Work Text:
In a darker world, Noctis fights back.
It’s easy enough to reflect on his decisions, to relive the destruction of Altissia and the trial of Titan through the eyes of an Astral. It’s easy to understand the reality of Ardyn. It’s easy to look into the memory of his father’s face and see only the eyes of the man who destroyed him. It’s easy to accept the fact that there is a prophecy, and that he must die to save his people.
It’s also easy to lie.
Released at last by the Crystal and Bahamut, the Chosen King emerges into a world ravaged by the Starscourge. There are empty outfits on the streets, tombstones to people who have long since become daemons. He walks among them, and he sees what he has wrought.
Talcott is older. He has scars no seventeen-year-old should have. There is a sword strapped beside the driver’s seat of his van, and a dagger lays sheathed beside cactuar figures on the dashboard. Noctis learns of the world he has left behind, and he despairs.
Hammerhead is a shell of itself. Everyone has shadows beneath their eyes that only get darker when they see the face of their king. Maybe it’s the realization that there’s an end in sight that makes them realize how much they’ve been suffering.
These are his people. He is their king.
But he can’t help them. Not yet.
***
In a darker world, Noctis does not go to Insomnia.
Not yet, at least.
***
“You’ve changed,” Aranea tells him. Here, now, her green eyes flash with something darker. She’s not infected, not yet, but the Starscourge is relentless and she’s been in Niflheim more often than not. Biggs has been missing for two days. They don’t bother looking. It’s only a matter of time until the darkness comes for them all.
Noctis summons flame to his fingertips, turning it over in his hands. The Lucii whisper threats to him, filling his mind with smoke, but he banishes them with the purity of the chaos in the palm of his hand. “I needed to.”
“Why haven’t you brought back the sun?” She isn’t accusing him, not really. But there’s something desperate in her voice, something betrayed and finally, finally vulnerable.
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“I needed more time.” And he does. There is so much he’s not done yet. So much he’s left unsaid.
She places her hand over his, closing his fingers around the flame. Before the fire dies into smoke and embers, it casts a prism in the tears in her eyes. “Listen,” she says. “I’ve done my waiting. And so has everyone who’s fought for their lives in here.”
“Aranea.”
“What I’m saying,” she says, lowly, “is that you’d better make this worth it. You need time? Take it. But not a second more. Not if you want to call yourself king.”
He lets her hand linger there, relishing the contact after endless uncountable minutes spent alone in the cold light of the Crystal. Here is proof that he’s made it out, and that people have survived without him. He owes it to her to ensure that her life will continue long after he’s brought back the sun. “I promise,” he swears.
He means it.
***
In a darker world, Noctis confesses.
Ignis meets him under an ever-dark sky on the tabletop surface of a cracked and failing haven. The runes flicker and glow beneath their feet, threatening to give out, but Noctis doesn’t tell him that. Ignis knows, though, from the sound of his former countrymen growling on the too-close outskirts. It’s an imperfect reunion, and there are no stars to remind them of memories they’d once shared, but Ignis wouldn’t be able to see them even if they were there, so this is enough.
“I miss the sun,” Noctis tells him, “and my father.”
“They wait for you, out there.” Ignis has learned of the prophecy of the King of Light. He made his peace some five years ago, but the words still hurt to say. “You can go.”
“I won’t.”
“Ever?”
“Not yet, at least.”
Ignis sighs. Noctis has always resisted his calling. “What’s keeping you here, then? If there’s anything I can do to ease your mind, to help you make your peace-”
“No.” Noctis’s voice is firm. “No, it’s not that.”
“Then what?” Ignis has a duty to his king, no matter what. If he can help Noctis, he will, even if that help will lead him to his death.
“I thought about a lot, you know. When I was in the Crystal. I didn’t just disappear.”
This is the first Ignis has heard of the Crystal and its infinite mysteries. All he knows is that Noctis had tried to claim its power and was instead consumed, leaving only Ardyn to gloat when Ignis had stumbled up, just a moment too late. He’d always thought that the Crystal had put Noctis into some sort of captive slumber, storing him away while time waxed on in their dark world. But to think about Noct, awake and hurting and trapped for ten years...it just makes him feel worse. “What happened?” he asks softly.
Noctis shifts before him, dragging his feet quietly against the stone of the haven. “I dreamed. I thought. I had to look back if I wanted to go forward. So I did.”
“For ten years?” Ignis breathes.
“For ten years,” Noctis echoes. “Or ten seconds or ten millennia. It felt like all of the time in the world and none at all.”
Ignis can’t imagine it. He can’t imagine Noct, his Noct, alone and isolated in the light of the Crystal. Forced to deal with the mounting truth of his destiny with nobody at his side. Ignis would have been there if he could. He would have done his best to help Noctis weather the storm of his fate. But the world is cruel and the gods are fickle, and Ignis can’t always be there for his king. And he wasn’t.
