Chapter Text
The world falls apart when Ignis is ten.
It seems a simple enough visit at first. When the Lucians come to Fenestala Manor with their black capes and black cars and black hair, Ignis’s family welcomes them with open arms. His mother tends to the little prince, and she asks him and Luna to stay by his side and keep him company. Ignis likes the prince well enough.
And then the skies rain fire.
When General Glauca runs a sword through his mother’s chest and paints his brother with her blood, Ignis screams.
Luna dashes to Ravus’s side, picking him up from the ground where he kneels. She wraps her arms around him, staring up at the helmeted, hellish spectre of General Glauca. The general’s sword is dripping with Queen Sylva’s blood.
“Ignis!” King Regis calls, and Ignis turns from his family to see the king of Lucis holding Prince Noctis, standing wreathed by flames and crystal magic.
He’s holding out his hand.
Ignis looks back.
Luna meets his eyes from across the grass, lit by fire and searchlights. She’s sobbing; he can see it from here. But she is a princess, and she was raised to be brave. “Run!” she screams to him. She is holding their brother, and their mother is dead, and Ignis is the Oracle now.
“Ignis!” Noctis cries from King Regis’s arms.
Ravus and Luna are surrounded by the magitek soldiers. Men with guns yank them to their feet. They are covered in their mother’s blood. Ignis almost reaches out to them.
Almost.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, though he knows his siblings will not hear him.
Ignis takes Regis’s hand, and he runs.
---
The Messengers leave Tenebrae behind, and they come to Lucis.
Behind the walls of Insomnia, it’s safe enough to be himself. The Oracle is a morale booster, they tell him. The young son of Tenebrae will let the Insomnians know that there’s still hope for the world outside, and that there is still a shred of divinity in their world. Ignis doesn’t mind when they parade him around. His mother always did tell him that the purpose of the Oracle was to be the light for the world in times of darkness.
Ignis doesn’t like to think about his mother that often.
The empire doesn’t technically know he’s here, but they suspect it. Information doesn’t often make it out of Insomnia and into Niflheim’s waiting grasp, but enough soldiers and dignitaries get captured that the rumors start to spread that the youngest of the Nox Fleurets yet lives. It’s not a secret, but it’s been ages since the outside world has caught a glimpse of their young Oracle.
The Lucians dress him up in black. Maybe it’s to further the illusion, or maybe it’s just to claim him for themselves, but they do it nonetheless. Black waistcoats and black slacks and black shoes become staples of his wardrobe; Ignis insists on at least wearing white shirts underneath them. Still, he chafes under the dark colors of the Lucians. They feel wrong on his skin, like his body knows that he should be in the white of his house. But he obliges the wishes of the people that saved him from certain imprisonment, and he wears the black.
When Gentiana visits, she sometimes brings him gifts from home. Sometimes, they’re sylleblossoms. Sometimes, it’s a bottle of the golden polish she uses on her nails. Sometimes, it’s one of his favorite books from his shelves in Fenestala Manor, or a bookmark with the Tenebraen crest. One day, she brings him a weapon.
His mother’s trident shimmers with bright silver and gold light, glowing before his eyes. Gentiana lets him reach out and touch it, and then she lets it dissolve into golden light, just like the magic of the kings, only more familiar. Ignis mourns its loss.
“Remember who you are,” she reminds him.
Ignis protests, “I’m trying.” How could he forget? His mother died to make him who he is. His sister and brother are captive because he is who he is.
Gentiana leans down and touches Ignis’s cheek. “You are the blood of the Oracle,” she murmurs. “Tenebrae has not forgotten its son.”
“I’ll come back,” Ignis insists. “I promise.”
Gentiana smiles, but her eyes are sad. “Child,” she tells him, “one day you will learn the weight of promises.”
---
“Do you hate me?” Noctis asks.
It’s been exactly a year since they escaped Tenebrae. It’s past their bedtime, but neither of them quite care. They’re sitting side by side on a bench in the middle of one of the Citadel’s inner courtyards, staring upwards. The stars look different here than they did back home. Even now, after a year in Insomnia, the Citadel isn’t the home that Fenestala was.
