43rd ♫ | one more time, one hundred more tries

[eudemonics]

THE MEMORY SHARE MEME
(i want every single person here to appreciate how hard it was to find a gif that adequately conveyed the idea of this meme)

HOW IT WORKS:
⍟ Post your character's toplevel with their name, canon and anything you might need to warn for in their memories.
⍟ Post a handful of memories from your character's past -- you can write them up or just links to clips and scenes, DO IT HOWEVER YOU LIKE.
⍟ SURPRISE, EVERYONE CAN SEE EACH OTHER'S MEMORIES so tag around as you like
⍟ GET EMOTIONALLY TERRORIZED FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Comments

Ardyn Izunia | FFXV | entire game spoilers

[scourgingstars]

[in subthreads because it's neater, also be advised of episode ignis spoilers for the canon route in the second prompt]

I. magna insomnia

[scourgingstars]

[Some tales were told not in explicit words, but in thought and feeling, in ancient history brought forth from dusty historical tomes and ancient oil paintings breathed to life from the walls upon which they hung in reverence. Some memories were fractured and scattered, like the shards of a mirror broken in a fit of rage.]

[This was the tale of one discarded, who discarded such memories in turn.]

[A terrible war was waged in fire and the pitch-black malice of a god's wrath given form, a shining silver city brought to ruin beneath the crush of a meteor that shook the planet to its core to leave a miles-long crater and twisted rock formations in the continent. The magnificent and advanced civilization of Solheim was destroyed utterly, a god of fire struck down upon a volcano, and a single mortal hero at the end of it all. Amidst the ravaged lands of his home stood the victorious healer-swordsman, with Gilgamesh ever a shield at his side.]

[In the last gasps of the Astral War and the days following its conclusion, the people would sing of the planet's dawning hope after the deepest despair. The scenery blurred and changed in crackling white noise, as if one memory couldn't be held for more than a moment--and yet the song remained clear, in countless ever-changing voices. A holy canticle, a prayer to the savior promised to them by the gods themselves.]

[Deus dormit
Et liberi ignem faciunt
Numquam extinguunt
Ne expergisci possit]

[The fading embers of warfare were overtaken by blurred color and muffled sounds as if a hand had slipped from a radio dial in between signals. Remnants of humanity limped from the wreckage and persisted; the nights brought with them fear and trepidation, warded away by torchlight and sacred runes carved into stone havens in the wilderness. And where once had been grand cities of magitek, simpler towns and outposts gradually arose from the ashes. In the wake of a world scarred and ravaged by the lingering plague that turned children of nature into monsters dwelling in darkness...their hero wandered the world healing those afflicted by the blight they had named 'Starscourge'. His arrival was always heralded by celebration, and the healer always met the joy of a suffering populace with a bright smile. It was without hesitation that he took the plague from others' shoulders, their gratitude making his own burden that much lighter. As long as it is only I who should carry such a thing, he believed deep in his heart, then that is a price I will pay for this world's safety. For his twin brother Izunia, for Gilgamesh, for every casualty of the war he had not been able to save. It would be only Ardyn Lucis Caelum who bore the wrath of a god, taking it from others with a gentle touch and compassionate words.]

[Omnia dividit
Tragoedia coram
Amandum quae]

[He had been chosen for this; he would be leader to the new monarchy which bore the twins' name of 'Lucis'. And not just chosen, but Chosen as the King of Light who would save the world, spending every waking hour traveling with Gilgamesh who the future monarch had cheerfully declared would become Shield of the King. (There is no other I would trust more, Ardyn said as he clasped the swordsman's hands in his own, and oh had he regretted such a sentiment in the centuries to come.) It was Ardyn and his divine healing which would banish the Starscourge once and for all, of that he was certain and refused to think otherwise. Of course it would be him, blessed by the gods as he was. A king should have been one to bear the suffering of his people, so that they could smile as happily as they did when the scourge was lifted from their skin.]

[So he thought it no more than an occupational hazard, when black marks manifested on his skin now and again. Ignored when food and drink began to lose its taste, and hid the fact that he could no longer sleep or touch the sacred ground of havens laid down by the Oracle. Dodged Gilgamesh's questions when red hair faded into bright violet, hazel eyes turning an inhuman yellow; he even brushed aside the swordsman's fears when the future Shield felt the chill of death in Ardyn's hands. When sunlight itself began to set his body to ache, he wore heavy layers and a long coat; when the pallid face in the mirror was stained with the manifested plague he carried, Ardyn struggled to hide it until the pressure behind his eyes would recede and the markings vanish for a time.]

