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altanhal · 5 years ago

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i see you (and your diamond blues)

Summary: Fuck me harder. She'll say and never: fuck the gods, because at the end of the night, this is all preordained. Everything in this world is already set in stone, even the bruises come tomorrow, is written by Bahamut's hands.

Or: The Lady Lunafreya through the Chancellor's eyes (and hands).

Rating: M

Trigger Warning/s: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death/s

Relationships: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Ardyn Izunia, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Nyx Ulric, Aera Mirus Fleuret/Ardyn Izunia

Characters: Ardyn Izunia, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Nyx Ulric, Aera Mirus Fleuret, Ravus Nox Fleuret, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Original Child Character(s)

Additional Tags: Past Rape/Non-con, Underage Rape/Non-con, Soulmates, Murder, Violence, No Smut, the rape doesnt apply to lunardyn/lunyx

Part 1 of “I am lost and led only by the stars” Series.

Also on AO3 and FF.net.

×××

i see you (when you cry, when you're shy, when you want to die)

The first time he sees her, he doesn't know who she is yet.

She is thirteen and bruised, sobbing inside one of the hollow trees of Fenestela Manor. White dress ripped up to her hip, and angry purple marks generously pepper her neck and wrists.

There is a spot of blood at the bottom of her dress, and Ardyn wouldn't even have spared her a second glance. This is how monsters are after all.

But the moment he sees those diamond blues for eyes, Ardyn takes off his coat and wraps it around her smaller, much smaller shoulders.

She sees his face and recognizes him. "Chancellor." She cries and those eyes pierce through him like knives.

"Who did this to you?" He asks and she shakes her head. Quiet and miserable. A servant girl, abused by her master, too afraid to speak out it seems.

Ardyn kneels down to gain her trust.

"What's your name, love?" He asks her gently and it takes her a long, long while to answer.

"Lunafreya." She says and Ardyn releases a breath. The Princess of Tenebrae herself, sullied in her own country. In her own castle.

"Lady Lunafreya. . ." He begins but he is at a loss for words. So he hikes her on his arms, like a father would his wounded child, and takes her back to the Manor. She is silent save for her sobs, and clinging on to him as if she would die if she didn't.

Her maid sees her and begins to cry also, but they say nothing, only bowing to the Chancellor and taking the girl from his arms.

Ardyn hears about the Lady Lunafreya departing for the town the next day. His visit only a political one, he couldn't stay long enough for her to come back from her trip. But her maid had been ordered to give him back his coat. Ardyn leaves it behind, along with the image of her crying in his arms, of those blue diamonds piercing through hundreds of years of his life.

It is only a few weeks later when he returns to Tenebrae to see how the young Lady of the Manor faired, but she still has not returned it seemed. The guest books were still logged and it is there that he finds two names other than his own on the date of his visit.

A murderer of the blood of the Oracle that goes by Glauca, and just a deputy, a Caligo Ulldor.

×××

i see you (yes, i see you)

The second time he sees her, it is three years later on the ceremony that would crown her the Oracle.

She is sixteen and already a young woman, and yet Ardyn cannot see her as anything but that bruised and bloodied girl in the ripped dress. She parades around Tenebrae in her Oracle robes and arrives at the designated altar.

The Chancellor watches her from somewhere in the crowd as she kneels and prays. Sees that rare sunshine blonde of the Fleurets frame her holy face. The image is almost complete. Only one last thing to finish the replica.

And as if he willed it to her, she opens her eyes and looks straight at him. To meet his amber ones with her blue diamonds.

And thus, another Oracle is born to hate me once more. He thinks, because the moment she received the visions from the gods, she also received their hatred for him.

She looks on without a trace of emotion on her face, neither of joy nor relief. She looks on. And Ardyn finds himself entranced as she summons that same trident that has been between his flesh and bones once upon a time.

Anger pours forth from his many cracks, something ugly and demanding to be felt. And still, he looks on.

As does she.

×××

i'm alone with you (you're alone with me)

It is the third time that has him certain that not only are Bahamut and the five other gods fucking him over, but also Eos herself has joined in tormenting him. For he sees the Lady Lunafreya approach him in one of the grand balls he is required to attend as Chancellor.

She is twenty and in a silver dress this time, beautiful as he expected her to be; and confident, oh so confident that he doubts this is the same child he wrapped in his coat and held in his arms years ago.

The Lady Lunafreya presents herself to him with a small bow of her head and a smile so sweet; Ardyn almost doesn't see the danger in those sly lips of hers. He bows in return, removing his hat with a flourish to acknowledge her.

"Lord Chancellor." She greets as he straightens himself.

"My lady." He smiles, that smile that says he is amused but you aren't sure whether to be convinced by it; so you best be careful with him.

But this Oracle is careless. For she moves to his side and takes his hand in hers.

