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Regis Lucis Caelum held his son, his little newborn Noctis, and swore he would never want for anything.
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Regis Lucis Caelum held his son, his little newborn Noctis, and grieved. The both of them garbed in white, in mourning. Standing over the grave of his Queen, his Aulea.
His son would want for a mother.
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Regis Lucis Caelum held his son, his little toddler Noctis, and grieved. Raindrops fell around them. The world so big where his baby boy was just so small.
His son would want for freedom.
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Regis Lucis Caelum held his son, his little Noctis, and grieved. For there was a prophecy. For he would live to know the Chosen King. He had lived to know the Chosen King.
His son would want for a future.
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Regis Lucis Caelum held his son, his Noctis, and grieved.
For his son would want.
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Regis Lucis Caelum no longer held his son, Noctis, and grieved. But he summoned a smile and clasped his son’s shoulder. He told him to walk tall.
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Regis Lucis Caelum died.
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Regis Lucis Caelum held his son, his grown Noctis, his King of Kings, and grieved. And sobbed. For it was his blade. And it was his folly. And it was his failure. For his son would want to live, and the gods would ask only for his death.
Regis Lucis Caelum would want for his child to have a second chance.
So a second chance, the Chosen King was given. A second chance to live. A second chance to not want. Yet the gods, the Six, the Astrals had miscalculated. In this, this reward for a job well done by their Chosen, they had underestimated. They had underestimated the love of a father. Of the Father. And so a second chance it certainly was.
But it would not be a second final fantasy for the Chosen.
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Regis Lucis Caelum awoke in the bed of Lucis’ King. His bed. In his royal bedchambers, the curtains drawn, the clocks chiming as the hour reached midnight, the sheets were a rumpled mess around him and his pillows were on the floor and he was panting like he’d just awoken from the most dreaded of nightmares. For a moment he believed that was all it had been. A nightmare.
A terrible, terrible nightmare. His son’s weight in his arms, his blade sticking out of his heart, a dawn he would’ve let stay dead if it meant just another day for his Noctis -
A nightmare, right?
It must have been.
Except Regis lifted his hands, his trembling hands, to stare down at them. And he swore he still saw the blood splattered on them. He swore he still smelled the metallic scent of his baby boy’s blood spilling out of him, illuminated by dawn’s light, as he tore his son from the throne that was his birthright and his mausoleum and held him as he died.
And Regis threw aside his covers, threw himself out of bed, stumbling when he found himself less hindered rather than more. His knee worked better than he remembered it doing for many a years. It bent. It held his weight. There was no cane leaning against his bedside. There was no thick, gaudy knee brace that kept him upright. There was only him.
Him, and the strength of a youth that felt like a far off dream from his perspective.
Regis gasped, one hand flying down to grasp the knee that no longer held him back, the other reaching for his face.
For a beard that was shorter, for hair that was the same and not as silvery judging by the piece he pinched and pulled in front of his eyes. For skin that lacked the age wrinkles he’d gained early like all Lucis Caelums did. He stumbled through the dark bedroom. Lit only by a candle. Lit only by that faint orangish glow in the light of midnight, Regis grasped for his late wife’s vanity table.
Staring back at him through Aulea’s mirror was himself.
Himself as he was, years ago. So many years ago now it felt like a dynasty had risen and fallen in that time and technically it had. Multiple ones had. Nearly thirty years.
Regis Lucis Caelum, at only twenty-six years old, stared back at him.
He wheezed, and dropped his head to the vanity - dropped his whole body onto his knees and clutched the table’s edges. Breathless with disbelief.
For if he was…if this was real? If this was real and he really - ?
Raising his eyes, his eyes without so many wrinkles around them, his eyes without the knowledge of his son’s fate straining them so, Regis stared at himself. At himself back in time. At himself in his royal bedchambers of the past, in a citadel he’d seen fall, in a body he’d lived through being worn down to nothing but silver hair and wrinkles and weariness.
“Noctis - !” He rasped, his hands frozen touching his - young again - face, and rose.
He lurched towards the doors to his bedroom, then froze. He lurched deeper into his bedroom, then froze again. Stuck in place. Mind racing. Wondering. How. Why. Who had done this. They were less questions but statements to him, for his mind was screaming them, but he stood paralyzed for a moment as he thought of his baby boy in his arms dying with his sword through him -
Regis Lucis Caelum wasn’t sure what was happening.
But he was damned sure he wanted his son in his arms.
So he staggered back into the corner of his royal bedchambers, grasping wildly in the darkness of night’s darkest hour at the bookshelf there. He found the book he sought. He heard the click when he tugged on it, and he barely waited for the bookshelf to slide itself sideways before he all but dove into the passage on the other side of it. Unwilling to wait or wonder about the ramifications of this.