Ignis looks away from the stars and at the prince. His companion’s still staring at the sky, but he’s frowning in a way that makes his blue eyes wide and sad. “No,” Ignis tells him. “No, I don’t hate you.”
“Then why are you always sad?”
Ignis shrugs. His tutors always tell him not to do that, but he’s with Noct, so that makes it okay. “I miss my family,” he says. “I miss my sister and my brother.” He looks down at his hands. “And my mother,” he admits.
Noct swings his legs for a little while. Ignis doesn’t mind; he likes just sitting here. Noct knows when to be quiet and when to talk, and they both know that Tenebrae has changed them both. Noct finally says, “I never knew my mom.”
“I never knew my father.”
“You know mine,” Noct tells him, and he grins. He’s missing a tooth on the left side, which Ignis doesn’t think he’s noticed before. Noctis doesn’t smile that often. “And he likes you.”
Ignis offers a little smile in return. “I’m glad.”
“And I like Luna and Ravus.” Noct’s brow furrows a little bit, and his face falls into a pout. “And Umbra and Pryna. They were all nice.”
“They were,” Ignis agrees.
“They’ll come back,” Noct tells him. “I promise. When I’m king one day, I’ll make sure they come to Insomnia. They can live with us.”
It’s a nice enough thing to think, but Ignis isn’t sure if his siblings will ever make it out of Tenebrae. Nothing is certain in this war, and he’s not eager to lose them in an attempt to steal them from the grasp of Niflheim, whether Noctis is the king or not. He won’t risk their lives just because he misses them.
Besides, he’s worrying already for his friend. Noct’s just a child for now, but Ignis knows the prophecy of the astrals, and the fate that they have set out for him, even though he feels like the astrals haven't told him the whole story. Noct's the Chosen. Somewhere out there, the darkness waits for Noctis to become a king. Ignis shudders to think about it, especially when they’re just a couple of children under the stars.
Ignis only hopes that he can always be around to guide him. Maybe it’ll make things easier.
He stares at the stars and prays that the astrals will give him the power to keep Noct safe.
Gentiana comes to him that night, and she touches his cheek with a hand colder than winter. “Even though you have not yet ascended, the calling of the Oracle comes to you. So, too, does my allegiance.”
She kisses his forehead, and frost blooms across his skin, unbearably cold but entirely unharmful. Ignis gasps at the feeling, and it’s as if she’s reached the very core of him, tapping into the part of him that always kept him from being scared of the dark. It feels like the light in his heart that his mother told him would ignite when his time came. It reaches out as if it’s woken up, rising up to meet the Messenger like an old friend. The frost creeps down into his heart in its place, and Ignis isn’t afraid.
Gentiana draws back, and she smiles at him sadly, and there is golden light in her eyes now, curiously familiar. She murmurs, “Go forth, Ignis, and may the Glacian’s blessing go with you.”
Ignis can hardly catch his breath. He whispers, “Thank you.”
And Gentiana is gone, leaving only snowflakes in her wake.
For what feels like forever and no time at all, Ignis stands there in his bedroom, a foreign prince in a foreign city. He feels...empty. Not hollow, no, but as if there’s not quite as much of him there as they used to be. His mother had told him once, with the quiet comforting music of a bedtime story, that the Oracles of old would give part of themselves in return for the allegiance of the astrals in times of war. He’d never expected that this would come to him so soon.
His first covenant.
He stops wearing black.
---
Ravus and Lunafreya write when they can.
The Messengers are happy enough to help circumvent the magic of the Wall and the might of Niflheim to keep Ignis in contact with those he has left behind. Besides, the gods are asleep. It’s not as if they have any urgent messages to send anyway.
Ignis would know if they did.
Noct begins sending a scrapbook back and forth with Luna, with whom he’d grown close during his stay in Tenebrae. Umbra carries that for them, and more often than not he can be seen trotting along the halls at Noct’s side. When Ignis writes to his sister, he tucks his letters in between the pages of the scrapbook, half-pasted down by one of Noct’s stickers. He knows she’ll get the message. Her replies are sweet, but Ignis only gets a chance to see them when Noctis brings the notebook around to show him. He doesn’t blame Noct, of course, but he misses his sister.
