lazybox | Get in time traveller

Get in time traveller

[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.]

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Do you think I would have ever left you by choice?

[Never. Not even for a moment. He takes in the reappearing scars, watches Ardyn like he itches to pounce and hold him close.]

I went to sleep at your side and woke up here, as though nothing had changed except for me. Ardyn, you - you know the depths of my loyalty, when I decide to give it.

[Down to the very ashes. This Ardyn, at least, knows in full the origin of those scars.]

Loyalty to someone else. [The fury was clear in his strained voice, but without the mockery or bitterness that had fueled it on the altar. This...was just anger born of pain, through and through.]

Not to me. Never to me, the pretender King of Light, but to he who would be shown the true favor of the cursed gods.

To both of you. You think I care one whit for the gods, when they're intent on taking both the people I love away from me?

[He won't pretend to choose one over the other.Neither will he pretend it isn't tearing him apart.

Noctis needs him. But Ardyn, who has no one else, needs him far more right now.]

For fuck's sake, do you think what we did is something I could just forget or turn my back on? What kind of a man do you think I am? You left your mark on my very soul, I'll not turn away from you. Now or ever, whatever you may have become in the meantime.

You’re lying.

[Malice given form shrieked and coiled in his head, all negative thoughts and doubts and hatred struggling to maintain hold on a human heart twisted by the corruption that had stained it through countless injuries.]

You don’t...you don’t care. No one does. All I am is a monster, there’s naught left of what you knew.

Don't be stupid. Monsters don't cry out like that. Not in pain from the heart.

[And when he says it like that, there's only one thing he can do. Step closer and take Ardyn into his arms, ignoring the part of his mind still screaming that this is a predator and wrong and something he needs to get away from.]

...I'm sorry.

[Ardyn froze on the spot—didn’t snap, didn’t push him away, didn’t even summon a knife to stab him.]

[It hurt. The twisting in his chest was matched by a very different one inhis mind, and for just a moment it felt like this was the single breath of air after drowning in an endless black ocean for millennia. Would this brief and uncertain clarity last? He didn’t know, and it was that which led him to put shaking arms around Ignis with a hesitant and half-whispered plea:]

...help me. Please. I don’t...I don’t want this, I can’t control it, it’s too much and too loud and I don’t know how long I can hold it back like this.

[He's not sure what changes, but when Ardyn's arms curl around him in turn, the urge to flee suddenly abates. His body accepts what his heart knows, and his pulse finally begins to settle.]

It's okay. I've got you. We'll figure out something.

...you can’t. You’ve no power to help—Noctis hasn’t the strength to kill me yet. There’s nothing else that can save me from this.

[Clearly conflicted in every way imaginable, Ardyn shook his head and held Ignis a little more tightly even as he protested the concept.]

Just go, before I hurt you again. Go back to your king and...forget me. For your own safety.

I'll forget nothing and go nowhere. Even if I can do nothing else, I'm not merely going to leave you alone with this darkness again.

[With one hand, he reaches up to run his fingers through Ardyn's hair. His plea is just the opposite - ]

Stay. Stay here and let me be your safety a while longer. I'm not so foolish as to think that you're the same person this side of two thousand years, but you are still Ardyn, and these last weeks have been maddening without you.

You think me the one in need of safety? Don’t be a fool, you’re...I’m not...I’m not him anymore.

You're clearly much more distressed about this than I am. I'm perfectly safe right here, regardless of what my hindbrain and its instinctive fear of daemons thinks.

[Ardyn hurting him is out of the question.]

You're the one holding a monster in your arms, imbecile. What's to say I won't just kill you?

Absolutely nothing. But you won't.

[He leans up, kissing the side of Ardyn's neck, gently, briefly.]

You're still beautiful.

Don't-

[Whatever halfhearted protest he tried to come up with was cut off in a short intake of breath.]

...this body isn't even that of a real human; just a false recreation of one. You know nothing of what I truly look like.

It can't possibly be as bad as a mind flayer.

[And if it is - well, he'll deal with it. His attraction to Ardyn is as much emotional and intellectual as it is physical, and whatever lies underneath this skin, the mind inside is still the same. Still begging him to remain even as he tries to push Ignis away.]

Show me.

[Ardyn hesitated, uncertainty burning in his head amidst the choir of shrieking malice that had been the background noise of his life these past long millennia. What could possibly happen, if he did? Ignis would be sensible and leave right now, warn Noctis and the others that Ardyn was on the train with them. Then he'd just have to change the plan a little, and all would still fall right into place.]

[It wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter, nothing mattered, he didn't matter to anyone anymore.]

[Ardyn pulled away and stepped back-]

[-and when he looked up it was with pallid gray skin, black ichor staining too-yellow eyes and the corner of his mouth like some sick mockery of tears and a smile.]

[Black markings ran over a corpselike complexion like the thin branches of a tree in winter at his neck and hairline, miasma itself coming off of him like the purple-black aura daemons emerged from and sank into on the road in the middle of the night.]

You think me still human...how charmingly stupid. You think there something left to save within this miserable shell? There's nothing. Nothing but the pathetic shreds of memory belonging to a man who tore himself apart to save an ungrateful world.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum is dead. There's naught that lives here now but that which your legends call the Accursed.

...Definitely not as bad as a mind flayer.

[Even Ignis occasionally loses his brain to mouth filter from shock, but the words are true enough. He watches Ardyn for a moment, taking in the transformation in full...

Then nods to himself and steps close again, trailing his fingertips down one stained cheek.]

Dead or not, he's still clearly here in front of me - trying to take on the whole burden of the world to spare others, as usual. You're not fooling me, Ardyn, putting on a dramatic act to push me away because you think it safer for me.

And - [He leans in close, so dangerously close, voice dropping in pitch.] - I'm not having it.

[And with that and a deep breath, he seals their mouths together again, heedless of the dripping scourge and the attempt of his instincts to rebel.]

[Everything in his head screamed to push Ignis away, even to draw a blade and kill him just to silence this conflict and confusion; the fury and malice he was comprised of hated it, hated the vague shreds of humanity struggling so hard to protect him.]

[...But he did none of that. Didn't even give a single thought to the possibility of infection, didn't object or back away. In fact he answered that kiss with his own after a brief hesitation, as if doing so was second nature as the miasma receded and color slowly returned to his skin.]

[Finally.

And then he's home. Solid and secure against the one person he'd call lover, no matter what else he might be. His Ardyn is far from alive and well but he is here, right now, and so hey little else matters at the moment.

Eventually, the kiss breaks, because Ignis needs to breathe even if Ardyn doesn't.]

I could certainly get used to that. ...Do you know why it tastes of licorice?

Wh...what?

[Dazed and breathless even without the need for air, Ardyn tried to latch on to the sheer absurdity of that question.]

I don't-...I can't taste anything. I haven't been able to since I stopped being human.

Now that is a true curse.

[He leans against Ardyn with a contented exhale.]

What can you feel, then?

...I don't feel much of anything, truthfully.

[Pain, hunger, fatigue, joy, sadness--there were a lot of implications there, all of them accurate.]

That's a half-assed answer and you know it.

[Fine, Ardyn, he'll just have to experiment, putting his arms around your neck in order to better angle himself. And then he grinds their hips together, hard.]

Did you feel that?

[The quiet (and probably very familiar) half-gasped sound that left him was probably a better response than most.]

You...you can't be serious. Are you actually propositioning the vessel of the Starscourge. In the middle of a train carrying the Chosen King and the rest of his entourage?

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