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

[warmgaze]

Several months of practice from sharing a tent that only barely slept four. ...I find it rather reassuring at this point myself, if we're being honest.

[burninglight]

I wish you'd said so earlier. I tend to get a bit cold rather easily, so I like the contact.

...What are your friends like?

[warmgaze]

Well, I've already told you a bit about Noctis. He's... never been fully at ease with being a prince, and at times he can be something of a brat, but I've never seen him turn down the chance to help someone, even if it results in completely foolish escapades like running around catching frogs in the middle of the night.

[Can you blame him at all for making comparisons, Ardyn? Because that certainly sounds like you.]

His best friend is Prompto - they met over the course of Noctis' public schooling, and I fear it may be a case of opposites matching perfectly. Where Noctis is a bit withdrawn, Prompto is nothing but exuberant much of the time, all his emotions worn transparently. Since he's the only one of us who didn't grow up in the atmosphere of the Citadel and the nobility, he's often anxious about exactly how he fits into our group.

And last is Gladiolus, who - well, prior to meeting Gilgamesh in person instead of just as a legendary figure, I daresay I'd never met anyone larger. Most of the time, he's the personification of gentle giant; quietly friendly, a shoulder to lean on, that sort of thing. He does have a bit of a nasty temper, though, and he gets frustrated easily. Mostly with Noctis; Gladio takes his role as Shield very seriously, since it's been passed down his family for some generations, and I think that does him more harm than good at times, because his expectations are very high and difficult to reach.

[burninglight]

[Ardyn pressed against Ignis' side as he talked, listening with his complete attention.]

...It sounds as though you care for all three of them quite a great deal.

[warmgaze]

Of course. They're incredibly precious to me.

[He shifts a little, but mostly to lean back a bit against the pillows, pulling Ardyn down with him. Much better.]

[burninglight]

[Ardyn buried is face against Ignis' shoulder fingers curling tight in his shirt again; as if there were a million questions and uncertainties with the only definite thing being what was right in front of him. Reticent had to date not been a word even remotely describing Ardyn, and yet...here they were.]

[warmgaze]

[He keeps an arm around Ardyn's shoulder, pulling him close.]

Is something wrong?

[burninglight]

Hm...no, nothing. Just...thinking, I suppose.

[warmgaze]

They seem heavy thoughts.

[Not that he minds the warmth curled up against him.]

[burninglight]

However could they not be, given what you've told me?

[warmgaze]

True enough, I suppose.

...Whatever is on your mind, you can speak it. I may not have the answers, but I see no purpose in hiding anything more.

[burninglight]

I'd not know where to begin. For impossible as your words are, you've yet given me no reason to fail in trusting you. And I find them so unlikely that no one would be fool enough to craft such a lie.

It seems I've an impossible choice before me; slow or even stop my efforts and allow countless people to die as the world falls to darkness, or continue on in becoming whatever it is you think of me to whatever terrible end that leads to.

[warmgaze]

Then we find a third solution.

[He says it so simply, with such conviction - with no doubt but that that third option exists.]

The night before I awoke here... I was offered the chance to change things and I took it. I refuse to believe that that is something that was offered only to be impossible.

[burninglight]

But-...what, Ignis? Even were I to just disappear and take this power with me, surely the gods would do naught but put my brother in my place. And that's...that's even worse than doing nothing at all.

[warmgaze]

[ put my brother in my place

The words are a sharp realization, shocking Ignis into sitting up straight as though there isn't another body curled against his. He very nearly throws himself from the bed to pace, such is the restless energy of realization from those words.]

...What if they did? There is no 'Izunia Lucis Caelum' in the record in my time, there's - no record of a brother at all.

[burninglight]

...

[Ardyn froze solid at Ignis' side, instantly losing all color in his face.]

[warmgaze]

...Use people up until there's nothing left, and then install the convenient double after the first is condemned and thrown away.

[He hates the idea. His tone says as much. But the pieces fit.

For what else could make a saviour so bitter? What could turn him into 'Ardyn Izunia' - what good is a world that only ever lets you down - except his sacrifice being trampled on, ignored, forgotten, while he was forced to watch?]

[burninglight]

No-...no, no, no, you're wrong, he'd...he'd never go along with something like that.

[Ardyn shook his head, pressing both hands to his face as if trying to block out the entire world that allowed this line of thought to even be put forth.]

Izunia would never-...Gilgamesh wouldn't allow-...you have to be wrong.

[warmgaze]

Even if they thought you to be a daemon, or worse?

[He doesn't like it. But the pieces fit, and he can see it. Ardyn, hiding his condition until the very end, until his eyes changed color and that - that thing he saw in that brief vision on Pryna's dying breaths. And Izunia and Gilgamesh, left with what they believed was no choice but to put him down - ]

[burninglight]

You're talking about my brother, Ignis!

[The objection came out sharply, desperation making Ardyn's voice crack like a pane of glass under pressure.]

If...if something was wrong with me he'd look for a way to fix it. They'd try to help, they'd...they'd save me if I was in trouble.

[warmgaze]

I know.

[And his voice is sharp, for a moment, before his expression falls, and he presses his face into one hand.

Is it just his imagination, or do the worst of the scars - his finger and his eye - ache?]

...I know. I like it no more than you do - it sits in my stomach the same way the idea that I might turn on Noct might.

[ - Why not come with me?]

And yet it is the only piece that fits.

[burninglight]

Stop. Please. He wouldn't--they would never-...

[Ardyn's voice trailed off in a shaking breath, the healer curling up as if he wanted to just disappear on the spot.]

...you have to be wrong.

[warmgaze]

[It is as terrible as the news of Insomnia's fall, in its own way. But where the grief and denial made Noctis frantic, almost berserk, Ardyn just curls inward on himself.

Once more, Ignis can't help but be the bearer of the worst news imaginable.

He leans back onto the bed, pulling Ardyn's shaking shoulders as close as he can, and says nothing.]

[burninglight]

[At his core, in perhaps a painful show of irony...Ardyn Lucis Caelum was not an angry person. If he had a temper at all, it was kept beneath lock and key of patience and understanding. He seemed to hide most any emotion in much the same way, behind calm smiles and gentle words.]

[So it was near unprecedented for the world's savior to be in this state, fragile and cracking and muffling a broken sob against Ignis' shoulder.]

[warmgaze]

Shhh, shh, I'm here.

[He doesn't say 'it's alright.' That would be a lie.]

I'm here.