#does this constitute as Noctis Whump?

[queenoffishingandcookies]

My back has been a bitch for the last several days, which makes for Noctis angst, I guess.

Long story short for several of my headcanons that I am Too Lazy to write out at the moment, Noctis got starscourge when the Marilith attacked and Sylva, while healing him, essentially burned the scourge away with her powers.

(I have a whole thing about Oracle’s powers being able to heal wounds, while generally non-Oracle Fleuret’ simply bolster the body’s healing, not to mention male Fleuret having magic predisposed to combat and being known as Templars, and a whole things on male Oracles despite canon -)

Thing is, the starscourge sort of merges with magic. We see it in Ardyn, he’s not like others who outright become daemons and he can still use his magic (at least, the Armiger, if not elemancy and healing). Similarly, in DOTF, Lunafreya mentions something about the power of the Oracle holding the effect of the ‘scourge back (which Ravus, as a man, doesn’t have-).

SO.

The starscourge literally merging with his magic, his body trying to adapt and push it back and the strain, on top of injuries he’s already had, is killing him and -

On top of burning out the scourge, Sylva is frying parts of Noctis’ magic. Pruning it away, almost, like dead or moldy branches of rose bush in order to save the whole. And it’s agony in a way that healing of the Oracle isn’t meant to be (at least, not for anyone but the Oracle-)

I once read a really interesting post on the effects of starscourge on Noctis’s magic, and how it compares to how members of the kingsglaive and even Regis use magic (example being you don’t see many people using the flasks seen on Noctis in-game).

But, I was thinking, what if Noctis could use magic as he should normally be capable off, but at a cost.

When you’re a Lucis Caelum, everything comes at a cost.

It’s excruciating, it’s difficult, just like re-learning to warp after he’d been able to do so by years by simply sneezing was. Frustrating, even humiliating (if one paid attention to the private scorn of nobles and others behind closed doors or in corners of rooms -)

He was once able to light his fingertips aflame like candle wicks, building palaces of snow and ice, and craft miniature storms without so much as an idle thought - but doing so after the Marilith, after Tenebrae -

It’s a raw, searing pain that cuts straight through muscle tissue and bone. It feels as though his blood is boiling, bubbling, the ceaseless flow of molten rock scorching everything in it’s path, his back tearing open beneath the sharpened steel of a blade’s edge over and over again.

It’s not the pull of his life force being pulled away to make what is dead more tangible to the living, like swinging the royal arms - imprints of his ancestor’s souls - around. It’s not like the total exhaustion and feverish state that follows summoning an Astral (or an astral using him as a tether to the land in moment’s of peril).

It’s energy, so much of it, a physical weight on his shoulders and under his skin, and there’s still traces of the late Oracle-Queen’s touch and the starscourge’s corruption and it burns.

(As magic does, as it has always done-)

Then there’s the lack of control over his powers following the attack, how much a ‘magic fit’ hurts when he does lose control, how he has to bottle it up and probably still does in the future because of how badly it hurts, and what little control he does regain (i.e weaving Magic and elements and storing it in flasks).

Just. Noctis not being able to utilize his powers to the full extent, like the Kingsglaive, like his father. It’s not because it’s gone, or because he hadn’t recovered from the scourge (as much as recovery was possible-)

It’s agonizing, it’s damn near uncontrollable past what he was able to relearn and grasp. And when he does use it, does lose control- it’s even worse.

His flasks, which detonate on impact with a target, while not controllable once cast - they are predictable. Those with him, once outside the radish of the blast, are safe.

With his magic, if he lets his control slip in the pain, there’s not an estimated radius, a safe space to retreat to - and losing control of it is arguably more dangerous than losing control of a flask. It’s not a blast, but a wave that encroaches on everyone and everything around if allowed to.

And I already have a general post on Lucis Caelum Magic. Noctis is in a shitty situation, basically. Damned if you do (use magic) and damned if you don’t.

TLDR:

Noctis is able to use magic outside of the flasks, outside of the warping and phasing he utilizes on. He is able to use the raw elements and heal like the Kingsglaive, like his father - but it’s excruciatingly painful for him because of lasting Starscourge/Oracle damage, think of scar tissue, and easy to lose control of.

While recovering, before and after Tenebrae, he did lose control on occasion and the additional pain he was in afterwards was…not pretty. Neither was the zone of destruction. So Noctis has to also hold it in, keep tabs on it, and the build-up of magical energy is equally bad for him.