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Alexius was just finishing lacing his red-soled boots in the Crownsguard locker room when the door was thrown open with a loud bang. The chatter died down a little as guards and trainees in various states of undress stopped what they were doing to look quizzically at Guard Luvea, who stood panting in the doorway.
“I’ve got shocking news y’all!” she yelled, practically bouncing into the room.
She was literally thrumming with excitement, rocking back and forth on her heels like a schoolgirl about to meet her favourite celebrity.
“About the Marshal!” she added brightly when faced with the blank faces of her peers.
Now that got her the attention of the crowd, and she smiled smugly as more guards and trainees gathered around her to hear the news. The Immortal had been absent for months, apparently gone on a special mission for the King. No one knew what it consisted of, and it was all the Guard could talk about or a few weeks.
“Spit it out already,” pressed Septus from where he was polishing the leather parts of his uniform. “Or are you really just fishing for attention?”
Luvea stuck her tongue out and flipped him off. “You say that but I’m not the one who’s constantly showing off to the Marshal. I think he still remembers that one time you tripped over your feet attempting a balestra lunge and landed flat on your face!”
Septus groaned and raked a hand through his hair. “Okay, okay, I’m buying you a drink after training if you swear to the Six never to bring that up again.”
“Deal!” She took a deep breath, before surveying the faces of the people around her. “Sooo you all know that the Marshal was on this super secret mission these past few months?”
She received grunts in acquiescence.
“So what?” Alexius prodded, a bit exasperated by how long she was taking.
“Well I might have overheard a conversation when I was standing guard in front of Lord Amicitia’s office.”
The crowd waited with bated breath. If she did hear a conversation between the Marshal and Lord Amicitia himself, then she probably wasn’t bullshitting them. Probably. Her smile grew wolfish as she dropped the bomb.
“Apparently the Marshal brought back more than intel reports from this mission. He adopted a kid.”
The room fell dead silent for a moment before exploding into chaos - grown men and women, proud soldiers of the Crown dissolving into a gossiping herd of busybodies. Alexius could already feel the beginning of a headache.
“Cor Leonis? Adopting a kid? No way!”
“Why would he burden himself with a kid? I mean he doesn’t look the type to care for children...”
Alexius watched Luvea climb on a bench and begin to gesture theatrically to grab people’s attention back.
“And I also heard that he’s bringing him to our training session this afternoon!” she yelled to be heard over the roar of wild conversations, cupping her hands around her mouth to mimic a megaphone.
“What? Seriously? He’s bringing the kid to training?”
“Oh? So he must be grown up already. Makes more sense...”
“I bet he picked up a tough ass little punk who reminded him of himself!”
“What if he’s as wild as the Immortal? I don’t wanna spar with him!”
When they filed into the training hall a few minutes later the wild speculations had eased up a bit but the trainees were still brimming with barely concealed excitement and curiosity. The Marshal was late, which was weird because the Marshal was never late. Alexius and his comrades were debating on whether they should start warming up on their own or wait for the Marshal a while longer when they heard a high-pitched giggle.
They were surprised to see a blond little kid whizz through the hall’s great oak doors, rosy-cheeked and laughing delightedly. Before anyone had the time to react, Cor the Immortal was also there, catching up to the little bundle of energy and putting an end to his mad dash by plucking him off the floor and up into strong arms.
The kid squealed before latching onto the Marshal’s jacket with his tiny, pudgy hands and resting his head against the man’s shoulder, not upset in the slightest by the abrupt end to his little escapade. All his energy had seemingly been transferred into scanning the large, ornate room with rapt attention, bright blue eyes roaming in curious awe over the sculpted pillars, the weapons racks, and the army of new faces.
“Oh my gods,” Cordelia breathed out. “Is that…?”
Well… That wasn’t what they’d been expecting when they heard that the Marshal was bringing his kid to training. Alexius fought against a smile at the utter ridiculousness of the situation. The others were almost shell-shocked. Cordelia’s mouth was left hanging half open and Septus’s eyes had grown wide as saucers.
They weren’t expecting the Marshal to have adopted such a tiny kid. Most surprising, perhaps, was the kid’s golden blond locks.
