000

Lion's Pride

There are areas in the Department of Mysteries off-limits for very good reasons. When Harry stumbles into one of them, he finds himself reborn, literally, into a new world. A new world with a father, and family, and a chance to live. For real. Slash. Ignis/Harry, Noct/Luna, SLOWBURN

Will probably contain spoilers for the Royal Edition, Kingsglaive, Brotherhood, and various Character episodes.

000

Chapter Ten

Anima... wasn't happy to see the entire Tenebraean court waiting for them at the famed Pools of Ilfana as he followed Lunafreya and Noctis.

Their presence was to be a secret, why were the Lords and Ladies of Tenebrae, along with the Queen's personal guard all present? Uncle Regis didn't look surprised as he immediately went to greet the queen, so Anima could only assume it was something that had been spoken of and agreed before hand, so held his tongue, eyes scanning the unfamiliar faces to land with slight relief on Ravus just behind his mother. It must have been a political thing, he couldn't claim to have a good head for such, but he had been raised on the outskirts of the courts, he knew enough. This was likely a signal to her people, discreet, meant to be gossiped of but never affirmed aloud, that she did not support or approve of Niflheim. That their overseers were as unwelcome as they had always been, and that her loyalties would lie with her Kingdom and their ages old ally, Lucis.

He sincerely hoped that she was confident in the loyalty of her court. Because he most certainly was not.

That was when the echo of magitek engines changed. No longer echoing off the stone and tree around them as they came and went without so much as a by-your leave, but directly above them. Three Niflheim dropships hovered above the sacred clearing at the back of Fenestala Manor, their hatches opening.

They had been betrayed.

"INCOMING!" he roared, spotting the troopers throwing themselves out from the ships even as he banished away the sword he had called to hand out of reflex. Three dropships. A single drop ship could carry as many as thirty to sixty troopers depending on how they were geared. Glaives and Crownsguard could handle that many, no problem, a single well trained team at that, Uncle Regis could probably handle it alone, but Anima could already feel the sucking edges of something else in the air, something that sent pain up his fingertips whenever he reached for the armiger, as if he were running his fingers across needles instead of familiar crystalline glass.

Anti-magic tech.

They were bound to develop it eventually. And given the nature of the device, yes, there, the third ship above them with its glowing firefly abdomen. It wasn't disgorging any troops, only maintaining position as the other two poured tiny humanoid figures onto the ground below.

He grabbed Lunafreya by the hand, Noct's wheelchair in the other, and pushed, pulled, and dragged the two towards Uncle Regis, the man already on heel and racing back towards them, his expression panicked as Magitek poured out of the trees and opened fire.

He heard the queen scream her son's name, but couldn't see her as the troopers opened up with flame-throwers. Lunafreya screamed, hand over her mouth.

"The queen!" Ani shouted even as he dropped Lunafreya's hand to summon a shield – that didn't come. Horror burned a split second before he was jumping over Noct's chair and under Uncle's arm to ram himself bodily against the armoured figure coming up behind him – broadsword at the fore.

It was chaos. He didn't have a chance to identify who it was he had just staggered before a blow to his side tossed him away like a ragdoll. He crashed into several infantry and, ignoring the pain, tried to call Kikuichimonji to his hand – it wouldn't come, the anti-magic generator wouldn't let him –

He tore the rifle out of one of the infantry's hands and turned it on his fellows even as he ran to where he could see his King in lock-blades with the armoured soldier that threw him aside. The armiger answered then, the Royal Arms bursting into life around the King and launching the unknown soldier away. Uncle Regis snatched up Noctis from his chair, and grabbed Lunafreya's hand with his other hand, waiting barely a breath for Anima to reach him, still firing on the approaching infantry before they ran – sprinting away from the pools back towards the small dock where the ship would be waiting.

"PLEASE! HELP US, KING REGIS!" Ravus.

There was no hesitation, Noctis would be safer with Uncle Regis than him. The Ring of the Lucii would not be constrained by any anti-magic technology that Niflheim could develop. But the thought of leaving any member of Royalty alone, unprotected, in a situation like this went against every ounce of training since childhood, Ani turned on heel and bolted for the bloodied sixteen year old Prince, grabbing his arm even as he threw aside the useless empty rifle.