Ardyn watches her curiously, a suggestive retort for her boldness ready on his tongue.

"My, my, Lady Lunafreya—"

"Aera." She cuts him off, blue diamonds looking up at him with mischief.

His heart must have dropped to the floor, because it takes a moment for him to pick it up and put it back in his chest; where it drums wildly for the first time in two thousand years.

He hasn't heard that name from a mortal tongue in so long. Eos is teasing him; of this he is absolutely certain.

"I beg your pardon?" He says and sees a twinkle in her diamond eyes.

"My name is Aera."

Ardyn finds himself fully facing her, hands cupping her face and tilting in that angle where he can see her in all her glory.

"Aera?" He asks, hopeful, so desperately hopeful that someone up above has given him a blessing in this curse riddled life.

"Yes. That was the name my mother chose before I was born, but my father disagreed and desired for me to be named Stella instead. They had a long argument until they settled on Lunafreya. Mother liked it enough, and thus, here I am. The Aera-could've-been." She explains and this is where Ardyn allows himself this one weakness.

The Aera you are not. He thinks bitterly and laughs, a hollow frightening thing that has the Oracle looking worried.

"Is there something wrong, Chancellor?" She asks and he shakes his head.

"No. I am fine, love. Only that, that was an interesting fact that I didn't know about you." Ardyn tells her, dropping his hands from her face but she holds on. Clasping her own onto his.

"Chancellor," she begins and her diamonds find his ambers once more. "May I have this dance?"

He sees those same brows furrow in the way he knows that she is determined. That same purse of her lips, a rebuttal ready if he refuses. That same spun from sunshine hair that he knows is as soft as the rays he couldn't touch. And that same diamond blues for eyes that pierces his own every single time he sees them.

The same face and nothing more. Ardyn thinks and gives her a smile that is a mask.

"Lead the way then, Aera-could've-been."

×××

i see you (when you run from the light within your eyes)

The fourth time is the first of many.

Of nights and days where he succumbs to that face paired with those eyes. Where she lies beside him on her front, letting him ghost his fingers on her moon-kissed back. Times where, she holds his hands and smiles that smile of hers, the one that says she knows what she wants so don't ever give her what she needs.

And what she wants: is him.

He would remember how she got him. How the day after the grand ball, she asks if he had any duties as Chancellor for the next week.

The answer was yes; he had to get back to the Empire to plant onto the Emperor his plans discreetly. Time isn't of the essence but his plans on the other Chosen King must go smoothly without fail. But this isn't what he tells her.

He tells her that he isn't pressed for time by his duties and entertains her request.

"Would you accompany me to Tenebrae? I would want the people to know who their Chancellor is." She tells him but he knows it is a lie.

It is a lie because the moment they arrive at Fenestela Manor by nightfall, the moon high at the top of the sky, she takes his hand and leads him to her chambers. She excuses herself to her closet, leaving him standing alone and utterly mystified by this Oracle. By this princess who shouldn't have been making friends with him.

He inspects her room; a room he knows is fit for someone of her prestige, and sees the book the people of today call their bible.

Cosmogony. Ninety-nine percent lies. He thinks and walks over to the table where it rests. He opens the first few pages and reads the passage he has memorized the first time Verstael handed him a copy. Only one percent truth.

"And so, Izunia Mirus Fleuret, the son of the first Oracle, inherits the trident but refuses to be holy." He whispers reverently. Tracing the depicted painting of Izunia on the thin page of the book. The boy's red-purple hair and blue eyes, the only accurate thing about the painting.

"Origo Sanctus, chapter 66, verse 6." He hears the Lady Lunafreya say behind him but he doesn't face her.

"You know this tale well." He says, closing the book and flipping it over. He doesn't want to see his brother on the cover. Not in this place where the Oracle keeps it immaculate—clean.

"As do you." She replies knowingly.

It tears a sigh from his throat. A weary one and it is only by millennia of patience that he doesn't burn the book to ashes.

"No. Not as well as you."

"My ancestor, Izunia, became the Oracle but an unholy and impious one. The book does not elaborate as to why. I can only wonder, if Oracles really are the chosen mouth piece of the gods." She says with a tilt of her head.

He didn't expect something this callous coming from an Oracle herself. It is scandalous, blasphemous even.

"Your ancestor was just a boy." He says sternly, trying to justify an unholy Oracle.

"As was I."

He knows what she means. He has thrown away that memory years ago but now it all comes rushing back before his eyes. Of the thirteen year old Lunafreya Nox Fleuret with bruises on her pale neck and wrists, her white dress ripped and bloodied.

"Do you question your preordained fate?"

"Yes," she says this almost in wrath. "But. . . But I accept it nonetheless." Her tone is defeated now, and Ardyn decides he cannot face her yet, not when something this honest and so close to his own truth is heard within these walls.

