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A year into the night, and here they were, still surviving. Neither Ignis nor Prompto could quite get used to the Long Night, though Ignis supposed that it was much more difficult for Prompto, who was used to relying on his sight to get around. From the soft warmth that was cast on one side of his face, Ignis could tell, however, that the floodlights that Cindy had constructed for them for the purpose of this investigation shone brightly, fending off any demons that lurked about the area.
It had taken them a couple of rounds to get into the area. Back when it was the four of them, they had ventured here once, on the Regalia. Noctis had flown the Regalia then, with plenty of screaming on the part of Prompto and backseat driving on the part of Gladio. It had been a close shave even then, the Regalia landing mere metres away from a large rock that would have blown them to smithereens had Noctis not floored the brakes in time.
Cindy was, thankfully, a genius mechanic, and had somehow cobbled together some kind of chimeric machine, halfway between a four-wheel drive and a small aircraft, souped up with some of the strongest batteries that they could salvage from the wreckage of civilisation. The batteries powered the floodlights, which were crucial in ensuring their safety in a world that swarmed with daemons and dangerous creatures of all varieties.
Ignis had, of course, been the best driver of the three - but now the most he could do was to reassure Prompto as he yelled throughout the process of lowering and landing the vehicle turned aircraft. The winds had felt good on his face as they circled the skies above the Pitioss Ruins. There was a whiff of sulfur in the air from their proximity to the Rock of Ravatogh, and for a moment there, Ignis could pretend that the four of them were together again. Back then, before everything truly went to hell, the pull from place to place was their main measure of time as they explored the lands and investigated, hearts full of anticipation for the wedding ahead.
The wedding. It was hard to believe that all of this had started off in anticipation of something as ordinary as a wedding. What was to have been an occasion of joy seemed trivial in light of what was now the "new normal".
As he took stock of his weapons and equipment, Ignis could hear Prompto fidgeting restlessly next to him. It was unfortunate that Gladio could not come with them, but Ignis understood why - Gladio's skills in battle were needed more than ever, and they simply could not afford to send all three of them out on a risky mission like this. Not to mention, Gladio was constantly needed in the settlements, not only to help guard them but also to help train the civilians in basic combat skills.
Prompto sighed next to him, putting his hand on Ignis' shoulder.
“You sure about this?”
Ignis nodded once, firmly. It was as much to reassure himself as it was to reassure Prompto. He could feel the warmth of the portable floodlight that Prompto held in his hand move back and forth as Prompto swayed nervously from side to side. He reached out in front of him to touch the ruins around him. The stone walls were cold and rough underneath his hand, and seemed to vibrate and thrum underneath his fingertips with a kind of old magic. He brushed off the sand and dust from his fingers and turned towards Prompto again.
The night air was crisp, the cold biting into his core with every breath. Depending on the direction of the wind there was the unmistakable whiff of the Malboro which lurked in the distance, its stench so thick and malodorous that it felt almost tangible in the air. The sharp tang of iron hung in the air from the iron bars, a broken section of which Prompto led him to in order to step over it.
“Will you be all right here on your own?” Ignis asked. He believed that Prompto would be safe here, thanks to the floodlight - and if the floodlight failed, there was always the backup in their ride. Yet, he couldn't imagine anything as terrifying as sitting out in the dark, the threat of monsters constantly lurking on the horizon, while waiting for Ignis to resurface. Not to mention, they had no idea how long the expedition would take, or whether Ignis would, in fact, be able to enter or return at all.
“Me? Sure, no problem! I’ve got this trusty old light with me, and there’s the chickatrice steaks I can heat up if I get hungry, no problem!”
He did not comment on the obvious wavering of Prompto’s voice and instead laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll be back in no time.”
That was what Noctis had said, the first time they did this. He, Prompto, and Gladiolus had camped out here on the rocks for days, Ignis trying to maintain some hope and a sense of normalcy while Gladio’s mood gradually soured, and Prompto slowly worked himself up to a panic attack. It was bad enough among their best friends, and in broad daylight, the most serious thread being groups of Magitek infantry that may occasionally drop down from the sky. Ignis almost missed the Magitek soldiers - at least they were predictable, and relatively easy to defeat.
Back then, Prompto had been the first one to try to follow Noctis inside, and had immediately been pushed back, falling on his bottom as if thrust by an invisible force. Gladio had tried to force his way in afterwards, clambering his way into the chamber and banging his fists on the switch - only to be thrust out with such force that he landed near the marlboro. It was only thanks to Prompto's quick-thinking in shooting at some rocks on the other side of the malboro and distracting it that Gladio avoided having to fight two full grown malboros alone.
