izunia lucis callout

[founderinglight]

you will pry twinzunia from my cold dead hands let's do this

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[founderinglight]

[The answer book is still just a tall skinny guy with a scarf and a pen.]

How is it do you think that he lost his vision? The power of the ring comes always with a price, even for those who don't give themselves to it completely. Even for kings.

[photoshooter]

I--I guess I kind of thought Ardyn did that to him? Since he was already there? Stabbing Luna?

[Just, you know, the law of conservation of plot devices.]

[founderinglight]

No. Ignis reached for the power to defend that which he loved most, and as he was worthy, we gave it to him.

[For maybe the first time in this conversation, Izunia sounds like the king of old that he is. For the length of a sentence, at least.]

I think Ardyn found it a rather unpleasant surprise.

[photoshooter]

[And, viciously:]

Good.

[...He has the grace to pause, at least.]

I mean, not good that that's why Iggy got hurt, but good for sticking it to Ardyn. No offense. He's just, you know. Literally the worst.

[founderinglight]

That does rather come with the territory of being the human incarnation of the Starscourge, yes.

[Look he knows that his brother is a messed up pile of Literally Every Negative Emotion, you don't need to dance around it for the sake of being polite, Prompto.]

Ignis hardly needed much of our power to do what he needed to do. I think he would have done the same even if we refused - I'm quite fond of him, as ring-bearers go.

[photoshooter]

[And that, oddly, gives Prompto pause.]

...Ring-bearers.

[He blinks, then breathes out a grieving, wondering kind of laugh.]

Guess that makes Ignis his Samwise, huh? ...Don't worry, I don't expect you to get that reference. It's just space stuff.

[founderinglight]

[Yeah, congrats Prompto, you get the rare sight of Izunia Lucis Caelum completely confused.

Ah, pop culture. He never was much good at it.]

I'm glad he survived. And I do not say that lightly, and not just because Noctis needed him, either.

[photoshooter]

Mmm. He's the best. Well, and Gladio. Noct, too, of course.

[He finally leans back against the wall again and stretches his legs out, hands laced loosely in his lap.]

I miss them.

[founderinglight]

I'm sure you'll see them again.

[Even if only... Well. In a place like this.]

[photoshooter]

I don't know. It might not be me who does. You know?

[Maybe he'd know if Prompto actually made any sense, ever.]

[founderinglight]

...I can't say that I do.

[Astrals why are you so VAGUE, child.]

[photoshooter]

I... um.

[Because words are HARD, Grandpa Lucis Caelum!]

I got... space kidnapped? And time kidnapped. But I got a chance to talk to Noct, and he said it's been ten years for him and I wasn't missing during any of that time. So. I dunno? I might not be me.

[founderinglight]

[...Ah.

This, strangely enough - this he has an answer for.]

It's a person's own determination that decides who they are. If you're still 'Prompto' at the level of your very soul, then your friends will see that, and nothing will change it.

[That's why - he could never really be 'Ardyn.' In the depths of his soul, 'Izunia' always lived, wrapped in the blue scarf that the man finds himself fingering as he speaks.]

In a worst case scenario, they simply have twice as much of you.

[photoshooter]

[Ummmm.]

Somehow, that's equal parts comforting and horrifying? I mean, technically speaking, they've already had about a million more times the amount of 'me' than anyone should ever have to deal with.

[Or perhaps not technically speaking, but magiteknically speaking.]

[founderinglight]

[Yeah well IZUNIA HAS NO IDEA ABOUT THAT, PROMPTO. Well okay he sort of knows that you had a thing and Noctis had a feeling about it, but.]

I'm afraid 'equal parts comforting and horrifying' is the only kind of comfort I get these days. Perhaps it's rubbed off?

[photoshooter]

[Prompto looks around the empty city.]

Uh, who comforts you, though? Ah, that came out kind of bad. I just meant, like. It seems pretty lonely here, is all.

[founderinglight]

That is one of several contributing factors, yes.

[He hasn't... actually gotten comfort from another person since Gilgamesh left. Not for the things that really matter.]

[photoshooter]

Oh.

[Prompto fidgets a little, wringing his hands.]

Well, if it helps, it didn't sound like you meant to be horrifying. It just came out that way.

[founderinglight]

I do not make a habit of being intentionally horrifying.

[Well, not since he was a teenager, anyway.]

May I ask...?

[photoshooter]

[He looks away, shifting his legs to put the soles of his boots together and bounce his knees like a butterfly, hands braced on his feet.]

...How much do you know about what Ardyn did?

[founderinglight]

My knowledge after my death is limited to the experiences of those wearing the ring. So - mostly Insomnia, some of Altissa, and what he did to Noctis in Gralea.

[Pretty much nothing to do with Prompto himself.]

Some of it I can guess, as there's no one else who could have revitalized magitek for Niflheim in the first place - much less built Ravus Nox Fleuret an arm like that. Prosthetics were one of his specialties.

[photoshooter]

[Prompto bites his lip, pressing down on his feet to keep his hands still.]

I mean... I dunno. There was someone. Someone who could've helped him, anyway. With some stuff.

[Let's be real, Verstael would've probably LOVED to help stick an ugly arm on Ravus.]

Do you know anything about, um. The Magitek Troopers?

[founderinglight]

...Beyond that they were Niflheim's half-daemon army, no, not particularly.

[Well, and that Ravus found them intensely creepy.]

[photoshooter]

...Right. Well. Ardyn helped make those, too.

[It's beyond weird to be explaining this to someone who looks and sounds so much like Ardyn he might as well be talking to the man himself. After a while, Prompto gets his words in order.]

They look like robots. We thought they were for a long time, just robots powered by magitek. And they are, kind of. But the magitek... it comes from. From turning people into daemons and harvesting them. They did that to their own people. I... I don't know if there's anyone left alive in Niflheim.

[Gralea had been a dark, black husk, like the shiny shell of a dead beetle. He shudders to remember it. He hates bugs.]

But that's only part of it. It was one thing to power them, but they still needed another part to... make them work. But every time they tried putting a person in there, their ego died. So...

[How many times will he have to come to terms with this? Will he ever, really? Will he someday be able to think about this without wanting to throw up or cry or disappear?]

So they used babies instead. So they wouldn't even have an ego to kill. They created clones so they could just make millions of soldiers and injected them with the Scourge before they even knew they were alive, and that's what an MT is. A shell piloted by those daemonified clones, running on the harvested lives of Niflheim.

[founderinglight]

[Izunia is silent for a long time, until Prompto finishes. Then he exhales, loudly, slowly, putting a hand to his face almost as though to block it out.

He can't tell, from the words, if it was Ardyn's idea or not. But it could have been, his brother's genius with lives and magitek twisted into one horrific whole by the Scourge.

It could have been, and that's enough to hurt.]

I see. I think I can fill in the gaps.

[Prompto, found again by Noctis and company in Gralea - changed, somehow, and using the barcode in his wrist to unlock doors that only members of the facility should have been able to open.]

You realize the irony, I hope? Identical twins are natural clones- it's the existence of people like Ardyn and I who spawned that sort of technology in the first place.

[Another piece of evidence for his brother's dark genius at the helm, actually. Izunia carefully puts that thought somewhere where he doesn't have to look at it right now.]

But if Ardyn and I are not the same person - [And oh, the irony! Oh, let him be run through on his own words already!] - then neither are you one of the soldiers who destroyed your home.