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Regis had never considered that his first born might be a girl, not that he was opposed to it. Historically, boys had always been the first borns in their family line—it was just how things were. But now, standing with his newborn daughter in his arms, he couldn’t have asked for anything better. They named her Nocturna Lucis Caelum, and she would be the light of his life.
He didn’t get the chance for a second born, or any one after that. Aulea died when Nocturna was only two and a half. In terrible mourning and health degrading from the crystal, Regis commanded Cor to find Nocturna a companion at the age of 3. A child close in age, well tempered and patient were his requests. Cor found him six-year old Ignis Scientia, a young boy of incredible intelligence and unmatched kindness. He was perfect for the young princess, Regis decided, and hoped the boy would always support her where he fell short.
When Nocturna was chosen as the King of Light at the age of 5, Regis was beside himself. Apparently, such a silly concept as gender did not phase the gods. He held her close in the nights that followed, even though Nocturna assured her father that she was a big girl and didn’t need to sleep in daddy’s bed anymore, even if lightning storms were still kind of scary.
When Nocturna turned eight she asked him to cut her hair, and to keep it that way. It had only grown just past her shoulders, not terribly long. Shorter was…easier, she explained. He worried that kids were bullying her in school, pulling her hair, but she denied any such act.
“Nope,” she said, rocking back and forth on her heels, “Just want it shorter.”
He complied, then, and unknowingly condemned her to a lifetime of terrible bedhead, most of which she refused to fix before leaving her room in the morning. Luckily, Ignis was a fast learner in both Lucian history and hairstyling, so her wild style was under control on most days.
The accident changed Nocturna, because of course it did. A brush with death, a coma and being wheelchair bound would change anyone, much less a still-impressionable child. She was startlingly quiet, showed little interest in things she used to love and not even Ignis could get a smile out of her. Regis hated himself for it, thought he could have done more, but there was no reason for such thoughts now. Meeting Luna was Nocturna’s only saving grace that year, because she finally began to open up again. It made perfect sense, he thought, that the Oracle lifted Nocturna’s spirits so. His Princess had never had another female friend to play with; it had only been Ignis and a quiet boy from school she’d mentioned before. They bonded remarkably fast; Nocturna was fascinated by Luna’s sagely twelve-year-old wisdom, and her dogs, and one evening she even ventured to call Luna her best friend.
“Really now, Luna’s your best friend? What about your poor old father?” Regis teased her one night as he lifted her into his lap. Nocturna look absolutely perturbed, fluffed up like a little black chocobo. She hadn’t considered her father in the running for her best friend, apparently.
“Well, you know, besides you, daddy!” She exclaimed, snuggling against his chest.
Leaving Luna behind in Tenebrae was the hardest thing Regis had ever done, though he supposed he hadn’t said goodbye to Nocturna yet, so there was still worse to come. They made it back to Insomnia safely, though, and that was what mattered.
At 10, Nocturna was back to walking on her own and very suddenly requested to stop wearing dresses at parties.
“They’re…too billow-y,” She said, “I feel like everyone can see me.”
Regis didn’t quite get it, but Nocturna’s handmaidens assured him that children developed in odd ways as they grew up and learned to be adults. She was discovering new ways to express herself, they said, and the last thing Regis wanted to do was confine his daughter even more in her very gilded cage, so he conceded. He found a middle ground, a feminine silhouette with a shorter jacket and cinched waist, and Nocturna was fitted for her very first suit. She was over the moon and didn’t pay the jacket any mind, because pants were suddenly a wondrous and fascinating concept.
It was around that time that Regis and Clarus finally introduced their children, and it became Gladio’s job to train Nocturna in the ways of the sword. She couldn’t very well wear a skirt while running across the training grounds, so pants very quickly took over her wardrobe. Regis worried that Gladio would be too rough with his daughter, but Clarus insisted that his son was much wiser than he looked. After a rocky start, they were happy to see Gladio and Nocturna become close companions; if Noct wasn’t seeking out Ignis in the library, she was with Gladio on the training grounds.