He doesn't say anything because what she says is true. It applies to him as well. The silence stretches on and he hears her approach.

"But there are such things as unholy Oracles." She says as she rounds him, standing in front of him wearing that coat he wrapped her in, all those years ago.

He watches her, the silver of the moon streaming in through the balcony to bathe her in its ethereal light. The perfect replica. The Aera-could've-been. That same face and nothing more indeed.

The coat hangs loose on her like a child in her parent's clothing, but somehow, it pleases him to see her in his clothes. She moves closer, taking his hands in her own once again. Her eyes focused on his, she brings his hands to rest on her neck, where the coat is held together only by a single chain.

He sees her drop her eyes for a second, building her courage before meeting his gaze, steady and ready. By his hands, she tugs on the chain and the coat unravels to fall to the floor.

Her skin glows in the moonlight, carefully unmarred and soft. Ardyn eyes her apathetically. He isn't sure if he could bring himself to compare this Oracle's body to that of his beloved, because even in this, they are the same. From the small star-shaped mole on her left rib close to her breast, to the birthmark shaped like one of Ifrit's horns on her hip, close to where neatly trimmed light colored hair begins.

Ardyn finds himself not caring either way, when she stands on her tiptoes to brace both hands on his chest and kisses him. Just that gentle tap of a kiss before she pulls away to assess his reaction. Only for him to surge forward and devour her in the most unholy of ways.

And so it began. Of a pious yet unholy Oracle, and a Chancellor adding another one to his sins.

×××

i see you (when you chase all the dreams inside your head)

He has lost count how many meetings they already had. But he will remember each and every one of them.

Where at one time, she grows too curious. Lying on his chest, gazing up at him with her inquisitive eyes.

"Is it just a coincidence?" She asks.

"What is?" He smirks at her and she gets that cheeky look on her face.

"That you are Ardyn Izunia, or is it that we have a common ancestor?"

I am your ancestor.

He stares at her. Sees past the curiosity and finds the eyes of an Oracle seeking the truth, and also somehow. . . something a little too wise.

Ardyn knows that she knows about him. His story all too clear in the visions of every Oracle that ever was. And she knows that he knows. But they play their parts as if they were truly just a princess and he, her Chancellor.

He knows that she does this because once upon a time, he had been her knight in shining armor. That she has painted him a savior when he hasn't been for the past two thousand years. All of this is given physical proof by that coat that she has never given back, and of times like this where not even clothes separate them.

"Just a coincidence." He says lightly, like he jests but he can see the way her eyes soften knowingly.

"I've read the Fleuret lineage." She comments as she traces the line of his jaw.

He quirks a brow at that. "Oh?"

"Everyone's parents are accounted for. Except for Izunia. His father hadn't been listed." She says and Ardyn tears his gaze away from those diamond blues. Something truly vulnerable and devastating yawns wide in him.

Because he had been erased. He wants to say.

"Izunia's parents weren't married when he was born." Is what he says instead. "Thus, in the legal point of view, his father wasn't part of House Fleuret."

He was House Caelum. He thinks bitterly.

"How come?" She asks and Ardyn tightly wraps her in his arms. Rolling over her to bury his face in her neck.

She holds him close, feels the air build up in his expanding chest. He holds his breathe for a few seconds, like gathering what little remains of his sanity. The sigh is heavy and tired when he releases it, tickling the skin of her shoulder.

"They were betrothed, but he was too busy."

"Busy doing what?"

"Hiding from his brother who hunted him down, and saving his people from sin."

×××

i see you (when you smile)

One night is a little different from the rest, because in this, he tells her what it meant if she had not been named Lunafreya.

Her eyes are closed and she is dozing off, her back to his chest as they soak in the warmth of her bathtub. The water sloshes a little when Ardyn raises an arm from where it was wrapped around her waist, but she doesn't even stir. Her head is slowly starting to loll forward unto the water when he brings his wet fingers to graze her hair and tug sharply on a strand.

Lunafreya jolts awake with a yelp and the water splashes with the movement. Ardyn laughs mirthfully as he places his hands on her shoulders to calm her.

"Forgive me, my dear. I didn't want your maid to find a drowned princess on my lap. Just imagine the scandal that would bring." He says with that arrogant but endearing smirk of his and Lunafreya finds herself completely awakened.

"I assure you, Chancellor, I will never drown." She says and turns around to drape herself on him.

Ardyn raises a brow at her, hands resting on her hips. "Is that so?"

"I know how to swim." She tells him and the ever present lopsided smirk he has twitches minutely.

He releases her from his arms to lean forward and pull her legs to wrap around his waist. The water sloshes again, the volume decreasing as the liquid ends up on the tiled floor. She is exposed to the air from the waist up, revealing the star shaped mole on her left rib close to her breast.

