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Would he hear it, Ignis idly wondered, if he dropped a pin at that very moment?
Not that he had any pins to drop, and he didn’t even know if the solid rock surface of the haven was the right kind of material to carry the tinny ping of a pinhead striking it, but he probably could hear in theory if he were to carry out the experiment right then and there. The silence around the campfire was heavy enough that he’d be justified in calling it a void: the absolute lack of anything—of comfort and camaraderie and good food and rest, everything he’d come to associate with the act of camping, gone in the space of a few weeks.
And, well—it was true what people said, about the other senses sharpening to compensate for the loss of any one. He’d had more than enough time to start getting used to being effectively blind. Movement and navigation were still… difficult, but hearing, smell and touch had heightened to a degree he hadn’t imagined would be possible before Altissia. It was how he knew that Prompto was shifting uncomfortably in his chair every other minute, and that Gladio was stewing in his personal cloud of frustrated disdain even though he hadn’t made any noise, and kept unnaturally still save for the occasional jerk to shovel food into his mouth.
Ignis considered the possibility that he’d begun to develop a kind of preternatural sense alongside his physical ones. Then again, whether positive or negative, Gladio’s emotions had always been the explosive sort, larger than life, just like the body that held them. Not being able to see meant that he only had to suffer this awful, awkward silence, slowly crumble under the feeling that something was crushing the very life out of the bonds between the four of them, and that was without the sight needed to witness whatever thunderous expressions usually accompanied the man’s outbursts.
Noctis was probably bearing the full brunt of Gladio’s glares right now.
“I’m going to bed,” Noct mumbled, the creak of his chair and scrape of his spoon against the bottom of the can of rations letting Ignis form a picture of the prince standing up immediately after he’d finished his cold dinner in a tin.
“Sleep well, Noct,” he replied just as softly, even though there were half a dozen other things he wanted to say or ask instead. How are you feeling, did you eat enough, brush your teeth before bed, inadequate reminders against the solace he really wanted to offer in their place.
Ignis felt, more than heard Noct stop beside him, kiss of cold air getting displaced and a hand on his shoulder, brief and apologetic and grateful all at once.
It was more than anything Noct had managed to bring himself to do over the past week, and Ignis nodded carefully, not even bothering to hide his relief at receiving that one small acknowledgement.
Noct stumbled off. Ignis frowned. He didn’t have to strain his ears to hear the uneven tread, the stutter of two steps ringing close together and then the longer pause before the next. He waited until he couldn’t hear anything else coming from the direction of the tent, and turned to his remaining companions to ask if they’d noticed anything amiss, but Gladio beat him to it.
“Selfish, inconsiderate—”
Shock made him speechless. When he finally regained control over his voice, he made sure that the censure in it was obvious.
“Could you perhaps stop sniping at Noct for five minutes? Gladio, what on earth has gotten into you?”
“What’s gotten into you?” Gladio growled back. “You didn’t even say anything back in the train, why are you starting now?”
What had transpired on the train on their way here was the most appalling thing Ignis had ever heard, but that was a different matter he was going to have to address at another time, he’d thought, once things weren’t quite as… tense. As easily provoked or prodded into doing or saying things they’ll come to regret.
“That dreadful argument in the train aside, I was going to ask,” he started, as he narrowed his barely-functioning right eye, “if Noct’s limp came back. But since we’re already on that topic, I’ll instead ask for the reason why you’re so irritable now.”
Prompto made a sound like he was choking, and Gladio barked out a grating, disbelieving laugh.
“Irritable—that’s rich! I’ll tell you why—his royal highness isn’t even picking up after himself, when he’s the one who decided to bring you along—”
Ignis ignored the tinge of doubt and fear that crawled down his spine and drew himself straighter against the urge to hunch and hide the reality of his disability.
“All three of you have done your fair share of not picking up after yourselves even before Altissia,” he reminded (and he’d tolerated their slovenliness with exasperated humor, but no more, not when it was being used as ammunition in Gladio’s vitriol), “so you barely have the right to be pointing fingers now—no, that can’t be the only reason. What has Noct done today to deserve your anger now?”
“Charging ahead by himself without waiting for the rest of us! Like nothing’s changed, as if you can still keep up with him—and I even told him before we came down here that we had to stick together!”