Puberty didn’t hit Nocturna as hard as Regis thought it would, which surprised him, honestly, because Aulea had been quite curvy. Noct—as she’d come to call herself—insisted that it was because of Gladio’s training. They’d been at it for nearly four years and the muscle definition was starting to show, though she was as modest with her clothing as she’d ever been. It was a trait Regis silently thanked his lucky stars for. Not that he wouldn’t love her any way she dressed, but it was one less awkward conversation in his book. He was a little surprised that he never heard a word of her more…feminine issues, but when he asked Noct’s handmaidens, they assured him they’d got it under control.
Nonetheless, what puberty did do to Noct was make her shoot up like a weed. Who gave her the right to be 5’ 6” at the age of fourteen? Regis didn’t know. Still, Ignis now stood 5’ 10” and Gladio 6’ 3”, so she was rather dwarfed around them.
Nocturna prepared to enter the public high school that summer, and they were informed that the girl’s uniforms consisted of a jacket, just like the boys, but a skirt and bow instead of pants and a tie. The skirt fell just above the knee—certainly not an offensive length, in Regis’ opinion—but Noct politely refused to wear it. Before Regis could get a word in edgewise, Noct was filling out the order form for a boy’s small jacket, several ties and what was probably the smallest size of men’s pants the uniform company offered. The pants didn’t bother Regis so much as the idea of Nocturna getting bullied for her choices. What if her classmates didn’t like her? What if someone followed her home and tried to harass her? He would never allow such a thing to happen; he’d have to double down on Ignis to watch over her after school from now on.
(What Regis didn’t know was that at 14, Prompto finally built up the confidence to introduce himself again to Noct. He caught Noct’s attention by shouting “Hey man, wait up!” and Noct had whipped around like the boy shot him. When Prompto did catch up, and subsequently realized he was a she, he almost flung himself into the bushes. Noct stopped him though, took his hand, and said “Hey, it’s cool, I’m Noctis, call me Noctis. Don’t I know you?”)
At 15, Regis said goodbye to his daughter as she moved into an apartment closer to the high school. The idea horrified him, to say the least, but he knew his daughter would face far worse demons in life than living in an apartment on her own. Plus, Ignis and Gladio were only a phone call away and Nocturna seemed attached at the hip to her new friend Prompto, so she’d never really be alone there. After she promised him that she’d come spend a weekend at the Citadel at least once a month, he finally let her go.
A month into the school year Noct returned to the Citadel for a weekend, as promised, but her voice was…suspiciously deep to Regis’ ears. After dinner, Noct invited him to sit and talk in one of the Citadel’s lounges, and subsequently came out to his father. The confessions spilled from his mouth just like the tears down his cheeks.
The first person he ever confessed to was Ignis, and Regis smiled inwardly at that—he knew the two would be a perfect match. (And that’s also a lie, because the first person he ever confessed to was actually Luna, through their notebook, months before he told Ignis.) Ignis did some research for him and found out about puberty blockers, which Noctis started taking at the age of 13 after several long, long talks with his handmaidens, and out of the sheer luck that one knew a reputable doctor to prescribe them. At 14 he was legally old enough to make his own decisions about hormone treatment and had been on a low dose ever since. After confiding in Prompto and Gladio, he’d gathered up the confidence to introduce himself to his teachers and classmates as Noctis at the beginning of the school year.
“And—and so I wanted to introduce myself to you, too,” the tears had nearly stopped, and Noctis sat up a little straighter in his chair, “As Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prince of Lucis.”
Regis was overwhelmed with emotion and a thousand possibilities raced through his mind. Should he have seen this coming? Should he have known earlier? Why did his dau—son wait so long to say anything? Was this his fault, for surrounding Noct almost exclusively with men growing up—himself, Clarus, Cor, Duratos, Ignis, Gladiolus—while his only female influences were Luna, whom he only knew for a few weeks, Iris, several years younger than him, and his various handmaidens? Should he be upset with those women for not telling him?
When had Noct known?
For all that he wanted to know, that sounded like a good place to start.
