Chapter Text
Cor opened his eyes abruptly and with a scream, only to shut them again and wince as he rolled onto his stomach. That single look hurt, a light blinded his eyes for a while. Other than that, though, he felt fine. Somehow he was fine, no more whispers and ghostly fingers crawling up his back and –
He realized what it was he had just seen, lifted his head and looked up, at the clear blue sky above him, dumbfounded, and then around himself, at lush and healthy looking grass and trees that now, he realized, were full of birds that chirped at each other an awful lot.
The world was alive again and it left him breathless and in awe and for a moment he completely forgot what had just happened.
After that moment passed though, he looked around himself a bit more. As far as he could tell, he was very much alone. He wasn’t even in the same place but…somewhere. In the middle of the woods. In daylight.
Several options as to what could have happened presented themselves in his head, as he reached his hand behind himself and touched his back under his shirts, only to find there was no more hard and hot skin that he could barely feel, no more chills and burning in the same place that you noticed only after a while. The mark and all that came with it disappeared, or so he thought. He couldn’t really see it, but as far as he could tell, the mark of the Starscourge in him was gone.
Gone, just as Ardyn was.
He scrambled to his feet at the thought, and looked around himself once more. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. He tried to call for Ardyn, but got no response. It just couldn’t be real. It must be an illusion of some sort. That, or he just slept several days, or months or even years, during which Noctis returned and fought Ardyn and – and oh Gods, he promised to be there for Ardyn when –
He shook his head. This was not it. He did not in fact fall into magical sleep. He was just an ordinary human being, Gods did not care for him. He would have died. And even if somehow he did not die, why was he dumped in the middle of the woods? How would that even happen? Last thing he remembered was begging Ardyn to let him be, somewhere in the middle of the road.
It didn’t really matter for much longer, as he heard a sound that made the birds chirping in the trees fall considerably quieter. A sound of something trying to get through bushes just a short shot away from him.
He had nothing better to do, really, so he followed the noise to its source.
The source was, of course, a big black bird, somehow stuck in said bushes by its reins.
Cor stared at it for a little while, cautious, but it didn’t seem to mind him at all. Which was strange at best.
He heard of the black chocobos, oh, he has seen them but…well. It was probably fair to say they were wild and very untrusting creatures, rather close to the edge of the extinction. Though that was...before. There were hardly any chocobos left now anyway. None he knew of were black.
But still, the fact about the bird remained, and yet this one just didn’t care about him. And had reins and a saddle. Reins and a saddle. There were even some bags next to said saddle.
At long last the bird stopped struggling, raised its head and chirped in Cor’s general direction, though Cor could tell those black shiny eyes were not looking at him at all.
It was in that moment he heard the whisper of magic and quiet footsteps behind him. Cor turned around as quickly as possible, but was a little too late and only saw a man, not much older than twenty, pass him by without as much as a glance, soft smile on face that was framed with considerably shorter and way more bouncing maroon curls.
Cor blinked. Then, he blinked again just to be sure, as he watched this younger version of his King walk up to the bird that was chirping at him happily, and with the same soft smile on his face and voice as light as leaves in trees around he scolded the bird , half-heartedly, that running so far when he had sent it away from fight was really not necessary. He was so much different and yet—not at all. He had those innocent, lonely eyes already somehow.
Cor made to step closer. “Ardyn,” he said, voice unbelieving. Somehow he knew that Ardyn before him would probably not hear or see him. He hadn’t before then, when he just passed him by.
Cor wasn’t wrong, of course, and he watched young Ardyn fight with the chocobo’s reins and lose terribly against bushes, while the bird’s chirps grew more and more disappointed with each passing second.
Even as Cor walked up to him slowly, nothing changed. As if being conscious of the fact that he did not belong in here changed everything. He no longer bent grass as he walked, instead moved through it, no longer could he hear his own footsteps on the land below his feet. And when he walked up to Ardyn, as he tried to lay a hand on his shoulder to snap him out of this…memory, or whatever it was, Cor’s hand merely passed through Ardyn. It was almost the same as when the daemon, still only in his head, floated around the world unnoticed and untouched by anyone but Cor, but now even the touch was not possible.
Was this what it was? Was this Ardyn before him another illusion? Another one of these sick ploys, made only to torment him into falling to the scourge? Was Ardyn trying to cure him of the Starscourge even real? Maybe all that happened was that he fell off his bike and was still lying there, slowly turning into a daemon without anyone knowing, anyone to stop it one way or another. He wondered for a moment—a long, long moment.
