of whatever the hell that was.

He retreated to his makeshift cot, putting the fire between him and Noct… Noctis. Prince Noctis, he reminded himself, as if the social divide could convince him to stop imagining what he looked like under that leather jerkin. Nyx sat down a little too hard beside his chocobo, earning an indignant quark for disturbing her from her rest. He appeased the beast with a controlled caress along her neck, relearning how to breathe right from the animal’s steady heartbeat.

“I’ve been told that you’re an excellent cook, Sir Ulric,” Luna said from her strategic position between both men. “You owned a tavern before you were knighted?”

He had to laugh at that, grateful for the distraction. “Not owned, much as I was hoping to one day. And I wouldn’t call what I did there ‘cooking’ so much as dumping things in a pot and hoping for the best.”

“It is,” Noctis said. “The best.”

He slurped at his soup, as undignified as any street hawker in the slums of Galahd. Nyx thought that the little rational nugget of his brain that he was afraid he’d never get back would have been repulsed by that. But, no, here was the rest of him, being hopelessly endeared by the sight of the prince thoroughly enjoying his meal. A meal that Nyx had made for him.

“You can thank my old partner for that,” he said, for the sake of out-talking his tumbling thoughts. “Libs was the real cook. Anything I know how to do with a pot, I learned from watching him. Drinks were more my thing.”

Noctis glanced up from his stew, a wicked slant to his smile that was doing absolutely nothing to help Nyx catch his ailing breath. “Is that right?”

Nyx swirled the stew around his bowl, waiting for the flaky white fish to spell out a more sympathetic excuse for the incident being implied. Luna was of no help, hiding a traitorous smirk behind the edge of her bowl when he cast a silent plead for aid her way.

“Everyone has their weakness,” he grumbled, trying to reinforce a very poor defense. “Guess mine’s Weskham Whiskey.”

“Mmhm, that’s it.”

He shot a glare towards his liege-lady. If he were a wizard, he would have put so much force behind it that her stew snapped up into her face. As if anything so petty could perturb the pristine power of the holy knight. Noctis chuckled, smooth and deep and amiable as ever. He knocked back the remains of his stew like a tankard of the ale that had condemned Nyx to eternal humiliation.

“Well, since there will be no crossing paths with your nemesis again for miles, how about that rematch you promised me?”

Nyx watched him rise to his feet, turning his spoon through his half eaten stew in suspicious contemplation. He did promise that – a much saner version of himself that peeked out from behind his aching hangover. That same iteration returned in a frantic burst of that is a bad idea, don’t do that, I don’t why, I don’t know how, but it’s not a good idea, at all, rescind invitation, deny request, abort, abort!

“Sure! I think my pride’s gone unavenged for a little too long.”

“You might find it stays that way.”

The little devil winked at him, Astrals be damned. Nyx stood up a little too quickly, a little too reminiscent of his first time challenging the man to a duel. But his feet stayed steady underneath him this time, the level of the ground stayed straight, and he only saw one vision of ebon-haired elegance in front of him instead of the five that old Weskham Whiskey had introduced him to.

Noctis called a sword from his Armiger, different from the black blade that had swept Nyx off his feet and cleaved through the bandits that accosted them on the road. This one was plainer steel, just as finely forged as the other, but with a blunted edge for the express purpose of safe practice. Nyx called his kukris from the King’s reserve.

“These are all I have,” he warned him, the mismatched steel glinting crookedly in the firelight. “But I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“Your steel might be sharper than mine, but I wouldn’t count on it giving you an edge.”

“Oh, I’m not.” The careful whirl of the knives over his knuckles was just for show. Just to prove that, yes, he did in fact know how to use them when he wasn’t making drunken proclamations of his superiority with a blade. “I count on my roguish good looks for that.”

Noctis laughed, the most dangerous weapon in his arsenal. He cut a glance towards Luna. “Want to take on the winner?”

Her eyes glinted as sharply as any blade, sizing each of them up with the soft surety of a snowfall in winter. “Alright then. Do try not to maim each other too terribly though. I like an attractive retinue at my service.”

That made Nyx laugh as well, the clot of infatuated nervousness in his guts starting to unravel. Luna had a power about her that set people at ease. She always knew what to say to diffuse any situation. He’d had the honor of being on duty in the throne room for one of her visits to the Citadel, where she addressed a group of crotchety skeptics as to the legitimacy of her claiming to have tamed the power of Altissia’s tempestuous sea goddess for herself. A room never calmed so quickly at the sound of a voice, not even for King Regis himself.

Their camp quieted after that, focused for the sparring at hand. This was better already, Nyx thought, exhaling the remaining phantoms of his doubt. His sobriety didn’t make Noctis any less beautiful, didn’t prove that Drunk Nyx just liked to pretend that the whole world and everything in it was a beautiful rainbow of peace and love and the pursuit of pretty things. But it did make him remember that he had an honor to restore. That the daggers beneath his palms weren’t merely prizes to show off and impress potential bedmates with.

Drunk Nyx had nothing to prove. Sober Nyx had a hell of a lot to.

Noctis struck first, quick even without his power to propel him forward. His cloak was still drying from a rigorous scrubbing in the river down the hill, the browning stains of blood in the dark fabric reminding Nyx just what the prince was capable of. Not that he was ever likely to forget. The image of Noctis, smiling and sweet, with bright red flecks brushed across his cheeks and a bloodglow in his eyes, was forever stamped onto the back of his brain.

Try not to end up as the next splatter pattern on that face. He parried Noct’s sword with a steady scrape of steel, trying very hard not to admire the way it reflected in his eyes. He returned the blow with a downward swipe, catching the edge of the sword underneath the curve of his kukris. He pushed down, trying to pin the blade to the dirt, but Noctis was stronger than he looked, fighting him for every inch and driving upwards until he gained enough space to swipe his sword out from under the steel trap the daggers clutched it in.

They traded strikes like that for a good long while, chasing the heady pulse of combat, beating along to each clash of steel. The longer they fought, the more Nyx smiled. He hadn’t had a formidable partner to practice with for a long time. His friends were powerful fighters in their own right, always challenging him in the yard to find his limitations and overcome them. But he hadn’t had someone new like this in too long. Hadn’t had anyone he couldn’t predict after years upon years of learning the intricacies of each step against him.

Noctis moved like liquid night, the gray gilt of his sword as quick as a falling star. His eyes flashed with every spark of the sliding blades, a quick bolt of blue light in the dark. He scowled in concentration as the fight drew on, hair wild with every movement and skin flushed against the hard pace. Nyx could feel the heat of Noct’s blood racing with the adrenaline between them both, felt his own skin shiver every time his boot brushed the toe of Noct’s when he dove in close, or his arm bumped into his when their blades collided too close.

Noctis glared at him over the shining metal in fiendish delight. A lull of confidence had lured Nyx into the lock of steel, a lethal spell that could overcome even the greatest of warriors. The rhythm of battle became hypnotic, tricked him into following a particular pattern. It happened in long fights, fights that he was trained to end long before they could stretch on to any such length. He got too content in the safety of their little campsite. In the distraction of Noct’s bluefire eyes.

Noctis changed the tune of the fight. The melody slowed, deliberate and abrupt, too fast for Nyx to rein himself in to fall into step alongside it. Noctis took advantage of his runaway haste, ducking out from under a succession of strikes and tripping Nyx onto his face before he could rebalance himself to dodge.

He got a mouthful of grass and a hot bundle of weight on his back, pressing singed steel to the heated flesh at the base of his neck. Which only made Nyx’s bounding heart run faster, pumping so hard that he felt it in his whole skull. He could barely even hear Noctis’ victorious demand for him to yield, his pulse drummed so loudly in his ears.

It ceased completely for a moment. Nyx feared that Noctis had driven him so mad that his heart had exploded. That he was dead and hearing the song of the messengers to ferry souls to the heavens, crooned into his ear.

The incorporeal acolytes of the Astrals were not nearly so merciful though. Noct’s voice was heavy and hot, and Nyx could feel his whole body heaving against his back, could feel his thighs trembling, clutched where they were against his sides to hold him down. Nyx bit down on a blade of grass to contain the obscene noise that threatened to expose him when Noctis rasped along the shell of his ear.

“Was it worth it?” he asked. “This pride you care about so much?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Your Highness,” Nyx barely managed to say, wheezing past the churning desire infecting his stomach. “You were never worth it.”

He turned his head just enough to catch the edge of Noct’s grin, wet with sweat and pink with his pounding pulse. And it was so close to him, too. Just close enough that if Nyx twisted his neck, he’d probably break it under the weight of Noct’s sword, but it would be worth it to taste the salt of those soft lips before he died.

