Archive of Our Own

“So, where’re we off to next?”

“We have a parcel to deliver to Wiz at the outpost, but picking up a few hunts along the way shouldn’t hurt.”

“Nice! Chocobos, here we come,” Prompto says, taking a bite of his food and nearly spits it back out. “Ugh, this is so bad. How can they make egg taste bad this is a miracle.” He makes a disgusted face.

“Just be glad you even have food.”

Ignis takes a bite of his own. “Hmm.” That he doesn’t whip his notebook out to take notes with his usual enthuse is most telling.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we shoulda just gone for cup noodles.” Gladio points his fork at Prompto at that in agreement. “It’s even cheaper than this, right, Noct? …Noct?"

Noctis was wordlessly peppering his plate with salt.

“Noct,” Ignis says warningly.

“This doesn’t taste like anything,” Noctis returns, scrunching his nose. The egg was like sand in his mouth, and the fries were cold, dry lumps probably left out for too long. The only thing that was even remotely flavourful was the salad, and that had ended up on Ignis’s plate.

“I wouldn’t go that far, “ Prompto says. “More like plain biscuits or something. Tough on the teeth. And really bland.” He pulls a face. “Okay, yeah it doesn’t taste like anything. Stop hogging the salt, Noct.”

He’s ignored, and Noctis continues to shower his food with the condiment.

Ignis stares at the accumulating whiteness with growing concern. “…Noct, I think that’s more than enough.” The prince didn’t show any sign of having heard him, so he plucks the saltshaker out of his hand. Noctis sends him a baleful look when Ignis passes it to Prompto.

“Leave some for the rest of us,” Gladio says, popping a sorry excuse for a fry into his mouth and grimacing. He grabs the shaker when Prompto puts it down in favour of rooting through his loot from the market in Lestallum.

Noctis’s plate is covered in powder snow and Ignis resists the urge to order a new plate for him. An eye twitches when Noctis stabs into two fries and salt rains down onto the plate as he lifts the fork. “What, you want some?”

“Nothing of the sort, merely concerned.”

“Oh man, this is fake!” Prompto exclaims, turning over a cactuar figure and sees part of the paint peeling off one side, to reveal a model Talcott already has.

“What?” Noctis frowns, peering over the table to get a better look. Discreetly, Ignis reaches over with his own fork to scrape some of the whiteness off. It wouldn’t do to have the heir to the throne going into cardiac arrest from unpalatable food. “Damn. Think we can get a refund?”

“Doubt it, the dude looked way shifty. May not even be there anymore.”

“True.”

“At least we still have the plushie for Iris.”

Prompto sweats when he feels Ignis’s stare boring into the side of his face in silent accusation for wasting funds. Noctis is blissfully unaware, stirring his food around boredly with his fork. He makes a face, before pushing his plate away from him. Ignis looks relieved at that, and Prompto sends a silent thanks to Noctis when it takes Ignis’s attention off him.

“And the chocobo one you got.”

“Sshhh! Don’t say it so loud!”

“I’m right here, you know.”

***

“Imperials above us!”

Noctis appreciated the warning, he really did, but he certainly didn’t feel the same way about the subject. He makes a frustrated sound as the rumble of the magitek engine increases in volume and a large shadow drapes over the ground stretched out in front of them.

Looks like that parcel wasn’t going to get delivered today.

“Duck!”

Noctis does so on instinct, sweeping a leg out to trip the trooper in front of him as a dagger flies over his head to sink unerringly in the soldier’s behind him. He stabs his own into the chest of the one he just tripped, and the resulting high-pitched screams echo shrilly in his ears.

Removing the blade from the sparking hunk of metal, he sees Ignis’s dagger shatter and take shape safely back in his hand as he cuts mercilessly into his next target.

Gladiolus is a reassuring presence behind him, taking out his fair share of enemies, and they dance nimbly around each other back-to-back with grins on their faces as they reduce their numbers. A group takes notice of their efforts, and the troopers wielding the imperial banners start to move.

“Gladio!"

“Gotcha! Don’t miss!"

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

Hopping onto the greatsword Gladio holds low to the ground, the tattooed man launches Noctis high into the air before using the resulting momentum to carve into the one closest to him. Noctis slams down a split second later, lance spearing into a bannerman close to the middle, and effectively disperses the formation.

Ignis is there drawing one away, and Prompto’s long-range support prevents any from focusing their attention on them at any one time for long.

Switching out the spear for his more familiar engine blade, Noctis makes a confused sound when his hand closes around empty air. An axe was inches from his face, and bereft of a weapon, he panics. The familiar weight materialises a beat later than he expected, and he barely manages to parry the blow, body flowing instinctively into a counter of his own, phasing to the side to slash into its back.

Noctis backs away as his heart rabbits in his chest at the small scare. Had he imagined that? Although…they had taken on a little too many hunts in too short a time recently, and he could feel the tell-tale signs of stasis coming on if they continued like this for much longer.

He comes back to himself, taking a quick look around to make sure no one had seen that, and is relieved when he spots Gladio and Ignis occupied with two of the remaining troopers. The hunts might have been tiring, but they trusted him to know better than overuse more magic that he didn’t have.

The number of enemies had dwindled significantly, and Prompto made his way closer to where Noctis stood, watching the older members of their group take out the last of the imperials.

They’re dispatched easily enough, but it nagged at Noctis. He holds a hand out, and wills his engine blade to him. It appears in a flash, and startles Prompto.

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Sorry! Didn’t notice you there."

Prompto ventures forward, and it’s taken out of his mind when he waves to Noctis frantically from where he started looting the remains of the soldiers. At least Cid was going to have fun tinkering with more empire tech.

***

“That the marshal? What’d he say?”

“Not to go to Duscae for a while. Something ’bout more Niffs spotted ’round the area,” Noctis replies, pocketing his phone. Prompto looked devastated, but still partially hopeful. “Includes the chocobo outpost.”

“Nooo!” Prompto wails in despair.

“Stop being dramatic. It’s not like you can’t still rent them here.”

“But…but the chocobabies!”

“So what do we do now?”

“…There were still a few hunts open at the tipster’s in Lestallum.” Noctis and Prompto groans at that. Gladio ignores them and throws another piece of wood into the fire.

“Some extra income wouldn’t go amiss. Certainly would help to pass the time as well.”

-

It’s been a week.

“Uhh, Noct…you feelin’ okay?”

A week of near constant hunts and the suffocating heat of Lestallum. The shade of the umbrella over their heads provided little relief.

“Yeah? Why?”

A week since his taste buds seem to have taken a vacation. He knew they shouldn’t have ate at that place. Eating that stuff after his palate had been thoroughly spoilt by Ignis must have sent his taste buds on a strike.

It called for desperate measures.

“That soup looks…lethal.”

“Here ya go! Daggerquil soup, spiciest level as requested!” Their waitress says cheerfully, putting down the utensils last after serving everything on the tray. “You guys from the Crown City? Didn’t know Insomnians could take their spicy food so well.”

“Not usually. Just wanted to try something new.”

After she leaves, Noctis takes a sip. He frowns with a contemplative sound. The table’s quiet, and when he looks up it’s to see Gladio and Ignis giving him looks of apprehension as well. Noctis wasn't known for his spice tolerance.

“What’s up?”

“’What’s up?!’ That soup look like a whole bottle of hot sauce was dumped in there! It looks like blood.” Prompto gasps. “What are you doing with that bottle of Tabasco?”

Noctis doesn’t reply, capping the bottle and spoons a mouthful into his mouth. They watch with morbid fascination as he swallows and takes another spoonful. And another.

And another.

“Water, Noct?” Ignis offers, holding out the water jug to him expectantly.

“Nah, I’m good.” The hand doesn’t recede, but pours him a glass. “C’mon, Prompto’s just overreacting. This is nothing, I can barely taste it.” He wipes the sweat beading on his brow. Didn’t mean he couldn’t feel it. His mouth was burning and it made the heat worse, but still…

“No way it doesn’t,” Prompto mumbles. He loved all things spicy, but even he wouldn’t go that far…he was really curious now. Bravely, trustingly, he dips his spoon in. Time slows down for a second before he starts choking a moment later, diving for the glass Ignis was still holding and chugging down desperate gulps.

“That doesn’t look like nothing,” Gladio says unnecessarily. Noctis shrugs.

Prompto lets out a loud breath when he empties the glass. “…Noct, you dirty liar.” He pours himself another. “I didn't know Crystal magic gave royalty immunity to chilli.”

“It doesn’t,” Ignis supplies, also unnecessarily.

“That’s not soup, that’s soup-flavoured hot sauce.”

“You’re overreacting,” Noctis says again, but he doesn’t feel hungry anymore. He very carefully doesn’t think about how he can barely taste it despite the burning on his tongue. His mouth was burning, but that was all.

