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He'd known.
Somehow, a part of him knew all along that she'd be there. Perhaps it was just his mind romanticizing it even as it happened but he was convinced he felt her presence before he had any way to perceive it.
Slowly, painfully, he managed to open his eyes, eyelids stuck together by something thick and heavy until he pried them open. He closed them immediately against the pain that flared up even more, when it had already felt all-encompassing.
Wet. Water? Warm water on his face. Was it tears? No, it couldn’t be, it didn’t feel like tears. It soothed where everything else burned . Just water, then.
When his vision gained some semblance of focus he recognized her anxious form hovering above him, worried and startled by that first whimper he made waking up that he had no memory of making. She was speaking, he realized belatedly.
“Ardyn! Love, please… Please…” He had no idea what she was asking for and yet his heart ached to give it to her. Wanting to reassure her he tried to smile, but what came out was a low, drawn out scream. “Oh gods, Ardyn, what have they done to you?” his Light sobbed.
He had no answers to give, no control over his broken body to form words. All he had was pain and the sinking feeling the only way to deal with it was to share it. Give it back, give it away, so he could be blessedly empty.
He must have done something to scare her, though he knew not what, because a startled yelp escaped her. He slowly raised his head, fighting the pain and the noise to finally see her. There. Huge, terrified eyes of stormy blue, raven black hair uncharacteristically messy and falling into her eyes and getting stuck to her tear-stained cheeks. The features soft yet regal and now so horribly, tragically broken by fear and sadness.
It hurt.
Maybe he was being a fool again, but somehow seeing her like that hurt more than his flesh and his soul combined. He’d done this. He never cared for his own fate until that day he realized her happiness was tied to his own existence, and now it struck him once again, not as a hope but a curse. He’d failed. He’d made his love feel these things he could read in her expression now.
Another effort to speak and all he managed was something pitiful, something between a groan and a whimper. Like a hurt animal.
There were hands on him, her hands, soothing, healing though she wasn’t using her magic. Knew better, most likely. She always knew him, after all. Then something pressed to his lips that he only realized was a cup of water after it spilled down his chin. Belatedly he swallowed, almost drowning in his haste to quench his thirst. It was warm and sweet and so difficult to convince his throat to allow through. What he longed for was cold, ice to cool the burning pain he felt, but he knew that wouldn’t be wise. He’d laugh if he could as he realized his broken mind was clinging to logic by supplying his Healing knowledge. Do not shock the body, it said. Do not upset the balance lest you speed up the Scourge’s progress. Be wary of changes in temperature, in position and light and only ever affect the sick gently, coaxing every tiniest improvement from them. It was too late, so far too late for him, yet she still took care not to break these rules they’d worked years to discover.
A wave of affection broke through his fragmented thoughts and he reached for her, only to see his hands covered in thick, black Scourge, long dried on his skin. He gasped in illogical childish panic and drew back.
“Shhh~” she soothed, “Do not fear for me, my Love. Allow me to relieve your pain.” His Lady smoothed his hair, making him realize that it, too was a mess stuck together with - what? More Scourge? Blood? Both? He whimpered pitifully and leaned into her touch.
They remained like that for what could’ve been days or seconds until he felt himself able to speak and move. The Scourge, that disgusting parasite he’d unknowingly harbored, knitting his body together. It would take days, with how extensive the damage was. This was enough for him to shift closer, though. To brush some tear-drenched hair from her face, leaving a trail of black that she was blessedly immune to. To hoarsely whisper “I’m sorry.”
She cried as she cradled him in her lap, holding onto him with all her strength. It would hurt him, probably, if the other pain wasn’t too overwhelming for him to feel any difference. “D-don’t~” she sobbed, voice breaking on those little gasps and hiccups that he always found both heartbreaking and endearing. His Lady never wanted to let anyone see her cry, no even him. Not even when the tears had been born of happiness and love, in their shared moments when he’d laugh and tease her for them and kiss them away.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Ardyn. You’ve done nothing wrong.” she repeated like a mantra, like saying it with enough conviction could make the universe realize its mistake and take it all back.
He chuckled hollowly, feeling like he was already a corpse. Perhaps he was, reanimated by nothing but the very sickness he so longed to shield others from. “It changes nothing.”
She hugged him tighter, like she could force sense into him, like she could gather him up and mold him back into a human . “It changes everything .” she whispered with conviction. “You are still the same man, Ardyn. The same man I love. And nothing excuses what they-”
Another chuckle, a shadow of his usual mirth “Not true.” he managed, earning a baffled look from her. It was so profoundly sad, seeing this pure creature brought to hate for his sake. He sighed, trying to gather his strength as much as he was letting his emotions show “They were justified, my Love. I have become a threat. The only-”
She interrupted him, first with her cries and then desperate, hasty whispers, begging him to still his tongue before the words came out, but he pressed on.
“The only issue is that they did not anticipate I would not remain dead.”
It seemed like silence rang at those words, pressing in on them from all sides of Eos. And yet logically he was aware of the sound of her hushed sobs, his own labored breathing, the distant dripping of moisture that gathered on walls he couldn’t see.
Aware of the daemons squirming beneath his flesh.