"Get up! Get up now!" he roared, dragging him up by the arm ignoring the blood under his fingers, or the way the young Prince cried out, up and away from the smouldering grass. Eyes flickering to the burnt run through corpse of Queen Sylvia with a pang even as he dragged the larger boy in his wake, away from her, and after his fleeing King. Had that anti-magic field not been up, they could have very well prevented this, the Queen herself commanded great magic, she would have survived. To stay would be suicide.

Up ahead, Lunafreya pulled herself free of Uncle Regis, and suddenly found herself being yanked forward once again, Anima's hand bruising on her wrist.

"No! My brother – " she cried, trying to dig her heels in, only to see Ravus staggering at her side, dragged along in the Shield's wake like a sparrow in a gale as he tore after his King too fast for them to get their feet under themselves.

They were too slow.

Anima grit his teeth and fell back, dragging the siblings together and Lunafreya's hand into Ravus', "Run! Do not let them take her! Do not let them kill your sister!" he commanded, stress making him loud, commanding, as he snarled at the soft pampered Princeling.

He didn't wait for acknowledgement before he let them go, and turned.

The issue with the anti-magic fields was that they were small. It was why Niflheim did not deploy them more often. They were too expensive to make, too difficult to implement, and too large of a target.

He was no longer within that field.

And he no longer cared for playing nice.

He summoned the packet of copper rods into his hands and threw them up, lightning catching between his fingers.

Yeah, Dad told him to never use this again, but what he didn't know, Anima couldn't get into trouble for. And it wasn't like any of the Niflheim soldiers would survive this.

Harry only ever had the most basic of information on this, mostly gleaned from Dudley, some from Hermione and Collin (Collin who had been particularly vocal about asking why they couldn't just blast Voldemort away with one, only to have Hermione point out that they would need an actual ship to use one). Anima had used magic and his own studies to explore it further, admittedly using coins which he realised during his combat training were hideously inaccurate and more likely to hurt himself than anyone else.

But rods... Angle them correctly, catch them in the current, and –

the world went white, and his ears screamed, ringing.

And then he hit the ground.

000

His face was on fire, his ears were ringing, he couldn't feel his hands, and he considered that a blessing as consciousness slowly returned and he was left choking on what felt like three broken ribs. He gasped desperately on ashen air, coughing, and whimpering as it felt like someone had filled his lungs with petrol and lit a match.

It took a while, but eventually he stopped, and just breathed, shallow, and fast, through slightly parted lips even as he blinked hazily, painfully, at the grey-white sky above, at the drifting scraps of ash and scorched leaves that flew overhead.

That... was a dumb. Thing.

A really dumb – whatever – attack, yes. Effective. But dumb. His brain felt like soup. His body like one giant burning bruise.

Copper conducted electricity a lot better than a coin of brass and other mixed metals. He squeezed his eyes shut in hazy recollection. A single coin of mixed brass stuck with a single hand of Thunder magic, versus, five copper rods conducted with both hands with a Thundara in each. He fucked up. He fucked up big.

How... long had he been here?

Had Uncle Regis managed to escape with the little ones?

It was that question that forced him to his feet, forced him to roll to his side, gasping desperately against the pain in his chest as he shuddered on the grass, and eventually pushed himself to his hands and knees. He stared down at his hands on the grass, they were scorched, blistered and angry red, leaking plasma, and blackened in places.

He couldn't feel them.

It was likely his nerves had been seared dead. That was bad. Hopefully the Lucian healers would be able to revive them. It would absolutely suck. He was going to have to learn how to write again, he realised inanely, already thinking to the rehabilitation he would need to do to get them back and functioning. Would he even be able to grip a sword like this? Did he have a choice?

Well, clearly not. If Uncle Regis had already left, and he had better have, then Anima was going to have to make the return trip to Insomnia on foot, and he would need to fight for it. For food and for shelter.