He stopped paying attention to the world around him and when out of nowhere everything stopped and shook and changed, it took Cor by surprise and he cursed under his breath before he was swept with it. He could swear he just heard his own name whispered to him oh-so-close, but it was gone too soon.
The world had reversed itself. Again, he opened his eyes to be met with blue high above him, mirroring in his own eyes. Again he got up and followed the noise, and again the black chocobo before him was struggling with it’s reins. This time he knew what would happen, turned away from the chocobo and saw as Ardyn warped to plain looking dagger, thrown through the trees with unexpected precision, still in flight.
Everything was the same as Ardyn passed him, not looking for a second, and actually walked through the whole of Cor’s left arm and shoulder this time, while the chocobo lifted it’s head to look at its master.
The chocobo didn’t chirp this time. As a matter of fact, it stayed very, very still, and it was weird enough for even Ardyn to stop and question it in voice that was not far from worried.
Ardyn reached to it, his whole posture emitting calm and yet, the bird plunged at him, right after Ardyn’s raised arm. He managed to step back and questioned the bird with rather obvious hurt in his voice and then. Shut his mouth and looked, quite terrified, as his beloved bird shifted and screeched, short wings turning into giant ones that raised wind and made Ardyn stumble backwards. When he looked back up, there was hardly anything of his bird left, and it was dark instead of sunny day now. The change took place quickly, and the chocobo all but tore its previous form to pieces that were still recognizable here and there. Instead of the chocobo, there was a giant monster with rather prominent fangs sticking in all ways from its broken and torn beak, tall legs and another pair of new, shorter legs that joined wings and made its joints crack terribly on every step it took closer to Ardyn.
It was in the moment the daemon raised new limb with - actually quite nice - claws to cut at Ardyn that Cor finally got out of his momentary state of panic and commanded his sword to his hand. In one fluid motion he knew all too well, Cor moved before Ardyn and swung his sword at the monster, to intercept its strike.
He wasn’t sure if it would work, but. He was not about to stand idly by, while his King - may or may he not actually be the one - would get torn in half while being too surprised to fight back.
To his never ending surprise, the sword actually met the claws, and not only that, but sliced them off. As the claws flew through the air, they scattered into glass shards, out of all things. Then, the whole monster turned into broken glass as well, fell apart and scattered all around them. Not like royal weapons, no, this was...dirty, dirty and stained glass, but still it was familiar. Too familiar.
Falling shards however were not all, and somehow – even though the angle of Cor’s strike was not right at all for it to happen at all – when the monster vanished, there was still the chocobo underneath, only now with terrible bleeding gash across it’s chest, falling limp to the ground. At this point Ardyn shouted and pushed past him and -
Pushed past him? That took Cor’s mind off the chocobo before him and he quickly grabbed Ardyn’s hand and yanked him backwards from the chocobo. It lasted only a moment, before Ardyn phased away from Cor, this time with his own sword in hands, pointed at Cor.
"You can see me now," Cor breathed out. This didn't make any sense.
"Of course I do. Why did you do this? Why..." and just like that, all the anger in his voice stopped, he stopped, and looked at Cor as if only now he remembered something, as if he just now recognized the person before him. His sword vanished and instead, he turned back to the bird on ground, which was now turning into black mist and glass shards.
Ardyn took a step back - and with that step he turned into Ardyn that Cor knew so well, age and hair and clothes and all - bumping into Cor’s chest and not moving from there.
"What is this? This...this is not how it happened -"
Cor had only a second to catch Ardyn when the other man staggered, falling down to the ground, clutching his head in hands. Then the world around them crumbled and darkness fell.
***
Next time Cor opened his eyes, staring into the sky again was not something that surprising, but still a bit unexpected.
He was not in the middle of the woods this time, no, he had his head on bed of wild flowers halfway to the top of a hill, so there was that at least. Still, he was stuck here, in what he thought were either memories – changing, for whatever strange reason - or…or he didn’t really know. Was this afterlife? He didn’t believe in one.
Well, that was not entirely true. He did believe in some sort of afterlife. The one for the Kings at least, one where Ardyn should have been millennia ago, had Gods not been cruel with their task.
That sort of afterlife, but not—not for Cor. He did not deserve such. Especially not now. After all he knew, he did not believe there was any sort of salvation waiting for those afflicted with the Starscourge.
