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Ignis isn’t quite a fan of the idea of fate, but he supposes he must learn to accept that it’s been thrust upon him anyway.
Everyone in Lucis knows that the Crystal has shaped them somehow, impossibly. While they may not all have the power of the kings, they are all bound by the touch of some deeper magic which has sunken into the land. After thousands of years of exposure, the very air in Lucis has taken on a quality that nobody can quite explain. All they have are the marks.
Everyone has one, somewhere.
Each person’s defining moment is marked in the flesh of their soulmate, like a name all its own to identify them to the one they are made for. They’re simple designs, often cryptic and usually quite similar, but every mark calls to its mate. People find their soulmates in moments of quiet reflection, where suddenly there is a flash of blue when they meet each other. People with small coffee cups on their wrists meet the eyes of their panicked barista, who has just dropped a hot mug of it, and know . Sometimes, people will feel their mark burn with the fulfillment of their soulmate’s moment, and they’ll see a news story that matches the image in their flesh. Other times, soulmates feel a magnetic pull to each other, and wander Lucis until the compass point in their mind resolves itself into a face. They are, after all, bound by the Crystal, in the same way that King Regis and the line of Lucis can always feel the tug toward Insomnia.
No matter how, though, they always find each other.
Sometimes, even without being Crownsguard or Glaives, these people can access a tiny bit of tangible magic of their own. There are soulmate-run butcher shops in Insomnia where the butchers keep their knives in a private armiger all their own, conjuring blades with their shared shred of the Six’s blessing.
The marks mean something to everybody.
To Gladio, it’s the hope that the calling of the Amicitias is not his only fate. He treasures his mark as a reminder that he is more than a shield.
To Prompto, it’s a sense of belonging. After so long on his own, he takes shelter in the knowledge that someone wants him other than those who have branded him.
To Noctis, it’s something to keep him warm at night. He’s told Ignis that his mark has given him the comfort to get through the days when his father’s eyes are dull and his step falters.
To Ignis, well. He’s not quite sure. The circle and half-sun on his chest have never really given him much more than confusion. He’s never quite felt the tug that some of his friends have whispered about, and the tingle of magic has never told him a thing. He isn’t even sure if he wants a soulmate.
Every time he presses his fist to his chest in salute, his mark gives a tiny thrill of magic as if saying hello. That gives him some comfort, especially in the times when a visit to the throne room meant nothing good. The half-promise that someone might be there for him, somewhere in Lucis, feels like a half-remembered embrace keeping him aloft during rare formal reprimands.
But he’s never found anyone whose life experiences match his mark, and the curving lines have never glowed blue to signify the the exact moment when his soulmate has defined themselves. Once he passes twenty years, he starts to worry in a place deep in the back of his mind. Don’t most people learn who they are in these younger, formative years? Shouldn’t he have found someone yet?
Quietly, in the nights after long shifts working, when he’s staring up at the ceiling of his apartment, he whispers pleas to the Six that his mark is tied to somebody who can understand.
But in the open, in daylight, his mask reappears, and this Ignis Scientia cares not for the frivolities of fate. He has a job to do. He takes his calling very seriously, and even though Noct sometimes half-orders him to calm down and take a load off every once in a while, it seems that the prince now understands that Ignis enjoys the busy pressure of working. The Crown City and the Citadel are so familiar to him now that it feels like he has been integrated fully into the dormant magic of Lucis. When he trains in the Crownsguard rooms, he revels in the victories - and there are many - and preens under the admiration of recruits who hope to one day master the magic of the Crystal like he has. After all, he would know the magic the best of all of them, being so close to the source.
As advisor and long-term friend to the prince, Ignis has caught at least glimpses of, well. Everything. So despite Noct’s careful hedging in public and all of his genial, chuckling refusals to show his mark to the eager press, Ignis has seen the prince’s mark of belonging. It’s a soft, pale blue against the smoothness of his skin, tucked away in the space where his waistband and shirt hem overlap. It’s on the right side of his hips, cresting over the swell of the bone there. Ignis has seen it on occasion, when Noctis is overtired and refuses to get dressed and stumbles wearily into the kitchen wearing nothing but low-slung pants. Even then, its faintness makes it hard to distinguish.
It’s a pretty thing, though, with the outline of something spiky and visceral - it reminds Ignis of flames - engulfing the surety of a single vertical line. Noctis hadn’t caught him looking, though, so that’d been the end of it. Ignis didn’t bother bringing it up because frankly, it was none of his concern. Ignis had better things to do than pester his liege about something so deeply personal.
He’s never been able to match Noct’s secrecy. Both he and Gladio are constantly training when they are away from their duties in the more official parts of the Citadel, and the sweltering training rooms in the depths of the palace don’t afford them much in the way of modesty. So he and Gladio spar shirtless with marks bared for all to see. When he’d been younger, probably no older than thirteen, Ignis had started the intensive training and had balked at the lack of decorum out of the heir to the Amicitia name. But Gladio, fourteen and already well on his way to being a wall of muscle, had merely grinned and thrown him a sword. “House rules,” he’d said, and that had been the end of that.
In the training room, when they exert themselves, their marks glow in response to their vitality. Whenever Gladio spins to counter a strike or stalks away in defeat, Ignis can see the bright glimmer of his mark right at the base of his neck, peeking out from above the cluster of inked-on feathers and below the tantalizing swish of his hair. It’s a more amorphous-looking thing than his own, but it does have its own raw beauty. The image of a bullet sitting in the glowing outline of some liquid makes Gladio look all the fiercer when his muscles ripple beneath it. Ignis reckons that Gladio’s soulmate, whoever they are, must be someone with the energy to rival Gladio’s iron will.
He’s never seen Prompto’s, though. Not once in their few years of knowing each other has Ignis ever caught a glimpse of blue on his skin. On skin as pale as his, it should stand out. But Prompto is all smiles and energy and nerves, eager to please and more eager to learn, so Ignis puts it out of his mind and tries to make Noct’s newest friend feel welcome. He’s a good addition to their little group. He knows how to gently pull Noct out of one of his lethargic downward spirals when even Ignis’s soft encouragement doesn’t do the job. He picks fights with Gladio that he knows he’ll lose, but he wants to learn and he always pops back up with a bright grin on his face, laughing when Gladio throws a scathing joke his way. And he knows how to be quiet as well, and in the days when Noct is busy and Gladio is off training with the Crownsguard, Prompto can often be found in Ignis’s apartment with the nervous energy drained out of him, replaced with a safe, tranquil calm as he helps Ignis sort through the day’s reports. He just knows how to work with them, and for that Ignis is faithful.
Ignis thinks about King Regis’s time out in the field with his friends in the war, with the Marshal and Clarus and Cid and Weskham, and he thinks that one day the four of them might be like that. He thinks they’ll make a good team.
On days when he thinks about that, his mark feels almost electric under his skin, humming with something that feels like excitement.
***
“Iggy?” Noctis calls, softly, from across his bedroom. They’re younger here, and more innocent, but already the shadow of the Marilith attack hangs behind Noct’s eyes, darkening them with something miserable long before his time.