Ardyn takes notice of it and rubs the mark with his thumb as if he wants to erase it. It doesn't go away as expected so he rubs harder, the action tearing a laugh from the Oracle as she tries to squirm away.

"Desist at once, it tickles!" She huffs and Ardyn does as she says. Settling back down with her on his lap.

"Did you know that Stella means star?" He asks.

"Yes, but when I asked my father if he wanted to name me that because of my birthmark, he said that he had just read it from a book somewhere and that he didn't actually know what it meant until I asked." She chuckles at how silly it is and Ardyn's eyes twinkle as he hears her laugh.

"It's a beautiful name, as beautiful as the poem I've read about a star."

She grins at that. "A poem you say?"

"Surprised that I am a man of culture?"

She looks away, eyes sly and coquettish. "Perhaps."

"Very offending, love. I might not tell you after all." He grins, mock insulted.

"I jest, Chancellor. You are indeed a man of finesse and culture."

Ardyn makes a show of thinking her statement over. He absolutely loves games like this with her. He doesn't answer for a minute, waiting for her impatience to take over. The minute not over yet, the eagerness sparks in those diamond blues of hers. Alas, she comes for what she wants as expected. He cannot deny her these small things after all.

"Will you tell me, Chancellor?" She leans forward, placing her hands on his chest, eyes bright and curious.

Ardyn smiles, a pleased expression painting his face. "Very well."

"V temnom nebe,

Ya tebya vizhu,

Kogda ty bezhish',

Ot solnechnogo sveta,

Eto idet za toboy."

"More eto gorizont,

Eto gde vy idete vniz,

Utonul na zapade,

Krasivaya Stella,

Proglochennyy morem."

He finishes with a soft, sad smile on his face. His eyes vulnerable and a different color from the amber it always had been. But before the light could reflect and show her the tone, Ardyn blinks and the tender and fond expression is wiped away in an instant. Leaving that same devil's grin that the Oracle is more familiar with.

"It sounds beautiful. I can understand all six of our languages, and yet I have never heard of that before. It is nowhere close to any dialects I know. It sounds similar to the oldest formal Galahdian but it is somehow different. What language was that? I am mystified." She says; the awe evident in her tone.

Ardyn is pleased that he has her amazed just by reciting a poem. His eyes drop down to the mole and it makes something like pride rise in him. Ardyn decides that Lunafreya being the perfect replica of Aera isn't so bad after all if it meant he gets to teach her something new about her body.

Krasivaya Stella.

"Solian. A language long dead. But you are right about it being close to High Galahdian. They are migrants that descended from an extinct civilization. Most probably from where the language originated."

Lunafreya nods, comprehending this newfound knowledge he has shared.

"What does it mean then? This poem about a star?"

"In the dark sky, I see you. When you run from the light of the sun. It is coming for you. The sea is the horizon; this is where you go down. Drowned in the west. Beautiful Stella, swallowed by the sea." Ardyn recites fluently and this is where her face falls.

"So the star, it is being chased away from the night sky by the dawn. And the tone. . . it is quite melancholic, don’t you think? Is there more meaning to it?"

"Oh, who knows? It is an ancient poem. For all we know, it was made by a child who liked stars." Ardyn shrugs and tilts his head back to rest against the marble.

"Or someone who lost the stars in their life."

Ardyn looks down at her with a chuckle.

"My, getting philosophical with that tongue now. Let's put that to good use, shall we?" He says and tips forward to taste her mouth with his. Discussion abandoned, Ardyn covers the star on her rib with a purple background, caged by bite marks and surrounding skin a raw pink color from the heat of the water.

It is this night that he gets fresh scars on his back that could be mistaken as slash wounds like the rest. Little parallel valleys of red almost akin to wings on the entirety of his back. Only the Oracle knows that they were put there not by blades, but by perfectly polished nails.

×××

i see you (when you hide, and when you lie, it's no surprise)

It is a game they play. Where she asks and he answers as close to the truth as he can, but also, as vague as possible. Each meeting starts with her holding onto his hand, stealing him away from whatever he is attending to. It all ends with a single inquiry. Each, different and closer to the truth than the last.

But it is on the day he arrives on Tenebrae from Insomnia that she breaks from the rule of their game.

"You are to be wed, my Lady." Is what he greets her with when he barges into her room unannounced.

She stands by the balcony. The mortal form of the Glacian at her side. Ardyn tilts his head, the smirk on his face as flamboyant as ever.

The Lady Lunafreya looks at him with grief as he expected, a small frown on her lovely face. He walks closer, closer and closer, until she has to crane her neck to look up to him.

The Glacian advances on him as well. Her movements wary and cold, yet her face is that same peaceful one on her death bed.

