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~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nyx Ulric checked the time, and sped his pace as he walked through the corridors of the Citadel. He had been many things in his life. A son, a friend. A brother, once. Bartender. Soldier. Member of the Kingsglaive. But he’d never thought of himself as a teacher. A coach, maybe, a commander. Someone who could run a recruit through drills and beat a little humility into them on the sparring mat. But not a teacher. He stopped in front of a set of heavy wooden doors.
There was a fluttering under his skin that had nothing to do with trepidation. Whenever he was in the presence of King Regis, it felt like the magic within Nyx was gently pushing outward against his skin, reaching out toward his sovereign, its source. This was a similar feeling: a recognition, but without the urge for reunion.
When he had been asked to do this today, Nyx had been surprised. He told the King that he was deeply honored, but that there were other Glaive, ones whose job was actually to train recruits, who might be better suited to the task.
King Regis had smiled a bit at that. “Many might be suited to the task, but I believe that you are better suited to the student.”
Nyx Ulric had been a soldier since he was fourteen. He knew an order when he heard one. And so here he was, two days later, stepping into the Crownsguard training hall.
The Prince was standing in the middle of the hall, in the late afternoon light that came streaming in from windows high above them. As soon as Nyx laid eyes on him, his magic trilled in greeting. The Prince was grinning up his Shield, Gladiolus Amicitia, who was laughing as he took the Prince’s practice sword from his hands, hoisting it casually up onto his shoulders, alongside his own.
Nyx and Gladio had spoken a few times, mostly at formal events, but didn’t know each other well. Yet every time he saw Gladio in the halls of the Citadel, Nyx felt a gentle surge of pride that someone with the blood of Galahd was guarding the heir of Lucis. It might not be common knowledge in the Crown City, but everyone in Galahd knew the story; Nyx’s own sister, Selena, had waxed on about it more times than he could count:
Tritonia Alietum was a falconer who one day had woken at dawn taken her osprey to the river, intending to spend the morning fishing. Instead of fish, she found a soldier, separated from his comrades and wandering alone, in the grip of Confusion. She hurried to gather the right herbs for a remedy, and by the time she had escorted a clear-eyed Clarus Amicitia safely back to the Royal encampment, the young Shield found himself in the grip of a very different spell.
Like something out of a fairytale.
Gladio looked up when he heard Nyx’s boots striding across the marble tile, and lifted his chin in friendly greeting. The Prince followed the movement and turned, putting his left hand up on his hip, fingers pressed into his back, watching Nyx approach.
“Nyx Ulric, your Highness,” Nyx said, standing at attention and affecting a respectful bow. The Prince slid the hand off his hip and crossed his arms.
“You’re here to teach me to warp?”
“That’s the idea.”
A shadow passed over The Prince’s face. Gladio saw, and looked as if he were about to say something, when he gave up the idea and rolled his feather-inked shoulders in a half-stretch, half-shrug. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I gotta get some laps in if I’m going to be chasing a flying Prince.” He gently shoved the Prince’s shoulder with his bracer as he walked off to the showers. The Prince huffed once through his nose, the barest hint of a laugh, and looked back up at Nyx. Nyx had always thought that, as far as looks, the Prince must favor his mother, but his eyes are as blue as the royal magic.
“Well, your Highness, I think it might be best to sort of jump right in, as it were,” he looked around the room. “Do you have mats in here?”
The Prince pointed to a stack of thick, black practice mats, half-hidden behind a column.
“Sparring on the bare marble, huh?”
The Prince shrugged. “We were just warming up a little.”
“Well, warping is a lot of falling, and...“ Nyx had been about to say ‘puking,’ but decided it was better to remain optimistic. “...so, yeah! Let’s pull out some mats!” He barely refrained from clapping his hands and making the moment even more awkward. The Prince looked like he was already dreading the next couple of hours, and walked over to the stack.
“Let me grab the top three,” Nyx said as he shoved them off the top of the stack with a thud. “Then you lay the rest out in a straight line, down the middle of the room, here.”
