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Gladiolus smiled at Prompto and said “I’m going to tell you a badly kept secret”.
“What is it?” asked Prompto excitedly.
“Clarus wasn’t my father. Cor is”.
Prompto’s jaw dropped. In disbelief he stuttered “Cor…the Immortal…is your father?”.
“Yeah” said Gladiolus, enjoying seeing how speechless Prompto was.
“You’re joking!”.
“No. Where’d you think I got my height and build from? One of the Crownsguard used to tease me about it because my face is similar to Cor’s and Clarus looked nothing like me, but the guy didn’t know it was true”.
“That’s how you know Cor is your father?” questioned Prompto.
“No. Jared told me when I was young. I grew up knowing”.
“Then why were you brought up by Clarus?”.
“Clarus adopted me because my mother died when I was small. She was in the Crownsguard and died in the fighting”.
“Cor and your mother weren’t married?”.
“No. Just had a fling. Don’t think they were in love or anything. Just accidentally made me”.
“Why didn’t you live with Cor?”.
Gladiolus frowned. “He was away fighting all the time. He couldn’t look after me. I don’t think he didn’t want to, he just couldn’t. Clarus offered to look after me. He had a home, not just quarters, and spent all his time at the Citadel, not outside. And he had Jared. Jared was the one who brought me up, not Clarus”.
“Is that why you weren’t upset when Clarus died but you were when Jared did?”.
Gladiolus’ face showed a flash of pain. “Yeah. Clarus was just the guy who trained me and was my captain. That’s the only time I saw him. So I was surprised when he asked to have dinner with Iris and me before we left the Crown City. We never had family time. I think that was his way of saying goodbye”.
“But Iris is Clarus’ daughter?”.
Gladiolus snorted a laugh. “No. She was adopted too. I remember when Clarus brought her home. She was tiny. I was eight. She saw me and smiled. Got me twisted around her little finger from that first day”. He smiled.
“So Clarus never had a wife? You and Iris have never talked about your mother”.
“Clarus never married. Never had his own kids. He was gay”.
Prompto was surprised. “He was gay?”.
“He was in love with Regis. And Regis with him. Regis married Noct’s mother so he would have an heir. Clarus was never going to get pregnant”. Gladiolus sniggered. “Regis took three years to get Noct’s mother pregnant because he…you know…couldn’t do the deed. After she died, he never married again because he had Noct. And Clarus”.
Prompto was astonished. “Your dad and Noct’s dad were together?”.
“Yeah. Always. From when they were young. And Clarus was desperate not to lose Regis. When I went to fight The Blademaster, Cor told me Clarus had never done it because he didn’t want to leave Regis. Was frightened something would happen to Regis. Then when Regis and Clarus started the treaty preparations, Clarus moved into Regis’ bedroom. Iris took clothes for him because he hadn’t come home for days”. Gladiolus smirked. “Iris was really naïve back then. All the Crownsguard were on duty outside the Citadel and Clarus was the only one inside. Yeah, just because he was the King’s Shield. Really it was because Regis and Clarus knew they wouldn’t survive. They wanted to die together”.
“Wow”.
Gladiolus said quietly “I’m glad Cor agreed to go with me when I went to fight The Blademaster. I got a chance to get to know him. Never spent any time with him before. Not privately. He was a hot-head when he was young. Like me. And he regrets it. Like I do. He told me a lot about Clarus and what happened before I was born”.
“How do I not know these things?” exclaimed Prompto, exasperated.
Gladiolus smirked. “You didn’t work at the Citadel. For those of us that did, these were badly kept secrets”.