“No, I'm really not.” His voice turns accusing. “Who are you and what have you done with Noct?!”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.”

Gladio takes that moment to look up, and his eyes widen before he pushes Noctis’s head down.

“Hey! What—”

“Don’t look now, but there’re imperial soldiers coming this way.”

It makes them tense in their seats, and from the corner of his eye Noctis could see Gladio’s fingers curl around the hilt of a sword that wasn’t there. A glint tells him there was an actual dagger in Ignis’s hand. The timing couldn’t be worse. They couldn’t afford a skirmish in the heart of the city if they were found, where civilians could be caught in the crossfire.

They wait with bated breaths as the soldiers moved torturously slowly, each step taking them closer to their table. The thunk of metal against concrete grates nearer, and Gladio’s grip tightens on his shoulder. When they pause and swivel into the next corner, the group relaxes back into their seats.

“Phew. What’s up with that? So they’re not just in Duscae?” Prompto leans back against his seat.

“It appears not. But we honestly shouldn’t be surprised, considering how they’ve all but claimed Lucis as theirs.”

A sombre silence falls over their table.

Noctis breaks it first. “…Lay low for awhile?”

“Don’t have much of a choice. But I’m not sure how well that’s gonna work out.”

“Yeah, because it’s worked so well for us the past few times we tried.”

“We can hardly complicate the residents here.”

“It’s totally Noct’s fault. It’s the warping. Very flashy.” Prompto dodges the balled tissue, and groans. “Camping?”

“Camping,” Ignis confirms.

***

Noctis blinks groggily into his coffee mug, enjoying the steam on his face in the cold morning air. He was comfortable where he sat, and felt too tiresome to get up. “Hey Specs, we got anymore sugar?”

Ignis pauses in the packing of his make-do kitchen, “if you so require. Bit of a sweet tooth, today?”

That means his friend had put in his usual amount already. His stomach sinks. He looks back into the brown liquid, and shrugs noncommittally. “Nn.”

After the soup of death, as Prompto had taken to dubbing it, his taste was all but gone. On the same night when Noctis had asked Ignis if he held back on the seasoning, the blond had joked that the soup must have burned his taste buds off. Ignis didn’t look amused.

“Perhaps it would be wise to lay off the spices for a while. It pains me to say, but Prompto might have a point about the chilli.” He turns serious, however, when something occurs to him. “Are you coming down with something? You’ve looked a bit tired recently.” Because that would make more sense. Noctis could see the worry in the crease of his brows.

“Don’t think so. Doesn’t feel like it?” Ignis frowns at how he phrased it as a question. “Don’t worry about it, it’s probably just all the hunts. If it is, I promise you’ll be the first one I’ll tell. I’ll just go to sleep earlier tonight.”

Noctis is doubtful about the flu bug, but he doesn’t show it. His word seemed to appease Ignis a little though.

They had enough to worry about, honestly. He can deal with a little cold. It’s not like he was the only one having a hard time.

He just—he just needed more sleep. That’s all. He’ll feel brand new tomorrow.

-

No surprise, he doesn’t feel brand new tomorrow. Because it’s past twelve and it’s tomorrow and they had just cleared out the ice bombs that were their targets, and the imps and iron giant that crashed the party. So much for sleeping early.

It was a ridiculously tough battle, and they wouldn’t even be out in the dark of the night at this ungodly hour if it weren’t for the bounty. Why did they take this again?

Noctis frowns when the potion he crushed was slow to act on the now sluggishly bleeding slice on his arm, and goes to check on Prompto where he was slumped against a rock.

Prompto’s eyes trail him as he walks over. “Hey, how ya holdin’ up, buddy?”

“That’s my line.”

Prompto laughs tiredly. “I’m bushed. Could sleep right here, dude.”

“That’s a first, you not complaining about the lack of beds.”

“Not if it means running a few miles for them in the night.”

“Point.” Noctis makes a concerned noise at the blood dripping down his hair. “You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, so are you. And Gladio and Ignis.” Noctis tosses him a potion anyway. “Thanks.”

Noctis collapses into the grass next to his friend, leaning against the rock and takes out another potion for himself. “What I wouldn’t give for a bed, though.” Noctis downs the bottle, and the cool relief of healing magic washes over him, even replenishing a little of his energy stores. He watches as the wound on his arm slowly knits close, leaving just a still too-tender spot he’s going to avoid touching for the next few hours.

“Gladio’s getting the longer end of the stick big time, man. Don’t think even Iggy would be up for cooking after that.”

“Cup noodles, three nights in a row. Yum.”

-

The noodles felt like worms in his mouth, and he barely managed to keep from throwing up.

He pretends to fall asleep, and predictably Ignis takes his leftovers from him before ushering him into the tent.

***

Noctis was hiding something, Ignis was ninety percent sure of it.

“Again, Noct?” Ignis asks, frowning when he sees Noctis’s plate almost completely untouched.

“Uh…just, don’t really feel hungry today,” Noctis mumbles guiltily, shifting his weight to another foot as he was scrutinised under the sharp gaze.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed the past few days, Highness.” Noctis winces when Ignis busts out the title. Nothing conveyed his displeasure more, and Ignis was aware of that.

Imagine his surprise when Noctis’s plate came back utterly clean one night. It wouldn’t have been so surprising, if he hadn’t put carrots on the side that day. Thinking it was just somebody else’s plate, he’s only fully convinced when he collects all four with no orange to be found anywhere. It gave him a near sleepless night, only getting rest after he concluded Noctis must’ve just thrown it somewhere else or foisted it off one of the others.

Until the plate came back clean the next, too. And the next. All without a trace of vegetables.

He hadn’t gleaned anything from the Gladio or Prompto either, when both replied in the negative to helping Noctis finish his. He was restless the whole evening, racking his brains on anything he might have done differently to have persuaded Noctis to finally get over his picky habits, but nothing came to mind.

Ignis had stood suddenly, chair clattering back as he handed his coffee to a nonplussed Prompto, before making his way to where Noctis was drowsing against his chocobo. He laid a hand on Noctis’s forehead, and puts his other on his own.

Noctis had allowed him the gesture, sleep clouding his eyes, but the unamused raised brow spoke volumes.

He didn’t have a fever then. But Ignis was about to question his judgment, when it takes a complete turn the subsequent nights.

“Are you certain you’re not down with a cold?” Because no matter how much Ignis thought about it, the reason for his sudden loss of appetite just doesn’t occur to him.

“I’m—yeah. …No. Maybe?” He winces.

“Noct.”

“I mean, maybe it is?” He looked like he was debating with himself, before he finally admits reluctantly. “…I can’t, taste much recently.”

Ah, that would explain a few things. And also give rise to more questions.

But other than the loss of appetite, Noctis didn’t look sick—exhausted, yes, but sick, no. His nose doesn’t seem blocked either, which was strange to say the least.

Nevertheless, it was concerning, and he was already running ideas through his head, shortlisting recipes with herbs and spices that might help bring out flavour without the use of sugar or salt.

Ignis studies him with an unreadable look on his face, and Noctis fights not to squirm. Ignis relents eventually, “off to bed with you, then. We can’t it developing into something worse.”

The worry doesn’t abate.

-

The texture of food had never been so keenly felt, something he hadn’t thought he would one day be so sensitive to.

He also hadn’t thought he would one day describe Ignis’s food as insipid. He knew Ignis had tried to help in his own way, but the variety of textures made him queasy.

And he still couldn’t taste anything.

Noctis wasn’t kidding about the gooey flans being really disgusting, and when they had cool dessert to beat the heat away his stomach roils from the texture on his tongue and just how it felt in his mouth without the taste to accompany it.

But Noctis does throw up, lost in his thoughts as he was when he takes a spoon of bean soup. There were bugs squirming in his mouth, and he barely manages to get to the edge of the haven before heaving up everything he had ingested that day. Which frankly hadn’t been much at all.

“No hunts tomorrow,” Ignis says crisply in a tone that brooked no argument. There were none. Gladio and Prompto just looked concerned, and Noctis didn’t have the heart or energy to explain or clarify.

He doesn’t protest when Ignis hands him a bottle and drops pills into his hands that he unflinchingly knocks back, before he shuffles into the tent and falls tiredly into his sleeping bag.

-

It was like the world had put on a veil, the disconnection he feels. Like watching a cooking show on TV and having to imagine everything else other than the visuals and audio it provided. Something he had taken for granted all this time.

Everything felt unreal.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just his taste, after all it’s not like he needed it to survive; but it was becoming increasingly obvious that the first lapse in the change of his weapons hadn’t been a fluke.

Miserably, Noctis sneaks his food to his chocobo in between glances up to see if anyone was watching. He could only hope it was temporary.

