Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm just a fucking nerd trying to calm my nerves during this trash fire of a year. So, y'know, don't sue me. I don't have any money.

Ashes of Lucis

Chapter 14: Instigator


It is strain which serves to plague him, a deep-seated ache beginning in bones and rising through him like heat. The intensity is like that of the damned morning sun, and it creates in him a steady throbbing, timed too well with the synchronized beating of his heart.

Uncommon and uncomfortable are perhaps the best descriptors, though both are sorely lacking, and it is something he can feel right down into the roots of his teeth. It is a common enough ache that, on most days, Ardyn can push it all to the back of his mind, drown it out in memories – those both his own and not – or recitations of Imperial nonsense for a bit of temporary relief.

This is not one of those times. This time, it burns.

Independent of his will, the chancellor's hands clench, a small and heavy stretch of blackened tungsten held tightly in one fist. It's the weight of the thing that grants his mind any sense of ease, for it has been years since they have felt too much more than pressure and temperature. Even half drowned in incomplete and restless slumber, the thought of these wounds only angers him, draws to the surface far more than he would care to remember.

Endless nights bearing the bite and chill of chains imbued with divine strength, keeping him immobile and touched only by the dark. The almost impossible fragility of mind and body left devoid of outside contact for days and nights innumerable. Even now in the distant aftermath, he's only ever broached the subject to draw fury from it, never once ascertaining precisely how many times the sun had elected to rise and fall without him. The numbers are, after all, immaterial to his desired resolution, and only serve to shake him.

It us the uneasy creaking of a door that snags his attention, one eye cracked open to glance at the armored figure looming in the doorway, hesitant and even fearful of his reaction. While haphazard appearances strongly suggest otherwise, Ardyn is not a man renowned for his tolerance of insubordination or failure, and it shows with the manner in which each new batch of recruits watch him as they come marching through Zegnautus. He's made a name for himself, and with little effort, and that the soldier come to fetch him bears very much the same look of apprehension as the others pleases the chancellor immensely.

The man has followed his instructions to the letter, relaying in a hushed tone the state of the prince, still laid up in the infirmary with a nasty laceration to his head. Evidently, the boy has awakened a time or two, posed query as to Ardyn's whereabouts, and thus one of those set to watch him has come to inform. The chancellor's sigh is that of an endless fatigue — dealing with the damned Lucians for any stretch of time seems to exacerbate the effect on him — as he follows the ever-reticent soldier down a series of short, dark hallways within the ship to where dear Noctis awaits.

"It would seem you had quite the adventure in the Crown City." His tone is laced with amusement, but the boy fails to react appropriately. He bears but a placid expression, eyes downcast to the floor even as a hand works its way through a mess of black to finger the fine stitching in his scalp. Ardyn huffs. "You have questions."

"I saw..." Noctis' brow furrows then, jaw clenched. "I don't know what I saw."

That certainly makes this easier, though Ardyn has come prepared to deal with anything the boy might seek to throw at him. At the very least, he'd anticipated that same roiling fury displayed within the council chambers, Regis' lifeless body held fast to his son's chest as the boy screamed. Glauca had possessed little patience for such a display, far less than the chancellor's own, and had been swift in silencing the prince with a blow to the side of the head that had, of course, led to a concussion and the need for a medic. Tedious, certainly, but far less so than Noctis recalling the whole ordeal with startling clarity.

With the door now shut to leave the pair of them alone, Ardyn produces another exasperated sound as he sits beside his ward, a hand lazily coming to rest atop Noctis' head, pulling the boy to his shoulder. Well prepared or not for any eventuality, this is all rather tiresome. Would that he could simply wish it all away.

"The drudgery of politics," the chancellor assures him, almost soothing in his delivery. It would not do to permit Noctis even a shred of doubt in him, even if he is terribly confident in his ability to provide remedy. "A lot of back and forth, the sort – as I recall – you have always grown rather bored with."

Yes, there had been myriad meetings within Zegnautus, the nature of which had all but bored Ardyn into a stupor. Meetings in which he had participated for no more than the sake of his grand design. From the beginning of their time together, Noctis had never possessed much patience for such talks, preferring instead to busy himself with made up games in the chancellor's office or sneaking a bit of coin from his pocket.

Noctis' expression bears little change, but a blink of remembrance brimming behind golden eyes. It vanishes like a spark, the dour mood settling again upon the boy's shoulders.

"The Crystal." His tone is almost that of reverence, and Ardyn comes dangerously close to grinding his teeth in irritation. "It was in the Citadel, somewhere. I found it."

There is no safer place in Lucis for the Soul of Eos than the Citadel of Kings. And none more obvious, for that matter. The Empire has sought for some hundred years to claim the holy stone as their own, to bring prosperity and the return of greatness upon her lands. If false legends are to be believed, that is. And with Iedolas ever blinded by desperation, by his utter fear of death, it stands to reason that the citizens of Niflheim too have come to place their faith in such fallacies.

The man will be inundated with fury upon learning that the Crystal itself remains in Lucian custody, but that is yet another eventuality for which Ardyn is thoroughly prepared. He did not, after all, venture to Insomnia for the sake of a blasted piece of rubble.