He groaned as he called Kikuichimonji to his hand, the faithful blade bearing him loyally as he struggled to his feet. He felt like some manner of newborn calf as he got his feet under him, knees trembling and knocking as he stood akimbo, gripping his ribs as something moved strangely inside him, uncomfortably. Fuck. Did he have a floater?

Ugh, did it matter if he did as long as it didn't pierce a lung?

C'mon, his own voice commanded, not the Harry voice in the back of his head, your feet work fine, Leonis, one in front of the other. You've got shit to do and places to be, get moving soldier.

Right.

One foot in front of the other.

He turned around and froze.

Oh

that

There wasn't much left of the forest. The waterfalls that fed the Pools of Ilfana had been obliterated, the water boiled away, the giant trees that ringed the clearing torn up at the roots, the earth itself torn open and scorched, gargantuan roots still smouldering even now, who knows how long after. All that remained were fallen Magitek infantry, scorched corpses, and smouldering ashes.

It... was foolish, a vain hope, but there was always a chance. Humans were built sturdy, sturdier even, here in Eos compared to Earth. He tottered through the churned up earth, past the fallen infantry, the scattered weapons and burnt black corpses.

It was a fool's hope, but he still had to check.

The Phoenix down shimmered into his hand from the armiger as he slowly checked the clearing, every body gently turned over and inspected. Most had been torn apart by gun-fire, a number of them cut down by a large sword, likely the broadsword he saw in the strangely armoured man's hand. But he couldn't find any sign of the queen, even though... he was fairly certain... she had fallen right here...

He squinted at the dull white sky. It was impossible to tell the time of day when it was like this, at least in a country not his own. Tenebrae was far more temperate than Insomnia. Had she survived and returned to Fenestala? It was a possibility. He couldn't find a single sign of her here, and bodies don't just vanish.

It was a long, slow walk back to Fenestala Manor. It was unlikely he would find much there, but he had to make sure that Uncle Regis had actually managed to escape. If he were in charge of this event, he would have stationed men at the Manor in order to prevent anyone attempting to escape, especially if this were an assassination attempt on both royal lines at the same time.

He didn't expect to find the Manor smouldering, and half ruined.

He stumbled to a stop in bewilderment, leaning against a column as he stared at the crowds of people bustling around the ruins, carrying injured people and various items out of the wreckage. He could see Niflheim infantry milling around, and there was a dropship in the distance making its way over. He... needed to know.

It hurt more than it should to reach into the armiger and call a different change of clothes, swapping out his Crownsguard uniform and its magically reinforced fibres for regular street clothes made of cotton. Sturdy washed out jeans he stole from his father, a t-shirt with a cartoon chocobo on it that Auntie Theia got him not too long ago, and his own leather coat to keep him warm against the steadily growing cold wind – it was probably going to start raining soon, he kept the boots.

Getting to the Manor was easy, or would have been had he been in good health, as it was, the path took some time and involved a couple of stairs he could have done without. No one noticed a kid in a brown coat with a sooty scorched face staggering into their midst, just another one of many as people tended to the injured staff of the Manor.

"Oh!" a female voice stopped him, suddenly there was a hand on his arm, gentle, and Miss Maria's face swam into view, "You – " her eyes flicked at their surroundings before she gently drew him into a hug. Ani winced but returned it, "I'm so glad you are alright. Come, sweetheart, let's get you somewhere quieter. I know you hate crowds," she bustled, just loudly enough that no one around them paid the two any mind as she quickly ushered him to a small out of the way section of the gardens.

He closed his eyes as she set to cleaning up his face, "His Majesty, Noctis, did they escape?" he asked hoarsely.

"They did. Princess Lunafreya and Prince Ravus with them. I am sorry, they could not wait for you. It has been some six hours since the incident," the servant explained regretfully as she gathered up his blistered hands and sucked in a sharp breath. "I will get you some herb-water and wrap these."

Anima nodded slowly, "Thank you, but I should be off. If I move quickly, I will be able to escape Tenebrae before they lock down the harbours."