The Oracle waves her at ease.

"It is alright, Gentiana." Lunafreya says and the Glacian disappears in a flurry of snowflakes.

Ardyn grins at that, another god reduced to a glorified lap dog. He smiles down at her, something ruthless and malicious, but she doesn't falter. The small subtle frown is still on her face.

"What is the matter, love? Is the bride getting cold feet already?" He teases as he strokes the side of her face. She flinches away from his hand.

"So it begins." She says and Ardyn hums tauntingly in agreement. This is the beginning of the end. His long coveted demise is just a few more years ahead.

"Astute as always." He smirks, leaning down to invade her lips with his own, but unexpectedly, she pulls back.

The devil's grin grows wider with this.

"I am the Oracle, and you, the Accursed." She says this so coldly, he could almost see her as Aera with that trident, stabbing him again and again as orchestrated by the Draconian.

"Ah." Ardyn cannot contain his glee. “No more of this is what you mean?”

She hesitates.

“We must fulfill our calling.” She whispers.

Ardyn steps away from her, smirk ever present, as if he hadn't been rejected, or more likely, it didn't quite affect him. “Very well.”

As he walks away, he feels the warmth of her hands wrap around his glove covered wrist. This is how it all began. With touches precise and unrelenting, knowing exactly what they want.

"For the last time then?" Her voice is surprisingly hard but he cannot be deceived. He hears the lament in her voice. Feels her disappointment that this little game they have is coming to an end.

It seems brutal even for her, to speak as if she had a right to this, use him for her fantasies of a knight in shining armor. When she knows she is just as expendable as all the pawns in this mess of a fate they have.

Oh, but her eyes, diamond blues shining with want, want, want. Not need, never need, because it would seem hypocritical to have this instead of reject it.

He faces her, crowds her onto her bed. "For the last time." He whispers on her lips and that's when she presses on.

In this last immoral dance, she is unappeasable. Anger in her mouth as she kisses too roughly, bites too hard, and grips too tightly. She demands for the pain and that is what he gives her.

Fuck me harder. She'll say and never: fuck the gods, because at the end of the night, this is all preordained. Everything in this world is already set in stone, even the bruises come tomorrow, is written by Bahamut's hands.

×××

i see you (in the dark, at the dawn of something new)

It is by her countenance at the Caelum Via, on the eve of the signing ceremony that he notices her eyes wandering from him. A moment she was by his side, regal and professional. The next, she is turning her whole body away from him the moment the King of Lucis arrived.

Ardyn was sure she wasn't looking for the Prince, because she knows that the young groom had been sent away with his friends. It is certainly not the King nor his entourage; for he sees her eyes skim past and away from that group. He wonders what it is that is in the works here, but the moment a Glaive steps up on one of the overlooking posts, is the moment she steps a little farther from him.

Ardyn admits he did not expect this development. For the Princess to take interest in her once guard. From the corner of his eye he sees her pretend not to eye the Glaive, but it seems she is not skilled in the arts of subtlety with a real soul-paramour as compared to their illicit affair.

He really is her dirty little secret. Much worse than a simple bodyguard it seems.

No matter. If the desperate and angry way she fucked him was any indication of her finally taking on the role of Oracle and bride, then this little infatuation with the Glaive would be gone come the morrow, when Insomnia's walls shatter like fragile wineglass.

"Let us toast to this propitious day, love." The Chancellor says as he snatches two glasses from a passing waiter. He offers the blood red wine to her and she takes it mindlessly, eyes still on the Glaive. The flute of champagne in his hand sparkles as fireworks burst around them.

He raises his glass forward and she gives him her full attention. Her eyes guarded, so very guarded that he doesn't see the once sullied child nor the unholy Oracle anymore.

"A toast, to the Lord Chancellor's successful broker." The Oracle says and clinks her glass with his. She drinks, smooth yet greedily, and Ardyn watches with amusement, the champagne in hand still untouched.

She finishes her glass and delivers it to another passing server. Then, she excuses herself. Gliding past people who would want to chat with her, and arriving to her Glaive with hello on her lips. Her smile so rare and genuine, that Ardyn sees it only now.

Oh Aera, pray be with me. Always.

It's that same smile that Aera gave him when she promised him eternity.

Rage expels from him in a heartbeat but he must not be weak even in anger. He bites his lip to contain the scowl threatening to split his face. The glass in his hand cracks but doesn't shatter, it makes him ease his grip, grazing the web of cracks with his thumb.

This changes nothing.

He raises his glass, distorted are the image of the King and the Emperor, but on the Glaive and the Oracle, their image is as golden as the champagne.

Ardyn toasts to the four people he would hang in the Lucian throne room.

×××

what a mess you've made of everything / when you think that i don't notice all your scars

Halting the Oracle's brother from killing the barely-there King of Light, the Chancellor had not expected to have to warp so close to them.