“You think he got some Niff girl pregnant?” Marcus whispered to no one, looking back and forth between the child and the Immortal. “And told everyone he adopted a random kid to save face?”
“I mean, his last mission was rumoured to be in Niflheim, right?” he added awkwardly when nobody answered.
“Watch your tongue, Marcus. What you’re saying there could very well be treason,” Septus warned, his eyes throwing daggers. The faint downturn of his lips and firm set of his jaw told Alexius that he was more than ready to punch a guy for daring to tarnish his idol’s honour. “And he wasn’t gone long enough for any girl to pop a baby. At least think before you speak, this child is at least one year old.”
Now that the kid was securely in his arms, the Marshal turned his attention back on the mess of gawking and whispering soldiers. His face was stony and his cold blue eyes were gleaming meanly. Oh Six was he pissed. The recruits quickly shut their mouths and straightened their backs as his harsh gaze swept over them.
“What are you waiting for? Start running!” he barked.
The recruits scrambled out of their daze and started running, wary of the Marshal’s snappy mood. While it wasn’t uncommon for the Marshal to train the recruits, it remained a rare occurrence and no one wanted to make a bad impression on The Immortal.
Alexius easily fell into a comfortable running pace, slowing a little bit when he noticed Septus trying to catch up to him. They ran alongside each other in companionable silence. Starting their second lap, their drew closer to the benches on the side of the room, where the Marshal was trying to entertain the kid.
Septus almost choked on air at the sight. The Marshal had possibly found the ugliest sock puppet in the world – that he probably made himself mind you, with roughly sewn patches and button eyes and a handful of feathers poking out the back of the sock – and was currently waving it in front of the kid who giggled delightedly, small hands reaching for the shoddy sock chocobo.
On their third lap they were treated to the Marshal telling the kid the story of Boko the Chocobo, voicing the sock chocobo in a ridiculous high pitch Alexius wished he had not heard, for it would forever be engraved in the darkest recesses of his memory.
The guy running ahead of Alexius and Septus did a double-take, disbelief written in bold letters all over his face, stumbled and almost crashed to the ground before recovering none too swiftly. He was slowing down, his eyes wandering back to the Marshal and the kid.
“I can’t...” he whispered. “Wow I-I can’t...”
What is it darling? You can’t believe it? Alexius thought. Me neither.
The Marshal’s deep voice suddenly rang out like the roar of thunder, deadly serious and unforgiving.
“Templis! Stop slacking or I’m coming down to give you a reason for all that whining!” he boomed.
The stark contrast between the silly voices he used with the child and the voice he used to yell at the recruits chilled their bones. Alexius felt cold sweat running down his back and he shivered. Poor Templis had gone pale as a ghost and was frantically trying to recover and pick up the pace lest the Marshal decide he wasn’t putting in enough effort and targeted him again.
When the Marshal deemed that the recruits had warmed up enough – or rather when he finished regaling the kid with the tale of Boko the Chocobo – he got up and examined the ranks, pairing recruits for their sparring session.
He gave instructions in a flat, harsh tone and then he proceeded to thoroughly humiliate the sacrificial lamb chosen to demonstrate today’s new moves. After that, he passed through the ranks to correct footing and stances and give advice when needed.
All in all the training session seemed to have gone back to normal and Alexius had almost forgotten about the kid until he caught a glimpse of the child tugging on the Marshal’s pant leg.
“Up! Up!” he whined, raising his little arms above his head.
The Marshal took a look at the kid, who was blinking his big doe eyes at him, and resisted a grand total of half a second before picking him up. The kid was beaming. And he could, he was one of the only three persons in the world who could get Cor The Immortal to do anything. The other two were the King and His Shield.
That’s how the training session continued. The kid was actively trying to distract the Marshal, who still wore that scary stern expression on his face. What was most terrifying though, was the fact that he managed to look so scary with a child drooling on his shoulder.
Scratch that. What was most terrifying was his uncanny ability to yell at the recruits while playing with the kid at the same time.
“Aktis! Is that what you call a parry? Because I call that flailing like a headless chocobo!”