Maria gave him a steady look, "They will not do so, Master Leonis," she told him softly, her voice mingled with disbelief and rage, "They have informed our countrymen that the incident was an accident, a simple fire that got out of hand when dissenters broke into the Manor. That both our royal highnesses are dead."

He shook his head, "Why would they report such a thing when – no, surely once they reach Insomnia the whole of Lucis will know, it shan't take long for word to reach Tenebrae, a lie like that will not hold water?" he asked in disbelief, not understanding how they thought to keep something like that going.

Maria pursed her lips, "It – is my understanding that they hope to capture them before they reach Insomnia. And that the Princess will vanish into Niflheim's research labs. Who knows what they plan to do with Prince Ravus."

He scowled, remaining silent as she waited a moment and then picked herself up to go in search of the promised herb water. His phone had been in his pocket, and it was a little difficult to call it out of them in the armiger and into his hand, but, well, he guessed magical sensitivity had its upsides? Still, the phone was trashed beyond use. The screen shattered, the plastic melted and warped. Completely unusable. He took a breath and leaned back against the railing as he stared over at the still smouldering Manor, he looked at the people, the servants, the guards, the people who had been injured in this stupid, pointless, wretched attack and grit his teeth.

He shoved himself to his feet and marched into the thick of them. Potions were handed out discreetly, Elixers to the worst of them, hi-potions to those wounded but not in great danger, he gathered people close to him and mixed up Healcast ice spells in the few magic flasks that were rescued from the fire. It drew attention, but he was able to slip away in the chaos, a burnt fourteen year old wasn't going to draw the attention of the Niflheim military when they would be looking to the queen's guard if anyone was using elemancy.

And whatever he walked, he whispered in the people's ears that their Prince and Princess lived, that they fled towards Lucis. They lived. Do not lose hope. The line of the Oracle remains. Stay strong. They will return, someday.

By the time Maria tracked him down, he had burnt through the last of his elemancy, and the last of the rescued magic flasks one of the dock hands had liberated for him. She sighed but didn't scold him, her expression torn between exasperated, guilt, and gratitude as she got him sat down and began to spread the herbal wash over his hands. She worked quickly and efficiently, before patting them dry, applying ointment, and then wrapping them up tightly.

"I will not tell you to go carefully. I know you will not," she said solemnly, patting his hands, "You Lucians never do when you take it into your head to fight. It must be the Will of Bahamut whispering in your ears. Light be with you, lad. Do not return to the embrace of the Tidemother just yet," she told him softly before getting to her feet, "I never saw you. You were not here. And neither was the King."

And then she walked away, corralling several of the other servant girls to work.

Anima flexed his fingers and nodded to himself. They would hold up until he got home.

But now... now he had to give Niflheim something else to focus on than trying to capture his King.

000

Without the ship, he was forced to take the train. Sneaking aboard under the noses of the imperials was child's play using magic, he shredded the light around him, bent it, the refracting crystals hiding him from view. It wasn't perfect, not like the Invisibility Cloak of Earth, but it was good enough that no one saw him as he made his suicidal leap onto the baggage cart.

He almost fell, his ribs protesting the action so ferociously that his vision blacked out for a moment, his whole body going weak. If he fell, he would die, so he didn't. He tightened his grip, he rode it out, and once he got his breath back, he crawled to a more secure location, and carefully worked the hatch of the cart open before sliding in. Not a moment too soon as well, a tunnel was coming up, and they were always full of daemons, even this close to the Oracle's kingdom. Perhaps especially, given how they were travelling into the Ulwaat region now – ancient nesting site of the daemons of yesteryear.

He delicately welded the ceiling hatch shut before he left the baggage hold, he didn't know how intelligent the daemons of Ulwaat were, but there were undoubtedly truly ancient beings there – and a daemon could learn. Whether they had seen him open the hatch from the tunnel up ahead, he didn't know, but he didn't want to take the risk and put the innocent passengers onboard at risk by leaving any potential opening to be exploited.

