by Jun Eishima
The memory returned abruptly. Ignis. He was nowhere to be found. Neither was Gladio or Prompto. Why had it taken him so long to mark their absence? That was far too strange. Something definitely wasn’t right about this place.
He stepped inside the Citadel. It was dark and seemingly empty. He saw no one else. The sense of foreboding grew worse. This was the Citadel he knew, and yet at the same time, it was not.
He walked to the throne room doors, placed both hands upon the enormous handles, and pushed them open. Inside, he encountered a darkness even more profound, pierced by one faint beam of light that landed on the throne. Noctis was drawn to it. He climbed to the throne and sat.
This does not belong to me. But neither does it belong to another.
Straight after he had that thought, a voice boomed in his mind, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. A voice with a force and gravity that were utterly inhuman.
Before the Chosen unfurls one possibility. To mortal mind, a dream.
Though man would choose, he has but one way forward. Ordained above is mortal fate.
To the Crystal, all possibility is memory, and all memory etched within.
The episode in the courtyard had felt half known to him and half strange. A possibility. A dream. If Noctis were entangled in a dream, that would account for the way the places and events had felt familiar and yet off. It would explain the mysterious absence of his companions.
Behold the heart of the Crystal, wherein lies the soul of the Star. It is in this place that the king will gain the power he needs.
Receive the memories inscribed in the Crystal, that the True King’s calling may be fulfilled.
The word “calling” stirred something deep in his mind. He cast back through his memories―a place called Gralea, the imperial capital, Zegnautus Keep―and then it all came flooding back. The endless hordes of magitek troopers and daemons. The battle that never seemed to end, no matter how many foes were slain.
“We’re getting nowhere!” Gladio had shouted.
Then Prompto: “They just keep coming!”
“Noct, you must go on alone. If you can obtain the Crystal’s power, we may yet be able to turn the tide. Elsewise, we are all like to perish here.”
“Iggy’s right. It’s our only chance.”
“We’ll manage somehow! Just get moving!” With Prompto’s final encouragement, all three were in agreement.
So Noctis had run. He left his three companions to fight by themselves and made his way to the Crystal alone. He ran until his chest was tight and his legs ached.
And then he was plunged into an absolute darkness that blotted out all the light of the world. All sound ceased, even that of his own breath. Touch, smell, and taste, too, were gone, and he was left with the solitary sensation that he was falling at an impossibly slow pace.
Please . . . Help me stop the daemons, he’d pleaded as he stretched out his hand.
He remembered it all now. This was the heart of the Crystal. He’d been dragged inside by a force that defied all resistance, and the last thing he’d seen before sinking inside was a face whose mere memory sparked rage: that of Ardyn Izunia.
Ardyn Lucis Caelum is my proper name, the man had said, looking Noctis straight in the eye.
Lucis Caelum? What could Ardyn have possibly meant by that?
As if responding to the questions now seething in his mind, the darkness faded and was replaced by the boundless, blinding light of the Crystal. The glittering peaked, then receded, gradually replaced by blue sky and green earth. Noctis found himself overlooking a landscape bearing no resemblance to any place he knew, but he felt a strange certainty that it was Eos of the distant past, in the age when the Crystal was brought to their star.
He saw a sanctuary in which the Crystal had been enshrined. Surrounding it were scattered homes and fields of wheat. The landscape began to change. Forests fast receded and the wilderness was tamed and tilled. The people grew in number. Noctis could see them, quotidian scenes swirling by at a dizzying pace. He witnessed the countless joys and sorrows of their lives. An inconceivable quantity of information flooded into his mind at once. The fact that he could make clear sense of it had to be thanks to the otherworldly Crystal in which he hung suspended.
Memories inscribed in the Crystal. That was how the scenes before him had been described. It seemed to have something to do with his calling as king―perhaps he’d need all the information recorded here. Perhaps it was important for him to understand what had happened in the beginning, when the Crystal and the Ring of Light were first brought to the land.