Before he could do anything so foolish and die as much of a disgrace as his previous drunkenness already made him, Luna’s voice chimed across the campfire. “I believe that’s match.”

“And I believe you owe me a dance, milady.”

Noctis climbed off of Nyx and it was all he could do not to jump up and drag him back down on him. Not to roll him into the dirt, tangle his lush hair with moon-kissed grass, and wrestle out more of those deep, hot grunts without the steelsong to smother them.

Nyx rolled onto his back and gulped in the cool night air to cleanse his raging thoughts. It soothed his ragged pulse, eased the heat from his skin, but unlike the cold clarity of a bucket of water dumped over his head, it could not clear away just how intoxicated he was with the Prince of Lucis.

[jazzraft]

NyxNoct w/Hoodies

part four of the cabin getaway for day eight of the deathbyfluff challenge @nyxnoctocalypse. the theme is favorites/piece of clothing. (prompted from here)

Nyx smoked for three years after he moved to Insomnia.

It was stupid. He knew it would kill him, but not before hismother did if she ever found out. Although at the time, both of them were tooaggrieved with the loss of Selena to notice much of anything about each other.Least of all over the phone, with landlines upon landlines to hide behind.

He smoked and he drank because they made everything hurt less,and Libertus, foggy from his own vices, couldn’t do much to help – not that Nyxwas asking for it. He threw away a lot of things with the habits once hecleaned up – lots of ass-kicking from Crowe and long talks into the dawn withLibs. And once, a subdued heart to heart with the King of Lucis himself.

He couldn’t stand the smell of smoke on all of his clothes.He scrubbed them and soaked them in his sink for days until they were cleanenough to give away to those who needed them more. And those that couldn’tsmell his shame no matter how much soap he used.

He didn’t recognize the hoodie when Noctis threw it into hissuitcase before they left for the cabin. He forgot about it entirely once itwas buried under the rest of his clothes he was taking on the trip. It onlydrew his eye again once Noctis was wearing it.

The weather had finally cleared up to the temperate,blue-skied beauty the news had promised. The air was cool and the sun wassteady, and they were determined to get out to the pumpkin fields at the edgeof town before the weather turned again for the worse. They didn’t need tobundle up against the chill, but Noctis grabbed the first jacket he saw on theway out that was light enough for the day.

It was a ratty, dark navy rag of a thing, draw-stringsfrayed down to the threads and holes in the sleeves. A few cigarette burnscurdled into the arms, phantoms of the poisoned years wasted on self-prescribedanesthesia. He felt his thoughts harden and his jaw tighten, a reflex trainedagainst the darkness of those old thoughts. He expected them to collide backinto his brain, cruel and unwanted with the reminder of his past in front ofhim.

But as they climbed up into the hay wagon to take them tothe fields, with a smattering of happy families enjoying the day and Noctisbouncing down onto a hay-bale seat next to him, Nyx found that his thoughtswere much softer than he feared they would be. Noctis caught him staring andsmiled, bumping his shoulder into his, the over-sized hoodie sagging around hisneck.

“I have a confession to make,” Noctis said, winding his armthrough Nyx’s to hold on as the tractor lurched forward, sending all thepassengers keening to the side before settling back against the bales. “I’venever done this, but I’ve always wanted to.”

“Roll around in the hay?”

Noctis scolded him with a glare that quite loudly said,“Nyx, there are children present.” He glanced at the kids at the other end ofthe wagon, climbing over bales and bringing woe to their parents by leaning outthe edges to better see the fields when they got closer.

“Pumpkin picking,” Noctis corrected. “Any picking, really. Iheard about it online, but for a while I thought that places like these weren’teven open anymore with the war and stuff.”

“We used to have places like these all over the place inGalahd. Agriculture was a big thing. Everything ‘outdoorsy.’ Fishing, hiking,sailing in the summer. Harvest in the fall.”

“Is this anything like home?”

He remembered rocking back and forth in the back of a redtractor with Selena and his friends. He remembered Crowe hanging off the sideslike the little girl at the other end of the wagon. He remembered his motherand Libs’ mother trying to wrangle them all into sitting still until they gotto the fields. He remembered that Selena always picked the biggest pumpkin inthe field and that Libertus would always try to out-weigh her every year, butcould never quite find a squash that rivaled the monsters she sniffed out.

“Yeah. It’s a lot like home.”

He pulled Noctis closer, relieved that he couldn’t smellcigarette smoke on the hoodie. Noctis curled around his arm for the rest of theride, hands kneading absently against the inside of his forearm. He occasioneda smile up at Nyx, assuring him that he was there for him if he needed him. Andeven if he didn’t. It made Nyx smile as much as the memories did. As much asthe smell of hay and the crispness of the air did.

He could breathe, clear and easy. The only smoke he couldtaste in on the back of his tongue was from some faraway chimney. There was atang of charcoal and wood-fire somewhere past the orange leaves fencing thepumpkin field. It was comforting, and familiar in a much sweeter smokiness thanthe nicotine.

He followed Noct’s bouncy stride out into the field whenthey were dropped off, watching him and how the hoodie drooped around him. Itwould smell like Noctis now, he realized. This awful thing that he wished henever had to remember would be washed clean with the scent of the prince’sskin. This object of his past that he never wanted to touch this beautifulfuture, yet Noctis wore it with pride. Because it belonged to Nyx, and Noctisloved him. Everything about him. All the good and all of the bad, too.

“Do you think that they’ll even let me bring something thishuge back into the city with me?”

Noctis crouched next to a big orange bulge resting againstthe soil. The thing was nearly the size of one of the toddlers that rode withthem. It was as big as his sister had been when she was six.

“I’m sure we could work something out. Assuming you evenwant to carry that thing out of here?”

Noctis looked up at him, eyes sparkling with defiance. Nyxpulled the collar of his coat over his mouth to try and keep himself fromlaughing when Noctis attempted to tackle lifting the thing. He rolled it offits side so it was standing straight, stem up, and tried to clasp the pricklyprotrusion and lift it that way. That quickly proved to be more painful thanproductive.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Noct. You’ll mess up your back nomatter how you try it.”

The only way to pick up these stones in squash form was likepicking up a baby. Nyx hefted the orange giant into his arms with a groan.Noctis pouted in defeat, but picked up a consolation prize for Nyx’s gallantry.He got a much tinier pumpkin that he could tuck beneath his arm. He looked alltoo proud of himself for the giant in Nyx’s arms.

“You okay carrying that?” he asked as they walked back tothe field entrance to wait for the wagon’s return.

“I’ll manage. Just for you though. I don’t show off thesemuscles for just anyone, y’know.”

Noctis snorted and rolled his eyes, pulling up the hood ofthe jacket so that he could pretend he didn’t know the ridiculous man with thegiant pumpkin next to him. Hard to pretend he didn’t know him when he was wearinghis clothes. Wearing his past with so much ease and respect for what he’dovercome to be the type of man that a prince could fall in love with.

He wouldn’t have loved him if he knew him when Nyx used towear that hoodie. He hadn’t even loved himself when he used to wear thathoodie. But he loved Noctis in it now. Learned to love how it represented allhe overcame and all he had received for it when it was on Noct’s shoulders.

The tractor grumbled up to the entrance and they piled backonto the hay bales, Nyx hefting the big pumpkin onto the floor between them andgroaning in relief. Noctis smiled, gratefully, rewarding him with a quick kisson the cheek.

“My hero.”

“It’s a pumpkin, baby.”

“Still my hero.”

Noctis resumed his place around his arm, tucking the pumpkinbeneath his knees so it wouldn’t roll along the wagon bed when they moved. Heheld the smaller prize like it was a stuffed animal, precious andirreplaceable. Nyx hugged him just the same.

[jazzraft]

ArdynxRavus please! With the prompt: "You can fool everyone else in the world, but not me."

you were probably hoping for angst, but um… (set in this old universe)

It really wasn’t the art itself that Ardyn attended thesethings for. Art was just pictures. They were only ever one thing: a coupleexpensive pigments splattered on a plain canvas. Once a piece was done, it wasdone. They never changed.

It was the people that made the art more significant thanthe reality of what it truly was. It was the people that made the simple act ofsmearing color on paper into the very concept of “art.” People perceived theirown souls in the different shades of color and texture and form. Whether it wasabstract or baroque or expressive, people turned one thing into a thousandthings, each one unique to the individual standing outside of the frame.Whether it was artist or audience, one small square of complimentary colorsturned into a whole universe in the eye of the beholder.