Ignis looks up from his book. It’s a boring one, loathe as he is to admit it, and he’s privately glad for the distraction. He’s eleven and still shorter than he wants to be, and already he feels at home in soft vests and sweaters and button-down shirts. “Yes, Noct?”
Even from across the room, Noctis’s eyes are wide as plates. “Luna didn’t have a mark.”
“No, she didn’t,” Ignis agrees.
“Is something wrong with her?”
He sounds so worries for his friend. Ignis almost smiles at the sincerity of his concern, but then schools his face into something gentle and helpful. Always at the prince’s aid, like his uncle has taught him. “No, Noct,” he says. “Lady Lunafreya was born and raised in Tenebrae. She was not exposed to the magic of the Crystal like what we have in Lucis.”
“But she has magic. She’s the Oracle now.”
“She is,” Ignis admits, “but her magic is...different. She communes with the Astrals directly. Lucian magic is linked to the Crystal and the old kings.” He recalls a passage from a book he’s read on magic and adds, “Just as you and your father are connected to the kings and queens, every citizen of Lucis is made for another.”
Noctis flops onto his stomach on his bed. “Wow,” he says in muffled awe into the softness of his pillow. He’s silent for a long while and Ignis goes back to the dreadfully boring treatise on the history of garula rearing in the Duscae region. The words are starting to blur together and Ignis is almost wishing for one of the prince’s prized comics before Noctis turns his head to the side and looks right at Ignis with a startlingly blue gaze. “Ignis,” he ventures with the wheedling curiosity of a child on a mission. He’s uncharacteristically timid here, like for the first time he’s unsure of his boundary with Ignis.
“Yes, Your Highness?” Ignis asks. He slips a bookmark in between the crisp pages of the book. He’d be kidding himself if he thinks he’ll go back to reading it. He’s done enough today. Noct bites at his lip, uncertain. Ignis gives him a second and then prods, “Come on, Noct. You can trust me.”
Noctis heaves a sigh and then asks, tentatively, “Can I see yours?”
Ignis balks. “Mine, Highness?”
“Your mark.” Noctis blinks at him. “Please?”
Ignis sets the book aside slowly. He’s never done this before. His mark is in one of those places where Citadel decorum prevents it from being visible. Even his uncle has barely seen it, probably not since Ignis’s early childhood. Ignis himself sometimes forgets about the hair-thin lines spidering in blue over his skin. But he’s never been one to to reject the requests of Lucian royalty, and he’s inclined to indulge Noct’s cautious curiosity. So he gets up from the little couch and makes his way over to where Noct is waiting, propped up on his elbows with his chin in his hands. Ignis sits carefully on the edge of the pristine duvet - he knows how much the quilted fabric costs - and brings his hand to the collar on the shirt. Conveniently, he’s wearing a button-down today, so it’s easy to unfasten the first few buttons and the tie that he’s taken to wearing lately. Before he can convince himself otherwise, he’s tugging the dark purple fabric aside.
It’s not like baring his own soul, per se. If anything, it’s more a violation of his soulmate’s privacy than anything else, seeing as the mark represents them in the moment they are the most them . But all the same, he’s young and nervous and possessive, and he stiffly waits while Noct inspects it.
“Wow,” Noct breathes, scooting forward to get closer. “It’s so...round.”
“Is it?” Ignis glances down, maybe a little self-consciously. Yes, there’s the mark gleaming a faint, shimmery blue on the stretch of skin below his left collarbone. And, well. It is , he supposes, but that’s the result when your mark is a circle and a half circle. At least there are lines coming from the half-circle, making it look at least kind of...edgy? Ignis flushes despite himself.
Noctis hums thoughtfully. “It is, kind of.” He squints at it for another moment, then concludes brightly, “I like it.”
Ignis, face still hot, tugs his shirt back into place and buttons it. “Thank you, Noct,” he says.
Noctis’s eyes follow him. “Are you sad?” he asks quietly.
“No, I’m not sad,” Ignis assures him. “I’ve just never shown anyone before.”
“Well, you can trust me.” Noctis grins at him, collapsing to his stomach again with a giggle. “You’re my very best friend, Ignis.”
Ignis can’t help his smile. “And you as well, Noct.”
***
Ignis has always been mindful of his duty.
He barely remembers a world without Noct in it. Nearly all of his memories - and he has many, since being an advisor necessitates a wealth of knowledge - feature Noctis in some form or another. Noctis in training, Noctis playing in the garden, Noctis coming home sullen after a dinner with his father. He knows the best parts of Noct, like when he laughs after pulling in a fish he's been battling with, or the look that he gets when his father suggests going for a ride in the Regalia. And he also knows his worst parts, like his miserable silences and disinterested gazes. It's jarring to some, for sure, but to Ignis it's just everything that makes up his prince.
He likes to think that he knows Noctis better than anybody, but such arrogance is foolish. He’s just content being by his prince’s side. Maybe some day the two of them can actually sit and talk and not be bound by the restraints of duty, so that Ignis won’t feel like Noct is only sticking with him because of obligation and habit. It’s a gnawing thought, but not one Ignis often lets himself entertain. He’s content with this.
For now, Noctis is fifteen and still quite short. He’s not been eating enough, and Ignis has been cooking for a day to make all of the prince’s favorite meals. He’s packaged them in little containers with carefully lettered labels and placed them in the fridge. Noctis watches him stock the fridge with eyes gone dull. The bags under his eyes are concerningly dark, but at least his face seems to light up when he sees the little tarts that Ignis has baked. He usually only makes them on special occasions, but he’d figured that this was as good a time as any.
“Thanks, Specs,” Noct rasps, as if he hasn’t used his voice in a while. Is he really that exhausted?
“It’s no trouble,” Ignis assures him. And it isn’t, really. He may not be in love with cooking, but that doesn’t stop him from enjoying preparing something to help his charge. The work becomes almost therapeutic that way. “Could you consider finishing that rice bowl, Noct?”
Noctis looks down at the bowl. It’s lovingly crafted, really, and Ignis can hear Noct’s stomach growl. But his eyes are dull and sad and he just says, “Maybe later, Iggy. Thanks.” He scoots his chair out and makes for the couch.
Ignis watches him disappear, hiding himself in the cushions as if that’ll help. Ignis frowns, and it feels like the expression goes deeper than his skin. He’s weary and worried, and he and Noct are both still young.
The Citadel has aged them both, it seems.
After Ignis cleans up the dishes and finishes his scourge of the old food in the refrigerator, he wanders into the living room to check on Noct.
The fabric of his shirt has ridden up in his sleep, and Ignis catches a glimpse of blue on the pale skin of his hip. The lines of the mark are distressingly faint, not glowing with as much vitality as Ignis would like. It’s proof that Noctis needs a gentle hand to lead him in the right direction and help him through this patch of darkness. He’s had these before; Ignis knows he can make it through this one too.