Ardyn is grateful that even with Ravus, he still has influence and authority over him. Managing to tug the High Commander along and away from the Prince Noctis, they leave without much trouble. He must keep both princes away from each other until the Lucian Prince and his friends are ready.

In the meantime, the Chancellor has one more seed to plant for one specific thing to go according to plan, and this particular seed concerns the High Commander Fleuret.

Leaning on the window of the airship they boarded, the Chancellor smiles the devil's triumphant grin.

"You might want to look within the ranks, High Commander." He says like a taunt, mocking this blood of the Oracle of his status as outsider.

"Please, Chancellor. There are no moles in the Imperial Army." Ravus dismisses.

"Moles, no, but someone other than the late General Glauca who had access to Fenestela Manor on that flawed day of fate." The Chancellor says with a flourish of his hand, and knows without a doubt that Ravus understands what he means.

The look on the eldest Fleuret's face when he turns bodily to him is one of inquisition, eager and begging to hurt. "Pray tell, Lord Izunia, the name of this monster."

"Then the name you are looking for, is Brigadier General Caligo Ulldor." Ardyn answers and that's when Ravus' eyes glaze over, remembering every detail long buried of the day he found his sister unresponsive to anyone but her maid for months.

Ravus Nox Fleuret trusts the Chancellor, trusts him with his sister's life for he has seen the coat treasured in the Oracle's closet with not a speck of dust. Ravus knows the story behind it even if he hadn't seen it unfold before his eyes.

Though, it is enough that he has seen them often together. Seen them dance on balls and go for walks. Seen him accompany her on her trips to other towns and cities in order to heal plague bearers. Seen them at the Manor for tea.

The only occasion he has never seen them together, are the moments when his sister takes the Chancellor's hand, and leads him to sin.

This is why Ravus trusts his credibility, because he has not seen how Ardyn prays to Eos before having the Oracle come on his tongue.

"How did you find out?" Ravus asks, good hand twitchy and shaking with restrained anger.

The Chancellor gives a little bow.

"You're most certainly welcome." He smirks theatrically. Quite enjoys riling up these pawns; he thinks this must be how the gods feel when they toy with mortals.

But Ravus wants his answers, and this time, there is a slip in his perfect composure since the ring denied him. The High Commander paces away, uncharacteristically agitated and fuming.

"I ask, Chancellor, that you tell me."

Ardyn closes his eyes, face peaceful even with the insinuating smile on his face.

"She mumbles in her sleep—your sister."

The High Commander freezes. Eyes deadly despite the way he calmly asks: "How would you know that she does?"

Ardyn's eyes twinkle when he opens them, and Ravus—he sees red.

"This is why you were always with her?! Under our own roof!" Ravus advances on him, rapier drawn and pointed at the Chancellor's neck.

Ardyn laughs.

"I never did anything that she did not want, it is she who took my hand from the very start." He smirks and parries the blade with his own palm. "Lower your weapon, High Commander, I am not the one that tainted your holy sister."

"When did this began?" Ravus questions and it tears a chuckle from Ardyn's throat.

"I do not hurt little girls, Lord Fleuret. Rest assured, she was a woman when it all began."

Ravus eyes the Chancellor sternly. He searches those amber eyes for lies but he sees no deception, only amusement and something utterly soft and desperately hidden. He sheaths his weapon and lets the Chancellor step closer.

"I tried not to remember that miserable girl, but alas, she does mumble in her sleep," he says lightly, a frown worms its way into his grin, turning it into a grimace.

– Lord Ulldor please stop –

"This is something I am surprised I cannot be. . . indifferent with." Something creeps in Ardyn's voice in the middle of speaking, wrath and sorrow rolled in that break of speech. He hides it, quick and inconspicuous like hummingbirds.

Before he truly goes, Ardyn gives the High Commander a hard look. Amber eyes flashing, like spilled gold in a ship wrecked by storm.

"The world needs not men who hurt little girls. Do with the Brigadier General as you please." He says and leaves the Lord Fleuret to it.

Another seed planted. Another murder on the way.

×××

i see you (when you laugh, and when you love until the bitter end)

It came as a surprise, really it did, for Ardyn thought he has seen it all. To see the Ring that had once been meant for him, worn on the finger that shows of marriage, by a man not of royal blood.

Nyx Ulric is his name, as reported by one of the Lieutenants stationed at Altissia. Arrived with the Oracle and never once left her side. It's the gossip of the town, a scandal as big as the coming covenant in the next few days.

I heard the Oracle cancelled her wedding.

But I saw her arrive this morning, isn't here the venue of the wedding?

Not to the Prince, have you seen her bodyguard? I don't blame her.

Oh dear. An affair?

But isn't that how political marriages work? Empty with another different person to warm their bed?

