Get in time traveller

[warmgaze]

[Altissia. The ring, burning into his finger, burning into his skull, and he knows the price without asking, knows before it's paid. The thing you value most, isn't that always how this works in fairytales?

Ravus. Noctis. Ardyn, and that little revelation barely enters his mind at the time, the familiar glowing signature of a warp in an unfamiliar color. The prophecy, the visions that hang in his mind, a last wish from a woman who spent her life to ensure it, Lunafreya's final message to ensure that Noctis would survive.

The last clear words he can remember clearly, You've a calling to fulfill, and then Prompto and Gladio's voices, concerned, in a blur...

And then nothing. Just the feeling of a ring's power, setting him alight from fingertips to crown -

It's still in him, that power. The ring of the Lucii binds to its wearers for life, knotting strands of light into their souls, be they kings or anyone else.

(He had expected to die. Living is harder.)

And in the depths of his unconsciousness, in the place where he knows the things that he hasn't had time to consider, Noctis and Ardyn and prophecy and all of that terrible weight -

From there, from the connection of the fire in his soul that will never go out, that can only be smothered and locked away in the dark, a voice says, what would you give to change fate?

And, of course, he answers, Anything.

----

In another world, Ignis Scientia wakes in Altissia, his face scarred, his vision burned away, and continues on.

In this one, Prompto Argentum enters the room just in time to see a flare of purple flame lick along his friend's body and leave nothing behind, not even a char mark on the wrinkled sheets.

And Ignis?

Ignis wakes, with a groan and a hand pressed to his face, in the back of a cart that trundles to a stop to pick up another passenger, a young healer with cheeks not yet sunken by pain and eyes not yet yellowed by plague. He wakes bereft, on some fundamental level, of the touch of magic that bound him to Noctis, the hum of energy that bound retainer to prince...

He wakes with the imprint of a ring on his finger, the memory of agreeing, and not the damnedest idea where he is.]

Comments

[burninglight]

...oh.

[A spot on the floor was suddenly fascinating for how Ardyn was staring at it.]

I...it happens, on occasion. Divine magic is no simple thing for a human body to play as conduit for.

[warmgaze]

Of course.

[Ardyn might realize, by now, that that means 'I know you're full of shit.']

Do you remember what we were discussing when it happened?

[burninglight]

...

[Ardyn just shook his head, knowing damn well he'd finally been caught and struggling to find some believable excuse.]

[warmgaze]

We were talking about what might come of you taking all of that infection into yourself. I admit, I didn't expect a short-term result so quickly.

[Did Ardyn Izunia constantly burn hot with that fever? It might explain the numerous layers if he did - Ignis is plenty familiar with the feverish feeling that one can never quite get warm.]

[burninglight]

I'm...I'm fine, Ignis. It's nothing at all, no more than a fleeting illness.

[warmgaze]

You needn't keep up appearances when we both know better. The Starscourge is anything but fleeting.

[He pauses and - this time, his voice is actually hesitant.]

That... is actually what I wanted to talk to you about, if you're feeling well and lucid enough. It won't be a pleasant conversation.

[burninglight]

I'm not lying--I feel fine now. What is it you want to tell me?

[warmgaze]

Before you collapsed, I asked you what happened when it became too much for your body. You wouldn't even entertain the idea.

... It was a bit facetious of me to ask. I already know what happens. There are still so many pieces missing in the middle, but...

[He trails off for a moment, adjusting his glasses. His normally carefully prepared words fail, come out as disconnected thoughts.]

...'Against the dark, the King's battle is fought.' This, what you are doing to yourself - it is no battle.

[burninglight]

I...I don't understand. Of course it is--what else would it be?

[warmgaze]

A battle with no swords drawn? I can't imagine the Draconian mis-speaking so.

[He stops, and... exhales slowly.]

A illness, even a magical one, cannot be fight with swords alone. But pour it into a vessel, some body that can contain it... And then you have a dark for the King to fight against.

[burninglight]

That's not-...

[...]

You're wrong. I was chosen for this. To save the world, not to...not to become whatever it is you're thinking. And even if I was, why should it matter? If all the pain in the world should fall to a single person, why should it not be me?

[warmgaze]

...

[... He doesn't have an answer for that. Doesn't know how to put into words for himself that he cares simply because he doesn't want this Ardyn in front of him to suffer that, for however many thousand years.]

I was born... Some two thousand years from now, in a country called Accordo that, by your brother's maps, doesn't yet exist. When I was six, I moved to live with my uncle in a foreign city - Insomnia, Crown City and capital of the country of Lucis. There, I met a boy named Noctis - the boy who would become my reason for being.

...You would think that after two thousand years, and over a hundred generations separating the two of you, that you wouldn't look so alike.

[burninglight]

[He should have laughed and called Ignis utterly mad. It was impossible in every imaginable sense, unbelievable and ridiculous on top of that.]

[...But Ignis was far from insane. It was just impossible enough to not be a lie. And even now Ardyn was aware he'd not once been able to place the other man's accent.]

You can't...expect me to believe that.

[Yet here they were, and he completely did.]

[warmgaze]

He's far slighter than you, with straight black hair and blue eyes, but... The face is the same. A fact that still unsettles me deeply when I think too long on it.

Noctis Lucis Caelum, son of Regis... the Chosen King. And one of the things I do not yet understand is the name "Ardyn Lucis Caelum" marked down for the founder of the line... Not whilst the man calling himself "Ardyn Izunia" exists.

[burninglight]

[Ardyn began to turn pale again, in a way completely independent of any illness temporary or otherwise.]

I-...what?

[warmgaze]

Imperial Chancellor Ardyn Izunia, supposedly of Niflheim... Indisputably a member of the Lucis Caelum line. I've seen the evidence myself.

[He looks down, at Ardyn's hands.]

And possessed of - or perhaps 'by' - a magic as dark as the Scourge itself, as well.

[burninglight]

But that's...impossible. Why would-...how would--you can't seriously be implying we're the same person. No one can possibly live that long.

[warmgaze]

The color of the Armiger is virtually unique to the user, is it not?

[Ardyn has never used the word Armiger in his hearing.]

And yet the shade of yours is the same. Your voice is the same, save that you are far less unsettling with it.

[burninglight]

How did you kn-...

[Ardyn trailed off, swallowing hard.]

I don't...I don't understand, Ignis. What are you trying to say here?

[warmgaze]

That even if I don't know all the steps of getting there, I know how this path ends. And I...

I don't want to see that happen to you.

[burninglight]

...Solheim is dying. Already it is but a shadow of its greatest self, and the flame that fuels it grows weaker day by day. Its people are lost and uncertain of the future, with only a singular source of hope in the approaching darkness.

I can't just stop, no matter what it costs me. One life, in exchange for so many more...how can I simply look at these people and refuse to pay that price?

[warmgaze]

...I know. The same way I can't sit back and let you continue in ignorance, knowing who you are now, before everything.

I can't not try to change things. And not just for Noct's sake, anymore.

[burninglight]

I-...what am I supposed to do, I thought—

[His voice cracked, Ardyn hiding his face in his hands.]

...I only wanted to help.

[warmgaze]

I know.

[And he climbs onto the bed, so that he can pull Ardyn into his arms. Just another kid hurt by the plans of the gods.]

I know.

[burninglight]

[Hurt, lost, and shaking under Ignis’ touch. Ardyn took a slow, unsteady breath but said nothing else, instead dropping his hands from his face to attach himself to the retainer as the only sane thing left even as everything he said was sheer insanity at best.]