"Intriguing," he says, watching Noctis draw nonsensical patters upon the fabric of his trousers. "How ever did you manage to get so lucky?"

"Dunno."

Ardyn doesn't buy that for a minute, the tension in the prince's form an abrupt betrayal of the lie. While he may well have simply stumbled upon the Crystal within the Citadel's maze, there is something about the event that Noctis is keeping from him. He doesn't like that, and will not tolerate it for long.

But, with the boy's trembling, his obvious state of shock and turmoil, calls for a far more gentle touch than perhaps either of them are used to.

"You've not been sleeping well." The startled shift in Noctis' attention is all the answer he needs. Ardyn smiles faintly, pressing the crown of the boy's head beneath his chin. Even being cleansed of the king's blood, he can still smell it. Raw power. "You had such awful nightmares as a boy, you know. Often enough that it took years to break you of those bad habits."

Reflection blooms in Noctis' eyes, the tension in his frame slowly uncoiling until he at last rests against Ardyn's shoulder of his own will. Surprisingly, a hand rises to curl in the material of the chancellor's shirt, and the boy sighs.

There had been a time where the prince had been as his shadow, perched on his heels and prepared to take flight at the drop of a hat. He had been eager, albeit frightened, come to the conclusion within a few short years that he was all but untouchable within the Empire so long as Ardyn was there to tend to him. But it had taken time.

At the onset of their meeting, when the wounded fledgling had come to, he had been rigid with fear, stiff and skeptical even as his little body had been held in Ardyn's arms. As the days passed and the situation dawned upon him – with a bit of help, naturally – young Noctis was loathe to let the man out of his sight, perhaps for fear of being left behind once more. It had been then, some months later, that the child had taken to sneaking through the halls and into Ardyn's own bed, and always on the nights where the Accursed had anticipated getting a bit of sleep.

But being an immortal insomniac doesn't quite work that way.

"Bad habits? That doesn't sound like me," Noctis murmurs, but the trace of a smile can be felt. "Don't know what you're talking about."

There's been enough time wasted here with the mundane, enough spent dawdling, weaseling his way back into the prince's affections as a safeguard. Were it not so, Noctis would not tolerate him being this close, fingers carding through tufts of too-long black hair, idly daydreaming of the unholy terror he intends to rain down upon this Star. How fortunate that, perceptive as the boy is, he's never been terribly capable of discerning his handler's true intentions. That may well change one day.

"What do you remember?"

Thick tension hangs between them, space granted the younger as he pulls away, bows over his knees with fingers laced. While his breathing remains steady, it is the rising of the hair at his nape, the gentle trembling of his shoulders, that betrays his unease. Ardyn doesn't push him, patient and silent as the prince hesitantly toes the edge of explanation, finally making the plunge after several long minutes.

While the tale is but a jumbled mess of ramblings and uncertainty, Adagium hangs on every word, fitting the disjointed fragments together into a whole that paints a picture clearer than that which Noctis could conjure. As if through his own eyes, the Citadel halls rush past amidst waves of nausea and confusion, the world a blur until the crisp, clean shape of the damned stone comes into view. Ardyn ignores any mention of the woman — a vision dismissed as but an appearance of one pretended Messenger, beholden to the Oracle and her holy mission — returns to the bloodied council chambers as Noctis trails off, indicating not only the end of his venture through the Citadel, but his reluctance to say anything more.

The chancellor regards him with a wry smile, much as he used to when Noctis would arrive home expecting to keep every stray he stumbled upon.

"How disappointing that I must, again, be the bearer of bad news."

The prince's pale face is screwed up into a questioning scowl. "What... What does that mean?"

Mock surprise overtakes Ardyn, fingers gripping the boy's chin with a tenderness that he finds difficult to maintain. Wide golden eyes search through his own, and he finds some pleasure in the apprehension that swallows the prince.

"Oh, Noctis, I am afraid... His Majesty fell by your hand."


"You're joking."

It is a demand rather than a question, the taller man staring him down with wide brown eyes. The dark scars that line his cheek and brow seem to vanish a moment, giving way to the face of the stocky youth with whom Ignis had grown up. Much as he wishes it otherwise, the facts remain the same, and it is with a heavy heart and a stern shake of his head that the young advisor to the late king is made to be the bearer of bad news.

There is an audible gasp as his companion seats himself, palms laid flat against his knees as if to brace himself. Truly, nothing could have prepared them for this, be they citizens of Insomnia, of Lucis, or those sworn to protect and uphold the crown. That day, and each one following, had felt very much surreal, as though the floor itself had dropped out from beneath the lot of them and insisted that they continue walking. The weight of failure sits heavy in Ignis' stomach, and it is with the clearing of his throat that he does seek to usher away the bitterness befouling his tongue.

If there is anything good to be found in the wake of Regis' untimely death, it is that the prince himself still lives. While beholden to the Empire and a man whose motives remain ever shrouded, Noctis himself is alive and whole, and perhaps the gods themselves have not sought to intervene for the sake of his return.