Mankind was the true work of art, a million disparate piecesof a picture coming together over a single image, and each one bringing withthem a biography of their own lifetime. The entire world condensed into a tinylittle Altissian gallery, a different stroke of humanity blending into the airyroom throughout the changing light of the day.

Bright and bubbly blondes in gilded couture flitted in atdawn like awakening songbirds, feathery fingers bathing in mimosas and earlymorning gossip. The darker, quieter crowd of critics and scholars bled in withthe shades of the afternoon, the earthbound academics of art murmured overblack cups of coffee. Then, the evening popped open champagne to toast themoonlight, coaxing the last dregs of the dreamy and discarded artisans of thecity to the gallery doors.

Ravus often came with the night crowd, inviting themoonlight inside with the sleek collapse of his hair. And he always came aloneif he didn’t come with his sister. Why he came at all, Ardyn always wondered.Painting was Luna’s passion, and her happiness in her own accomplishments wasRavus’ pride, but the culture of art itself didn’t seem to appeal to the manvery much.

He didn’t enjoy making idle conversation. He avoided thegravitational pull of gossip pockets by clinging to the corners of the room. Henever accepted a drink, declining any offers with curt courtesy – although, ifanyone looked like they needed a drink at these things, it was Ravus. He onlyspoke when he felt it was necessary, to curators and prospective buyers andanyone with deep enough pockets to afford his sister the accolades he felt shedeserved.

He came to these galleries to make an appearance when Lunacould not, and that was it. He wasn’t there to admire the art or socialize withthe people. He was there to be seen, to serve as the model for Accordonexcellence, a fixture against the walls as much as any of the paintings mountedupon them were. He didn’t bring the same brushstrokes into the galleries thatArdyn had come to expect out of people.

He was different. Ardyn liked different.

Although, it was hard to flirt with different when he didn’twant a drink.

“Won’t you make an exception?” Ardyn insisted. “For me?”

Ravus looked at him with all the apathetic languor of abehemoth batting an ear at a fly. Ardyn gulped down one of the two glasses inhis hands to kill the pout on his lips. He discarded it on the tray of apassing server before directing his attention to the painting Ravus waspretending to find spiritual connectivity with.

It was fairly simple. A solitary silhouette of an androgynousfigure with duplications of different shades painted along the edges, giving itthe impression of an endless stack of person-shaped cards stretching deep intothe canvas. White and black and every shade of gray in between tunneled into abackdrop of chaotic smudges of primary colors. The limitless layers of humanitystriking through the complex infinity of an uncertain universe.

“A bit heavy-handed if you ask me,” Ardyn commented. “Notvery subtle.”

“Then it’s perfect for you.”

Ardyn chuckled, mouth pressing into an amused line when hewatched the thin string of tension pull taut across Ravus’ shoulders. Laughterwas not the reaction he’d been expecting. The people that frequented this scenewere so easily offended. Bluntness was often awarded with a scoff – maybe evena slap from the more theatrically inclined. Ardyn found it refreshing. A littledull, about as simplistic as the painting in front of them, but a nice changeof pace. He enjoyed the word games of the upper echelon of Altissian society,but there were only so many times a person could fall for his vernacularmanipulations before he tired of it.

“I assumed you for a man who appreciated transparency,”Ardyn said, vying for a clue as to how he could sneak beneath that shell.

“I appreciate silence.”

“Then I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place.”

Art galleries were quiet enough, but hardly silent. Therewas always a murmur about something or other in the spacious halls. Alwayswhite noise for every black background. Ravus glanced at the people around himas if this was the first he’d noticed them, cursory stare clicking betweensocialites in disinterested acknowledgment. They were there, yes. They were nothingelse.

The silence Ravus coveted so dearly clotted between themthen, sticking stubbornly to the unreachable man beside him. No man was trulyuntouchable, though. There was always something.

“I’m disappointed that your sister could not attend tonight.I was eager to speak with her about one of her pieces on display at the Levilleopening.”

Ravus valiantly kept his gaze forward, pinned to the figureof a thousand shades. His head shifted imperceptibly to the side, hair fallingaway from his ear to lend it to a potential negotiation for a piece. Ardynsmiled, victorious where he wasn’t looking.

“I found her interpretation of Ifrit and Shiva to be quitecompelling. Unique from most other depictions. A more sensitive quality to thefeatures. A more delicate color palette than the intense duality most artistsinterpret from the mythology.”

“It was quite a labor-intensive piece,” Ravus at lastreplied, affording him a sharp glance. “Took half a year to complete.”

“So I would assume, given the quality of the piece.”

“You’re willing to pay the price for that quality, then?”

“Willing to pay that and more, if you’ll accept it.”

Ravus’ eyes narrowed, body turned fully towards him. He wasintrigued, yet suspicious. He crossed his arms, quiet in his considerationbefore naming his price. “Ten thousand gil.”

“Fifteen.”

While the gallery was buzzing with muted conversation, thesilence between them cut in as if from another room entirely. Completely separatefrom everyone else. Ardyn was good at this. The waiting. He’d waited a longtime for an opportunity like this. Ravus wasn’t in the habit of giving him manyopenings. He had to pry them open where he could.

“Fine. You have a deal. I’ll make the arrangements and haveit sent to an address of your choosing.”

“I have a delivery request, if you’ll indulge me. The offeris entirely dependent upon it.”

Ravus quirked a brow, fine as spun silver and just as sharpin its skepticism. “Oh? And what is this request?”

“That you deliver it to me, personally. That’s all.”

Ravus’ jaw worked hard, teeth grinding in the back of hismouth as he considered. He stared at Ardyn for the longest time, trying toguess as to his intentions. And he’d insinuated that he wasn’t subtle. Hah.

“It will be done,” Ravus finally conceded.

“Excellent. A pleasure doing business with you.”

He didn’t bother extending a hand to shake on it. He knewthat Ravus wouldn’t take it, if the stubborn smash of his fists in his pocketswas any indicator. Ravus watched him for a moment before turning to the gallerydoors.

“I don’t know what your game is, Izunia,” he said under hisbreath as he was passing. “But whatever it is, I’m not going to fall for it.You can fool everyone else in the world, but not me.”

Ardyn said nothing, merely smiled at him until he was outthe door. He didn’t fail to notice the slight incline of the back of his head,silver strands of hair leaning querulously in Ardyn’s direction before he wasout of sight.

“On the contrary, my dear. I think you’re already a fool forme.”

[jazzraft]

Can I request a nyxnoct fic where Noct and Nyx get into this all out fight and Nyx is kinda just mocking Noct saying something like how he's fought with the literal Kings of Lucis at his side, so there's nothing Noct can do that'll impress or surprise him and then Noct just summons a freaking Astral like Ramuh or Leviathan and that's when Nyx realizes just how dangerous and powerful Noct can be when he's dead serious.

this is a little… everywhere, but it’s all i could think of. it was going to be way sillier, but then nyx got introspective and here we are.

He’s sparred with Noctis before, plenty of times. Playfighting, really. Love taps and warp tag and more flirting than fighting. Itwas hard to stay professional when there was no one around to put on a showfor. Their sessions were often spent in the dusty Kingsglaive arena afterhours, when all of the shrewd stares of soldiers trained to see everything thatone didn’t want them to see, had closed to their own dreams in farawayapartments when night fell over Insomnia. The military arenas were left for therestless and the wanton, for dreams to be acted out in realism, for the daringto chance the danger of a sleepless security guard passing through or secretarystaff on the late shift getting lost.

They’d practiced plenty during those midnight challenges. Itwasn’t always the correct lesson.

Out on the open plateaus of the havens across Lucis, theydidn’t have the luxury of privacy. Having an attentive audience to their everyaction demanded they abide by the laws of subtlety. Not something they’d evergotten around to practicing at home.

Sparring had never been what it should have been, notpractical exercises in survival or refining the form of wielding Noct’s swordsor reigning in the phantom magic that left them both breathless at the end ofevery round. It was more of an indulgence of being in awe and admiring eachother, eyes dark in the dim moonlight, watching how each breath expanded thechest and parted the lips and flushed the cheeks. Tasted the sweat on theirbrows and the heat off their skin and the tang of sparks and steel when bladescollided. Stared, entranced, by the fluidity of limbs, the power simmering ineach movement, the tautness of muscles as they moved in a stance, curled arounda hilt, stalked across the sand.