***

Their skirmishes with imperials had risen in number—as if they needed any more evidence the empire was really taking over Lucis—as they were ambushed by more imperials than were necessarily comfortable, but still within their ability to handle. If they fell into bed earlier than usual sometimes without even eating, nobody said a word of complaint.

They had to be careful not to stay in the same place for long too, shifting around havens and outposts to make sure the imperials wouldn’t find them in the same spot. His friends took turns heading into the city to grab whatever they needed, so Noctis amused himself with training. And if he were allowed, fishing.

Receiving the call from Cor hadn’t been surprising, even less so was the news he delivered about the increasing soldiers not just in Duscae. They had felt it themselves, the increase in drop ships overhead in the skies. Soldiers in cities and outposts they made sure not to stand out too much in, changing out their fatigues for something less conspicuous.

There were garrisons springing up across the regions, red rays shooting up into the sky as unwanted beacons, more eyesores than anything.

“Noct!”

“On it!”

Noctis bites against the pain in his thigh, smarting with every move he made. He crushes a potion in his hand and clicks his tongue in frustration when it barely takes the edge off. His magic had been worryingly sluggish lately to add salt to wound—as if he didn’t have enough going for him right now—and he brings out a hi-potion when the previous potion should have sufficed.

“Prompto, back me up!” He calls over his shoulder, even as he’s frustrated at the sword that was slow to take shape in his hand.

“Leave it to me!”

The pain subsides and Noctis wastes no time in warping into the voretooth Gladio was interlocked with, his blade piercing unerringly into the canine’s hide. He materialises just before impact, slamming into its side and jams the sword further in with a small spray of blood.

Putting his whole body weight in that strike makes the voretooth slide a few metres across the ground, and it howls in agony as he rips the weapon back out.

Prompto was firing shot after shot, breaking up their formation and making sure the rest of the pack didn’t get any ideas about ambushing him. He flips backward off it, leaving Gladio to take the opening while he looks for a new target.

Disorientation takes him.

“Shit…!” He loses his balance and misses his landing.

It was something that hadn’t happened to him after the initial stages of his warp training, the disorienting wooziness that accompanied it.

He falls on his rear, and the plan is further derailed when the injured voretooth growls and jumps back to its feet in no time at all, before it pounces and pins him to the ground. “Agh!” He brings his sword up to block a few moments too late, and the weak attempt is slapped away with a powerful foreleg as it snaps its teeth in his face with a snarl.

Gladio was there a second later, cleaving it almost in half in one fell strike with a roar and the weight above him disappears.

Noctis falls back onto the ground, blinking and breathing heavily at the near miss as Gladio rests his sword on a shoulder with a raised brow. “Yeah, I know I know. Try not to fall over next time. Got it.”

“’Long as you know,” Gladio says as he hauls him up by the arm, Prompto laughing his way over before slapping a hand between his shoulders.

That was embarrassing, and Gladio probably hadn’t chewed him out more for it because of the episode he had a few days prior. They clear out the last of the pack, and Noctis dispels his weapon, trying to dust the dirt off his pants as well as he can.

If it had only been his senses going haywire, he would have felt marginally better about it. The particularly worrying laggy response of his weapons nagged at him, and he’s worried that there’s something more seriously wrong with his magic than he first thought. The lapse didn’t disappear as he originally thought it would—it happened again and again, getting longer each time such that he hesitated in even changing weapons once he pulls one out.

He’s careful his friends don’t notice it, making sure if he did switch one out that he was out of range of enemies and had enough time to do so before any could strike. Using a different one in between battles for variations.

Noctis could hear his three friends talking behind him. He sighs, and turns to join them. But he pauses mid-turn and stares at the ground. On a whim, he holds a palm out at chest level, and calls fire to him.

It was something he didn’t really get the chance to do, when throwing spell flasks were infinitely easier and required significantly less concentration when he just needed to aim. His first few failed tries were more likely attributed to being out of practice—or at least he hoped—than problems with his magic.

In the few false starts, sparks flickered in and out above his hand before fizzing out. He could feel the rising panic in his throat the more it happened. It took longer than it should have—he really should start practicing more—but flames finally kindle in his palm, and he doesn’t realise he’s holding his breath until it comes out in one relieved whoosh, disturbing the fire licking soundlessly at his fingers.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if the elements hadn’t answered his call. But his magic was okay, he still had it, sluggish as it was. Maybe once they could take a break from all those hunts, it’ll be back to normal.

He just had to ration his magic in the meantime, and be careful not to push stasis as he seemed more likely to with the dwindling pool of his magic.

And he wouldn’t need to worry his friends.

“—oct?”

Noctis startles violently as sound rushes back in all at once, spinning around and dislodging the hand on his shoulder. The flames are extinguished with a reflexive curl of his fist. Ignis’s hand was frozen in the air, and he looked surprised.

“…Ignis! Sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Noctis hastens to apologise, feeling the traces of warmth in his fist he unconsciously brings to his chest.

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past couple of minutes,” Ignis says softly, as if Noctis was a small animal he didn’t want to spook further. Unease makes itself known in the pit of his stomach.

“Sorry, just thinking about something. ’Sup?”

Ignis appraises him, but doesn’t press. “We’ve decided to set up camp ahead of schedule, seeing how the outpost is a little out of the way. Our reward can wait till tomorrow.”

“Great, I’m starving.” Lie. Ignis looked like he knew it too.

“Well, then we’d best hurry back to camp. And you might as well help with dinner, if you want it quicker.”

“Do I have to?” Noctis groans, more to put up a show for the principle of it. He didn’t mind helping Ignis cook at all.

“We’ll see if your previous cooking experience can yet be salvaged.” He glances at Noctis from the corner of his eye as they walk back towards where Gladio had Prompto in a headlock. “…Is there something you wish to tell me, Noct?”

He almost does, he wants to spill the beans so badly but Ignis had more than enough on his plate between driving, preparing their meals and keeping them on schedule than worry about something that was only a mild inconvenience at the moment.

Noctis shakes his head instead, and keeps his silence. It’ll be okay. It’s probably just a freak cold.

He doesn’t know how long he’s going to lie to himself.

-

He takes to wearing his daggers instead. The ones it took him near five minutes to conjure. He hides them under his jacket where they couldn’t be seen. He’s also careful about warping too much, when stasis comes easier with his ebbing magic and seemed to tire him out faster.

It’s not a far stretch to think there’s a correlation between his failing senses and waning magic, when they had occurred at approximately the same time. And it was senses, because Noctis couldn’t remember when was the last time he had smelled anything.

It was becoming more than a 'mild inconvenience', but he continues to cling to the hope that it was a temporary condition, but it was dying fast.

He wishes for someone to tell him what was wrong. Crystal magic was complex and intricate, and it would help so, so much if he had somebody he could ask.

He wishes for his father.

***

It comes to a head on their next dungeon venture, and confirms what he’d suspected for days.

He’s playing with the decision of telling them when they stop in front of the grotto they were about to tackle that day. And of course it was another cave, he was getting pretty sick of those, but he sighs and takes a step forward.

A few steps in, he realises the only footsteps he can hear is his own, and turns back to find his friends with their faces scrunched up almost comically, if it didn’t alert him that something was wrong. His stomach sinks.

Prompto wasn’t holding back with the sounds of disgust.

“It certainly does smell something rancid inside, “ Ignis says, confirming his suspicions.

“You can say that again. Man, it smells worse than a sewer.” Prompto pinches his nose. “I don’t wanna go in there! Not when it already smells this bad when I’m still out here.”

“Stop whining and start walking. Look at Noct, he’s more manned up about it than you are,” Gladio says approvingly, impressed, making his own way forward. He turns to look at the prince—who looked like he was about to be sick. “Don’t make me take those words back, kid.”

Noctis was in fact about to be sick, but not for the reasons Gladio thought. If this wasn’t sufficient evidence that his sense of smell too was a gone case, nothing else was.

Avoiding thinking about it had done nothing for him, hoping it would go away on its own even more so. It had only gotten worse, and it scared him. It scared him that his friends’ voices seemed softer than he remembers at this distance, much less in a cave where everything echoed louder than intended, scared him that he would lose more together with his continually depleting magic.

Being unable to taste or smell sucked, but becoming deaf was a much, much more frightening prospect. It terrifies him that it might not stop at his hearing.

He had watched his friends closely, but they didn’t seem to have any problems with their weapons as he did, which had convinced him this wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t seem to be the case.

Taste and smell aside, his magic concerned them as well, they at least had a right to know about that. It wouldn’t just be his own life he’s risking if it gives out completely without warning. They all depended a big part on his magic, and he owed it to them to explain.