When this all ended, one way or another people turned into daemons were lost. They would probably just all be killed, not cured. Certainly not getting some sort of afterlife.
So little left. So little to save. It was still enough to save, even one life was enough, but it was...it was so little.
Still, what was the deal with the chocobo, turning into some strange variation of daemon? That just... couldn't be afterlife. It must be a dream of sorts, Cor decided then. Either his, or Ardyn’s. And if Ardyn’s, then those were definitely memories.
Cor shook his head, trying to get back to the moment he was in, and not think any more about afterlife and such. It was then Cor realized even the bothering pain in his head was gone, had been for a while now. Possibly the whole time he was in here. Somehow, he did not realize it at all. He was so used to it now that it felt like something was missing before he figured out what it was.
It was also in that moment he heard a cry. Dream or not, illusion or not, whatever it was, Cor was a good man, and was on his feet soon to find out the source. And he was not alone, no, yet another version of Ardyn joined him very much out of nowhere, carefully leading the chocobo - which was supposed to be gone, Cor realized - by the reins towards the sound.
They climbed, together, up the rest of the hill Cor woke up upon, to see a village on the top, and a small child still wailing in the street, and people simply...didn’t look at the child and continued on with their day.
Cor stopped and furrowed his brows even more than he usually did. It didn’t stop Ardyn, because this one again did not know Cor was there at all, being unreachable when Cor tried.
The villagers were strange at best. They recognized Ardyn, though, as being one of royal blood, and seemed respectful enough and at his request took care of child whose mother has gone missing since this morning. Then again, maybe that made them even stranger. It seemed this was not place frequented by any visitors, let alone this one. They were staring and whispering an awful lot.
Ardyn didn’t seem to mind at all. He was doing the Gods work, after all, it brought him to all the sorts of places, he proclaimed with smile and Cor all but stopped in his track and whatever it was he was doing and listened to him instead, as Ardyn asked about strange creatures emerging at night, phenomena not unheard of, but more and more relevant as of late.
Of course villagers knew, and of course they had problems. Somehow, no one called the creatures daemons yet, but eagerly asked their prince for help.
Prince. Cor’s lips moved but the word just didn’t escape past them. From the way he acted even now, or just from the way he traveled you would never guess. Then again, he had seen Noctis and his friends plenty of times to expect no less.
This memory was agonizingly long and dragged on, but evening was close and with it, Ardyn set for the woods past the village, where villagers said these creatures dwelled.
The forest there was dark even during the day, let alone when night fell. It was then when Ardyn walked like a little lighthouse, with left hand drenched in magical fire, shining brightly enough to both let them see what was around them, and bring attention of pretty much everything in here to them.
Cor quite soon realized they were walking in circles, though it seemed it was more planned than not. There was no point in going deep into the forest if they wanted to help the villagers now.
Cor scratched that thought. No we. Ardyn. Just Ardyn. And the chocobo, he supposed. He watched the bird with suspicion after what happened last time, but it seemed to...be normal? Probably. Just usual chocobo antics. Ardyn tried to leave it in safe place in village before they left, but brave bird had none of it. It was nice, really.
All three of them jumped a little when a bush left of them rustled and low growl sounded right of them at the same time.
These creatures were no doubt daemons, three of them in fact, a kind Cor has never seen before, circling their prey for a second longer before pouncing at the same time. Cor was useless like this, as his sword did not strike any of them, just passed through, and none seemed to pay him attention, not even really to the chocobo, instead swarming on Ardyn as their main target.
Cor didn’t really try to be part of the fight after that and simply watched as Ardyn without much difficulty defeated all of them, but didn’t quite kill them yet. When all three of them were almost dead, and could no longer attack properly, Ardyn stepped closer to them and lowered his weapon, though he didn’t dispatch it.
The magic on his left hand vanished, but instead a scarlet glow enveloped the blade in his right, magical energy emitting from Ardyn’s hand, somehow changing the sword slightly, making it a bit longer, a bit more ornamented, a bit more dangerous looking.
No, a lot more dangerous looking, especially as Ardyn raised it and in one swing sent a wave of light against all of the daemons, successfully scattering them into black mist and sparkles and -
Cor blinked when the black mist rising from daemon corpse caught on fire. It...probably did not actually caught on fire but it looked like it so much. The magic Ardyn used to strike them down was still there and it. Stopped the black mist, the essence of daemon, from spreading and instead turned it into light.