[As long as it was him, everything would be fine. The people were counting on him, the gods would protect their Chosen King, and there was no need to let his friend--or, Astrals forbid, his brother--worry over something like that. So he made excuses, said nothing, and continued his work as a healer even as a malicious and directionless hatred began to twist in the miasma that ran where blood once had. The healer of the people began to resent the subjects he so loved; did they not see what blind faith had gotten them once before? All of Solheim had believed in the Infernian as Lucis now chose to believe in Ardyn, and that began to leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Was humankind's memory so short and their will so weak that they refused to stand on their own? Did they so badly need a savior, a protector either mortal or divine?]

[Pathetic, he'd thought, somewhere between pity and frustration.]

[Et nocte perpetua
In desperatione
Auroram videre potest
Mane tempus expergiscendi.]

[Ardyn no longer remembered all the precise events of his final day in the new capital city that the brothers named 'Insomnia'--so the sight was twisted and distorted, less watercolor and more as though it were a photograph that had been charred and burned away in places. The everpresent melody and words sung in prayer faded and cut out to be replaced by the muffled sounds of a crowd that couldn't be clearly seen. Even barely understood, the tone was one of shouted anger, of calling for blood and justice. Straining to listen carefully enough would make it possible to hear the only distantly remembered cry of the Insomnian people:]

[Kill the Accursed.]

[Two brothers stood in the city of Insomnia, but they were no longer the near-mirror images they once were. One stood tall, a navy blue scarf wound loosely around his neck and wine-red hair a bit longer now, falling in his face. A sword hung loosely in his hand, stained with blackened plague instead of blood. The other twin, held back by a pair of terrified soldiers--the very same scourge staining his face and making his eyes almost seem to glow, coming off his body like smoke. Fury and agony colored the half-formed scene, with a pulse of nameless and feral rage burning like a migraine. Ardyn (or the thing that looked like him) violet-haired and yellow-eyed, snarled something that was more bestial noise than words even if the meaning was clear: the second one of his captors' hands slipped, he would take off the head of the man who had just murdered him.]

['How could it not have died?' muttered one in horror, gripping Ardyn's left arm as if restraining a rabid coeurl. The one on his right looked to the red-haired man with the scourge-stained blade, and said the words that caused even the black blood of a daemon in human form to run cold.]

['What are we to do, Your Majesty?']

[Izunia blinked, looking dimly from his blade to Ardyn to the soldier that had spoken. And somewhere, buried deep beneath an ink-dark ocean of malice and mindless hatred, a voice screamed from far away no, no you idiots, I'm Ardyn, I'm the one you should be calling that, can't you tell the difference-? Tell them, Izunia, tell them I'm your brother, tell me why you tried to strike me down-! But the hazel-eyed brother's demeanor changed in a second; his stance relaxed, expression the picture of steady confidence.]

[He became 'Ardyn Lucis Caelum', and in doing so replaced his brother right in front of the would-be savior's blighted eyes.]

['...The Draconian's word is absolute.' came a startling affectation of Ardyn's cadence. 'Execution, just as with any daemon.']

[Kill the Accursed, Usurper, monster, daemon, our savior will protect us-]

[Firing squad. Beheading. Hanging, crucifixion, drowning, poison--again and again and again they executed him, and every time he simply came back as though nothing had happened at all. That horrible monstrous shrieking persisted, and under layers of indecipherable screaming only the small shard of humanity drowning in the miasma knew what he was struggling to convey: screaming for his Shield in anguished rage.]

[GILGAMESH, PLEASE--YOU PROMISED, YOU SWORE TO PROTECT ME, KILL HIM MAKE IT STOP-]

[But nobody came, and 'Ardyn Lucis Caelum' broke beneath the weight of the 'Accursed' at the final betrayal of one and all he had ever loved.]

[Things abruptly went black, and the next time Ardyn was lucid and aware...it was quiet. Dark and cold, an enclosed room of stone with the sound of waves on a rocky shoreline the only thing to break the stillness. The Umbral Isle of Angelgard, a prison housing a single occupant's weakened body covered in blackened blood and yellow eyes that nearly glowed in the shadows.]

