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Lunafreya wakes.
The seawater-slick rock of the altar grates beneath her fingers. She’s drenched, pummeled, and disoriented. When she forces herself to open her eyes, it’s a fight; her body doesn’t feel like her own.
Through the haze of wet eyelashes, she sees Noctis.
His hand lies limply on the stone, Ring of the Lucii gleaming dully. Umbra’s late-night delivery succeeded, then; the ace up his sleeve she had hoped would prove enough to see him through safely to the other side of the Rite.
But no, because Ravus stands above him, sword aloft, and her heart surges, adrenaline buzzing through her body, but she’s too weak to make use of it before Ravus drives the sword through Noctis’s chest.
And still, she cannot move. Her vision clouds again with saltwater — no, tears — as her brother turns towards her. She can’t make out his face, which only means it’s as blank as it’s been these past twelve years.
She reaches for Noct, stretching fruitlessly. If only she could touch him, maybe she could do something. If only she weren't so weak.
The Ring on Noctis’s finger glimmers, shines, and explodes with blinding light.
Lunafreya wakes.
It is a bed in the First Secretary’s Estate, much like the one where she's been staying, just the latest in a series of gilded cages. She knows the feel of it as she stirs beneath the sheets.
“Lady Lunafreya?”
She startles to find she’s not alone. It’s Prompto Argentum by the bed; she knows him from Noctis’s photos and ridiculous stories in their journal. From a single letter years earlier.
She cannot fathom why he is here.
His eyes are rimmed red, but he manages a small smile when her eyes meet his. “Are you . . . can I get you anything?” he asks, even as he hands her a glass of water from the nightstand.
She takes it gratefully, though her hand shakes, and drinks. It’s good to wash the taste of salt away. It quenches a thirst that feels like it’s been building for years. Though she's still so tired, she feels a . . . . wholeness, a healthiness she has not felt in a long time. Not since before the Rite of the Archaean.
She should be dead by now. Leviathan was always going to kill her, one way or another.
And it hits her.
The glass slips from her fingers; only Prompto's quick reflexes save it from shattering. She reaches out and grabs his arm. Memories flood fast, but it’s not possible, she’s wrong—
“Tell me,” she demands.
Prompto's face falls. “He—” his voice breaks, but he keeps going. “Luna, Noct’s gone.”
It’s not possible. She knew it, and he’s saying it, and he wouldn’t lie, and she saw it—but it’s not possible.
There’s some trick to it. She needs to talk to Gentiana. The Six would not have let this happen. Not yet anyway, the blasphemous corners of her mind whisper bitterly. He has a destiny that’s not fulfilled, not like her, she’s finished her task, she’s done, but he—but he—
Prompto makes a stifled noise, and she realizes she’s gripping his arm hard enough to hurt. She’d been doing it without thought, without noticing; she yanks her hand away as if burned.
Then, she stands.
She should not be able to stand. She should not be alive after this final Rite. Her flesh had been failing. Keeping her soul tethered to her body had become a constant drain. . . But now she stands without effort, breathes without thought, moves without pain.
Oh gods. Without pain. It’s the most incredible feeling, but it’s wrong.
Prompto’s hovering, like he’s not sure what to do. Where to be. He’s out of his depth, she knows; Noctis’s commoner friend, drowning in destiny.
“Ravus?” she asks, trying to keep her voice soft.
He blinks, like he’s taken aback. “Uh, he . . . he left with the Empire’s fleet. W-with the drop-ships. But Luna, he—he was the one who —”
“I know,” she says, but she's not ready to grapple with any of it right now. “Where are the others?”
“Ignis and Gladio? I think they’re making. Uhm, arrangements.” He seems uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot. “Do you . . want me to take you?”
Does she? She needs to fix this, to sort things out, to put things back on the right track . . . Gentiana. She needs Gentiana.
“Prompto, could you please give me some time alone? I will come find you downstairs when I am ready.” She sits back down on the bed. She should be tired, after all. Weary.
“O-of course, Lady Lunafreya,” Prompto says, turns to go like he’s relieved. At the door, though, he turns. “Uhm, Umbra left that for you.”
She looks where he gestured, to the side table. Their notebook.
She nods at Prompto, and he leaves.
