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His kingdom has fallen and his father is dead.
Everyone is dead, and Noctis can’t breathe. His father, his father, and everyone in the palace- those guards he sparred with, that cook who used to make him hot drinks when he couldn’t sleep at night, his father-
-his father who knew. His father who knew that Nifelheim was coming, who smiled when he sent his son away, who lied and died. Noctis can’t breathe, can’t see. His chest is tight and aching, and how could they be dead? He doesn’t- he can’t- he-
“Get moving,” Cor says over the phone.
Noctis swallows down everything - the grief, the pain, the rage and the litany of this can’t be true my father can’t be dead the kingdom can’t be - and takes a breath. Blinks once, and does not let himself cry.
“Right,” he says.
-x-
“Are you a man of royal blood, or aren’t you?” Gladiolus demands. Noctis’s head is throbbing, like a sledgehammer slamming into his brain.
Sort of, he considers saying. He doesn’t know. There’s grief curling at the edges of his stomach, wet in his lungs. He doesn’t know anything anymore.
But that’s a lie.
He knows what he has to do. The kingdom comes first - the kingdom always comes first. A good king serves his people before himself.
Get moving. Keep your head up. Walk tall.
Noctis throws off Gladiolus’s arm and says, “Of course I am.”
-x-
Mostly he does fine.
They kill daemons, beat Imperial troops, and keep moving.
Ignis tells him to stop being picky but doesn’t do anything to stop it. He keeps eating Noctis’s vegetables for him, the pushover. Prompto talks a lot, talks more and talks louder when he’s nervous and doesn’t want to show it. He drags Noctis out to look at new places, new things, like they’re on a road trip instead of a mission to save their country. Gladiolus challenges Noctis and they compete to see who can get the most kills. One day, Noctis will beat him.
And that’s okay, that’s normal, that’s fine-
-but some nights he dreams of the castle going up in smoke, of standing helpless as the people he loves beg him for help. He dreams of watching his father fall, of people screaming and begging, of you abandoned us, you left us to die. Why didn’t you save us?
I tried, he always wants to say. I tried. I wasn’t enough. I’m sorry.
Etro, he prays, breath caught in a tight throat, chest aching with homesickness and grief, give me strength. Give me strength to save them all.
-x-
There is grief in his lungs, in his heart, and he wants to cry for his father, his home and everything he’s lost.
There is no time, though, so he shuts his eyes and keeps going.
-x-
And then he’s facing a daemon.
It’s the one he’s always hated, the one with six arms, the body of a snake, and cold-steel eyes. It’s the one that killed his guards and his attendant (Emilie, twenty-three, a little brother at home that she said looked a little bit like Noctis); the one that wounded him so that he couldn’t walk on his own.
Because he couldn’t walk, because he couldn’t summon magic when his body felt like lead, his father took him and left Lunafreya to die, even as Ravus begged behind them. Noctis will never forgive that daemon. (He’ll never forgive himself, either, but that’s not as simple. He has to be king.)
How long will you be the protected? Cor asked. Noctis feels rage burn through his veins, setting his lungs aflame. He summons his swords to fight.
I never asked you to protect me, Noctis didn’t say. I would die for all of you or any of you. I wish I could.
Except that his life isn’t his to give. It’s the kingdom’s, and he will do what they need.
But he can’t, he can’t-
-this daemon, if nothing else, must die. This daemon. He will ruin it, he will cut it to pieces, he will, he will, because revenge doesn’t solve anything but it makes him feel better.
-x-
Here’s the thing, though:
It doesn’t.
Revenge doesn’t make him feel better - just empty, just lost. He is so tired.
Worry is drawing him taut, and grief is gnawing at him, wearing him thin. Almost everyone he knew has died. His father is dead.
Growing up in war, you get used to death. Noctis has watched as guards he knew walked out those doors and never walked back in. He’s sat by the bedside of the Kingsglaive as they died. Rulers do not cry before their people; he bit his lip and did not cry.
But his father, his father who loved him, who was all he had left, who saved him and held him and who was warm, was safe, his strong kind father-
Noctis bites his lip till he tastes blood. There are tears hot on his cheeks and sobs ripping themselves from a throat screamed raw, breaths choking, clawing things. He can’t. He can’t. All this training and still the weight of the country, the weight of this one death is too heavy to hold.
He’s shaking, so hard that he thinks he will fall apart, aching down to his very bones. He feels sick in his soul. (Revenge doesn’t make things better - his father is still dead. Luna is still lost and Ravus is still bitter with age-old fury. Anger is a secondary emotion, this stems from betrayal, from grief, from being deserted when he needed aid most. For being abandoned in favor of one weak, skinny kid who was the reason they lost it all. Noctis doesn’t blame him, not really.)
And then Prompto is by his side. There is a warm hand on Noctis’s shoulder, and Prompto pulls him into a hug. Noctis digs trembling fingers into the fabric of Prompto’s shirt, pressing his face into the crook of his friend's neck. Panic and pain are tearing claws up his throat; his grip on Prompto’s shirt is desperately tight and shaking.
This is undignified for a prince (a king, he has to remember that. His father is now dead. The current king: a useless, shitty son, protected while his father died), but he can’t- he’s not-
-the weight of the kingdom is shaking him apart. He prays to Etro, to the six gods, please, listen, help me, help them. I am not enough to save my people, I was not even enough to save one man. I do not have the strength to save my kingdom. I am unworthy as the chosen king.
“You’re not alone,” Prompto says quietly. Noctis shuts his eyes and cries.
(There is no time to grieve, but he does it anyway.)