[...So. This was what resulted from pathetic people clinging to any small light in the encroaching dark. People who cringed away from mere shadow, who begged help and followed whoever seemed willing to give such assistance...then cast their savior aside like garbage once he was of no use to them.]

[It had happened to Ifrit, hadn't it? Ungrateful mortals, Solheim had been full of them and now Lucis was no different. Gilgamesh, a coward who abandoned his charge. And Izunia, (a wave of freshly renewed hatred crept into his mind and ran down his face like frigid rain) Izunia, Izunia, Izunia, even if Ardyn was to be trapped here for all eternity then he would never forget the name of the one who had damned him and cast him out. Would remember his face in every reflection, would keep his name as his twin had taken 'Ardyn'.]

[And someday, the beloved dawn those worthless mortals had raised their voices in melody to would be gone, because not a single one of them deserved it. Bahamut, the Crystal, the usurper king and all he stood for...if they thought Ardyn a monster, they'd not seen anything yet.]

[nojohnyouare]

[Mai watches. She looks disaffected as usual throughout most of it, but as the story goes on, she starts to waver. By the end, she cringes away and shakes her head.]

...

[Mai looks at her own hands before turning back to Ardyn.]

So that's why.

[scourgingstars]

...That would be why, yes.

[Ardyn sighed, pushing his hair from his face before dropping a hand on Mai's shoulder.]

Are you alright?

[nojohnyouare]

[She looks up, arms falling at her sides.]

Are you?

chapter 10 spoilers btw

[unfatalist]

[It's one thing to read a history out of tomes and tablets and scrolls. It's quite another thing to watch it play out before one's eyes — or, in this case, in one's mind's eye.

In a way, it makes the visions all the more vivid, that he's seeing them when he hasn't seen anything since the Ring of the Lucii had taken his sight from him as the price of his hubris — and his devotion. It also makes it all the worse, somehow, because these aren't just visions but memories, colored with emotions that wouldn't be present in a written history, even if one did exist.

And they don't. They don't exist. This story was purged from history, and lives on now solely in the only man left living to recall it.

He freezes, reeling from it — the rage, the betrayal, the indignation, the anguish — and tries not to think of how the tale analogizes to that of Noctis, the Chosen King destined to save them all, just as fated to die and yet surrounded by retainers who would lay down their lives for him in an instant, without hesitation.

Gilgamesh, please — you promised, you swore to protect me —

How bitter it must have been, he thinks idly, and holds very still to ensure that he'll be able to hear Ardyn coming if and when he approaches, to have watched one of Izunia's descendants likewise come into danger, and witnessed one of his chosen faithful do for him precisely what Gilgamesh evidently never had.]

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn didn't approach; he didn't even really move from where he stood, hands on his hips and a frigid glare in yellow eyes. Why, if it wasn't the last person he wanted to deal with after all of that. There were countless people he detested far more, and yet Ignis Scientia had earned a place of particular note upon the miles-long list of names that had earned the rage of the immortal Accursed.]

Come now, you needn't be so quiet. [His voice rang out the picture of mocking arrogance, layered over a silent challenge of say something, I dare you.] Surely you've some terribly clever remarks to make. This is untold history, after all, scholars would kill for the chance to experience such a thing.

[unfatalist]

[There he is. He turns rapidly in the direction of the voice, gloved fingers tightening around the walking stick that he doesn't much need anymore, but still carries for his own various reasons.]

I doubt anyone would be eager to experience what you've experienced.

[It's carefully-guarded. At this point, so is Ignis.]

How many times have you died and failed to remain in the grave?

[motherfucking_ghost]

Fuck!

[Church is slumped back against a wall, chest heaving. It's one thing to know. To have been told some of the details, the sweeping description of how Ardyn had fallen from so high a grace. Quite another to experience it first-hand. Intense. Intensely wrong.

(It's like seeing into someone's head, like Seeing, like Queenie does, and he never wanted that.)]

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fuck!

[scourgingstars]

...That certainly does illustrate the versatility of the word.

[Said Ardyn, calm as anything as he leaned back against the wall beside him.]

Breathe--you're alright.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I'm all right? [He tries for a laugh. Fails.] I'm--holy shitfuck. Shitty fucking fuckstick on a dick-hopping fuckmaster.

You--

how does time even work idek but have a post game noctis i guess?!

