Here we go again. I can't resist. It's a time travel fix-it for my favorite video game what more to you want from me? This was originally going to be a one-shot, but considering I already have sequels in mind this is now a one-shot COLLECTION so buckle up we're going down a rabbit hole.

Yes, I'm still working on AMOSC, Ballad, AUW, and the others. I'm just ... detouring a bit. Because Muses™.

Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own FFXV or any references made in this story. The only things I own are my HCs and the plot.

.

The world would forever remember the night of the Wave. The night when the Crystal, the symbol of the Astral's blessing upon House Caelum and the source of their power —their authority—, erupted into light and power so great it stretched to the horizons and beyond. The night when the full moon was outshone by the earth itself as magic blazed from the ground to the heavens, set the sky on fire and shook the world with the echo of a voice no one could quite understand —a voice that said No. Not this way. Not again—.

Lying in their beds, two brothers woke up screaming as the magic in their veins boiled over from the touch of the Wave as it passed over them. Their minds burned with visions of things that did not exist and had never happened even as the Oracle in her prayers collapsed in tears and every soul on the planet woke up with a feeling of fear and relief both.

For eighteen year old Somnus, the world turned dark with jealousy and red with blood. A throne sat cold beneath his skin and a crown heavy as a mountain on his head while a deep voice called him fool and showed him the price of his greed —his line would never know true peace, his brother would suffer for untold ages and his line would end where it began: a familial sword through the heart—. For Somnus, the world became a grey landscape of duty and desperate regret, an endless attempt at apology that would never be heard by its recipient and that fell from his lips with his very last breath.

For twenty-one year old Ardyn, the world stretched on for a black eternity. His love died in his arms and the world burned around him and his voice laughed with glee as the night turned black and no one seemed to notice his desperate screams —no one could hear them over the laughter of the Thing living in his skin—. Reality broke into meaningless fragments and by the time it had reformed there was nothing left but regret for his continued existence and hate for the man who wore his brother's face even though that man had done nothing wrong.

Somnus died old and beloved, with many children and grandchildren. Somnus died with tears of shame sliding down his face for all he had betrayed and all that he had sentenced his family to.

Ardyn died ancient and hated, with no line to call his own and only the tiniest fragments of humanity left in his soul to cry out in grief as he ended the last of his own family. Ardyn died with a snarl on his face and a sob of relief in what remained of his heart because finally, finally, he could rest.

The Wave passed on, tearing the knowledge out of their minds before it could break them. It rolled heedlessly across the sky, leaving them with only desperate impressions and echoes that drove them from their chambers and into each other's arms where Somnus apologized past his tears for betrayals he did not remember —had never done— and Ardyn shook from relief at his release from a soul-deep agony he could not recall —had never suffered—. The rift that had been growing between them as Somnus sided with their father —who spoke of purging the growing plague in the lands by force— and Ardyn —who resisted with pleas for mercy and medicine— burned away under the anguished feeling that they had both lost each other —lost everything— and only just now found each other again.

The castle roiled with chaos as guards staggered under the pressure of the magic rushing by and every animal in the grounds and stables and kennels screamed with something they could sense but the humans had already forgotten.

By the time anyone rushed into the throne room to actually look upon the Crystal, the Wave was over and done, and the lone figure that had shimmered into existence on the throne had already staggered to his feet and fled into the dark of night. Past the panicking guards, past the screaming animals, out into the wilderness where no one could ask questions.

By the time anyone rushed into the throne room, all that was left was a passive Crystal and a throne drenched in blood, its back torn open at chest height like someone had driven a sword into it and then ripped it messily free.

No one understood why Ardyn took one look at the bloodied throne in the morning and fell to his knees sobbing like he was bearing witness to the end of the world, startling his father out of his angry theories about thieves receiving their just punishment for touching the Crystal with immoral hands. No one could explain why Ardyn pressed his forehead to the bottom step leading to the throne, heedless of the blood that stained his red-violet hair even redder, and whispered "thank you" over and over past his tears. Not even him.

No one could explain why Somnus for once ignored his father's bluster about nobility staying dignified and knelt beside his brother, a hand on the elder's back, tears trickling silently down his face as he mouthed "I'm sorry" to the bloody throne.

It took weeks to piece together the true ramifications of the Wave. It took months to confirm those ramifications.

The Starscourge was gone. The plague that had been warping people and animals into monsters had vanished without a trace. The ill who had been quarantined, covered in purple-black lines and lost to the torments of their mind, were now clear-skinned and sane —if confused, having lost all memory of the time they were sick—. The animals that had wandered the wilderness, spreading their sickness with their dripping fangs and limping about as if in great pain were either gone or seen trotting about in the distance, fur healthy and aggression settled to the levels of any of their respective kind. In every kingdom, every city, town, or village, every class from beggars to nobles, the Starscourge was nowhere to be found.

The Oracle consulted with the Astrals in search of answers about the miracle, but no answer was forthcoming. The Astrals were strangely silent, and their Messengers did not come when called. They had nothing to say about the Crystal's inexplicable surge of magic, or the bloody throne that sat beneath it, the stains refusing to come out no matter how the servants washed and scrubbed and repaired fabric or stone steps.

It was around that time that the other rumors reached their ears. Rumors of a stranger wandering the land, hunting monsters, protecting innocents, healing the sick…

Wielding magic.

Only two houses in the world could truly wield magic. That of the Lucis Caelums, blessed with a connection to the Crystal, and that of the Oracles, blessed with the ability to speak to the Astrals. For some unnamed stranger to appear from nowhere wielding magic, mere months after the Wave and its bloody throne… It was suspicious at best.

Their father assigned both Somnus and Ardyn to hunt down the stranger and see if he was the source of the Wave, or if he was just a pretender using sleight of hand to make people believe he was magical. If he was neither of those, but some kind of illegitimate half-blood, they were to bring the stranger back into the fold. By force, if necessary —there were to be no loose lineages, no wayward drops of magic escaped their family control—.

The two brothers, practically inseparable in the aftermath of the Wave, set off by themselves into the wilderness. They left their father's soldiers and Somnus's Shield, Gilgamesh, behind to watch over the Crystal. Working together, the two brothers would easily be a match for some random stranger who might not even have magic. A few days after they started, Aera trotted up on her finest black chocobo, blue eyes bright with determination and pale blond hair cut to her chin in a show of stubborn practicality. If there was a chance that this mystery person could shed light upon the Wave and the sudden silence of the Astrals, she told them, then as Bahamut's chosen Oracle, she had a duty to question him.

Despite Somnus's teasing groans about never having a moment's peace from Ardyn's and Aera's affections for each other should she come along, both brothers welcomed her on their journey. They were as curious as she was to learn if the stranger was truly involved with the Wave after all.

They abandoned their fancy robes in favor of simpler, more travel-hardy wear within a week. Their royal clothing attracted too much of the wrong attention, and they would never get anywhere if they had to fend off bandits what felt like every fifteen minutes. They couldn't hide their noble bearing of course —none of them knew how to act like peasants to save their lives—, but dressing simply made bandits less likely to pay attention to them on the road and made the common folk speak more freely in the taverns and villages.

Out here it was easier to get more details on the stranger, though all the details were fuzzy and steeped in a level of awe Ardyn and Somnus thought unhealthy.

The stranger gave no name, no matter who asked or how many he saved. In fact, most rumors did not even recount him speaking —save for the rumors that he shook the skies with the words of the Astrals and could call down Bahamut's blades at will, but those were nonsense—. Since the man had no name, the common folk had given the wanderer one. Deleantur. Very roughly, it meant the Erased in the old languages. That or Destroyer —and either translation did little to bolster their confidence over procuring a friendly meeting—. No one could explain why they called him Deleantur, only that it made sense when one looked upon him.

No one could tell them where Deleantur was going next either and so they trailed him from village to village, always just a few days too late to catch up with the mysterious figure who left dead monsters and stories of miracles in his wake —a child torn open by monster claws revived with a tuft of feather, a man's ruined arm healed by shattering a tiny glass bottle on it, a woman who had been turned to stone cured with flash of magic—. All impossible tales, all sworn as truth by those they asked.

Then one day they finally arrived in a village where the people helpfully told them that Deleantur had just left less than an hour ago on chocobo back and if they hurried, they might still catch him before nightfall. They pushed their chocobos to near exhaustion, but found nothing more than dust and waving grasslands. Frustrated, they made camp for the night on a tall flat rock, Aera carefully warding it with signs of blessing and safety just as she had all their other camps before.

Ardyn had the middle watch just in case —blessings did not stop bandits after all, only wild animals—, and despite being certain that he was awake every moment of his watch, sword balanced on his shoulder as he sat with his back to the fire, he still didn't sense the stranger until the man kicked a tiny pebble on the rock's surface.

Ardyn spun in alarm, sword in hand at the sound and raised his blade defensively at the sight of the stranger mere steps away from his sleeping brother and lover, "Who goes?"

His shout jerked Somnus and Aera from their sleep. Aera sat up sluggishly, unused to reacting to danger in the night —no one would dare touch an Oracle, and even before that the Mirus Fleuret line had possessed the fewest political enemies—. Somnus, on the other hand, was very used to assassination or kidnapping attempts happening in his sleep and tumbled out of his bedroll in a moment, sliding to his feet with a sword in hand like he'd been awake the entire time.

Both Ardyn and Somnus pointed their blades at the stranger, but hesitated to attack. The cloaked figure just watched them from beneath his hood, hands hidden beneath the tattered fabric. In the flickering firelight, Ardyn thought the man's eyes gleamed eerie blue, but he couldn't be certain. Somnus stepped closer, his own blue eyes snapping and blade far more ready to swing than Ardyn's, "Who are you to come into our camp unannounced? Speak, vagrant! What is your purpose here?"

Aera had stumbled to her feet at that point, her trident clutched in sleep-shaky hands and her blond hair a tangled mess, and Ardyn shifted around behind his brother to reach his lover's side and pull her to safety behind them. Through it all, the stranger didn't move. He just watched them.

Ardyn could almost see his little brother's impatient twitch, barely resisted the urge to scold Somnus when the younger man gestured his sword at the stranger in threat, "Well? Answer me!"

Ardyn, uneasy at the continued, eerie silence, lowered his sword tip to the ground and tried to placate both his brother and the unmoving figure in their midst, "You startled us. Did you come to share our fire? It is cold tonight. We will take no offense so long as you mean no harm." Still nothing. He might as well have been talking to a breathing rock. Off to the side, their chocobos began to wake up, giving out soft "kwehs" of confusion —he sincerely hoped the stranger didn't scare them off, the next village was almost a week away on foot—.

Somnus opened his mouth, but Ardyn gently laid a hand on his brother's wrist in a request for silence. More shouting was clearly not going to work, and someone losing their temper was the last thing they needed. Ardyn then pressed his hand to his chest, "I am Ardyn. This is my brother Somnus, and my … my friend, Aera. Do you have a name we might call you by?" A thought occurred to him and he added, as gently as he could, "Can you speak? I know the tongue of hands if that is what you prefer." He added a few greeting gestures just to prove his point —and in case the stranger was deaf—.

Finally, the stranger reacted. His feet slid a half step away from them, and his head ducked down as if finally aware that he'd been eerily staring. Heedless —or just not afraid— of the sword Somnus still had pointed at his neck, the stranger looked away from them and into the darkness for several seconds before looking back and finally, finally, speaking.

"Why are you … following me." Ardyn jolted at just how quiet the voice was. So raspy from disuse that the question was robbed of even its tone. Just flat words that had the strangest accent smudging them. It wasn't a seaport accent, or a peasant's drawl, or anything from the neighboring kingdoms. Not even the northern dignitaries that Ardyn had met once matched the accent of this rusty voice.

Then the words settled in his head and he exchanged a wide-eyed look with Somnus and Aera, "You are Deleantur?" Somnus blurted, his sword dipped downward a fraction before rising again.

The stranger made a funny little gesture with his shoulders that Ardyn couldn't interpret, "…That's what … some of the people call me." Ardyn exhaled slowly. Of course the object of their search would come find them. Casual as you please, as if they hadn't spent two months trekking all over the kingdom and its friendly neighbors trying to catch up to him.

He did wonder why it had to be the middle of the night. He carefully shoved aside the cynical voice that sounded like his father, screeching about midnight assassinations and stabbings in their sleep. Deleantur had made no aggressive move toward them, even when Somnus yelled and they both pointed swords at him.

Ignoring that uneasy suspicion for the moment, Ardyn tried to smile and gestured to the fire, "Would you come sit by the fire with us? We mean you no harm."

Somnus shot Ardyn an exasperated look and hissed, "We might mean him no harm, but what are his intentions towards us? Sneaking into our camp in the night like an assassin!"

"Peace, brother," Ardyn whispered back, "there is no sense in starting a conflict when we have a chance to gain our answers peacefully."

Deleantur was watching them from underneath his hood, but Ardyn couldn't make out his expression. Aera finally sighed and shoved past both of them, her trident loose in one hand and her voice soft as she approached Deleantur without fear, "Welcome and peace to our humble camp, Deleantur. Please, would you not come sit with us? We truly mean you know ill will. We have heard many stories of your kindness to our people."

While Ardyn tried to swallow his heart back into his chest and Somnus hissed insults to Aera's sanity, intelligence, and self-preservation instincts at her back, Aera slowly reached out and slipped her hand beneath Deleantur's cloak. Ardyn braced to snatch his love away from Deleantur should the man react violently to Aera's intrusion. Instead of any violent reaction or protests, Deleantur stared down at the hand Aera extracted from beneath the ratty cloak and docilely allowed himself to be led to the fire like a well-trained chocobo.

Aera tugged the man down to sit on the ground and knelt before him, setting aside her trident to cradle his hand in both of hers as she murmured soothing nothings. Somnus and Ardyn exchanged despairing looks over the recklessness of Ardyn's lover, but shuffled over to join the fireside circle. Ardyn was polite enough to flick his sword back into armiger, froze when Deleantur's head snapped up to track the motion and pressure flooded the air. Somewhere in the back of Ardyn's head, he was aware that the pressure was from raw magic power and that he must have startled the man with the sudden movement of his blade.

The rest of him was a little too busy trying to breathe past the crush of wary-startled-anger-hatred-confusion-startled that smothered his lungs and squeezed his heart like behemoth jaws. Somnus dropped to his knees, sword clattering to the ground from shaking hands as his little brother clawed at his throat and wheezed.

Dimly, very dimly, past the shudder of his lungs and the shaking of his knees as they gave out beneath him, Ardyn spotted Aera watching them in alarm. Untouched by the strangling magic wrapping around the brothers like death's jaws.

"Stop that! Stop that right now!" Aera's voice broke through the haze, and from beyond the tunneling of his vision, Ardyn saw Aera shove Deleantur, like a frustrated child rather than a noblewoman trained in self-defense. Deleantur fell backwards with a surprised grunt, and the magical pressure snapped clear as his hood slid off his head. Ardyn and Somnus gasped greedily for air, reached out blind hands to each other for support as they struggled to clear their minds and recover their legs.

They scrambled to their feet, Somnus snatching up his sword again and Ardyn nervously calling up a palmful of fire —not that they'd win, not that they'd even have a chance to strike if that pressure returned—. Then Deleantur looked up at them, dazed and confused, his features stark and obvious in the firelight.

Both brothers sat down hard again, and Somnus's sword clattered to the ground for a second time that night, because the face looking back at them was Somnus. A Somnus that hadn't seen a proper bath in weeks and one with wild hair growing out to his shoulders, but Somnus nonetheless. Ardyn actually had to squeeze Somnus's hand to make sure that the one gaping next to him was real and not a dream. Somnus made a strangled, wheezy noise that might have been profane and insulting to the Astrals, but just this once neither Aera nor Ardyn called him out on it. Aera was sitting back on her heels, blue eyes drinking in Deleantur's face like she was searching for differences. Ardyn was too, but he was only finding the barest handful.