“Gentiana,” she says, closing her eyes and leaning forwards on the bed. “Gentiana, please.”
When she opens her eyes, Shiva stands in front of her.
She jerks backwards.
Of course she has seen Gentiana’s true face, her true form before; they had made the Covenant, after all. But the goddess had insisted Lunafreya continue to call her by the Messenger’s name, had continued to aid Lunafreya rather than demand her worship.
“My child,” Shiva says, lifting a frost-rimed finger towards Luna’s face and letting it hover, piercing her with the gaze of divinity. “I am so sorry.”
“No,” Luna says, reaching out and laying a beseeching palm on the goddess’ forearm despite the bitter chill. Cold as fire. “No, he’s not—tell me what to do, Genti— Lady Shiva. Please. Tell me how to save him.”
“The Chosen asked us the same question,” Shiva says. Her eyes are still so sad, so resigned.
Lunafreya wants to scream. “He is the Chosen King, he has to banish the darkness from our star, how can the Six let him—”
Shiva lays a finger on Luna’s lips to quiet her, and Luna finds herself unable to speak. The goddess guides her to sit. “The Chosen has taken up the burden of the Ring. He has found the glaives of his ancestors and added their power to his own. The sword of his father has pierced his heart and sent him Beyond, where he awaits the Accursed.”
“But the Crystal—”
“The Chosen’s soul slumbers in its heart.”
But his body . . .
“I’m supposed to be dead,” Luna spits. She’s angry, now, she realizes. She has never been angry with Gentiana—Shiva—before, no matter what was asked of her. No matter the pain she went through. But she is now. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
“The King sought a way to save the Oracle,” Gentiana says, with a dip of her head, as if she is still Luna’s constant companion, her handmaiden, rather than a deity. Rather than responsible for this. “The divine power of the Crystal allowed him to heal my lady, but only once he had joined it in soul.”
“And you told him that would work,” Luna says. Her jaw tightens and her stomach rolls. Had she not sent him the ring . . .
“He sought to save the Oracle. To spare his friends the burden of a world without light. And above all, to protect his people from the coming ruin,” Gentiana says, icy-calm. “Much suffering has been avoided.”
“Where’s Umbra?” she demands.
“You know.”
Her whole body is shaking, and her muscles are strong again, strong enough that the way she’s clenching her jaw is already giving her a headache, strong enough that her fingernails are leaving marks where they dig into her palms.
“Send me Pryna,” she says. If Shiva wants to play the helpless handmaiden, she’ll treat her like one. “And get out.”
Gentiana’s eyes are sad, but open, as she bows and leaves the room; Pryna brushes in past her skirts as she leaves.
“Pryna,” Luna breathes, kneeling next to the pup. “Pryna, it’s not true, is it?”
Pryna whines and buries her head into Luna’s lap, and she can feel her heart begin to break—but it can’t, not when she needs to find out where is Noctis, how she can fix this—because surely, surely she can still fix this.
“Show me,” she demands, and then trembles. “Show me what Umbra showed him,” she pleads.
Pryna shows her.
Herself, limp on the seawater-slick altar, reaching towards Noctis. Herself, dead by Adagium’s hand before her flesh could even collapse from the strain of the rites—no time even for the goodbye she’d so fervently hoped to give.
The King in the Crystal.
The world, lightless and dying, spinning and withering in a span of years—one, two, five, ten. Glimpses of the Sword-Sworn, grim, one blinded, but still fighting.
Noctis on the throne. Older, handsome. Kingly. The spectral Lucii ring him, and at his command, each buries a blade in his heart. This must be the vision her mother received; the vision his father shared.
At the last, the Sword of the Father, killing Noctis with a brutal stroke. The Ring of the Lucii exploding with healing light, as it had done yesterday, to save her rather than the world.
And after death:
Dawn.
The vision shatters.
“Take me to him,” she grits out through clenched teeth to Pryna. “Please.”
The dog hops up, and Lunafreya follows. She brushes past Gentiana on the way out, rigid with anger. How dare she, how dare she. Pryna leads her down, down, down flights of stairs in the opulent mansion, glimpses of still-angry sea outside, down into the cool of a level beneath ground, to a door guarded by the King’s Shield.
