Chapter Text
The music starts, low and nearly inaudible with the crowd. They have to work quick, unable to stop and explain. The words are bubbling at his lips and he settles his shoulders, taking a breath and widening his stance just a touch to make it easier to breath. He catches Ignis’s slightly raised brow beside him, the subtle quirk upwards of his father’s lips as he finishes his speech. His own voice is low when he starts, quiet without a mic and he sees Ignis’s confusion grow. It’s almost enough to have him pause to explain at least partially to his oldest friend what he’s doing. Almost. But the words are too strong and he continues, feeling his voice swell higher as the music grows a touch louder. His eyes flicker shut.
“I close my eyes and I can see, a world that’s waiting up for me.
That I call my own……
Through the dark, through the door
Through where no one’s been before but it feels like home.
They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy
They can say, They can say I’ve lost my mind
I don’t care, I don’t care so call me crazy
We can live in a world that we design….”
The chorus flows from him, the crowd quieting in confusion as he steps forward, around his father. It’s not necessarily a secret that the Prince can sing, having been nettled into singing at a handful of events since starting high school but it also isn’t a well advertised fact. A hand brushes his arm, his father’s fingers warm as they rest between his shoulder blades in silent support. His smile grows as he opens his eyes to look at the crowd, the music louder now. Magic swells in his throat, amplifying his volume to be heard by all those in the crowd. It pulses deep in his chest, slowly down his legs and through his feet into the ground.
“There’s a house we can build
Every room inside is filled
Filled with things from far away.
Special things I compile
Each one there to make you smile
On a rainy day….”
His hands sweep out from behind him, gesturing to the city around them, to the people in front and behind him, upwards to the glowing wall above them. Absently, he notes the barely there pulses of magic along the wall are getting stronger, more frequent, his own magic starting to feed into it. His father’s hand is stronger against his back, stepping up next to him as he finishes the bridge, hands reaching for the sky.
“Every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head,
A million dreams are keeping me awake.
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
Oh a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.”
The crowd is surprised as their King starts singing with his son, voice as strong and sure as his son’s. His smile grows, leaning briefly into his father’s side before taking a step back, their hands catching and holding. Familiar, sturdy magic floods his being, mixing with his own more tempestuous kind, flooding down and up. The wall is pulsing stronger now and he knows the beam flooding magic upwards is bright and steady and growing.
Another voice breaks in, one he’d hoped for and he is elated. She is unseen, across the sea as She is but her presence is felt woven into the tight magic of a single Kingsglaive. Blue eyes find her, giving reassurance as the King waves her forward. Those around her look confused, one almost furious. She looks unsure, frightened and almost angry, but doesn’t try to stop, eventually taking a single slow step forward, arms staying behind her back.
“However big, however small,
Let me be part of it all.
Share your dreams with me.
You may be right, you may be wrong
But say that you’ll bring me along
To the world you see
To the world I close my eyes
I close my eyes to see….”
Father’s voice threads with her, strong and sure and he matches him, works with them, taking her singular thread of magic and gently weaving it with theirs, the connection giving the Other a chance to pour Her own forward. The Glaive’s shoulders tense but she lets the song finish, lets them pull. Quietly, they finish and the crowd applauds, cheering. The clock is closer to midnight now but they’ve timed this, accounted for hesitation and possible rejection.
Red painted lips press thinly together, the stone at her neck flickering in the dim light in which she stands. Carefully, he offers a smile, squeezing his father’s hand and glancing up, just once. He catches her own glance, reads the shock on her face and can see the minute tension in her jaw. Magic pulses stronger, just once as she takes a breath to start another.
“I’m trying to hold my breath.
Let it stay this way,
Can’t let this moment end.
You’ve set off a dream in me
Getting louder now.
Can you hear it echoing?”
He offers her a hand.
“Take my hand.
Will you share this with me?
‘Cause darling without you….”
She takes the song back, rushing magic into the thread until it’s as strong as a steel rope, voice rising quickly. They understand the meaning behind the verses, understand the doubts she’s telling them. Father and son know them, take them in, let them feed into the wall above which pulses with each swell of her voice. The Other is still there, feeding Her own magic but not singing through the Glaive. This Glaive has her own words to speak, her own concerns and the concerns of her people to share. The Prince knows them, having listened to her before when learning his own magic and teaching her ways to bend hers.