Those hot-blooded nights at the Citadel felt like a lifetimeago. And sparring now felt so wrong, so forced.Nyx knew that Noctis wanted to do more, wanted to let loose in the ways he onlycould with Nyx and not with anyone else. Fighting with Gladio was for burningoff aggression. Fighting with Ignis was for focusing his warring thoughts. Ifhe fought with Prompto, it was only ever for fun, to distract himself from allthe bad with a little bit of good. When he fought with Nyx, it was to tradewith him the tensions that they could never tell anyone else. The things thatwere so hard to put into words. It wasn’t just a lust for one another, but acatharsis for all these secrets they could tell no one else but each other.

Sparring had become as intimate as the things they got up toin Nyx’s apartment. And this, whatever endless, spacious loop they were chasingeach other around, wasn’t that.

He was frustrated. Noct was frustrated. This match was aculmination of various frustrations. It represented so much of what they’d lostin the fall. That arena, that apartment, all the places they could go to hide,all the ways they were when they were alone and didn’t have so much more of theworld on their shoulders. Nyx had died.Noctis was King. Their greatest fearshad all come true in a single night. And here they were, so happy to betogether again, yet so terrified to touch each other lest they break theillusion of each other apart.

Finally, he taunted Noctis because he couldn’t take thesterility between them anymore, needed to force some kind of reaction for themboth to initiate that intensity they used to have when it was just the two ofthem and the sing of steel at midnight.

“Wasn’t going beyond the Wall supposed to toughen you up?”he teased. “Seems like it had the opposite effect.”

“As if your runway walk is any more impressive?”

“I’m posturing, it’s supposed to intimidate you.”

“Yeah huh.”

Nyx gulped down hard on an annoyed growl. The dialoguewasn’t the same. Noctis would have disarmed him with a smile and a line if theguys weren’t lazing around the edges of the camp to hear. While there weren’tany secrets between them anymore about the romance between prince and glaive,this time the two of them used to share still wasn’t the same. He knew thatNoct’s friends weren’t to blame. He knew that it was so much more than that.

“Should be intimidated,” he snapped. “I fought with thosecrotchety old farts in your fancy ring and still came out swinging. I’d bescared of me.”

Noct’s brows knit together across from him, hearing a truththat Nyx hadn’t meant to say. Nyx threw a kukri and warped to Noctis, bladesclashing so Nyx didn’t have to hear that truth himself. That while he hadn’tfeared the Lucii or the price they’d promised he would have to pay, he fearedwhat was left of himself now that he hadn’t. When he awoke to a world incinders, the bones of the city collapsed around him, and the people he’d swornto protect dead and betrayed in his memory, he felt more fear than he hadfalling asleep to the sun.

He’d broken his promise. He’d destroyed more than he’dprotected the Crown that had once saved him. He’d ruined what was left for hislove to return home to. He hadn’t saved anything or anyone that he cared about.He said as much in every strike of his blade that Noctis parried. The phantomswords of the Armiger reminded him too much of those ancient ghosts in hishead. The wards on the haven hummed too loudly like the fire that had burnedhim up from the inside-out. Nothing was the same because he’d failed to keep itthat way. He’d lost their arena, their apartment, their hidden peace, theirsecret places, their family dinners in the King’s solar, their plans to getaway from the city… He’d never wanted to leave it quite like that.

“Nyx!”

Noctis threw him back from a flurry of strikes with a grunt,chest heaving and arms shaking from the effort to meet each blow. His eyeswarred with fatigue and concern and more forgiveness than Nyx deserved. Redsand blues and violets filtered in confusion along the edges of his pupils,unable to guess at Nyx’s intentions. He didn’t know them himself. He thought hewanted Noctis to get angry at him. As angry as he was with himself, maybe.

“Are you gonna fight back or what?”

Noctis flinched and Nyx wished that he could take it back.There was another truth in that. This wasn’t the kind of tension they used torelease on one another. Not the kind of truths they used to speak to each otherwithout saying a word. He hated it. And Noct hated it. So much that the earthstarted to rumble and his brow creased in pain and he dropped his swords to theether of the Crystal to hold his head in his hands.

Summoning the Astrals was an unpredictable occurrence. Titanwas still a fresh wound gaping in Noct’s arsenal. He called to Noctis inviolence and aided him at his own whim, not the King’s. He was barely learninghow to control the Astral’s appearances, let alone the damage he left on theearth after his aid. His shadow loomed on the horizon, startling Gladio andIgnis and Prompto to their feet at the edge of camp.

Titan loped closer and closer, and Nyx wasn’t nearly asafraid of him as he should have been. He was afraid of what he’d done to Noctisto hurt him enough to inspire the Astral to confront them all. He was afraidthat he’d ruined everything else with a simple sentence.

He was afraid that he couldn’t protect Noctis. He was afraidthat he was going to break him, just like he’d broken his city. And he didn’tknow how to say that to him. Didn’t know how to express that he wanted nothingmore in this life than to stay by his side, but felt like he should be as faraway from it as he could.

Maybe he should just let Titan take him in his fist andfinish what the Lucii started.

Maybe he shouldn’t have underestimated Noct.

“Stop!”

The Astral was still miles away, but Noctis shouted out tohim as if he were merely a few feet from the camp. He whirled around to facehim in the distance, fists at his sides and heels digging into the stone. Hiseyes were crimson and full of wrath, teeth evenly clenched together in a wolvensnarl. His silhouette was sharp, black as ink, and taller than Nyx had everseen it before.

“I didn’t ask for you!” Noctis shouted at Titan. “I don’tneed you!”

Titan loomed along the horizon, shoulders blinding the sun,celestial energy rumbling through the hills, moving through the trees in aharsh rustle. It felt like the boughs were leaning towards Nyx, leafy fingersreaching in to try snagging at his clothes. The earth felt like it could riseup and fold over him as effortlessly as an ocean wave. But Noctis refused themalevolent defense. The Prince stood his ground and barked back to some unheardcurse.

“Go back! I don’t needyou!”

The world growled, something fighting in the air and thegrass that none of them could see. But Nyx could see Noct’s hatred for theAstral’s intrusion in the violence of how the god broke apart into stars andvanished against the setting sun. It was like a stone being thrown back at him,shattering him like a mirror. The earth stilled and the wind quieted and Noctisstood at the edge, tight with the rage of his control.

It was new for Nyx. All of it was. Phantom kings, elementalavatars, Noctis, his boy, so soft and smiling and stupidly sweet to him when hedidn’t deserve it, rising amidst all of it with an anger they’d only everwhispered about in the waning hours of night before dawn. Noctis wielding hisfears like one of his swords to protect himself from all of the things thatwanted to use him. All of the things Nyx was so afraid that he couldn’t keepfrom hurting him.

“I’m sorry.”

Nyx’s voice felt small to his own ears. Noctis blinked andhis eyes were blue again as he looked back at him.

“No, it’s fine, it’s my fault, I…”

“No. Not that. I’m sorry for…”

Nyx shrugged, eyes downcast to the rock beneath them. He wassorry for everything. For his failures in both the dead and the living. Hisfailure to have faith in Noctis on his own. His doubt in his power and hisability to hold all the burdens of the world on his shoulders. Insomnia hadshaken his faith in everything. Even the one thing he thought never could becalled into question. He knew that Noctis wasn’t weak. He knew that he was somuch stronger than anyone would ever be able to see. And yet… He thought heneeded to protect him. And that if he couldn’t, Noctis wouldn’t protecthimself.

He hated that the most. This new, wrong change in him. He hatedthat the Lucii had done this to him.

Noctis appeared in his space, wrapping his hands around hisand ducking his head down to look him in the eye where Nyx was trying to hidethem. More truths that only he could hear. Nyx could see it in his eyes whenthey met.

“It’s okay,” Noctis said for only him to hear, barely awhisper.

He hated that he didn’t believe him. He hated that Noctiscould see that, too. Noctis gave a brief look to his friends at the edges ofcamp, a silent signal to give them some space. When they were distracted withwhatever distant hobby they liked to indulge in, Noctis pulled Nyx into hisarms and just held him. Like Nyx used to do for him in his worst moments. Justheld his shattered pieces together until he was strong enough to hold themtogether himself.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured again, deep into his shoulder.

“I know. I am too. But we’ll be fine. I promise.”

[jazzraft]

Prompt: "Do you think there could have been any hope for us?" For Ardyn x Gentiana please? Maybe with Gilgamesh thrown in there somewhere? (I'll let you decide whether you wanna add him or not). I've been deep in the theories about Ardyn during his saviour days with Gilgamesh as his shield and Gentiana accompanying him, and I haven't seen many fics with them around.

this took forever because i had no idea where to begin. but spotify bestowed upon me helpful musical recommendations and now it’s finally here. hope it’s okay

It was a bar entirely indistinct from any other dotting thewasteland between Altissia and Cartanica. Just another rest stop along therailroad tracks. Another refuge for travelers, wandering through the betweenplace. Ahead was Niflheim, behind was Altissia. And in the middle wasCartanica. The crossroads between Heaven and Hell.