But a handful was better than nothing and he latched onto the slight difference in cheekbones, the slant of his mouth and the different shape of the ears poking out of wild black hair. Blue eyes locked with his during his search and … oh.

Oh.

Looking into those eyes was like looking up into the night sky without a fire to darken it and feeling terribly small beneath the sea of stars. It was like staring down the ocean at its wildest, all roiling power and untold depths. Like the deathly, mournful hush of the ancient ruins that still dotted the landscape. Looking into those eyes was looking into time itself, with all its tragedies and triumphs and secrets and truths yet also none of them because those eyes were so sad it could only mean that whatever they had seen was already gone. Lost, or destroyed…

Or erased.

"That's why they call you Deleantur," Ardyn whispered past his awe.

Ageless —tired, sad— eyes blinked once, then twice, then a rusty voice admitted, "I don't know what that means."

"It means Erased." Somnus managed past the garbled lump of shock in his throat. Then he shook his head and leaned forward as if to touch Deleantur, "You're-. Who was your father? Do you know? You cannot be a mere stranger, you have Lucis Caelum blood in you. You have to."

Deleantur flinched, faint but visceral, "My father is … dead." Blue eyes turned glassy for a moment, and Ardyn felt the air turn cold despite the fire as the stranger wearing his brother's face rasped, "Everyone is gone. I'm the only-." Deleantur shook his head, "I don't have a family anymore."

Somnus frowned and pushed despite Aera's warning gestures, "But you have to recall them at least. What was your mother's profession? Did she ever go to the capital of the Lucis Caelum kingdom?"

"I don't know," came the chilly reply, "she died before I had turned a year old."

Somnus faltered, less out of guilt and more because Ardyn had reached out and yanked warningly on his ear —was he trying to get them smothered by angry magic again? Honestly—. Aera distracted Deleantur by gingerly taking his hand again, causing him to stare at her fingers like they were something unknown, "Blessings and peace upon their souls," whispered Aera in sympathy, "please, would you do us the honor of answering our questions? You may ask any you wish in return. We also have food, and a little bit of wine left to drink."

Deleantur said nothing, but he also made no move to fling Aera away. So Ardyn shooed Somnus to get food and wine out of their travel packs while he dared to inch closer to the man who had to be a sibling —not even cousins could look so eerily close, and Astrals knew their father had never held much loyalty to their mother—. His healer training was going slightly mad in the back of his head, yelling in concern over the glassy eyes and the wary flinches, the way Deleantur stared at human contact like he wasn't certain what to do with it if it wasn't violent. The slightly hollowed out cheeks from a lack of steady food and the signs of sleep deprivation turning his eyelids dark. None of it said good things about Deleantur's life prior to this point.

Somnus returned with the wine and some bread and cheese, simple things that didn't go to waste quickly even outside armiger. Deleantur watched Somnus's approach with blank eyes, more like he was staring through Somnus that at him, but then Ardyn got within touching range and blue eyes fixed on him with an intensity that literally turned them red as blood.

…Okay. That was new. Ardyn kept his movements slow and harmless as he sat down again, hands raised to reveal no weapons, "No need to be afraid, no one here means you harm." Deleantur watched him for several moments longer before looking away, and Ardyn exhaled at the sensation of magic settling again from where it had been wrapping around his throat like fangs. He had a feeling that questioning this man was going to be as dangerous as trying to tie up a coeurl with a piece of string. That or like trying to wring blood from a stone.

The three held a silent debate on who would ask the questions while Deleantur cautiously nibbled on the bread and cheese —and avoided the wine like the plague, Ardyn noticed with some surprise—. Somnus was too reckless and pushy, and for all that Ardyn could usually silver-tongue his way through any conversation, Deleantur seemed wary of his every move —he tried not to think what that meant when coupled with touch-starvation and lost weight, or at least not show his anger over those thoughts—. The only real option was Aera, the only person to which Deleantur had yet to react negatively —the only person so far allowed to touch him—.

Of course, making it look like an interrogation would be rude, so Aera began bouncing a light conversation between them, occasionally coaxing Somnus into saying something polite —there were a good many ear tweaks from Ardyn to ensure the "polite" part— and gently asking Deleantur questions.

Did he mind if they called him Deleantur, or did he have a name he preferred more? That got a strange shoulder gesture again and a low mutter that it didn't matter. Did he know if he had Lucis Caelum blood in him? Yes, he knew, but any attempts to pry loose more details on that were met with a blank stare. Had he ever been to the capital of the Caelum kingdom? …Yes. Yes he had.

Deleantur seemed content to let Aera rub soothing circles on his hand and normally Ardyn would feel jealous over his love touching another man for so long, but there was something … vulnerable about this one. Something that made him less like a man enjoying a woman's touch and more like a very lost, injured creature being shown compassion and unsure what to do with it even though it was nice. It made Ardyn itch to check the man for injuries —particularly head ones—. Because for a supposed miracle healer, Deleantur looked like he needed a good stiff wine, a poultice, and a long sleep.

The questions continued, slowly, painstakingly. Deleantur had experienced the Wave, yes? That got them a befuddled look until Somnus sarcastically described it as the mother of all magical tidal waves coursing over the land and setting fire to people's veins with memories that were then ripped away as it passed. Deleantur's gaze flickered with realization and he nodded slowly, "Yes. I was there."

I was there. The phrasing struck Ardyn and he leaned forward just a bit, "There? You were in the capital when the Wave occurred?"

Deleantur eyed him like he might bite, but then conceded, "Yes. I left that night."

Somnus sat up, "You have more magic than either of us," he gestured from himself to Ardyn and back, "do you know what caused the Wave?"

Deleantur smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was a tired, limp thing that spoke of too many miles and too many shadows. It was a knowing smile, a smile that was weighed down with secrets and tragedies and triumphs, "Yes."

Ardyn felt breathless with excitement, but by that point they were getting accustomed to Deleantur's short, vague answers and he knew that Deleantur would not elaborate unless asked. Aera squeezed Deleantur's hand, "Can you tell us why?"

The smile grew, so did Ardyn's bad feelings about it, "That was the night the king died."

All three exchanged confused, alarmed looks, "The king?" Demanded Somnus, "What king?"

Deleantur used his free hand to tug at his shaggy black hair, something calm but dark in his blue eyes, "The Crystal's king. He sat on the throne beneath the Crystal and paid the price required to destroy the Starscourge. He died."

Ardyn stopped breathing, it was almost like he forgot how. There was a blur in the back of his mind, a mingling of memory —bloody-throne-bloody-stairs-thank-you-thank-you-I'm-so-sorry— and some nameless impression of horrified realization —"I'm afraid you're out of luck. The throne brings you here? It seats only one." … "Off my throne, Jester. The king sits there." … "Tonight, the dreams of the blood royal … come to an end."—. Words played in his mind, his own voice —not his voice, warped by bitterness and roughened by hate—, and Deleantur's voice —not quite his voice, soft and more fluid, not so exhausted and broken— flitting in his ears. He reached for them, tried to catch their meaning, but the words faded the moment he focused on them.

He came back to himself to see that Somnus was equally pale, though Aera just looked confused. Ardyn knew that Somnus was thinking of the same thing he was. The morning light shining softly on a blood-covered throne, the fabric torn open at chest height as if from a sword, and stone steps painted sticky red. "Our father is still alive," said Somnus weakly.

Deleantur only tilted his head in something like befuddlement, "He is not the Crystal's king." The why would you think otherwise was implied and Somnus bristled faintly —only faintly, because the thought that some unknown relative had snuck into the castle for the express purpose of dying was sickening—, "Then who was the king? Why did he not … why did no one know?"

Deleantur worried the edge of his tattered cloak with the fingers of one hand, food temporarily abandoned, "He was a man who loved his people," he whispered over the fire, "and I knew. But everyone else who knew … they no longer exist."

Ardyn could feel some kind of realization forming in the back of his head, something about the wording. Something about Deleantur. But he couldn't catch it and bring it forward. He reluctantly let it slide as he pointed out, "Only those of Lucis Caelum blood may wield the power of the Crystal. Are you telling me that there was another person of our blood without our knowing? One with a connection even stronger than yours?" Deleantur just stared at Ardyn without replying, gaze heavy with ages gone. Ardyn had the sudden, all consuming urge to hang his head in shame even though —especially because— there was no reproach or condemnation in those eyes.

When it became obvious that Deleantur wasn't going to answer that question, Aera asked a different one, "What was the king's name, that we might remember him by?"

Deleantur's breath hitched with something that might have been grief, and Ardyn thought that this question would go unanswered as well, but then, "Noctis." Deleantur raised his head, but didn't look at Aera. He looked at Somnus and Ardyn, as if daring them to deny his answer, "Noctis."

Deleantur seemed to shut down after that. He didn't respond to any questions either harmless or desperate, just stared at the fire in silence. The wine went untouched. So did what was left of the food they'd offered. Aera and Ardyn exchanged speaking looks while Somnus muttered in irritation. Deleantur was clearly grieving and more than a little hurt on the inside by things other than that grief. Ardyn knew that he and Somnus were supposed to retrieve Deleantur and take him back to the capital since he had proven to be of their blood. Those were their father's orders. But Ardyn couldn't imagine Deleantur willingly returning to the city where his … king? Friend? Brother? Had died —had Deleantur carted away the body? When he said he was "there" had he meant in the throne room when it happened and not just the city itself?— and neither Somnus nor Ardyn had the strength or magic to force him. Even combined they wouldn't have a chance.

Besides, dragging the grieving, tired, very probably tortured —literally tortured, the man had all the signs of the former slaves Ardyn snuck out of the castle to treat— Deleantur back to the city where this mysterious Noctis had died and where Ardyn's father would be waiting to leash a wayward illegitimate child… That would be cruel. Ardyn was many things —brother, healer, nobleman, son, prankster, especially in his youth— but he liked to believe he was not cruel.

After a hissing argument with Somnus over the risk, they let Deleantur stay the night in their camp. The man woke up from his vacant staring long enough to go huddle against the chocobos in his tattered cloak, then went quiet once more. Aera went back to her bedroll and Somnus insisted on staying up to watch the stranger in their midst while Ardyn settled down to try to rest. He didn't really succeed. His mind kept churning with worries and uncatchable nightmares of darkness and eerie laughter. Several times in what remained of the night, Ardyn jolted awake with a racing heart and saw Deleantur watching him from beneath his hood, blue eyes both empty and sad.

When dawn came, Ardyn was already awake and carefully stoking up the campfire again to cook something for them to eat —neither Aera nor Somnus could cook to save their lives, though they weren't terrible assistants— when Deleantur stirred and shuffled out from between the chocobos. Somnus narrowed his eyes at the movement, then made a noise of protest when Deleantur began to climb down from the rock on which their camp was set, "Where are you going?"

Deleantur paused and looked over his shoulder, "…Away?" The question was audible this time, a rusty, baffled thing like he wasn't certain if that was the correct answer.

Somnus opened his mouth to say something else —probably a demand he stay, their father would never let them just … release a Lucis Caelum to wander off into the wilderness alone now that they'd found him—, Ardyn interrupted with a gentle, "At least stay for breakfast. We kept you up last night with our questions, it is only polite we provide you with a morning meal in exchange."

Deleantur didn't move for several long heartbeats, and Ardyn could feel heavy magic stir with faint unease, ready to lash out and smother at a moment's notice before it settled and he turned back to the camp. Aera joined them not long after, for which Ardyn was thankful. He had a hard enough time managing Somnus's temper without also having to deal with Deleantur's quiet, fractured demeanor as well. Aera coaxed Deleantur into lowering his hood again and kept up a gentle stream of casual conversation that Deleantur occasionally nodded to as Ardyn made a simple breakfast of warmed bread, cheese, and a few of the wild eggs Somnus had found.

Ardyn knew, even as he smiled and let Aera lead him in relaxing conversation, that they would have to figure out what to do next very soon. Deleantur had spent months wandering the world without pause, Ardyn doubted he intended to stop now. He had already concluded that trying to get Deleantur to return to the capital would end poorly and, while he still intended to ask, that meant he had to have a strategy for what do to if the man refused.

The simplest option would be to let him go and return to the capital to report what they'd learned. But Ardyn knew his father, the man would only send them back out with orders to force Deleantur to return and an army of men to back it up. Which would mean months more of wandering in search of Deleantur and then later a fight against the man. A fight Ardyn wasn't certain his father's men could win. As fierce a warrior as Somnus's friend and Shield Gilgamesh was, and as harmless as Deleantur looked now, Ardyn could still feel the memory of magic crushing him with its raw power, strangling him just by accident. He didn't ever want to see what that magic could do when backed with an intent to harm —especially since he and his brother would be on the receiving end of that harm—.

The second option would be to try to bribe Deleantur into coming with them somehow, which Ardyn didn't think would work, especially considering they had no idea what motivated the man, let alone what could be used to bribe him. The third option was equally unlikely, as after so long chasing Deleantur down on the growing stories, Ardyn doubted their father would believe them if he and Somnus returned and said it was all a lie.

Which left a fourth option that Ardyn … doubted Somnus would enjoy, and that would be at least one of them going with Deleantur on his travels and reporting to their father just enough to keep the man from sending an army in search of them. That was, in itself, only a temporary solution, but it would last longer than options two or three and would hopefully give them enough time to find out more about Deleantur and maybe talk him into returning to the capital.

Assuming Deleantur didn't mind company. Aera could probably get away with it, it was clear that something about the Oracle's presence relaxed him, but Ardyn wasn't comfortable with the thought of leaving her alone with the strange man —and not just because he was a man and she was Ardyn's lover—. So the real question was … would Deleantur let Ardyn tag along with him and Aera? And would Somnus agree to those terms as well?

Ardyn waited to bring it up after they had all eaten breakfast and begun clearing away the remains, "Deleantur," blue eyes in a face eerily similar to his brother's looked up and Ardyn kept his tone light and gentle, "what do you plan to do from here on out, if I might ask?"

That strange shoulder movement from the night before made a reappearance and Deleantur looked away, "Travel. Help-. Help people."

Since he had to try at least once, Ardyn rummaged up his courage and asked, "Would you be willing to return to the capital with us?"

Deleantur's gaze sharpened beneath his previous empty gaze and the air dropped in temperature a few degrees, "Why?"

Ardyn took a slow breath and held up his hands to show he was unarmed, "You are of Lucis Caelum blood. The capital is the home of all who bear our blood, your place is there," he saw the reddish tint edging into Deleantur's eyes and amended hastily, "only if you are willing, of course."

"Why?"

Ardyn faltered at the repeat of the question, unsure how to answer. Somnus did it for him, blunt and brisk as ever, "Our father sent us to find you on the chance that you were of our blood. If you were, we were under orders to bring you back to the capital. It is unbecoming for royal blood to have … loose ends in its lineage."

For the first time, Deleantur's anger took on physical expression. He clenched his fists and his magic rumbled silently around them, deep and dangerous enough to make Somnus and Ardyn both flinch, "I am not a mutt to lock in a kennel." Oh dear. It would seem they had stumbled across one of Deleantur's sore spots.

Somnus fidgeted closer to Ardyn, nervous tension in his shoulders, "We have our orders."

"And I say no." Deleantur's voice turned sharp as a knife for just a moment, almost losing its rasp beneath the strength of his conviction.

Ardyn stepped between them, "Then perhaps, an alternate solution?" Both of them paused, and Ardyn explained in his most soothing voice, "We are under instruction to take you to the capital, but our father gave no indication of when. Further, the reasoning behind his instruction is so that no Lucis Caelum wanders these lands alone. If you were to permit one of us to travel with you, we could argue that you are not alone, and therefore the intent of the order is fulfilled until such a time as you decide you are willing to return to the capital."