He really doesn’t want to disturb the prince now that he’s finally slipped into a deeper sleep, but the couch will do Noct’s back no favors. He knows that the scar from the Marilith attack still hurts Noct sometimes, especially after a day of training, and he doesn’t want to add that soreness to Noct’s already miserable condition. He really hasn’t done this in a while, but Noct is already in his pajamas and the bedroom is right there, so he stoops beside the couch and eases the prince into his arms.
By the Six, he’s skinny. Ignis can feel the gentle grooves between his ribs as his arm wraps around Noct’s torso, and he feels a twinge of concern again. Perhaps he’ll have to speak to Noct’s teachers, and maybe suggest that the king could adopt a more forgiving magic training regimen for a time. He resolves to adjust Noct’s schedule to allow time for naps and eating instead of just implying that the time is there.
Anything to ease the burden.
He carries Noct to bed, and Noct’s head keeps lolling against Ignis’s chest. Every time he bumps Ignis, the mark on his chest seems to buzz with electricity under his skin, thrumming through him with the magic of the people of Lucis.
Perks of always being around a nexus of the Crystal’s power, he supposes. It must be rubbing off on him.
***
The first time they fight together, as a team, they’re taking out the reapertails that Cid and Cindy have asked them to take care of. It’s their first time truly out in battle, and despite all of their careful training in Insomnia, Ignis feels a phantom shred of apprehension holding him back.
But then Noct is drawing his engine blade from the air and hurling it at the first reapertail with a savage yell, and he disappears from Ignis’s side in a burst of glassy blue. And then they’re fighting, and for once Ignis has to worry about saving Noct’s skin as well as his own. He tries to keep as close as possible, but then Noct will go warping off into the distance, and Ignis will try to follow him, and the cycle starts again. Ignis resigns himself to always having to chase his prince.
“Ignis, here!” Noct calls, and Ignis can see in the frantic heat of battle what Noctis needs. With practiced precision, the two of them leap into the air and twist in just the way they’ve practiced, and Ignis almost laughs aloud at the thrill of striking down into the reapertail’s carapace in perfect synchronization with Noct. So this is battle , he thinks as he nods to acknowledge Noct’s exhilarated grin of thanks and flips out of the way to rejoin the fray. He feels a faint heat on the skin of his chest and wonders absently if he’s been scratched. He shrugs off the thought and pulls a dagger from the armiger, tossing it in between the gaps of a creature’s armor. It sinks in, the creature squeals, and Ignis recalls the dagger to the armiger and then back to his hand. And then he throws it again to knock out a reapertail that’s trying to lunge at Noct, and the cycle starts again.
He’s never felt more alive.
***
Sometimes, though, the battles aren’t as seamless.
They’re in some godforsaken cave again, unable to track down any new supplies and unable to fully heal without the aid of their carefully hoarded elixirs. They must have been down here for hours by now, and Ignis doesn’t dare check the time on the phone in his pack because he knows it’ll make him despair.
And then he sees the psychomancer.
Gods, they’re more ugly every time.
It's hovering just around the corner, already breathing its noxious gas. Even though he's seen these before, Ignis shivers at the sight. "Can we go around?" he asks softly, but Gladio presses his lips into a thin line and shakes his head. This is the only way through, and they have to see if there's a royal arm here. Ignis sighs. So this is what they must do. He looks to Prompto, who's looking the shade of pale that he only adopts when he's underground. "First shot?"
Prompto nods, breathes out through his nose to still his shaking hands, and takes aim. The shot cracks out with alarming loudness in the rough enclosed hallways of the cave, and the psychomancer flinches with an eerie scream. It slashes out with a gnarled, clawed hand, and Ignis dodges it - barely - and lands lightly on the ground again. But then he hears the high, panicked scream from the place he'd just leapt from, and he knows that somehow he's failed.
Noct.
He sees Noct stumble and fall, clutching at his side. Already, red blood is creeping through his fingers. Ignis moves on instinct alone, launching himself through the air with only his lance as leverage, landing in front of Noctis in a defensive crouch. He places himself between Noct and the psychomancer and trades the lance for daggers. They're closer and more brutal than the lance will ever be, and Ignis knows that his fury will make them worth it. Something like electricity crackles along his fingers, uncontained by any vial.
He lashes out and catches the psychomancer in the face before it can unleash another beam of petrifying light on them. The force of the blow feels unnaturally large, and Ignis almost shudders at it. But this is Noct on the line. He cannot fail again. There's something burning on his chest like a wound, and the edges of his vision have gone blue. He slashes once, twice, again. The creature screams in a way that makes every hair on his body stand up on end, writhes midair for a moment, and then falls. Ignis stares down at its crumpled form as it starts to dissolve into black smoke.
Gods, he’s never felt more powerful.
***
While the three of them are off on their own, Prompto is quieter than usual. He still makes his usual complaints about the darkness in the dungeon in Steyliff, and he’s just as vocal about Ignis’s cooking when they make camp, but he feels...rehearsed. Like he’s going through the motions. He seems so off balance without Gladio to knock him down a few pegs, to stand in the way of his nonstop energy.
Late one night, before they’re due to hop in Aranea’s airship and head out to Lestallum, Ignis wakes from a light sleep to see Prompto slipping out of the tent as quietly as he can. Ignis props himself up on his elbows, trying his best not to jostle Noct, who’s rolled closer in his sleep. Through the dark fabric of the tent, Ignis can just barely hear something like a whimper coming from Prompto, and then there’s a steady blue glow, brighter than Ignis has ever seen. He almost bolts up to help, but something in the back of his mind stops him.
It reminds him of fate.
So he carefully eases himself back down to the uncomfortable ground, closing his eyes but refusing to sleep until Prompto comes back inside, smelling of fresh air and lake water. If Ignis cracks his eyes open, he can see that Prompto cradles his wrist when he falls back asleep, curled around it like it’ll keep him warm.
When Gladio reappears it's with a new scar and a sense of purpose.
"The trial, it was to be a better shield." He absently reaches out to his side, where the sword he’s claimed from Gilgamesh leans against his chair. He hasn’t put it in his armiger yet.
At his words, Prompto tenses, and he absently rubs at his wrist where his band keeps a patch of skin hidden.
Ignis doesn’t miss the movement, and he smiles.
***
After Altissia, things are different.
He tries not to think about it too much, about the way that he’ll never again take the wheel of the Regalia or read one of his favorite books. Or the way he'll never see the smiles on his friend's faces again, or the blue in Noct's eyes.
The only thing he can see is the color blue when he’s fighting, like a second layer of awareness beyond his eyes. It flutters in sparks when he summons his daggers or when Noct warps out of the way of an attack.
The blue reminds him of the color of Noct’s eyes, and he’s thankful.
***
The trek into Cartanica is miserable.
He feels clumsy and stupid and useless, and Prompto is keeping close to him out of protection but also, Ignis suspects, to get away from Gladio and Noct. The two of them haven’t spoken aside from exchanging acid jabs at each other at any opportunity. Most of the time, Gladio’s remarks revolve around Ignis. Ignis isn’t sure that he likes being leverage.
He tugs on the hand that Prompto’s offering him and hoists himself up. They're wading through nasty water at the base of the quarry, searching for the tomb that Cor had assured them was here.