Gods and devils alike shadowed the foot traffic throughoutthe way stations and the outposts. The turnstiles twisted one more time in thewake of the untouched rush of a passenger making their train. Drafts of airwhispered through breezeless ticket booths, sneaking up the hairs on the backof a teller’s neck. Bulbs flickered, but never died. And empty spaces, nomatter how barren, always seemed to feel more occupied than by the one personobserving the vacancy.

Such was the case with the little bar hanging off of themain thoroughfare below Cartanica Station. It was just the bartender and onelost soul nursing dreams from the bottle at the corner table. He would miss histrain if she didn’t wake him. But he would miss the kindness of the booze’sdistraction more if she did.

Time froze with her hovering over the table, hand suspendedabove the dreaming traveler’s shoulder. Then, the Devil walked in and helpedhimself to a drink.

A celebratory toast. The world rose glasses to celebrate thelife of an idol. He poured one to cheer for her death. He’d slain one of God’sangels. And in doing so, he thought he’d done her a god damn favor.

Oracle. What anhonor. What a blessing. What a joke.

It had been a different word when it was him. An ancient,exalted word for “savior” and “healer” and since lost to the evolution oflanguage. Since bastardized into a synonym for “martyr.” Not a hero. Hardlyeven a priestess. Just a dead thing in white silk. White wings bound to herback by a promise from a coward. Tied together by a serpent in a stone, cagedby a madman with the world at his fingertips.

He wondered if she even knew how to dream of flight. Hewondered if she ever knew that freedom had been right there for her to take. Hewondered if she even knew that she had the choice.

He shouldn’t pity the poor thing. She was a means to an end.And she made it all too easy to reach it. If he was disappointed in anything,it was just how little of a challenge she had posed to him. She was alreadydead when he drove in the knife. He didn’t know if that was by his own badluck, or by the gods’ design, to steal away yet another fulfilment that was hisby right.

The liquor tasted like lighter fluid.

“You are not yet satisfied.”

Only the goddess of ice could intrude upon the frozen worldbetter than he could. And she was the only one of the Six brave enough to seekhim out of her own accord. It wasn’t that the others were afraid of him. No, hecouldn’t flatter himself into thinking they saw him as a threat. He was far, far worse than that. He was their shame.And what was more horrifying than the proof that the gods were imperfect? Hewas their immortal scar, an eternal mirror to all their cruelty. And he wouldonly die when they did.

She sat beside the slumbering drunk, her face towards him,but her eyes closed to him. Blind to the agony of man. Her ageless vessel was asculpture beside the pair of people. Even frozen, there was more life to themthan the guise that the goddess wore to walk among man. Ardyn wondered if aglass of the acid the bar served could melt her frosty shell.

“Are you asking me, or telling me? If you’re asking, I canassure you that I’m not. If you’re telling, then I can finally call you a liar.”

The unbroken façade of her face creased, still turnedtowards the motionless stranger at her side. Annoying, that pretension to careabout an ordinary person. Acting as if the gods cared for their children beyondmaking them into servants.

He brought his glass over to the table and leaned beside thebartender there, paralleling her position. But instead of a helpful hand, heoffered the hidden goddess his poison. She turned her face to him, but she didn’tlook at him. She hadn’t looked at him for two thousand years.

“I’m sorry,” he chuckled. “Are you waiting for me to redeemmyself for you? Do you want to hear me say that I didn’t enjoy breaking your favorite new toy?”

“You imply that you were envious of her.”

“Would that make me even more disgusting to you?”

She went quiet. She turned her face back to the man at thetable and the woman reaching for him. She stared without seeing them for thelongest time. Ardyn swallowed his poison and sighed.

“They aren’t perfect,” he told her. “She isn’t waking him upout of the kindness of her heart. He isn’t here for the joy of drinking. She’simpatient. He’s a liar. They wouldn’t be human if they weren’t.”

“I know.”

His fingers tightened around the glass. A feeling passedthrough him that felt as pitiful and despicable as the celestial magic thattouched him in Altissia. Not pity for the girl. Not fear of her. Maybe it wasjealousy. That it was her lie of humanity that the gods chose to believe, wherehe had spent all his life showing them the truth. They believed that mankindwas virtuous. That they were the gods’ own truth. Man was made in their image.And man was perfect.

He showed them that they weren’t. And he was condemned forthat truth.

When she turned back to him, she looked at him. Finally, after two thousand years, she opened hereyes to him. She made herself see his truth.

“You are right and you are wrong, lost king. She isimpatient, but she is empathetic. He is a liar, but he seeks truth. Mankind isnot made of shadows, begging for light. Nor are they lenses of the gods,eradicated of darkness from the heavens’ light. Man is where the two of us meetin the middle. Our crossroads. You taught me half of this truth. She taught methe other.”

“Yet, you loved her more.”

She rose to her feet like twilight. A slow bleed of change.

“Do you think therecould have been any hope for us?” He remembers a version of himself that hehad long forgotten. He remembers being a boy and his folly for mistaking thefavor of the gods as love. He remembers seeing those eyes open for the firsttime, willing to see him, of all themen in the world. He remembered being proud, he remembered infatuation, and he rememberedheart-break.

He remembered a man at his side. He’s little more than aghost now. As eternal as Ardyn, but no longer his. He remembers when he couldtaste liquor without feeling it curdle in his stomach. He remembers the slur ofthe words and getting no answer. He remembers that the man was only ever thereto listen.

She remembers, too. She’s always remembered.

He hopes that it made the Oracle’s death hurt that muchmore.

“Best hurry,” he urged her. “The next train will be leavingsoon.”

She wanted him to ask her forgiveness. She wanted him tohave the other half she had so desperately sought from her last pawn. Shewanted him to be better, to meet the standard of her perfect doll. But if therewas a boy who could have been any of what she had wanted, he’d turned to stoneand died the last time she looked at him.

Her eyes did nothing to him now. They could only inciteadoration from ignorance. And he’d have to be human to be that stupid.

Time moved forward. The bartender touched the drunk man’sshoulder.

[jazzraft]

You're Cor&Prompto fic was really heartwarming and I was wondering if you'd like to do another one? A fic that takes places after Noct disappears into the crystal. Everyone returns to Cape Caem and Prompto sneaks away at night to mourn. Cor stumbles upon him and tries to comfort him.

nothing clears the headspace for more wordy angst like a long vacation~ back with this, hope you enjoy!

There was silence in the air and salt on his lips.

The sea writhed in foamy white anguish against thecliff-side, lashing up against the rocks far, far below. The water was blackerthan the inky sky it wrestled with inside its reflection. The seafoam below wasmore vivid than the stars above. All of the glittering lights overhead hadslowly been blotting themselves out since the passing of the Oracle.

Though their friends at Cape Caem had not indicated anyalarm over an abrupt escalation of the starlight’s decline, Prompto was certainthat the sky had made a sudden shift to a darker shade since they had walkedout of Gralea.

Or maybe it was just that his own vision had gone darkersince the one thing that had given him light for so many years had gone out.

He was so, soangry! That he hadn’t been fast enough to latch onto the hand clawingdesperately from the traitorous glow of the Crystal they’d fought so hard tofind. That all of his practice and precision was for nothing if his bulletswere useless on the monster that stole Noctis from him. It had been so satisfying to watch that thing pretending to be a man fall. Toknow, for just an awful, bitter breath of a moment, that he had done that. He had shot down the manifestation of all oftheir pain. He had avenged Noct. It was over.

But then, Ardyn stood up and he walked away with all ofPrompto’s hopes in the cascade of the shadows that followed his heels.

He felt so… defeated. He knew that he wasn’t the only one.He knew that it wasn’t just him that felt like it was all – and only – his ownfault that they had lost Noctis. But no one wanted to share the blame. Theydidn’t want to hurt each other worse than they’d already been hurt by sharingthe burden of their failures. They just wanted to bear it all themselves. Tryto make it easier for everyone else.

It was so isolating. So unlike how they used to be.

He’d never heard silence as loudly as he did on the way backto Caem. He’d never heard self-loathing, unsaid, quite as clearly. He saw it inthe way Gladio rested his head against his fist on the windowsill, andconstantly pressed his knuckles to his eyes, ashamed to look at anything forhow he had failed his king. Iggy’s stillness was as unnerving as a corpse, asif a part of him had died when Noctis vanished. A terrible part of Prompto wasgrateful that Ignis couldn’t see the last, frantic reach of their friend,grasping for hands that he couldn’t see reaching back for him, racing to rescuehim.