While Deleantur blinked in surprise at the suggestion, Somnus pinched Ardyn's back with angry fingers, "Brother," he hissed, "I'm not leaving you alone with him!"

Ardyn murmured back, "We do not have much of a choice unless he agrees to all three of us traveling with him. We cannot force him to return, and we cannot return to father empty handed."

Deleantur rubbed the bridge of his nose during their muttered argument, stilled when Aera took his hand and lowered it gently, "You don't have to be alone," she whispered, "your soul grieves and your body is weary, but that does not mean you must travel by yourself. Please, let us travel with you, if only for a time."

"You just want to spy on me." It was a half-hearted growl, but it was enough to draw the attention of the brothers.

Aera shook her head, "Not spy. Learn. They are of your blood. Even with their father's instruction to bind them, do you truly believe they would not desire to know a lost brother?"

Deleantur stiffened, and his words felt as raw as a bleeding wound, "I'm not their brother."

Aera just smiled at him and squeezed his hand, "Please. Grant us this favor."

Deleantur closed his eyes and sighed, heavy and harsh through his nostrils, "You would come with them?"

"Yes. If you permit it."

Deleantur lifted his face skyward and muttered something so low none of them could catch it, then he gently tugged his hand free of hers and began walking for the edge of the camp. Somnus tensed at Ardyn's side, but then Deleantur looked over his shoulder expectantly, "Come on then."

There was a bit of a scramble to break camp while Deleantur wandered a few yards away. Somnus growled angrily the entire time, but didn't suggest splitting the group. Just complained about following a stranger and possible madman all over the wilderness. By the time they had repacked their supplies and saddled their chocobos, Deleantur was gently cooing at one that Ardyn was certain hadn't been there earlier. Its feathers were a color he'd never seen before either, a dappled white-gray that looked like storm clouds. It was already saddled and several little medallions dangled from its harness. Ardyn wondered where it had come from and if Deleantur had trained it to hide until he called for it —which would explain why there had been no sign of it until now he supposed—. But Deleantur was already swinging into the saddle with practiced ease and trotting off the moment he saw they were ready to leave, giving no time for inane questions.

Ardyn already had a feeling that they were getting into something far more than they'd bargained for.

.

.

.

.

Three weeks into following Deleantur around like lost puppies and Somnus had long since concluded that the man was mad. Not the screaming, raving kind of madness that most people thought of, not even the kind of insanity his brother seemed to court —learning healing, slipping out of the castle to treat mere commoners with his magic even when it caused him pain rather than hone his prodigious talent with the sword and the trickery of politics—. No. Deleantur's madness was as unique as the man himself. A broken, quiet thing that left Somnus baffled and unnerved by turns —it didn't help that Deleantur wore Somnus's face and now Somnus never had to wonder what he would look like if his mind broke—.

Deleantur had no plan. He had no goals. He didn't even have a functioning idea of what the individual kingdoms were or where their borders lay —they had crossed the borders at least a dozen times and ended up in places Somnus had never heard of at least a dozen more—. All he did was trot along day after day where the wind and the garula trails led him. Hunting for supplies when he needed or fending off what predators his strange grey-white chocobo could not outrun —the only times Somnus ever saw the man's armiger at work, fast and brutally efficient even by Somnus's standards—. He didn't stay in any of the villages he came across, just wandered through them, helped out whoever dared approach or cried for aid, and then left to camp out in the wilds unless Aera managed to wheedle a night at the inn out of him.

Which led to the other aspect of Deleantur's madness. The man's inability to say no. Of course, Somnus knew that Deleantur could say no, he'd seen it in the adamant refusal to go to the capital with them and his stubborn silence when asked questions he didn't want to answer —which was most of them—. But when confronted by a plea for help, his ability to refuse evaporated faster than Ardyn's, and Somnus's brother was known in the slums of the capital as a nigh-mythical wish granter —yes, Somnus knew of his brother's "secret" trips to the slums and the infatuation of the people therein with him, it was a miracle their father didn't know, honestly—.

Some of the requests Somnus could understand granting. Monsters coming too close to farms or making off with children. Robbers killing caravans on the road and stealing the women. Sick in need of healing with no proper healer in sight —Ardyn handled several of those under Deleantur's silent, wary watch, but otherwise the man handled it himself with a type of magic Somnus had never seen before—. But then there were the other requests that were so far beneath a man of noble blood —let alone a man of Deleantur's capabilities— that Somnus would have laughed if Deleantur didn't always drop everything to complete them.

Rounding up wayward livestock that had escaped their barns, gathering crops for the peasant farmer who had twisted his ankle, finding lost items that had been dropped in the wilds —how Deleantur managed to track down tiny necklaces and rings in the miles of wilderness was a miracle in and of itself—. He had even gone frog hunting on behalf of a child who desperately wanted to see a frog of a certain color but wasn't allowed near the water because of the monsters that lived there. Frog hunting.

Somnus found it aggravating beyond all words, but he knew that Aera and Ardyn found it far more concerning that annoying. Ardyn had dragged him off to speak privately at one point when Somnus's temper was too close to boiling and explained why, which only solidified Somnus's belief that Deleantur was mad.

According to Ardyn and Aera, Deleantur was a dead man walking. A man who had lost all previous anchors to life —friends, family, home, purpose— and used the requests of others as temporary ones. The petty chores that yielded only the barest rewards were the excuses that Deleantur used to convince himself to not just lie down and die. His skittishness around them, the nigh-constant daze through which he viewed the world, the way he refused to let Somnus or Ardyn touch him or come up behind him, those were all signs of someone who had been attacked too many times to trust others, and the nightmares Deleantur tried to hide from them told stories of torment that even Somnus could read —Deleantur never screamed, but sometimes his magic did, and the feeling it left under Somnus's skin was horrifying—.

Deleantur had been tortured. Badly. So badly he was living proof of their father's dire warnings of what would become of a member of their line should they be taken by an enemy —everyone desired the magic of the Lucis Caelum and Fleuret lines, to be of that blood, all alone without the protection of their house … it couldn't have been an easy life to live—.

Aera was the only person Deleantur responded to with consistent calm, and even she was subjected to vacant, grieving stares too many times for comfort. Somnus suspected that Aera reminded Deleantur of someone he'd known and that was why he was so pliant to her requests when those same requests from Ardyn's or Somnus's tongues were met with blank stares.

Somnus wished Deleantur would let them just take him back to the capital already. There was little danger there, and none would dare hurt him even if he was an illegitimate son. But then Ardyn had pointed out that, even if Deleantur's mysterious Noctis hadn't died there, what purpose would Deleantur find in the capital? Their father would never allow him to leave once he was behind the walls of the castle, and placing Deleantur in the military would just make his madness worse. The capital would be for Deleantur as a bird cage for a bird: comfortable, safe, and suffocating. There would be no random requests from peasants to use as anchors, no fearless children hugging his leg tight in thanks for brightly colored frogs to remind Deleantur that there was life beyond the nightmares in his head. The best purpose Deleantur could hope for in the capital would be an arranged marriage on behalf of the Lucis Caelum line and considering the most intimate touch Deleantur allowed any woman was Aera leading him around by his hand…

After that, even Somnus could see why trying to coax Deleantur back to the capital would be a terrible idea, no matter how aggravating the current alternative was.

And Somnus had to admit, however reluctantly, that traveling with Deleantur was … interesting. Once he'd learned to swallow his pride at being bossed around by overbearing peasant matrons who wanted their mountain herbs picked just so, Somnus had realized that he'd never seen the kingdom like this. He'd never wandered its corners and run his fingers through its streams of fresh mountain water. He'd never seen the shift of desert to grasslands, like an artist's brush stroke had drawn a line between sand and swaying grass. He'd never looked into the eyes of his people and seen their gratitude, their wonder at being helped when no one else had given them the time of day. He'd never stopped long enough to really … acknowledge the kingdom his family ruled over. The people they protected in exchange for loyalty and tribute.

It occurred to Somnus in the aftermath of driving off some monsters from a hermit's weed patch of a garden that he had never thought about that before. Sitting there on a large rock, legs dangling and hands in his lap, he realized that his family were sworn to protect the land under their control and yet … he'd never once stopped to consider it. Everything about his training had revolved around someday leading the army on his brother's behalf and using the power granted to them by the Crystal to its fullest, deadliest potential, yet the actual purpose behind that army and that power had somehow gotten lost. Maybe it had been forgotten after one too many of his father's rants about the superiority of their blood. Maybe Somnus had just never known to question it. The capital was the center of the kingdom, the seat of power, and everything else revolved around it and the decisions of his family.

Looking out at the world Deleantur wandered so freely, that viewpoint suddenly seemed narrow and stifling. He realized that he'd been, to some extent, blind for years and never even known it.

All these people Somnus had never met or known existed —wouldn't have cared if he had until recently— … they all had lives of their own. Fragile things that, while not lavish or filled with harsh military and political training, were far from simple either —there was so much more to farming and ranching and chocobo training than he'd ever dreamed, things where reading the earth and the sky was so much more important than being able to understand letters in a book—. And yet, for all that he had never known or conceived or cared about these people beforehand, every single one of them looked upon him and his brother with awe when they recognized who the strange nobles helping them were.

Most of them looked at Somnus and Ardyn like the two brothers were the Astrals themselves. Like they could do anything with a wave of their hands and were only deigning to work like humans out of some form of humility or kindness. The ones who didn't look at them in reverence were terrified, like the brothers were not Astrals but the starscourge. Monsters and demons that could strike them down on a whim or murder their children just for some minor, accidental slight.

Seeing the fear, the superstition, and hate made him angry —guilty, because before the Wave he wouldn't have seen a problem with killing over a slight, could have easily lived up to their expectations of a monster—. Seeing the awe, the reverence, and faith that Somnus could do anything —fix anything— with a flick of his fingers when he couldn't really, even though he had sworn to protect them as one of their ruling line…

It made him feel astonishingly small.

How was he ever supposed to live up to faith like that? How was he ever supposed to guard and protect everyone in his kingdom when that kingdom was so much larger than he'd ever bothered to realize before? Was this why Ardyn looked so relieved rather than angry when their father threatened to strip him of the title of heir and pass it to Somnus instead? Because his older brother had already realized just how overwhelming the throne would be? Just how heavy and impossible the crown would feel if he ever dared to put it on?

Somnus didn't realize he was shaking until calloused fingers gently rested on one of his knees and pulled him free of his sudden spiral of thoughts. Somnus blinked to awareness, looked down and then gaped ever so slightly at ageless blue eyes watching him from the foot of his rock. It was Deleantur. Deleantur was touching him. Willingly. He had never done that, not even in his most exhausted moments or during the heat of battle against monsters and men. He had never let anyone touch him but Aera, had never willingly initiated touch with Aera despite his absent-minded fondness of her and yet there he was, resting one hand on Somnus's knee like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"It's terrifying, isn't it?" The murmur made Somnus click his mouth back shut with a baffled noise. Deleantur looked away to the horizon, "That moment … when you look at the world and realize it's so big. So big and unknown, filled with so many people you will never know even if you spend a lifetime searching and yet … you have to protect them. You have to save them. Because that's your duty." Deleantur's voice softened further, so much so that Somnus had to strain to hear him, "But you're only one man. One man who doesn't even know what he's doing half the time. How are you supposed to be wise? How are you supposed to lead? How are you supposed to protect anyone, let alone save a country in need? And then you realize you can't. You won't. No matter what you do, or how hard you try, people are going to die, and you're going to fail, and even if you protect some of them, the rest are dead because you are only one man and you can't save everyone."

He sighed, and in that one sound Somnus could hear the weight of years untold and lost, feel the smothering grip of time and blood and tears. The air felt very cold, even in the sunlight, as Somnus whispered back, "What do you do?" How to you cope when you know you are bound to fail? When you are just one man with an impossible duty to uphold?

Deleantur squeezed Somnus's knee fractionally, and gave him a sad smile, "Try anyway. Do what you can, when you can, and mourn the rest. And … don't be alone."

Somnus blinked, "But … a king is always alone." The throne only seated one after all, everyone knew that.

"No, they're not." Deleantur pointed, and Somnus followed the gesture to Ardyn, relaxing under a tree a ways off with Aera, the two lovers giggling and whispering together in a way that was straight out of a silly romance play, "Good kings have brothers. In arms or in blood or in blood they spill together. You have a brother, and a brother's bond is … a wonderful thing. If you take care of it. Cherish it, lean on it, support it. He will stand with you, ever at your side, if only you ask." There was a nostalgic wisdom in those words. Something that wasn't just knowledge but experience. Cherished memory.

Deleantur pulled his hand away from Somnus's knee, Somnus reached out and caught it, held it in a firm grip and forced himself to meet Deleantur's ageless eyes without flinching, "And you?" A noncomprehending blink from Deleantur and Somnus ran with the impulsive idea that had just entered his head, "If I asked you to be my brother in arms and blood both shared and spilled, would you?"

Deleantur stared at him. Not like he usually did either, the halfway vacant gaze that didn't so much look at Somnus as look through him. This stare was clear and bright, so surprised it stopped being ageless and looked … young. Human. Like whoever Deleantur had been before his madness smothered him had just been startled awake from an endless dream and was seeing Somnus for the first time. It made Deleantur seem like, just for a moment, he was young in mind as well as body.

Somnus barely dared to breathe, afraid that any unnecessary word or movement would frighten Deleantur back into his too-old, nigh-lifeless daze. For a second it looked like Deleantur would retreat into his shell anyway, fade back into the skittish madman that refused to be touched and some days barely acknowledged their existence beyond the possible threat they posed. Then Deleantur blinked rapidly, shook his head just a bit as if to physically shake away some inner fog. Blue eyes turned misty, like he was going to cry, but the hand in Somnus's didn't pull away. Deleantur closed his eyes and took a ragged gulp of air, magic swirling so tightly that Somnus could see Ardyn and Aera straightening up from their flirting to look over in concern.

Then Deleantur opened his eyes and slowly, fragilely, Somnus witnessed a miracle.

Deleantur smiled.

Not the sad, bitter things that occasionally pulled his lips when Aera asked a question he wouldn't answer —or worse, the ones he answered so vaguely it would have been less of a headache if he'd just kept silent—. This was a true smile, still sad around its edges, but happy in the sudden light and awareness in Deleantur's eyes. Like the dawn after a long, dark night. A smile that made Somnus feel like he'd just handed Deleantur some great, unfathomable treasure with just a tentative question.

"I'd-." Deleantur's voice broke, he cleared it with a swallow and finished, "If you would have me. I would be … honored, to call you brother."

"I don't suppose you would mind having two brothers?" Ardyn asked softly and both Somnus and Deleantur startled —they hadn't noticed Ardyn leave Aera's side, or seen him come close enough to overhear—.

Deleantur's smile faded and he tilted his head, studying Ardyn with a sudden, probing curl of magic. Then the smile crept back, wary but still sincere as his magic settled, "…I think … two brothers would be … nice."

Ardyn grinned and opened his arms in a gesture that was half an invitation for a hug and half Ardyn being the thespian he secretly was, but his voice remained gentle as he said, "Then welcome to the family, Brother."

Things changed after that. Deleantur was still mad in his own, unique way, but now he was actively trying to … not be. He visibly tried to shake off the daze of age that had smothered him and interact with them. His aversion to questions was still there, as was his aversion to unexpected touch, but now if they approached slowly and made their intentions clear, even Somnus and Ardyn could do things like brush his shoulders or hold his hand. He spoke to them now, even if it was about inane things like the name of his chocobo —Cloud— or the weather —Somnus's complaints about the rain now drew genuine chuckles from Deleantur sometimes—.