This was something beyond his control, and maybe it was time to admit he needed help.

“Guys, I need—”

“No backing out now, princess. We took the hunt, we finish the hunt and claim the bounty.” Gladio looks at Prompto who had been inching backward slowly. He sighs, backtracks out of the entrance to round up behind him, and shoves him in.

“Guh—hey! I could’ve fallen in…in whatever gunk that is coating the floor!” Prompto squawks indignantly, before a greenish tint took over his face. “Oh ew, dammit, I forgot to hold my breath.”

Gladio follows after him with a snort, and Ignis wastes no time in doing the same, coming to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Noctis. A look of distaste mars his features.

“I suppose we ought to finish this up quick, before we pass out from the mere stench alone.” Ignis purses his lips, before continuing in a deliberately louder voice. “And perhaps we can afford beds tonight after collecting our reward.” In his usual tone, “we could all use a break from the hard ground.”

There’s a loud whoop from the front, and Ignis shakes his head in amusement.

Noctis had entered the cave first, but now he brings up the rear. He looks helplessly at his friends’ backs as they venture deeper into the dark. He wonders if the darkness lingering on the edges of his vision is due to the abysmal lighting or his sight starting to fail. He tries to think of it as paranoia, but the logical side of him tells him it’s much, much deeper than that.

A hand steadies him when he stumbles over a rough spot in the uneven ground, “careful there.” He smiles weakly up at Ignis in silent gratitude, before looking away but Ignis—watchful, perceptive Ignis—looks concerned. “Something the matter, Noct?”

He wanted to say it right then and there, but Gladio was right. They had taken up a hunt and were already here. It wouldn’t do to distract any of them right now, not on dangerous hunts like this one, and definitely not in caves like these just crawling with daemons.

They needed all the focus they could muster. One more hunt, and then he would tell them.

***

“What the hell was that?!”

Gladio was fuming, and only became angrier when it didn’t get a rise out of Noctis like he had expected. Like he had wanted. He wanted an explanation, and he wanted it now. The prince stayed silent as Ignis cleaned the deep slice on his arm after finishing with the gash on his temple.

“You think—”

“Gladio."

“…Tch.”

“Noct, you holdin’ up okay?” Prompto calls out from where he sat opposite the fire, but Noctis didn’t show any sign of hearing. “Noct?” He tries again, this time looking uncertainly at Ignis.

“Noct.” The prince drags his eyes up with what seemed like monumental effort, and Ignis was getting really worried. “Prompto asked you a question.”

Panic flashed through deep blue eyes, and Ignis felt his stomach drop further. There was something Noctis wasn’t telling them, and they needed to get to the bottom of the matter now. Especially if it got him hurt.

He could see Noctis visibly trying to calm himself, affect his usual air of apathy, but he wasn’t fooling anyone there. They weren’t his closest friends for no reason.

Noctis clears his throat. “Sorry, Prompto. What was that?"

“Uh, it’s nothing. Just checking how you’re doing, buddy.”

There was a look of concentration on his face, Ignis couldn’t put his finger on it, but it felt out of place, for such an innocuous question. He was staring hard at Prompto, and only after he finished voicing his question did he relax his stance once more. But if he wasn’t tense from the question, because that was simply unlikely, then it was almost as if—

“Fine. …Don’t even really feel it,” Noctis mumbles self-consciously, and the snort from Gladio makes him shrink into himself. He doesn’t take his eyes away from Prompto until he’s sure he doesn’t have anything else to say, before his gaze drops back to the ground.

It sets off warning bells in Ignis’s head. He carefully finishes tying off the bandages on his arm before standing from his seat. He shifts to crouch in front of Noctis, plucking the untouched potion from his hands, and forces him to meet his eyes.

“Noct, I need you to answer truthfully.” The gravity in his voice caught the attention of the others, and he could feel their eyes on the two of them and the strange sight they made—Ignis on one knee looking beseechingly up at his liege shrouded by a heavier than usual air of melancholy. He takes cold hands into his own, and tries to warm them by calling a little fire to his palms. Something to do while he ponders how best to ask his next question.

There really was no delicate way around it.

He could read the trepidation in the night sky of his eyes, and he almost doesn’t follow through with the question. It was more than confirmation enough, but he needed to hear it. They needed to hear it.

“How much can you hear?”

“What? What does that—”

“Ignis, what—”

He ignores the explosion of voices behind him, and focuses on Noctis’s face, watches how it falls and become overcome by an emotion uncomfortably close to despair.

“Noctis,” he pleads, and the eyes that had darted involuntarily to the side meets his own again. The prince swallows convulsively, as if there was a lump in his throat preventing his voice from coming out. His mouth opens and closes in a mime of words, but none was forthcoming.

Ignis didn’t know what he had expected to hear, but nothing was more damning than the silence that swept over the haven more oppressively than the threat of an imperial drop ship above them.

Finally, Noctis admits a small, “not much?” Ignis sighs and closes his eyes. He feels more than hear Gladio approach them.

“Explain.” The word was curt and tight.

“I’m getting there.” He needed to hear from Noctis first, but he had his own theories, and desperately hopes he was wrong for once. “How long, Noct?”

“The hearing?” It was an odd choice of words, and Ignis knew he was right. He nods, urging Noctis to continue. “It comes and goes, but about two days…?”

The tactician breathes out slowly. “Taste?”

Noctis is looking everywhere but them. He mumbles a dispirited “three weeks” to his shoes.

Ignis’s chest constricts. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I was going to,” Noctis says. “Just—it wasn’t important.” And then it was. Ignis wants to hit and hug him at the same time. His voice got smaller toward the end. “…We have enough to worry about.”

-

“Noct appears to be afflicted with ageusia, and if my suspicions are correct, anosmia as well. If you recall, he had on more than one occasion been liberal with salt and sauces at diners, implying an impairment of gustation, and his lack of hesitation in entering the cave today alludes to a deficit in his olfactory—”

He spies the increasingly blank look on Prompto’s face, and sighs long-sufferingly.

“…He can’t taste or smell either.”

Prompto’s second resulting “what” was high-pitched and reedy, but Gladio was a wall of stone, and his face only became harder further down Ignis’s exposition.

Because the signs were there, and they had overlooked it. While he had been tending to his wounds, Ignis had also noticed a disturbing loss of weight that Noctis had been hiding under his jacket. But that wasn’t all.

When Ignis turned to face Noctis again, he noticed he seemed to be debating something with himself, and it made him feel like wincing. Because—

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

Dark blue met green fleetingly, darting away to look at the glowing runes on the ground, before flitting back to meet them again. He takes his bottom lip between his teeth, and nods. This was actually the part he had intended to explain, maybe without touching on his faulty taste, but he hadn’t counted on Ignis picking up on his senses. 

“My…” He wets his lips. “My weapons are taking longer to respond.” A quick, hesitant glance from under his bangs at Gladio before it flits back to his boots. “And I can’t…I can’t warp as far as I used to.” It sounded like an excuse for his mistake, and he felt pathetic.

Back in the cave, he had messed up a warp. He overestimated the distance he could travel, and it landed him straight in the arc of a ronin’s sword. He’d barely twisted to the side in blind panic, where the blade cuts sharply into his arm instead of piercing straight through his belly.

His sword had shattered with the loss of his focus, and if Gladio hadn’t engaged the daemon right after to distract it from easier prey he would have been minced meat. It hadn’t helped that he’d landed badly, and ended up with an additional sprained ankle.

They never made it to the bounty.

“And—”

“There’s more?” Noctis flinches back, and hunches inward. Ignis and Prompto glare at him. Gladio feels suitably chastised, he hadn’t meant to explode like he did, but he was worried that this was getting a lot more serious than he was comfortable with when they first returned from that failed hunt.

And it was so like Noctis to withdraw in the face of things that mattered and always pushing when it didn’t.

“Noct?” Ignis presses softly. The prince mumbles something he doesn’t catch. “I’m sorry?”

Noctis takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly.

“Potions aren’t, really working anymore. I think—I think there’s something wrong with my magic.”

-

Noctis had been reluctant when Ignis sent him into the tent, but they could see how worn out he was and he relents when Ignis says, “we’ll worry about it tomorrow. Get some rest for now.”

After helping Noctis inside, he came out to where they sat in silence around the fire. Ignis sinks heavily into a chair.

“…So, what do we do now?” Prompto asks hesitantly. He and Gladio both turn to Ignis, the tactician of their group, always armed with a ready answer or strategy whenever they needed one.

But Ignis only closes his eyes.

“I don’t know."

***

They call Cor this time. To update him on the situation, and more hopeful for a solution.

“Could this be related to the Crystal in any way?”