In the silence, Prompto thought he could hear Noctisscreaming. Crying, alone. Thinking he’d been abandoned.

He couldn’t get away from it fast enough when they landed atthe lighthouse. He could barely force the words out when Talcott came boundingdown the path, expecting heroic tales and souvenirs and a prince to step out ofthe empty airship to share it all with him. Prompto didn’t know how to consolethe kid. He didn’t even know how to tell him, even after he already did.

He watched pairs of smart black shoes pass below his eyeswhere he’d stared down at Talcott’s sneakers. He heard nothing but the quiet inhis own head. He didn’t hear the child’s confused questions or Monica’s carefulushering as she helped him away. He didn’t hear Dustin’s dry interrogation ofanyone who had the strength to speak.

Nobody did. Aranea told the man as much – and not nearly askindly. But Prompto didn’t hear that, either.

He didn’t hear the reserved apologies. He didn’t hear theguided march up to the ramshackle cottage in the shadow of the lighthouse. Hedidn’t hear the whine of the engines as the airship took off on its search forthe lost in need of rescue. He didn’t hear Iris leap up from her chair at thekitchen table to bundle into Gladio’s chest. He didn’t hear the slow,deliberate thump of Cor’s boots as he approached Ignis.

But he did hear the way Ignis told him that they failed.Because he told him with no words at all. Cor could hear Noctis screaming inthe silence on Iggy’s tongue just as loudly as Prompto could.

The quiet was too loud in the house. As he fled theplaintive noise of it and climbed the hill to the seat behind the lighthouse, avoice that only Noctis could help keep quiet told him that he was a coward forrunning away. That he was a failure, that he was useless, that he couldn’t savehis best friend, not even after Noctis had saved him.

Maybe if you hadn’ttaken so many pictures… Maybe if you hadn’t made so many stupid jokes… Maybe ifyou had paid attention, taken this seriously, stopped trying to be the friendand be the guardian you were supposed to be…

The camera was a lens over everything he’d done wrong. Hescrolled through the digital prints while he waited for the crash of the tideto drown out the silence in his skull. The warmth he used to feel behind everyhappy memory made him feel as cold as the soundless night. Every smile, everystumble, every candid scowl that he remembered turning into a sound of laughtermade him want to go back in time and tear the camera from his own hands. Tellhimself to stop fooling around and focus on the danger that was right in frontof him. Stop acting like such a fool and open his eyes to the fact that thiswasn’t some romp across the country. That there weren’t costs to their safetyand their freedoms. That there wasn’t a duty they all had to uphold for thesake of a better kingdom.

The anger came back over him with the cresting of the waves.All those selfies, stupid and shallow; all those filters, useless and fake andruining the lighting of every memory… Hatred welled up in the bottom of histhroat as he looked at himself, face pressed next to Noct’s, both of themgrinning at the lens beneath the rosy glow of an abused filter.

He’d ruined everything.

He’d ruined Noct.

He almost threw the camera over the safety railing. Almostpelted it far out to the black waters, almost watched it plummet like thefeeling in his stomach as he watched hope slip from his fingertips and darknessmarch away like it’d won. He almost threw away everything that had mattered tohim because he didn’t deserve to have it anymore.

He raised his arm to throw it, but every time he tried tocatapult it forward, he couldn’t make it move. The hands of his friends, the menhe remembered that seemed to have died somewhere on a train between Altissiaand Niflheim, held him back. Invisible grips, holding him hard and refusing tolet go and making his chest ache because he hadn’t been able to do that for anyof them.

Prompto slowly drew the camera to his chest, curling downaround it and pressing it to his heart. It burned with all of the scorn he hadfor his stupid, smiling self. But with the heat of how much he hated his ownfailures, came the warmth of what each memory meant to him. Of being acceptedfor everything that he tried to be, but never was. Of being cared for and caredabout and taking care where he could in return. He couldn’t let that go. Hecouldn’t let go of everything that had ever made him happy. Had ever made himfeel human.

When Cor came, he was even quieter than the silence. Thesilence was loud and echoed with thoughts that could never be put into words.Cor was utterly soundless. It was oddly comforting now, whereas before it hadunnerved Prompto, badly.

The Crownsguard perched on the other end of the bench, darkand stoic as a raven. The collar of his jacket ruffled in the breeze, aturbulence that didn’t appear anywhere else on his motionless face.

He held his sword against his knees, the same as always. Butthere was something different about it now. It wasn’t the same as the reverenthonor with which he rested alongside his blade at the end of every trainingsession. It wasn’t the same as the conserved relaxation, hands curled looselyaround the scabbard of his sword, ready, even at rest, to glide out against thethreat of danger.

Prompto couldn’t look anyone in the eye since they’d comeback to Lucis. But he was finding that feet and hands were saying more thanwords or eyes ever could. Cor’s hands were white and bloodless, clasped likecarved stone around his sword. Gripping it as hard as Prompto held his camera,but hating it the whole time. Like that he wanted nothing more to do with it.Wanted to throw it into the sea, too.

It was hard, seeing that. Cor the Immortal had been anunyielding idol for Prompto since high school. A figure of discipline andsureness and gruff perfection. He was faulted, though no one knew how much.Something in his face had always been familiar to Prompto when he saw him onthe news, when he met him in person after applying for Crownsguard training. Hecouldn’t see the fault-lines, but somehow Prompto knew that they were there.Cracking open just beneath the hard, polished skin.

Like Magitek, hethought now. Perfect design; brokenapplication. Prompto hadn’t known what he was when he idolized Cor. Hewondered now if the reflection he’d seen in him during that time was the truthhe didn’t want to see all along.

“This is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.” The sea-soundsrumbled like thunder over the dark cloud of Cor’s voice. Prompto heard hismouth open, heard a curt inhale of breath before it clotted in his throat. Hecouldn’t form the words, Out-live yourKing.

“How did you keep going? After… the King…” Prompto didn’tknow where he found the strength to ask – he didn’t even know if he could callit “strength.”

He was afraid, but he wasn’t sure of what. It wasn’t thesteadily surrendering starlight. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, of the daemonsthat crept along the roads when it fell. He wasn’t afraid of getting pancakedby an iron giant, or swallowed and smothered to death by a mindflayer, or bledby a horde of goblins in the black forests of Duscae. He wasn’t even afraid ofhimself anymore.

But he was scared. Of not knowing what to do next.

“I kept going for his son,” Cor answered him. “I vowed that,if I had failed to protect my King, I would protect that which was mostprecious to him instead. And now that I’ve failed Noctis, too, I have toprotect what mattered to him. That’s you, and Ignis, and Gladiolus; everyonedown there.” He nodded down the hill, to the tiny lights of the mourning house.“As Crownsguard, we’re willed the treasures of our King. So long as there’sstill one left to defend, we can’t give up.”

“Yeah… I remember.”

Cor had taught him that in one of the lessons he oversaw inhis training. They had to look out for each other. Like they couldn’t lookafter Noct. They couldn’t lose each other like they’d lost him.

Prompto had never become a Crownsguard. Not on paper,anyway; not officially. But he was learning what it meant to be one far outsideof the big square arena underneath the Citadel. He was learning that he wasmore of a Crownsguard than he’d thought he ever could be. He’d lost as much asone. He’d lost as much as Cor.

He’d wanted to be so much like Cor. I guess that I finally am.

He didn’t want to cry, but the corners of his eyes stung,anyway. He didn’t want to lose Noct, but he couldn’t avoid that, either.

Cor didn’t cry. Not where Prompto could see it.

But he could hear it. In that silence.

Cor didn’t tell him not to cry. He didn’t tell him that itwould be alright. Prompto wanted to tough it out, to be so strong that he didn’thave to cry. But he wasn’t quite there yet. After this, he told himself. Afterthese last tears, he would be strong enough not to cry anymore.

Cor’s hand on the back of his neck, where his spine coiledup into his shoulders, wordlessly told him that he would help him through it.That none of them were alone in this. That they were stronger if they shoulderedall of this together.

The lights in the sky fought a little harder through theblack haze. They looked just a little bit brighter when the tears went away.

[jazzraft]

I'm in the mood for some heartache, and since you're a brilliant writer, I was hoping you'd write a nyxnoct fic with the prompt: "I thought you loved me. Where did I go wrong?"

i don’t know quite how heartachey this might be, it’s more horrory? but i tried. i think i teased doing something like this way back when ch13 v2 was released, but never got around to it. this is set within this old thing that i should not have brought back because it’s mean

It’s not Nyx.