[thatgoodnight]

[At first, Noctis is fascinated. He recognizes things here and there that survived to his own day in one way or another - paintings, books, buildings made to last. In a way it’s almost exactly like watching someone play Assassin’s Creed - watching them navigate a recreation of past Lucis. Except it’s far too real for that. Too vivid and sharp and painful. The end of a war - no, not just any war. The Astral War, and he can see the raw wounds that would in time grow over to the scars he is more familiar with. But nonetheless, the end of a war and the beginning of something new, and he can hear a song, clear, hauntingly familiar, and in that ancient tongue he remembers bitching about having to learn as a kid because no one speaks it anymore. He’s heard the song before, still sung from time to time - mainly at the festival that marks the long ago fall of Ifrit - and stars he both can and can’t believe he just watched all that unfold before his eyes. It’s different somehow than the murkier images the Astrals had shown him, and it comes with the acrid scent of ashes and gnawing ache in his heart as he realizes - perhaps for the first time - what the song in its many layers is truly about.

As long as it is only I who should carry such a thing, then that is a price I will pay for this world's safety.

Sensing that sentiment, Noctis feels a chill down his spine, and he wishes more than anything in that moment that he could turn away and stop watching. He doesn’t know the specifics of what’s going to happen, but he knows just enough to guess, and he doesn’t want to see it. Doesn’t want to watch Ardyn degrade as the infernal Starscourge eats him alive and transforms him. Doesn’t want to see with his own eyes the events that Shiva and Bahamut had summarized.

But he can’t turn and he knows even if it was an option, he wouldn’t and shouldn’t. Ardyn might have become an evil plague upon their world, but he didn’t start that way, and Noctis owes him this much - owes him learning why. (Besides, he can’t deny that he’s curious what shaped the strange and unsettling creature that once upon a time was Ardyn Lucis Caelum, would-be savior of Eos.)

Noct’s stomach twists as he senses the gradual change, and watching the memories as he is, for a moment the bitterness and disdain, frustration and aimless hatred are almost his own before he shakes himself out of it. There’s such a thing as getting too involved and staring too hard into the abyss. But the worst part in a way is how the echoes disturb his own long-buried memories of a brief time in his childhood when he carried the scourge. It still surface in nightmares sometimes, that chill, that infectious misery, that awful bone-deep aching…

The fact that the final day in Insomnia is blurred and ashy makes it worse, somehow. Noct’s imagination fills in the gaps, except that he cannot truly imagine what it must feel like to watch one’s brother degrade like that. His mind retreats from even so much as thinking about what if Ignis or Gladio or Prompto had become a daemon. He doesn’t think he could do what Izunia does, which he supposes has a certain irony to it considering he was the one who succeeded where all the past attempts failed, in the end.

The darkness, when it comes, is almost a relief, and when Noctis recognizes the prison on Angelgard, he is startled, and he expects for a moment it to be darkness outside. But it’s not - not yet. This was so long ago…


In the end, Noctis is left standing there, staring at nothing in particular for a long moment before it catches up to him that the vision is finished and … and he knows now… all the things he didn’t. How it all happened. He feels like he's going to be sick.

Scratch that, he is going to be sick, and he stumbles over to a bin that is conveniently wherever the hell they are and empties his stomach in it. Not that there's really anything to empty just now, but reflexes and all... When sufficiently recovered, he wipes his mouth on his sleeve and doesn't quite look over at Ardyn as he speaks:]

... that's... that's pretty fucked up.

[As usual, he is the most eloquent.]

time is a construct and also silly

[scourgingstars]

...

[It was funny to Ardyn, in that way things weren't funny at all yet he had to laugh or slip that much farther into insanity. Funny how the place where his twin brother had stolen his name and executed him couldn't have been more than twenty feet from where Noctis had ended what Izunia started. Funny, how he felt sickened by the whole ordeal playing out and yet his brother's descendant was the one whose stomach turned inside out at the sight of it all.]

[Funny, how a single sentence could so accurately summarize things.]

That is, I suppose, one way to phrase it.

[tacomeme]

[Normally, this would just add more evidence that he had done the right thing in defending Ardyn when he was in Florida. Choices were made- most of them not Ardyn's, but some of them were. But over all the whole mess wasn't fair.

But Takumi wasn't thinking of that. No, two things stuck out to him sharp enough to cut. One being the familiar feelings of slowly realizing something was deeply deeply wrong with yourself but refusing to stop your course.

