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"So. Not even a little bit, huh?"
"..."
"A small one?"
"..."
"What if it's puny?"
"You finding this funny?" Gladio grunts.
"I happen to find it hilarious."
"You would," Gladio says, leaning back against the stone wall behind them in the dark.
Noct is unfazed, kicking his feet over the side of the ledge with a smirk tugging at his mouth. "A day comes when a man just has to put down his enormous, free-swinging, hard-beaten, two-handed sword," he says, not quite mournful.
"Can it."
"Who'd have thought, after forty-three years of wrecking your joints in service to Lucis and ignoring your every sign of physical weakness?" Noct continues breezily. "What would twenty-year-old you have to say?"
"As if twenty-year-old me could get twenty-year-old you to stretch before bed if our lives depended on it."
"And yet look who's the one who can't even pick up a letter opener now."
"Sorry, who's talking here?"
"Correction: the one who can't pick up a letter opener without being plagued by searing chronic pain."
"More like plagued by a chronic pain in my ass," Gladio growls amicably, and Noct grins, and they fall into a companionable silence in the sharp night air.
The quiet is a halcyon one. Aside from the muted sound of shieldshear claws clicking and the occasional gull calling down by the beach, there's nothing to disturb them this high up; only the barest hint of a breeze stirs at this hour, the ground still cool and atmosphere still tepid, the murky pre-dawn half-light more of a suggestion of sun than anything.
There are lights below, of course. Markers of life for people to see by, sprinkled along the quay. But only a few, and hard-earned; no longer a need for many, and that, too, was hard-earned.
Gladio shifts, a slow stirring, his back scraping against the rough granite. The flex of muscle and pull of tendon in want of healing emit in small noises from his throat — a cut-off groan, the grind of teeth. He breathes, settles again.
"I didn't think I'd live to see forty 'til ten years ago," he says suddenly, and it comes out surprised, as if ten years ago was yesterday and he's still not sure how it all went down.
Noct expels a breath. "I'm not even sure you're aware of it now," he observes, gentle, amused.
"My shoulder's aware enough for the both of us," Gladio admits.
Noct hums, skeptical, and knocks a knee briefly against the package between them; a friendly, apprehensive nudge. There's a genuine curiosity beneath when he teases — "Then why's this old thing up here with us?"
A good question. It's not something he lugs around just anywhere these days, not anymore.
Gladio looks out towards the ocean a while longer, ignoring the query and the gaze both.
"My dad carried his sword and shield a dozen years more than I have," Gladio manages finally. The words are tight with feeling.
Noct's mouth twists with understanding. "Your dad wielded his for a dozen more years," he corrects. "You've carried yours for twenty more than any Shield has."
Gladio's fingers are calloused, motionless, light on the fabric bound around the steel in the grass between them.
"When was the last time you needed them?" Noct asks.
Gladio's fingers tighten. He inhales, exhales. "Not... for a long time," he admits.
Noct's eyes are searching, his voice serious. He asks, "Then what's the problem?"
From up here on the bluffs, it's as if they can see the whole world from its very edge — the wide, endless expanse of the sky above ink-blue in the west and watery rose-grey in the east, fading seamlessly to meet with the plane of the ocean below. A crescent moon hangs low over the water, a sickle-slice of white suspended above the level tide. The horizon is unbroken except for the empty, abandoned husk of Angelgard sitting in the distance, like a forgotten spectre, an effigy of a prophecy.
Noct waits, patient.
The sky's lighter by increments by the time Gladio eases open the buckles and unwraps the cloth without looking, hands familiar with the motions through years of unthinking practice. His fingertips rest on the bare steel of the blade, naked in the early morning, icy, warm under skin.
Gladio levers himself up — tired, more tired than he usually is — and takes the worn grip in his hands. There's a wince at the twinge in his shoulder, but he knows it'll be the last in — in a while, gods willing.
He raises the sword, broad and gleaming in the shadow, and buries the blade deep, deep into the soft ground at the bottom of the marble steps; it stops only when the ground resists, pressure of dirt and steel, no blue cast of enchantment to follow.
The shield follows, grip against the hilt.
He takes a step back, and another.
"Not so hard, right?" Noct says, soft.
Gladio takes in and memorizes the glow of starlight against the metal, catching on the remnants of scratches too deep to buff out.
He clears his throat. "Take care of this thing," he says, a little too rough to be irreverent.
Noct smiles, easy, and leans back against the wall. "I don't know what you're talking about. Hasn't it always been mine?"
Gladio blinks. "Yeah," he says, voice thick but steady, and then can't think of anything else to say.
"Well," Noct says, like that settles it, and stretches backwards, arms behind his head, closing his eyes. His ever-dark hair tickles his pale cheeks in the low light, and he looks rested in a way Gladio can't remember him looking before.
The dawn is starting to fill the sky above the water, and Gladio needs to head back down soon. It's a long way out here, and it'll be a long way back. He turns to watch the sun streak the blade with light — not the fire of the magic of old, but a hue that's something like it.
Beside it, the king sleeps.
Gladio draws breath after breath before he speaks again.
"I'll see you soon," he says, out of long habit.
"Sure hope not," Noct yawns, and turns away.
Gladio smiles.
His back is straighter all the way down the steps as he descends.
By the time the tomb recedes into the golden morning mist and out of sight, the ache in his shoulder is nearly imperceptible.