“I was, uh…maybe eight. It didn’t have anything to do with the accident, but I did think a lot about it while I was recovering.”
Regis got a little less eloquent after that, questions and assumptions spilling freely from his lips. It seemed both he and his son were always destined to be horrid at expressing their feelings.
“I-I’m so sorry, Noct. I feel like I should have known…I should have said something sooner, but I had no idea. It’s not because of anything I’d done to you, was it? Whatever I’ve said in the past, I never meant to make you feel inadequate or-or…lesser because you were a girl. I would never want you to be uncomfortable in your own skin…”
“No, I—Dad.”
“It wasn’t something that happened at school, was it? Or anyone in the Citadel? If anyone ever made you feel unworthy, even if it was years ago, promise you’ll tell me?”
“N-no, Dad. School’s fine, and so are the staff here. I just…I knew. I knew that I wasn’t meant to be that…to be a princess. It took me a few months to come to terms with the idea at the time, and I’ve had a lot of doubts since then…”he averted his eyes, shaking his head, “But…my friends helped a lot. Ignis and Gladio and Prompto. Yeah, they helped me through the worst of it.”
Tears pricked at the corners of Regis’ eyes while a warm smile blossomed across his face—it was all he had ever wanted to hear Noct say. If he had friends he could trust and rely on, through the best of times and the worst of times, then perhaps he had already triumphed over the worst demons he would ever face. All Regis could hope was that, going forward, the three would stay by his side.
“S-so…?” Noctis reluctantly asked, leaning forward a bit.
“So…?” Regis parroted back at him.
“So what do you think? Are you going to accept me or…or…” Noctis did not want to continue the thought, but luckily, he didn’t have to.
“Will I…” Regis almost hesitated, but then backpedaled in his mind. What was he waiting for, leaving Noct there to agonize over this? He leaned across the small space in between them and tugged Noctis close, wrapping his arms around him, “Of course I am. Thank you, Noctis,” He felt the boy under him tense as he tested the new name on his lips, “For trusting me enough to share this. I can’t imagine the confidence it took for you to say it out loud and I…I’m so, so proud of you, son.”
He waited as Noctis remained still in his arms for a moment. Eventually, though, Noct lifted his arms and hugged him back with all the strength he had, and Regis thought he’d never been happier.
The next four years were sometimes wonderful, but also a lot of awkward, a lot of unfamiliar and a lot of relearning things he thought he already knew about his child. Noctis loved fishing and playing soccer with his friends—activities he’d worried about mentioning for fear of coming off as too much of a tom boy. He learned that Noctis had been bullied in school, especially in the awkward few years where he should have been buying bras and learning to put on makeup like his female classmates, but instead showed up to school in a boy’s uniform. The closer he got to Prompto, though, the less the bullying seemed to matter. All of his son’s little habits and quirks suddenly made a lot more sense—like his disinterest in swimming, because he wanted to wear a binder and not a bikini top, or that his excessive sleepiness was a side effect of the hormones and not entirely intentional.
Regis was proud to say he only called Noctis by his old name or wrong gender a handful of times, though he chastised himself the rest of the day whenever it did happen. For all that their relationship had a thin skin of trepidation sitting the surface, the moments he got to bond with his son were ones that he’d cherish for the rest of his life. He helped Noctis shave for the first time after dark fuzz sprouted along his jaw line, old hands gently guiding the razor down his chin and neck. Since Noctis was still a minor, Regis co-signed the form to have Noctis’ name and gender legally changed. The smile and laugh that graced Noctis’ face when he received his driver’s license, Noctis Lucis Caelum and Sex: M printed across the front, was worth more to Regis than any amount of gold and jewels, more than the Crystal itself.
Unfortunately, just as time caught up with everyone in the end, the Crystal caught up with him. Some day, it would catch up with Noctis, too.
But today, standing on the steps of the Citadel, Regis knew that day was far off. He could only be thankful, when he watched his son descend the steps on that fine morning. Thankful that they had the time together that they did, thankful that he got to watch his son grow into a proud man of Lucis, and thankful that he had the honor of raising a future King.