He stopped only doing things just because a random peasant asked him —though he still did those at every opportunity— and instead did things just … because he liked them apparently. Little things like admiring the sunrise or gathering plants to teach Ardyn how to make some of his mysterious magic medicine —truly teaching when before Ardyn had barely ever gotten half a word and paranoid looks when he asked—. Things like fishing for hours on end with the strange, fancy metal rod he'd pulled straight from his armiger. Things like preparing his catch of the day with odd spices and cooking techniques that made Aera and Ardyn gush over the taste —gushing they played up just a little because it made Deleantur smile, shy and soft, and that was a miracle worth being silly for—.

It made Somnus … angry sometimes. Not at Deleantur, but at whatever had broken him down into the hollow shell they'd been traveling with for weeks. At whoever had stripped Deleantur down to haunted time and old magic, smothered the young man —Astrals, Deleantur couldn't be more than a year or two older than Somnus himself and it showed now that he wasn't constantly gazing into some timeless, distant void— that he used to be. The young man that liked to play with his chocobo and go fishing and tell stories to village children and who's chuckle sounded rusty from disuse but was still so warm. The young man that could fall asleep in seconds, anywhere and anytime, because he was always tired but hadn't before because he hadn't felt safe around anyone —not even them, perhaps especially not them at first—.

Somnus wanted to hunt down whoever was responsible for tearing Deleantur's mind apart. Whoever it was that taught Deleantur —his long lost brother who had the strongest magic Somnus had ever seen or heard of— to cower and scream silently from the most innocuous of phrases. Ardyn had cried over how long it took them to calm Deleantur down after Ardyn had jokingly called him "such a tease" for mentioning that he'd once caught a fish the size of a man and then refusing to tell them the story. Over how Deleantur had seized right there in the saddle and fallen off his alarmed chocobo, curled up and wheezed under the strain of whatever nightmarish flashback had suddenly swallowed him whole with just three words.

They were lucky that situation hadn't ended in Deleantur unleashing his armiger on them in his panicked state, but Ardyn had still cried as he begged Deleantur's forgiveness for the unintentional misstep once Deleantur had snapped out of it and Somnus-.

Somnus had never wanted to kill someone so badly as he had after Deleantur had calmed down enough to whisper that "He" used to say that. That "He" had trapped Deleantur, without weapons or hope or sense of time, and every time Deleantur had made a mistake or fled and hid from … some kind of monster Deleantur refused to name, that's what "He" would say. Such a tease. Such a tease. Such a tease.

Deleantur had fallen silent after two heartbreaking minutes of repeating that phrase over and over, retreated back into his ageless shell so deeply Aera had physically had to lead him to the nearest Haven, even though it was noon, because Deleantur responded to no words and seemed to register nothing outside of himself —except fear, fear that made him shy away from Ardyn's and Somnus's touch like they were monsters, fear that nearly smothered them with terrified magic until it retreated inside him so tightly Somnus couldn't feel it anymore—.

If the man who had done that still lived and Somnus ever found him, he swore that he would tear him apart with his bare hands and then send Gilgamesh to eviscerate what was left. Ardyn, for once in his pacifistic life, agreed wholeheartedly with a possessive ripple of magic and a flicker of his sword Rakshasa almost emerging from armiger.

It had taken days to coax Deleantur back out of his shell, days more before he stopped flinching every time Ardyn spoke and then apologized for his own involuntary reactions.

Somnus was genuinely overjoyed when Deleantur finally expressed interest in fishing at a large pool they stumbled across. Because as boring as it was to wait around while Deleantur tirelessly hunted down fish with his rod and line, it was a sign of the young man he, Ardyn, and Aera were coming to know —a sign of the brother Somnus and Ardyn were coming to love as fiercely as they ever had each other—.

Somnus even made an effort to demonstrate as much by sitting next to Deleantur on his chosen rock, watching the ripples in the water as Deleantur patiently reeled in his line again and recast in hopes of a bite, "You have a lot of patience for this."

Deleantur hummed, "I like it."

Somnus huffed, "Yes, but-. You aren't this patient with other activities. It's …" unusual, strange, interesting, "different."

"That's because it doesn't hurt."

Somnus stilled and behind him, Ardyn and Aera did too, "…Hurt?"

Deleantur gave a low noise as he adjusted his grip on his fishing pole, "Yeah." Deleantur paused, like he was considering something, then continued, "When I was a kid, about … eight years old. I … couldn't do a lot of stuff. It hurt too much and I was already constantly tired from the medication and the physical therapy. I didn't want to go outside, even though they said sunshine and fresh air would help me. I didn't want to … play or run or jump, but books were boring and heavy. So Dad took me out one day and … taught me to fish. He showed me his fishing rod and his line and his lures, taught me how to hold the rod and throw a line, then we sat there together and waited for a fish."

Deleantur's tone was nostalgic and Somnus didn't dare speak, because this was the first time Deleantur had ever truly talked about his father or his childhood. Deleantur fidgeted with his reel, "I think if I'd been any other kid, it would have been boring. But it was outdoors, and I had a perfect excuse to sit still in the sunshine for hours, and … and Dad was there. Dad was teaching me. So I practiced, and I begged to go fishing whenever I could because I knew he'd come with me to show me how it was done and eventually I … loved it. It reminds me of those days. Before…" Deleantur's voice trailed off, and breath hitched with sadness.

Ardyn, who had settled silently on Deleantur's other side at some point in the story, asked, "Why was it so painful for you to move? Did your father not know the recipes for your powerful healing draughts?" Because potions and elixirs did not require the magic of the Crystal they'd learned, just careful selection of ingredients and even more careful preparation.

Deleantur did that gesture with his shoulders that he used so often, "Potions and elixirs only work so well. Especially when it's … serious. If I'd gotten one as soon as it happened, maybe it would have worked, but I didn't, so I had to recover the slow way."

"Recover from what?"

Deleantur looked up from his fishing, considered the two of them, then reached back with one hand to tug his tunic hem up just enough to show the small of his back and a bit of his spine. Ardyn sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of the old scars stretching along the small of Noctis's back, each at least as wide as two of Somnus's fingers. The scars disappeared under his clothes in both directions, hinting at a size and damage larger than they could see and Somnus winced, because even he could tell that whatever left those was … bad. They also looked distinctly like blade scars. Or possibly claws.

Ardyn reached out with a shaking hand and it was a testament to how far they'd come in earning his trust that Deleantur didn't flinch away from the gentle touch, just went back to his fishing with a quiet, "A daemon attack. Ripped open the car. Killed the bodyguards, then took out the woman trying to get me to safety. I'm not sure if it was aiming for me that time, or if my getting caught in it was just an … accident. It was going to finish me off when my dad and his guards showed up and drove it off, but by that point the damage was done."

Ardyn was still tracing the scars with a reverent touch, "It's a miracle you survived this. It's a miracle you can walk. I can only imagine-." Ardyn stopped and went very quiet. So quiet Deleantur lowered his rod and twisted around to look at Ardyn in concern. Ardyn looked over his shoulder at Aera who was watching from a polite distance with a horrified expression, then looked back, "You are in pain, aren't you? All the time. That's why you limp, why you sleep so often and yet you-. All of this travel, and battle, and hard labor. Why?" Why would you do that to yourself?

Deleantur sighed and slipped his fishing rod back into armiger with a flick of his wrist, shifted to face them, "It's my duty."

Aera finally joined the conversation, settling down on the grass just behind their rock as she whispered, "You've mentioned duty before. What duty drives you to such lengths? No one knew you were of royal blood until a few months ago. Have you not already done enough?"

Deleantur shook his head, "No. No it's-. It's not over," his expression folded briefly, weary and old again before it smoothed out, "it's never going to be over. I made a promise. I'm going to fulfill it." He shook his head again, like a man trying to clear away an inner fog, "Besides, it's not so bad. I'm … used to it. And it's better now," blue eyes glanced at them through thick lashes, "I'm not alone anymore."

Aera didn't smile like she usually would have, just reached out her hands like Ardyn was already doing, "Can we-? May we try? To ease your pain?"

Deleantur waved their hands away, "Don't waste your time. The scars are … old, and I'm used to them." He blinked at their expressions and insisted, "Seriously, I'm fine. I'm used to it, and if Sy- if the healers couldn't fix it when it was fresh, you aren't going to be able to fix it now."

Somnus watched the two healers of the group fuss and pout, Ardyn going so far as to wax on in a poetic manner that was supposed to make Deleantur guilty enough to let him have his way, and tried to fit the newest puzzle pieces of Deleantur into place. Deleantur's … father —not sire, because that would be Ardyn's and Somnus's father— must have been nobility. Deleantur had mentioned servants and guards and what must be one of his strange words for a carriage —Car? Car sounded like it was short for carriage, and Deleantur had a lot of strange words and even stranger ways of using existing words to mean things Somnus would never have associated with them—. He had probably been the noble of another kingdom, one of the neutral or far away ones, which would explain why Somnus's father had never caught wind of Deleantur before now.

But that didn't explain some of the other things he'd said previously. Or how Deleantur's mother had met Somnus's father if her native kingdom did not interact much with Somnus's. That wouldn't explain why Deleantur was traveling around here instead of his home country —and Somnus would have heard if an entire kingdom fell in the months leading up to the Wave, wouldn't he?— or who Noctis was, the mysterious King of the Crystal that Deleantur had only ever mentioned once. Ardyn had brought up the possibility of Noctis being Deleantur's elder twin brother, which might explain that part, but that still didn't explain how they'd learned to purify the starscourge or why Deleantur hadn't returned to his home kingdom to help out the peasants there rather than the ones here.

Not that Somnus wanted Deleantur to leave. He'd gotten attached to his mad, unexpected sibling.

Somnus's thoughts were interrupted by a startled yelp from Ardyn and a sudden splash of water rippling up onto the rock. Somnus looked up in mild alarm. Ardyn was missing from the rock, Aera was smothering laughter into her hands, and Deleantur was grinning, honest to Astrals grinning, like a child who had successfully stolen something from under the cooks' noses, and Ardyn was-.

Resurfacing from the pond water, sputtering and sulking, violet-red hair hanging in front of his face like a soaking curtain and his precious embroidered white tunic —the only royal garb Ardyn had refused to part with— already turning see-through from all the liquid it was absorbing. Somnus took several long seconds to process that Deleantur, mad, broken, usually too-serious Deleantur, had just pushed Ardyn into the pond just to make him be quiet.

If it had been Somnus that had suffered such a fate, Ardyn would have immediately moved to help him out like a dutiful older brother should, checking for injuries and fussing about possible illnesses brought about by the cold water and the diseases of the pond weeds or some such nonsense. Ardyn would have smiled like a lunatic, but politely refrained from outright laughter until after Somnus was safely ensconced on dry land and dressed in fresh, dry clothes with a possibly a cup of comforting wine in hand.

Somnus, being the shamelessly cruel little brother that he was, sat there for a good two minutes pointing at Ardyn's misery and laughing until his sides hurt.

Ardyn, who could have swum to the sloping, pebbled section of the bank and climbed out on his own at any moment, chose instead to tread water and pout at them the entire time, whining melodramatically about cruel siblings and horrible fates and all the things he could fall ill of here in the water —the silly grin on his face and the sparkle in his blue eyes gave it all away for the show it was—.

Ardyn eventually splashed water at the rock and Deleantur scooted to his feet to escape the assault. Somnus just snickered and leaned away from the stray droplets before finally crouching at the edge of the rock and holding out a hand to his eldest sibling, "Come on then, Brother, can't have you suffering a watery demise just yet." Ardyn reached out a hand and took Somnus's and then-.

Water.

Somnus resurfaced with a spluttering squawk, flailing against Ardyn's chest as his brother tried not to be shoved under by Somnus's sudden submersion, "De- Deleantur!" Somnus had done nothing —much— to deserve being pushed in like that-.

There was a watery, coughing laugh just to his side and Somnus blinked past the wet hair in his eyes at … Deleantur. Treading water next to them and looking just as surprised as they were.

All three Lucis Caelums looked up to the rock … at Aera, who stood on the rock with a serene smile worthy of temple statues on her face as she fluttered her eyelashes and asked if the three of them were alright. A picture of holy innocence and decorum and kindness the filthy little liar. As if her shoulders weren't shaking with suppressed laughter and her hands weren't still outstretched from pushing Deleantur into Somnus in such a way as to make them both topple into the pond at the same time.

Deleantur broke the brothers' stunned silence first, laughing so hard Ardyn and Somnus had to hold him up for fear he'd stop treading water and sink right to the bottom. They dragged each other out of the water, Deleantur still giggling helplessly like a child, and though Somnus scowled and swore revenge against Aera for her treachery, they all knew there was no real bite to his words, not when Deleantur was laughing louder and freer than they'd thought possible.

They all plipped and dripped their way back toward the Haven that Aera had made, laughing and nudging and trying to keep Deleantur from falling over in his helpless giggles. It was the first time Deleantur had let them touch him so freely and for so long, but none of them mentioned it for fear of breaking the giddy atmosphere they'd fallen into.

They had just made it back and the three brothers were gathering their clothes to change into something dry when Somnus felt the air shift slightly with a familiar aura and heard the faint rustle of fabric-wrapped armor as Gilgamesh emerged from the shadows of a nearby tree. Deleantur's laughter stopped short in an instant. His newest brother reacted faster than Somnus thought possible, whirling on the source of the faint sound, his armiger swirling out in a deadly display that stopped just short of the intruder. Somnus jumped between them before the newcomer could draw his sword and provoke Deleantur to bloodshed —his Shield was a prodigy but Deleantur was terrifying, Gilgamesh fought with talent most men couldn't even dream of but Deleantur fought with a brutal efficiency that spoke of endless wars and Somnus didn't ever want to see which one he would lose if they fought against each other—, "Hold! Hold!"

Deleantur's armiger paused in the air, shifted to point away from Somnus's outstretched arm while Gilgamesh flexed his hand on his half-drawn sword. For a long moment, nobody dared to speak or move. Not even Ardyn, who usually breezed his way into situations like these to talk everyone down. Then Gilgamesh slowly sheathed his sword and let go of the hilt, "…Somnus."

Somnus forced himself not to wince at his Shield's tone —Deleantur might take it the wrong way and his massive reserves of magic were prickly enough already—, "Gilgamesh. What brings you from your duties in the capital? I did not send for you."

Gilgamesh managed, as always, to give Somnus a look of pure annoyance despite his ceremonial full face mask, "The king grows impatient with your lack of progress in returning to the capital or in discovering the true forces behind the Wave. He sent me to ensure you were not being held here against your will by the illegitimate wanderer."

Deleantur's magic simmered with something dark and annoyed and Somnus felt his own unfurling to join it, "We sent letters back explaining what we discovered and where we were, does our father truly believe that Ardyn and I would be so weak as to let a single man hold us captive?" Even though Deleantur could have easily done just that if he had wanted to. But Gilgamesh didn't need to know that.

Gilgamesh tilted his head, amber eyes assessing their group from behind his mask, "The king does not count the word of an illegitimate child wandering the wilderness as a satisfactory explanation. Especially one who has never been heard of before the Wave."

Ardyn moved to stand next to Deleantur in solidarity, "Yes. Father was always very … particular about his sources. One might even say he is narrow-minded about it. I am surprised he didn't send an army with you to 'rescue' us."

Gilgamesh's silence was telling and Somnus pinched the bridge of his nose, "He did, didn't he?"

His Shield wasn't undignified enough to shuffle his feet sheepishly, but his posture was just a touch apologetic, "The king was of a certain mind to do just that, yes. However, I convinced him otherwise and he considered me sufficient to free you from any … complications."

Somnus lowered his hands slowly, hoping that Deleantur had heard enough to know Gilgamesh wasn't an enemy —at least his armiger had dissipated, but his magic still felt dangerously tense—, "Well, Father can rest at ease once you take word back that we are free and of perfect health."

"My orders were to escort you, Prince Ardyn, and the illegitimate back to the capital."