And somehow now, even after all of that, Noctis has turned his back on the will of the gods. “What changed?” he asks. “To make you stay?”
“When I wasn’t thinking about Bahamut or the prophecy or Ardyn, I had a lot of time. I got to relive some things. You can see a lot through the eyes of an Astral, you know. And I thought of you guys, of course. A lot.”
“I don’t follow.”
Noctis sighs. “I’m not much good at this, Ignis.” He inches closer, and Ignis can hear his breathing, steady and soft. Up close, Noctis smells like the open ocean and a thunderstorm, wild and royal and entirely unreal. “More than anyone, I thought of you. ”
“Ah.” Ignis knows. He’s always known. He’s always hoped.
So it’s not a surprise when Noct’s breath ghosts across his lips, hot and close and uncertain. He leans into Noct’s hands when they cradle his cheeks, and he reaches out in turn, burying his fingers in the soft strands of his hair. Their lips find each other, slowly at first, but then they realize that they both were looking for the same thing all this time. They’re older now, and they’ve waited long enough.
Noctis parts his lips with a soft sigh, and Ignis takes a moment to catch Noct’s bottom lip between his teeth before he kisses Noct in earnest. It’s everything he’d ever imagined, and more. For so long, all he’s been able to envision was the prince of ten years ago, soft and ethereal in the fading memory of his eyes. But now Noctis is here, with him, older and sharper and unbearably beautiful under his touch, and his mouth is hot and bold and wonderful.
Noctis’s stubble is rough and brutal and unpolished, but Ignis lives for the things that he can see with his fingers. The scrape of stubble on his cheeks is a welcome souvenir to remind him of the touch of Noct’s lips.
In a world this dark, the pain makes him feel alive.
They build their romance in a quiet, twisted way. They know that they are living on borrowed time, and that no defiance can divorce Noctis from the destiny laid out before him. But they cobble together a life for themselves in the time they are given, desperate to eke out some happiness in the darkness that surrounds them.
It’s enough.
***
In the dark, Sania works on a cure.
The relentless creatures that eat sunlight and consume the humanity of their hosts are everywhere. Their ashes flutter through the air, filtering filthy sunlight into all-consuming darkness. But there is always a way to kill something if it’s alive.
In a world this dark, killing is the thing they all know best.
The Scourge cases start to decline, and soon nobody succumbs to the creeping darkness. The only darkness left is the one in the sky.
Only the king can cure the sun.
***
Ardyn waits, patient as always, in Insomnia.
There will be a reckoning someday. Though Noctis runs from the prophecy, the gods’ will is powerful. The Lucii tug at him day in and day out, turning his bones to glass and his skin to ash. Such is the curse of the Caelums. But until then, Noctis grits his teeth against the pain of his constant undoing.
He goes on hunts with Iris and Cor, secretly envious of their lethal grace. The two of them make a good team: the lionheart and the daemon slayer, back to back against the world. They’re happy to let Noctis join them, and Cor puts him to task helping to train the new members of the Crownsguard. Now that there’s a crown to defend again, there are many, hunters and civilians and children alike, who want to serve their king and country.
Cindy teaches him how to repair a headlight and how to listen to the hum of an engine and hear its hidden woes. Noctis becomes a king of engine grease and socket wrenches, spending long hours beside Cindy working on their fleet of vehicles. When Cid dies, six years after Noctis has returned, he’s not alone. Cindy and Noctis sit by his bedside, each holding one of his time-worn hands. “You look like him now,” Cid rasps, staring up into Noct’s eyes. “Almost like he never left.”
“He’s watching,” Noct tells him softly. “I know it.”
He does.
Cid passes away with a smile on a face and his granddaughter at his side. Cindy cries and mourns but carries on, because she’s a soldier no matter what happens, and she has a garage to run. Hammerhead mourns for the loss of its founding father, but there’s work to be done and they’re just glad that it wasn’t the Scourge that took him. There are small victories to be found in a world as dark as this, even in the saddest moments.
He steals moments in quiet corners with Ignis, letting their heartbeats fall into a calmer synchronization. Noctis lives for the scent that Ignis has acquired during his long time in darkness, all iron and cinnamon and smoke. Ignis is familiar and dangerous all at once, and Noctis would not have it any other way.
“How long?” Ignis asks softly, one night. They’re sitting out on their favorite cracked haven, reclaiming the spot where they’d first kissed. It’s a tender memory, even if daemons prowl around them, eager to tear into them should they get complacent.