For a moment, the sight of him jolts her. She remembers watching helpless behind a barrier as his father was murdered. (Remembers watching helpless behind a wall of soldiers as his father fled to keep the royals of Lucis safe.)
He stands outside the door like a sentry, face oddly blank, though he nods to her as she goes in.
It is not a morgue, though it is cool and dark. The lights are off, and she does not dare turn them on as she steps closer to the figure on the table, shrouded and still.
“Lady Lunafreya.” The voice behind her must be Ignis; Noctis has written about him so often, told her of his prim Tenebraen accent and how it reminds him of her.
She ignores the voice, reaches a hand to pull back the sheet, and Ignis makes a choking noise behind her. No, not Ignis. Prompto. Prompto’s joined him, she can tell, though she does not turn.
She rests her lips against Noctis's own waxy-white forehead, lays a gentle hand on the cold flesh, the ridge of stitched-together skin on his chest, and prays.
Blessed stars of light and life . . .
Her power flickers, falters, fades without finding purchase.
She tries again, out loud: “Blessed stars of light and life” — it’s not working, there’s nothing — “blessed stars, blessed stars of—” she’s trembling, shaking, willing some spark of divine blessing back into flesh, willing anything—
Arms catch her, and she crumples.
There’s a shifting as someone draws the covers over Noctis’s pale, dead face, and she is furious at him.
“He was supposed to live,” she chokes into Prompto’s chest. He’s crying, too. Quiet, but violent. “He was—he was—he can’t be—I was supposed to—”
“It’s all wrong,” Prompto rasps. “What are we going to do?”
She doesn’t know.
Lunafreya does not wake. Instead, she dreams of Noctis.
He is small and dear, and she knows she must be twelve again when she speaks his name, runs through the dreamy field of sylleblossoms towards him.
“We still have a job to do together, ‘kay? When you’re ready, I’ll be waiting to do my part.” He sounds so proud, so confident. "I won't let you down."
“No, Noctis, my job was done, this was all for you—”
“It’s hard. But Luna, you’re not alone. Try to remember that, okay?”
“It’s not right. You can’t go. Please, Noctis.” She reaches, stretches, runs, but it's never enough to close the distance, he's too far no matter what she does.
“Take care of them for me, Luna. And they’ll take care of you for me, too.”
Waking hurts.
The train ride is unbearable. She doesn’t know these men, and yet, they’ve insisted on accompanying her. In theory, she’s grateful. In reality, it’s suffocating.
Ignis tries to talk to her about what’s next. What she knows, what her plans are, and she doesn’t know. For the first time in her life, she doesn’t know what to do.
They’ve all deferred to her leadership (or lack thereof) so far, but Ignis is clearly used to being the right-hand man. He tells her what he knows, advises with a keen eye for all that his own are still healing, but seems to trust her judgment.
You shouldn’t, she wants to tell him. I’m not Noctis, she wants to snarl.
“Would you like to stop in Tenebrae, Lady Lunafreya?” Ignis asks.
She thinks of tall towers and fields of blue. Of Ravus, tall and proud.
“No.”
“L-Lady Lunafreya?"
It’s Prompto. Of course it is. They’ve all been subdued in their grief (in their blame), but Prompto still tries to offer a little spark of hope when he can, as if there's still some left in the world.
She’s not in the mood.
But she sighs and sets aside the book she’d been holding in an attempt to be left alone. She’s pretty sure Noctis wouldn’t thank her for crushing his friend’s spirit. “Yes, Prompto?”
Her reluctance to engage must show on her face, because his smile flickers out like a candle in the breeze. “I . . . It’s okay if you don’t, but I have some pictures, if you wanted to see them.”
“Pictures?” she asks dimly. She remembers pasted-in polaroids traveling to her in Noctis’s notebook.
“Yeah, you know, photos. From, uhm, before. If you wanted to see.”
She holds out a hand, and Prompto passes her the camera. He taps a button for her and the LCD screen illuminates to one of Noct surrounded by boxes, clutching a comic book and throwing up a peace sign with a cheesy smile.
She’s about to shove the camera back into Prompto’s hands when he clears his throat and speaks.