Oh, there’s a monster here.
Beside him, Noct draws his blade in a shimmer of blue in Ignis’s periphery and then he’s gone, leaving nothing behind but the ghostly shadow of his magic. And then Prompto and Gladio are running into the fray, splashing vile water on Ignis as they go.
Ignis backs up and draws a dagger in one hand, holding tightly to the hilt as he tries to hear what's going on.
A wind buffets Ignis as well as the pained sound of a grunt, and Gladio splashes in the water just to his right. He’s been thrown. Ignis hurries to his side, fumbling in his pockets for a quick potion. Gladio takes it with a quick thanks and then he’s gone, splashing water and blood on Ignis with every step. Somewhere across the cave, Prompto screams.
They need help, and he’s useless.
And yet-
In the corner of his eye - though there really is no edge to his eyes, not anymore - he sees a flash of phantom blue resolving itself into the shape of Noct. He’s facing the area where Ignis can hear the screaming, ugly sound of the malboro. An idea, crystalline and impossible, catches the light in his mind and Ignis reels back, thinking. It’s too dangerous, too risky, especially with the others.
But then he sees Gladio’s greatsword materializing already in the middle of a swing, and then Noct warps again, leaving behind another impression facing toward the monster. Ignis watches the outline as it fades, then as a new one appears, and another.
He holds onto the ghost of their magic and realizes that there's some sort of strategy inherent to it. There's a pattern there. He knows patterns, always has. And he can exploit them.
This is his chance.
He turns his back, sets his feet in the shifting silt, and lobs the flask over his shoulder with all of the savagery he usually reserves for his daggers. Something like lightning feels like it’s shooting down the length of his arm and through his body, and Ignis channels that power into the force of his throw.
And the malboro screams.
There’s fire everywhere, behind Ignis and on the impure water and on somebody’s clothing because all Ignis can smell is burning. But then Noct gives a yell, and it’s of triumph, and then there’s a series of swift flashes and thuds.
And then they’ve won.
Ignis knows that there’s something different the moment that the flames subside. The malboro collapses, and he very nearly does too. There’s a splash off to his right, and Noctis grunts in what sounds like pain. There’s electricity shooting down their connection, and he can see a bright flash of blue light over where he knows Noct is standing. He feels suddenly, breathlessly out of sorts.
“Noct!” he calls breathlessly, and he shoves his cane out like his life depends on it, hastening towards the prince in a flurry of splashes. Gladio and Prompto are there too,
“What is it, buddy?” Prompto asks frantically. There’s something knowing in his voice, though, like this is familiar. “Noct, talk to me.”
“The Glacian,” Noct stammers. “Like Titan’s headaches. She’s calling.”
Ignis places a hand on Noct’s back, and he tries to hide the shock in his face when Noct twitches away from him instinctively, like he’s cornered and desperate. It’s the pain talking, he thinks to himself, and presses a potion into Noct’s trembling hand. “It’ll help, Noct, I promise,” he assures his prince, and Noctis takes the curative without so much as a thank you.
He doesn’t speak.
Ignis confronts Noct and Gladio, after. He tells them to accept each other’s paces and to respect his own. Gladio tries to fight it, and Noct is sullen, but in the miserable wetness of the quarry floor they mutter their agreement and go on their way. Noct doesn’t give him much more than a muffled mumble of I’m fine, Iggy when Ignis asks about the Glacian’s call.
Noct doesn't mention anything as they struggle back up through the quarry to the train. He's subdued as usual, and his footsteps mark him as being several feet ahead of Ignis at all times.
It’s a solemn walk, and there’s no blue to be seen for a long time.
***
After the fight on the train and the mad dash to save the civilians, they’re on the way to Tenebrae. Ignis feels shell-shocked and weary. It’s been days now, and still he can only feel hollow.
Nobody dares mention it. The thought of Prompto...no. It can't be true. So they don't talk about it, though they're all thinking about it.
Noctis mentions, early in their time as a group of three, that he can barely feel the magic connecting him to Prompto. He doesn't offer a reason why, but the possibility hangs over all of their heads. So without Prompto to be their light, conversation between the three of them falls flat. Noct is hurt and blaming himself, Gladio is still frustrated with Noct and Ignis himself, and Ignis is still struggling. Prompto had been Ignis's go-to when it had come to getting around. His arms had always been ready to catch Ignis with swiftness and without judgment, never letting Ignis feel inferior because of his new disability. Now, when he makes his way along the length of the train, it's Gladio's hand sitting heavily at the base of his back or his bulk hovering just nearby, waiting. Noct, if he ever helps, is too tentative with Ignis, like he's afraid to offend him with his aid. Ignis had stumbled without a safety net one time too many before he'd gently requested that Gladio he be one to help him out.
Yes, they need Prompto back. Ignis feels his loss with aching surety.
Gladio has been rubbing at the back of his neck for a while. His elbow brushes against Ignis's shoulder as he does, and he makes a small noise of discomfort.
"Something the matter?" Ignis asks quietly over the faint rattle and siren whine of the train.
Gladio grunts noncommittally and says nothing.
Ignis sets his lips in a hard line. Of course Gladio would get like this. “Gladio,” he warns. “I don’t want to be the bad guy here. Please just tell me what’s bothering you, because it’s beginning to bother me too.”
“What is it?” Noct asks, startling Ignis. He hadn’t realized that Noct had returned from the food vendor, and the sound of his voice right across the table is jarring, to say the least.
“Gladio seems to be in discomfort,” Ignis replies primly, “and refuses to explain why. Even though his elbow is regularly making contact with my entire upper body.” He tilts his head in Gladio’s direction, schooling his face into its most sarcastic mode. “ Thank you for that, by the way.”
Across the table, Noctis snorts in half-aborted amusement, and Ignis can’t help the faint smile that crosses his lips at the sound. Finally, something positive in this dreary train. “What is it, big guy?” Noct asks.
“It’s my mark,” Gladio admits gruffly. “It’s...itching? Or heating up? I can’t tell.”
If he could see, Ignis would be exchanging a look with Noctis right now. Regardless, he can feel the weight of Noct’s gaze on his cheek, as if the instinct had driven him to do it as well. "Let us go talk somewhere quiet," Ignis suggests, and Gladio pauses before muttering quiet agreement. Ignis waits for his comforting bulk to vacate the seat beside him before he slides out and stretches to his full height in the aisle.
They make their way down through the cars, sidling along as quickly as they can without being too obvious about it. But Ignis can tell that they should probably get somewhere private, and he presses a hand gently to the small of Gladio’s back, and Gladio takes his hand to tug him along quickly, hustling between the aisles.
They slam the door to their sleeping car and all at once Gladio is scrambling at his shirt, grumbling about something burning, but Ignis knows the scent of burned flesh and this is not it-
Oh.
“The mark,” Noctis breathes.
Gladio’s mark is bright blue against his skin, and its light spills into the little cabin with enough brightness that even Ignis can see its blueness. He can feel the burning too, and it feels like lightning crackling along his magical connection to Gladio and-
And-
Prompto.