Noctis stares down at his hands. Where the Ring sits on his right finger, the sickly gray-black of burning is starting to spread insistently. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but he can feel the age-old aches of his back and knee coming back to haunt him. He really is becoming his father, then, after all. Wasting away. Buying time.
“Soon,” he says, and he stares up at the stars he can’t see. “Soon.”
Beside him, Ignis is silent, but one of his hands reaches out and gently grasps Noct’s. His thumb rubs an unfamiliar rhythm into Noct’s skin, but it feels like a heartbeat, or a promise, or just I love you.
Noctis waits ten years. He makes up for a decade of missed memories with his friends and allies and Ignis, and he is content. Perhaps he is never happy, but that isn’t necessary in a world so dark. Besides, he knows what’s coming.
***
In a darker world, Noctis submits to fate.
When Noctis meets the Usurper in the ruins of Insomnia, he is old. Forty years of life have turned him into the king he was always meant to be. He is a king without a country and a king without light, and the magic of the Crystal has aged him in the inevitable way that has plagued every Lucian king and queen. But he stands tall and walks into the crumbling ruins of the Crown City with all the pride of a monarch.
Insomnia is no place for him, not anymore.
He has backup.
They all know they won’t be coming back from Insomnia. After all these years, the number of daemons has only increased, and the growing nexus of darkness that is Ardyn draws them in. There are more of them than ever imagined, but still the weary veterans of Lucis take a stand. For their king. The world has no need for them anymore. They have trained the younger generation to be the future of Eos. In Talcott and the children of Insomnia and Lestallum, there is hope.
This will be their final mission.
Cor Leonis is older than ever, but still he wields his katana with all of the fierceness of a man eternal. Immortal indeed, finally proud to hear the praises of his people. He goes down fighting two behemoth kings singlehandedly, saving his king from the talons of a monstrous danger. In this darker world, he does not outlive three kings.
Cindy Aurum murders ronin with her grandfather’s old pistols. There are silvery streaks in the shocking gold of her hair, and they only make her look fiercer. She has not survived this long to go out quietly. She disappears into an alley swarming with reapers, promising that she’ll only take a minute. She does not come back.
Iris Amicitia, daemon slayer, refuses to heed her brother’s pleas to stay behind. She is determined to fulfill her calling as an Amicitia, and she tears apart eternal troopers with her bare hands. Her knuckles are bloody, and the wings of an eagle stretch out with inky sureness along her arms, predatory and dangerous. She catches an ayakashi’s sword between her palms, defiant even as the blade slides home between her ribs.
Monica Elshett and Dustin Ackers, twin shadows who never stopped wearing the black of their monarch, whirl in deadly unison inside a ring of mindflayers. Ever the quiet ones, they say nothing even when the daemons spew monstrous breath in their faces. They die as they lived, serving king and country.
Aranea doesn’t wear her helmet anymore. No longer does she hide behind the horns of a dragon. She dies a legend, soaring through the air. She grapples valiantly with a swarm of arachnes and tarantulas that attack her massive scarlet airship. She takes them down to save her crew, but the airship is left only with the broken body of its beloved captain.
Prompto insists on sticking by Noctis’s side even when he suffers a nasty gash across his chest. Dripping blood down his Kingsglaive uniform, he carries on. He beats the flames from Noctis’s kingly raiment and doesn’t scream when the fire burns the flesh of his own hands. The last time he touches Noctis is when they are all huddled together, weathering out the firestorm of Ifrit’s power. Then he rockets out into the fray, gritting his teeth against his pain. Ever loyal, ever faithful, ever at his side, he shoots and dodges and rolls until he can’t anymore. And he falls, bleeding from half a hundred different wounds, giving his last breath for his best friend.
Ever the King’s Shield, Gladiolus bellows out a warning and barrels into Ifrit’s grasp before the Astral can grab his king. He stares into the eyes of a god and curses its name as Ifrit slowly crushes the life out of him. He falls, broken, to the burning marble of the plaza. He stands once more, roaring out a challenge from lungs half-punctured by broken ribs. Ifrit spares him a contemptful glare and lashes out with a foot, sending Gladio flying like a ragdoll across the plaza. He skids to a stop at Noctis’s feet, eyes staring up at his king’s face. It’s the last thing he sees.
Blessed Ignis, loyal to the very end, is the last to fall. He throws himself into the path of Ifrit’s blazing sword and falls before Shiva can step in. The Infernian shatters into crystalline shards moments later, but Noctis has no eyes for the death of a god. He rushes to Ignis, falling to his knees before him.
Ignis blinks up at him with his ruined eyes and manages a shaky smile. He’s bleeding far too much, and everything smells like iron and smoke. Noctis holds him close in the ashen darkness of their shattered world and whispers promises in his ears.