He knew it the second he saw him, despite how badly hewished that it were. Desperate as he was to see a familiar face, he almostallowed his mind to trick itself into believing the figure ahead of him was real.It was so easy to believe; so much harder to deny. But that was the wholepoint. That was why a predator was so dangerous.

He couldn’t turn around. He had to move forward. If he wentback, he could be lost for gods only knew how much longer. The passage of timewas nonexistent within the close walls of Zegnautus Keep. He could only judgethe length of his capture in the haunted structure by the strain behind hisknees and the scream between his bones when he collapsed on the abandoned cotsnestled between the laboratories.

He was tired. He was starving. He was scared and he wasangry and he didn’t know if the illusions that preceded his steps were madefrom his own delirious head or by his tormentor’s design. All he did know –kept repeating to himself over and over again in an effort to stay sane – wasthat he could trust nothing in thisplace.

He knew the order of events. They were all cut off from him.The last he’d seen of any of them was Prompto’s face, open in a scream, asNoctis tumbled off the top of the train; was Ignis’s pinched scars as thedaemon screeched; was Gladio’s hot glare of defiance, as if he planned to jumpoff the train after the creature with a vice around Noct’s ankle.

And of Nyx, the last he’d seen was fury and fear, a mirrorto himself. Eyes a storm in the rain as the train made him smaller and smallerin Noct’s vision. Taking him away. He could still feel the howl of rage in hisbones from the vanishing train as Nyx was stolen away from him.

The still figure smiling at him now was not that Nyx. His Nyx would have run to him. His Nyxwouldn’t have smiled. His Nyx would have snarled into his hair, cursinganything that had tried to hurt him when he wasn’t there to protect him. HisNyx would have held him so tight that it hurt. He wouldn’t have stayed at adistance. He wouldn’t have waited for Noctis to come to him.

Noctis held what ragged control he had over the Ring closeat his fingertips, approaching the impostor with caution. He couldn’t be sureif it was an apparition or a daemon or Ardyn himself masquerading as his lover.Whatever it was, he knew not to riskgetting too close. If it was a daemon, a blast of holy magic and he could keepmoving forward. If it was Ardyn, he didn’t know what else he could do but turnaround and run. If it was a figment of his own mind… he was even less sure whatto do then.

He waited for the thing to pretend at being Nyx. It smiled,slow and sweet and so much like the man he loved that he was already arguingwith himself that he was real. But it was wrong. That smile in this place. Allof it was wrong.

“Hey there, sweet thing. You finally found me.”

“Shouldn’t you have been looking for me?”

“Can’t do all the work by myself, can I?” he chuckled, deepand throaty and rumbling in Noctis’ own chest. The smile was right, the soundwas so right, but the words werewrong. “I look for you, you look for me, and we find each other. Right?”

Wrong. “And theothers? Lose them like you lost me?”

The false knight frowned, brows closing together.Disappointment was always subtle on Nyx. He held his pain far back behind hiseyes. The small pains, anyway. The lectures for saving a life instead of losingit and earning probation because of it. The disdain of a whispering racist ifhe dared to share the same sidewalk with them. The avarice of his displacedfriends ranting against the same Crown that shared his bed. Nyx’s dismay alwaysappeared in a tightening around his lips, a stillness over his face, and adistance in his eyes. He didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. This wasn’t Nyx.

“Ouch,” the not-Nyx murmured. “I did my best, but you’vebeen wandering around this place. You know what it’s like. Easy to get lost inhere.”

“Easier to stay close,” Noctis growled, ringed fisttightening at his side. “Where are they?”

“Honey, don’t you think I would have them if I –”

Noctis’ hands struck forward, grabbing it by the collar,even as his brain was screaming, don’ttouch it, don’t touch it! Don’t touch anything that isn’t Nyx! But hewanted to strangle it. Strangle the rightwords out of its throat or just choke it for daring to pervert them. There wasno “I did my best” with Nyx. He was all in or he was nothing. He pursued hisgoal so far and so hard that it could damn well kill him if he wasn’t careful.But if that was what it would take, Nyx would do it. He didn’t give up becausethat was “the best he could do.”

“Where are they! Where is Nyx! Take me to them or get out of my way!”

The thing grew wide-eyed as Noctis grabbed it. And eventhough he knew – he knew – that itwasn’t Nyx, there was still something about seeing fear in those eyes – fear ofhim – that made his heart drop like astone in his chest.

“Noct, I don’t know, I’m sorry, I tried…”

Noctis shoved it away, hating this pitiful farce of hisknight. He wanted it gone. He wanted Nyx.And he wanted this simpering caricature to feel how his own soul burned withhis hatred for daring to steal the face of the man he loved. Noctis poured allof his fury into the Ring, the light of the Lucii burning through his blood ashe grappled with their power. A staggering white glow blasted from the Ring,blinding the both of them. He watched the thing with Nyx’s face wrenchbackwards, just catching the twist of its features into a daemonic sneer beforethe light forced him to cram his eyes closed. There was a loud crack and then,stillness.

For a horrifying moment, Noctis was afraid he would open hiseyes to a dead Nyx, scorched at his feet. He was afraid that he’d been drivenso mad by everything that he might have mistaken the real Nyx, his Nyx, for a daemon and killed him inhis insanity. But when he opened his eyes, there was nothing in front of him.The way was clear.

His breath shuddered past his ribs, but he didn’t feelrelieved. The imprint image of Nyx’s face, screwed up in hatred for him, just before the light engulfedthem both, made Noctis’ blood freeze in his veins.

—

Noctis continued to weave through the black maze, hounded bythe Chancellor’s voice and accosted by daemons at every hint of progress hemade towards a goal he couldn’t even see. Justkeep going, he coached himself. “Just keep going,” he would murmur underhis breath from time to time, just to hear a voice other than Ardyn’s over theunseen speakers overhead.

He was trying to stay quiet, trying not to let the man seethe effect that his childish taunts were having on him. He was trying to bebrave like Gladio had trained him to be. He was trying not to think about howdangerous these tight corners might be for Ignis. He was trying not to imaginePrompto, with all his smiles and light, being smothered in this dark place.

He was trying so hardnot to beg for Nyx to find him, but he had to do this on his own. Nyx was withthe others. They were all together. Looking out for each other. Please come look after me. The silentplea sounded like his child’s voice, the boy he always fought to keep buriedunder quiet and covers. The whispers from the Ring chased the boy closer andcloser behind the prince’s mouth, pushing him into the waver of his lips andthe falter of his heart the longer he went without a comforting voice to greethim at the end of the endless tunnels.

By the time he saw Nyx again, he was afraid he might have beendriven crazy enough to believe it was really him. This version of the pretendNyx was different than the last. Driven a little crazy itself. It was shakingwhen Noctis turned another corner and found it standing there. Its face wastwisted in a parody of Nyx’s grief. Its jaw trembled underneath the weight ofits teeth clamped down on a sob. Its eyes were wet, glistening like meltingicecaps. And it still wasn’t Nyx.

He’d seen Nyx in his despair before. He’d held him throughhis grief – on the anniversary of his sister’s death, after the ceremonieshonoring fallen Kingsglaive that he’d fought beside, on the nights where hewoke up with collapsing breaths and sweat-slick skin and crumbled against Noct’sshoulder to hide from all the horrors that beat him in his nightmares. It wasn’t like this. It wasn’t snivelingand whimpering and waiting to be held. It was a roaring rage of blood and sweatand salt for hating his own tears as much as he hated the deaths that plaguedhim.

This thing was toorestrained to be Nyx. It tried too hard to cry, whereas Nyx always tried sohard not to.

“You hurt me?” itwhispered, voice clenched like a fist in its throat.

It’s not him.Noctis threw up the thought like a shield, slamming it down to keep thefrightened child running through his blood from plunging towards the face thatkept him safe. He wouldn’t apologize, he wouldn’t beg for forgiveness, hewouldn’t throw himself at this lie and sink into a warmth that wasn’t true. Hecouldn’t let this place make him so desperate as to disgrace his love of Nyx bybelieving the lie of him was real.

“I thought you loved me. Where did I go wrong?” His voicewas so rough and sounded so much likeNyx that it scraped inside Noctis’ own throat. It was infecting him, warping whathe knew – he knew – was real. That itwas not Nyx. Do not believe that it’sNyx. “Noct, just… tell me what I did. Tell me what you want me to do tomake it better. I love you, it’s okay, alright? I’ll forgive you, just… comehere.”