It’s easier to write to Ravus anyway, he thinks. They both, somehow, feel responsible. Ignis left, and Ravus joined the ranks of the army that killed their mother, and both of them can do nothing but watch as their old lives fade into memory.
Ignis,
Thank you for your birthday letter and gift. Umbra made sure it was unharmed in his travels back to Fenestala. You’re right: seventeen is a momentous birthday. Lunafreya tells me that my hair is growing too long, but I find that I prefer it this way. Kindly convince her as much in your next letter; I will not stand the disapproval of both of my siblings. She has included a photograph in her journal with Prince Noctis, if you’d like to see how we look now.
The emperor has personally requested that I visit Gralea and receive a commendation. He insists that the heir to Tenebrae must be recognized, but I am not its heir. They act as if you are dead, Ignis, like Mother. I know the truth, though, and Tenebrae is yours if you return to us. Until then, I keep it safe for you. I do not wish to go to meet the man who ordered the destruction of our home, Ignis. I fear that he will recognize the hate in my heart, and that he will once more rain death on our home and our people.
I will go, though, for the sake of our people. I keep your photograph in my uniform, and Lunafreya’s, and our mother’s. I keep you close. Remember that you are loved, Ignis, and that we await you at home.
Your brother,
Ravus
Ignis reads the letter half a hundred times before he puts it down, memorizing every delicate loop of his brother’s handwriting. Noctis has brought him Luna’s photo, as promised, and Ignis pulls it out to inspect it. There they are: his older siblings. Ravus isn’t in his royal attire anymore. He’s wearing an elegant white uniform like what their father wore in the photographs they have of him, and his hair is indeed longer, sweeping down towards his chin in a shining fall of silver. Luna stands by his side in a white dress, proudly displaying the crest of Tenebrae. Even in the photograph, her eyes are defiant.
Neither of them are smiling.
Ignis stares at them for longer than he’d ever dare to admit. It’s been so long since he’s seen their faces. After all this time, he can’t help but trace the lines of their faces, committing them to memory as well. It’s hardly been two years, but things have changed so much. Would that they hadn’t. He folds the letter and the photo and tucks them into the breast pocket of the Tenebraen jacket that Gentiana brought him, keeping them close to his heart.
He bends over, puts his head in his hands, and he sobs.
---
“You cannot leave Insomnia,” King Regis tells him one day. Ignis is twelve and restless, despite his best efforts to focus on his studies. He excels - of course he does - but he yearns for the mountains of his home and for fields of sylleblossoms blowing in the wind. There are no sylleblossoms in Insomnia.
Ignis scowls and immediately regrets it. He schools his face into something more passable and complacent. The Oracle shouldn’t be rude. The Oracle is peaceful and nice and sweet. “Shouldn’t I be out there?”
“It’s not safe. The war threatens us all.”
“My mother traveled the world to heal our people.” Ignis picks at the hem of his tunic.
Regis sighs. “Your mother, Ignis, traveled a world that did not threaten her. A world that respected her divine right. Niflheim does not fear the gods anymore, and even less do they fear the mortal Oracle.”
Ignis protests, “Tenebrae needs me. The people need me.”
“One day you will rule Tenebrae once more, Ignis. When that day comes, you must be ready.” Regis smiles down at him, but his eyes are sad. “You and Noctis are both destined to be kings.”
Ignis turns his head to the side, breaking eye contact with the king. “Noctis is destined to die,” he mutters.
There’s a long, pained silence. Briefly, Ignis feels triumphant: he’s beaten the king at his own game. “Ignis,” Regis says at last, voice strained, and guilt replaces the triumph.
He looks back at Regis, and he hates the way that he’s made Regis look miserable. “Your Majesty…”
“No, Ignis.” Regis holds up a hand to silence him. “You’re right.”
Ignis frowns. Of all the things he’d been expecting, it wasn’t defeat in the voice of the king of Lucis. “Your Majesty,” he tries again.
“I fear for my son, Ignis. As do you. Your burden is enormous, young as you are.”
“It’s my duty.” That’s the truth of it, isn’t it? “I just want to help him.”
“Then stay by his side in safety.”
“But-”
“You are young, Ignis. Lucis is no place for the Oracle, and certainly no place for a twelve year old.”