"The 'illegitimate'," purred Ardyn in a silky tone that meant trouble, "has a name. He is Deleantur, and you should treat him with the respect he is due."

Somnus resisted the urge to groan as Gilgamesh eyed Ardyn with annoyed disappointment and wondered when he had become the adult of the situation. Aera made to intervene but Somnus waved her away —she would only make it worse, she didn't understand the complicated … relationship his brother and his Shield possessed—, "Gilgamesh…"

His Shield ignored his warning tone and his next words clearly meant to provoke Ardyn, "The blood of harlots deserves no respect, even if it has been mixed with nobility."

The air turned burning hot, like a desert at noon rather than the usual relative cool of the forested area in which they stood and Somnus knew his Shield had taken his words too far. Deleantur's armiger sang as it spun intricate circles around him and Somnus saw his Shield shudder as if he was suddenly being forced to stand against some huge weight. Somnus whirled on Deleantur, mouth open to apologize on behalf of his Shield —Gilgamesh did not mean to be cruel, he was just blunt and opinionated and clashed too often with Ardyn to reconsider the harshness of his statement—, felt his words die at the sight of blood red eyes and black hair that blew in a faint, unnatural breeze. He had seen Deleantur skittish, he had seen Deleantur terrified of the nightmares that haunted him in waking and sleeping hours, he had felt Deleantur's magic bristle and smother when his temper was tested or his fears broke past his control.

But it was suddenly very obvious that Somnus had never seen Deleantur genuinely angry.

"Shield of the Mystic," Deleantur growled and his voice was like thunder, like fury, like a multitude of other voices all woven in beneath the voice Somnus had come to know until it scraped his senses like a thousand blades turned into sound, "You forget your own origins so easily?" Gilgamesh flinched, wide-eyed behind his mask and Somnus suddenly found it hard to breathe for reasons beyond Deleantur's seething magic. Deleantur prowled forward —prowled, like a predator in human skin, a force of nature captured in a frail flesh prison—, brushing aside Ardyn's shaking touch and gliding past Somnus to stand eye to eye with Gilgamesh, "Child of desire across classes, forgotten survivor of the fallen house of Beast Tamers who rose to become the Shield of the Founder King. He who hides behind masks of steel to hide a face of shame and bears the name of myth to erase memory of whence he came." Somnus would have been alarmed that Deleantur knew any of that —because how could he? That was a secret even Somnus's father did not know— but he was far more concerned at the moment about Deleantur. Deleantur who's body gleamed with tiny fractals of crystalized magic power. Deleantur who sounded like a hundred voices all wrapped up in one.

Deleantur, who's hands were shaking from something that might have been pain as the world warped under the strength of his magic, his appearance grayed like ash, and his skin formed glowing cracks —like he was becoming inhuman, like he was burning alive from the inside yet could not stop— "Do not presume that others share your shame, Doleo Amicitia. For your blood is naught compared to the sins that drip from your blade." Gilgamesh crumbled to his knees, chest heaving in a way Somnus knew from experience, but when Somnus tried to reach his Shield, a ghostly, crystalline scepter blocked his way, "Kingslayer," snarled Deleantur, "Oathbreaker. Warmonger that builds pyres from the bones of children and washes his blade in the blood of nations, you who walk between torment and reality in punishment for that which you refuse to repent and you," the layers of voices were growing louder, Somnus could barely hear Deleantur's natural voice beneath the storm as Gilgamesh began to claw at his mask like he couldn't breathe, "You dare to insult the blood of the line that showed you mercy? That gave you a home and blessed your heirs despite all your atrocities? YOU?"

The glowing armiger blades came up like claws and Somnus forced his feet to move —because this was his friend, his Shield, and his confidant, he didn't know what Deleantur was saying but he did not believe for a moment that Gilgamesh deserved to die, did not believe for a moment that Deleantur wanted to kill him—, "Deleantur, stop!" Somnus grabbed Deleantur's arm, swallowed a scream at the heat rippling just beneath ashen skin —if just touching it caused Somnus this pain, how much agony was Deleantur in? How lost was he in his own magic as it … took over his thoughts and turned him violent?—. Deleantur didn't look at him, but the tirade stopped and gleaming red eyes flickered blue for just a moment. Somnus grabbed Deleantur's other arm despite the resulting pain, moved so that he was blocking Gilgamesh from view, "Deleantur, stop this! You're going to kill him if you keep going! You're going to kill yourself!"

Deleantur's eyes sharpened on his face, that inhuman storm still raging in his gaze, and for a moment Somnus saw-.

Himself. Cold and cruel and with bloody sword. Himself, watching as countless bodies were piled and burned en masse. Himself, as Ardyn cradled a dying-dead Aera in his arms and screamed-screamed-screamed while Somnus's sword dripped blood-blood-blood. He saw Gilgamesh turned cold and cruel rather than just blunt and stubborn. Saw darkness creep into his own heart and from there into the heart of his Shield as they plotted and schemed and killed for a crown that weighed too-much-too-much-oh-Astrals-too-much. Then time unspooled further and he caught a glimpse of ages-kings-Crystal-darkness-pain-pain-pain-.

"Brother!" He wasn't certain if he shouted it, or Ardyn did. Maybe it was both of them together because Ardyn was there suddenly, clutching Deleantur's limp hand in his own, his other hand clamped tight on Somnus shoulder and … and everything snapped back into place. The visions of himself and Gilgamesh and unspooling time ripped clear from his head as Deleantur went limp, power rippling out in a sort of gasp before it collapsed back into his core. Somnus stumbled under the weight, Ardyn caught them both and lowered them to the ground. Deleantur slowly regained color even as he became worryingly cold. His ashen appearance with its glowing cracks melted to normal skin and softly shaking limbs as their strangest brother whimpered softly in their arms before falling too deeply unconscious to do even that.

Nobody really dared to speak until Somnus had caught his breath and Ardyn dared try to move the unresponsive Deleantur. Aera ran glowing gold hands over his body as they settled him down on the Haven, then shook her head, "Physically there's nothing wrong with him. No injury I can heal. We just have to wait for him to wake up."

Somnus nodded, then jerked his head toward his Shield, still kneeling in the dirt where Deleantur's magic had pushed him down, "Will you-. Will you help me check him over?"

Aera nodded without hesitation, because of course she did. Even though he could see the tiniest sparks of anger buried in her eyes over what his Shield had said —what Gilgamesh had triggered in Deleantur—, she was far too kind to withhold treatment over something like that. With a final glance to confirm that Ardyn was staying with the eerily still Deleantur, Somnus turned and ran back to Gilgamesh. His friend wasn't moving beyond a harsh tremor in all his limbs that Somnus knew from experience —Deleantur's magic always smothered when startled or pushed toward temper, he couldn't imagine what it was like to feel his actual wrath—. Somnus reached out with gentle fingers and soft words and pulled Gilgamesh's hood down, then carefully worked his mask and head piece free to reveal Gilgamesh's true face.

Aera's breath hitched just a little at the sight of it —the sight of the infamous Beast Tamer line's dark hair and golden-amber eyes, thought wiped out by warring factions decades ago— but she ran glowing hands gently over his shoulders anyway while Somnus tried to get a response from Gilgamesh. Finally he resorted to pinching his friend's ear, prompting a dull flinch and a twitch towards his sword before amber eyes settled on Somnus's face. Somnus let go of the ear and rested his hand on Gilgamesh's shoulder, "Back with me?"

"I … I am not an Oathbreaker." Gilgamesh's lips barely moved and his voice cracked over the last word like it hadn't since they were both gangly-limbed kids. For a moment it wasn't Gilgamesh there, his stalwart Shield with caustically blunt commentary on the idiocy of politics and a habit of provoking —or being provoked by— Ardyn. It was Doleo, the boy with too much skill in the sword and a ferocious bird-beast for a companion who had saved Somnus from assassins and earned himself a place at Somnus's side. The boy with too-bright eyes and too-sharp senses who had hated his name until Somnus gave him a new one. The boy that had confessed his blood to Somnus with the full expectation of dying for it —because the Beast Tamers may not have been enemies for two generations, but they had never been friends and his father had never tolerated wild cards— and cried when Somnus had instead named him and all his descendants Shields of Somnus's line.

"I know."

"I'm not. I have never raised a hand against your family, I have never gone seeking war-."

Somnus squeezed Gilgamesh's shoulder, "I know. We'll figure this out. Let's just-. Let's just all sit down and talk about a few things. Like what to not say around Deleantur."

Gilgamesh nodded jerkily and a glance at Aera confirmed that the Oracle had found no severe injury on his Shield. Somnus gently tugged Gilgamesh to his feet while Aera flitted back to sit at Ardyn's side and fuss over the unmoving Deleantur —and oh, Somnus wanted to be angry at Gilgamesh for that, for the progress he had no doubt undone, but Gilgamesh had already suffered for his error and Somnus was just glad everyone was alive—. Somnus led his Shield back to the Haven and spent the next several hours alternating between eyeing Deleantur worriedly —if it weren't for Ardyn's hand on Deleantur's chest, Somnus wouldn't have been able to see the breathing— and catching his Shield up on everything they knew and everything he really shouldn't do around the most powerful Lucis Caelum to have ever lived.

Gilgamesh closed his eyes in shame by the end of it, huddled subtly into Enkidu's feathers after the beast had swooped down from the skies at some point in Somnus's talk. Because Gilgamesh was blunt around everyone, and especially caustic around those with noble blood, but he had never turned his tongue on escaped war prisoners. Ever. He bore too many whip scars on his back and the elaborate tattoos around his neck and wrists hid too many dark memories for him to ever turn his barbs on others who had escaped torment and captivity. Except Deleantur was, from what Ardyn and Aera and Somnus could tell, exactly that. A prisoner who had escaped, a broken man with too much magic stuffed in his body to really cope. A lost brother they had only just managed to get out of his shell before Gilgamesh had appeared and caused … well … whatever that had been.

Somnus had no explanation for how Deleantur knew Gilgamesh's old name, or his lineage, or what those accusations had been, and none of his reassurances had really helped —for all he believed in Gilgamesh, trusted him, Deleantur's words in the voice of a thousand couldn't be shaken so easily—.

It was early evening by the time Somnus had finished telling the story —with some help from Aera and Ardyn, the latter of whom kept throwing veiled barbs at Gilgamesh no matter how Somnus glowered—, and they were just wondering what they should do next —should they eat? Should they wait to see if Deleantur woke up first to eat with them? Would Deleantur even recognize them when he woke or would his defensive trance be back full force like with Ardyn's accidental tease trigger?— when Deleantur whimpered softly again.

Ardyn was holding Deleantur's hand in an instant, having never left their brother's side throughout the discussion, "Deleantur? Are you awake?"

Aera crouched next to Ardyn, her hands flickering gold as she rested them on Deleantur's stomach, "Can you hear us? Can you open your eyes?"

Somnus skidded to his knees on Deleantur's other side just in time to see one blue eye crack open, "Mmm … Luna…?" The blue eye slid shut again, then both eyes blinked tiredly open and focused on them, "Som', 'Dyn, … 'Era? Wha' happened?"

They exchanged a look of worry mixed with relief over his head before Ardyn gingerly helped Deleantur sit up, "You do not remember?"

Deleantur leaned almost bonelessly against Ardyn, not flinching away from the contact as his head flopped on Ardyn's shoulder and he squinted at the evening sky. Every movement spoke of exhaustion and his words were all mumbled like he didn't have enough energy to enunciate, making his unusual accent even thicker than normal, "I was fishin' an' … I pushed you in? Then Aera pushed me and Som' in too." He lolled his head in Aera's and Somnus's direction, befuddlement in his expression —but not the broken, empty trance Somnus had come to hate, thank the Astrals—, "Did I hit m' head on a rock in the water or somethin'?"

Aera shook her head, "No, all three of you climbed out of the water without trouble, but then we had a … visitor…"

Deleantur's eyes opened wider and he struggled to sit straighter, his hazy slur clearing with his urgency, "Attack? Were we attacked? Are you-?"

"Everyone is well, there was no attack," soothed Ardyn before Somnus could, "but you became … angry and then passed out."

Deleantur blinked at Ardyn in confusion, then looked at Somnus, "Passed out? …Why did I…?" His gaze trailed over Somnus's shoulder and he stilled. Somnus realized Gilgamesh and Enkidu were in plain sight right behind him and shifted to try to hide them from view. The last thing they needed was Deleantur losing control like that again. Instead of showing anger, Deleantur just tilted his head to try to see around Somnus, "Who's that?"

Somnus weighed his words carefully, "You don't remember meeting him?"

"…No?"

Somnus reluctantly moved to the side and gestured Gilgamesh closer —his friend knew better now than to set Deleantur off again—, "The beast is Enkidu, don't worry, he's well trained and won't hurt you, and this is my friend-."

"Gilgamesh," Deleantur finished for him, a trace of age flickering through his eyes before it settled and Deleantur tiredly wiggled his fingers at the stiff Shield in greeting, "You're Somnus's Shield." Deleantur squinted at Gilgamesh's face for a moment and something like pain twisted Deleantur's features, "Oh. You look…."

"I know what I look like," grunted Gilgamesh stiffly, the scars on the right side of his face pulling his mouth into sour shapes as he spoke, "I assure you, I am loyal to the line of Lucis Caelum."

Deleantur's grimace deepened and he shook his head, "That's not what I meant. You just- you look just like Gladio. That's all." Blue eyes turned distant, but not in a dangerous way as he murmured, "I knew blood ran strong in both my family and the Amicitia's, but I didn't think it would be so … obvious."

Gilgamesh sucked in a sharp breath, Somnus reached out and grabbed his friend's shoulder in solidarity, "You know Amicitias? Are there any…?"

Deleantur dropped his gaze and fidgeted with the hem of his tunic, "I … did. Before I came here. Gladio is … he was … my friend. His father served as my father's favored bodyguard. We grew up together alongside…." Deleantur's lips tightened and he squeezed his eyes shut, Somnus felt cold as he filled in the blanks. This Gladio Amicitia "was" Deleantur's friend. Grew up alongside him and one other —Noctis? The mysterious King of Crystal?— but wasn't here with Deleantur…

Gilgamesh sagged ever so slightly against Somnus's grip, "So they are dead then. Both of them?" Deleantur just kept looking at the ground. That was answer enough. At least until Gilgamesh whispered, "Did they die as traitors?"

Deleantur's head snapped up, something like fury burning in his eyes, but it never formed into magical retaliation, just snuffed out into hurt confusion, "No! Why would you-?" Deleantur began struggling to his feet despite Ardyn's and Aera's efforts, "They would have never-! Why would you even think that?"

Gilgamesh stepped back and tilted his head submissively, a gesture he'd only ever done to Somnus before now, "You do not recall, but when we met earlier I … was callous in my words. You grew enraged and called me…" Amber eyes flickered to Somnus, then back to Deleantur, "Oathbreaker. Kingslayer. Warmonger that … builds pyres…"

"On the bones of children and washes his blade in the blood of nations," Deleantur finished with a wince, "I really said all that out loud?"

Somnus tightened his grip on Gilgamesh's shoulder, "While channeling so much magic your skin looked like cracked ash. You almost killed him. You almost killed yourself."

Deleantur stared at his hands in surprise, as if they might turn to cracked and glowing ash right before his eyes, "Oh."

Ardyn was glancing from Somnus to Deleantur and back, uncomfortable in having to potentially pick a side between brothers should an argument start, "Did you … intend your words for Gilgamesh or for … someone else? You were clearly not yourself while you spoke, your voice was layered with that of a thousand others."

Deleantur rubbed his face tiredly, "No, they were meant for Gilgamesh, but I never intended to come out and say them." One tired blue eye peaked out Gilgamesh's horrified expression, "I'm sorry about that. They're pushy sometimes but I didn't think they could … influence me that much."