Ignis took a deep breath, silently prayed for patience and fortitude. It was exactly as he’d suspected. “All right then, why has he been doing that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He’s being an impatient brat, as usual—”
He made an impatient noise of his own then, a scoff and an exasperated mutter of, “Stress has made idiots of the both of you,” and before Gladio could take offense and react in his now default abrasive way, posed another question in tones he only ever used when lecturing Noctis on the importance of keeping his diet balanced with vegetables and legumes.
“Have the three of us had to fight since we entered this mine?”
The expected silence came—as he knew it would—he could almost hear the gears in Gladio’s brain grinding to a halt in surprise, see Prompto looking between the two of them as he made his own conclusions.
“No, we haven’t,” Ignis continued with pointed finality, answering his own question as he swung his sightless gaze in the approximate direction of where Gladio was sitting, “I call on my daggers only to find the battles finished by the time I catch up. I know that the two of you have been doing the same, and yet I haven’t heard so much as a gunshot from Prompto or any of your usual battle roars, Gladio.”
Prompto drew a startled breath. “But… that means…”
“Noct has been scouting ahead, killing everything that moves.” He twitched one corner of his lips up in a humorless, self-deprecating smile. “An admirable, but misguided consideration for the handicapped member of the party, and I dare say, he’s likely also trying to protect the two of you from possibly getting injured. Warp-strikes everywhere to finish the fights as quickly as he can, so we don’t even have to fight. He’s probably exhausted himself into near stasis.”
“That’s not any better,” Gladio ground out.
“Than him being an impatient brat?” It was maybe cruel of him to echo the other man’s earlier insult back at him, but Gladio was being an ass, and Ignis was fast losing even the last shreds of his normally boundless patience.
“Prompto,” he quietly called after moments passed without an answer from Gladio, “It’s been more than five minutes. Noct won’t wake now even if you manhandle him. Go check for any injuries he might have neglected to mention.”
A canvas chair creaking, and the shuffle of boots scuffing against the stone of the haven as Prompto crept into the tent. The silence was broken only by distant sounds of splashing and the chittering of daemons elsewhere in the mine—and the closer crackle of the fire. Ignis didn’t feel the need to fill the void with pointless chatter, having successfully called Gladio out on his obstinate blindness to their charge’s admittedly frustrating tendency to withdraw into himself when hurt. That made it possible to catch Prompto’s quiet oath and his quick exit back out of the tent.
“Bite mark on his right leg,” the blond confirmed. “And he’s—it feels like he has a fever. He’s shivering even though he’s burning up.”
“Probably that last pack of voretooths,” Gladio muttered. That Noctis finished off all by himself without backup hung in the air above them like a guilty confession. “Did he think we wouldn’t notice?”
“His magic would have healed him sometime in the night as he slept, with none of us the wiser in the morning,” Ignis said with a weary sigh. “Prompto, give him an antidote and a potion. I don’t believe it’s serious, since he’s not so moronic as to hide truly grievous wounds, but we need to ensure that his sleep is as restful as possible. He needs every minute he can get.”
They brought little with them by way of curatives in the interests of traveling lightly and quickly, but what use were the precious vials if not in service to their king? Prompto apparently agreed, as Ignis could hear his unerring beeline for their pack of supplies.
“… Still babying him,” Gladio muttered after their youngest disappeared back into the tent, but, Ignis realized that his protest didn’t have its usual bite this time around.
“Someone has to.”
“Has to—”
“To counter your relentless attacks on him,” Ignis snapped in a momentary lapse of control, nipping their oldest argument in the bud before it could gain any traction. The resulting silence stretched and grew and pressed down on them like a suffocating shroud—palpable, even to a blind man, like the keening strain of their slowly shattering brotherhood that weighed on him. It was an agony that he immediately realized he didn’t want to bear any longer.
“I apologize. That was—” He drew a grounding breath, raised a hand to carefully pinch the bridge of his nose. The action pulled at the edge of the scar over his useless left eye, and he immediately dropped his hands and left them open in his lap in a show of entreaty.