Ignis furrows his brow. “The Oracle’s place is wherever darkness goes, and wherever the gods command him to go.” He reaches up to fiddle with his glasses. It’s a tic he’ll need to train out of himself before his tutors notice; for now, it’s more of a comfort than a nuisance. “Besides, Your Majesty, the Marshal was fighting by your side at thirteen.”
Regis winces. “Ah. Cor was...a special case.”
“Is the Oracle not?” Ignis challenges.
Regis sighs once more. “You are special in your own regard, Ignis. And that is what makes me want to keep you safely behind the Wall. For now, at least. Until you get stronger.”
“Stronger,” Ignis repeats.
“Stronger,” Regis answers with a finality that suggests a dismissal. “I promise. We’ll talk about leaving the Wall in a few years.”
Ignis bites at his lip; he nods. “Yes, sir,” he says quietly, and that’s the end of it.
Stronger.
Ignis doesn’t tell Regis about the covenant that thrums like a hymn in his bones, and the way it turns his blood to ice.
There are some things that only the Oracle can know.
---
One day, Ravus’s letters stop coming.
Ignis doesn’t know whether to mourn him or dread him.
Ravus would rather die than bend the knee in submission; Ignis knows this. He fears, though, that Niflheim ended up breaking him instead.
At night, he prays for Ravus, prays for Luna; prays for home.
---
He’s fifteen when he finally decides what kind of Oracle he wants to be.
He’s long since given up asking King Regis about leaving the safety of the Wall. It always ends in some sort of half-argument that sends Ignis’s blood boiling until he’s halfway across the Citadel, angrily burying himself in his studies of the most mundane subject he can find to avoid thinking about the world beyond the Wall. Ignis hates those days. He hates feeling helpless.
Instead, he settles.
He’s in Regis’s office, having just finished a report on his communication with the Messengers. They don’t have much to say; they’re cagey, and try as Regis might to get information out of them, the astrals’ twenty four servants are beholden to none but the gods themselves. Gentiana delivers news when she deigns to, but often the only intel the Messengers provide comes from the scrapbook and letters Umbra shuttles to the Citadel. Ignis knows that Regis is frustrated; he is too.
“I wish I could do more,” Ignis admits.
The king shakes his head and says, “Ignis, you’ve done plenty. As Oracle, you do Lucis a great service.”
Ignis bites his lip around his instincts to ask to go out into the rest of Lucis and serve them the way he wishes he could. “Will you at least-” He stops himself.
Regis places a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, Ignis?” he prompts.
“Let me fight.”
The soft, comforting smile fades from King Regis’s face. He closes his eyes for a moment, deep in thought. “You are a prince, Ignis,” he finally says, “and the Oracle. I would not have you-”
“Noctis is going to learn to fight,” Ignis insists. “We are at war. It may not be the role of the Oracle to fight battles, but I will stand by Noct’s side. He is the Chosen, and I will keep him safe.”
Regis sighs and sits back in his chair. “You understand, Ignis, that you will be risking your life to safeguard his.”
“Whatever it takes,” Ignis swears, “I will protect him.”
“Whatever it takes,” Regis muses.
Ignis nods, and he braces himself for Regis’s decision.
The king regards him for a long while, tapping his fingers against the arm of his chair. Beneath the ever-present sadness in his eyes, Ignis can see the shrewd mind of a warrior king. It’s not a side of Regis he often sees; for some reason, it fills him with a foreboding he doesn’t quite understand. “I don’t know if it’s possible,” Regis warns him at last, “but I may be able to grant you the power of the Crystal.”
“The Crystal?” Ignis breathes. He’d been expecting to be given a sword and sent on his way. To be blessed with the power of the Lucii is something he’d never imagined in his wildest dreams.
“The Oracle of the Chosen King should have powers to match.” Regis nods, as if he’s won a fight against some other instinct. “It will hurt, Ignis.”
Ignis meets his eyes. He does not look away. “Whatever it takes,” he insists.
“Very well.”
Regis reaches out to him, and the Ring glows on his finger, and suddenly Ignis shatters.
The king gives him the magic of the Crystal.