“That was the day before we left the city,” he says. “We helped him clean out his place. Ignis told him to hide all his comic books, but he said he was gonna keep that one to show you.”
The screen is blurry.
The anger that’s been roiling through her condenses in that moment, turns to tears that stream when she blinks. She presses the button to move onto the next picture. It’s Prompto in his Crownsguard uniform, beaming.
“Uhm, my parents weren’t around to see me off,” he says. “Noct knew I wanted to show them my new threads, make them proud, so he took a picture for me to send.”
She should ask if they were in the city when it fell, but she doesn’t trust herself to speak. She just pushes the button again, instead.
They sit side by side, Luna pressing the little button to flick through the pictures, pausing when Prompto has a little story to tell. He goes tongue-tied when there are a dozen photos in a row of a curvaceous mechanic, and she snorts a snotty laugh through the tears, and then so does he, and they just keep going. Through battle shots and camping spots and four friends posing for the camera at scenic lookouts, she drinks in the pictures. Cries and laughs and doesn’t shy away from the man next to her.
Her stomach twists when she sees a group of people clustered on shore, waving goodbye—Prompto confirms that’s the day they left for Altissia. And then there’s the city itself, shots of canals and architecture and gondola rides and her wedding dress on display, Noct posing in front with a peace sign and a cheesy grin.
“It’s not fair,” she says, and then clarifies because there are too many things that fall under the truth of that statement: “He saw my dress, but I never saw his suit.”
Prompto looks unbearably sad for a moment. He bites his lip, takes the camera back and hesitates, then starts navigating. “I might still have . . . I—I mean, I was there at the tailoring, the lady told me off for making Noct laugh 'cause she kept sticking him, but I’m not sure, I might have taken it off the SD card when I uploaded the photos to my computer, and that’s probably rubble by now, but it might be late enough that I—oh, yeah, here.”
He hands her back the camera, and there’s Noctis in his wedding suit.
He’s grinning but also rolling his eyes, he’s pretty sure; there are still pins bristling out of the suit, and he’s standing in front of a panel of mirrors that show off every angle as well as Prompto’s reflection with the camera in hand and a cheesy thumbs-up.
He looks as handsome as she could have imagined. And he looks so young. Too young to be getting married. Too young to become a King.
Too young to die.
She’s crying again, and Prompto gently takes the camera from her hands and holds her. She doesn’t remember the last time anyone held her when she cried. It doesn’t help, not really. But she doesn’t pull away.
The sunlight’s getting weaker.
They’re running into daemons near-constantly. The light’s stopped getting strong enough to offer true safety. Lunafreya doesn’t know why, though she feels it must have something to do with the Starscourge.
She could ask the Astrals.
She doesn’t.
Thankfully, she knows how to fight. Her mother’s trident is deadly in her hands, and she wields Holy light against daemonic foes with a light of judgment that makes even her companions flinch back and shield their eyes. With her newfound strength, it’s almost easy.
With her newfound rage, it’s almost a joy.
In the murk of the Fodina Caestino swamp, they fight the things that rise up from the murk, the things that fly down from the rocky cliff faces, the things that coalesce out of darkness and spite.
At first, they clearly try to shield her, do the dirty work themselves—but she does not abide it, and they do not have the manpower for it, in any case.
Sometimes they work together in curious ways, though they’re clearly out of rhythm. Sometimes Ignis opens his mouth to shout something, but when his eyes find her, the words die in his throat. Sometimes Gladio throws himself between her and an enemy she’s about to incinerate with light magic, and she has to dispel the energy entirely. Sometimes Prompto shouts out one-liners that no one answers.
They need Noctis, clearly.
But instead, they’re stuck with her, and she’s stuck with them, in her way, keeping her from just letting her righteous anger loose upon the Scourge-sickened abominations in their way.
It’s a thousand times worse when they go up against the Marlboro.
There are too many limbs, too many enemies to go up against at once, and the stench makes it hard to think straight — or maybe that’s the poison. It’s the first time it’s felt like a losing battle, like they really are not up to the task.
Gladio takes a bad hit and goes down in the murk. Ignis is already rushing to his side, even though Lunafreya is closer, even though she’s the one who can heal, and so she charges forwards, taking the opportunity to let loose with no bodies in her way.