“I don’t deny that he’s reaching the point where he needs you to goad him into acting, but you’re going too far. You’re more likely to break than encourage with how harsh you’ve been. He feels all of this,” a hand, waved in a vague gesture in the empty air in front of him, and Ignis felt stupid even as he did it (as if it could come close to encompassing all the successive losses they’ve had to endure—Gladio’s father, Ignis’ uncle, Prompto’s parents, King Regis, Insomnia, Lunafreya, everything familiar and beloved) “—keenly, probably more than we can understand. Be careful you don’t kick him beyond our reach while he’s still struggling to process his grief.”
He heard Gladio exhale through his nose. “As incisive as always,” the man grunted. It was probably the closest he’d get to a concession, with the dour mood still affecting their once easy relationship. His eyes weren’t the only things Altissia had taken from him.
Ignis balled up that thought and shoved it deep to the back of his mind before it could snowball into something unmanageable.
“You told me, years ago, to give Noct more credit,” he murmured tiredly, frustrated anger spent, for the moment. “I ask that you heed your own words now.”
“You still remember that?” Gladio sounded surprised, and Ignis inclined his head in response.
“Of course. The insight you gave me that day has since served me well.” Maybe more than well, if he was the only one who saw what was happening now despite being blind.
Then again, the problems he’d struggled with trying to get Noct to be neater, to take his studies and political reports seriously—it all felt like a lifetime ago. A different lifetime, as far as their current predicament was concerned. Alone against the vast might of Niflheim and the encroaching shadow of the Starscourge, their Oracle dead, Noctis buckling under the weight of a ring he couldn’t even bring himself to put on. To feel the four of them inexorably unraveling—it was driving him mad.
“Gladiolus Amicitia,” Ignis intoned, soft tone belying the gravity of calling his friend’s full name, and he could imagine Gladio sitting up straight, but, now more than ever he wished he could still see, because he wasn’t actually sure if Gladio wouldn’t begrudge him invoking his family’s name in an argument such as the one they’re having now. He could hope, maybe.
Sometimes it seemed like the only option left to him, these days.
“You’re the king’s Shield,” he reminded, as gently as he could without losing the firm edge of formality, “Not mine. Tomorrow, when we make our way to the tomb, make sure you act like it. Perhaps actually getting to fight will help you vent some of that honestly beastly aggression.”
Gladio huffed a helpless laugh. Even if it sounded more strained than amused, Ignis drew comfort from the fact that he’d at least managed to tease it out in the first place. “Maybe. But Iggy, you’re—wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the group together?”
“The risk that I might encounter danger while being a few dozen paces behind shouldn’t be too high with the two of you slaughtering everything ahead of my path,” he replied mildly. “Prompto and I will manage. Right, Prompto?”
He couldn’t help but let some of his uncertainty creep into the last part—the younger man had been a solid, comforting presence by his side the past few weeks, like a grounding rock in the storm they’re barely weathering. Ignis had noted and appreciated Prompto’s quiet compassion, and sometimes bitterly wondered why Noct and Gladio couldn’t be more like him, but they were both dealing with their own issues, through their own emotionally stunted methods, and Ignis couldn’t—wouldn’t cause them more grief, at least only until he deemed their methods too ineffective or taking too long, and then he’d have no choice but to take them to task, or help them on their way.
It was the least he could do. Prompto seemed to be the only one managing to hold himself together with any degree of success, at this point, but he wasn’t completely sure. Maybe the blond was actually already starting to tire of acting as his crutch.
He needn’t have worried, it seemed. He turned his head toward the sounds of their gunner stumbling through the tent flaps, from where he’d undoubtedly been eavesdropping the past few minutes. Prompto was stuttering an affirmative, and Ignis smiled reassuringly.
“I wouldn’t say no to uh, not having to kill live things, y’know?” the blond rambled. Ignis imagined him flailing his gangly arms—or maybe fretting, picking at the hem of his shirt in his normal display of awkward discomfort. “I mean I will if I have to, but you and Noct can kill things as much as you need to, big guy. I’ll stay with Ignis, I promise.”
A wordless rumble of acceptance was Gladio’s reply, and Ignis felt his shoulders loosen.
“How’s his highness doing?” Gladio asked after another—slightly less suffocating moment of silence.