“Hit harder you’re trying to hurt your opponent not to caress them!”
“Is that how you handle a sword, Narvus? And for the love of the Six, watch your stance!”
Did the Marshal have a second pair of eyes at the back of his head or what?
After another hour of torture, the recruits were finally afforded some time to breathe by an unlikely saviour. Lord Clarus Amicitia, the King’s Shield himself, stood before the great oak doors of the training hall, an amused smile dancing on his lips, and requested that the Marshal follow him to discuss important matters.
“If you’re quite done terrorizing the recruits that is,” he added as the Marshal deposited the pouting kid on the bench by the doors.
“Fifteen minute break!,” the Marshal called, inducing a general sigh of relief among the sweaty recruits.
Alexius was ready to collapse in a messy heap on the floor, and rest his tired limbs till the end of the break but of course it couldn’t be so easy.
The Marshal was looking at him intently and beckoned him over. Alexius snapped to attention and approached him. The Marshal was frowning and it wasn’t a good sign. Not that he wasn’t always frowning, because he was, but still. Scary.
“You keep an eye on the kid,” he said, his icy blue eyes piercing through Alexius like sharp arrows.
“Y-yes, sir!”
The Marshal then turned on his heels and followed the King’s Shield out of the training hall.
Alexius turned to look at the kid, who was staring worriedly at the door through which the Marshal had disappeared.
Now that the Marshal was gone, everyone was staring at the kid, like he was some kind of alien creature. Upon a closer look, the child looked even cuter, all wide eyes and wider smiles. But apart for the blue eyes, he looked nothing like the Marshal. He had blond hair too - a rarity in Lucis, which prompted a lot of questions among the recruits - and chubby, freckled cheeks.
One of the bolder girls, Thalie, crouched in front of the child.
“Aw look at him, so cute!,” she cooed. “He’s even wearing a chocobo hoodie!”
“I wonder if the Marshal picked these clothes for him,” another added. “Can you imagine him picking little hoodies and little baby shoes at the kiddie store?”
The girls aww-ed.
The animated conversations from earlier were back full-force and Alexius looked away for a second and a half to jab Septus in the ribs for a snide comment, only to find the kid… not where he was a second and a half ago.
“Where’s the kid?!”
His eyes swept the room worriedly, dread spiking through him like a bolt of lightning, and he was almost relieved to find the child trotting towards the left corner of the room. Almost. Because then he realized that he was running straight to the weapons rack. Which held weapons. Sharp weapons.
Before realizing what he was doing Alexius took off at a sprint, desperate to catch the boy before he could cut himself on a blade. Because damn, the kid is a bubble of sunshine, sure, but he’s attracted to shiny things. Like swords. Oh sweet Shiva!
Thankfully, the others noticed that something was amiss and they also sprung into action.
“Oh fuck, stop the kid! The Marshal is going to eviscerate us all if he cuts himself!”
Marcus, who was standing closer to the weapon racks than Alexius managed to pick him up (amidst a litany of panicked “fuck fuck fuck!”) before his quick little legs could carry him over to the sharp blades. Thank the Six, the kid was uninjured! The Marshal would have beheaded them all!
But then the kid, clearly frustrated at being denied the shiny sword, started screaming and wailing. He had the lungs of a banshee and his shrill cries promised to drill headaches into the skulls of everyone present if the panicked recruits didn’t manage to calm him down rapidly.
Alexius took the child from Marcus and began humming the chocobo song while rocking him gently, but apparently the kid didn’t find his performance very impressive because he kept bawling his eyes out and hitting him vehemently with his tiny fists.
And the Marshal’s papa bear senses must have been tingling because he was suddenly there, marching through the hall faster than a charging garula from Ifrit’s Hell and holy fuck he’s going to murder them all, look at his face.
He snatched the kid back, and while the little monster stopped crying almost immediately, latching onto the Marshal with his tiny pudgy hands, The Immortal’s face remained stone cold and his eyes narrowed in fury.
Alexius was vividly reminded of a momma Coeurl protecting her cub, ready to pounce and rip someone to pieces.