It hurts - gods, but it hurts - like glass is splintering through his blood, coursing through his body and tearing him apart, but it builds him stronger in its wake, turning his veins to crystal beneath his skin. The crystalline chill spreads to his heart, and Ignis nearly chokes around the raw power of it, but he closes his eyes and he lets it happen. It burns at first, like it’s warring with the magic that has already taken up residence in his bones, but the searing heat turns into a gentle warmth, and there it stays.
It’s actually comforting.
Ignis closes his eyes, and he looks inside himself where the golden light lives, and where the frost of his first covenant fills the gaps in between the light, and he searches for something new. It eludes him at first, but he is the Oracle, and he does not give up that easily. He keeps searching, chasing the warmth that has become a part of him, and then-
He finds the magic.
It’s blue.
Ignis gasps. “I feel it,” he whispers. “I see it.”
And he recognizes what Regis has done, because he would recognize that blueness anywhere. It’s the color of the sky between the stars, and of fishing ponds at sunset, and of eyes he would know anywhere.
Noct.
---
Ignis learns to fight.
The first step is to use the Crystal’s magic at all. It resists him; fights against those not of Lucian blood, but Noctis helps him through it with fumbling explanations. They’re both new to this, but at least the magic of the Crystal has always been part of Noct’s blood, so it allows him to craft a spot in the armiger that Ignis can call his own.
King Regis has placed a dagger there, apparently. It’s Ignis’s task to retrieve it.
“You just-” Noct reaches his hand out, and suddenly his fishing rod is there, exploding into a shower of white sparks. He plucks it out of the air and shows it to Ignis. “Grab it.”
“Noct, that wasn’t helpful.” Ignis extends his own arm as well, and he tries to focus on the image of a dagger, and to imagine it in his grasp, but the sensation eludes him, and the magic as well. He sighs. “Is there anything more descriptive that may be of help?”
Noct shrugs helplessly. “Sorry. It’s something I can just, y’know...do.”
Ignis rubs at the bridge of his nose, nudging his glasses away and down his nose. He pushes them back up impatiently; maybe he really should think about wearing contact lenses. “Where’s the magic?” he asks.
“What?”
“The magic,” Ignis repeats. “Like…” He holds his open palm over his heart. “I feel the magic of the Oracle here. The magic of the Crystal is there as well, but I can’t quite reach it.”
“So you know where it is!” Noct exclaims. “That’s the first step.”
“I’m quite afraid that the other steps are the ones I’m struggling to understand,” Ignis laments. He clenches his fist again; once again, he grasps nothing but air.
“We can work on it.”
“I’m trying, Noct.”
“Just, uh-” Noct banishes his fishing rod and summons it again in rapid succession. “Look at where the magic is. Do you feel this?”
Ignis closes his eyes and tries to focus on the blue place in his heart, and he frowns when he feels a curious flickering. “Yes,” he murmurs. “Yes, I think I do.”
“Chase it. The armiger’s there.”
Ignis chases the feeling; he chases Noct.
He reaches out when he sees the blueness in his mind’s eye, and he closes his fingers around the sensation of magic, and he thinks please.
He’s holding something.
Ignis opens his eyes.
Noctis is staring at him. His eyes are wide, bright blue like using his powers so much has activated some hidden part of it in his irises, turning them iridescent with potential energy. His gaze flickers to Ignis’s hand, and Ignis follows his gaze. He’s holding a dagger.
“Oh,” Ignis says.
“Yeah,” Noct replies. He sounds curiously strangled.
“Did I do something wrong?” Ignis asks, twirling the dagger between his fingers.
“No,” Noctis insists quickly, just a little too loud. He looks up at Ignis with eyes blown wide with wonder. “No, nothing wrong at all.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “You just learn fast. Gladio took longer.”
Ignis grins and banishes the dagger to the armiger. He summons it and banishes it once more, enjoying the crystalline chill that creeps up his arms when he does it. “Gladio is impatient.”
“Yeah.” Noct stares at his fingers, then back to his face. “When d’you think Dad will let me have a sword?”
“When you come of age, I’m sure.”
“I’m thirteen!”
“That’s only three more years, Noct.”
Noct groans, “But you’re only fifteen!”
Ignis smirks. “I’m the Oracle.”
“Ignis!”