Whatever this was; whether another of the gods’ whims or not.
He wanted to hold his son.
He needed to.
The passages were old. Decrepit. Forgotten, by many. Regis used them so rarely in his own lifetime that he’d considered them a last resort. A secret escape, at most, and now they were his way to his son in a world and a past citadel he wasn’t in the right state of mind to navigate.
A glowing ball of blue magic was summoned to his shoulder, and showed the way for him through passages he’d had marked years and years ago, by his own count, to lead him the quickest way to Noctis’ room.
Or, as he realized as he reached seemingly a dead-end and pressed the button amongst the stones, and the doorway slid open so he could swat aside an old tapestry and step out of the passages.
Into Noctis’ nursery.
There was a cradle swathed in moonlight in the center of the room, and Regis stilled. Sucked in a breath so loud in the silence of night. There was a mobile turning slowly over the cradle. Moons. And stars. The rest of the room was wreathed in shadow, but not where the cradle stood. No. That was in the light, and Regis was alone with it as he slowly, slowly, gods so slowly stepped towards it.
Inside, in the baby blankets he’d thought he’d forgotten the colors of but now remembered so clearly -
Noctis slumbered.
His little Noctis.
His little Noctis who looked younger than a year old. His little Noctis with chubby cheeks, with tufts of raven hair atop his head, who slept with a carbuncle plushie clutched close to his chest. Giggling in his sleep. Kicking his tiny feet. His nose scrunched up and he squeaked and hugged his carbuncle closer, in a little blue onesie with a star over the front that Aulea had embroidered herself and -
And.
Regis…took a deep breath, before he took the time to make sure the fall of this king was silent. He ended up on his knees beside his son’s cradle.
Rocking back and forth.
A hand pressed suffocatingly tight over his mouth so as not to wake his son, but he wept.
Regis Lucis Caelum wept, for he’d wanted his son to be alive and he was.
They had their second chance, and Regis would not allow his child to become the Astrals’ martyr for a second time.
They had their second chance, and this - this last King of Lucis - made his choice.
He lifted his baby boy from that cradle, hugged him close, pressed a kiss to his brow.
Then drew a knife from his armiger.
One, swift slice was all it took. Droplets of crimson-red blood dripped down onto the cradle’s white cushions. Onto its edge and onto the tiles as Regis backstepped.
Holding Noctis close to his chest as his son scrunched up his face, and began to cry silent tears. There was a small cut across his son’s palm. There was the only blood of Noctis’ that Regis would allow to be spilled in this new life of theirs. He held his child and he rocked him and shushed him, so the silent crying would not gain noise. Would not draw guards into the moonlit nursery.
One small cut.
And even that, the Father summoned a potion from his armiger to heal. Wiping the dripping blood from his baby boy’s tiny, tiny hand. Too tiny to ever imagine wielding a blade, too tiny to ever imagine giving everything to save the world. He kissed his sweet, sweet Noctis again.
And Regis Lucis Caelum lingered in the moonlit nursery long enough only to do two things.
To overturn his son’s cradle, and let his blankets and pillows scatter -
And to collect the carbuncle figurine always kept in the room where his child slept, to guard his dreams. To guard his heart.
And the King of Lucis swept away, back behind that old tapestry in one corner of the room. Back into the decrepit passages just a tad too dark for his light-giving son to handle without sniffling a bit. He tucked Noctis’ face into the nook of his neck and hurried back, unseen, for his bedroom. Mind racing.
A part of himself still wondered if he was really going to do this.
The rest of the King drew his swords from the armiger and declared he would do this and more for his son who deserved to live this time.
In their first life, Regis recalled giving up on any hope of his son living to claim the throne that was his birthright. Giving up on any hope of Noctis marrying, or having children, or living to rule Lucis. He recalled accepting his son’s death when he was no older than ten, and he recalled letting the world burn so his son could enjoy what time he did have.
This time, this father, this Lucis Caelum stormed into his royal bedchambers as if he was going into battle, holding his son to his heart…and he knew this was his last chance to turn back.
There were still excuses he could make.
There were still tall tales that would wave away whatever scene he had made of his son’s nursery.
And yet.
Regis Lucis Caelum delicately set his sweet child down in the swathes of black silk that were his bed covers, chuckling because Noctis babbled a bit as he did so and made grabby hands towards him. Yawning. Cheeks all big and flushed and eyes so wide and full of all the stars of the night skies outside. Regis grabbed whatever he deemed necessary. Whatever he felt he could get away with. Whatever wouldn’t be missed.
His late wife’s memory box, their wedding bands, an album of photos from throughout his life because he was selfish and he still wanted the memories.
Even where they were going.
And chuckling at Noctis who squirmed and babbled, surrounded by the black, he made sure his son couldn’t see what he was doing by gathering up the sheets around him like a wall.
