Chapter Text
A message comes from Accordo - an invitation of friendship and cooperation with Lucis and the Dawn King.
Noctis read it over and over, frowning. “I can’t not go,” he said. “But I can’t leave, either.”
“Welcome to politics,” Ignis quipped.
“Specs. What do you think I should do?” Noctis asked, and Ignis practically glowed at being asked for his opinion.
So that’s how Ignis and Prompto end up in Altissia, this time on official business for the king of Lucis. First, however, they have an important stop to make.
The memorial set up at the site of the altar is simple - a lifesize replica in silver of the Oracle’s staff, crowned with silver sylleblossoms. It glints in the sunlight. That’s the thing Prompto gets caught up on in his description of it for Ignis - the way it shines, a beacon above the cold, gray water. They stand in silence for a moment, and then Prompto retrieves his phone from his pocket and opens the camera app. “I’m going to get a shot of it, for Noct.”
“Good idea.”
“I feel like it would’ve done him good to come,” Prompto says, still thinking of Noctis hunched in on himself on the floor of the king’s study.
“Perhaps. But if he feels he’s most needed in Lucis, we must trust his judgment.”
Prompto sighs. “But he doesn’t have anything to prove. Not to anyone.” Ignis hums, non-commital. It just isn’t that simple, and they both know it.
Noctis tells them now, when Ardyn shows up. Not that the sudden wide-eyed thousand-yard expression Noct gets on his face is hard to miss, now that they know what it means. And it’s been happening less and less, in the fortnight since the memorial service. Ignis has a couple of working theories as to how Ardyn got to following Noct around - that Ardyn’s magic left traces of himself around Insomnia and their shared lineage is why only Noct can see him, or perhaps a shade of Ardyn literally followed Noct back from the afterlife. Secretly, Prompto, who has plenty of experience with the kinds of nasty visions a traumatized brain can conjure up, thinks Ardyn is a simple manifestation of Noct’s guilt. He supposes they’ll never really know what it was. He supposes it doesn’t really matter, as long as Noctis is getting better. Which he is. That Ignis would leave him, even for this brief diplomatic errand, is proof enough of that.
“You about ready to go?” Prompto asks. “Watch your step, it’s a little slippery - ” But just as Prompto turns, something bumps his ankle, and he yelps in surprise.
“What’s wrong?”
Prompto looks down, and there’s a miserably wet little white dog looking balefully up at him. “Holy shit!” he yells. “It’s Tiny!”
“What’s tiny?”
“No no no, I mean it’s Pryna!”
“What?”
Prompto crouches and reaches for the little dog, scratching behind her ears. “Heya, sweet girl. How have you been?” But Pryna is nudging at Prompto’s hand, whining - she even gives his wrist a tiny nip. “What’s wrong, girl?” He straightens, and Pryna spins in an anxious circle. “Hey, Iggy, I think she wants us to follow her.”
“Are you quite sure it’s Pryna?”
“Sure I’m sure! She lived with me for a few days when I was in middle school!”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Oh, yeah, long story - I’m gonna follow her, you coming or you want to stay here?”
Ignis huffs with annoyance. “I’ll come along,” he says. Prompto is glad; he would’ve felt like a proper asshole leaving Ignis here, but he would’ve done it if he had to. Whatever Pryna is here for, it’s got to be urgent.
Pryna leads the two of them away from the altar and down along the edge of the water. It’s slow going along the slippery wet stone, and every so often Pryna stops and looks back to make sure the two of them are still following her. The little dog dodges under a half-fallen arch and disappears from view. “Hold up, girl, we’re coming!” Vaguely he wonders if it’s blasphemy to talk like that to a Messenger of the gods, and then he pauses. “Hey, Iggy? If - if part of the deal with Noct coming back was no more magic and no more gods - where does that leave the Messengers of the gods?”
“I don’t know,” Ignis huffs. “That’s exactly why I asked you if you were certain it was Pryna.”
“It’s her,” Prompto answers, though he knows there’s a tremor of doubt in his voice that Ignis will pick up on. “Watch out for this archway, pretty rubble-y right here,” he cautions, ducking forward. And then he stops. Pryna is gone, there’s no longer any sign of her. But half-submerged in the water, half-sprawled out on the rubble, is a body - one he recognizes. “Holy shit,” he whispers. “It’s her.”
“Who, Pryna?”
“N-No. It’s Lunafreya.”
Luna opens her eyes, the afternoon sun low in sky outside the window. She frowns. She had not meant to fall asleep. Noctis was going to call.
Across the room, Prompto notices her stirring and sets his phone down on the table. “Hey,” he says. “Did you have a nice nap?”