“Oh, come on.” Ignis flexes his fingers to get rid of the static-filled feeling that the magic leaves in his grasp, and he slings an arm over Noct’s skinny shoulders. Noct hasn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet, so Ignis towers over him for now, gangly and clumsy and not quite used to his body. It’s entirely unbecoming of the Oracle.
Ignis loves it.
He closes his eyes for a moment, searching for the spot in his heart where the armiger waits for him, and he smiles. Then he flicks Noct on the shoulder and carefully deflects Noct’s complaints. “Don’t you have homework to do?”
Noct whines.
Ignis smiles.
---
Gladiolus warms up to Noctis over time, and eventually he starts talking to Ignis as well. He helps Noct with more than just fighting, and he invites Ignis to spar with the two of them. They make a good team, if Ignis says so himself.
He likes Gladio’s honesty. Gladio doesn’t presume to be anything more than what he is. Despite his noble blood and natural affinity for the magic of the kings, he doesn’t act like it makes him anything more than what he’s meant to be. He grows into his role as Noct’s Shield with gusto.
Gladio asks him about what it’s like to be Oracle, and Ignis surprises himself by telling him about it. Not the whole truth, of course: he keeps secret the frost of his covenant and the truth of Noct’s future. But he mentions the burning of Tenebrae, and the legacy of his mother, and the parts of him that urge him to wander the world and pour light into the darkest places. The more he talks about it, the more Ignis realizes how lonely it all is. There’s not one person like him in all of Eos.
There’s not any other person like Gladio, either, so it’s easy to talk to him about inheritance, and destiny, and Noct.
When Gladio starts the arduous process of tattooing his family’s crest on his body, he comes to Ignis to help with the designs. He’s nervous about making the ink stretch too far; it’s practically unheard of for the Shield to ever get the tattoo at a size larger than a dinner plate.
Ignis insists that he follow his instincts. Instincts were what drove him to learn to fight, and they’re what tell him that these people he’s accumulating around him are important, are special, are home.
Gladio invites him to his tattoo sessions. Ignis attends every one.
“What’re you afraid of, Iggy?” Gladio asks him one night. They’re sixteen and seventeen, on the edge of their more reckless years. They’ve both got Crystal magic in their veins, and they both fear for what lies ahead. Normally, Ignis wouldn’t tolerate such a nickname, but from Gladio it sounds natural.
Ignis shrugs. His training insists that he should cease with such casual gestures, but he likes how it makes him feel closer to Gladio. “Plenty, I suppose. The usual things. Death. Pain.”
Fire, he thinks, and for a moment all he sees is Tenebrae.
Gladio glances sidelong at him. His skin is red today where the tattoo artist has begun shading in the feathers along his left arm, leaving him unfinished; a masterpiece in progress. “What about failure?”
Ignis bows his head. “Every day,” he admits.
“Yeah,” Gladio says quietly. “Me too.”
They leave it at that.
---
Noctis makes a friend.
Ignis meets him when Noct brings him to the Citadel for the first time. He’s a friendly kid, skinny and nervous but enthusiastic to an almost alarming degree. His name is Prompto, and Ignis can’t help but be immediately charmed.
Something in the back of his mind cries out, though, and it tells him to heal.
Ignis studies the boy in front of him. He looks healthy enough; Ignis can’t imagine why someone like him would need anything from an Oracle. He shrugs it off.
“Let’s take a picture,” he suggests to Noct. “Luna would love to hear about him.”
Prompto blinks at him, eyes wide and violet-blue. “L-Luna?” he stammers. “Like...Lady Lunafreya?”
“The very same.” Ignis tilts his head. “We stay in contact.”
“Oh!” Prompto rubs at the back of his neck. “Of course you do. You’re her-” He leans in close, like he’s about to tell a secret. “Her brother, right?”
Ignis smiles a little bit. “Is it that much of a surprise?”
“Everyone knows that, Prompto,” Noctis grouses, wandering over to a cabinet to rummage around for a snack. He pulls out a bag of chips and chucks it across the room to Prompto, who catches it with surprising swiftness. “He’s the Oracle.”
“I mean, I know that,” Prompto admits, tearing open the bag of chips. “But, like. Y’know. Nobody knows much about his...siblings.” He looks at Ignis. “Your siblings. Uh.”