The Prince pushed the remaining mats off the pile, one by one, so that they slapped onto the floor, kicking them across the marble with his boot. Nyx set his stack of three up against the far wall of the room, and gave them a few firm punches to ensure they stayed standing upright before he joined the Prince.
“OK. So, here’s for when you wipe out,” Nyx indicated the long trail of mats. “And that’s your target,” he pointed to the stack against the wall. “Do you have the weapon you want to use?”
The Prince nodded, pointing to a long black box, inlaid with gold, sitting on the floor under the display of polearms. Then he turned back to Nyx with an expectant look on his face.
Right. Teacher. What to do next…what had his own teachers started with…?
“Actually, hold that thought. First, let’s warm up with some basic element manipulation,” Nyx let a tiny slash of Lighting crackle between his fingers, and the Prince’s eyes widen slightly as he followed the yellow lights. “No spellcrafting, we’ll just sort of settle in and get the magical juices flowing.”
The Prince stared at Nyx’s hands for another moment, and Nyx thought he saw a flash of something like anger in the blue depths, before it flitted away again beneath the surface. The Prince looked down at his own hands, spreading his fingers. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
Nyx was surprised at that. Had the King never...? “Well, we’ll change that today, Your Highness.”
“Right.”
Nyx was once again, awkwardly, unsure how to proceed. He had assumed that the Prince was at least familiar with manipulating elemental energies. Teaching him to warp, to manipulate internal magic, was going to be a lot harder without him first being used manipulating external magical energies. Hopefully it was different if you were born with it, Nyx thought, rather than it being bestowed.
The Prince noted Nyx’s hesitation. “I guess my dad didn’t tell you that we were starting at square one.”
There was no use in denying it, and Nyx thought maybe he could use this moment to put them on common ground. “Well, look, if it’s any consolation I don’t really know what I’m doing, either.” The Prince boggled at him, and Nyx quickly added: “I mean, I’m not good at teaching this...”
“So why are you here?”
“His Majesty asked me to—“
The Prince crossed his arms and pointedly looked away. Fucking teenagers.
“He asked me to,” Nyx continued with a bit more force, “and I am very experienced. I’ve been a member of the Kingsglaive for almost eight years, now.”
“Sorry. Fine. Let’s just get started.” The Prince dropped his arms again, cocking his hip and idly rubbing at it with his left hand.
“Are you alright?” Nyx asked and the Prince looked sour, but straightened up his posture.
“I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
Nyx considered suggesting they do this on another day. If the Prince was tired, or unwilling, it didn’t bode well, anyway. But Nyx didn’t want to fail the King; he’d have to try to teach the Prince something.
“Well, for this first part we’ll be sitting down, anyway,” Nyx said, dropping to sit cross-legged on the mat. He motioned for the Prince to sit down across from him.
“So what are you good at teaching?” The Prince asked, after he’d settled down into position.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you’re not good at teaching ‘this.’ What are you good at teaching?”
“Oh. Uh…knife work, maybe. How to make an Altissian spritz.” Neither of these seem to pique the Prince’s interest.
“But you do use magic. How did they train you to use it in the Glaive?”
“It really was a lot of jumping in with both feet. Those who just naturally could do it, who had an affinity for it, I guess, they joined the Glaive. I don’t really know how to explain it.”
“So, you use it, but you don’t understand it?”
“Yeah,” Nyx chuckled. “I guess I never really thought about—“
“—where it comes from?” The Prince’s face was neutral, but his voice was iced fury.
Nyx spared a moment to imagine a world in which Gladio came running back to the training hall at that very moment to collect the Prince. But with no divine intervention in sight, he said:
“I know it comes from the Crystal, from the King. I don’t know why it flows through me, and not somebody else. Like how I’m not a blacksmith, but I could teach you how to swing a sword.”
The Prince actually seemed somewhat satisfied with that. “So, he asked you?”
“What?”
“My dad. The King,” The Prince sighed. “He personally asked you to train me?” Nyx nodded. “When?”
“This weekend. This past weekend. At the Prin– at your birthday ball.”
The Prince harrumphed, and looked back toward the black and gold box he’d left by the wall.