“All the shine of a thousand spotlights,
All the stars we steal from the night sky
Will never be enough.
Never be enough.
Towers of gold are still too little,
These hands could hold the world but it’ll
Never be enough
Never be enough for me.”
She’s looking for a promise. A promise of safety, of fulfillment, of purpose. Her hands sweep from her back much like his own but she moves much quicker, fingers curling around the red gem of her necklace, moving up the stairs of the stage set up in front of the Citadel. Their eyes are on her as she stops a few feet away, pushing her meaning into them, begging for an answer. A real answer. Not empty promises. Not reassurances. An actual answer she can give the Glaives, her brothers, later.
Her voice is shaky as she finishes, arms falling to her sides and brows twisting. People are moving around them, Clarus no doubt having a hand on his King’s shoulder to try and get his attention. Ignis is at his back, Gladio beside him, both confused. But father and son do not move, do not remove their gazes from the Glaive that stands there breathing hard, waiting, aching for an answer. Time is closer now. Father squeezes his hand and steps carefully forward, new notes weaving into the magic, bringing a slow building resolve with it.
“I saw the sun begin to dim,
And felt that winter wind blow cold.
A man knows who is there for him,
When the glitter fades and the walls won’t hold.
‘Cause from that rubble, what remains
Can only be what’s true.
If all was lost, There’s more I gained
Cause it led me back...
To you.”
The eyes he shares with his father pin her in place, his promise there in his words and the hard gaze. He keeps her there as he threads his words into the air, squeezing his son’s hand. Magic is sharp under their feet, building and growing with the notes flowing higher into the air. He lets go as his father does, the man stepping forward quickly to address the confused crowd. There is a promise building in his words, voice rumbling deep in his chest, an answer for the bird named Glaive to take back to her brothers.
“And from now on
These eyes will not be blinded by the lights
From now on
What's waited 'til tomorrow starts tonight
It starts tonight
And let this promise in me start
Like an anthem in my heart
From now on”
His father sings of his own failings, sings of his distractions and the ambitions of others for him. His own words wait, just past his teeth, body rocking onto the balls of his feet. Dimly, he’s aware of Ignis and Gladio trying to get his attention, trying to keep him in place. There isn’t time for it though as he spots glittering gold out of the corner of his eye. With a sharp grin at the Glaive, he darts forward, around his friends, grasping her hands quickly and squeezing once in reassurance.
More voices than their own surge forward, light bursting brighter behind them. His hands clap as he joins them, spinning on the stage around the awestruck and absently singing Glaive, around his father, drawing the magic sharper around him, tighter, forcing it into his feet and back up, up through the crystal. The stone on his father’s finger grows brighter with every word sung, each voice adding their own strength higher and higher. The crowd notices what’s behind them now and now, now he knows there is no going back, there is no stopping, this will happen and it will be glorious.
“And we will come back home
And we will come back home
Home again!
And we will come back home
And we will come back home
Home again!
And we will come back home
And we will come back home
Home again!”
Building, building, building, rushing, swelling, forming, glowing. Piercing the light is behind them, the wall above nearly solid with magic. Absently he is aware of shapes above the city and he knows their shadows, lifts his hands to them. His father is steady, voice loud and easy. The Glaive is pounding her fist against her chest just below her necklace and the glowing gem, others stomping their feet and mimicking her. There are tears on her face and he briefly wonders if they are hers or from the Other across the sea. Both. Laughter bubbles in him as his father’s hands shoot upward, hand near engulfed in the light of the stone as he shouts “Yes!”
There is a crackle behind him, a burning under his skin, steel in his bones, steady bedrock under his feet, water crashing through his veins and ice soothing along his neck and scalp. Long fingers tangle in his hair, a soft voice whispering praise in his ear. A snap, a burst of brilliant light that blinds him and he stands alone. His father lies on the ground, Clarus and Cor hovering over him in a panic. Libertus and Nyx are doing the same with an unconscious Crowe. He continues to sing, brushing the last of the spell into the air, whispering the last of the words with the ghosts, chest heaving, body light and numb, lips curled upwards as he stares at the clear sky above him, little pinpoints of light brightening briefly before fading as the magic does.
“From now on
From now on
Home again!”
He sinks, eyes closed, smiling.