Ignis turns his hands up in a peaceful gesture. “Not to worry.”
“You can get to know his siblings, then.” Noct comes back over and nudges Prompto. “You’ve got your camera; put it to work. Luna’s cool. Ravus doesn’t talk to us much anymore, but he’s nice enough.”
Ignis winces.
Prompto pulls a camera from his school bag. It’s a nice model, and definitely more well-loved than anything else he’s wearing, save for a slightly tattered band around his right wrist. “C’mon, then. Can’t keep a princess waiting!” He turns the camera around so the lens is facing them, and he chirps, “Everyone gather ‘round!”
Noct huffs and obliges, sidling up so that he’s close to Prompto, and he gives what he must think passes as a smile. It’s endearing, really.
Ignis leans in as well, thinks of Luna, and smiles.
---
Ignis grows used to the magic in his veins, and to the way that it wars with the blessing of the gods. He fears the combination sometimes, and often his dreams are plagued with images of long-past wars and of a darkness that threatens to swallow the world. More and more, as the war drags ever on and Lucis loses more ground to Niflheim, Ignis feels the impossible pressure of fate driving him forward. It whispers to him in the accent of the kings and in the tongue of the astrals, urging him towards a destiny he fears.
Is this how Noct will feel when Ignis wakes the gods on his behalf? Will he, too, have dreams of the past and the present and a distant, terrible future?
Does he already?
Ignis turns twenty without much official ceremony. The common people of Insomnia throw a celebration in his honor, though, and Ignis makes an appearance after much convincing on Gladio’s part. Prompto comes along, though he’s nervous to be at his and Noct’s side in front of everyone who has gathered to welcome Ignis to his second decade of life.
It’s a wonderful celebration, if Ignis is being honest. Every Insomnian is eager to welcome him into their hearts, even if he can’t do much for them here. They remind him of Tenebrae’s citizenry, even after ten years away from his homeland.
So now he’s spent half of his life away from Tenebrae. It’s a sobering thought, especially when it comes with the realization that every day spent here from now on marks the growing majority of his life as a fugitive.
He’s less happy after that, and he quietly excuses himself from the festivities to return to his chambers in the Citadel.
King Regis had offered him an apartment like Noct’s, but Ignis likes having the Crystal so close. His dreams of late are filled with fire once more, and he fears that one day soon, something terrible will come to pass here. Knowing that the Crystal is safe, at least for now, is comforting. So Ignis lives here in the center of the city, as far from harm as he could possibly be at this point.
Ignis tries his best to distract himself, but everything he usually takes comfort in only reminds him of what he’s lost. Luna and Ravus’s letters will only make him miss his siblings, and photographs will remind him of the passage of time since he arrived at Insomnia. Even the mirror offers little comfort. He stares at himself for a few long moments: glasses, pale brown hair flat against his forehead, and an elaborate white and silver jacket. Oracle, through and through. Foreign prince. Foreign land.
So he sits on the edge of his bed, and he tries to forget about it all.
It doesn’t really work.
“Some birthday,” he mumbles aloud.
Nobody answers. Ignis had half-wished that maybe Gentiana would appear and offer some form of comfort, but she does no such thing. It wasn’t much of a prayer, anyway, so Ignis doesn’t blame her.
He wishes he could say he’s surprised when Noct carefully nudges past his half-closed door.
“Hello,” Ignis greets him quietly.
“Hey.” Noct stands by the door a little awkwardly. He’s holding something in one of his hands, hardly distinguishable against the black of one of his more formal black suits. Ignis is privately pleased that Noct decided to dress up for his birthday, of all things. “Can I-”
Ignis stands abruptly. “Of course,” he says, a little too loudly.
Noct eyes him curiously as he walks further into Ignis’s bedroom. “Everything okay?” he asks, heading for the window. He tugs a curtain aside and looks down at the streets below. There are white streamers hung on some of the buildings, incongruous with the usual black of Lucis’s capital. Another reminder; Ignis can’t ever seem to forget what he is.
Ignis follows him after a moment of deliberation, joining him by the window. He hopes he doesn’t look too upset. “Yes,” he answers softly. “Yes, I think I’ll be okay.”