“So, he talked to you.”
“He just asked me if I could help you get started with it.” Nyx felt like he ought to be apologizing, but he wasn’t sure for what.
The Prince swiveled his gaze back to Nyx. “So, you were there, at the ball.”
“Yes, your Highness. General security sweeps of the interior perimeter and select places of interest.”
“What does that mean?”
“I walked around for six hours.”
The Prince swallowed a snort. “Sounds better than sitting for six hours. What did you think?”
Crown Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum’s sixteenth birthday celebration had, indeed, been a six-hour affair. Starting with a formal banquet dinner, continuing with a parade of gifts and speeches delivered by council members and other important figures, and ending in fireworks. All the while the Prince sat – or, perhaps more accurately, was displayed - up on a dais, on a gilded chair, clad in Caelum blacks.
“Food looked like it was alright,” Nyx said. The Prince makes a non-committal noise in his throat. “But it probably wasn’t as fun as your real party.”
The ghost of a smile. “No. No, it wasn’t.”
In the wake of that smile, Nyx decided to take a chance. “Look, no matter what happens, you’ve got me for the next couple hours. I say we see what you can do with some elementals, and then we see if we can get you flying. What do you say, your Highness?”
“Ok.”
“Great.”
“But call me Noct while we’re in here.” He shrugged. “It’s just easier.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Right!” This time Nyx actually did clap his hands. “So…Fire. So just like a normal fire, Fire still needs something to burn. But there’s always something in the air that it can ignite...”
The late afternoon sun was still pouring into the room, illuminating suspended plumes of dust in the air. Nyx rubbed his hands together, then set one on his knee and held the other at his chest, cupped palm up. He closed his eyes, mostly for the effect.
Totally for the effect.
Nyx called forth Fire, and it raced down his nerves and burst out over his skin. Nyx opened his eyes and was pleased to see that his pupil was fixated on the flames licking over Nyx’s fingers.
“What does it feel like?” Noct asked.
“Put your hand up like mine,” Nyx said and Noct mirrored his pose: hand raised, palm up, fingers gently curled inward. “Remember: you have the Fire, so you can’t burn.” Nyx touched the backs of his fingers to Noct’s, and the flames sensed a new master and pooled into Noct’s palm. Nyx pulled his own hand away, extinguished and grinning.
“So. You tell me: what does it feel like?”
Noct stared at his Fire, undulating within the cage of his fingers. “Like…like I’m holding a fish. A really warm fish.”
Nyx laughed. “You do that a lot?”
Noct looked up with a smile. “When Gladio takes me fishing.” He looked back down at the flames in his hand. “Mostly he holds them.”
Nyx smiled. For a second, before he could stop himself, he imagined telling his sister that Tritonia’s son was teaching the Crown Prince to fish. How pleased she would have been. How she would have smiled.
“Well, what do you say we toss this one back?” Before Noct could move his hand, Nyx gently grabbed his wrist. “Your instinct is gonna be to try to shake it off, like a regular fire. But this is Fire; it comes from you. Just cut off the flow. Stop feeding it.”
Several breaths passed as Nyx held Noct’s hand, carefully monitoring the height of the flames. Noct wrinkled his brow. “It’s not working.”
“Don’t worry. Just take a breath, and try again.”
Noct closed his eyes, breathed deep, his lips pressed into a frustrated crease. He cracked one eye open and saw that his hand was still full of Fire. “Nyx, what am I supposed to be doing?” he groaned.
“It’s ok. It’s ok. If you can’t cut it off, can you give it back to me?” Nyx let go of Noct’s wrist and moved his hand next to Noct’s. Noct grimaced in concentration, but nothing shifted. His nervousness was locking the energy into his own body, like a cramp.
Nyx moved his hand away and snapped his fingers, interrupting Noct’s impending panic.
“Ok, new plan! We’re moving on to Lesson Two!” Nyx winked at Noct and raised an index finger. “Ice! Ice, like Fire, needs something out in the world to change. But lucky for us, water’s everywhere...”