“Soon,” he breathes, clutching tightly to Ignis’s shaking hands.
Ignis presses his face into Noct’s burnt suit and stifles a scream. “Soon,” he echoes in a voice crackling with tears and hellfire. He reaches up with a burn-scarred hand and traces the line of Noct’s jaw. His lips, though trembling with the effort of not screaming, curve into something like a smile. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”
“Ignis,” Noctis croaks, but Ignis drops his hand with a soft sigh.
In a darker world, Noctis loses a second love.
He carries on.
In a darker world, when Noctis enters the Citadel, he has nobody to stall for him.
The survivors are in Lestallum; he’s left it to them. Behind him, Insomnia is quiet, holding its breath for the dawn that he will bring. Eos is aching for the sun, a gift long withheld by the Crystal and by the Chosen. No longer.
No longer.
The lights lead the way. Noctis has long since made his peace, but his footsteps are leaden on the cold tile floor of the castle that had always felt like a prison. But destiny drives him, and his feet carry him into the elevator and up towards the final battle.
In a darker world, there are so many more bodies hanging in the eaves.
Ardyn sits the throne, ageless and inexorable. He grins with savage delight when he sees the king, alone and broken, standing before him. He taunts him, but Noctis stands with stoic silence before him, refusing to humor him with the victory of retaliation.
Under the bodies of all those he has ever loved, Noctis draws his sword and follows Ardyn into their city.
Fighting Ardyn is like fighting a mirror. Even Noct’s ten years of training and letting the power of the Ring teach him have not given him enough to best Ardyn. Every blade slash is met with a phase and a cackle, leaving red imprints behind Noctis’s eyelids when he blinks. It’s exhausting to fight himself. It’s exhausting to fight.
Ardyn summons his dark armiger.
Noctis meets him in the sky above the city he will never reclaim, and they clash with the power of kings.
Exhausted, they fall to the ground, soaked by the rain. Noctis draws his father’s blade and swings with a primal yell, staggering his way over to the man he’s destined to destroy. Ardyn taunts him with the list of his long failures. There are more in this darker world than in a world ten years before: Luna, Regis, Cor, Cindy, Aranea, Monica, Dustin, Iris, Prompto, Gladio, Ignis . Their names swirl in his mind, reminding him that if he had done things differently, if he had gone to Insomnia ten years ago, this all could have been prevented.
But this is a darker world, and Noctis has resigned himself to the fate he has crafted for himself.
He summons the crystalline weapons of the armiger for a final time, striking Ardyn once, twice, again. Over and over, with the combined might of the kings, he draws black ichor from his enemy’s undying body. When he finally buries his father’s sword in Ardyn’s chest, it feels like justice.
“I will await you,” Ardyn murmurs, and he finally, finally departs Eos.
There is nobody to bid farewell to on the steps of the Citadel. Daemons still rise to fight him, bubbling up from a plaza stained with the blood of his brothers, but he turns his back to them. Soon, they will all know peace.
In a darker world, Noctis has no hate in his heart. He loves his country and his people, and he wants nothing more than to deliver it to them. After all, they gave him time. They allowed him to have something, if only for a little while. He summons the Lucii and watches as they swarm into the throne room, crackling with the magic of millennia of power.
Noctis lets the kings have their due. He bares his chest to the might of the Lucii and lets them sheathe their power in his chest.
He stares into the eyes of his father and trusts him. “Trust in me,” he begs in return.
Regis does.
Noctis dies.
In the light of the Crystal, things happen in much the same way as they might have, ten years before.
Ardyn snarls in the face of the destiny he craves, and the host of daemons inside of him rise up to defy the Lucii once more. His face collapses into bone white and streaks of ugly black Scourge, and his eyes glow with the malice of millions of maligned souls. He has a legacy of past lives of his own in his body, fueling him just as the old kings once had, before they’d abandoned him. His power is eldritch and twisted and darker than the night will ever get.
Noctis faces him, flanked for eternal heartbeats by the magic of his father and Prompto and Gladio and Ignis. Ardyn sees their faces, and he fears them. He’s right to. They are everything that has made the king as strong as he is, and their images shatter and reform, only strengthening everything that Noctis is and ever has been.
Ardyn reaches his arm out to deal a final blow, but Luna catches him. She has waited for twenty years for this moment; she would wait forever to fulfill her duty of peace.
Noctis unleashes the Lucii.
Ardyn falls.
Noctis stumbles back, burning to ashes under the power of his ancestors. The Ring crumbles from his finger, turning to dust like it had never even mattered. It’s the last thing he sees before he falls backward into nothingness, letting his pain dissolve into stardust.
“It’s finally over,” he whispers, and he means it.
***
In a darker world, the sun finally rises.
They aren’t there to see it.