Noctis must feel it too, because as the light fades from Ignis's awareness, he blurts, "Of fucking course ."
"What's that?" Gladio asks. He sounds distinctly embarrassed.
"A bullet , Gladio?"
"It doesn't mean what you think it means."
"I think it does!" Gods, Noct sounds excited. He hasn't sounded this hopeful since...well, before Altissia. "Gladio, Prompto is alive, and he's your soulmate, and he's just had his moment ." He's breathless now, and so, so hopeful. "He's alive, Gladio. I can feel it."
"How are you so sure that's his soulmate's moment?"
Noctis says, with suspicious swiftness, "I read a lot." It doesn't sound entirely honest. Then he makes a quiet noise. “Gladio, you’re crying.”
Ignis frowns. He hasn’t known Gladio to be one to cry. Maybe when Insomnia fell, but even then, it must have been behind closed doors. He raises a hand to where he knows Gladio’s face is and his fingers brush against something hot and wet streaking down the angles of Gladio’s cheekbone. “Gladio?” he asks softly.
“I-” Gladio sounds strangled and sad . “I think he’s crying too.”
***
Zegnautus feels like a dream.
Or a nightmare, or something in between, at least. Noctis’s yells fade into the echoing darkness of Gralea, and the creaking, miserable sounds of the keep are the only things keeping him and Gladio company.
“Noct’s voice. I heard it clear as day. This way - follow me!”
It’s more than his voice.
Ignis feels it like a tether, pulling him through the keep behind Gladio, letting him take the lead but not needing it. He knows where to go. He’s surprised that Gladio doesn’t feel it too.
***
They find Prompto together.
Well, not entirely. Noctis is the one to take down his restraints, but it’s Gladio who urges them down the hallways, shaking his head at turns Noct wants to take and tugging them down others. Noct argued with him once, in the beginning of their search, but then Gladio had gone silent as stone, and Ignis had known that his eyes were liquid fire, daring Noctis to challenge him again.
So they’d followed Gladio, and the thread of magic leading the way to the lost boy that Gladio now calls his.
When they take Prompto down, Gladio hovers around him like a bulky shadow, absently checking Prompto’s raw wrists and the cuts on his face. “I’ve got you,” he says softly, in a voice that Ignis suspects is not meant for anyone else’s ears but Prompto’s.
“You do,” Prompto whispers back. “I know you do.”
***
The whole time that Noctis is in the Crystal, the ache in Ignis's chest is the worst it’s ever been. It tugs him towards Gralea for a time, and then to Insomnia, where it stays for long years of darkness, where Ardyn must have sequestered the Crystal like his jealous prize. In the darkness of their ten year night, Ignis doesn’t dare test his suspicion that the magical pull is unique to him, and him alone.
He doesn’t say a thing, and neither do Gladio and Prompto.
But he thinks about it.
It’s just the connection of their magic, he thinks. Prompto and Gladio have surely felt the tug towards the Crystal and, by extension, to Noct himself. After all, Noct’s magic is what binds them all, like a small star holding them in blue-hot orbit. He’s know Noct for so long that the electric blue pull he feels to his prince - to his king - has always felt natural. Surely, though, he should have thought of this. After all, he hasn’t always been Crownsguard. He’s not always been privy to the armiger of the Lucian kings. He should not have felt the magic of the Crystal for this long.
So why has it always felt like home for him to dream in shades of blue?
His suspicions - yes. Yes, he’s sure.
***
He wakes up one day - what’s really a day, in these times of ever-darkness? - and knows instantly that something has changed. The tug in his chest which has always told him where the Crystal is - where Noct is - has shifted its polarity. Insomnia is in the direction of his kitchen sink and it always has been. He knows this because the Crystal has been there for years, like a beacon atop a lighthouse. In the darkness of the Long Night and his blindness, it’s the only light Ignis can see.
And now it has moved.
It’s south now, far from its other mark. Now the compass in Ignis’s heart tugs him in the direction of his front door, and it’s through there that Ignis staggers out into the darkness of another morning in the Long Night. The magic of the Crystal is humming in his veins, and the skin of his mark is nearly electric. There’s something like the scent of ozone in the air. Something, somewhere out in the infinite night of Eos, has changed.
Ignis nearly sprints back into his room and earns a stumble for his troubles. No matter, no matter. He collects what he thinks might be necessary in a mad rush, stopping only to check that the black and silver uniforms of the Kingsglaive are still safe in his private pocket of the armiger. Somehow, he knows that he’ll need them. It’s time.
He needs to get to Hammerhead.
***
The sound of Noct’s voice is something like a hymn.
Ignis considers himself lucky that he’s taken up residence so close to Hammerhead. It’s a quiet little place at the prairie outpost over by Keycatrich, so he’d had no trouble getting a hunter to shuttle him over to Hammerhead as soon as humanly possible. He’d gotten there to find Gladio and Prompto waiting for him. Waiting for Noct.
The feeling of Gladio’s arms around him is one that he’s missed; he hasn’t been held by his friend since at least a few years ago. And the eager music of Prompto’s voice is the same lilting melody it’s always been, if a little scratched by age and darkness. All the same, he’s happy to have them, and for a few minutes, contentment sits happily in the pit of his stomach.
And then he hears Talcott’s truck.
Something in him had been feeling the distance between them closing with every passing minute. As he’d approached Hammerhead, the burning blueness in his heart had tugged him closer, almost singing in his ears. He’d wanted nothing more than to take the wheel and urge the hunter to put his foot down on the gas, to hurtle towards fate as fast as possible.
And here he is.
“Hey.”
His voice is deeper now, and has more of that subtle rasp that’s always been there. Just the one word is enough to set Ignis’s world afire.
“You kept us waiting,” he says, but he means me .
***
Noctis isn’t used to talking to people.
It’s been ten years and ten minutes and ten millennia. The clothes on his body are the clothes of the child he had been, and he itches to take them off and actually look at himself, to inspect this creature that he’s become. The Chosen King, apparently.
He hates fate that way.
But Gladio is familiar, even if his hair and face have changed, and Noctis can trust him to hold a conversation.
“Other hunters call him Quicksilver, you know.” Gladio looks proud, in that quiet subtle way he has. Noctis smiles at him faintly, then glances at Prompto, who’s swiped one of Ignis’s daggers and is tossing them around much to Ignis’s chagrin.
“He certainly looks like he’s gotten used to fighting.”
That sobers Gladio enough to school his face into a frown. He bites at the inside of his cheek and says, “We all had to. To survive.”
Noctis sighs. “Without me.” And there’s the guilt again, swooping in his stomach in a way that almost makes him flinch. So much, and he’s missed it all. But he’s missed them. Gods, he really has. He spares another look over to where Prompto and Ignis are messing around. Ignis’s lips are curved into a tolerant smile at Prompto’s antics, as if nothing has changed in ten years and they’re still two twenty-somethings fresh out of the Crown City. “I’m glad you’ve stuck together.”
“Well-” There goes Gladio’s cheek again. “Prompto and I...we’ve been together. Like, really together. For a while. We travel together, hunt together, live together.”