This was first time Cor had seen such thing happen and he was flabbergasted, actually reaching for the scattering lights. Flabbergasted enough to not look around himself at all, and he missed another daemon lurking close. He only noticed when Ardyn went after it, with sword still glowing scarlet, leaving path in its wake, and sliced it almost in half. The daemon was weak even though it was rather big and began disappearing in light as well.
This daemon was much livelier than others and it disappeared in bits, not all at once. Just for a moment, it’s shrieks turned into cries, and just for that one single moment, as the body of daemon turned into light, Cor saw, inside thing half vanished, a being that looked faintly human, reaching for them desperately with one hand that it still had and begging for help, before it, too, disappeared into the light and wind carried it away like sparks from bonfire.
At that Cor looked at Ardyn, who seemed outright terrified, as a realization dawned upon him. He dropped his sword to the ground and it shattered, all the light around them vanished and Cor could no longer see anything -
Cor winced as light hit his eyes. He was back on the hill, with head laid on flower bed, and cries sliced through the air and Cor did not get up, even as Ardyn and his chocobo walked over him and proceeded to go on after the sound. Instead, Cor rolled onto his stomach and pressed his forehead into the grass, sighed and only after a while got up to go after his King, who, once again, was unreachable. Last time, Cor was only able to affect the very end, and this will take a while to repeat.
***
Several more of these memories happened like this. In the one on the hill, the last daemon - one from whom Ardyn apparently learned for the first time that daemons he was killing until now were in fact his subjects - actually managed to linger a bit longer, screaming curses at Ardyn, and before Cor could do anything about it, he moved into another memory. And another, and another, and Cor watched him look at people afflicted by Starscourge and understand what was about to happened and despair, not willing to kill them all, instead, coming with another way.
And now he was here, in memory that was considerably later. The last few seemed rather unimportant, but things changed with them. Ardyn was different, now with long hair, longer than Cor had ever seen on him, braided loosely with bunch of strands sticking out, though it looked rather nice. Actually very nice. So nice that Cor wished he could touch Ardyn if only to tangle his hand into that hair. Perhaps even grab a handful and pull him closer and kiss him an awful lot. And then pull on it more and make him lean his head back so Cor could kiss and mark his neck all he wanted -
He groaned and stopped that train of thought right there. This was terrible time for such thoughts. Also all he could do with them was to get frustrated, because sadly, that was not really an option here. The times when he could actually touch Ardyn, were scarce and most of them were filled with Ardyn only in the last moments remembering, realizing what is going on, and reverting to his older self just in time to see Cor, just in time to say his name and then, another memory will play.
Cor wondered what the point of this was. These memories were changing their endings, but it didn’t stick. The damned chocobo was still here, if anything else, he could clearly tell from that. There must be some point, some reason for all of this madness.
Cor was lost in thoughts, as he followed after Ardyn, this long-haired Ardyn, just as he walked into a town. When people saw him, they almost cried. And quite soon, Cor had a hard time actually being anywhere where no one else would stand in some part of him. It bothered him a lot, even though he could not really feel it.
This time, only a few people called Ardyn prince, or anything similiar other royal titles. No. They chanted Healer, Healer! with terrible joy, as he was there to save them to cure them to drive creatures - still creatures, Cor noted - from their homes and hearts, and they knew nothing of the price.
Cor was quite sure they did not care for the price he had to pay in exchange. They loved their concept of healer, concept of prince of light, as some of them called him too. It was all too clear that was the only thing they cared about. Then again, he’d seenthe same thing with Regis. They looked at him and saw the Wall, maybe a King, but definitely not a person. Definitely not a single thought about the consequences he was facing. Similar with Lunafreya. No one cried for the girl that drowned in the Altissian waves, but for kind Oracle that was lost.
It should not make him angry, it was to be expected, but it did. A lot. Especially as he saw Ardyn work his magic and get more and more exhausted and paler and outright pained with it, but they just kept coming, and then some that could not come to him called him to them and he just went with it.
The way he cured people was similar to the way he enchanted his sword earlier, only this time, the magic swirled from him, took hold of the daemon in person and still as the scarlet light drawn itself back to Ardyn, though it was changing more and more to orange and yellow rather than red. It did not hurt them, though only thing it cured was the Starscourge, not any actual injuries. The only reason Cor could come up with for Ardyn to do this was that the first time he saw him destroy the daemon and the Starscourge within; it was only possible while killing it, and Ardyn found another option other than outright killing so many people, his people, people he was supposed to protect both as prince and as the one who the Gods chose for this task.