The tunnel was long, and dark, and he could hear the sound of the daemons scraping along the metal armour of the train as it powered through, occasionally jarring as it ran one down and crushed it beneath tons of iron and metal and power.

It was somewhat ironic to think that if everything went off without a hitch, and if he didn't stop, that he would likely reach the Crown City before Uncle Regis.

Good thing he had absolutely no intention of doing so.

Seeing Ulwaat's distant Solheim ruins as they passed through Pagla was fascinating. Were the world not at war he would have loved to spend time studying them, there must have been all sorts of information and daemons hidden within them. Not only that, but there was a crater where one of the minor gods was killed, he could distantly see the crescent of raised rock and feel it buzz along his arms even here, the shudder of an ancient life lost. But there were no stops in this area, it was too daemon infested and with no havens known on the maps there was too much risk and not enough reward for a stop to be put in just for tourism. Maybe when Noctis rid the world of the daemons he could suggest a camping trip with his father? He wasn't a history buff, but he would probably find it interesting none the less. He had become interested in the Astral war and Solheim simply through exposure to his son.

Piztala though.

Anima knew they would be passing the imperial town, it was unmarked on the map, but aerial images were impossible to mistake. It was only a tiny ammo depot according to what information they had been able to gather via spying, his father had even mentioned it before, apparently he had sabotaged it in the past not long after Noct was born while he was on a black-ops mission in the area.

It was likely terrible of him, given how there were probably civilian contractors working there, regular people trying to do their jobs, provide for their families, but – but... they threatened his home and family.

He summoned his secret demolition kit from the armiger. His dad didn't know about it, and neither did Dustin, but Monica was firmly of the opinion that there was no problem that couldn't be resolved without judicious application of plastic explosives. And if it didn't work, well, you just needed more explosives. She joked, of course, but it was a sentiment that he could appreciate as a fourteen year old boy with a love of things that went bang in big fiery displays. So he listened very appreciatively as she taught him how to make things that went bang.

His phone was fucked, so it would be no loss. He took his SIM card out, and hooked it up to the large mass, the screen was fucked but it wasn't too difficult to get it to perform vocal recognition. He opened the count-down option on his clock app, and set it for twenty minutes.

As they approached, he dragged the window open, and waited for the best moment before launching it into one of the pallets next to the rail-line. None of the staff noticed. Everyone manning the depot was an MT.

He yanked the window up and went to find a place to hide. As soon as that went off, the troopers on the train would be checking everyone for possible Lucian spies. Best not let them catch him travelling without papers or passport.

000

Fordina Castro went much the same way, he sabotaged as much of their mining equipment as possible in the short day's respite they had on site, sneaking down to the depths of the quarry and quickly leaving when he found a nest of malboros he had no intention of tangling with. Not in his current state. But still. He got valuable information from the excursion none the less.

Niflheim hadn't found the Royal Tomb hidden there yet.

Anima wasn't a hundred percent sure it was at the bottom of the Quarry in all honesty, his father told him there was a tomb in Succarpe, and he could feel something familiar to the armiger lingering in the air that grew stronger, like a scent, or a flavour in the back of his mouth, but he wasn't willing to chase it all the way through a nesting malboro's territory. So he left it be, made a mental note, and blew a few things up on his way out to stir the local daemons and fiends up before breaking back onto the train that would take him to the dock back to Lucis.

He wasn't caught at the ferry port, no, but it was close. He managed to pay a man with a nice little fishing boat to get him to Lucis, or rather, take him fishing near Lucis. He paid up front, babbled on about all the good fish he'd heard about there, he wanted to see the legendary Bismark obviously! And apparently there was the Jade Pink Gar somewhere out there, if he could only just see it – you didn't get much fishing in Tenebrae, you see.

He directed the man towards Ravatogh, loudly explaining that he had studied it, that the warmer waters attracted rarer and more tropical fish in larger amounts because it promoted algae growth – the increase of fish would attract other waterborne predators and wasn't the Bismark supposed to be huge? It would need to eat other fish to support such prodigious bulk, don't you think?(Thank you Noctis, you absolute fishing nerd.)