The second was that churning rage of betrayal. Or seeing someone you were supposed to trust turning on you. Of feeling a brother's blade in your heart and yet still refusing to die.

When the memory ends Takumi is shaking, eyes blow wide, unable to even offer his comrade any comfort due to being too caught up in his own memories mixed with Ardyn's and trying to take deep breaths.]

[scourgingstars]

...Takumi?

[Ardyn reached out to his shoulder cautiously, trying to gently pull him back to something resembling reality without startling him.]

It's alright--you're safe, all of it's over.

II. a retainer's resolve

[scourgingstars]

['I swore an oath to stand with Noct and keep him safe.']

[The words alone caused Ardyn to hesitate, arrogant smile faltering to something...confused. The black-purple flame of darkness incarnate flickered and faded as he tried to comprehend this, failing like one struggling to gain footing on the rain-slicked stone underfoot. What kind of person actually followed through on such ridiculous promises? How absurd...mortals were selfish, cutting and running at the first sign of peril. Obviously Ignis should have just accepted the offer to come to Niflheim--even if it had just been Ardyn playing a game of baiting Noctis to the Crystal, obviously logic would have led the retainer to take the first opportunity to get out of the miserable hellhole that had once been Altissia, leaving his king behind.]

[...That was what retainers did, in Ardyn's experience.]

['Whatever it takes, I will protect him-!']

[Ardyn barely had enough time to notice what was in the adviser's hand before the scene erupted into bright light and agonized screaming. Ah--now that was funny. The Ring of the Lucii, the power of the Lucian line which rejected the unworthy and arrogant who would seek its power. The very ring worn by Ardyn's own brother, as well as countless other monarchs over the generations. He'd really die just for a chance at helping this miserable excuse for a prince?]

[That thought made the low chuckle in his throat sound terribly bitter, a current of cold jealousy running amidst the hatred and bloodlust that had become Ardyn's ordinary life in these past ages.]

[...And then it worked, striking the would-be Founder King utterly speechless. Ignis Scientia stood burning with fire and rebellion, warping back to an open space before the altar and scowling at Ardyn in a wordless challenge.]

Well-

[That loyalty made him sick to even witness, and he answered that challenge by warping himself in a streak of magenta, inches away from the adviser.]

-they've shown you their favor after all.

[A burst of the same corrupted darkness was thrown forth from Ardyn's hand, and the fight was on in an instant. Despite all the power Ignis was throwing around as if it were nothing at all, Ardyn...didn't even seem to be trying. It simply wasn't worth it to him, and he'd not even drawn a sword fromt the Armiger. Let the idiot retainer know his sacrifice was worth nothing, that Ardyn couldn't be killed or even wounded with all the strength of the Lucii and the ring. Every so often he'd throw out a bitterly cold taunt, if you're so keen on keeping him safe I'd like to see you try, how lucky to be surrounded by such skilled advisers-]

[Oh, he hated this. Hated Ignis, Gladiolus, Prompto, and hated Noctis for daring to have friends that would go to such absurd lengths for his protection.]

Why not cease this futile charade? Your appeals to hope and loyalty will all come to naught in the end!

[...Ardyn knew the answer. Knew it as well as he knew his own name, as he knew the color of the sky, as he knew that love and camaraderie were the most well-crafted lies the world had ever seen. His brother, his Shield, an entire kingdom he had fought and suffered for--'Ardyn Lucis Caelum' had been nothing to them, and so why should he ever think trust was more than a nice fairytale people told themselves to push back the encroaching darkness of endless solitude?]

[Ah, but if this went on Ardyn really might kill him out of spite alone. That wouldn't do, not after all this. Better to let the adviser live to realize how things like that truly ended; in pain and despair.]

[Back on the imperial airship, Ardyn just...calmly dusted off his coat, wrung rainwater out of the ends of his scarf, and calmly set himself to ignoring the question of whether Gilgamesh would ever have burned body and soul for his own would-be king's protection.]

[It didn't matter. He already knew the answer.]

should be sorry, am not

[founderinglight]

[When the vision clears -

There's a too-familiar figure standing just a bit off, waiting. No hat, but his blue scarf is pulled up in a makeshift hood, as though the memory of the rain could actually touch him. The clothes are not quite Izunia and not quite 'Ardyn,' but somewhere in between.