The weight and heft of the Trident are deadly in her hands, wielded against rubbery limbs slick with slime, and she will not stop until this thing is gone, though for all her desperate hacking the marlboro does not seem to slow, just seems to regenerate and regrow its limbs. But it has to give way beneath her fury. It must. She will make it.
“I have a plan,” Ignis yells from behind. “Stand clear!”
Lunafreya is done standing clear.
Done being left walled up in a high tower, waiting while all of the people she loves suffer and do the dirty work, done staying spotless while Ravus’s heart twists and warps beneath the Empire’s boot for her sake, done staying alive while Noctis lays dead on the altar of an unfeeling god, done staying back while —
Something hits her hard, and then everything explodes.
When she rises, sputtering and gasping from the muck and midden, she has to push off the weight on top of her — except no, that’s a person, it’s Prompto, the smoldering remains of the Marlboro behind, incinerated by a flask of fire, and Prompto caught shielding her from the blast.
Ignis is already there, pulling Prompto up into desperate arms, administering yet another precious potion with the Prince's healing powers stoppered up while she gapes, uselessly.
Stand clear.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, reaching out a healing hand. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t—I—“
“What the hell was that,” Gladio growls, yanking her roughly to her feet by the elbow.
“I was fighting, if you didn’t notice.”
“You weren’t putting a scratch in it. You’re not fighting alone here, Princess, and you’d better stop acting like it.”
“I didn’t ask for anyone to try to save me,” she says, deflating, eyes on Prompto shakily getting to his feet with help from Ignis. He’ll be okay, thank the gods. Or thank Ignis, perhaps. “I didn’t ask for this.”
“Whether you like it or not, we’ve got your back,” Gladio says after a while. Likely he’s thinking what she’s thinking. “So stop sulking over it and start letting us.”
“Perhaps it would be best if we parted ways,” Lunafreya says, pulling inwards. This isn’t working. They hate her, resent her, these loyal men who stood by Noctis until the last, who bolstered him through his Trials. And she’s too broken to know what to with someone to stand by her side.
“No,” Gladio says. “We’re not, because we have a job to do, and you’re not too good for our help.”
“Gladio, that’s enough,” Ignis cuts in. He takes a deep breath and steadies himself, even as Prompto shrinks back from their confrontation. “We all seek the same thing. We all share the same loss. We must find a way to do that together.”
He’s right, and she knows it, but the rub of it all is —
“I don’t know how,” she admits. Tears stream down her face. “I—I know. Yes. Of course. But I don’t know how.”
No one says anything for a long moment. In the end, it’s Prompto who speaks.
“We’ll figure it out together.”
The campfires at night have been quiet for as long as she’s been with them.
But the night after their fight, they eat dinner and linger.
She wants, so badly wants to stay. To talk, to belong, to share a little comfort. It’s been so many years of loneliness. But at the same time, staying is like looking at a too-bright light. It’s terrifying, even this small step of sitting down and staying.
The seat she takes is usually Prompto’s. True to form, he doesn’t complain, just takes the fourth; the one that should be Noctis’s, the one she’s never had the right to fill.
But she stays. And they stay, and beneath the starry sky, they talk — haltingly at first, of little things, and she mostly listens.
Eventually, they come back to Noctis.
It hurts. Still does, always will. But to her, the hurt is for a future Noctis will never get to know; a future she will never get to know. To these men, the hurt is more like a missing limb.
Like their heart’s been pulled out.
They stick to little things. She praises Ignis’s vegetable lasagna, says Noctis has written to her about it over the years. Ignis gives a watery chuckle and says something about His Highness’s eating habits leaving much to be desired. Gladio mentions Ignis sending him to pull Noct and Prompto out of some dumb pizza parlor (they have to explain the concept to her) before they could gorge themselves on too much pepperoni. And on they go — little nothings, shared between them.
It feels like everything.
They get better.
She learns to fight with the team, instead of against them. Learns to hear Gladio’s gruff instruction for what it is. To actually take Ignis’s advice — or at least heed it. Learns to let herself trust that despite Prompto’s flightiness, he’ll take down the enemy at her back no matter where he is.