Ignis had been far more careful, not wanting to suffer the indignity of landing on his behind or the danger of being cast far into the distance. Instead, he had simply laid his hands on the mysterious switch and pushed. To their surprise, the ground underneath him had rumbled with the switch's glow, and for a moment it appeared that the contraption would allow Ignis entry - but then it had stopped. Ignis had not shared it with his friends then, but there was something that he had felt through his hands that he could not explain - a kind of reluctance, as if the ruins were telling him that it was not the right time for him, that he should bide his time.
Now, in the ever-growing darkness, Ignis was convinced that the time was right.
With conviction Ignis set foot into the entrance chamber, knowing from the vague halo of light he could just make out in front of him that the same switch laid in front of him. After a cautious step forward, it was clear that the ruins, somehow, had deigned to allow him entry. Whether this was a result of his Solheimian lineage or some side effect of the world being in the state it was now, Ignis could not tell. All he knew that the same odd energy that he had felt when he first laid his hands on the switch was once again with him, this time permitting him entry. Prompto was far too fearful to try, having already experienced the extremely disturbing feeling of being thrust back by something invisible and unknown to him.
Either way, as he laid his hand on the mysterious switch, the platform suddenly sprung into action. Ignis felt the ground below his feet falling suddenly, and it was all he could do to bend one knee and stabilise himself in order to avoid being thrust off it. His hair and clothes fluttered as he descended, the cold biting further and further through his clothing and stinging him to his core. The air itself changed, infused with the musty wetness of a ruins kept hidden away for ages. But there was also a hint of something harsh and hard and metallic - as if somewhere far in the depths of this place, there was some fire which still burned since the fall of Solheim.
As the platform came to a grinding halt, Ignis sensed movement in front of him. He readied his daggers and inched forward slowly. He could just make out what appeared to be a red glow. He braced himself, expecting a daemon, but then realised that the glow merely moved up and down. Gauging the timing, Ignis ran at the contraption and slid under it, making it to the other side just in time. Air from the contraption’s downward movement brushed the back of his neck. His hair stood on end.
A cautious examination of the little light that he could see and the movement of the air told him that whatever the contraption was, it was designed to trap and kill those who failed to gauge the timing of its movement. The Solheimians who built this place clearly wanted to protect whatever was inside, or reveal its contents only to those who proved themselves worthy.
From that point onwards the path seemed to go mostly straight. The air changed again as he ventured farther and farther in. Where before there was the reek of things forgotten over time, now there was nothing. The absence of scent was disturbing to Ignis, who had grown to use it as a gauge of his location and the environment around him. His breath seemed to change too. Where outside it was clear that he was sucking on cold air which after being processed in his body became warm, here the air seemed to have no temperature, nor any other discernible qualities. Ignis felt himself inhale and exhale as normal, but his body simply seemed to be going through the motions; there was no rush of air against his throat as he inhaled, nor did his chest inflate. Ignis peeled off his glove and attempted to exhale onto his hand.
Nothing.
Ignis shuddered, and stood for a while. He missed the movement of the sun across the skies before the darkness hit - wherever he was, he could tell from the smell of the air and the sensation of light on his skin what time it was. It was not exact, but there was something about the air that allowed him to tell the difference between dawn and dusk, between morning and evening. After the darkness, there were less clues for Ignis to go on, but there was still a kind of change in the air that he could use to at least gauge the passage of time.
He noticed with no small amount of horror that this sensation had somehow disappeared. Time itself seemed absent in this space, which seemed to be some kind of limbo between the past, the present, and the future, and between life and death itself.
Soon it became clear that Ignis had stepped from a corridor to a much larger chamber. This Ignis could tell from the way the sound of his footsteps changed. But sound too bent strangely in this place. It did echo, certainly - otherwise he would not have been able to tell that it was a chamber at all - but it was a muted sort of echo, as if the air itself was thick with something thick and viscous that absorbed the sound.
Ignis took a deep breath to ground himself, reminding himself that he was here to seek out clues - anything that might shed literal light on the world, or anything that might aid Noctis’ return to Lucis and his battle against Ardyn.
As he slowly descended the steps leading down into this large chamber, he noted with no small amount of concern that something to his right seemed to be sliding back and forth. It sounded massive; nothing like the contraption at the entrance that moved up and down, but a massive chunk of wall. Mid-thought, his right foot pressed down at nothing and Ignis’ mind registered only the sick lurch of his insides rising up inside him. As his base instincts took over he yelled and grasped at the air in front of him, but nothing registered and he fell.