While but a handful of those loyal to the crown are very much aware of the prince's status as a hand of the Empire, to the common onlooker, it appears as though the Line of Lucis has come to an abrupt end with the slaying of His Majesty. They would be foolish to anticipate peace in the wake of such news, what with every headline in the kingdom spearheading the effort to inform the public of these unfortunate events: King Regis, slain. The Crystal, dormant. The Wall, obsolete.

"What happens now?" Those eyes fixate upon Ignis once again, stark shock replaced with a righteous indignation as the man stands. "This would be a big enough mess without the appearance of the Imperials, but having them involved complicates things."

The advisor nods, glasses pushed up the bridge of his nose in a thoughtful — albeit absent-minded — gesture. Gladiolus is right on both accounts. In the years following the fall of Tenebrae and the believed death of the prince, many throughout Lucis had been swift to voice their disapproval of the fact that His Majesty had not sought to marry again and produce an heir. Others had speculated that the king had remained unperturbed following his son's alleged passing, insinuating rather loudly that there existed within the Citadel a bastard child — or several, for that matter — belonging to myriad women yet unnamed. The allegations were false, of course, but saying as much and denying rumor had done precious little to quell the spread of gossip. Even now, there live those within Lucis who still adhere to such misguided beliefs as to the late king.

Ignis' brow furrows in deep thought, arms set squarely across his chest. All in all, it is up to the Lucian Royal Council to decide what is to be done with the monarchy, and with the prince himself certain to be viewed as but an enemy to the kingdom, the odds are great that they may elect to choose a new ruler or be done with the system altogether and begin anew. A democracy, perhaps, though the thought of enacting such a sudden change after two thousand years is far easier said than done.

"The best case scenario would be to have His Highness return to the Crown City to succeed the throne. But, of course, the Empire's involvement in all of this serves only to complicate matters, as you've said."

Perhaps, had he kept a more watchful eye on Noctis, managed to keep up with him as he disappeared through the Citadel halls, the bulk of this crisis could have been averted. Though... that may be giving himself far too much credit. All the same, the king may well have been laid to waste by the chancellor and his surprise entourage, but had they been able to maintain hold of the prince, steadily reacclimate him to his homeland and the importance of his role as successor to the throne, the people may well have been inclined to trust him in time. But that option, it seems, is little more now than wishful thinking.

The raucous sound of shouting echoes down the hall just outside the door, and it is with a startled shout that it opens to reveal a young man with a head of blond hair, clutching an expensive-looking camera between his hands. Even with the strap slung around his neck, he cradles the device as though it is made of glass, tumbling to the floor with several members of the Crownsguard and Glaives following swiftly at his heels. The eyes of both the advisor and his companion go wide with shock, the lithe young man staggering quickly to his feet to dart around behind Gladiolus.

The Marshal wears a more perturbed look than normal as he enters, one hand resting steadily on his hip as the others file in behind him. Most noticeable, perhaps, is the stern face of the late king's Shield, Gladiolus' father, Clarus, for the man looks perhaps far too eager to surge forward and seize the perceived photographer by the throat.

"It's not spying," the blond quips, head poking out from behind Gladiolus' broad shoulder, "it's journalism."

Ah. Ignis nods, observant gaze taking in the scene before him, the pieces all clicking quickly into place. This young man — Prompto, was it? — has made quite the name for himself these last few years as a nuisance, finding clever ways with which to sneak into and around the Citadel to procure photographs of various events and meetings not made privy to the public. He is, for lack of better phrasing, viewed as public enemy number one in the eyes of royal security, if only for his prowess in snapping pristine pictures and reporting to Insomnia Today some terribly inaccurate information. And, by the look of things, the poor kid's likely been snatched up by the Glaives and Crownsguard for seeking yet another scoop.

A beleaguered sigh draws the young advisor from reverie just in time to see Prompto shoved forward by the Shield's son, the Marshal approaching to catch the blond by the shoulder.

"Calm down. You're not in trouble," he says flatly, and the look upon the photographer's face is very much the same as that which Ignis himself bears. "We have a request, actually." Cor fixes Gladiolus and Ignis with his stoic gaze next. "All of you."

It's blindsiding to be certain, and Ignis finds himself blinking several times as if doing so will somehow help him to decipher what it is he's hearing. In the wake of the king's murder, the surviving council members – those who had not seen fit to fight back – the Crownsguard, and the Glaives had convened, determining the safety of the Crown City and her citizens to be of the highest priority. It had this been decided that, in order to best ascertain said safety and the future of the kingdom, Prince Noctis would need to be returned to Lucis to succeed his father.

"You are saying...?" All eyes rest upon the young advisor, and it is in that moment that Ignis feels his nerve beginning to waver. "We are to bring His Highness home?"

The Marshal nods wordlessly, that stern expression cemented still upon his face. Clarus huffs through his nose, carrying on where the other man will not.

"The pair of you," he regards Ignis and Gladiolus, "have history with the prince, however brief." Piercing eyes settle upon the photographer, still lingering behind the Shield's son. "And you... I believe you are precisely what Prince Noctis needs." Clarus' gaze softens, bearing a strange touch of sorrow. "A friend."