Who are they? "Gilgamesh," said Somnus into the stunned silence with strangled calm, "is my friend and Shield-brother. He has never, and would never do those things."

"Not the way he is now," mumbled Deleantur into his hands, "but the Old Kings never care about that stuff."

"Old kings."

Deleantur gave the most tired, bone-weary sound Somnus had ever heard and lowered his hands, "The Crystal remembers the lifetimes of every Lucis Caelum born since the Founder King. And since memories are personality, those memories exist as … sentient echoes, I suppose you could call them. If you tap too deep into the Crystal's power, you start tapping into those memories too. That can be useful, if you're careful, because it means you can know things. You can use spells like a master when you've only learned them that day, or wield weapons you've never touched before like you were born to them, or know how to navigate an area even if you've never been there. Because the memories have done all those things and when you take their magic you take that knowledge too."

Deleantur was staring into the middle distance, either unaware or ignoring the looks of abject horror everyone was giving him as he continued, "But if you go too far … the memories start to … blur. It gets hard to pick out which ones are yours and which ones aren't, what memories you've formed yourself and which ones have been outdated and incorrect for a hundred years or more. You look at people and there are … opinions. Instincts. Always just in the back of your head that you know aren't yours, telling you what a person is like or not like even if you've never met before. I … I've known for a while that channelling too much makes the voices louder, but I didn't think I'd ever get … overwhelmed and start spouting that stuff aloud." He blinked, refocused on the statuesque Gilgamesh, "I'm sorry for … whatever I said and did. You don't seem like the kind of person to do … any of that but the Crystal just-," he gestured helplessly, "it does this thing sometimes where I see what was -or could be I guess, I get it mixed up- and I guess you made me angry enough that it all just … came spilling out. Please don't do …whatever it was you did, again."

By all the Astrals above and daemons below. No wonder Deleantur was mad. There were implications in there that Somnus didn't even want to begin to unpack for fear he'd lose his mind himself. Deleantur had the most powerful magic Somnus had ever seen, and the name he wore now was just another reminder of how he seemed to radiate age and forgotten lifetimes but Somnus had never actually dreamed that-. That he…

How many lifetimes were packed in Deleantur's head? How deep into the Crystal's magic had Deleantur been forced to plunge by whatever circumstances had brought him here? The Lucis Caelum line was fairly new by noble standards, but they had still been connected to the Crystal for five generations now. Somnus could see the family tapestry in his mind's eye, five generations all mapped out in siblings and cousins and advantageous marriages that never let their magic leak out of their control and true, it wasn't many by noble standards but suddenly all those different names seemed like far, far too many.

And that wasn't counting the living Lucis Caelums either. Had Deleantur been forced to live through Somnus's and Ardyn's and their father's lifetimes? Depending on when he first began diving that deep into magic, had he spent his childhood struggling to separate his own daily life from visions of whatever Somnus and Ardyn and their father had been doing? Did the Crystal's reach extend to spouses rather than just direct blood?

That … Ifrit's Pyre no wonder Deleantur had to fight so hard some days to focus on them, on the present —on his present? Did he also struggle with seeing the current day through their eyes?—, why Deleantur had been so distant at first. If Somnus had been forced to live with more than one lifetime in his head —let alone generations' worth— he probably would have thrown himself off the top of the nearest high tower.

Somnus needed to sit down.

Everyone else seemed of the same mind, as Gilgamesh slowly folded to the earth with a rattle of armor and Deleantur quietly followed Ardyn's grip down until they were both sitting on the stone of the Haven while Aera hid her mouth behind her hands and cried silently. Deleantur looked away, intensely uncomfortable, "Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"Is that my future?"

Deleantur glanced over at Gilgamesh, who was gripping his own knees like a vise, probably to keep from punching something. Gilgamesh rasped, "You said the Crystal gives you visions. Is that my destiny? To wage war and burn children? To break my oaths and kill my king?" Somnus could almost hear Gilgamesh planning to plunge his own sword through his heart rather than suffer that fate and tensed to tackle his —idiot, loyal, impulsive— friend should Deleantur answer poorly.

Deleantur surprised them by baring his teeth in a flash of stubborn, bitter determination and a flare of old magic that turned his eyes to the color of blood, "No. Not after everything I've done. The Scourge is gone, the Brothers stand together rather than tearing each other apart. Gilgamesh Oathbreaker doesn't exist and never will. You are free to be whoever you want."

Gilgamesh's shoulders unwound, but now Somnus had questions he couldn't keep behind his teeth any longer —ones he'd had whispering in his head for a long time but never dared ask once he began to really know and care for Deleantur—, "Who are you?"

Everyone stared at Somnus and he swallowed, "Not-. I know you're Deleantur. I know you're our brother. But-. You said 'not after everything you've done' and you speak of pulling on the magic of the Crystal more deeply than anything I have ever heard of before. You're hurt and you walk our lands like life itself is a stranger to you but you make no effort to return to your home and heal. You only appeared after the Wave, which you've told us Noctis caused to end the Starscourge but that does not tell us who Noctis was, or why the Astrals have gone silent ever since and now you tell us that you've lived lifetimes and suffered visions."

He ran a hand through his hair and continued to ramble everything that had bothered him until now, "You speak of duty, you've bled and suffered for your duty -don't try to tell me you haven't, you wouldn't have paid that high a price for your magic for anything less- and now … now you say my friend was destined to be a murderer until you … did something. Something that I can only assume is related to the Wave and I-." He exhaled, reached out to rest a hand on Deleantur's shaking arm, "Please, Brother. I just want to understand."

Deleantur stared at Somnus's hand with too-bright eyes and for a long heartbeat Somnus was certain that Deleantur was going to retreat back into his old trance just to avoid the question. Let lifetimes swallow him whole rather than give an answer. Then he sagged into Ardyn's gentle hold and whispered, "Not tonight. I can't-. I can't answer tonight. I'll get you the answers you want tomorrow, just let me … let me have tonight. Please."

Ardyn, Aera, and Somnus exchanged speaking looks, worried and confused and regretful, then Somnus squeezed Deleantur's arm and whispered, "Of course, Brother."

The rest of the evening and night was very subdued. Nobody wanted to talk, not with the revelations sitting heavy on their hearts and the promise of even more —even heavier— answers weighing on their shoulders. Somnus tossed and turned for most of the night, dozed off only to wake and spot Deleantur sitting on the edge of the Haven, face tilted to the moon, tiny droplets of magic —like starlight and rain— dripping softly from his fingers like some kind of silent offering. Or maybe silent tears that he refused to let fall from his eyes.

.

.

.

.

As Ardyn followed behind Deleantur on some path only his brother could see, he struggled with the urge to smack Somnus. It wasn't an unfamiliar urge. Except Somnus had not technically done anything wrong, just blurted out the questions that had been plaguing him —plaguing Ardyn and Aera too— and managed to secure a promise for answers on the morrow from Deleantur. It wasn't really Somnus's fault that Deleantur was taking it so badly, watching them with sad eyes and folding in on himself at the slightest touch like he expected them to spit in his face.

Like giving them the answers they desired would tear apart the brotherhood Deleantur had only just let himself accept and believe in.

So Ardyn resisted his urge to smack Somnus over the head like he had when they were children and instead focused on walking. Deleantur had refused to let them ride their chocobos —or Enkidu in Gilgamesh's case— for the last hour or so, insisted that wherever they were going would only scare the animals unnecessarily. Ardyn wasn't certain where Deleantur was taking them, only that the air was getting heavier as they walked, like the world understood something drastic was about to happen. Deleantur finally stopped and Ardyn sucked in a startled breath as he realized where they were. They were standing on one of the edges of Taelpar Crag, the deep scar in the earth created during the War of the Astrals, a place few dared come for fear of the curses that might still linger in the place where immortal blood had been spilled.

Deleantur was looking around, as if inspecting the area, "Should be enough room…" he muttered softly to himself. He glanced over his shoulder, "Aera."

Ardyn watched his lover step forward without hesitation, moving to stand at Deleantur's side and tried not to be afraid for her —that was a long fall, a long fall in an area with old history and cursed memories—. Aera just clutched her trident tighter and asked, "Deleantur?"

Deleantur stepped back, then gently nudged her into position just a bit to the right, "I'm going to need you here for this." He paused, looked at the rest of them, "You need to be closer. I have to make sure you don't get hurt."

Gilgamesh shifted to stand in front of Somnus even as Ardyn and he obediently shuffled closer, "Is this dangerous?"

Deleantur's lips twitched into a dark smile, "Only if the Fish is feeling particularly cranky, I think. Though the others might react badly too considering everything that's happened so- I want you all in range of my Protect spell if I need it, that's all."

Ardyn eyed the very long drop just in front of them and wondered how any of this related to getting answers, "Others?"

"Yeah." Deleantur made his shoulder gesture, dark, bitter smile still in place, "The others. I'm not…" Deleantur quieted, half-glared at the canyon before them, "I'm not ready to tell my story. I don't … I don't think you'd believe me. I know I wouldn't, if I was in your place. Not without someone to back it up. So I'm going to get the others to answer your questions first, to prove I'm telling the truth. After that … if you still want to talk to me, then I'll try to tell you what I can."

Aera's eyes went wide, like she had just realized something, "Deleantur, you aren't-!"

Deleantur hushed her with a gesture, took a half-step forward so that he was in front of them all —between them and the canyon, like it was a danger and he was their protection—, and raised his right hand. Magic began to build, flowed out and burned around them like a bonfire. The air felt brittle and flickers of images danced around them amid tiny crystals of raw magic power —weapons of war, swords and maces, tridents and axes and shuriken—. A sword settled in Deleantur's outstretched hand, ornate and beautiful and humming with Deleantur's old-old-old magic. Then Deleantur dipped his chin toward his chest, like a man bracing for an impact, and spoke. His voice was like thunder and crashing ocean waves, not layered with the voices of a thousand like last time, but just as powerful, just as old, "Watchers of Our Star," the air froze, diamond clear and sharp as knives in Ardyn's still lungs, the whole world waiting for a command, "come to me."

Deleantur buried his sword's tip in the stone of the cliff and magic burned.

Thunder cracked off to their right, the late morning sky clouding over in seconds as lightning crashed into some unseen place far in the distance again and again and again until Ardyn couldn't even bear to look in that direction.

Deleantur's magic just kept building.

Far off to their left the air smelled heavy like rain and something roared with a primal fury that sank into Ardyn's bones like fangs.

Deleantur's magic spiked higher, a silent demand for his words to be obeyed.

Beneath their feet, the earth began to shake rhythmically. Trembling for a few seconds before stilling, then trembling again in a manner he could only describe as footsteps —which was impossible, no living creature was large enough to shake the earth from so far away with single steps—.

Deleantur's magic continued build, higher and higher to the sky like a beacon and a tower and a star come to earth.

Somnus pressed close against Ardyn's side with a strangled noise and Ardyn looked down to see-. Frost. Crawling up the cliffside below to paint delicate white designs around Deleantur's and Aera's feet, so cold despite the time of year that already Ardyn's breath was beginning to fog.

Deleantur's magic was still climbing. It coated the air like a physical presence now, turned the storm-darkened air blue and swirled around them in crystalline shards like snow in a strong breeze. It stirred Deleantur's hair like wind, and though his skin wasn't paling to ash or cracking open to reveal light —even though he gave no sign of pain or discomfort—, Ardyn wondered how Deleantur could stand having this much magic under his skin without dying.

Then Deleantur's head snapped up and toward the right and the magic building around them erupted, scattering in a thousand directions like a warning and a … a greeting all in one because…

There was something descending from the storm clouds.

No. Not something. The Fulgarian. Ramuh the Wise, Keeper of Knowledge and Judge of the Unjust was descending toward them, his staff as tall as a mountain and his eyes gleaming with contained magic, beard waving in the ripples of power —Deleantur's power— that rose to greet him.

Somnus's foggy breath sounded as strangled as Ardyn's felt and Ardyn had to concentrate on breathing and keeping his knees from giving out —because an Astral was descending upon them, Deleantur had called an Astral—, but then the frost curled dangerously around his toes and whipped past him to freeze the nearest trees and Ardyn's knees did give out as the Glacian appeared and floated almost lazy circles around their group, her form much smaller than the legends told —she was only the height of a human, perhaps a bit taller— but her skin just as blue as death and her eyes glittering with frozen danger.

"Astrals," someone wheezed —it might have been him, it might have been Somnus, he doubted it was Gilgamesh but who knew— and a tiny part of Ardyn almost felt like laughing because that breathless word was not a curse in this situation. It was an observation. Because Deleantur had not just done the impossible by calling two of the Astrals out of their slumber and to his side on a word and a tidal wave of magic…

He had summoned all of them.

Leviathan the Hydraean twisted and rose from the depths of Taelpar Crag, her body seeming to disappear down the length of the Crag and out of sight without end even as her head towered above them and the air rattled as she howled to the clouded skies. Titan the Archaean rounded from the other end of Taelpar Crag, so tall that his head and shoulders still loomed well above the edge of the cliffs as the earth trembled with his every footfall. Then, just when Ardyn felt like his heart would stop from terror and wonder —four of the six were here, Deleantur had awoken them and called them and they had come—, The storm clouds brought by the Fulgarian were ripped open as a final figure plummeted from the heavens, magic like the Crystal yet not reaching out to meet Deleantur's as wings made of countless massive swords flared out and brought the Draconian to an abrupt halt directly above and in front of them all.

For a long moment, nothing moved. Deleantur's magic settled like a low, heavy fog around them —a buffer the part of Ardyn that wasn't gibbering in terror realized a buffer between us and the magic of the Astrals existing all in one place— and he seemed content to wait for … something. Aera was the only other person still standing aside from Deleantur now. Gilgamesh had fallen onto his masked face by the third Astral and Ardyn felt like he was not far from joining him. All of the questions that had burned in his mind earlier were gone, drowned under his screaming astonishment and fear. Somnus didn't seem any better, clinging to Ardyn's hand with white knuckles just as Ardyn was clinging to him.

Then, Deleantur spoke, his words astonishingly quiet and calm after the thundering voice with which he had summoned the Astrals themselves, "The Oracle of this era has questions. You will give her the answers she desires."

The silent, immortal beings watching them finally stirred. The Glacian landed, soft as snowfall onto the earth a few feet away from Ardyn's love, her head tilted to one side in something Ardyn would have said was curiosity on a human. The Fulgarian shifted his staff into both of his hands, as if he could lean on it in mid-air, something decidedly considering in his gaze while the Archaean just shifted closer to the cliff's edge with a rumble of stone against stone-like skin.

The Hydraean jerked her head and shrieked something in the native tongue of the Astrals —grating and deep and confusing, unintelligible but terrifying in the anger it conveyed—. Aera's hands went white on her trident and she made to shy away, but Deleantur let go of his sword with one hand to gently touch her back and keep her still. His head tilted in the Hydraean's direction and blue magic coiled like a snake about to bite, "Yes. I did. It was all of you who got me into this mess, the least you can do is spend what to you will be few minutes of your time explaining some things."

The Hydraean's eyes narrowed and she hissed something Ardyn hoped was more contemptuous than vengeful, but that didn't matter when Deleantur drew his sword from the ground in one easy movement and pointed it at the Tidemother, "Big. Whoop. Maybe if you and your kin had bothered to actually fix your own messes instead of shoving it on humanity and expecting everything to go to plan then you could still be sleeping peacefully beneath your waves. But you didn't. So suck it up and deal with the consequences." Huge fins flared out in obvious fury and Deleantur added in a very low voice, "You really gonna do this now, honored Leviathan? You don't have a city to throw at me this time, and I can name at least three of your kin that will help me cut off those pretty fins of yours. Again." We're all going to die. Worse, the entire kingdom was probably going to die, drowned and frozen and torn apart by the wrath of the Astrals, one of which Deleantur had just threatened and insulted like the Hydraean was just a rowdy hooligan in the pub to be thrown out on her ear.