He waited until one of the typical storms of the region blew in, and then 'fell' overboard and was 'lost'.

In truth, he swam the rest of the way to shore, dragging himself up onto the warm volcanic black sand in the dead of night, thankful for the fact that daemons rarely risked coming onto the shoreline – they hated water, it didn't agree with them, which made places like Accordo very attractive to the common man and woman. There were no daemons in Accordo. It was one of their biggest tourist draws, that peace of mind to relax without worrying that what goes bump in the night is more than a couple on their honeymoon making the beast with two backs next door.

He stayed at the beach until dawn, and then picked himself up and began the long walk to the nearest road, and it was a long walk. He had missed his mark of Cape Shawe, jumping a little ahead of himself and ending up on the other side of the small mountain range between them. It was a rough walk, but peaceful, there were definitely fiends, but with the thick undergrowth they weren't too interested in him if he moved quickly, kept to a jog, and gave them their space.

He crawled out near Malmalam Thicket, and jogged down the winding path to the river with relief. He wasn't quite on the home-stretch, but he was close.

There was a Niflheim military base just north up the road from there.

Fort Vaullerey.

The biggest Niflheim base in Lucis.

He slept the night away at the haven next to the carpark, eating a couple of the fish and roasted vegetables he gathered on his way there over the campfire, and refilled an old waterbottle at the river. He gathered his strength and considered how he was going to approach the base. He needed to make a big enough ruckus to distract them from any chase of Uncle Regis and the little ones, so, that meant explosions. Lots of them. Sabotage too.

They had literally airdropped the base into existence two decades ago within the space of two months, using MTs to set up the prefab facilities day and night. When the Wall got scaled back it was scarcely days before more bases were being dropped into Lucis.

He chewed slowly on his roasted pepper.

Maybe he should do something about that?

That morning, he rolled over Fort Vaullerey. He summoned up his Crownsguard uniform, figuring he would need the extra armour, and used Glaive invisibility to sneak in. He warped onto each of their ammo stores and affixed explosives to them – he stole more explosives and charges and equipment too – and then he warped out of the base entirely, and set them all off. He figured he could be forgiven the nasty little giggle he gave when all the sirens went off and the whole place went up in fire, smoke, and explosions.

He warped his ass over the river, and out of sight before anyone could notice him and ran into the tree line. He had to hike up to the main road to get across the tail end of Taelpar Crag, but that was a small sacrifice – and it took him almost directly to target number two: Perpetouss Keep.

This base... was not as easy.

Some Niff bigwig was there, studying something or other. So when Ani started setting off alarms, and exploding things, the backlash was almost instant – and vicious.

Three of Niflheim's MA Veles mechs came at him before he could get clear and out of sight.

He got shredded.

It was sheer luck that he managed to give them the slip in the woods as night fell. But that had hazards of its own, and a fucking Tonberry Knight almost took his head off just as he was passing the Tomb of the Just before he was able to scramble to the safety of a haven and catch his breath, and bleed across the stones.

His chest was on fire.

No more detours. He needed to get to Insomnia. He'd made enough noise to distract Niflheim from trying to pursue Uncle Regis – hell, attacking Perpetouss had caused all local patrols to form up and immediately go to offer relief and resupply to the base, and the chaos he sew at Vaullerey had diverted more forces away as well. He had tied them all up in the same day. If it didn't hurt so much, he'd laugh.

Now he just had to get home. Across Duscae, Leide, and up to Cavaugh.

He shouldn't have slept that night, but he didn't really have a choice. He passed out and slept hard well into the afternoon of the following day, and woke with a groan as he rubbed dried blood from his cheek. And forced his aching body up.

He forced himself to get moving.

He walked, unable to go at a run with his leg sending white hot waves of agony up his body with any weight he put onto it as he moved. He passed Costlemark with a dull appreciative stare, were he in better shape – he would have gone in, if only just to look. It was the oldest standing Solheim structure this close to Lucis, supposedly it was still operational even, whatever that meant. Rumour had it that you could only go in after dark, and that it would glow with the light of the sun it absorbed during the day.