There's a good chance of this all going to hell immediately, as soon as he opens his mouth, but - ]

I hope you'll forgive me for enjoying your expression at that moment. [Any other forgiveness is off the table, he knows.] Your expression was priceless.

are you ever

[scourgingstars]

[...Well, if he didn't already think this a long and complicated delusion, that about solidified it. Because that couldn't be happening.]

I'm sure you thought it hysterical--as I recall you revel in my misery and misfortune.

have a chapter 12 noct. c:

[warpstriking]

[The sight is something he never thought he would ever witness. Let alone from the Chancellor's perspective. To hear Ignis's bloodcurdling screams, his resolve to stand by his helpless ass regardless of the price..!

Before now, he always thought it had been simply in the middle of the battle that had waged in the hell that became Altissia after Leviathan's awakening.]

So, that's how he...

[That's how he lost his vision, he couldn't get himself to finish. He thought he was angry before at just the sight of this bastard's smug face, and yet as the images fade he felt the ring in his pocket grow ever the heavier. That sickening pit in his stomach bubbling over as he's overcome not only by anger, but grief and a pain no words could describe just knowing not just what Luna had gone through to deliver it to him, but now Iggy... He supposed he should be proud upon realizing realizing that not only was it a trap Ardyn was setting up for him, but that he expected Ignis to take the easy way... and he absolutely refused. He chose to fight, and that...

It took Ignis's plea for him to end their adventure to a whole new level, and he couldn't help the sardonic chuckle escaping him. Man, did he feel like shit for not being able to do a damn thing to keep his best friend and brother from having to make the choice in the first place.]

OH DEAR :D

[scourgingstars]

My, that certainly did happen.

[ardyn, can you like. not?]

What an incomprehensible course of action. Almost insulting, I must confess.

III. somnus ultima

[scourgingstars]

Creaking hinges of heavy double doors and the click of footsteps on marble echoed through the Insomnian Citadel's throne room. Finally, finally beneath a blighted sky the time had come to finish this. And just in case the prince had forgotten what was at stake...Ardyn had so helpfully cast illusion magic to remind him.]

[From the ceiling hung four bodies ravaged by the revolting ichor of Starscourge, skin pallid and eyes solid black. Nyx Ulric, the man who had brought Niflheim's assault on that very city to an end. Iedolas Aldercapt, who had so desperately sought power and orchestrated the capital's fall in the first place. Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, the pure and holy Oracle who Noctis had loved and Ardyn had murdered.]

[And, of course, Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII. Noctis' father, another descendant of this miserable line.]

I'm afraid you're out of luck.

[The very first words Ardyn had ever said to the final king of the line, echoed darkly ten years later in a voice that didn't even conceal sadistic delight. He'd waited so long for this their final encounter. Longer than you could ever know. But...oh, it wouldn't do to have this be an unfair fight. No, no, not at all.]

[Tonight, the dreams of the blood royal come to an end.]

[A flash of the darkness that made up Ardyn's body and soul would be enough to sideline the other three. Killing them would be pointless now; Noctis was as sharply focused as the blades he carried, and any small chip might yet prove irreparable now.]

Don't- [Ardyn said in all sincerity] -let us down.

[Twin Armigers flashed in warping streaks of red and blue, on the streets of the city at first; and all throughout Ardyn taunted him, voice reveling in some sick sense of satisfaction he felt...knowing all of this was over and simply taking out two thousand years of frustration on the only target left. So you are the Chosen King...but you are a second choice, at best.]

[A replacement. Nothing more than a Chosen in place of a savior who simply hadn't done enough, who had been found unworthy when all he had wished was for the world's prosperity. Fury boiled in his head alongside something very strangely like regret, and as Ardyn shoved Noctis back he realized...he was very tired of all of this.]

Let's have it, then. You and your Crystal...against all I have become.

[What he had become. Not Ardyn Lucis Caelum, not anymore. The savior would not have watched the line's Royal Arms spin to life in red like the chambers in a revolver, would not have thrown himself at what was, in the end, a largely uninvolved child who wished to save the world as Ardyn once had. The young healer who found happiness in the safety of the people he had saved was dead and buried.]

[Only Ardyn Izunia remained, and yet as the fight collapsed to the Citadel's courtyard it was a mortal fury and rage that fell with him. Out of breath and reaching the limits of his regeneration, Ardyn brought his sword down again and again, swinging wildly at Noctis as if two thousand years of hatred would be solved if he just cut the young man in front of him to pieces.]