At last she nodded shakily. “Alright, Love. Alright.” She couldn’t bear to look into his eyes, to see the warm gold overtaken by daemonic yellow.
She missed the flash of empathy that lit them up and made them swim with his own unshed tears. “You know I would gladly die if the Scourge went with me.” he said as gently as his raw throat allowed.
His Lady wailed , like he’d heard countless times from victims and distraught family members and all those people his heart went out to but didn’t break for like it did now. He was startled into silence for a few seconds, once again the magnitude of grief he caused her overwhelming him.
“Come now, my dearest, my Love, my Light~” he cooed patiently, the way he’d speak to spooked birds in their youth, the way he learned to speak to the infected over the years. It just made her cry more and cling to him like a lifeline. This would not do, he realized. She needed to live, and live without him. He was dead, in some sense at least, and would be of no use to her. That could wait, however. For now, he needed to set a plan in motion that he still needed her help to even come up with. He only knew that this took precedence over himself and his wants. As usual, really.
Finally she calmed down somewhat, the familiar steely determination crinkling the corners of her eyes. “What is your plan, Ardyn?”
“How do you know I have one?” he asked in the best approximation of his usual gently teasing tone he could muster. It felt like acting, like wearing a mask that refused to fit.
There. He got a faint smile from her, and with it he felt a spark of hope flicker to light in the depths of his soul. Not hope for happiness, not hope for any sort of good ending to all this, but merely that stubborn flame that all living creatures possessed, telling them to keep pushing forward and working towards a future.
“You always have a plan.” she whispered, her voice weak and still quivering with grief.
“I have an idea .” he corrected pointedly. “One I need your help developing, my Love.”
* * *
It took days of planning and preparation.
All the while his body got stronger as it managed to knit together wound after lethal wound. As the physical pain subsided the heaviness in his mind stood out more prominently. Soon they would be done. Soon they would be left with enough time and power to focus on his thoughts, his intentions, his very soul that they already had their claws firmly buried into.
Soon the time for respite would be over. It was a special kind of pain to think of this as respite. The long hours of discussing, very nearly arguing over the plan. The fitful sleep he guarded her through and the relief in her eyes as she woke and searched his and still found vestiges of humanity in them. Making arrangements, plotting, finding new levels of intrigue and deception. How tired she was, the barely perceptible shift in her features as the tension set in more firmly, as something deeper inside her changed.
Gods, she’d been perfect and he broke her , hadn’t he?
But gods did not listen anymore. Not to him, and not to her, it seemed. It was all the better, lest they decide to take part in this and ruin it like everything they touched. Oh, how he hated them now, those who stood idly by and let so much suffering happen… He’d never thought he even could hate so much.
Near the end he felt himself give in, and in his desperation summoned a jagged-edged dagger from his Armiger, now an agonizing effort when it had been second nature most his life. He barely heard her horrified shout as he drove the blade into his stomach.
It dissolved into thin air and he distantly realized she was at his side again, crying and screaming, and he was beginning to grow numb to it. It didn’t feel real, and surely it couldn’t be? No creature, no matter how pure could endure so much pain and still refuse to leave the side of the monster he was quickly becoming.
It helped, though. The new wound occupying the daemons’ minds and energy, giving them the couple hours they needed to finish. As soon as he could manage he faked a smile, told her it was silly to worry for a man who couldn’t die if he wanted to. Silently cursed himself for the hundredth time that hour as he saw her flinch in recognition of the unspoken truth: that he wanted to die. That he wished for it, did not even care for the Beyond and the respite it promised as long as all this could simply stop .
Surely, it would get easier to bear after a time? A couple centuries, perhaps?
Finally the time had come for the final step. Knowing it was their last moment together he let himself go and cried, like a child and like a fool. He clung to her and let her comfort him, and take comfort in knowing she was able to ease his pain at least a little.
When he pulled away her shirt was stained with the Scourge, and her face with her own tears. Beautiful, precious, human tears that he despised and cherished both.
It was getting easier to smile, easier to pretend and ignore the pain. A bad sign if he’d ever felt one.
“Now, my dear.” he began, voice so much smoother and both more and less like his old one “As soon as it is done, run . Are we clear on that?”
She swallowed around pain and the tears she was managing to hold back and nodded.
“Good girl” he praised, like he’d only ever done in the rarest of moments. When his proud and beautiful Love allowed herself to be vulnerable, to rely on him completely. Her shoulders shook with a suppressed sob at the words and he pretended he did not see “Begin, my precious. There’s no time to waste.”
He could see she wanted to protest but knew better. Instead there were her cool, perfect hands gently placed on his temples, her forehead pressing to his, and the faintest hum of magic that he knew rested in her veins, a perfect match to his own.
“By the Star’s light and my love, by the Prophecy that shall deliver us, I bind you, Ardyn Lucis Caelum…” she whispered.
He faded in and out of consciousness for what seemed like an eternity.
When he finally woke for real he was alone in his prison.
Correction.
He was alone only in body. In spirit, however...
The thousands of daemons roared to consciousness behind his eyelids, a cacophony of anger, pain and hatred that resonated with his own and settled into a steady hum in the back of his mind. There. All was as it ought to be.