Two men came into focus, their names familiar. Ardyn. Somnus. Noctis saw that they were brothers, heirs to House Caelum, meant to support each another and rule the land together. To symbolize that bond, they were entrusted by their father and mother with a pair of weapons, two swords that were as one: the Rakshasa Blade and the Blade of the Mystic.
One parent and then the other departed from the world, and not long after, the two brothers stood in opposition. At its base, it was a matter of ideology. The two differed in opinion as to the proper mindset of a ruler. The younger deceived the older, and the older hated the younger for it.
Noctis had known nothing of this, and the knowledge stunned him. He had been so sure that Ardyn possessed not a shred of decency, that no matter how much he reviled the man, it would never be enough. Instead, he was now witnessing a man who was utterly selfless, consumed by the constant labor to relieve the suffering of his people.
Even more disorienting was the discovery that Ardyn had been in love. Her name was Aera Mirus Fleuret. The first Oracle. When the pair were together, talking and laughing, Ardyn was neither savior nor scelerat. He was simply an ordinary man.
Ordinary, too, were his desires. Oh, Aera. Pray be with me always, Noctis heard the man say. Ardyn dreamed of a simple happiness, one that had nothing to do with either star or god. It was a happiness every person should be able to know―and thus Ardyn had never for a moment thought it might be stolen away from him.
Was that why Ardyn had killed Luna? Because he knew firsthand the extent to which it would devastate Noctis?
It was still unforgivable. It didn’t matter that Ardyn had been a savior laboring for his fellow man, and the death of his own love was no excuse. To claim an innocent life simply to see an enemy suffer was an act that lay far beyond the bounds of absolution.
But if Ardyn was beyond pardon, then so, too, was Somnus for the web of lies he used to ensnare his brother and ensure his own place as founder of the new nation. It was Somnus who had killed Aera and planted the evil seed that would culminate in Lunafreya’s death.
And what about me? Noctis thought. Don’t I deserve some of the blame, too?
The covenants had chipped away at Lunafreya’s life. They were forged for Noctis, that the True King might be favored with blessings of the gods, and each one left Lunafreya weaker. Even had Ardyn’s dagger not ended her life, the Oracle’s time in the world would surely not have been much longer. Noctis, too, had played a part in her demise.
Sacrifice is unavoidable in the pursuit of a strong nation; that was the belief of the younger Caelum brother. If Noctis accepted Lunafreya’s death as a necessary evil to see darkness purged from the Star, would that make him any different from Somnus?
Did he, then, have any right to condemn the actions of his forebears?
The memories of the Crystal swirled on, pushing Noctis’s uncertainties aside.
He saw Ardyn, imprisoned in the depths of Angelgard. He saw Somnus, setting forth to exterminate daemons across the land. The citizens lived in peace and stability, and Lucis continued to grow as a nation.
Other rulers rose and fell, some more ruthless than Somnus, and others far too gentle. There was one who wore a mask throughout her life and reign. One suffered a tragic loss of the Oracle during his rule, taking up the T
rident and duties in her stead. One brought Lucis an extraordinarily long era of peace. One was murdered on the very night of his ascendance to the throne.
Alongside Lucis rose other new and powerful nations. There was Tenebrae, ruled by House Fleuret, the bloodline of the Oracle and, like House Caelum, heir to powers bestowed by the gods. The Empire of Niflheim donned the mantle of Solheim, seeking to return magitek to the world. The Accordo Protectorate flourished through trade and grew wealthy.
The people of every nation were alike: they laughed, struggled, fought, and wished for happiness. Noctis saw that throughout the world, just as there were no two individuals exactly alike, neither were there any so different as to set themselves apart from all others. Every person resonated in some respect with every other, and in some respect, every person was unique.
The time allotted to any human passed swiftly and without mercy. Death came for all, leaving only lifeless husks to pile in the earth. The thoughts each mind held inside were lost forever, gone without a trace. Yet at the same time, the reality that they had once lived and walked among their fellow humans could not be denied.