Ardyn hears them all. He hears how the Lady Lunafreya has abandoned her lineage in favor of taking on a Galahdian name. How Lunafreya Ulric married her Glaive on some small chapel on the road.

It is obscure and vague, but rumour is that their souls are one and the same, tethered to each other by a red string.

The last one hadn't been a gossip. He heard it from the Lady herself, after she has settled from her arrival. He visits her in their suite (a prison really), when the Glaive took the rare moment to be apart from her for a telephone call all the way to Galahd.

Ardyn greets her with a bow.

"Lady Lunafreya – oh, forgive me my mistake – it's Missus Ulric now."

"So you've heard."

Ardyn smiles at her, something glinting, like flint in a dark cave. "Is it fuck the gods now?"

Lunafreya gives him a resolute stare. "For him? Yes."

"For me, then?"

"The Aera I am not, remember?" She glances away to the open balcony, where the scent of salt and the breeze of new come from.

There is a tug on the side of his lips, akin to something like amusement made by her impertinence.

"You were my hero once upon a time. Now your daemons have made you a villain. The villain has swallowed what little hero I see from you."

"Oh?" He follows after her as she steps toward the open air. "Is that why you've found yourself a new hero?"

She looks at him, giving nothing away if she had been offended or not.

"That little fairy tale matters not the moment I said I do." She answers with a shake of her head. Beautiful as ever even with the frown on her face.

Ardyn can only smile emptily at that. "The Aera you are not indeed." He agrees.

The Oracle hums readily, compliant with his truth out loud—not curious, not knowingly, only certainly as if she will not hear anything from him anymore.

"Nyx is mine." She says.

"What a proud wife." Ardyn comments with a smile but it is void of amusement or mirth.

"Mine in the soul, together since time immemorial, Chancellor. I am his as much as he is mine." As preordained. He thinks she almost adds.

"We've found each other. . . but it wouldn't matter. My candle burns close to the last wick, tied on the other end to Nyx's like that fabled red string." She says softly like a prayer but the whisper of what's to come to her and her husband is enough for the wind to carry the tone of defeat to him.

Ardyn knows what it means, soulmates are rare, but it is irreconcilable with what could happen, if they did not bow before Hexatheon; if she really had just up and left, and said fuck the gods, for him instead of the Glaive. If she hadn't met the Glaive. If there was another way. If, if, if—

But the Oracle has made her bed, and he isn't on it. So he must watch her lie down on this grave and lower her to the ground.

"Lady Lunafreya," Ardyn starts. "If you and I had met differently, I—" He stops abruptly as the sound of the door swings open. He pulls on the tale old weaponry, and throws it to the roof where he lands and crouches quietly.

In comes Nyx Ulric, a tired and sad smile gracing his handsome face.

"Nyx." The wife greets with surprise on her face.

Ardyn sees her husband arrive beside her. Nyx's smile turning into a full blown grin once their hands fit together like perfect puzzles. It falls short though, when his nose scrunches and he inhales the air around her.

"That's the scent of air mid warp. What—?"

"It is nothing. I had a need to summon my trident."

"Are you in danger?"

"No."

Ardyn carefully warps away before he can see or hear more of this husband and wife together.

For him to run and hide like this, he truly is her dirty little secret.

×××

and i’m hoping that you will see yourself (like I see you)

Watching the Oracle as she tries to draw not even a percent of the daemons from him while the Hydraean rampaged, he is certain that she is not and never will be Aera. It's the eyes that give it away. Diamond blues that shine only for him. In this moment, where she lives separate from her calling. This is the child that saw him as her hero. The one who is scared to death of death himself. The one that wants to run away and turn deaf to the gods.

This is definitely not Aera.

This is Lunafreya, the child her father wanted to name Stella, who clutches onto his hand, weak and desperate, trying her damnedest to take away his sins. To pour it all on her soul. The same touch that had him tethered to her bed to ignore the world beyond her room.

Her blue diamonds twinkle as he gazes at her. Eyes that same fire that had him unable to deny her anything. And what he sees in them is something ugly and remarkably unique because he knows what it is. He's seen this only once. In the mirror one morning, when his humanity had seemed to come to him, his face with those same diamond blues that covet only the kiss of death.

It is not Aera he sees in her. It never was.

It was always himself.

He stumbles away from her with this realization. The weight of the dagger bringing him back to the present. His grip on the hilt sure and tight.

"When the prophecy is fulfilled, all in thrall to darkness shall know peace." She says, oh so devoted to this cause.

Ardyn's rage comes forth, fresh and unwavering even through the years. He stalks back to her, arm reared back to strike her but Nyx Ulric's kukris flash for a millisecond between them and the man himself appears to shove him away.