The Hydraean's jaws opened wide, power gathering in her maw like a scream, then snapped shut reluctantly when the Draconian held up a hand in a halting gesture. Resting his hand on the pommel of the massive blade he held before him once more, the Draconian spoke, low but unyielding. The Hydraean settled with a hiss like a gale and Deleantur returned his sword to its original position, tip buried firmly in the rock —a mirror of the Draconian, and Ardyn wondered if that was intentional—, nudged Aera with one hand and jerked his head toward the Astrals, "Ask away. They will answer."

After a deep, shaky breath, she did. They stayed there for hours, the sun burning a mostly hidden path along the sky as Aera spoke in the language of the Astrals and they answered her in turn while Deleantur stood at her side like a tired sentry and Somnus, Ardyn, and Gilgamesh eventually found the strength to stand again. Ardyn wished he could understand what they were saying. He knew that Aera would tell them everything once she was finished, but it was strangely nerve-wracking yet dull to stand and wait while a conversation he didn't understand went on around him.

It stopped being dull when, several hours in, Aera burst into tears, one hand flying to cover her mouth while the other clutched her trident close to her chest. Fear of the immortal beings hovering close by momentarily forgotten, Ardyn hurried forward and put his arms around her shoulders, "Aera?"

Blue eyes looked up at him in disbelief and pain, like she had just witnessed or heard something heartrending. Ardyn pulled her closer in silent reassurance against trouble he did not yet know, then looked up and realized the Astrals were staring. At him. Specifically. Ardyn forgot how to breathe again for a moment until Deleantur's magic wrapped more tightly —possessively— around him like a silent reprimand to the Astrals. One they accepted, turned their gazes back to Aera and resumed whatever story they were weaving for her ears —and Deleantur's— alone.

The end of the story came with an astonishing lack of ceremony. The Glacian finished whatever part of the tale she had to say and fell silent let the Draconian speak. After the Draconian finished, Aera's hitch of breath was the only sign that the tale had come to an end until the Astrals all looked expectantly down at Deleantur. Deleantur waved his hand in clear dismissal, his head barely dipping as he gave polite —exhausted— thanks. Then, one by one, the Astrals turned and left, fading into nothing without warning. The Glacian lingered for a few moments longer, her gaze fixed upon Deleantur with something that looked, at least to Ardyn's inexperienced eyes, like concern. Then Deleantur waved his hand a second time and she disappeared too.

Deleantur's magic faded first, slithering back into his core like it had never been. Then his blade disappeared back into armiger and he folded in on himself, crumbling to his knees without a sound. Aera crumbled too, dragging Ardyn down with her as she pressed her face into his shoulder and cried in silence. Ardyn looked over at the waxy-faced Somnus, for once at a loss. This was no physical damage he could heal, and he didn't have enough knowledge to fix whatever emotional hurts had been torn open by the —impossible, terrifying— conversation with the Astrals.

It was Gilgamesh who moved first. Who dragged himself to his feet and whistled for Enkidu and their chocobos. Somnus's Shield carefully set up camp around them, right there on the top of the cliff where the land now hummed and sang with the magical residue of Deleantur and the five remaining Astrals. Somnus came back to himself in time to help Gilgamesh prepare a very simple meal —none of them felt hungry, but they had not eaten since morning and now it was early evening—. Deleantur didn't react to the activity around them, and Aera was still shaking in Ardyn's arms even though her tears had dried up a while ago.

Aera didn't move from her place in Ardyn's arms until after a deathly silent meal had been picked at by everyone present. Questions were lodged tight in Ardyn's throat —questions he was certain he would not like the answers to but needed to know anyway—. After the simple soup Gilgamesh had thrown together had been either eaten or listlessly discarded, Aera finally nudged her way free of Ardyn's worried grasp. She turned and pressed a lingering, desperate kiss on his lips, then pulled away and stood before he could think to stop her or ask why.

Deleantur looked up as Aera approached him, his eyes the most tired Ardyn ever seen outside the daze that had trapped him when they first met. He didn't move as Aera stopped in front of him and spoke for the first time since the Astrals had left, "Show me."

Deleantur closed his eyes, "Aera…"

Aera clasped her trembling hands together, "Please. I want … I need to see for myself. Please."

Ardyn climbed to his feet as Deleantur sighed. Watched tensely next to Somnus as their brother stood up like the act was the most exhausting thing in the world, turned his back on them, and slowly peeled off his tunic. It occurred to him, as the childhood daemon scars Deleantur had shown them came into view and fabric rustled, that Deleantur had never let them see him without a tunic on. He never washed either himself or his clothing in their sight, even if it was just Somnus and Ardyn there while Aera waited back at the Haven. In the mornings, he always ducked off to some hiding place to change into his clothes of the day. Ardyn had never, ever seen Deleantur without a tunic. It hadn't seemed like an important detail at the time, and then once Ardyn had gotten to know Deleantur better he had assumed the other man was just private about whatever scars his past had given him.

Which, Ardyn realized as Deleantur straightened up and dropped his tunic to the ground, his back exposed to their view, was true. Deleantur had been hiding scars. They were just so much worse than anything Ardyn could have dreamed.

The faded, ugly claw marks of the childhood daemon attack stretched from his lower back to the small of his spine. A hundred thousand littler nicks littered his arms and ribs and back, each telling a story of battle and hard falls and too-close blades. But Ardyn barely noticed those. Those scars didn't matter.

The sharp, raised line of scar tissue as tall as Ardyn's hand and only half as wide right over where Deleantur's heart rested was far more pressing. The unnatural blue color of it, interspersed with jagged white streaks like lightning bolts in a dark blue sky, made Ardyn feel sick —that was no ordinary stab wound, that was a wound made by a blade burning with magic, but there were only five people currently alive that had magic and four of them were here and one of those four was the victim—. The healer in Ardyn's mind cried at sight of it, desperately estimated how far the blade must have gotten before it was ripped out in order for Deleantur to have survived that kind of wound. Especially a blade burning with enough magic to turn the scar it left behind such an unnatural color-.

Then Deleantur turned slowly around, his eyes focusing sadly on his feet rather than any of them and Ardyn's own heart broke.

Because there was another blue-white scar on Deleantur's chest, an identical match to the one on his back. Because the scar on Deleantur's front lined up perfectly with the one on his back with his heart right in the center of that invisible line.

Because nothing survived being stabbed through the heart with a magically enhanced blade. Even the miracle feathers Deleantur carried, the ones he called Phoenix Downs after the great bird of legend, had limits. Deleantur had been the one to teach Ardyn about those limits. A magically charged blade through the heart, straight through the body so that it left both an entrance and exit wound … was well beyond the limits Deleantur had described.

But then how was Deleantur here? How had he survived?

Aera made a choked noise and gingerly rested a shaking hand on Deleantur's chest, like if she touched it the ugly scar would disappear. It didn't, and she looked up into Deleantur's face with a terrible sort of realization in the line of her shoulders, "Noctis," she whispered and Ardyn's world turned to fragments of glass as the pieces of the puzzle came crashing together.

The most powerful Lucis Caelum to have ever lived. One unheard of until after the Wave.

A broken man who had treated life like a stranger and clung to duty like an anchor, who suffered through memories of lifetimes that didn't belong to him and visions of things that would no longer be as a consequence of his power.

A wanderer who looked upon a stranger and knew everything about him, a nomad who bared his teeth in bitter satisfaction and promised that he had already freed that stranger from a terrible fate and given him the freedom to choose his own path.

A lonely throne seated beneath the Crystal, sunlight reflecting off the drying stains of blood that had dripped down from the torn cushions, like someone had been there mere hours before with a sword skewered through his heart.

Aera's other hand reached up to cup Deleantur's- Noctis's face as she spoke again, reciting the knowledge that must have driven her to tears earlier, the knowledge Ardyn suddenly wished he'd never been stupid enough to desire knowing, "Noctis Lucis Caelum, Chosen King of Crystal, Bringer of the Dawn, Purger of the Scourge, Protector of Our Star, One Hundred Fourteenth … and Last of his line."

Deleantur- Noctis, closed his eyes in something like despair and leaned every so faintly into Aera's touch, "…I used to be."

Oh. Oh no. Oh you blind, blind fool, flickered dully past the white noise in Ardyn's head. That explained … everything. That explained the horrid scars that no one could survive.

Noctis hadn't survived. He had died and from his death the Wave had risen and purged the world of the Starscrouge.

Then Deleantur had gotten up and walked away.

More than that, he had gotten up and walked away into a world he did not belong in —one hundred fourteenth and last of his line, echoed in Ardyn's head, a sick, impossible truth that he believed nonetheless—, into a wilderness that could not help him shake off the memories of lives he had never lived and magic that encompassed far, far too much time.

Deleantur- Noctis-, was not a long lost, illegitimate brother.

He was a future child. A descendent, here somehow in an era he did not belong, and as impossible as that sounded, it made so many little things about Deleantur make sense —no concept of which kingdoms were which and where borders lay, the unidentifiable accent, the alien words and turns of phrase, the quiet fascination with things even children of this era should have known, the list went on and on—.

Ardyn wanted to sit down again. Or cry. Or quite possibly both. But Noctis —Deleantur? Did he even want the name he had worn before his death?— was standing there with his shoulders hunched like he expected to be rejected and alienated. Like he expected them to deny him their love just because he was, somehow, not from their time. He was standing there looking so very, very lost and alone even with Aera's gentle hands on his chest and cheek, and Ardyn was a lot of things, but first and foremost of them was an older brother.

He forced his shock-stiffened limbs to move, watched with a broken heart at the way Noctis eyed his approach with such fragile hope —like he expected it to be broken at any moment, like he expected to be cast out even though he had saved them— and Ardyn ignored everything else in favor of gently reaching out and pulling Noctis into a hug. He tucked Noctis's head under his chin and wrapped his arms as tightly as he dared around his shaking brother —not too tightly, never too tightly, never enough to be inescapable or caging, but tight enough to reassure and strengthen—. His hands rested on top of the blue scar on Noctis's back —a scar still humming faintly with memory-regret-acceptance-I-walked-tall— as he whispered, "Oh, Brother Mine…"

Noctis shuddered in his arms, more like a child than an adult or a king or a time-traveller, "You … you aren't…?" He didn't finish. Ardyn didn't think he ever wanted him to.

Ardyn pressed his lips to the crown of black hair, rocking faintly back and forth like he had when Somnus was just a small boy —like he'd wanted to do since getting to know the brother hidden beneath the ageless shards of magic-time-scars that made up Deleantur's shell— "Of course not. Oh, Noctis-," the form shivering in his arms tensed up like a wire and Ardyn dared to squeeze just a little bit as he amended, "Deleantur. Brother of my heart. There are no words I can say-."

Ardyn breathed deep, bit back the tears that suddenly blurred the world around him as knowledge danced just beyond his reach —"I will drag you out of that darkness! Out of solitude! Out of emptiness!" "So .. that is how you end it." "This time … you can rest in peace."—, "You dragged me out of the darkness. Out of solitude. Out of emptiness." Deleantur's breath stuttered, something fragile and understanding in the way he stilled —like he knew the words Ardyn was speaking even if Ardyn didn't, like he remembered when Ardyn couldn't—, "You dragged us all out of that empty fate." Ardyn pressed his lips to black hair again, pretended he didn't taste salt as he did so, "Thank you, Brother Mine. Thank you."

Slowly, achingly slowly, shaking arms wrapped around his back in return, held tight as Deleantur shook and broke in a way he had probably been staving off since before they met him. Ardyn lowered them down to the ground, never loosening his grip as he whispered reassurances and thanks past the tears flowing down his cheeks. Somnus crowded closer, his usual attempts at aloof dignity abandoned entirely in favor of wrapping his arms tightly around them both, his breath hitching as he began apologizing for things that could not be clearly remembered —things that would never be—. Aera settled on Ardyn's other side and ran trembling fingers through Ardyn's hair with one hand while the other held tight to Deleantur's shoulder.

Gilgamesh was still a stranger to Deleantur, still a foreign presence, so he did not join them on the ground. But when Deleantur began whispering through his tears —of how he was sorry, of how he was glad, or how he had been so alone because everyone and everything he'd known was gone—, Gilgamesh moved to stand in their periphery, his sword planted firmly in the ground as he stood guard. A bulwark against the world should it dare try to interrupt them.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Eventually, after their tears had dried for the moment, after exhaustion had dragged the four of them to sleep while Gilgamesh stood watch, after they had awoken and settled down in a close huddle to finally sort out secrets revealed and sins undone, Deleantur spoke. He told them a story.

A story of a young man, more of a boy really, who set out on a journey with his three brothers in arms to a wedding that was supposed to bring peace. A story that began long, long before that boy had even been born. A story that began with two brothers. Both of noble blood, both possessing magic and intelligence and potential.

He spoke of a tragedy that began with choices. The choice of the eldest brother to be a healer, to roam the world and use his inborn gift of healing to take away a terrible scourge from its victims rather than wait for the Astrals to provide a cure through the Crystal. The choice of the younger brother to follow in his father's footsteps and beliefs and try to remove the plague from the world with steel and blood and mass funeral pyres, even if it meant alienating himself from the elder brother who had once been his greatest friend, but who was now his rival for a throne neither believed the other was responsible enough to claim.

It was not a story that could be told over one day or night. It was spread out over the slow journey back toward the capital, told in nightly arcs and frequent outbursts from the listeners who felt the need to rage, or mourn, or beg for forgiveness as the story unfolded.

Deleantur spoke of the dark trick to the elder brother's healing: that it only worked strongest when used on himself. That, to cure the incurable, the elder brother drew the scourge into his own body so that he would bear the pain and poison rather than let his people suffer. How his healing magic, strong as it was, could do nothing more than leave him trapped in-between daemonification and life the more he took and took and took on behalf of his people. How he came to bear enough scourge to turn a hundred, then a thousand, then more, yet never turned. All because of the magic inside him that was only just strong enough to keep it caged there in his body. A prison for man and poison both.

Deleantur spoke, with sad eyes fixed on the horizon, as Ardyn and Aera clutched each other's hands and Somnus recoiled with a white face, of the younger brother's jealousy. Of the belief that his elder brother had abandoned the throne for attention, that the throne was something to be coveted. That the crown would be better off in his hands rather than that of his elder brother. Of how the younger brother became so convinced of it that when the Oracle, his elder brother's lover, confided in him that the Astrals themselves had chosen the elder as king, the younger brother believed her to be lying on behalf of her love and hatched a plot to claim the throne anyway.

Deleantur held their hands tight to keep them from running away or lashing out as he spoke of a throne room, and an audience. A fight between brothers who should have been ever at each other's side for a crown no one should ever want. Of an Oracle who was felled trying to stop them. Deleantur rubbed Somnus's back as he threw up violently over the side of the Haven. Held his silence until they insisted on hearing the rest.

He told them of the grief that drove the elder brother to howl with the fury of the thousands of daemons trapped in his skin. The Shield who broke his oath to never raise his hand against the family that had taken him in when he attempted to slay what he thought was a daemon with a man's face. The Crystal that mindlessly rejected the source of infection that tried to call upon it for help saving the fallen Oracle. The start of a broken prophecy when the younger brother stilled his elder sibling —not killed, merely stilled for a time— with a sword through the heart.

Deleantur spoke through tears as the rest clutched hands together and listened to the brutal imprisonment of a once-healer who could not die, trapped in life by the impossible healing factor of daemons and caged in human skin and mind by the magic that struggled to keep the infection at bay. The curse upon the Shield who had broken his word to never rest until his debt was repaid. The prophecy —punishment— laid upon the younger brother the moment he put on the crown. That his line would never die peacefully. That each one would give their memories and magic to the Crystal when they passed, trapped in a ring that would slowly sap away the life of the living monarch until such a time as the Crystal gained enough power that the monarch of the era could purify the world —and the elder brother— of the scourge for good. That on the day the scourge was purified, his line would end as it had begun. A sword through a world-healer's heart.