“And Ignis?” He keeps his voice lower than he wants to, but he can tell that Ignis has been working on his hearing over these ten years and he isn’t quite sure what he wants his friend to hear.
Gladio shrugs, but not in a casual way. He’s almost hunching in on himself. “He just went off on his own. Lives up north by Keycatrich, doing hunting jobs for the folks who have generators up there. We tried to get him to come along, but he said he wanted to stay put.”
Noctis nods. Somehow, he’s known this, in the same way that he feels a phantom tug even now, urging him closer to the magic of another.
There are no suspicions from him. He knows why.
***
The embers of the campfire are warm even still. Gladio and Prompto have gone off to bed, muttering something about getting enough sleep. Ignis can guess that they’re sound asleep for once, wrapped up in each other’s warmth against the threat of the final night. But he and Noct are sitting here in the cool air of the haven.
Ignis wipes a strand of hair away from his forehead. Sometimes, he still wishes he had the blessing of hair gel, but with the Long Night and his blindness, perhaps that wouldn’t be advisable. Gladio has told him the look suits him at least. He’s grateful for the change, he supposes. It seems they’ve all changed in these ten years, and despite having lived through them Ignis feels as if they didn’t exist. It’s as if time had finally restarted when the Crystal had allowed Noctis to wake on Angelgard.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep, Your Majesty?” he asks finally, and his words fracture his comfortable silence.
“I’ve been asleep long enough.” There’s enough shortness to his voice for Ignis to guess that he’s offended him. But after ten years, maybe the roughness in his voice is natural. Again, Ignis wishes he could see his face. “And it’s just Noctis, Iggy. Come on.”
“You are the Chosen King of the Crystal, Noctis,” Ignis reminds him, “and I am your Crownsguard.”
“Kingsglaive, now,” Noctis corrects, a little fiercely. “Don’t sell yourself short.” There’s a scrape of metal on stone, and Ignis can hear Noctis inching his chair closer. “Ignis, you’re also my adviser and my oldest friend.”
“Indeed.” So why does he still feel so betrayed?
Noctis makes a little sound of frustration, and it’s achingly familiar. “Ignis, don’t be like this, not now.”
“I don’t want to be,” Ignis retorts, surprising them both with his acidity. “I want to relish my time with you, Noctis. We both know you won’t be coming back.” Phrasing it like that is almost crueller, because they both know that he means dead . “I’m still trying to come to terms with events from ten years before. Having you here now...it further complicates things.”
“Specs,” Noct sighs, and yes , Ignis has missed that. “You can trust me with anything.”
Something bitter and ugly and betrayed in Ignis’s heart rears its head, and he finds himself asking, “Can I?”
“...Ignis?”
He takes a deep breath to collect himself. HIs voice comes out low and even and hurt . “The Glacian wasn’t calling to you in Cartanica.”
Noct doesn’t speak. The air between them once again fills with the soft breath of the wind and the distant howls of daemons, but now even the fire feels cold. Ignis sits and fixes his eyes in a direction he sincerely hopes isn’t anywhere near Noctis. All the better, now, that he can’t look Noct in the eye. He doesn’t know if his composure could take this if he could see the look that he knows is on his face.
When Noct does speak, his voice crackles with something cautious and afraid. “What’s your mark?”
“You’ve seen it, I’m sure.” He hears Noct make a faint noise of protest and continues. “It’s a circle. Half of it intercepts a half-sun.” He bows his head, picking absently at some dust under his nail. “I always thought it was the rising sun. And the circle-”
“The Ring,” Noct finishes wearily. “I see.”
Ignis frowns. “And you know what comes with the dawn.”
“And you think-”
“I’ve seen yours too, you know,” Ignis interrupts. If Noctis is surprised by his audacity, he doesn’t say a thing. Ignis, in the absence of duty for ten years, has learned to speak his mind. “The flames, the line. Much like a cane, hm? And the fire, like how I used it in Cartanica.”
“Ignis.”
“And you felt it. You knew , and you said nothing.”
“Ignis.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Noct’s voice is strained now, carrying the threat of something broken. “Ignis, I’m sorry.”
“That’s not an answer, Noctis.” Ignis places his head in his hands. Suddenly everything feels too heavy.
“I...I didn’t think it was the right time. For me or for you. It was so soon after Altissia. And after Luna and your eyes, I-” Noct trails off. “I didn’t want to burden you.”
Ignis tugs at a strand of hair that has found its way in between his fingers. The twinge grounds him, keeps him in this haven of runes and darkness. “Noctis,” he says, then stops. The words are caught.
“I’m sorry, Specs. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Noctis,” Ignis says, gently because he can’t bear to hear the misery shaking his king’s voice. “For so long, I’ve felt the pull of magic. My whole life, really. I lived my whole life with my mark on my chest, waiting until I would get pulled to my soulmate.” He looks up and surprises himself with a smile. “I didn’t realize that I never felt it because I’d already met you.”
There’s the sound of a surprised laugh, as if Noctis wasn’t expecting this. Had he expected a rejection, after all this time? “Gods, Iggy,” he breathes with a smile in his voice. “You don’t really mince words, do you?”
Ignis says, “I’ve never been one for simple terms.” Gods, has his voice always sounded so fond? He reaches out a hand and Noct’s immediately finds it, as if he, too, has been waiting. “It would never be a burden. You have never been a burden. Not now, not ever. Altissia did nothing to change the regard in which I hold you. Which is,” he adds, “a very high regard indeed.”
Noct’s chair creaks with canvas and metal joints and suddenly Ignis is very much aware of Noctis being very close . He must be kneeling in the waiting hollow between Ignis’s knees, as if he’s always belonged there. Something in the back of Ignis’s mind says that this should be reversed, that he should be the one to kneel for his king, but he silences it with the sensation of Noct’s jaw under his careful fingers.
“Noct,” he whispers, fondly. His hands are shaking. Noctis leans into his hand, pressing the soft warmth of his face into his skin. Ignis loves the feeling of it, traces the shape of him with careful fingers. He’s got stubble now, but it’s unshaven and soft, covering the angular lines of his jaw with a downy warmth. He must look like a real king now, but Ignis knows he’ll only ever be Noct.
“Ignis,” Noctis breathes in a soft reply, and he turns his face to press a kiss to the palm of his hand.
Ignis nearly freezes at that. But something in his mind says yes, this is right , and he agrees, so he cards his fingers through Noct’s hair and says, “Come up here.”
To his credit, Noctis moves with surprising agility for one in stasis for ten years. He clambers up to straddle Ignis’s lap, settling into the blessedly stable chair with a contented sigh. He sits there for a moment, and Ignis doesn’t need to feel the weight of his gaze to know that Noct is staring at him. “It feels like a dream,” Noct murmurs, and his fingers trace the lines of Ignis’s lips so lightly that Ignis can feel them tingling as he passes them by. It’s a maddening feeling, really. “Ignis, I’ve missed you so much.”