Nyx made a show of tracing an arc with his finger through the air, over to Noct’s hand, pressing the tip into the center of Noct’s palm. He sensed the barest slick of sweat in the creases under the flames, and as he called the Ice, the surface of Noct’s palm started to shimmer with a delicate fuzz of frost. It raced up his fingers in lacy tendrils, and it was the shock of the cold - rather than the Ice itself – that finally forced Noct to cut off the flow of Fire.
Nyx slowly pulled his finger away, leaving Noct with a soft handful of snow. They both sighed, quietly, in relief.
“Ice is a little safer than Fire,” Nyx said, watching as some flakes started to fall off the sides of Noct’s hand. “Worst that can happen is you get really cold.”
“Really?”
“No, actually the worst that can happen is that you freeze solid.” Noct’s head jerked up, and Nyx chuckled. “Don’t worry, that’s a little harder to pull off on Day One than accidentally setting the Crownsguard training hall on fire.”
Noct laughed. “If you say so.”
“Well, how is it?” Nyx nodded toward Noct’s hand. “A really cold fish?”
Noct huffed, and his breath was a milky cloud. “Specs made me a dessert this summer,” the tip of his tongue poked out between his lips as he chased the memory. “A mint sorbet. He grew the mint himself. It’s not just cold, it’s…clear? Sharp?"
“Like that second after the wind gets knocked out of you, before you know what’s happened?”
Noct hummed in agreement. Then he clenched his hand into a fist, compressing the snow and sending ice crystals tinkling onto the floor, which melted within seconds. When he opened his hand, the Ice has ceased, flowing back to its source within him.
“Hey, you cut that one off yourself!”
“Yeah,” Noct’s eyes shone, proud at catching on so quickly. “I don’t know how, really. I just didn’t want to be cold anymore.”
“That’s kind of all it is,” Nyx agreed. “The elemental energies, your own magic, they all respond to you. Your intentions, your feelings. Magic is just a way to send all that outward.”
Noct look back down at his fingers, stretching and flexing them, turning his wrists over back and forth.
“What do you think? Are you up for some Lightning?” Nyx asked.
Noct nodded. “Yeah. But I want to try this one by myself.”
Nyx considered for a moment. “Ok, you know what? Let me just move behind you....” He stood and walked behind Noct, squatting down to peer over his shoulder. “Ok, whenever you’re ready: go for it.”
Noct tensed his wrists and arms until the tendons bulged outward. Nothing. He squeezed his hand into a fist, and released it. Nothing.
“Nyx, I don’t think I can,” he said, disappointed.
“Hey, hold on, hold on. Sure, you can.” Nyx soothed. “You’re just too in-your-head about it; try this…” he said as he leaned forward and reached from behind Noct, over his shoulders, to take hold of his wrists. Nyx pressed Noct’s palms together, then drew them apart, leaving several inches of open air between them. “There,” he said in Noct’s ear, as he let go of his wrists, and settled back behind him. “Now you can relax and really let it fly without worrying; it’ll be safe.”
Nyx was pretty sure that was true.
Noct stared intently into the open space between his hands. A couple of his fingers began to twitch slightly, when suddenly a yellow thread of light zipped across, from palm to palm. Noct gasped but, impressively, didn’t jerk his hands away.
Now that he’d gotten one, the flow of Lighting came a little easier. The sparks that flew between his fingers were sparse, stuttering, but real and all his own. After a moment, Noct clapped his hands together and they ceased. He shifted around to face Nyx again, an enormous and boyishly candid grin on his face. Nyx couldn’t help but answer with one of his own, and gripped Noct on the shoulder in excitement.
“Folks, I think he’s got it!”
Noct laughed. “It still tingles!” He brought his palms up to his face and made a noise of recognition. “It smells like being at the firing range with Prom,” he crowed, eyes dancing, peering out from above his fingers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
They took a break before Nyx pulled out one of his kukris.
“Warping is always tied to a weapon that you can throw. Like I always say: ‘The further you can throw, the further you can go.’” Nyx had, in fact, never said that before, but he thought it was pretty good.
“Wow.” Noct looked like he was unsure which of them should feel more embarrassed.