“Good.”
“Yes,” Ignis agrees, though he feels far from good. “Yes, it is.”
Noct fidgets beside him. “Hey, I-” He stops, biting his lip.
Ignis glances sidelong at him. “Yes, Noct?”
“Happy birthday,” Noctis says abruptly, and he thrusts a little black box towards Ignis.
Carefully, Ignis takes it from him. “Noct, you didn’t have to-”
“It’s your twentieth, Specs.” Noct is resolutely avoiding eye contact, hiding behind the dark fringe of his hair. “And you’re the Oracle. And I’m the prince.”
Ignis stops and raises an eyebrow, clutching the box to his chest. “What does that have to do with my birthday present?”
“Just open it.”
“If you insist.” The box isn’t wrapped, so the soft velvet texture of it is smooth beneath Ignis’s fingertips. Ignis flips aside the silver latch holding it closed, and he opens the box.
For a long moment, he says nothing. He has no idea, for once, what he should say. He’s not sure what he’d been expecting, but it’s not this. It’s not a tiny silver skull pendant nestled in black silk, connected to an elaborate silver and gold chain.
“Oh, Noct,” Ignis breathes, “it’s wonderful.”
“So.” Noct rubs at the back of his neck. “Since I’m prince and all, and you’re the prince of Tenebrae, I thought you should have something to, y’know, represent it. You’ve lived here for years and you hardly have anything to show for it.”
“Noct.”
“You keep telling me about maintaining the relationship between allied nations.” Noctis finally looks up to meet his eyes, and he smiles a bit, lopsided and lazy and beautiful. “Thought I’d finally take your advice for once.”
Remember who you are, Gentiana’s voice reminds him.
He ignores her for once. This may be a Lucian relic, but it’s from Noctis. He lifts the chain from the box, enjoying the gentle slide of the silvery links along his fingers, and the pendant comes with it. It has a pleasant weight to it, gleaming silver and, if his eyes aren’t deceiving him, Ignis thinks there may be obsidian stones set in the eyes of the skull. Those stones are exceedingly rare without access to Ravatogh. It’s too much for Ignis to possibly deserve.
And yet, Noctis has done this for him.
He blinks at Noctis. “Would you-” He pauses and swallows around the swell of some unnameable emotion in his throat. “Would you help me put it on?”
Noctis stares at him for a moment. He makes a curiously strangled sound with no words attached, and he blinks before seeming to shake himself back into awareness. “Uh,” he rasps. “Uh, yeah, Specs, of course.”
He reaches out his hand, and Ignis carefully slings the chain of the necklace around his fingers. If their hands brush, well, it’s not completely by accident.
Noct’s touch disappears, and he meets Ignis’s gaze once more before ducking his head with a quiet mumble of “hang on” and quickly moving around so that he’s behind Ignis. Ignis closes his eyes, waiting for Noct to get close once more. For some reason, he wants to be surprised. Noct is quick enough; his hand ghosts past Ignis’s neck, and the pendant dangles from his fingers, brushing and bumping against Ignis’s collarbone. Ignis shivers; the metal is cold.
Noct reaches a hand around Ignis’s neck to meet his other one, grabbing the other end of the chain. He draws his hands backwards, and this time both of his hands brush Ignis’s neck, careful and gentle against his skin. Ignis tries harder to repress his shiver this time. Noctis, to his credit, is mostly silent. His fingers are warm at the back of Ignis’s neck, carefully, fastening the clasp.
Ignis is almost disappointed when he hears it click into place.
Noct’s touch disappears, and his presence fades from Ignis’s back, but he’s only returning to face Ignis, eyes inscrutable and dark. Ignis watches him for a moment, but Noct doesn’t say anything. Instead, his gaze flickers to Ignis’s collarbones, then up to his eyes, and down to his lips, and back again.
“How does it look?” Ignis asks, a little shyly.
Noct smiles - really smiles. “Good,” he says, and it sounds genuine. “Really, really good.”
Ignis looks down at himself, admiring the pendant. He reaches up and traces the smooth lines of the skull, carefully tracing along the sharper fanged prongs at the bottom of it. It really is a beautiful piece.
Maybe, he thinks, he can be a Lucian after all.
For Noct.