It stepped towards him, arms outstretched and smile so softand sweet and forgiving him. Noctis stumbled back, his sore knees bucklingunder the strain of walking and crouching for so long through the crampedhalls. He winced when the dormant pain in his back flared up, throwing his handout to balance against the wall.

The not-Nyx lurched forward to catch him and Noctis wantedto scream. Get away from me! Hands curledaround his arms and they were so cold.One cupped above his elbow, the other wrapped around his wrist, holding thehand bearing the Ring away from them both. Pretending like it was such a dotinggesture, like he was supporting him, when they both knew he was trying to bindhis hands from using their power.

He could touch him… Whycould he touch him? It wasn’t a figment of his imagination if he could feel it on him. It couldn’t be a daemon,it couldn’t hold his hand so close to the Ring without getting burned, couldit? Was it really Ardyn himself, then? Trying to trick him like he’d been doingfrom the beginning?

Panic coursed through him, lost from his thin control as hewas cornered. Trapped beneath those deranged eyes, so familiar and so yearningfor his acceptance and still so wrongwrong wrong.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” the thing cried. “Whydon’t you love me anymore? I can make it better, Noct, baby, just tell me…”

A hand reached for his face and he would rather scream andcry and admit everything that he knew he shouldn’t than have that thing touchhim where only Nyx was allowed to. So he did.

“You’re scaring me!”

He shouldn’t have confessed that he was afraid. That waswhat it wanted to hear, he knew that. But it was so hard not to startscreaming. It was so hard to keep the kid crying in the back of his throat fromoverwhelming him. But if Nyx wasn’t there to keep him safe, then he had to keephimself safe. He couldn’t lose his mind. Not now. Please, not now. He begged himself not to break, but his voicebetrayed him, cracking on an unshed sob as he looked up at those horriblyfamiliar eyes.

“You don’t scare me.”

That was what the truth was supposed to be. Nyx didn’t scarehim like this. Nyx didn’t make him want to run away. He didn’t make his skincrawl and cold sweat break out in the small of his back when he was this close.His eyes didn’t narrow like that. Hedidn’t grip his wrist that hard and wrench it up between them to curse the ringon his finger with such spite in his voice.

“You think you’rescared? You think that this wasn’tscary to me when you threw it in my face? This stupid thing is what’s comingbetween us, Noct. Ever since you took it you’ve… you’ve been drifting away fromme. Haven’t you felt it? They’re trying to drive us apart. They don’t want youto love me. They’re turning you against me! Just take it off, Noct, it’s nottoo late. Just throw it away, I’ll forgive you, I…”

“Stop it!”

Noctis threw a broken spell of light between them to get thething off of him. It was weaker than the last, shattering beneath his fracturedresolve, but it was enough to get its hands off of him. Enough for him to tripover his own feet, scrape his palms against the cold floor, before he couldreign his aching body together and run.A feral roar followed him and the thump of a fist against the wall.

Noctis didn’t stop running until his feet hurt so badly thatit felt like they were bleeding. He tumbled into one of the stock bedrooms, thedoor making a dissatisfied hiss behind him as he slid to his hands and knees inthe clinical safety of the room. He crawled to the hard metal frame of thebedpost and clung to it, chest heaving and an icy sweat plastering his shirt tohis torso. His muscles shivered with exhaustion, legs crowded uselessly beneathhim as they tried to recover from the shock. His bad knee was screaming asloudly as the child wailing deep inside his chest.

Part of him wanted to scream. Part of him wanted to railagainst the walls of the rooms, claw at the bare cot of the bed next to him,throw whatever he could get his hands on, and just destroy something in revengefor letting the Keep take him apart like this. Another part of him just wantedto curl up right there on the cold floor and cry. Because as much as that thingwasn’t Nyx, was just a lie, it was right.He never wanted the Ring. All he wanted since putting it on was to take it offagain. It scared him the most out of everything. It scared him more that thething knew.

His breaths came heavy and ruined, and it was a long timebefore he could find his voice enough to whisper to himself. “Breathe. Easy.Inhale. It’s fine, you’re fine, it’s going to be fine… exhale. Just breathe,come on.”

He put Nyx’s voice over the words. He made himself rememberthe true sound of his voice, the patience in his words, the steadiness of hishand on his back as he talked him through whatever it was that made it hard tobreathe. Nyx was still out there. He was still looking for him. He couldn’t sithere and give up when Nyx never would.

Nyx needed him.

They all needed him.

…But he needed them, too.

A small whimper tangled itself between his breaths and thatwas all it took to get him to break. He allowed himself one minute to cry. Justone. Sixty painful breaths for sixty seconds of breaking apart like that thingwanted him to.

Then, he got up and tried again.

—

It wanted to kill him this time.

It had a knife that wasn’t one of Nyx’s knives, but it spunand threatened with it the same way Nyx did. The steel glinted as cruelly asthe sharp eyes that now loathed him. Its skin was white as snow now. Blacktear-tracks spilled from its eyes, surrendering all pretense since Noctis hadrefused it as true. He wished that was more comforting to him than it was. Thething still frightened him.

While not Nyx, it represented an idea of him that Noctis hadnever known before that he had feared. An idea that Noctis could be the one toruin him into this torn and hateful creature that stalked towards him. That byusing the Ring and following the Lucii’s bidding, he could somehow turn Nyxinto this. He could make him into everything he feared. Destroy the best thingthat the world had ever deemed him worthy to have as his own.

The thing’s voice was a scourge-soaked drawl as he growledat him, his name sinister and black on its tongue. He knew he could have stoodthere and fought. He knew he had thousands of years worth of power at hisfingertips that he could use to fight the thing off. But when he probed for thehaughty voices that had judged his worth to use the Ring, he found them hushed.Denying him their magic for daring to succumb to his weakness. For being tooafraid to face the truth.

That this was Nyx.This was what he could make him into. This was what he could sacrifice tofollow whatever destiny was being whispered in his skull.

And he didn’t want it to be.

He ran from it like he always had. He ran from a duty he’dnever fully understood, but had always known the cost of. Everything he hadever wanted, he would have to give up for it. All of his friends, his family,his love that he’d never seen coming, but never wanted to let go, all of itcould be lost to him. He could break it all apart. And he didn’t want to paythat price. He knew it was selfish and horrible and that was what this Nyxrepresented. He wasn’t Nyx, but he was everything Noctis was afraid ofadmitting about himself. That he would give up the world if it meant he got tokeep all of these things that made him happy.

He wasn’t fast enough to escape this truth. He bumped intocorners, bruised his shoulders, tripped, and stumbled and made a fool ofhimself in the face of this thing he hated and loved so much. Such a fool thatit laughed, cold, right on the back of his neck, before curling claws aroundhis neck and choking off his cries until the black walls at the edges of hiseyes turned blacker and vanished completely.

—

When he woke up, he was in chains. And the Nyx that was Nyxbut wasn’t was there laughing at him. It was horrible, all splitting skin andblue-black veins, eyes so pale they were white on white. He played with a knifelike he’d watched Nyx do a thousand times at warm camps, joking through thenight over a home-made meal. It raised the tip of it to Noctis’ face, freezinghim in place.

“I know, sweet thing,” it hissed, dragging the serrated edgethrough his hair. “The truth is ugly. And you’re beautiful.”

It left him there, words echoing in the hollows of his mind.

—

It brought his friends with it when it came back.

They reached for him, perfect and full of light andbeautiful like the lies he’d made them out to be. Even Nyx was perfect again.Beautiful, golden-brown skin, dark ashy hair, a soothing stare that made hisheart cry where he couldn’t summon tears to his eyes to cry for him.

He wanted him to be real. He wanted this to be his truth. Hewanted the truth to be this beautiful.

They talked to him so sweetly. They told him all of thosebeautiful lies that he used to be so certain were truths.

And then Nyx said the one truth he knew was beautiful. Itwas the one truth that reminded him that the others weren’t lies just becausethey were beautiful.

Nyx called him by his name. His “little king.” And it wasthe only thing he was certain of. The only thing he knew that was real. The onething he could never ruin, that he would never let himself ruin.

Nyx undid the chains around his wrists and Noctis knew thathe was real. That he hadn’t hurt him, that he couldn’t hurt him. Because thiswas the real Nyx. The real Nyx was impossible to break. Because he’d beenbroken too many times before. All of those fault-lines bound him tightertogether, hardened his skin and softened his heart for Noctis to find shelterin from himself.

He grabbed onto thattruth, a beautiful truth, and he didn’t let go.