“Better. The wound’s closed. He’s still hot to the touch, but… he was tense before, even asleep. The poison must have hurt.”
It was a wonder that Noct even managed to finish his cold can of goop. Ignis found himself clenching his fists where they rested on top of his trousers. He forced them open, mind quietly, distantly making plans to—
What, exactly?
Something rattled at his left, and it took him a few seconds to figure out that Prompto must have picked up the empty can Noctis left on the ground. The rattling was the spoon—Noct hadn’t cleaned up after himself before stumbling off to bed. That would set Gladio off, in his current high state of temper.
“We’ll clean up here, okay?”
Ignis didn’t reply; he thought Prompto was talking to Gladio, about the two of them, and nearly jumped when he felt the light touch at his elbow.
“Iggy. Gladio and me will clean up. You can go ahead and rest.”
He fought the urge to frown in discontent. Of course, Prompto—with his guidance—had slowly taken over the task of preparing simple fare for their meals, as well as cleaning and putting their utensils away, or procuring food from whatever stores or stalls they’d managed to find on their way to Tenebrae, so he’d already been freed from his old duties, but… he still found it hard to break the habits of a lifetime.
His reluctance must have been obvious. “Been setting and breaking up camp sites even before you started cooking for the prince, Ignis. We’ll handle things here,” Gladio added, tone gruff with what Ignis hoped was remorse.
“… All right,” he conceded after another moment of internal struggle. “If you’re sure, then.”
He still needed to be guided into the tent, or risk tripping over the campfire or the chairs. The earth-musk smell of the swamp-logged quarry gave way to the more familiar scents of polyethylene and blankets that had gone too long between washings.
“Noct is to your left, up against the tent wall. Or, well, curled up in the corner, actually. I’ve put the lamp on the other side.” Far enough that Ignis wouldn’t accidentally knock it over even if he groped all around him from his space beside Noctis. “Is there anything I can help you with before I go?”
“I can manage, Prompto, thank you.” He made sure to inject as much warmth and gratitude into his voice as he could. The blond squeezed his elbow once, gently, in reply. Ignis waited as he ducked back out, the tent flaps whispering and the still air within the tent stirring with his exit.
Finally alone, or alone with Noct asleep, Ignis didn’t have to maintain the thin veneer of self-sufficiency he’d struggled to show for fear of being deemed useless to his liege. He took twice the amount of time, getting ready for bed, moved in a painstakingly slow shuffle until he found his place, gingerly passed his hands through the air over where he pictured Noct would be, most likely with his back to the rest of the tent, until—he found the prince curled up into a little ball, arms hugging his midsection and knees drawn up tightly to his chest, and something in his own chest withered, in remembrance of the last time he’d seen Noct sleeping like something small, afraid, and hurting. Years ago, after Tenebrae fell.
“We’ve failed you,” he whispered into the silence of the tent.
Noct didn’t stir. After another moment, Ignis forced himself to check on the injury Prompto reported, feather-light touches to carefully assess the prince’s condition for himself. Noct’s forehead indeed felt warmer than normal, but the fever wasn’t so high that enough rest wouldn’t be able to beat it off.
Noctis was undoubtedly their strongest fighter now, fast and flexible and nigh unrestricted in the attacks he could bring to bear, unstoppable if he called on his magic and the Astrals, but in the heat and triumph of battle, in light of the expectations weighing heavily on his shoulders, it was too easy to lose sight of the vulnerability that was the price demanded by his forebears’ weapons.
Even Gladio, it seemed, was beginning to forget that.
Ignis eventually stopped in his careful examination, one hand coming to rest flat against Noctis’ back as if to reassure himself with the regular rise and fall of the prince’s deep breathing, the other tentatively brushing through the fine hair that normally fell over Noct’s eyes. Would that he could provide comfort the way he’d seen the king do, years before, at Noct’s bedside, but he feared that the window for that might have long since passed.
He was on his back and seemingly asleep by the time Prompto and Gladio joined them minutes later, but he was still half-awake, eyes closed, mind muzzily ordering through everything they needed to do. Tomorrow, he’d see Noct to the tomb hidden deep within this mine, but after that…
After that, he’d decide if he was more burden than asset in his king’s journey to reclaim his birthright.