Deleantur stopped telling the story for a while. Let them travel and mourn and come to grips with the twisted, broken fates that had laid in wait for them —the realization that love could have so easily been hate and peace could have so easily become war—. Ardyn knew that, if they had asked him, Deleantur would have kept the rest of the story to himself. That there was worse to come. So they did not ask. Instead, Ardyn detoured them to a nearby city that was on their way and the four of them bought every piece of paper and set of quill and ink they could stuff in their bags or armigers.

The next time Deleantur hesitantly resumed his story around the flickering firelight, Ardyn, Somnus, Aera, and Gilgamesh all took turns writing down his words. A story of prophecy and plagues and lies and promises. A story of a prince who lost a father and a kingdom in a single day, who travelled the countryside helping others while on the run from an empire that wanted him dead. The story of a band of brothers who were forged in fire, of an Oracle who lived and loved and was lost, slain by the daemons that had claimed the heart and mind of a once-healer.

And when Ardyn made to fling his pen and paper away at the revelation —made to run because how could Deleantur even look at him after everything he had done?—, Deleantur just yanked him close and whispered with ageless ferocity that Ardyn was not the Accursed. That who he was now was who he would stay. That there was no blame to be laid, because the villain that had lied and tricked and killed had not been Ardyn, but rather the madness that had eaten through his sanity over two thousand years of imprisonment and infection. Ardyn was no more to blame for the sins of the Accursed than Somnus was to blame for the Mystic's prophecy, or Gilgamesh to be shamed for an oath he had never broken.

By the time the capital came into view in the distance, Ardyn's, Somnus's, Aera's, and even Gilgamesh's supplies of paper and ink were almost drained and they had listened to a saga of a future rewritten. They had been taken all over the land that would someday be known only as Lucis and born witness to the destruction of an island city as Leviathan raged and an Oracle died for her love. They had trekked through the burning remains of an empire's capital city and been swallowed whole by a Crystal that imprinted memories and knowledge and magic into the soul of its last king so that he could fulfill the prophecy —the curse— set in motion two thousand years ago. They had emerged from Crystal into a world cloaked in eternal night and walked through the burning streets of a home that would never be seen in the light of day again. Not by Deleantur's eyes.

They had learned to treasure the names of warriors and sisters and tinkers and brothers unborn —Cor, Iris, Cindy, Gladiolus, Ignis, Prompto— and mourn the loss of the Kingsglaive who fought ever for hearth and home. They had listened with wide eyes as the Oracle returned long enough to summon all the Astrals one last time and grant passage into a walled off Citadel, envisioned the fire of Ifrit's demise that had left tiny rippling scars all up Deleantur's back. They heard of the battles against the Fierce, the Rogue, and the Mystic, all overcome by the band of brothers until finally it was Noctis alone, the last descendant of the younger brother, who faced down the maddened remnants of the elder brother.

It was with tears spattering their parchment that they listened to Deleantur speak of final battles, final goodbyes, and a last king who walked tall to his death for the sake of a new dawn.

"Then what happened to bring you all the way back here?" Ask Gilgamesh into the quiet, the only one who dared speak after Deleantur paused to stare off at the silhouette of the city that would someday be known as Insomnia, capital of Lucis, "You … died."

"I did," murmured Deleantur, "I went … elsewhere. To a place of endless blue, and there I erased the last of the Accursed for all of time. I was meant to fade after that. I almost did."

Gilgamesh rolled his helmet idly in his hands, his back pressed against Somnus's as they sat and … quietly shook, "Then why didn't you?"

Deleantur tilted his head back to stare at the night sky, "I don't really remember, honestly. Everything in between sitting on the throne and waking up … on a different throne is … fuzzy. But I think…" Deleantur frowned, "I remember … a voice. Reminding me of a promise, I think. I remember she said that … it didn't have to be this way. That I could change it, if I fought one more time." Deleantur lowered his head to look at them, "I didn't … my brothers didn't deserve a world that was ruined and scarred by darkness, even if it meant risking everything I'd experienced with them, even if it meant being alone … if I could give them a better world, then I had to try. That and I … promised." Deleantur's gaze settled on Ardyn, "I promised that I would take the Accursed out of darkness. Out of emptiness. I promised a return to the light, to the man he'd once been. If I had erased him then … how could I say I kept that promise? So I fought. I went … back. Back beyond anything I'd ever known, back until something … someone … led me out into the world again."

"And your arrival created the Wave," whispered Aera, "you gave up everything to go back to the beginning. Before the prophecy, before the curse, before-."

She stopped, but Ardyn finished for her, "Before the two brothers drifted apart from each other and fell to a plague and greed respectively." He blinked past dry eyes —if he ever recovered enough tears to cry again after all this he'd be surprised—, "You gave up everything you ever knew just for the chance that you could fix things, for everyone. Not just your brothers, but … us. Who you did not even know, or worse, had suffered at the hands of." Ardyn laughed, but it was a dark, dry sound, "And people call me the kind one."

Deleantur's shoulders bobbed, like he didn't really see the magnitude of his own actions —of his own sacrifice—. To his mind, he had done what he needed to do, he had done his duty. The thought that he could have just passed on into the afterlife and been at peace didn't seem to have occurred to him. Ardyn distantly wanted to smack whoever had beaten that obsessive devotion to duty into Deleantur's head, but he suspected the Astrals would not take kindly to the once-Accursed slapping them in their faces.

Aera leaned against Ardyn's shoulder, her pale blond hair —that had grown out considerably over the course of their journey— sliding over his tunic as she tilted her head, "What do you plan to do now?"

Deleantur made his shoulder gesture again —a shrug, he'd called it—, "I don't know. There's no prophecy here, no starscourge. I can't go around telling everyone who I am and what I was, so I'm … probably going to spend the rest of my life as your 'illegitimate sibling'. I … didn't have any plans before I met all of you, and I still don't really." He paused and glanced at Ardyn and Somnus, "Beyond getting through meeting your father without hitting anyone. Or getting locked up." His face darkened, "I'm not going to be some wayward bird in a cage."

"No," rumbled Somnus with an authority that startled Ardyn, "you are not. Even discounting that you are of my blood," and hadn't that been a stunning thought, that Deleantur was one hundred and fourteen generations away from Somnus yet still looked close enough to his … ancestor to be mistaken as a sibling, "you are the literal savior of the world, and a brother of my heart. You will be free to come and go as you please, to live where you please, and even marry whom you please -if you ever decide to do so- and I will not hear otherwise."

"And if your father disagrees?"

Somnus paused and visibly assessed his next words. Ardyn eyed his younger brother warily —that was the look Somnus got when he was planning something either brilliant or reckless— before Somnus asked, "Ardyn, how old is Father?"

Definitely a reckless idea then, "He should be turning fifty-two just a few days from now, why?"

Somnus continued to ponder in silence long enough for Gilgamesh to preemptively reach out and smack Somnus's head, "No."

Somnus scowled and smacked back, "You haven't even heard my idea yet."

"Don't need to. We are not staging a coup against your father. I apparently only just escaped being cursed to haunt Taelpar Crag for two thousand years, I'm not risking getting cursed again."

Somnus did nothing to ease Ardyn's sudden nerves, just bared his teeth in a grim smile, "It isn't a coup if he steps down willingly."

Deleantur was staring. Everybody was staring. Finally, Ardyn rubbed the bridge of his nose and ground out, "And why, Brother Mine, would our father do that when he has yet to choose which one of us is his heir?"

Somnus mimicked Deleantur's habitual shrug, "He'll have to choose me if you become ineligible." He held up a hand before anyone could protest, "Ineligible through alliance. Ever since being blessed as the Oracle, Aera has been recognized as the head of her house, correct? Any spouse she takes will have to join her family rather than the other way around? So," Somnus grinned and gestured between Ardyn and Aera, "marry her already. Then Father will have to choose me as heir. As heir, I'll have enough sway to keep Deleantur out from under Father's thumb and his advisors will start pushing for him to step down because of his age."

Ardyn sighed, "You know I can't do that, Somnus. The Lucis Caelum line does not share blood with outside lines. Let alone join them. Even if I could, I doubt Father would let your status as heir stop him from attempting to control Deleantur." Which would end in disaster, everybody knew. Deleantur could insult the Hydraean and get away with it, their father would be nothing to him.

Somnus frowned, "But she is the Oracle. Our families are already linked by the Astrals' blessings."

Ardyn shook his head, wishing it was as simple as his brother made it out to be, "The blessing of magic does not equate a blessing for unification. Especially not in Father's eyes and, well, it isn't as if the Astrals are going to show up in person and bless my wedding now are they?"

"How many would you need?"

All heads turned slowly toward Deleantur, who was looking at Ardyn seriously, "To bless a wedding. How many Astrals would you need? I don't think Titan and Leviathan would be a good idea, Titan wouldn't even fit in the city and while Leviathan can fly she can be … very destructive even by accident. But Bahamut could probably fit in the throne room and Shiva's smaller forms definitely could and … I don't think Ramuh would mind hanging around outside the building."

Deleantur's gaze bounced from Ardyn to Aera and back as the stunned silence grew, and he wilted just a bit when no one found the words to answer, "Would that not be enough of them?"

Gilgamesh gave a strangled laugh into Enkidu's feathers before he answered, "I think those three would be plenty to bless Ardyn's and Aera's wedding. Astrals, Del, you could just have their father step down the moment you set foot in the city if you wanted. No one is going to say 'no' to the faces of three of the Astrals."

Deleantur blinked, then smiled hesitantly —he was still acclimating to Gilgamesh's nickname, though he seemed to enjoy when the rest of them used it too—, "Okay then. Ardyn and Aera will announce their intent to marry and I'll have Bahamut, Shiva, and Ramuh bless it. Then your father will have to…" his voice trailed off and he looked at Somnus, "are you sure you want to be king?"

"No," Somnus admitted quietly, "after everything you've told us, I don't think any man in his right mind would want the throne. But someone will have to take it. Ardyn has never wanted it and he should get the chance to be with Aera officially, and I will not ask you to take more responsibility onto your shoulders. Besides…" he glared at the silhouette of the capital city in the distance, "I have come to the conclusion that my father is not … not a very good king. As his declared heir, I could at least begin to undo some of the damage he has caused."

Ardyn wondered if it was possible to burst from pride on someone else's behalf, because his chest felt far too tight. Even the sudden chance of being able to wed Aera —a dizzying, euphoric thought— wasn't quite enough to explain the way Ardyn's magic was buzzing under his skin in pride. It was only Aera's arms wrapped tight around his waist that kept him from flinging himself across the camp to hug Somnus and Deleantur both for their heady combination of mad schemes and maturity.

Gilgamesh finally relaxed against Somnus's back, rolling his helmet idly in his hands as he summarized, "So we're going to march into the capital city with a supposed illegitimate son of the king, have the Astrals themselves come down from on high to bless Ardyn's and Aera's union, Somnus will be declared heir of the kingdom, and Deleantur will be free to wander as he pleases." He grunted and set his helmet aside, "Tomorrow is going to be interesting. Sure you don't want to have the Astrals declare Somnus the new king while they're there?"

"Should I?"

Somnus waved his hands with wide eyes and sputtered and Ardyn hastily disabused Deleantur of the idea, "I think just one grand intervention of the Astrals will be enough for the year, Del. We do not need the political upheaval of both a wedding and a coronation happening at the same time."

Deleantur nodded and settled back against his chocobo's side, "Okay."

Aera giggled into Ardyn's shoulder with just the faintest hint of hysteria, "At least tomorrow will not be boring."

Ardyn busied his hands and wandering thoughts —Aera would soon be his to call wife and not just lover, his to treasure and spoil with gifts without worry of the stains the court gossip might inflict on her reputation— by gathering up the latest —last— of the papers all detailing Deleantur's story. He smoothed the sheets with care before storing them away with the rest of the manuscript, all written by different hands and with different details, but all telling the same impossibly true story.

He looked up to see Deleantur watching him with a thoughtful expression, "Is something the matter, Brother?"

"What are you going to do with those?"

Ardyn paused and stared blankly at the papers in his hands before he rolled his shoulders like Deleantur always did, "I … do not know. I intended to lock them away somewhere I suppose. Where they would be safe and hidden."

"Could you publish them?" Everyone stared. Deleantur busied himself petting his chocobo's feathers, "Not-. Not the original copy. You'd have to change the country names so people wouldn't … wage war against other kingdoms for no reason, and you'd definitely have to take out any mention of your own name since the Accursed wasn't … really you. But you could probably leave the other people names the same without too much worry."

Ardyn exchanged a look with Aera, then with Somnus, "Do you want me to? I thought you would want to keep your story a secret."

"Why?" Deleantur's lip curled bitterly for just a moment before sobering, "No one here but you four know that I used to be Noctis. No one but you four will ever even know that my story is real. I know that if you publish it, people will think it's just … a fairy tale. A myth. But-," his voice cracked and he glanced up at the stars overhead, "but I don't want it to be forgotten. Not- not for me. Not what I did. But the others. My brothers, Cor, Luna, Ravus … my father. Everything they did, everything they went through … they don't deserve to be forgotten. Even if I tell their story two thousand years before it happened, even if my meddling … prevents them from ever going through it again," prevents them from existing at all, hovered heavy in the set of Deleantur's shoulders, "I want them to be remembered. For their courage. Their kindness. Their sadness. Their joy. They deserve to have children read about what they went through and say 'I want to be that brave and kind and strong', even if no one will ever know that they were real and not just characters in a story."

His gaze dropped from the stars to Ardyn, "Is that wrong?"

Ardyn's grip on Aera tightened subconsciously as he thought of everything they had heard and learned and cried over. A part of him didn't want anyone to ever read the story of the Chosen King and the Accursed. Wanted to bury the future of what he could have been and forget it ever happened. But that would not be fair to those who had lived that story. Those people who had fought the darkness and safeguarded the dawn deserved to be remembered for their sacrifice. Noctis deserved to be remembered for everything he had bled and cried and died for, no matter what Deleantur thought of himself. No matter that the people reading the story would never know that every word was truth. That the tale in their hands was a really the fate that had been turned aside by the king who was now the quietest of Ardyn's brothers.

Ardyn finished putting away the papers and smiled, "Of course, Brother. Anything you wish."

Deleantur's shoulders relaxed, though his eyes were apologetic —over wanting to spread the story of the Accursed, wanting to keep alive the memory of a broken future—. Then Somnus broke the tension with a glib, "Of course he'll say yes, you're the reason he'll finally get to ravish Aera in public without-!" Somnus yipped as Ardyn threw his bedroll at his brother and Aera laughed before pointedly declaring she didn't need the Astrals' intervention to kiss Ardyn in public, thank you, and proceeded to prove it by pressing her lips against Ardyn's.

Ardyn would admit to being too distracted to be insulted by Somnus's overdramatic gagging or Deleantur's quiet laughter.

In the back of his mind, Ardyn wondered if he could sneak this into Deleantur's story somehow. Maybe on the last pages, after the Chosen King walked tall to his destiny and the Accursed was purified of the scourge that had driven him to war. Because while the time-travel would forever remain a secret … Ardyn thought a story about people as brave as Noctis and his chosen brothers deserved a happier ending. An ending where the two brothers were united and the Shield was freed from his curse. One where the Oracle and the Healer-King could cherish each other without fear of reprisal and the Chosen King could relax beneath the starscape of a scourge-less night and laugh over the antics of his family without worrying about ever having to leave them behind again.

Yes.

Ardyn thought he quite liked that ending.