“I haven’t heard or seen anything like this with the previous kings before,” the solemn voice of the marshal admits through the speaker, “but it’s not entirely impossible, if however unlikely. You say the curatives and weapons still work for you?”

“Inexplicably, considering the magic we have access to is by way of Noctis. The problem seems peculiar to him alone.”

“And his magic is…fading?”

“According to Noct, yes. I assume he would know better than us about his own magic. …I’m worried, Marshal. From what he’s told us, it doesn’t seem likely to be a temporary condition…or if it would stop at his hearing. We don’t know if his loss of senses is related to his magic, if it would become permanent the longer he stays this way, or even how fast it would continue to deteriorate if it does.” They didn’t know anything. He wishes Noctis had trusted them with this sooner.

Ignis had been up thinking about this all night, and he still couldn’t come up with an explanation. He had come to the same conclusion as Noctis: that as more of his magic fades, it takes his senses along with it. He doesn’t want to think they had more than one thing to worry about. They hadn’t done anything different or notable for weeks, and it didn’t add up that this would happen to Noctis out of the blue.

“We only have conjecture at this point, we can’t say anything for sure until we find out the cause of it.” Cor rationalises, before he falls quiet. “How’s he doing?”

Ignis looks over his shoulder to where Prompto and Noctis were huddled over the blond’s camera. He was infinitely grateful for Prompto, who treated him the same way he always did when Noctis awoke, trying to bring some semblance of normality back. Which he was sure Noctis appreciated. He was still understandably jittery, and couldn’t bring himself to meet their eyes as often—as if he had somehow failed them, which was absurd—but the prince had lost some of the disquiet from last night, looking more like himself this morning.

“…Fine, at the moment.”

“The timing couldn’t be worse,” Cor sighs. “I can only hope it doesn’t have anything to do with all the Niffs turning up everywhere.”

“What should we do?” Gladio asks.

“Take care of him. I’ll rally the Crownsguard and look for information on our side too. And try not to do anything stupid.” Easier said than done, when it seemed the empire was doubling their efforts to smoke the prince out.

“Much obliged, Marshal.”

Ignis hangs up, and exchanges a look with Gladio. Well then, time to do some reconnaissance of their own.

***

“I noticed he hadn’t been switching weapons or warping as much,” Gladio says abruptly as they walked behind the younger half of their group.

“…As did I,” Ignis replies eventually. Regrettably, he had not pursued the matter, as he should have done.

He remembers the time Noctis had admitted to not being able to taste, and rues not pressing further when he had the chance. He had taken care not to make food which texture might trigger Noctis after that night, skipping over more elaborate recipes that he couldn’t appreciate in his current condition in favour of soup and simpler dishes.

But it was hard to say what would and would not until Noctis actually tries it.

Cooking felt more like a chore now, when Noctis couldn’t taste. It just wasn’t the same, when he had started learning only because of Noctis in the first place. And now that Noctis couldn’t appreciate it as he did, cooking and coming up with new recipes just seemed to have lost all appeal.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. We couldn’t have guessed. You know how tight-lipped he is about the important stuff. He needs to get it through his thick head that we’re here to help.” Gladio sighs. “Just wished he trusted us to help him earlier.

“That makes two of us.” Ignis hesitates, but figures Gladio should know. “…I think it’s getting worse.”

“What do you mean? He can still hear, can’t he?” Gladio asks hurriedly, resisting the urge to run over to check even though he can clearly see and hear Prompto and Noctis carrying a conversation.

“He can. He assured me it was fine when I asked.”

Gladio relaxes. “Doesn’t that mean it’s still status quo for now?”

“This morning, I handed him the wrong cup of coffee.” Gladio waits for him to elaborate. “He had been drinking mine.”

There had been a lot of things on his mind in the light of what Noctis revealed, and distractedly he had passed Noctis his own mug. Noctis had always had a cat’s tongue, he never takes his drinks or food piping hot, preferring to let it cool for a few minutes before starting.

Gladio knew this, and regularly teased him about it. Ignis was of course aware, and always made sure Noctis’s was just the right temperature, so he could have it from the get go. It was only as he took a sip from the mug in his hands, did he realise his mistake. But when he moved to exchange with Noctis, an apology on his tongue, Noctis’s mug was already half drained.

But while Gladio looks unsettled at that information, he isn’t sure what that actually means. Ignis picks up on it.

“Senses are not as clear-cut as it’s always made out to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that while it’s usually classified into five major recognised categories, there are others that can be taken as senses as well.” There’s a long pause that tickles Gladio’s impatience. “For example: the sensation of pain.”

It sends a chill down Gladio’s spine, because while he didn’t know the full repercussions it might entail, the situations that came to mind was not good at all. He also didn't want to think of what else Noctis might have lost.

Up ahead, Prompto accidentally elbows Noctis in the side while gesticulating wildly, and both are a bit relieved when Prompto apologises to Noctis’s plaintive “ow.”

***

Noctis carefully bottles a thunder spell as Ignis hovers concernedly over his shoulder.

“Should you be extending your magic like this?” Ignis asks when he’s finally unable to keep his silence. He worries that the continuous use of it will escalate his condition, draining his magic faster and with it another of Noctis’s senses.

“Elemancy is…easier.” Noctis admits slowly, concentrating on not letting the spell blow up in his face. Sparks dance playfully on his palm. “It doesn’t seem to be as affected? I think it’s because it has to do more with manipulating existing elemental energy from the surroundings, rather than using the Crystal’s. So technically, I’m not using any of my own.”

They had allowed Noctis to continue to participate in battles, on the condition that he wouldn’t push himself beyond his limits, and stay close to any of them at any one time. He was also made to promise he wouldn’t warp unless he really had to, they hadn’t forgotten the incident in the cave. His answer to that had been spells.

It’s been five days, and his hearing hadn’t worsened since. They wonder if it’s okay to take it as a sign of recovery.

They also weren’t actively taking up that many hunts anymore—just as much as they needed for food and their curative supply. But they still stopped to help people in need, plagued with troubles more suited for hunters to handle. Information gathering also went easier when you have people in your debt.

It was to little avail. Magic was little understood even within the walls of Insomnia, and it was too much to expect people outside the Crown City to know anything beyond what was already publicly known. They update Cor on their whereabouts, keeping him apprised on their current situation. It was heartening, to know they had extra eyes—Crownsguard to boot—looking for answers too.

“There,” Noctis says, setting down the filled flask next to a bunch of others already swirling languidly with their respective elements. He pulls out another empty flask, and begins on that one too.

“Is there really a need for so many?” Ignis asks helplessly.

“There can never be too many,” Noctis replies blithely. “You can’t say they don’t make fights go a lot faster, and easier.” Wisps of smoky vapour trail from Noctis’s hands, Ignis could feel the chill from next to him. It was pleasant on his skin in the stifling heat of the unmerciful sun.

He almost doesn’t catch what Noctis mumbles next. He’s not sure if it was meant for his ears either.

“...It’s also better to stock up, just in case.”

He almost wishes he hadn’t.

***

Ignis doesn’t have time to think about it.

Noctis’s hearing persists, and his sight gives out first.

***

Ignis wakes to rapid breaths beside him, his phone lights up the dim interior of the tent as he checks the time, a hand reaching out automatically to wake Noctis from his nightmare.

Only, Noctis’s eyes were open.

It puts him on full alert, taking stock of the tent, and his eyes meet Gladio’s over the prince.

“Ignis?” The raw panic in that shaky voice makes Ignis want to gather him up into his arms and never let go.

“Noct, Noct, I’m right here—” He grasps Noctis’s left hand in both of his, even as he hears Prompto stir from his other side.

“Wha—wha’s happenin—”

Noctis latches onto Ignis’s hands with a desperation it hurt him to see, but nothing could’ve prepared them for what Noctis said next.

“Ignis, I can’t—I can’t see.” His eyes moved everywhere, even as he tilted closer toward Ignis, but they never focus on any one thing. “I can’t see.”

***

If Noctis thought they were hovering before, they’re absolutely insufferable now.

He had passed out from exhaustion after the initial panic Ignis talked him down, and the second time he woke, he was only marginally less panicked and clueless to what time it was. Having Prompto pressed against his side keeping up a stream of chatter had helped tremendously.

They made sure nothing obstructed his way when he moved about, which he was thankful for, but privacy at this point was a moot cause.

Didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate their help, but he’s pretty sure he can answer the call of nature on his own.

“I got this. Just go, do something else. I’m sure you have better things to do than wait for me.”

“But—”

“It’s only a few steps back up. Promise I’ll holler if I need help.” He just wanted, needed to know he could do at least this on his own.

“I’ll hold you to that.” But Ignis finally relents. He takes a few steps, before he looks back.

“Go.”

Ignis sighs, and disappears up the slope.