Nyx just winked, flipped the kukri in his hand, pulled his arm back, andnowhewasplunging the kukri into the practice mats on the wall, forty feet away. He pulled out the blade and turned back toward Noct, spreading his arms like a showman.
“See, nothing to it!”
Noct was wide-eyed at getting to see a warp that close. He kept looking back and forth down the mats, as if chasing the afterimage of the trail Nyx had left behind. “What happens when you disappear? Where do you go?
“I really don’t know.” Noct looked unsatisfied at this and Nyx shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t know. Someone smart told me once that it’s more of a question of ‘when’ and not ‘where,’ because you catch up with the knife? Something about time?” He shrugged again. “It happens so fast I don’t remember. It’s like one breath to the next and you’re there.” He walked over and handed the kukri to Noct, who tested its weight in his hands.
What Nyx wanted to say was that Noct should ask His Majesty about it. But he didn’t want to sour the day now, and it’s not like anyone had ever given the Glaive a straight answer, either. So maybe there just wasn’t one. Nyx figured it didn’t matter where you disappeared to, just so long as you came back.
“You know how to throw a knife?” Nyx asked. Noct nodded. “Ok, just try it with that a few times until you get warmed up.”
Noct threw the kukri a half-dozen times and managed to get the tip to graze the mats twice. He groaned in frustration.
“Try it from a little closer,” Nyx suggested.
“It’s not that.” Noct looked down at the kukri, turning it over and over in his hands. “When I was a kid, I got...hurt. It messed up my back.” He glanced over at Nyx, who was nodding. “You know?” Nyx paused, then nodded again. Noct shrugged. “I guess everyone knows.”
“It still bothers you?”
“Sometimes,” Noct shifted his weight again, to favor his right leg, his left hand settled back on his hip. “It still messes me up with some stuff. Like lifting heavy things over my head, or pulling myself up, or throwing things really far.”
Nyx was already thinking about how to work around that kind of lingering injury when Noct continued, with another weary, teenage sigh:
“I guess we just have to bust out my birthday present.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Noct brought the black lacquer case over to the mats, and they sat down to open it up. The wood was shiny, and the gold inlay pattern was actually a repetition of the royal crest: the window and the skull, all half-covered by a wing. Overall, it gave the effect of a very small, very narrow coffin. This impression was not lessened at all when Noct opened the case and revealed that it was lined with blood-red velvet. Embedded in it, gleaming and sharp, was the Engine Blade.
“Wow…” Nyx whistled, appreciatively. He had heard about this sword being the highlight of the gifts at the birthday ball, but Nyx hadn’t been in the room when it happened.
Noct traced his fingers over the machine components in the elaborate hilt. “Yeah.”
“So does all that...stuff do something? Or is this all decorative?”
“It does something,” Noct stood, lifting the blade out of the case. “Well, it’s supposed to do something,” he amended. He stepped away and made a few practice swings, testing the weight and balance.
“And what’s that?”
Noct stepped to the edge of the mat furthest from the wall, his expression a mix of determination and doubt.
“It’s supposed to help me throw it farther.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Engine Blade worked. Beautifully. Nyx suspected that the engine in the hilt helped to propel it forward, in addition to keeping the blade straight and steady as it flew. Though bulkier than Nyx’s kukris, it flew effortlessly from Noct’s hand. Over and over, it sung through the air and sunk deep into the mats.
But Noct remained solid. The magic didn’t follow.
And so, over and over, Nyx Ulric trudged half the length of the training hall just to pull the sword out and readjust the mats as they started to sag.
“This is stupid,” Noct grumbled after the twenty-first try.
The Engine Blade glinted as it wobbled slightly where it had just struck the mats. Noct had hopped forward after it, but stopped short, growing more and more self-conscious about jumping around with nothing happening.
“You know if you get all jammed up about it, the magic’s not gonna cooperate.”
“Can’t you help me get started, like with the Fire and stuff?”
