#like aside from the required drawing tests but ive been ignoring them so i could do them like closer to the deadline

[ironmanstan]

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[xadoheandterra]

Title: Bitter Night Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Chapters: I | II | III | IV | V | VI Characters: Noctis Lucis Caelum, Ardyn Izunia | Ardyn Lucis Caelum, Kings Guard, The Fulgurian | Ramuh, Celestia Ulric Tags: Time Travel, Fix-It Of Sorts, Angst, Hurt, Comfort Eventually, Ardyn and Noctis are both Assholes, Fuck the Gods Summary: He hadn’t known what he was doing. All he knew was that he felt bitter in this endless night–bitter that the story needed to end like this. It felt like the Bad Ending and–well, Noctis hated getting Bad Endings in his games. He refused to.

So Noctis refused.

Out of all Astrals only one never demanded anything of Noctis. Only one of the Six didn’t speak to him in riddles or set forth a challenge that he near couldn’t complete or tried to kill or devour him. Only one, aside from perhaps the Draconian, did not sleep and require Lunafreya to waken—and Noctis felt all the more grateful toward the end that Luna hadn’t needed to commune with Ramuh; needed to begin to forge a Covenant for Noctis with the Fulgurian. Noctis didn’t want to imagine what the lightning would’ve done to her if she had needed to—how it would’ve soaked into her bones and blood and left her with tremors. Noctis could remember the feel of it as it lit him alight, the buzz beneath his skin as the storm raged around them—a little like home, really.

Now—now that silence burned like a sickness in Noctis as he stared, and stared, and Ramuh stared back. The clouds hung in the sky, but no storm followed the Stormsender. The men of Lucis kept back and away from the God, and the crackle of lightning that formed a clear line between Noctis, Ardyn, and them out of reverence or respect or fear—Noctis didn’t care which. He cared for Ramuh to answer him. Angelgard had been a prison of Ramuh’s undertaking, or so the Cosmogeny would have Noctis believe. Angelgard was a place where Ramuh Judged, and all who were found wanting Perished and yet Ardyn alone remained chained, in the dark, and tortured with the light of the sun. Noctis wanted to know—viscerally and in a way he couldn’t explain—he wanted, no, needed—

Noctis needed to know—was Ramuh complicit? Did Ramuh know of what the line of Lucis had done to the First? Did Ramuh care that Ardyn—a healer chosen by the people, chosen by the Six, suffered for the crime of merely existing now? If Ramuh did how could he condone it—unless he ate up the same cock and bull story that the Draconian tried to feed Noctis in the Crystal, that the Glacian told to him with the touch of frost in her wake, so cold that one couldn’t even think. Ramuh kept his silence and it burned with Noctis.

“STORMSENDER!” Noctis roared. “ANSWER ME!”

The Glaives whispered, shocked, but Noctis ignored them. He kept bright, pink eyes upon the God even as his strength wavered and his hands shook. His legs were numb and he wanted to fall—to crumble to the ground and cry because this? This, here? This was not the Lucis he thought to inherit. He knew that Ardyn had been wiped from history—there was no record of Somnus Lucis Caelum ever having a brother except in the deepest, darkest pits and tombs long forgotten. History ignored Ardyn and remembered only the Accursed—remembered Adagium. It set wrong with Noctis, that bitter pill of truth that his family had essentially removed such a crucial part of their history—and why? Why had the Founder denied the First? It made no sense, to Noctis, to write a man out of history so completely.

Ramuh bowed his head, and then reached a hand down, gaze settled on Noctis first, and then alighted upon Ardyn’s downed form with a sluggishly bleeding headwound. Noctis tensed, ground his teeth together, and let out a sharp, “YOU WILL NOT TOUCH HIM!”

Ramuh paused. For a second there was blissful silence, and then the storm rumbled on the distance and the God settled back. He blinked lazily down at Noctis and Noctis felt only grateful that there were no words, like the Archeon, that trembled through his mind and left him with a blazing headache that sparked on the edge of seizing. He felt grateful that there was no cold to draw his mind into a sluggish haze, or water with which to drown him followed by the high, cackling nature of the Astrals’ first language—or even Ifrit’s fire as it burned around and through him. Ramuh’s words were as silent as the god himself—but they were there. Noctis could feel them, like impressions in the blood.

Ardyn was not guilty, Noctis realized, which alone was the reason why the man still stood and Ramuh did not reign down Judgement upon him. He could not interfere within the prison elsewise—it was for mortals to do, to take the innocent from this place once affirmed that they would not be Judged, and it was the mortals that failed. None stepped on the island now as Ramuh would find them wanting anyway—since they refused to treat upon a man as a man, and instead signaled him daemon. Noctis wondered if Ramuh alone could’ve wiped Ardyn away if he cast down his Judgement, if Ardyn were truly within the wrong, where the Glacian could freeze and shatter the man only for him to return healthy, hale, and otherwise unharmed.

Noctis glanced to Ardyn and then back to Ramuh. “Are you certain?” he asked, voice softer, hoarser. His palms were sweaty around his blade and slipped along the hilt for a second. It jerked Noctis downward and nearly undid his precarious balance. Ramuh leaned forward and Noctis looked to Ardyn again, and then back to the God of Storms. A second later Noctis closed his eyes and murmured, “Very well,” and the God reached out. Noctis did not fight the hand that grasped him, even as his strength left him. He did not fight as the God pulled him up and into the Storm that now began to pelt the ground below.