She nods, reluctant to admit it; it seems absurd to have slept so much in the past day and a half and yet still be so tired. “Did you speak with Noctis?”
“Yup,” Prompto answers. “He was kinda disappointed not to talk to you, but I told him you were napping. He said you’re not to worry about anything, that we’ll figure it all out when he and Gladio get here.”
Figure it all out. The place of an Oracle in a world without gods or the Scourge. The role of a princess of a country that exists only in tatters. No doubt Noctis has asked himself many of those same questions since he first opened his eyes as Gentiana must have bade him to.
She remembers Gentiana’s arms around her, and her whispered apology. Then she remembers cold, and a foggy sense that there was something she must do, someone she must see. Then there were voices, and other arms around her, lifting her, peeling her out of her cold wet dress and wrapping her up in something warm. Luna felt boneless, senseless - trapped by an exhaustion so pervasive it was difficult to open her eyes. “Rest easy. You’re among friends. Noctis is alive and well.” She didn’t know the voice, but she did know that name, so she obeyed, and slept, until she had the strength and presence of mind to speak with her rescuers.
The introductions were made, though she knew who they were, of course.
“Where are we now?” she had asked calmly.
“Hotel Jardin, in Altissia,” Ignis answered. “As far as the hotel staff is concerned, Prompto has taken ill and we are not to be disturbed.”
Luna exhaled slowly. “Your discretion is appreciated. May I… also ask what I am wearing?”
“That would be my sweatshirt and sweatpants,” Prompto squeaked.
“Your clothes were completely soaked through,” Ignis offered. “We could not risk you developing hypothermia.”
“No, I suppose not.” Luna isn’t embarrassed, per se. It just seems a little absurd that they would have considered the possibility. Perhaps it was just that it had been so long since anyone had been concerned about her bodily comfort.
“Don’t worry, Iggy’s blind, so it’s not like it was weird,” Prompto added cheerfully.
“Yes,” she said faintly, for lack of anything better to say. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t noticed. It made her cold to think about - what had happened to him, what had happened to all of them.
“It’s an old injury,” Ignis said smoothly. “Nothing to concern yourself with, Lady Lunafreya.”
“Perhaps,” she answered, just a little dryly, “there’s no need for formality, given the circumstances. It…does not seem like coincidence, that you were the ones that found me.”
“It wasn’t. Pryna led us right to you,” Prompto said.
That was not the answer she was expecting, and it must have shown on her face, because Prompto said, “Yeah, I was surprised to see her, too.” He scratched at the back of his neck. “You probably don’t remember, but this one time when we were kids - ”
“Of course I remember, Prompto,” she said warmly, and Luna could not stifle a giggle when his ears turned bright red.
“Well, thanks,” he said, clearing his throat, and then he turned soft eyes to meet hers. “Because meeting Noct was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
No, although she had never met Noctis’s inner circle she has seen them, in tabloid articles or standing at his side at televised functions, in the occasional snapshot he tucked into the notebook. And she has read through enough stories about them to have the sense that she knows them. The one thing she is certain of, for she could feel it in every word, was how much Noctis loves them, and how much they love him.
Jealousy is a terribly inconvenient thing, a thing Luna has never had time for, so she folded it as small as possible and slipped away in a dark corner. But even so, sometimes late at night she’d hold that notebook tight to her chest as if she could take some of the love she felt bleeding on every page for herself. Is that what she’ll find, she wonders, when she finally sees him again after all these years? Love? Luna does not need anything so sweeping. If he could only help her to find some inkling of what to do now in this future she never imagined, that would be more than enough.
“Did Noctis say how long it will before they arrive?” she asks.
“He said Cid and Cindy - there’re our, uh, mechanic buddies - were already on the way to Cape Caem to get the boat back in order. So if it turns out it’s in good shape, within a day or two.”
Luna does not ask what happens if the boat is not in good shape. Ignis enters a moment later with a small paper bag clutched to his chest. “I thought we could all do with some tea,” he announces.
Prompto flashes a conspiratorial grin at Luna. “You’ve got him in full Team Mom mode.”
They have explained to her why they came to Altissia, and she does not wish for them to feel obligated to babysit her at the expense of helping Noctis be king. “Please, there’s no need to trouble yourself on my account,” Luna says.
“Nonsense, it’s no trouble. The vendor at the tea shop was outside handing out samples as I passed by. I would have stopped in to make a purchase anyway. Cream and sugar, Lady Luna?”
The odd but not unwelcome combination of her title and her nickname fill her chest with warmth. “A little sugar, please,” she murmurs. Honestly, Luna has not been so carefully looked after since she was a child, since the title ‘princess’ actually meant something. Once she can do something other than sit in bed like an invalid, she will have to repay them. For now she has little choice but to let them fuss and bring her tea in bed. She cups it in her hand and inhales deeply, watching Ignis and Prompto have a silent conversation next to the electric kettle.