Nyx shook his head as he walked down the room to yank the Engine Blade out again. “Warping’s different. Elemancy: that’s you working with those elements, and those energies are the same for anyone. But this...” He handed the sword back to Noct. “This comes from your own power. This is just you. ”
Noct’s shoulders sagged and Nyx gave one a 'buck-up!' shake as walked off to the side again. “Relax, focus, and try again. Trust the sword to take you there.”
Noct got back into position. As he took a deep breath, in a dance-like motion, he coiled his body into a tightly bunched spring. He exhaled and it released, his limbs spiraled out and upward as the Engine Blade whistled through the air.
And his feet plopped down three feet from where he started.
“I suck.”
“Being new and sucking aren’t the same.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m doing both.”
Nyx didn’t reply, just rolled his eyes as he walked back to get the sword.
“Wooooow. You know, I think it took Specs something like two years before he would roll his eyes at me in front of me.” Noct teased as he stretched out his arms and shoulders.
“I’m always ahead of the curve,” Nyx teased back. “Gotta be a fast learner to be a Glaive.”
“Did you know before you became a Glaive that you could use magic?”
“Nope!” Nyx yanked the blade free. “Surprised the hell out of me.”
“What made you even want to try?”
“Same reason every Galahdan in the Glaive did it: for hearth and home.” Noct stopped stretching and tilted his head in inquiry. “It’s something that we say in Galahd,” Nyx explained. “We all lost a lot because of the Empire…” Nyx shook himself out of the memory of Selena’s voice crying out to him. “...but there’s a lot left to protect. You give anyone from Galahd the opportunity to do that, and we’ll take it.”
“Would you go back to Galahd, if you could?”
Nyx’s heart twisted. “I don’t know. Maybe. It depends. But a lot of the refugees in the city would; they haven’t always felt especially welcome.”
Noct looked curious, and a little guilty, and Nyx cringed at himself. He’d gotten carried away and forgot that, despite their newfound camaraderie, he was not training just any teenager.
“It’s a tough spot for everyone,” Nyx demurred. “Everything’s more crowded, people get tense. It’s just…some folks seem to think Galadhans are here just to take from the Crown, but we’re all in this together.” He smiled. “For Lucis.”
“Yeah. That’s…not fair. ” Noct stared at his blade, intently. “It’s not fair for them to act like that,” he continued, quietly. “Sorry.”
Nyx fought the urge to backpedal even more. He knew there was something else going on, but also that it really wasn’t his place to pry. Better to get back onto the safe ground of teacher and student; at least he was starting to get a handle on the whiplash of Noct’s moods.
“Hey!” he yelled, cheerfully, and Noct looked up. “You know what else we say in Galahd?”
Noct shook his head.
“That the twenty-third time’s the charm!”
Noct rolled his eyes and groaned, but a laugh snuck past it, anyway. “Yeah. Yeah, ok.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The twenty-third time was no more charmed than the thirty-third. Or the forty-third.
They stopped for a break and ordered up sandwiches from the kitchens.
“It’s a crapshoot, eating before warping,” Nyx said as he chewed, “It can lead to a bad reaction, but I can’t have you falling over.” He took another big bite. “Maids might be pissed if they have to mop up in here, but…“ he made an exaggerated shrug.
Noct finished his sandwich and leaned back against the wall. “I know you probably think it was an order or whatever, but you don’t have to keep going today just because my dad asked you to train me. I know you were only supposed to stay a couple hours.” He flicked some crumbs off his lap. “You probably have somewhere else to be.”
Nyx swallowed his bite and thought about his friends sitting around their regular table at Yama-chan’s place. He thought about throwing back a cold beer or three, the bottles sweating, the labels sliding off in his hands before they’re even half-empty. Libertus laughing and calling him “Professor Ulric” for the rest of the night. Maybe the rest of his life. Crowe, waving her meat skewer through the air as she made a point, stopping only to lick off the sauce smeared on her wrist.
They’d wait. He was worth waiting for.
“Nah, I’m free.” Noct looked over at him, dubious. Nyx shrugged. “It’s up to you: if you want to keep going, then we keep going.”
Noct stared down at the crumbs left on the marble, his face unreadable. But he nodded his assent and picked up his sword.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
After another hour, they took another break.