Someone being him.
He gulped, practically shaking in his boots under the Marshal’s glare.
“Care to tell me what happened here?” he growled more than he asked.
Alexius couldn't speak, like the words were stuck down his throat, choking him. Cornelia, courageous, foolish Cornelia, spoke on his behalf.
“Kid wanted to touch the swords on the racks. He took off like a shot, surprised us all. We got to him before he could hurt himself but he decided to throw a tantrum. We’re not trained to deal with that.”
Some recruits gasped. Was she crazy? She was basically telling the Marshal that his kid was being a nuisance. Maybe she realized what a mistake she made because she blanched when the Marshal’s icy glare was redirected on her.
“So you’re telling me,” he started menacingly, “that you can’t even watch over a toddler for five minutes? You’re not trained to deal with a kid running around, huh? Good Gods, and you expect to be able to protect the royal family?”
She flinched and the line of her mouth tightened, as if the harsh words had physically hurt her. But the Marshal wasn’t done talking.
“One day you’ll have to guard stubborn royals who can warp in the blink of an eye, so if a toddler is too much for you then you’re clearly not cut for the job.”
Most of the recruits were guiltily looking at their feet by now, shame hanging in a heavy dark cloud in the silent hall. Alexius felt especially bad for Cornelia. She had stepped in to help him out after all, and now she had taken the brunt of the Marshal’s reprimands.
The training session resumed after that. Thankfully, the Marshal’s sour mood didn’t last long once the kid started putting his hands all over the his face, trying to stretch his cheeks into an awkward smile, giggling all the while. It was like the anger melted off the Immortal after that. Bless this sunshine child, Alexius regretted thinking he was a little monster earlier, because he was definitely doing them a favour now.
Later, when training was wrapping up and the recruits were left to stretch at their leisure, it appeared that the kid hadn’t forgotten about the swords. He kept tugging at the Marshal and pointing to the racks with clumsy gestures, clearly trying to communicate his enthusiasm over the gleaming silver blades.
He seemed frustrated for a moment when the Marshal didn’t budge from where he was standing with the kid’s hand firmly held in his. The child’s lower lip was jutting out as he kept trying to communicate his burning desire to go play with the swords.
“What is it Prompto?,” the Marshal asked gently.
After a moment of wildly gesticulating with his free arm towards the weapons, the child’s face suddenly brightened like he had just figured out a piece of a complex puzzle.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed, a bright, pleased grin plastered to his face.
The Marshal’s eyes widened minutely and he whipped around to glare at the recruits.
Apparently he wasn’t happy with the shiny new word his kid had learnt today. He was downright murderous and a handful of recruits took that as their cue to discreetly flee to the locker room.
The Marshal covered little Prompto’s ears and they all knew it wouldn’t be good.
“Who the fuck taught my son that word?!” he thundered, “You better ‘fess up now or you’re all running laps till you pass out!”
By the end of it Alexius was a sweaty mess, the muscles of his legs were screaming in agony and the only thing he wanted was to crawl home and pass out on his bed. Septus and him were the last of the exhausted recruits to drag themselves to the locker room and he was seriously starting to doubt that he’d have the courage to walk home.
Alexius sighed, raising a hand to grab at his chain necklace like he did when in need of comfort only to realize that it wasn’t there anymore.
“Fuck!” he groaned.
“Really?” Septus said, levelling a judgemental look at him. “I think I’m allergic to that word now. What is it?”
“Lost my necklace. Must have broken the chain during sparring earlier. I’m gonna go check the training hall, don’t wait up for me!”
“Wasn’t planning to...” his friend yawned. “See you later.”
Alexius trudged back to the training hall, grumbling all the while. Now where could this damn necklace be? He stopped in his tracks when he noticed that the Marshal still hadn’t left.
The child had fallen asleep at one point and had spent the better part of the evening napping on a bench. The Marshal was trying to pick him up without waking him, his movements careful and gentle.
The Marshal must have thought that he was alone because his face was uncharacteristically soft as he lifted the child into his arms and pressed a kiss on his forehead.
Maybe Cor The Immortal wasn’t so scary after all.