It was a lie if he said he wasn’t scared, because he was, out of his wits, but with no forthcoming new information the past week and the loss of his eyes, things seemed relatively bleak.

With his sight also went his ability to summon his weapons, other than the engine blade he had left out permanently. He was also now completely pulled out of battles. He swears they would leave him behind alone if they could. As it was, the previous plan of stick to one of them at all times had fallen to Prompto now, safest he was at the edge of battles.

He tries not to be angry, as he understood their worry, considering potions were just the energy drinks they originally were now.

It bummed, to know that his friends could handle fights without him. It was a good thing, don’t get him wrong, that they could take care of themselves without him. But it wasn’t a nice feeling, being unneeded, being a liability.

Noctis reaches a hand out and lays his palm flat on the trunk. He sighs, his body pitching slightly forward so he could lean his forehead against it too. The bark was rough on his skin, and the sound of the wind slipping through the leaves on the branches rustles in his ears.

...Being a burden.

-

He never felt more like a prince than he did now, being waited on hand and foot even more than he thought possible than back at the Citadel.

Prompto leads him to a chair carefully, and when he’s settled a plate is pushed into his hands and his hair ruffled. The weight was heavy on his head. Gladio. He smacks it away half-heartedly.

Noctis hardly needed to lift a finger nowadays. If he said he wanted to eat in the tent, he was sure nobody would argue. He was treated like an invalid, like he couldn’t do anything himself.

Which, he thinks bitterly, he couldn’t.

He could feel his magic slipping away more and more each fruitless day that passed, and he’s terrified when the next loss would hit. It was only a matter of time.

Eating was bad when he couldn’t taste, but it was an absolute nightmare when he couldn’t see either.

Ignis never made anything that was remotely mushy or squishy anymore, sticking to food that’s purely soup or meat, or something Noctis was inherently familiar with.

Not knowing what you were putting in your mouth destroyed what little appetite he had left, and he had never been so dependent on soup and water. They learnt the hard way when Noctis had taken one bite of mashed potatoes on one of the earlier nights, clapped a hand over his mouth before stumbling over to the edge to throw up.

That scene was getting pretty old.

He turns to Prompto for a description of today’s dinner, and he obliges, complete with wild gestures Noctis couldn’t see. He conjures a feel of it in his mind, before he takes a bite. Noctis had found that it helped, even if just a little. Prepare him for the actual texture on his tongue. He wished for a better imagination, so his mind could supply for taste too.

Bean soup hadn’t been an option for days, but Prompto and Gladio weren’t complaining about that one. The worst part about not being able to see, though, was still not being allowed to join their battles.

He made up by bottling even more spells, but it just wasn’t the same.

-

“Prompto, he’s all yours.”

“I’ll protect him with my life.” Prompto says solemnly.

“Noct, under no circumstances are you to leave his side. Are we clear?” Noctis doesn’t turn to face him. “Noct.” Ignis didn’t have to say it every time. He lets out a frustrated breath.

“…Crystal.”

The one time he tried and ended up with a bleeding side had his friends coming down on him hard. He remained petulantly silent while Ignis patched him up, but he doesn’t try again.

They remain no closer to finding the cause, and Noctis had half given up.

***

Noctis lies on his back with his eyes open, as he hears the others moving around outside, Ignis clattering at his make-shift kitchen, Gladiolus sharpening his blade. Prompto lay beside him fiddling around with his phone, self-appointing himself the role of staying beside him in the mornings before he gets up.

Sometimes, he wakes from the vivid colours of his dreams to pitch blackness, and he wonders if this wasn’t the nightmare instead.

Sometimes it’s accompanied with a panic attack he doesn’t realise he’s hyperventilating with until he hears Ignis instructing him on how to breathe, as if he hadn’t been doing that since he was born. But had breathing always been this hard?

Sometimes he wakes quietly, like now, and wonders if he would wake to this every morning from now onwards. If he would get his magic back, if he would be able to taste Ignis’s cooking again, if he would be able to see again. If his hearing would leave him too, eventually, if they never find out what’s causing this.

It was a terrifying thought, it sounded like living life without actually living. He thinks it’s probably a mercy to die.

He doesn’t notice his breathing pick up at that thought.

“Hey buddy, you okay?” Noctis takes deliberate breaths, trying to slow his heart. “Okay, dumb question, don’t answer that. …You need anything?” Prompto asks tentatively.

Noctis had always been quiet, preferring to keep to himself, an air of lethargy always around him. But this stillness was unnatural, and he missed being able to drag his friend everywhere to check out something interesting he saw. He had to stop himself from showing a picture to Noctis he thought might cheer the prince up on more than one occasion. It was a reminder to why Noctis had needed cheering up in the first place.

He just wanted his friend to feel better. It was such a gradual thing, that Prompto hadn’t noticed Noctis getting weaker with each passing day. It wasn’t very obvious, things like heavier breaths after a long trek they had ran three times a day before. The loss of appetite coupled with his dwindling magic wasn’t doing him good at all.

He just looked tired all the time now, and he didn’t like seeing Noctis so weak. This was so unfair, all of it was so unfair. Noctis had done nothing to deserve this.

Prompto might not have known Noctis as long as Ignis or Gladio did, but he was still officially a Crownsguard, and he had made a promise to King Regis that he would look out for Noctis on the steps of the Citadel that fateful day. He doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it, though.

Photos were more his forte than words, but if Noctis couldn’t see, then it was up to him as his best friend to see for him instead. He tried to be cheerful for all of them, because he felt like he would break down himself if he didn’t. Talking had always been one of his ways of coping, so he described everything he saw, from the garula herd grazing nearby to Ignis’s cooking. And while Noctis looked listless, Prompto knew he was listening. He always was.

Noctis didn’t say it out loud, but he greatly appreciated the stream of description Prompto kept up, using his imagination to fill in images the blond painted with words.

But sometimes, Noctis would fall into a contemplative silence, and Prompto could just see the thoughts in his head turning in a negative direction, and he’s at a loss for what to do. 

The silence stretches.

“I’m bored,” Noctis says finally, breathing calm. “Read me something?"

Prompto is relieved. That he could do. “Sure thing, dude! What do you wanna hear? The latest saucy news, or my latest attempt at writing Cindy a love letter?”

The laugh he earns from Noctis was so worth it.

-

“It was smell.”

The statement came out of nowhere, and it threw Ignis for a loop. “I’m sorry?”

Noctis’s eyes were unfocused as he stared unseeingly out at the horizon. “I got it wrong the whole time. The first one was smell,” he continues, as if he were talking to himself.

The disconnection he had felt hadn’t quite felt right when he had alluded it to his sense of taste.

He had been thinking—he had all the time in the world to think now, it was all he was allowed it felt nowadays, how his friends hovered—as he tries to remember what might have been the cause, the trigger, when it just clicked.

It fell into place when he thought about how lonely it was, not because he couldn’t taste food, but when he woke up one morning to the sounds of wildlife and not the smell of coffee. Ignis’s daily brew first thing when he wakes that draws the others out of bed.

The bitter tang of Ebony that wafted around Ignis like an invisible cloak, something so intrinsically Ignis like his spectacles that he almost didn’t feel like his friend when Noctis couldn’t smell it. Something he had gotten used to waking up to in the mornings that his day didn’t feel like it started until he got a noseful of it.

The smell of Prompto’s cologne, something he had taken to wearing he proclaimed would make him more attractive if he smelled good too. The whiff he would get as a hint to Prompto coming up behind him to talk about something now just had him startling at a sudden hand on his shoulder.

Gladio was the embodiment of the outdoors, a trace of campfire, a tinge of earth, traces of the forest they just trekked through. Honestly, the guy just smelled like camping, the unholy love he has for it. Something the wind would carry over in the backseat of the Regalia they shared. He couldn’t remember the last time it did.

And the Regalia. The Regalia that always seemed to carry a hint of Regis, and perhaps it wasn’t so much the car than the familiar give of leather and the scent of her interior that he associated with his father, that he associated with safety. It makes him want to cry—that the one place he feels safe no longer does, and he might never get to have that again.

“Noct?” Ignis asks tentatively. Noctis blinks, or at least he thinks he did.

Somewhere along the way, his sense of taste had disappeared without him noticing, but he supposed it didn’t matter as much in the long run when he couldn’t appreciate the flavour.

Noctis shakes his head, tilting it down to let his bangs shield his face. He runs a hand casually over his eyes as if to brush away his fringe.

It comes away dry. “It’s nothing.”

-

They itched to storm each imperial base they came across, but loathe as they were to admit to Noctis out loud, the prince was their main firepower, and without him their chances of success, much less coming out alive, were slim.