Noct laid down on his back, arms outstretched above his head, and stared up at the ceiling. Nyx joined him. As the minutes passed, the sweat began to cool on his chest and the small of his back. Their heaving breaths grew quieter. The light in the room had shifted with the hours, leaving more than half the room in shadow. Through the skylight in the ceiling, they could just begin to make out the underside of the Wall, shining against the encroaching dusk.
“He’s using a cane, now,” Noct said, quietly.
“I saw.” Nyx heard the rustle of Noct’s hair against the mat as he turned toward him. “At your birthday,” he added.
It’s a bargain none of them made, but all of them pay for. This magic, this power, that is seared into Nyx Ulric’s nerves, that shimmers in the sky. It shields the city, and it lures their enemies. It empowers the Glaive, and it is killing this boy’s father. But Galadhans have known for a very long time that every Lucian victory is a pyrrhic one.
After a few more minutes of silence, Noct sat up. Nyx remained laying down where he was, but looked over and saw that Noct was now silhouetted by the sunset, every inky spike of his hair outlined with ruby light. Nyx remembered a flash of bloody, black hair and the desperate, scorching wish of his body to fling itself through space to just please, please, let him get to his sister in time...
Noct turned to meet his gaze.
“I’m ready.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The hall was now dim from the twilight. The incoming text alerts that had been screeching from Noct’s phone with increasing frequency had only stopped when Noct finally called someone back to negotiate a pick-up time of one hour from then.
That had been 45 minutes ago.
“Maybe we should stop for the night,” Nyx suggested.
“No.”
“Noct...”
“Specs will be here at eight. We still have time for a few more tries.”
“You’re all keyed up. I keep telling you, magic is sensitive to—“
“I just want this to work! I don’t get it! I can throw the sword, and I want to follow it. I do want to! Why can’t I DO this?!” Noct whirled to face Nyx and tossed the Engine Blade onto the mat. “What if I can’t ever do this?”
They were both exhausted, and Nyx was starting to feel like a failure again, despite the earlier success with elemancy. Too many frustrating hours had ticked by between then and now. Looking back, how easy it seemed, to coax flames and snow into the palms Noct's hands...
Suddenly Nyx thought of something.
“Hey. You said earlier that you go fishing a lot?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Ok, let’s use that to try to change how you think about the warp. What if you think of it like….throwing the sword is like you’re casting a line?”
Noct frowned. “This would be more like throwing the whole rod into the water.”
“It’s metaphorical.”
Noct harrumphed.
Something else tickled Nyx’s memory.
“You know how they go fishing in Galahd, right?” he asked. Noct shook his head, but looked interested. Nyx was surprised - had Gladio never talked about it? Maybe it was too painful a memory.
“In Galahd, they fish using falconry. Actually, they don’t use a falcon, they use an osprey. See, Galahd is all islands and rivers, and all an osprey wants to do is fly down the river and catch fish.”
Noct looked fascinated. “How do they do that? Get the bird to fish for them?”
“Well, first, the falconer wears a gauntlet on one hand, and the bird perches on it. Here, let me show you….” He reached for Noct’s right hand; Noct offered it to him and Nyx removed the bracer and tossed it to the floor.
“So, it’s like that, and the bird is perched right there,” he lifted Noct’s left arm into the proper position, as if a bird was perched on his bracer. “And it’s so well-trained that it leaps off the falconer’s wrist at just the right moment, and soars off, right in the direction they wanted it to go.”
“And it brings back a fish?”
“Most of the time.”
Noct let his smile and his arm drop. “But the falconer stays on the ground."
“Yeah….”
Noct sighed. “This metaphor sucks too.”
“Hey, I never said you were the falconer.” Nyx jabbed a thumb at his own chest. “I’m the one from Galahd, so I’m the falconer.” He pointed at Noct. “You’re the osprey.”
Noct rolled his eyes. “Great, I’m a bird.”
“You’re a fisherman,” Nyx insisted. “Look. When the osprey flies out over the water, it hovers in the air. It waits. It watches for the fish it wants and then it plunges straight into the water, and grabs it in its talons. When the moment is right, it just folds its wings back and dives.”