As the deafening downward motion whistled in his ears, images flashed through his mind of his friends. He thought of Noctis, still stuck in the crystal - nobody knew when Noctis would return, but he certainly would not be there to greet him. How unfaithful, he thought - a retainer who could not wait and died before his liege’s return. Then there was Prompto - he regretted not setting some kind of limit after which Prompto should leave. He prayed that Prompto would have the sense not to let his food or the floodlight battery run out for him to be able to make it back to Lestallum in time.
Gladio - he did not even say a proper goodbye to Gladio, who knew that Ignis was going on one of his regular expeditions to research ancient ruins. Gladio had been busy teaching a group of civilians the basics of swordsmanship, and had barely spared a grunt at Ignis before he had left. That was Gladio - gruff, curt, but full of love when it counted. Ignis regretted not pulling Gladio aside then to say a proper goodbye. After all, even before the darkness, they always knew that each battle could be their last.
Talcott - sweet Talcott. He was supposed to come with Ignis on this expedition, but was switched out in favour of Prompto, who was more experienced with piloting and would be able to land more reliable in the precarious landing strip leading to the Pitioss Ruins.
And then…
And then Ignis realised he had landed back on the stairs, at the exact spot he was in moments before he fell to what he had assumed was his death.
He ran through the possibilities. Had the fall actually been survivable, landing him in a different chamber below the one he had initially entered? If so, the chambers were eerily alike. The same massive object to his right seemed to be sliding back and forth in perpetual motion. His slipping and falling had kicked up dust that was now gathered in a semicircle the shape of his heel - this he discovered by touching the ground next to him.
The strength in his knees seemed to give and Ignis slid down to the floor, sitting on the steps. He placed his head in his hands. What was this?
Just then, he felt something soft and icy flutter against his hand. It felt like an insect. He opened his eyes, but could only make out something dim that appeared to be glimmering and floating in the air. At first there were a few of them, and then as Ignis extended his hands towards them there were more and more until there were hundreds, thousands of them. They tinkled and jingled softly until all he could hear and feel against his skin was their metallic flapping. He was covered in them.
[ Art by puffbirdstudio ]
Where a horde of dragonflies covering his entire person would normally be terrifying, Ignis felt at ease. The electric blue light they emitted was the same light of Noctis’ magic. As a child, when he first met Noctis and was introduced to him as his retainer, he had marvelled at the soft blue glow of Noctis' magic. Back then he had not noticed any sensation beyond its beautiful colour, but after he lost most of his vision he noticed that the magic carried a subtle scent that reminded him of sylleblossoms, and of something burning. The dragonflies fluttering around him had the same scent.
He gave himself into them, and felt his body lift - whether he was falling or rising he did not know, but it did not seem to matter as the feeling of Noct’s magic engulfed him. The dragonflies covered every inch of his skin - indeed, they seemed to penetrate it, the sensation finding its way into his body, through his bloodstream, and into his consciousness.
His last thought as he let himself go was that perhaps this would lead him to Noctis somehow.
When Ignis came to, he found himself lying in a narrow chamber. A pair of armour-like gloves that were unfamiliar to him lay next to him, and to his surprise, he could feel the outside air blowing in from one end of the chamber.
“Ah!” Prompto yelled as Ignis clambered towards what he understood now to be the exit. “How did you end up there?”
“How do you mean?”
“You went in through the front door, but now you’re… crawling out of a hole in the wall, literally. I thought you were a daemon! I was about to shoot you!”
Ignis gauged the height of the so-called “hole in the wall” based on the sound of Prompto’s voice, and deftly jumped out of it, landing on the walkway next to Prompto.
“How long was I inside?”
“Ten hours and fifteen minutes!”
Ignis fixed Prompto with what he hoped was a look of utter disbelief. He couldn't tell. At his point, his face felt rather numb. “Ten hours?”
“And fifteen minutes, yeah. Cor gave me this watch, it doesn’t lie!”
As he allowed Prompto to lead him back to their ride, Ignis thought of the fluttering dragonflies that surrounded him, their gentle blue blow, and the powerful magic they emanated, just like the magic Noctis used. Regardless of whether they were real, a figment of Ignis’ imagination, or some strange projection of the entity that was the Pitioss Ruins, Ignis had no doubt in his mind that they had led Ignis back out of the ruins and into safety.
He squeezed Prompto’s hand.
“You know, I think Noctis will be all right.”
“Tell me something I don’t know!” cried Prompto, squeezing back.
Later, flying back to safety and turning his face toward the skies, Ignis thought he caught a glimpse of stars in the sky, glowing blue and twinkling in the dark.