"Ah, the hero." The Chancellor taunts and throws his dagger at the Glaive. Nyx deflects it, easy as breathing. "I have no desire to fight you, Nyx. Run along to your prince and do what you must. Your wife and I have unfinished business."

"Like hell I will!" Nyx spits back, full body blocking the Oracle from any harm.

"Let me make this easy then." Ardyn says and calls forth his Armiger with a wave of his hands. The crystal like image of his weapons bathes him in red light.

Nyx's eyes widen. "You. . . who are you?"

"Why don't you ask your dear wife? She is my flesh and blood after all."

Lunafreya grasps her husband's arm to stand on her feet. She holds onto him, eyes imploring him to look at me. Nyx feels the weight of her gaze and reluctantly takes his eyes off the man before them.

"Why does he have the King's power?" He asks, the leather hilt of the kukris squeaking with how tight he was holding them.

Lunafreya gives him a defeated and apologetic look. "Ardyn. . . Lucis Caelum." She whispers and Nyx stares at her in disbelief.

"There you have it. Now take the ring to Noctis, you know what must be done. The Hydraean awaits." Ardyn says dismissively but Nyx doesn't go.

The Glaive stands his ground. Firmly beside his wife, electric blue eyes disturbed and with a fire that reminds him of the Infernian.

"Fuck the gods! I stay with my wife," He shouts determinedly and turns to look Lunafreya in the eye. "For better or for worse, 'til death do us part."

"'Til death do us part." She recites back just as fiercely.

Their resolve is admiring. Ardyn finds himself wondering if this is what it meant to love until the bitter end. When the face of your loved one still greets you with light still in their eyes. To have them fight with you for what beats in both your ribs. But Ardyn has lost all of this. The light in Aera's eyes. Izunia's freedom. And Stella. Krasivaya Stella.

"Behold, the lamb of god which taketh away the sin of the world." The Chancellor says, raising his hand to summon the Rakshasa Blade to arms. "Dostoynyy Agnets, voznesennyy na uboy."

"Worthy is the Lamb who is raised to the slaughter." Nyx says in return. "That's High Galahdian. How—"

"Do you want the truth?" Ardyn says as he walks closer to the pair.

Nyx stands in defense.

The Oracle answers him. "I've seen the truth."

The confidence with which she says it makes Ardyn's serene indulgence snap. Outrage distorts his face as blood, black as the night oozes from wounds that weren't there before. His eyes ghoulish like the undead. "Only my truth. Not theirs. They were twins, Lunafreya!"

"Twins?" She echoes in confusion. The history erased by the winners completely unknown even to the Oracle who's supposed to see them all.

"Izunia and Stella."

"Stella." Lunafreya breathes and every little thing he has shared with her rushes to piece themselves together.

"After what Somnus did to Aera and I, Izunia inherited the trident because Stella refused. She wouldn't leave me by myself at Angelgard. One morning when the sunlight was too much for me, she wrapped her cape around me but the guards were ordered to let me suffer so they took her away by nightfall and drowned her at sea. That is why Izunia was a deviant, being unholy was his disobedience to Somnus. Do you see now? They were children, just like you were." He spits at the injustice of it all.

Beautiful Stella, swallowed by the sea.

Her eyes lose a little of their gleam and Ardyn sees tears pool in those endless diamonds of hers. They fall and a sob makes its way past her throat.

"You – you – I see you now. You are me. In this life, alive and fighting the same fight I did." Ardyn points at her with his sword. He closes the distance between them and readily slams his palm on the forehead of the Glaive that advanced on him the moment he was at striking distance.

Nyx Ulric crumples to the ground, unmoving and face peaceful as if in slumber. The Oracle rushes to his side, what remains of her power glowing in her hands as she rests her forehead on his. She is ripped away from her husband by her hair, the braids untangling as she is dragged to kneel before the Chancellor.

"I see you. Sin eater. But unlike me, you are clean." Ardyn says as he caresses her face with the back of his hand.

She glares at him, but he can see her eyes are too soft, half-hearted and without malice. "Even one more. I will gladly take your daemons." She tells him.

Even one more. His own words on her face with his once eyes.

She is not Aera. She is the Ardyn that was meant to be. Pure and clean of all filth.

It infuriates him.

"Then take them!" He growls and wraps his fingers around her neck. That same neck he had worshiped so many times along with the rest of her.

This will be the last time he sees her. The last time he sees those diamond blues for eyes, as she struggles to breathe and claw at his hands. The final time as the tears spill from her face and the light in her eyes dull each failed breathe she takes.

Ardyn leaves husband and wife lying unmoving and cold for the Prince and his friends to find. He places the ring on the Oracle's lips in mock symbolism. Now the gods will watch over them all, won't breathe for the next years as he enters the last act of the play.

Ardyn cannot wait to hear the applause.

×××

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