He stopped, and let the silence flow over them, as Noct seemed to go away inside himself. Then he nodded at Nyx, and motioned for him to step aside off the mat. Noct bent to pick up the Engine Blade and took up his position once more. The room was now so dark that Nyx could no longer make out the slouching shadow of the much-abused mats leaning against the wall.
Noct gazed down into the dark. He raised his left arm, bent like a falconer in front of his face, and pulled his bare right arm behind him holding his sword ready. He waited.
Nyx held his breath and followed Noct’s gaze. There, he thought. There’s your fish.
Noct’s left arm dropped, and he folded his wings back.
The whistle of metal sang through the dark, followed by a flame-blue comet trail in the shape of a boy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nyx escorted the Prince down to the Citadel garage, where a solitary Crownsguard car waited. As they approached, the trunk popped open and Scientia’s nephew climbed out of the driver’s seat and opened the back car door for The Prince.
“Hey Specs! Sorry I’m late!”
The enthusiastic greeting shocked the sour moue right off his chamberlain’s face; Scientia smiled like a man used to having his hopes dashed.
“It went well, then?” He took the Engine Blade case from the Prince’s hands and put it into the trunk of the car.
“Yeah, I finally got it. I’m gonna ask Prom to come next time so he can record me. He’s gonna flip.” The Prince raised a hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn, then extended it in a half-wave: “Thanks, Nyx!” He slid into to the backseat, fingers already tapping frantically over the glossy surface of his cellphone.
Scientia closed the car door behind The Prince, and turned to Nyx. “Apologies for all the earlier intrusions, but I didn’t expect the lesson would run so late. Were you in there throwing daggers in the dark?”
“And a sword!” Nyx chirped, just to see the kid’s eyes widen in dismay. Nyx realized in that second that he had absolutely no recollection of what Scientia's first name was, but that it probably wasn’t ‘Specs.’ “He was determined to do it, and he did it. Probably want to tell Amicitia to increase whatever P.T. he’s got him doing for that old back injury, though.”
Scientia nodded and grimaced slightly. “I’d hate to see it flare up, but I am pleased to see him put in such an effort. It’s very important to His Majesty that His Highness learn the skills of his birthright sooner rather than later.”
“He’s gonna do just fine. A couple of lessons in battle warping techniques, and then he just has to practice regularly on his own.” Scientia nodded again. “You’re welcome to join next time,” Nyx added. “Amicitia, too. If you’re going to be Prince Noctis’ Crownsguard you’re going to have to get used to him disappearing on you.”
Scientia chuckled. “I’ll bear that in mind, and perhaps I will. But for now, I should get His Highness home. It is a school night.”
Nyx took a few steps back from the car as the Scientia boy walked back around to the driver’s side. These kids. Not even old enough to drink. Hell, barely old enough to drive. Barely older than Selena had been.
“Hey, you guys be careful! Out there on the road,” Nyx called out.
Scientia nodded, and took his seat behind the wheel. Nyx watched the car cruise away and then went back up in the elevator.
All at once, he was struck by a feeling of…profound silence. He could hear all the creaks and chimes of the elevator, but it felt like some sound that had always been there before was suddenly missing. It reminds him of the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night during one of the summer brownouts. When Nyx was back walking through the corridors Citadel he passed beneath the Crystal’s chamber, and felt the familiar tug on his magic. That was when he realized what was missing: The Prince. He was no longer in the presence of a Caelum, and the King’s magic within him had calmed and settled.
Nyx checked the time as he sped his pace toward the train station, and he called Libertus to make sure the crew would still be at Yama-chans’ when he arrived. Before he could even get a word in, Crowe had snatched the phone and demanded to know where had Nyx been all day; insisted that they were about to send in an extraction team. Nyx laughed, and promised he’d be there soon, and that he'd tell them all about it: the tale of Nyx Ulric, the Glaive from Galahd, who set the Crown Prince of Lucis on fire, and then taught him how to fly.
Like something out of a fairytale.
~~~~~~~~~~~~