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as a child, you reached for uncle prompto’s photos of a glittering black and silver city. your uncle held the photos too far from your tiny fingers. careful not to let you destroy the last records of the city that raised him. the city your family had lived in for centuries before it burnt to the ground.
at twenty, you stand before insomnia. it’s not a city anymore. just an ashen pile of rubble left and a grave you have never been brave enough to step towards. a monument to the grief of a hundred generations. Niflheim may never lift a sword again but insomnia is scorched earth. your fingers over the remains of the gate.
you step over the threshold and into the city that once kept your fathers safe between its walls. the scent of ash is gone from here, but nothing has grown. eos has reclaimed so much that nifelheim had corrupted. but not insomnia, you trudge through the rubble eyes focused. the gods have tasked you with this, have they not? bringing life back to the land of lucis, to the home of the astrals.
your father is gone, as far as you know you are the last of the line of lucis. though you’re sure if you had any other actually siblings they would be older and have made themselves known by now. there’s too much at stake with the kingdom of lucis in the state it’s in now not to come forward. she may not be the legal heir, but there’s enough Lucian demi-god blood running through her blood to make her pedigree very apparent to anyone worth their salt. after all, that is why you are there.
the castle that once raised Noctis is your goal. you climb and cough, most undignified for a princess. even one who grew up under the darkness of eternal night. the thought brings a laugh to your lips. you were the worst student with royal demeanor, court presence. an excellent study at the sciences, a skilled fighter with a short sword, but you’re terrible at princess things. though daddy had once reasoned that was because you grew up with no court.
you gaze upon the giant structure. the home of the Lucian kings. a large statue, that either was made in your great grandfather's image or was your many greats grandfather sits in front of the gate. looking like an overgrown monstrosity more than a welcoming committee but his presence comforts you nonetheless. you hesitate at the top of the entry stairs. eyes on the closed doors.
the palace was once your ancestral home. now it’s a mausoleum. you can feel the weight of its grief when you finally manage to find it in yourself to pull the door open. your feet feel heavier like the castle is asking to stay safe and protected in its walls. even though those walls had failed to protect your father and grandfather alike a mere two decades and a decade ago respectively. you press a hand to the dark marble elevator wall. you will have to think that decision through after you meet your father again.
your feet seem to move on their own. pulling you toward your goal. there are no demons to fight within the walls minus your overwhelming pain in your chest. like the somber black marble wishes to share all of the miseries and failing that it’s been holding up with cracking pillars. you lean your head against the wall. mumbling out an apology to the building itself for the damage it’s taken and a thank you for all it has done for your family.
his skeleton sits atop his throne. a cracked piece of marble barely standing up next to other pieces of decimated marble. you do not run, but you do not climb up the safest way. twenty years of lonely curiosity filling your already pained heart. you want to get there as soon as your feet can carry you there.
you wonder what he would have looked like when he was like alive. there’s no father here to give you answer, only a sad dusty skeleton. with his own sword sticking out of his stomach. it feels wrong to reach for it. you know that it is technically your birth rite and technically the reason that you came here in the first place. but suddenly you do not want to touch it. you stumble back away from the lifeless remains of your father.
the feeling of dirty cracked eos scratches your knees is the only warning you have before you’re on your knees, hand clinging to your chest as air pushes past your lungs at a rapid pace. tears fall from your green eyes. there’s too much riding on this for you fail. how long has it been since you cried like this?
❝ daddy. ❞
your voice croaks out of your throat before you can stop it. hand reaching from your crouched position and finding purchase on the armrest as you drag yourself to your feet. you more drag yourself up, eyes still leaking as you fall towards what is left of him. your arms wrap around the skeleton of a man you met only once and still meant the world to you. you do not even look at the weapon that fades out of his remains.
a blue light flashes through the room. you feel the phantom pains as the engine blade spears your back like another martyr for the lucis Caelum. but you’re busy sobbing like a squalling infant and clinging to a long-dead pile of dust and bone.