Sleep, whispered the winds, and Noctis found himself so very tired. He felt uncomforted to let his life rest in the hands of any of the Six—but Ramuh was the Storm and the Storm was in Noctis’ blood, even if he knew so very little of it. There was a reason why Ramuh deigned not to send a test after the King of Light beyond to seek out his sigils in the storm, the signs of his presence to awaken the lightning in his blood.

Noctis drifted, and then slept.

King of Light, Son of Storms, Chosen to Right the Wrongs Past—the words echoed like a lazy haze when Noctis woke up, surrounded by heat and warmth. He knew within a second that he was not upon Angelgard, or within Lucis, the minute he opened his eyes and gazed at the simple furnishings above him. There were suncatchers of the likes that Noctis could remember a scant few times in the poorer districts of Insomnia—and tangles of beaded twine that hung around them, near the window. Outside Noctis could see green and light—and he pushed himself upward to sit for a moment, the stared down at his legs when they refused to initially move.

“Right,” Noctis mumbled. He’d forgotten the sudden paralysis that came after his foolhardy decision to fuck Bahamut and his shitty destiny. Granted Noctis had never thought his ability to walk would last forever—whatever Lady Sylva had done to grant him return of his legs would not be permanent, not after a year of damage left to fester. There were times were Noctis found he couldn’t even use them, although often the pain and immobility were temporary.

With a tired sigh Noctis grabbed one leg, and then the other, and moved them over toward the edge of the bed. He tried to look around the room, to find a way more dignified than a crawl to get from the bed to the door, but nothing jumped out at him. Noctis bit his lip and scowled with the pent-up feeling of frustration that curdled in his gut. Just when he finally began to work himself past the sting to his pride at the thought that he must drag himself to the door, it swung open.

The woman on the other side of the door had a dark head of thick hair wrapped into a loose singular braid over her shoulder. Noctis could count within three flat coins that were attached to the tie at the end of the braid. Her eyes were wide in surprise, faint age lines drawn thin as everything about her seemed to stretch—and then she huffed and set the basket down.

For a second Noctis hadn’t even realized the woman had spoken, until she repeated her words in clear and concise Lucian, “How are you feeling?”

Noctis eyed her, let his lip go from between his teeth, and then breathed out heavily. The woman took this as a response, hummed lightly, and looked him over shrewdly. She bent over and began to rummage through the basket until she pulled out a cloth and a jar—sweetwater, Noctis realized when the faint lavender and berry scent hit his nose—and carefully dipped the cloth before she reached out with her hand.

“May I?”

Noctis cautiously inclined his head. With a smile the woman shifted closer and began to drag the cloth down his arm from his elbow. Noctis watched the motion and felt the faintly magical touch of the water like little pinpricks of energy. After a second Noctis dragged his gaze back toward her face. He waited until she moved onto his other arm before Noctis asked, “Which island?”

It didn’t take much for Noctis to place where he was; the little charms, beads, and coins coupled with the sweetwater told him everything he needed to know really. The fact that he had drawn upon Ramuh when he was dangerously close to stasis—after already pulling on his connection with the Glacian to frost over Ardyn’s chains—left Noctis with little worry about where he found himself. Instead what really worried him now was where Ardyn was. Obviously not in this room—obviously—

“The Stormsender brought you to the mainland,” the woman said lightly. “It has been three days. Your brother still yet sleeps.”

Noctis blinked. Brother? She meant Ardyn; she had to have meant Ardyn. Thinking about it they did look a bit like brothers—although Ardyn wore the stain of the Scourge on his skin. If Noctis ignored that, imagined the man with dark hair and pale blue eyes, he could see the resemblance that two-thousand years and a hundred generations couldn’t quite erase. Beyond even that weren’t they brothers, in a way? Chosen tools of Bladekeeper and his vaunted Prophecy and all of that utter nonsense that made Noctis want to curl his lips into a sneer.

Instead the King of Light looked over the woman and let none of his festered thoughts show on his face. “He’s alright?” Noctis asked, voice faint, and he tilted his head to the side as the woman moved to rub the cloth along his neck. It brought the faintest curl of an uncomfortable grimace to his face, and he debated the merit of telling her to just stop—but the water felt nice against his skin and he could see the stubborn look in the faint lines on her face.

“He rests,” she said, dipped the cloth back into the sweetwater, and rubbed at the other side of Noctis’ neck. “Although not peacefully.”

Noctis sighed and tilted his head the other direction. He said a short, “Thank you,” aware that it edged just toward the side of being rude. The woman clucked her tongue and Noctis continued, “Madam…?” and he left the sentence leading as she pulled back and looked him up and down.

“Ulric,” Madam Ulric said, faintly approving. “Celestia Ulric.” Carefully Madam Ulric packed away the sweetwater and cloth and got back to her feet. “My husband will be back from his Hunt shortly. I will come and collect you then.”

Noctis ducked his head down, then frowned as he tightened his grip on his legs. He still couldn’t feel it aside from maybe a faint pressure, and even then Noctis couldn’t tell if that was his legs or his hands really that he felt the pressure from. A second later Noctis sighed heavily.

“I…can’t walk.”

Madam Ulric eyed him, then nodded. “I will have a chair for you.”

“Thanks,” Noctis mumbled as the door closed.