Work Text:
Ardyn, the man of no consequence, lounged in the cheap chair outside the caravan at Coernix Station like it was a throne. The sun had mostly set, but the horizon still glowed, and the sky retained the rich purple-blue hues of early twilight. He'd shrugged out of his overcoat, leaving the heavy thing draped like velvet over the back of the chair, obscuring any trace of weather-stained white plastic. A sweating bottle of beer taken from the pack Prompto brought over earlier that evening perched on his knee under his hand. His thumb idly traced over the threads and lip of the glass as he spoke. Occasionally he caught it with the edge of his nail, and it made a little snick sound that punctuated his sentences.
He was entirely at ease, but no one else was. The conversation meandered, almost naturally, over mundane topics, steered subtly away from that which the stranger did not wish to discuss. He was content to talk about old literary works, agricultural management, the business practices of beverage companies, and automotive engineering. None of those things held the revelations or answers that the Prince's little party desired.
Ignis did his best to steer the conversation to useful subjects, using Ardyn's complaints about the publications of certain historical scholars as a jumping off point.
"History, or the recordings we make about it, are prone to such mutation, I suppose. Though much of that comes from the uncovering of lost information, not the deliberate changing of existing—"
"Oh, Ignis. You are so delightfully trusting and naive. Those in power have always influenced what is written and how. It doesn't even have to be a long forgotten history for them to do it. You cannot be a stranger to propaganda."
"Certainly, and there have been those in the past, even some Kings of Lucis who have engaged in those practices. But we know about that because of the scholars and researchers and historians who work to uncover and preserve the truth."
"It's hard to preserve the truth if you are hungry. Influence needn't be overt, but a simple matter of who or what gets funded."
Next to Ignis, Noctis and Prompto had their heads pressed together and phones in their laps as they played a game. Gladio sat straight-backed in the chair beside Ardyn. His eyes flicked between Ignis and the odd stranger as they talked.
Ignis sighed and nudged his glasses, though they were not out of place. He hid his expression behind the gesture for a moment to select his words before speaking again, "You have passionate complaints about the records of history, yet you said before you favor oral traditions. Surely that's more prone to manipulation or mutation."
Ardyn laughed, throwing his head and scattering the wild mane of his hair. "Ah, what a thing to try and compare! That won't—" The click of Prompto's camera interrupted him, and he smiled at the blond.
"Perhaps, I can't say it's a topic I'm well versed in. I suppose your interest in oral history has some link to your knowledge of the particulars of old nursery rhymes?"
"Possibly," said Ardyn with a sigh. "That kind of storytelling is something of a nostalgic pleasure. Outside a few dwindling cultures, people just don't do it anymore. All that endures are old songs and stories for children. Maybe that is why I care, preserving a little piece of the truth, like you said."
"But, why a nursery rhyme?" asks Ignis, "when you spoke with us in Lestallum."
"One must make whatever excuse they can to share such trivia. It was relevant and amused me. Besides, it got your attention, didn't it?"
"True enough," agreed Ignis, "I don't suppose you know any more stories or rhymes with relevant insights, do you?"
"Dozens! Some I'm sure you already know."
"Care to share? I can imagine you as a skilled storyteller."
"Got the voice for it," agreed Gladio, though his hard tone did not suggest a complement. Prompto looked up from the game, a little more interested in the conversation now that it wasn't about history and ethics. A short sad little jingle rang out from Noctis's phone as his character died, and he punched his friend in the knee for getting distracted. The movement caught Ardyn's eye and drew it to the two young men.
"You flatter me," said Ardyn, turning back to Gladio to smile at him, "very well. I think there is one story I could tell. So many stories grow from the seeds of war. This one is just like that. It's the sort best suited to nights with a little chill in the wind."
He paused then, with a crooked little smile settled on his face as he gave his audience a moment to come to attention and let the atmosphere of the evening settle in as a guest. Crickets chirped, bland music drifted to them from a nearby shop, the loose end of a tarp fluttered in the breeze, and Ardyn told them a story.
An old cruel Beast stalked the battlegrounds where a war took place between two ancient countries. Carrion crows were its company by day, and daemons by night. One night, as it picked around the corpses of a recent skirmish, it heard a voice from the dark. A Soldier lay dying and rambled to the daemons as he did so.
That Soldier was once as brave and loyal as any king might desire, and cunning too. His keen eyes and able mind kept his brothers-in-arms safe from traps and missteps… but such is the nature of war; good men do fall.
The Beast sat and listened to the man's mortal lamentations. It was charmed and took pity on him, for the Soldier's greatest final wish was this: 'May none more die in this war. Let me be the last.'
The Beast asked him, 'Wish you command the whims of death itself?'
And the Soldier said, 'Yes.'
So the Beast made him an offer to which he agreed, and all through the night it taught him ancient secrets and forbidden truths. In the morning Soldier rose and so too did all the bodies of his fallen brothers. He marched them forth to victory, and upon seizing it, they crumbled to dust and he returned home a hero.
The Beast stayed at his side and continued to supply him with long forgotten knowledge. The Soldier was an apt pupil, but he could not truly arrest death as he wished to. Not yet. Still, the war claimed endless lives as he worked, consulting dusty tomes and esoteric texts by candlelight.
He never himself returned to the field of battle, better to call him a Sorcerer, perhaps? The sort of man who lives in a high, drafty tower, far removed from sensible, mundane folk.
The Beast made him another offer, and he agreed again. The Beast bade him go out into the dark of a moonless night, alone, and draw a circle upon the ground with ashes and bone meal. Then he was to open his veins with a silver knife and spread his blood upon the soil. Each drop of blood that struck the earth would give shape to a simulacrum of the man, and those he could command as soldiers in his stead.
So he went forth on the darkest and longest of nights to do what he was told. Clever man, he was, he drew the circle as large as he could, and thought little of bleeding himself nearly dry to secure the greatest bounty of power from the Beast's ritual. So many there were! He scarcely took notice when one got lost on the way home to his tower.
That one the Beast spirited away for its own purposes, for it was ill inclined to trust men and had the idea that one such as the Sorcerer might only be destroyed by a Mirror of themselves.
The Sorcerer strayed so far from his intentions all those years ago, when he lay dying in the field. He had an army born from his own blood and resented that it be sworn to the lord of the land. So too did he cast a wary eye upon his mentor and wished for his power and knowledge to rival the Beast's.
He asked the Beast for one final boon, and the Beast agreed. The last request, immortality for himself, and no one else. The Beast told him how it might be done at a terrible altar deep within the earth, upon which he needed to spill the blood of no fewer than six innocents, one for each of the gods he would defy.
I personally suspect the Sorcerer would have cut out the hearts of dozens. He seems the sort of character who, in some untold chapter of the story, had already done far worse for far less a reward.
The Beast followed him to the altar and watched as he performed that unholy ritual. The Sorcerer was transfigured into a great and evil Dragon, with the strength to rend apart castles with its claws. The Beast left and collapsed all the passages out of the deep, trapping the Dragon in the earth.
There the Dragon remains to this day, if you're inclined to believe such stories. It claws endlessly at earth and stone, tunneling its way to the surface, whereupon it may lay waste to all the creations of mankind. I think it must be very near to the surface now. Perhaps we ought to hope the Beast made good with its contingency plan, hmm? Somewhere in the world walks a Mirror of the man, and it is said that should the Dragon look upon its own former face, it will be shattered apart by the shock of all it forgot and forsook, and it may be slain by the Soldier it used to be.