izunia lucis callout

[founderinglight]

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

Comments

[founderinglight]

Not if you overthink it.

[It's... almost a gentle scolding, especially when coupled with the fact that Izunia throws his pen, with a practiced hand, to hit Prompto in the shoulder before it vanishes back to his Armiger.]

[photoshooter]

Hey!

[And that's such a--such a stupid Noct thing to do that Prompto's throwing his glove right back at him without even thinking about it.

Yeah. That's right. He just threw a biker glove at the Founder King's face. Suck it, Lucis Caelum.]

[founderinglight]

[Izunia catches it with a blink and then just... stares at it in his hand for a moment before tossing it back. Then he laughs a little.]

Have a little faith. You are loved. Everything else will work itself out.

[photoshooter]

...

[Prompto clears his throat and busies himself with putting his glove back on, because that's not a totally obvious ploy for a moment to think that over, of course.]

I am, aren't I? Guess I'll take your word for the rest, Grandpa.

[founderinglight]

[It's okay, Izunia needs a moment to recover, himself, from being called Grandpa.]

...If you are ever in doubt, don't be afraid to ask. Consider that the obligatory advice to keep you from making my mistakes.

[photoshooter]

Uhhh, I'm pretty sure it's, like, abjectly impossible for someone like me to make the kinds of mistakes the Kings of Lucis can.

[founderinglight]

[Oh boy. Thanks for giving him one of those laugh or cry moments, Prompto. He'll pick laughing, however awkwardly.]

We do tend to do things on a somewhat grander scale, mistakes and all, but we're still people. We make the same kinds of mistakes as anyone else.

[photoshooter]

Guess that's true. Do you actually mean... asking if people like me? That seems a little, I don't know. Needy.

[Never mind that it was basically the first thing he asked after the guys got him down off that fucking bondage cross.]

[founderinglight]

There are worse things to be than in need of a little reassurance from time to time.

[photoshooter]

Hm.

[He nods, apparently thinking about that, but mostly just watching Izunia.]

You wanna talk about it?

[founderinglight]

I thought you didn't want to hear about my brother's saintly goodness.

[Still in that liminal space between funny and pain, over here.]

[photoshooter]

I don't. But you probably didn't want to hear how he twisted the lives of millions of people like silly putty and then trashed them when he was done, either.

[And Prompto hasn't even mentioned what Ardyn did to him personally.]

[founderinglight]

Not especially, but I can't really shy away from it, either.

[He pauses, then sighs.]

If I had spoken to him directly, perhaps things would have been different. I couldn't have taken that curse from him, but at least... At least he would have known that he was still loved.

[photoshooter]

...That's really vague and yet still, like, super sad, man.

[There... there?]

[founderinglight]

Well, it sounds better that way than "When I realized he was full of daemons, I my have stabbed him more than a little."

[Emotional content vs literal content.]

[photoshooter]

Well, maybe it sounds better to you.

[Everything's subjective.]

But... yeah, I guess I can see why you, uh. Might have some baggage there. ...Sorry.

[founderinglight]

[Everything's subjective! Except stabbing, and stabbing definitely happened there.]

That's not even the half of it, really. He has every right to want for revenge and remember me with no fondness.

[photoshooter]

Doesn't mean he's got a right to take it out on your great-great-great to the zillionth grandkids. ...Or totally unrelated people who just happened to live on this planet.

[Noct. Ignis. Niflheim, Insomnia. Altissia.]

They didn't deserve to suffer like that.

[founderinglight]

I can't argue with that. But... I doubt that Ardyn really has an understanding of what's 'right' after so long.

[He closes his eyes, briefly.]

And the people it would be 'right' for him to take it out on are beyond his reach. Everyone from our era who wronged him is dead, and the gods themselves - well, I suppose he did his best to use Niflheim to destroy them, anyway, if my understanding is correct.

[photoshooter]

...Yeah. They killed Shiva. And did a number on Titan, too. ...Mostly I think they just annoyed Leviathan.

[Who knew the Tidemother was so tetchy?]

Though I guess they had a lot to deal with at the time. I still don't really know what happened there.

[founderinglight]

The Tidemother has her own lightless depths full of monsters. In another world, it could have been her bearing the Scourge, I'm sure, instead of Ifrit.

[He sighs.]

And yet Bahamut escapes unscathed. The world truly is unfair to my brother.

[photoshooter]

...Seems to me the world's unfair to everyone, buddy.

[Raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by Ardyn Izuncis Caelum.]

[founderinglight]

[SITS ON HANDS okay no he was probably like. personally victimized in the normal brotherly sort of way at some point.

Izunia reaches up and idly plays with the end of his scarf.]

You're quite right.

[photoshooter]

...So what's your story, actually? Your story. Since I came to terms a long time ago with the fact I understand literally nothing, ever.

[He sits butterfly and bounces his knees idly, hands on his ankles.]

[founderinglight]

[A pained chuckle.]

You understand more than you give yourself credit for, I'm sure.

[The boy is sharp - or quick, perhaps, as his name would suggest.]

I assume I can summarize the broad strokes - twin brothers born at the end of the Astral War, one given the power to heal, which was actually part of a long gameplan to turn him into the vessel of the Scourge, whilst the other took the throne, founded a country, and started the line that would eventually stop him.

[He stops to sigh.]

The details... Probably, I am the last person Ardyn ever healed. Certainly the last he healed as 'Ardyn Lucis Caelum.' He came back to our home town in a panic when I fell ill, and even so, I was on my last legs by the time he got there. Feverish, delirious, spending most of my time unconscious - black marks everywhere.

[He reaches up and traces the veins running along his neck, visible over the top of his scarf, and then lets his hand fall.]

And then, suddenly, it was gone. I was healthy, whole - I woke up rather suddenly.

The first thing I saw was - well, if you've seen it, you know. My brother's face, with the gleaming eyes of a daemon, scourge pouring down his cheeks. A sight fit for nightmares.

[He flips his hand, and a dagger appears in a flash of light. If it were Noctis before him, he'd recognize it - a small blade, wielded by a very similar hand in Altissia.]

I didn't think. I just reacted.

[A sharp upward jerk, as though catching an attacker in the gut or under the ribs, and then the dagger vanishes.]

And that was the moment that he truly became the Accursed, refused by death itself.