Cor laughed bitterly at the thought. Some task it was, truly. Ardyn must have known then that daemons in him still needed to be purged, and that it still had to be through death. As a fact, he knew, he saw Ardyn sitting by a fire in the evening, looking over his hands and dark marks that were no longer vanishing even as he tried to make them with the same magic he was using until then. Instead Ardyn just made an illusion over them and went on, accepting things without complaint and oh-so-alone. He had no companion, other than his trusty chocobo, and Cor didn’t even wonder why at this point.
Eventually, it was just too much for Ardyn to handle. Visiting one of bedridden patients, an older woman, one that was really far gone, so far gone that she changed before their very eyes, and out of habit, Ardyn almost slashed her, stopping himself in last possible second and instead avoiding hers attacks as the family cried. It was then that Cor saw Ardyn stop the daemon with magic, force it to reverse back while taking the darkness that could no longer be masked by only faintly shining sparks of red and orange, onto himself, before collapsing to the floor, while family still cried, went to help their now cured and Starcsourge-free member, and left their prince, their dear Healer as he cried in pain in voice that did not sound all that human, on his knees, leaning forward, looking as if he was about to throw up, before calming the erratic breathing, sitting properly and looking at the family with a smile and Cor wanted to just take him, flip him over his shoulder and leave. He could not, of course, but mercifully, the memory reset itself again.
Cor didn’t want to see it again. He didn’t want to see him ruin himself slowly again. But he did. He stood at his side, unwavering, watched over him.
If nothing else, if he could do nothing else, he would show respect for the choices he made, because they could not have been easy even for seemingly devoted believer. Ardyn liked to talk about the Gods here and there in these memories, but didn’t really seem like a zealot. Again, it reminded him of what he knew of Lunafreya.
After a while, when they entered the house of last patient, and after she turned into the daemon and Ardyn finally managed to catch her, the world shifted slightly and this time, Cor actually noticed it, the exact moment when he was once again part of the world. It was also the moment when daemon screeched as it was slowly turned into black mist and pulled to Ardyn.
He reached out to Ardyn, and their eyes met and for a moment, the light wavered as Ardyn made one step away from him, closer to the daemon, not letting go of the magic.
“Stay back. Until it’s done, you should avoid approaching me.”
Cor, of course, did not listen. “Ardyn, stop. This is not real. We’ve been here before.”
The people around them were silent, unlike last time, just like chocobo was at first, and Cor internally prepared himself for the chance of them attacking. But instead, they just…stood there. Smiling. And then smiling more, and more, until it should not have been possible for human face to look like that, but it kept going.
Ardyn seemed to notice that too, and eventually did let the go of the magic, and as he did, all the darkness flew from him back to the daemon that was not fully cured yet. Also, as he did that, once again the older version of Ardyn Cor knew so well stood in the place where a younger Healer stood a second ago, looking around himself with grim expression. He did not ask this time what was going on, seemingly knowing exactly what it was.
“Cor,” he said, the name only a whisper, but Cor took his back without any other word.
“Do you know what this all means?” Cor asked in return. He hoped for a yes. Ideally an explanation.
“I might.”
Cor groaned and Ardyn laughed a little, reaching blindly back to him with one hand, while he summoned his crossbow to the other.
They didn’t get to any fighting because just like all the times before, the world shook and drowned in darkness, only this time, Cor felt Ardyn’s hand stay, and reached for it and took it into his own, turning back to actually see him still there, despite the darkness around them, which should have made it impossible.
Then the world lit up again, with stars in the sky, blinking gently from far far away above them, mirroring on the ground, oh so many of them. More than Cor had ever seen in his life and it made him smile a little as he looked around himself, and then looked back at Ardyn, just in time to see him break like the glass and shatter.
Something, something in there laughed terribly. It didn’t sound like a human at all.
***
Cor opened his eyes and he did not see bright blue sky. No, this time, it was close to evening, with touch of orange and red coloring the sky more and more. And Cor just laid there, heart in his throat still, beating frantically and hands trembling, still feeling a ghost of Ardyn’s hand in his, and how it vanished with the rest of him and -
He needed to stop this, somehow, as soon as he possibly could.