They had used the spell flasks sparingly, unsure when that aspect of Noctis’s magic would fail him. But it had yet to, and it was a relief to see Noctis flinging elements at their enemies once in awhile, despite their explicitly telling him not to.

Now, they were setting up camp near one of the forts, and Noctis was for once, left alone. He doesn’t know he was facing the direction of the base straight on, and it didn’t feel right to leave him there alone to stew in his brooding. Not after the scare they had with his hearing just an hour ago that led to the early setup of camp.

“Gil for your thoughts?” Gladio asks lightly as he settles next to him, following Noctis’s example and throwing his legs over the edge.

“Nothing much, just wondering what I can do when I go deaf too. Don’t imagine I’ll be any use in retaking the Crystal,” Noctis says, self-deprecating. Only seemed like a matter of time now. Something they can’t stop from happening no matter how hard they tried.

It makes Gladio pause. “Not funny, kid.” It really wasn’t. It implied that Noctis had already given up.

“No? It kind of is, the Crystal’s Chosen getting rejected by the Crystal sounds like the biggest fucking joke.”

Because maybe they had this all wrong, maybe there wasn’t anything else causing the loss of his magic, and it was just the Crystal taking back whatever it had given. He never understood why he had been chosen when there were so many kings before him who should’ve been equally worthy, more worthy than he. A boy, barely out of his teens expected to save the world when he couldn’t even save his own country could only be a joke.

And maybe the Crystal had finally realised that, and is now rectifying its mistake.

“You don’t know that,” Gladio finally settles on.

“We don’t know anything.” And wasn’t that the truth?

That hit Gladio hard, because it was indeed true that their endless search hadn’t turned up anything useful, and neither did the Crownsguard’s. It stung, when all his life he had wanted to prove his worth as a Shield, and now that he can, he couldn’t.

It effectively cuts the conversation, and Gladio flounders for something to break the silence. But Noctis beats him to it.

“Ugh, I’m sorry,” Noctis says, disgusted with himself. He was scared and angry, but venting it on Gladio was low. He draws his legs up to his chest. “I just…don’t want to drag you guys down.”I don’t want to get left behind.

The usual Noctis would storm away, leave rather than face his insecurities, much less talk about them like he was doing now. And that fact alone was more telling than anything else how bothered he was by this, behind the mask he kept up for them. Of course it could purely be because he had no place to go, at least nowhere he wouldn’t be accompanied, but it didn’t feel like that. Gladiolus still couldn’t believe that he even tried to handle this on his own instead of asking them for help, all because he didn’t want to trouble them.

Okay, that was a lie. He totally could. It wasn’t the first time it had happened.

Gladio doesn’t know what to say. There was a lot of things he could, like ‘don’t give up’ or ‘it’s not over yet’, but they were all superficial, and it’d be like he’d never said anything at all. He could tell him to get over himself, that the world was counting on him to stay strong, but it wasn’t what Noctis needed to hear.

Noctis wasn’t good with feelings, and neither was Gladio. But he had it on good authority—Iris’s—that his hugs were second to none. So he reaches out and pulls Noctis into a bear hug.

“You feel that?” Noctis had tensed at the sudden pressure, but relaxed when he realised what it was. There was a small nod against his shoulder, as he enveloped the smaller body—too small for the weight of the world—fully into his arms. “Even if you can’t hear, you’ll still have this. You still have us. There’s still time. We’ll get your magic back.”

There was a suspicious sniffle from somewhere below his chin.

“We’re going to get your magic back, kid. No matter what. You can count on it.” He says fiercely, needing Noctis to believe his words. Needing himself to believe his words.

There was another infinitesimally small nod against his chest, before arms wounded around his back to return the hug. Gladio tightens his grip, and glares at the red beacon of light stretching mockingly into the orange sky.

He would have loved to storm the base, destroy that sign of imperials staking their claim on Lucian soil so audaciously, deal a blow to them as a message, a warning that they would not be allowed to do as they pleased on this kingdom that belonged to them in nothing but name. As long as Noctis held breath.

And as his Shield, Gladiolus would make sure he did.

***

“Noct, your leg!”

“Huh?”

“Damn, that looks bad.”

“What’re you guys talking about, I don't…feel…any—”

“Noct!”

“What…what just happened?”

“Sit down, you idiot, before you hurt yourself even more. And let me do something about that leg.”

-

Prompto felt terrible. Noctis had been under his watch, and he had gotten hurt and he hadn’t even noticed. He almost passed out from blood loss. Noctis hadn’t blamed him, saying he should’ve been more aware of his surroundings, but he couldn’t see. And he knew he was just trying to make him feel better. But...

“He couldn’t feel it. Why couldn’t he feel it?”

“…”

Gladio remembers the previous conversation he had with Ignis some time ago and clenches his teeth. “How long do we have?” Gladio asks, ever practical. ‘How long does he have?’ is what everybody heard. They couldn’t let it get worse than this. They had to conclude this before his hearing goes too.

Ignis sighs heavily, an uncharacteristically lost expression on his face. “I can’t say for sure, but judging from the past rate of escalation…I’d say about one to two weeks.”

“Time to pick up the pace, then?” Prompto offers weakly.

***

The call couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.

The lack of progress pressed heavy on all of them. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and all the while Noctis withers away a little more.

The ringtone of Ignis’s phone cuts through the tense silence. Ignis answers with a curt greeting. “Marshal.”

“Ignis. The prince?” Ignis’s gaze flicks to Noctis, curled into a tiny ball of uneasy sleep.

“Same as yesterday. Not worse, but not better either.”

“Good,” came the marshal’s tinny voice, “we have a lead.”

***

Noctis’s engine blade sinks into the magitek soldier with a satisfying crunch. It had been such a long time since he was allowed to warp, or even participate actively in a battle that he would take all he can get. He felt alive for the first time in awhile. It wasn’t long before there’s a hand on his shoulder, so he pulls it out and asks casually, “where’s the next one?”

He couldn’t see the worried crease of Ignis’s brows. “Perhaps a short break? This consecutive use of your magic can’t be helping.” Case in point, he was looking a little paler than a few minutes ago.

“I’m good,” Noctis says.

“Perhaps it would be prudent to not let compla—”

“Let him have this one, Iggy. He’s doing pretty well, all things considered.”

Ignis sighs, and puts both hands on Noctis’s shoulders to turn him towards the next target standing in their path. “Straight ahead. Thirty degrees up, just a smidge more—there. And be—”

Noctis throws his blade.

“—careful.” Ignis finishes with a shake of his head to the prince’s afterimage.

-

“Operation bust-a-base is a go,” Prompto says seriously, until he remembers Cor the Immortal was with them. “I mean, I hope things go as smoothly as this the rest of the way.”

Luckily, it seemed Cor was more preoccupied in making sure his king remains in one piece.

He had been sceptical initially, still is, but seeing Noctis handle himself so well was heartening. To know he hadn’t given up made him proud, even more so that he was still capable of fighting despite being in less than optimal condition.

They had received potential information about a new device being developed at a fort that had been in operation for a few weeks, that seemed to coincide with the time Noctis had confessed the the loss of his magic started happening.

A prototype apparently effective against Lucian magic in particular had been sent there for testing, and it’s the only lead they have about whatever’s shutting down Noctis’s magic to himself. It’s only partially confirmed, but it’s all they have to go on.

Cor had met them there, out of concern for the ailing Noctis, and to bolster their offense. It was the first time they would storm a base without Noctis at his full, and having the marshal’s assistance can only be reassuring.

Noctis had insisted on going, knowing how handy warping came in, and despite their protests, they knew it was true. Infiltration would go a lot easier at the start if their chances of sounding the alarm were lower.

“No.” Cor’s tone is clipped. Gladio and Ignis might not have said anything yet, but Noctis could hear their agreement in their silence.

“What, come on—”

“No,” Cor says again, sharply. “We cannot afford to lose another king.”

“There won’t be another king if you guys don’t succeed in getting whatever new thing it is they’re cooking up. I can help,” Noctis insists stubbornly. With Cor around, it probably filled the hole he left, and more, but there were some things even the Immortal couldn’t do.

“…You should conserve your magic.” The implications were heavy.

Noctis swallows. “It’s going to happen either way. And you know we’d be done faster if I went too.”

It was true, but with him not being able to see, the risk was too great. Plus, “it could be a dead end.”

“You’re gonna go anyway, right? It’s the most we’ve got right now.”

“But what if it isn’t what we’re after?”

“What if it is?”

Cor fights a smile and a sigh, he was so much like Regis. Or was the stubborness from his mother?

He convinces all of them, when he counters with a “you gonna leave me behind alone?” And Cor really should have thought of that before he came, bring some of the remaining Crownsguard to put on guard duty while they storm the fort.

They would have waited if they could, but with no way of knowing when reinforcements would come, they had to do it that night when the base was most empty.