And Regis turned his back, and drew his sword, and he bled for his baby boy. His Noctis.
The slice was far longer, far deeper than his son’s had been. The blood splattered dark, wet spots along his bed, his covers in disarray, his pillows deformed; a struggle happened here, the scene seemed to say. The blood dripped down his arm as he slowly walked forward, creating a path with it. Just a few steps away from the bed. Just a few steps. Just a few.
And he stopped.
And he hefted his sword, his glaive, his royal arm.
And he recalled seeing it stuck through his son’s heart, pinning his greatest joy to their family’s throne as if Noctis was a butterfly pinned up and displayed and not even allowed the dignity to die without pain and without an audience.
Regis Lucis Caelum brought down the Sword of the Father.
And muffled his cries, as his ring finger fell to the bloodied carpet.
The Ring of the Lucii followed, clattering, rolling a few centimeters to the side as it slipped off of his dismembered finger, and then went so still.
The weight of Insomnia’s wall hit him full force, and Regis would be able to bear it. For a short time, at least. He had his youth back. He had his strength back, now, here. He could hold the wall without the ring for a few short hours. Long enough to do what he needed to do.
Gritting his teeth against the second time he’d had his finger cut from him for that damned ring, Regis tied his handkerchief around the bloodied stump with a stifled sound of pain, perhaps. But what was this pain in light of all his son had suffered? Nothing. Nothing at all, so he did not hesitate in yanking another potion from his armiger that night and mending what he had shorn.
Or resummoning his glaive, that had vanished in a spectacle of blue crystals when he let go of it out of shock earlier.
He wiped the blood clean from the blade. He let the blood speckled on the hilt remain.
He dropped the Sword of the Father next to the ring better left behind.
He would not be bringing with them the very sword that had ended his child’s life.
The scene sufficiently set, the items he and Noctis needed stowed away in the armiger, his heart and mind made up like never before in either of his lives? Regis Lucis Caelum took a second to tip his head back and shut his eyes tight. Bathed in the moonlight of another midnight. The last midnight in Insomnia that he would hear the bells toll for. He was shaking. His cheeks felt cold.
And wet.
And he sucked in a shaky breath.
But when he lifted his little Noctis from the bedsheets to hold him, he did not shake. Regis had never been steadier, than when he kissed him and cuddled his raven-haired son close. As close as close could be.
“This is going to be a big step for us, my son,” he rasped, rocking Noctis as his boy babbled sleepily and snuggled down into his arms. As safe as safe could be in his father’s arms, unaware that they were changing the world that night.
But this was their second chance, and Regis would not waste a day of it when he knew what his son had truly desired, always, during his first chance.
“Do not worry, Noctis, do not worry,” and he held his son, as he disappeared into the passages for a final time in this, their lifetime, “I will walk tall for you, my son.”
The bells finished chiming.
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When morning came, as all mornings do? All the Citadel heard the terrified scream that came from Prince Noctis’ nursery. For his nanny had entered, and found nothing more than a toppled cradle and spilled blood. No Noctis.
The Crownsguard was informed and mobilized.
Clarus Amicitia and Cor Leonis rushed to likewise inform their King, their brother. Unaware.
Unaware that all they would find in Regis’ royal bedchambers would be a scene of senseless panic, spilled blood, a finger, a sword, and a ring.
By midmorning, the wall around Insomnia fell, for it was out of magic.
Shortly after, the bonds between King Regis and those he shared his magic with were severed. Harshly. Without warning. It was as sudden as an assassination, all at once, and all hope of finding their King alive was lost to Lucis. All hope of finding the last Lucian Prince died a slow death, day after day, week after week, month after month, and more, given a while longer.
The Crystal ceased shining.
The Ring of Lucii crumbled.
The Scourge died away. The demons it had created devolved into nothing.
Niflheim rotted and collapsed onto itself, and there were rumors. Conspiracies. Theories aplenty, but no facts as Lucis dissolved as a kingdom to become smaller provinces; its only way to survive the loss of a monarchy that had ruled for two thousand years.
But out there, far, far from Lucis?
There was a beautiful seashore. With golden sands, and crashing waves, and a small town on those shores. With an unbusy road winding through its heart; an oceanview drive. There were docks flocked by fishermen, a market bustling with business, and on one extremely early morning? There was a man with his son. Walking together up to a house on the seashore. They stood on that shore, watching the sunrise.
Watching the waters turn black and gold and blue.
And they had different names now, and they had a different life ahead of them, and they’d changed the world. Again.
But all that mattered to Regis Lucis Caelum was that his son hadn’t needed to die for this sunrise as he lifted his sweet little Noctis to watch the sunrise, safe in his arms, and say -
“See, my son? We walked tall.”
Long live the last Kings of Kings.
Fishermen on the shore.
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