“Is there something wrong?” she asks.
“There is something we need to tell you,” Ignis says seriously, so Luna sets her tea aside and sits up a little straighter.
Prompto crosses the room and sits on the edge of her bed and takes a deep breath. “Hey, um, Ardyn got ahold of Ravus,” he says on the exhale. “And by the time we knew, there wasn’t anything we could do to help him.”
“Oh,” she says faintly.
Luna’s always known that, one way or another, the Empire would succeed in eliminating the House of Fleuret. But never had she even considered the possibility of outliving Ravus. She greets this news with only a distant sense of shock. Of course. The ground the Empire had replanted her in was so full of poison that slowly turned her heart hard and cold, and now she can’t even properly mourn her brother.
Then Prompto lays his hand on top of hers, limp on the covers. “I’m so sorry, Luna,” he says.
What a contrast, to gloved hands yanking her wrist, the barrel of a gun prodding at the small of her back. After her mother died, the only one to touch her like this was Gentiana. Not even Ravus could embrace her after that. She never understood why that was, until this exact moment, Prompto’s warm hand dismantling the wall she’d built up so carefully, brick by brick.
“Oh,” she says again. The tears come so fast, coursing down her cheeks before she can even attempt to pull herself together, and then Ignis hands her a silk handkerchief so she stops trying to.
Luna may have no family of her own left, but she allows herself the sinful luxury of hope that there is room for her in Noctis’s family.
“Hey, you want to send Noct a selfie?” Prompto asks later out of the blue, whipping out his phone without waiting for Luna’s answer.
“I’ve never taken a selfie before,” she says, unnecessarily.
“Yeah, but you’ve had your picture taken, right? It’s the exact same thing,” he says, holding his phone at arm’s length and leaning in. “Say cheese!” She smiles dutifully. He appraises the picture with a satisfied nod and holds his phone for Luna’s inspection. “We’re adorable.”
She looks ridiculous, with her blonde bedhead and wearing a too-big sweatshirt. She supposes looking ridiculous is the point. She nods, once she realizes Prompto is waiting for her permission.
Some half an hour later, Prompto’s phone vibrates on the table. He reads the message, then laughs, even as he winces a little. “Oops,” he says, and shows Luna his phone.
gladio: yo what did you send him?
gladio: hes been crying at his phone for 20 min
Luna leans with her forearms on the windowsill, letting the breeze play with her hair. She was never allowed open windows, at least not open windows without bars on them.
“I’m pleased with how far along the reconstruction efforts are,” Ignis says beside her.
“I am too. I was - it was difficult not to be afraid, that day.” Every one of these soft admissions of her heart feels like a defeat and a victory at the same time.
“I can only imagine,” he murmurs, and his hand finds her shoulder. It’s just the two of them in the room. Prompto left about an hour ago to fetch Noctis and ferry him to the hotel via the tangled back routes of a city that was already rather mazelike, even before it was almost destroyed.
It’s ironic, that after everything, they should finally meet in Altissia. Or maybe it’s not. The gods always did like that symmetry. And yet, there is a part of her that can’t forget the fury of the ocean that day; though she trusts Gentiana, there is a part of her that still struggles to believe the gods will simply let them live. She wonders if Noctis feels the same way. She’ll be able to ask him soon enough.
Perhaps it is only a few more seconds, or maybe it’s another fifteen minutes - but then the door opens and Luna whirls to face it, her heart in her throat.
Noctis is standing in the doorway, staring at her, open-mouthed. No one says anything. She is suddenly conscious of how small and ridiculous she must look, still bundled in Prompto’s borrowed clothes. Gladio, hovering in the doorway just behind Noctis’s shoulder, wordlessly puts a hand on Noctis’s back and shoves him into the room. He takes two stumbling steps, and then, the spell broken, he takes a few more until finally Luna can throw her arms around his neck.
“Luna,” he says. And then he says her name again, like he’s testing it out. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Gods. I’m so sorry.”
She pulls away just as abruptly so she can look at him properly, older and more tired but still the prince she remembers. Still the same eyes, just shiny with tears. “None of that,” she scolds quietly, reaching up to rest her hand on his cheek. “No need for any of that.” It’d be more effective there weren’t tears on her own cheeks.
Noctis pulls her into his arms then, cupping the back of her head with one hand. She allows herself to be held for the first time in so, so long; buries her face in his chest and holds back tight with all the strength she’s gained back in the last few days.
“It’s okay, Luna. We’re gonna be okay. It’s gonna be all right.”
She knows it is.