Eventually, he moved off the road, the sound of magitek engines overhead making him nervous. So he moved into the tree cover, and followed a deer path that ran through Kettier Highlands. He passed a fishing shack and its concerned owner who tried to cajole him into sitting tight and letting him call a local hunter, he didn't wait, too nervous of anyone trying to take him further away from Insomnia.

Night began to fall, and he couldn't risk going any further when he stumbled on the second fishing spot. Just a jetty leading into the water. But it was safe, and that was what mattered.

He curled up and slept the night away, waking with the dawn, and making his way once again – he made better time that day, managing to get as far as the haven south of the Three Valleys in Leide as night began to fall.

He didn't feel good though. His stomach and chest had gone an alarmingly dark colour, it was hot and hard to the touch, and moving too much was agony.

He knew at a glance it was internal bleeding, it may have started as something that wasn't too bad, but after several days without tending, it was getting worse, and he was finding it harder to breathe. Eating hurt too, not his mouth, his stomach. Any pressure or movement caused him searing agony. But if he stopped, he would die. He knew that, somewhere in his little lizard brain he acknowledged that stopping was death, so he had to keep going, and when he had to wait out the night, it was best to position himself carefully, and nap.

It was luck that a chap leaving Hammerhead saw him as he was staggering past and practically dragged him inside, saying that he would take him to Insomnia, Six damnit what the hell happened to you kid?!

He laughed, and ended up coughing blood onto his chest, "Picking fights with Imperials. Really gotta stop doing that," he muttered breathlessly, the guy driving him giving him deeply unsettled looks of concern as he pushed the accelerator down that little bit more. Turned out he was a delivery driver and had no problem getting them through the blockades, or border control. No one even asked about him, the guy stating that Anima was his nephew, learning the route and the ropes for later.

It was when they reached the wall and they were forced to get out so the truck could be inspected.

"I'm going to need to see a passport for the kid," the Crownsguard was saying dully, only he kept glancing to the large TV monitor in the office behind him, making Anima curious as he stumbled forward, and froze.

That – was his dad. On TV.

His father was crying.

Who. The fuck. Did he have to kill for this?

000

He didn't know how he got there. It was a blur.

There was... a lot of shouting. But... that didn't matter.

His dad was crying.

His brothers were crying.

He had to go to them. He had to. That was – that was what he was supposed to do! It was his job! His purpose! He had to – be there, protect them, stop that, stop them from crying, they weren't supposed to. He wasn't – it was his job to stop things that would make them cry. That was what he was raised for. What he was trained for.

He was vaguely aware of warping over the wall of the royal garden, he staggered and fell, coughing blood, thick and sticky on his tongue and spat it into the grass even as he pushed himself to his feet, the world swaying black and white and bright and distant and slow all at once in front of his eyes.

There were people up ahead. He could see... flowers. Sylleblossoms. Smudges of white and gold amidst a sea of black. A towering black figure with a head of white – Uncle Clarus. He coughed, and a pair of hands caught his shoulders, a voice swimming in his ears, he grit his teeth and shoved them aside –

Uncle Clarus was over there, that meant his dad was too.

Clarus – like Uncle Regis – would have never left his side if he were upset. They were brothers. His dad was crying, they wouldn't leave him. That meant his dad was over there.

The sea of black roiled, voices started shouting all around him, more hands tried to grab at him but –

there

His dad.

He stumbled, and a moment later he was there, his dad was there, kneeling in front of him, hands touching his face and shoulders as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, everything sounded like it was underwater and far away and he couldn't breathe

but he was there

he was crying though

Ani dropped to his knees, practically falling onto his father as he clumsily tried to wipe them away, they shouldn't be there, his dad – he didn't cry. He had never cried. No one made him cry. No one. He croaked something, he didn't know, dirty hands on his dad's cheeks

and then something hit his side, and everything went black.

0000

BAM.

Bit of a long chapter but I kinda got into a groove and I couldn't find a good place to stop. Well okay that's a lie, I just wanted to get this whole segment out of the way in one fell swoop.