You think ten years is a long time?! [The snarl that left Ardyn was vicious, frustrated...and entirely human, without the daemonic shrieking this very city had once heard. All of this, all of it had been unfair. Why should Noctis have had loyal retainers, have people that loved him everywhere he went and not a single one dare turn their back on him? How dare he not know what it meant to suffer for the sake of others, how dare he call himself Chosen King when he could never understand what Ardyn had gone through struggling to be the savior he'd believed the world deserved?] It is nothing to me! I have lived in darkness for ages!

[No one could understand. No one would. Noctis had everything, and Ardyn--Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the Accursed, the Usurper, Ardyn Izunia--had nothing. Nothing but rage, and this the only change to finally focus it upon a single source.]

[...But in the end, he hadn't wanted victory. Or in a sense, victory was gained through defeat. Weapon after weapon splashed blackened blood through the air, vanishing like miasma as it went...and Ardyn either wasn't or chose not to be fast enough to counter with his own. (Even he wasn't sure which it was.)]

[Ardyn had already won. He'd won when the sun failed to come up ten years ago, and now he won outright lying on the cold ground of the Citadel as rain began to fall from a sky turned dark by the Starscourge.]

['This time...you can rest in peace. Close your eyes...forevermore.']

[So that...was the end. No vicious condemnation, no 'go to hell and stay there', just...acceptance. Perhaps even sympathy.]

[Had anyone ever shown him sympathy in two millennia?]

[Ah, he was too tired to think on it, past how strangely funny this seemed to be. All that work to get Noctis to detest him as the monster he was...and it hadn't even really worked, had it?]

[No argument came; just a quiet promise, and the vanishing of the man who had once been savior as his body faded into the miasma that it truly was.]

[weeplittlelionman]

[It's a horror he'd never been prepared for, not even back as a child having lost everything but his own will to survive. Insomnia--different from how he knew it, and ravaged by fighting and darkness. An eternal darkness. The kind...that they had always fought back.

Until Ardyn had become the thing that they fought.

The taunting of the King--and oh, he knew a Lucis Caelum when he saw one. The terrible clash of dual armigers. Ardyn's voice wracked with anger and spite.

And his cutting down. His resignation. His acceptance.

Vandeae, a man out of time,lowers his head, raises a hand to his eyes to cover them, as if to banish the images for good. How could this have happened? How had it ever come to this?

His lips move, but no sound comes out. But if one listens very closely, or is intimately familiar with the words, there's a prayer, half sung, breathless.]

ayyyy remember before i got jossed i sure do

[scourgingstars]

...Don't. If I never hear that song again, it'll be too soon.

[shedgrace]

[And so.

Lunafreya watches without flinching as the man she gave her life in loving fights the creature that once was a man who loved. Look to the distance, she'd told one. Know that I am there.

To the other, she'd promised peace. She'd brought his arm away from her face with the first of her last breaths and left some of her light in his hand, in hopes that... no, that's not quite right. Hope was there, certainly, for hope was one half of all Lunafreya had. But for Ardyn, hope was a curse, and healing a kind of poison.

No, she'd held his arm in her hands not because she'd hoped better for him, but because he was owed that much, at least. Because it was only right that someone do so. Because she had nothing else she could do.

So she watches the bloody culmination of the prophecy by which she lived and died. She watches the king she loved--loves--fight desperately to bring about her promise.

Peace. An end to darkness.

Lunafreya watches the sword her brother stole from King Regis's hand strike through the heart of a man called Ardyn Izunia, as she once watched a sword burst through Regis's own chest, as her mother once died amid flame and terror, and she does not avert her gaze. Not until his body crumbles, ebbs away, as it should have long, long before.

Only then does she bow her head in acknowledgement.]

So passes the first of the Lucian line, whose end waited in the hands of the last. [It aches, her whole soul, to have seen it come to this. To know what befell the man who killed her. To know what end awaits her Chosen King, and in whose hands.] May the peace you were denied in life come swiftly, Ardyn Lucis Caelum, and may you find rest at last, free of the world that spurned you.

hi my inbox ate this

[scourgingstars]

...Regrettably, the fact that I stand here at all rather proves 'peace' to be yet beyond my reach, Lady Lunafreya.