And they learn to fight with her, to stay away from the trident’s sweeps, to come to her for healing instead of using precious potions that they’ll need if they ever become separated.
She hopes they won’t be.
The train passes through Ghorovas Rift, and the chill of Shiva’s death seeps into the train. They’re all on edge when the ice seems to slow everything to a stop.
Then, the daemons come.
It’s all a blur of fighting, frantically trying to keep the passengers safe, racing through the train car having lost the others—and the world goes cold, slow—
Ardyn.
He cloaks himself in Ravus’s image, but she’s not fooled, not for an instant. She can feel the Scourge bubbling within his veins, the deceitful magic at work. She spits his cursed name from her mouth and lunges with the holy trident.
He parries the blow like she’s a child swinging a stick for a sword, and the impact sends her crashing down the empty aisle. He sneers down the row at her with that horrifying face.
But Gentiana silences him with a touch.
Luna wants to rage at Shiva, too. The goddess, so present her whole life, has been gone—and perhaps Luna had told her to, but hadn’t she said the same and worse to Noctis’s friends? But they’d seen through her grief and stayed, anyway.
And then suddenly, Noctis is there, in front of her, where Shiva stood a moment ago.
The guilt comes up to swallow her again, because this is what was always going to happen, wasn’t it? It didn’t seem as cruel when she knew she’d be there to meet him at the end . . . but he was always going to make this sacrifice, and she was always going to let him.
“Noctis,” she breathes, breath hanging frozen in the air. She takes a halting step forwards, hand outstretched. “Noctis, I’m so, so sorry.”
He shakes his head with a sad smile. Don’t be, it seems to say. He raises a hand to meet hers, but before their fingers can interlace, he’s gone.
And Lunafreya is left alone, on her knees on the freezing floor until her companions burst into the frigid train car, frantic with worry.
They find Ravus in Zegnautus.
By that point, they’re exhausted: from creeping through sunless corridors with innocent souls suspended behind glass, from battling the malfunctioning MTs that leap and lurch out at them, from battling the Scourge-fallen Emperor’s daemonic form.
All that’s left is to find the Crystal, to find Ardyn, and end things. And that’s when Ravus chooses to find them instead.
He doesn’t attack, but Gladiolus goes flying with wild blows, anyway, each with deadly force. Ravus blocks them with sparks flying from steel until Lunafreya hears herself shout: “Wait .”
Gladio stops but does not lay his weapon down. He’s snarling, sweat dripping, radiating grief and fury.
“I can take you to the Crystal,” Ravus says.
“You killed him,” Gladio spits. “Why would we ever accept your help?”
“The King of Light knew what he was asking me to do,” Ravus levels back.
“You bastard,” Gladio rages, edging closer to violence again. “He didn’t ask to die.”
“He did,” Luna says wearily, and the air leaves the room.
Gladiolus makes a wounded noise, steps back with Ignis and Prompto, who close ranks by his side. They carry such a guilt, all three. The same one she bears.
“He knew his duty,” Ravus says solemnly, and it’s more than Lunafreya can abide.
“I knew mine , brother,” she says, taking a step, though Ignis catches her wrist; she shrugs it off, takes another. “And you took it from me. You let him take it from me.”
She doesn’t know whether she will hurt him or embrace him until she makes it past Gladio and right up to him, and he catches her in his arms.
“He gave you back to me,” Ravus whispers into her hair. “Please, do not throw that away.”
In the aftermath of the final battle, with the Crystal shattered into moondust and Ardyn Lucis Caelum gone into the Beyond for Noctis to defeat, once and for all, they stagger out of the Keep and into the sunlight, beaten and wounded, but somehow alive.
“What do we do?” Gladiolus asks, voice broken.
Lunafreya doesn’t know. Her whole life has pulled free from a grand but cruel fate, and now . . .
“He’d want us to live,” Prompto says, broken but sure. “Really live. And he'd want us to be together.”
“Without him?” Ignis asks, and she can tell it’s as foreign a concept to him as it is to her. To the rest of him.
“We’ll have to try,” she says, and they fall silent, watching as the dawn comes bright and sure, brighter than it has in months, rising over a world with no more Scourge to twist it and no more prophecies to twist children into tools of fate.
It rises over a world with no king.