“And I you.” And Ignis is really impatient even in this moment of tenderness, but electricity is tingling across his skin and now that he has Noct here he knows he cannot ever give him up, so he holds tightly to Noct’s hair and pulls him down into a kiss.
It’s everything he’s ever hoped, really. Noctis is soft and responsive above him, welcoming the kiss with an eagerness reserved only for the things he loves. Ignis can taste the remnants of Noct’s favorite meal in his mouth. He’d made it special, because everything for Noct is special and new and beautiful. Neither of them have done this sort of thing in a while - Ignis has had quiet interactions with other hunters on the outpost, but they’ve never stayed and Ignis has never wanted them to. He’s always been loyal to the tether pulling him a world away.
The years haven’t changed their bodies much. They’re both longer and leaner and less soft than they used to be, but Ignis has always been familiar with the grooves in between Noct’s ribs, so that’s where he keeps his fingers, splayed on the staircase of Noct’s chest.
He presses a hand firmly to the spot on Noct’s hip where he knows his jagged mark is etched, and Noctis practically keens into his mouth. Ignis feels it too, like phantom lightning turning his body into a live wire. And then Noct’s hand is pressing down on his chest over his mark, and their matching hums of wonder sound like harmonies in the still air.
This communion - he doesn’t know how he’s lived for so long without it.
They can’t do more than this, or they shouldn’t , and they both know it. They slow down, breathing with a heavy rhythm that tapers away with each time their chests rise and fall. The kisses turn languid and soft, savoring every minute as it slips closer to the time they’re both dreading. Noct tucks his head onto Ignis’s shoulder, brushing his lips softly over the skin of his neck.
“I wish-”
“Stop that.” Ignis doesn’t want to hear it. It’ll be too real then.
“I have to go.”
“You don’t,” Ignis whispers brokenly. But he does, and they know it, but it feels like the thing to say.
Noct presses his forehead to Ignis’s and breathes slowly. Ignis revels in the closeness of him. He would stay like this forever if he could. Noct whispers, “Iggy, if we had more time-”
“I know.” Ignis cuts him off. If he hears it, he’ll be lost. “I know.”
They stay like that, breathing together with bodies tugged close by the magic they share, long into the endless night.
***
He presses his hand to his chest to salute his king one last time. They’re on the steps where it all began, and this time it’s dark and raining and he cannot see Noct’s face. He wishes they could go back to before, if only so that he could see the blue in Noct’s eyes again.
The electric hum of his mark when he presses his fist against it feels like the worst betrayal of his life.
Noctis leaves. Ignis feels his departure with every step, as the lightning blueness holding them together strains to pull them back together. Where they belong.
He feels so cold.
***
He fights for Insomnia, until the dawn.
The others may not notice it, but he’s reckless this time. It’s there in the path of his flips, carrying him into the line of fire and in front of his friends. It’s there in the way he dives for weak points like a drowning man scrabbling to safety. It’s there in the bitter snarl he lets out as he sinks his lance into the flesh of a howling daemon, all composure lost to pure, fiery emotion. He feels like a beast set loose from its master, all aggression and no refinement. Something tears across his arm, and he feels the wet heat of blood bubble up beneath torn fabric, and he smiles.
He feels powerful and reckless and more powerful and less alive than he’s ever been. He’s careless and vicious and he hurts .
And then-
The daemons disappear.
He feels it like a sword to the stomach and doubles over in pain, dropping his daggers to the ground. He scrabbles at his uniform, feeling for the blood that surely must be there. Instead, all he feels is a dry heat trying to burn its way through the skin on his chest. It’s his mark, he realizes distantly, and he makes a small noise without meaning to. It’s wrenched out of his chest like the cry of a child.
He almost laughs, but there’s no mirth, only bitterness and shock and hate. Noct’s moment , then. His two fates, one prophesied and the other marked in Ignis’s skin, converging with the rising sun and the Ring of the Lucii.
A creeping warmth makes its way along his face, and the hitch in Prompto’s breath confirms it. Ignis bows his head and tries to stop his hands from shaking. It’s pointless, and he knows it. Now there is no need to mask weakness in the name of duty.
“Pyrrhic,” Ignis murmurs into the dawn.
“What’s that?” Prompto asks miserably. He, too, sounds far too broken in the face of their world’s rebirth.
Ignis sinks to his knees. “A victory,” he says, and suddenly his voice cracks. His chest burns in all the worst ways, and he isn’t sure if it’s his magic or his heart which hurts more. He tries again: “A victory-”
“A victory made pointless by the losses.” Gladio finishes for him with shaking surety.
The ground is cold and rough beneath his knees. The Kingsglaive uniform feels too tight and too loose, like it’s rejecting him now that he no longer has a king. Ignis gasps for breath and wipes at a smear of hot blood on his cheek before he realizes that he’s crying.
Gods, how can this be a triumph if they’ve lost Noct?
***
They bury Noct.
And his hands-
They still haven’t stopped shaking.
***
With the Crystal gone, the only remnant of its magic sits deep in the bones of the citizens of Lucis. The magic will surely fade from the land with the same creeping inevitability with which it had come. Perhaps only a few of the next generation will be born with marks.
All the same, Ignis is glad for the bit of magic he still has. He can feel the blueness deep inside him, and sometimes he still pulls his weapons out to run his hands over their once-familiar grooves. He can’t fight, not anymore. Something had broken in him in Insomnia, and the sun’s warmth just feels like it burns now. He stays inside, then, and tries to find a way to calm his shaking hands.
Ever since Insomnia, his hands have been useless.
Gladio and Prompto still fight monsters when they’re called. They are, after all, the perfect team, and fellow hunters say that their marks glow blue as they dance around each other, raining death as one. They fight back to back, and Ignis knows that this must make Gladio’s bullet-and-silver mark glow nearly white with power. They are a perfect storm, an unstoppable force and an immovable object. Ignis is happy for them, truly. He is.
He has his own communions, sometimes.
It starts in dreams that he barely remembers, in flashes of sight which tell him he’s not looking with his real eyes. Everything is blue-tinted in these dreams, like one of Prompto’s filters on his camera. Sometimes he’s driving the Regalia, or he’s back in his apartment in Insomnia. Some of the times he’s sitting on some nameless hillside, watching the white-blue stars in a dark sky.
The dreams turn into lapsing daydreams after a few years, and somewhere along the way he starts seeing Noct.
It’s always Noct as he’d known him, the prince from before Altissia, before the Fall of the Crown City, when mirth had still lurked in the depths of his eyes. He’s always smiling, holding tightly to Ignis’s hands as they watch the stars. This Noctis is excited to wake up beside Ignis and contentedly smiles around a spoonful of anything Ignis makes and holds him by the waist when he kisses him. He’s perfect.
Ignis knows he’s not real.
The Noctis he’d kissed had been bitter and sad and resigned. He’d been grumpy and sullen and sometimes prone to long spells of miserable sitting, unable to move for any purpose. He’d laughed when Ignis lost his glasses and cried when he’d lost his childhood love. He had been a delight and a bother and Ignis’s king.
He knows that that Noctis waits for him somewhere in the blueness.