And so it was they took a smug Noctis along with them.

“Ignis, with me.”

“Roger.”

They may have allowed Noctis his warps, but they didn’t let him do it recklessly. What Noctis would have previously handled easily with sight, he couldn’t now. They left him to take care of those located higher up with a better vantage point which thankfully weren’t many, and Cor and Ignis would dispose of the more closely situated ones on or nearer to the ground at the same time, making no sound as they crept up on the troopers before going in for the kill.

Ignis would fetch Noctis and direct him to his next target. Repeat.

It goes smoothly enough for the initial part, a little too smoothly, which raised some warning bells, but they press steadily deeper in. It gets trickier the further in they go, it always does, the patrols getting thicker and more frequent. Warping wasn’t always an option anymore.

They keep unavoidable battles as quiet as they can, keeping to the edges when they’re able and only venturing nearer to the main pathways when necessary.

“Not there,” Noctis speaks up when he feels Ignis standing to move to the right. Ignis sends him a confused look that he couldn’t see. It was the only way they could advance. “Or at least, not yet.”

Gladio raises a hand to ward them further back into the shadows, as a platoon marches across the gap between the cargo containers they would have emerged from moments later.

“Woah. Nice dude, that was close.” Prompto says when they had fully passed.

Noctis hides a smile. “Now we go.”

-

It’s a trap, but it felt less like one for the heir to the throne of Lucis and more precautions taken because the empire’s first two bases had been destroyed.

Noctis crouches anxiously in the shadows where he had been deposited as his friends waged battle against the small army of magitek armours and troopers. He wanted so bad to go and help them, but he was afraid he would only get in their way.

He should have had the foresight of making more thunder spells before they came here. Did they have any left?

Through his worry and loud bullet fire, he doesn’t hear the steps or notice the shadow inching closer.

-

“Out of the way!”

It was all the warning Gladio gave before he threw a spell flask that exploded into unforgiving bolts of lightning that electrocuted armour and troopers alike without discrimination within its area of effect.

The magitek armour shuts down, and two takes its place.

He growls, frustrated. “There’s no end to this!”

“We need a strategy!”

“I’m all ears if you have any—”

“Noct!”

Prompto’s cry had his head whipping around to where they had left Noctis, and he watches with growing horror as a trooper drags him out into the open by his hair. Swearing violently, Gladio redoubles his efforts in cutting down the MTs in front of him, and sees Ignis do the same.

But they just kept coming.

-

Noctis scrambles to his feet, making sure to put the trooper in front of him. He hears a blade come whistling down, and brings up his sword to parry in a hurry. He’s relieved when his blade makes impact, but he had been seen.

He hears the chorus of his name, even as his friends cry out from a bullet graze or nick from a blade. He knew they were trying to get to him, even as he hears the heavy steps of more MTs nearing him. He wishes he could join them as he did before, whittle down enemies together with them back to back.

Instead, he had endured it from where he hid like a coward, cowering in the shadows while they risked their lives for him. Leaving his friends to face danger on their own, while he stays in relative safety. He understood why they had to, but the sheer uselessness he felt was unbearable.

Even now, as he swivels his head around lost in the dark, his ears pick up the broad strokes of Gladio’s greatsword and Cor’s katana cutting the air and into the backs of the soldiers headed for him. He hears the quicker cut and slash of Ignis’s daggers, the furious cracks of Prompto’s shots just metres away, clearing out a safe circle around him.

Was this what a king did? Was this what a king did as he watches his friends sacrifice for him, just watch?

Noctis was done being scared.

As his eyes bleed red, something gently encompasses his body from his chest down, and he identifies it as the curl of Ramuh’s fingers as he answers Noctis’s call, the accompanying crackle of lightning in the air.

-

When the fulmination is fading from his ears and he’s lowered to the destruction on the ground once more, he’s exhausted. The huge palm unfurls around him, and he falls out rather than jump as he usually did. It had taken magic he didn’t have access to, and he could feel the toll it took on his body as he swayed, as his friends’ voices, shouts got closer.

And then everything went quiet.

***

A quick inspection of the base turned up nothing of particular use, last but not least the elusive device they had came here for. And anyway, in the wake of the destruction the Astral had left, it was unlikely the device would have survived unscathed.

Before Noctis had passed out, they had noticed the way he reached his hands out blindly, unsurely. How he hadn’t responded to their calling with a tilt of his head as they had become used to. His pallor ashen, he looked lost and panicked, and maybe it was for the best that he fell unconscious.

They head back to the Regalia in defeated silence.

Prompto struggles for words, but his mouth opens and closes with no sound.

“So we head to the Prairie Outpost?” Gladio asks as he hikes Noctis further up his back.

“I’d feel better having more people watching him,” Cor says.

“As would I,” Ignis concurs easily. He moves to slide into the driver’s seat, but thinks better of it and moves to the boot instead for a blanket as Gladio rounds the car to place Noctis in the backseat. Prompto jumps to offer to help; he knows how hard it is to find anything in that space.

The boot slides open, and he comes face to face with a glowing cactuar.

“Ah! It’s alive!” Ignis peers curiously at it.                                                                                        

“No, look closely. It’s coming from beneath.” He pushes the cactuar model off and pulls out the wrapped package for a better look. There was something glowing from within in strange bursts, but more importantly, “this…isn’t Wiz’s parcel.”

“What do you mean it’s not—”

Cor draws his sword, and without warning, slices it neatly into two.

-

Noctis surfaces to an odd floating sensation, and a dark, silent world.

He could feel two points of pressure on his legs, and his hand brushes against what feels like leather as it sways. A dream?

...Or was this it, then?

He feels strangely numb.

Weird, he thought he’d feel stronger about it, not being able to hear or see anything now that it’s really happened.

He couldn’t tell if he was actually awake.

Until everything flooded back in at once.

-

“Eh?!”

“Marshal?!”

There was a whimper from the body draped over Gladio’s back—who had stopped what he was doing at Cor’s sudden course of action—that Ignis turns to immediately.

“Noct?”

“…Specs?”           

The small voice catches their attention faster than anything else, and Ignis is at Gladio’s side in a blur, watching as pained blue eyes trail blankly from Gladio’s shoulder to focus on him—they focused on him—before they shut once more.

“Noct?” Ignis calls again, hope in his throat, but Noctis was out. Reeling from shock, Ignis looks to Cor for explanation.

Cor moves forward, sheathing his sword and crouching to examine the lumps of scrap metal.

“A prototype, not unlike the one we were after.” He narrows his eyes at the destroyed device. “Something the empire had created some time ago to rob Kingsglaive of their magic. But it had a lot of flaws, so it got scrapped pretty fast. It was slow-acting, not the immediate cut-off they had been looking for. The only thing that had it going for it was probably the radius of its influence.” He nudges the remains with the hilt of his sword. “If I recall correctly, the distance it could cover can reach across a whole region.”

And they had never left Cleigne. Even when they did, they took the Regalia with them. To think it had been with them this whole time.

“If they knew about the side effects it caused, they might not have been so hasty in crossing it off.” That thought makes them cold, when they think of an improved version of what they’ve seen, that takes away the senses together with magic while on the battlefield.

“But why did it only affect Noct?” Little they had, but as the Kingsglaive borrowed magic from the king, they too borrowed from Noctis.

“Like I said, a lot of flaws. It only affects one at a time, probably in relation to its size. And it doesn’t drain so much as it gradually blocks off the link between wielder and magic.”

“So, he’s okay now?” Prompto asks tentatively, the only question that was important now.

“We’ll have to wait for him to wake to find out.”

***

“…and now that he’s awake he’s been eating non-stop and ignoring me. A—nd now he’s staring at me like I ate his last pudding. Which I didn’t, for the record.”

He had almost suffocated from the hug Prompto had given him when he woke. But now Noctis was taking full advantage of his regained sense of smell, and Ignis had taken the opportunity to go all out for the first time in a while. Everything tasted so good, and it’s definitely nice to be able to see again. He even missed Prompto’s obnoxious chocobo hair, and says so.

He smacks the sneaky hand aiming for his dessert. Prompto retracts it with a pout.

"What're you doing?"

"Taking a video, obviously, to celebrate your recovery."

"With really bad narrative?"

"My feelings, Noct. They're hurt."

Ignis comes over with a mug. “Here, Noct.”

“Thanks.” Noctis takes it eagerly, because he’s missed Ignis’s coffee too. But when he sips it he nearly burns his tongue and almost spills it down his shirt. “Ignis!”

“Sorry, my bad.”

-

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"You saw nothing."

“Uh-huh. Seriously speaking though, when did the package get switched out and how did we not notice?”

“I don’t know either, but if I do find out…”

“Ha, get in line.”