Ignis, as he gets older, dwells longer and longer in that in-between place. There, he can see, and the warm blueness of it all reminds him of the way that the sunlight used to glance off the Regalia’s mirrors to strike Noct’s eyes.
He’s fond of the familiarity. It’s the only thing that truly feels like home, now.
The shaking in his hands is worse, now. They had been mere tremors before, like vibrations of pent-up energy, the product of the power of soulmates stuck in only one body. The hard shakes are new, and the doctor tells him that one day, these tremors will begin to shake things loose from his mind as well. Some inevitable earthquake will start to dislodge the carefully constructed library of Ignis’s mind.
He says the day will come sooner than he thinks.
Gladio and Prompto’s visits start becoming less and less frequent. A few days after Ignis’s fiftieth birthday, they sit him down and tell him they’re headed to Insomnia for good. There’s still work to be done, and the city needs able hands and able minds.
“We want to take you with us,” Prompto tells him, and he’s curled up next to Ignis on the couch, having never given up the tactile tendencies of his youth. Ignis quietly finds comfort in the dependability of his touch, one without judgment or pity. Always his shining help, Prompto.
“Ah,” Ignis says with a twisted smile. “Not for me, I think. An advisor is little good if he cannot remember that which he is advising about.”
“Ignis,” Gladio rumbles with that sad tinge his voice gets when he knows that Ignis is hiding his misery. His large hand finds one of Ignis’s trembling ones, strong and steady and grounding. “Are you sure?”
Ignis nods. He’s sure, and he has to be. “Insomnia has nothing for me now, I’m afraid.” Only Noct’s body and the wandering ghost of his joy wait for him there. He smiles again, but it’s sincere and warm. “This may be goodbye, then.”
Prompto makes a little sound of protest. “We’d visit.”
“For caution’s sake, then?” Ignis suggests, and he uses his lightest and most logical voice. “Humor me, Prompto.”
Prompto is silent for a long while, and then he tucks his face into Ignis’s neck, huddling even closer than he had been. His breathing is less even now, and it hitches as the two of them sit there. Ignis lets him, closing his good eye and letting the quiet goodbye wash over them. He doesn’t comment on the hot wetness of tears that’s running down his neck and into the soft cotton of his shirt. So he’s figured it out, then.
Gladio must have, too, because his hand on Ignis’s is tighter and warmer and maybe it’s shaking too. He crosses to the couch and settles in on Ignis’s other side.
They may no longer have their king, but they’ve all known the others’ magic. Sitting here, filling in the spaces between Gladio and Prompto, Ignis can almost feel calm again. He feels distinctly whole and all at once empty. He may have not been made for them, but his soul has grown to love them all the more for it.
He squeezes his eye shut and tries to ignore the tear that leaks out.
“I love you, Iggy,” Prompto whispers into Ignis’s hair. Gladio says it too, if not with words: his hair brushes against Ignis’s face and the curving softness of his eyelashes finds the angle of his jawbone. He’s close, hovering in Ignis’s space like he can’t get enough, like he’s trying to absorb every piece of Ignis that he can before he goes.
Ignis doesn’t reply. He doesn’t need to.
***
Talcott has helped him for a good many years, ever since the electric tremors in his hands turned into organic shakes. He’s retrieved Ignis from his frantic wanderings in forgotten streets many a time, always leading him home with a gentle hand to the elbow. He’s here in Ignis’s house now, putting away a few of the more delicate dishes that Ignis can no longer trust himself with.
He’s on his way out when Ignis decides to commit to this.
“Ah, Talcott,” he calls before he can stop himself. He hates the way his voice shakes now to match the tremor in his hands that hasn’t stopped since Insomnia. Another thing damaged, now.
Talcott’s footsteps pause and then scrape as he turns on his heel. “Yes, Ignis?” he asks.
Ignis sighs. “You...you needn’t deliver any more groceries. Just come by tomorrow and water the flowers, hm?”
“Mr. Scientia-” Ah, he knows. Talcott has always been a perceptive boy.
“Ignis, Talcott. Please.” He fixes his ruined gaze on the spot where he knows Talcott is standing. “Will you do this for me?”
Talcott says nothing. He knows. He’ll let it happen, too.
“Go, then.” Ignis nods towards the door. “Give an old man some peace and quiet.”
The footsteps resume, and the door clicks open. Before it shuts, though, Talcott’s voice carries across to him in the low, cautious way that he has. “Ignis, it’s been an honor.”
The door clicks shut.
***
The specifics aren’t important.
Ignis remembers the rumbling thunder of magic crackling under his skin and the way it makes his hands shake.
The soft leather of his daggers’ hilts is still well-oiled and careworn, and even though he cannot hold them steady, Ignis holds them reverently. They’re from another time, another Ignis: the one he’d been before Insomnia.
There’s something like a jolt in his stomach, right where he’d felt Noct die. Fitting, somehow.
Noctis waits for him there, in the blue place.
***
“Ignis!”
It’s a low voice, slightly rough and entirely familiar. Ignis opens his eye and surprises himself when the world resolves itself into focus. He scrabbles at his face in a panic, and yes, the scars are still there, but his right eye is open and blinking and he can see in full color. He looks around for anything to help orient himself under this startlingly blue sky and then-
Noctis.
There he is. This is Noctis the king, he knows immediately. It’s there in the shape of his jaw and the soft stubble which Ignis had known through the searching touch of his fingertips. He’s wearing the black and gold of the line of Lucis, resplendent in a cape and crown as he strides toward Ignis from across the grassy knoll Ignis has woken up on.
Ignis kisses him.
It’s everything he’s ever wanted, and better than the few moments they had stolen before Insomnia. It makes him feel like the lightning under his skin has dissipated at last, brought to crackling equilibrium through Noct’s touch alone.
“Too long,” Noct murmurs against his lips. “Too long.”
It means more than both of them let on. Too long alone, each on one side of an inpenetrable barrier. Too long blind, unable to see the other. Too long before either of them had said a thing, wasting years of togetherness in confusion and uncertainty.
Ignis holds him close for a long while as the world ticks on around them. He’s not willing to let go, as if something will come and steal Noct away from him again. But deep in his heart, the magic of Lucis holds them both together with a radiant insistence. This communion, blessedly, is forever.
“This place...” Ignis says faintly.
Noctis smiles, and it’s radiant. “We snuck out here. Our first time away from the Citadel on our own.” He looks up at the cloudless blue sky and says, “If we stay, we can see the stars tonight.”
“I would like that.” He can’t stop smiling. “I really would.” He presses a hand to Noct’s cheek like he had at the end of the Long Night, only this time he doesn’t need to stop. “How?” He means this place, Noct’s eyes; his vision.
“Fate and magic,” Noctis reminds him. In this Lucis, even through the dark fabric of Noct’s kingly raiment, the jagged fire of his mark shines an electric azure. Ignis laughs and looks down, and he’s wearing his favorite suit. Through it shines the circle and sun that mark him as Noct’s.
Still laughing, Ignis laces his fingers with Noct’s. His hands are unshaking.
And the blue place is there, in Noct’s eyes.