A familiar face appeared, like driftwood surfacing in a muddy torrent: some two thousand years after the founding of Lucis, Ardyn was carried from the depths of his island prison. His recovery brought to Niflheim the means to produce their magitek infantry en masse. The empire’s borders surged outward, and as Niflheim grew, Ardyn, too, accumulated power. The one man who controlled daemons ensured the spread of darkness throughout the world.
When the threat of all-consuming darkness seemed close at hand, Regis was chosen to stand among the ranks of the Kings of Yore. Around the same time, Noctis was born, and the Lucii pronounced him to be the True King.
Noctis saw his young self sleeping peacefully in his father’s arms, still blissfully unaware of the burden of fate. He saw his father force back tears.
Though man would choose, he has but one way forward. Ordained above is mortal fate.
To the Crystal, all possibility is memory, and all memory etched within.
Perhaps, if Verstael had failed in his attempt to penetrate the depths of Angelgard, Ardyn would still be hanging from chains in his wretched stone cell. If Ardyn were still captive and the Crystal maintaining the silence of that age-old secret, the time foretold when darkness would cover the Star would still be far off.
Perhaps Regis would still have had the honor to stand as one of the Kings of Yore, but there would have been no need to name Noctis as the True King. He would have been merely another successor in the long line of Lucis, and his father would have lived free from the grief of knowing his son’s bleak fate.
But neither, then, would Noctis have encountered the Marilith. There would have been no grave injury in his eighth year, no visit to Tenebrae to recover. No time spent with Lunafreya.
And that was not all. There would have been no marriage planned, no journey to Accordo with his friends. The nature of his companionship with Ignis and Gladio would have been different. More removed. More distant.
Without Ardyn, Verstael’s forays into magitek would have been far less successful. No mass production of MTs. And that meant Prompto . . .
Prompto would not exist at all.
Queen Sylva Via Fleuret would still be alive and in good health, continuing her duties as Oracle. Her children, Lunafreya and Ravus, would still reside at Fenestala Manor in peace.
Behold the heart of the Crystal, wherein lies the soul of the Star. It is in this place that the king will gain the power he needs.
Ravus. Noctis had heard the words the high commander had spoken to Ignis.
“Even in death, the Oracle does not rest. Only once the darkness is dispelled is her calling truly fulfilled. And as in life, I know she will confront that challenge with a smile on her face.”
They’d stood among the devastation in Altissia. The altar, like everything else in the city, lay crumbling in the wake of the Hydraean’s trial. Between Ignis and Ravus lay Noctis’s own unconscious form, sprawled across the flagstones.
Lunafreya was there, too. She was dead, yet somehow she arose and proceeded to the water’s edge. As she walked, her feet did not tread upon the earth. To the Oracle, death did not mean dissolution. An Oracle’s soul ascended in holy glory, joining the divine after its passage from the mortal realm. The Oracles received no burial, as they left nothing behind to intern.
“Oh, Sister . . . Please don’t go.” Ravus pleaded as she floated out over the water.
Ravus’s words were thick with anguish. For the last remaining member of House Fleuret, this was a parting far more cruel than death. He would not be allowed to weep over his sister’s lifeless form, robbed even of the chance to properly mourn her passing.
The Crystal swirled on to new memories, and Noctis observed the path that Lunafreya had walked in life. He saw Fenestala Manor in the wake of the occupation, Lunafreya standing before Gentiana with her head bowed.
“I have been confined to Fenestala and may no longer move about freely,” she said. “But I have not forgot my vow as Oracle to forge a covenant with your mistress, Shiva. I intend to petition for imperial leave to travel, and once it is secure, I assure you I will fulfill my duty. So I would ask that you please entreat the Glacian for patience on my behalf.”
“The Oracle seeks a covenant with the Frostbearer for the sake of the Crystal’s Chosen, that he might have aid in the time of need soon to come?” Gentiana asked.
“That is my wish.”
“Very well.”
Gentiana’s form began to change. She rose from the ground, arctic light pouring into her body until her skin shone icy blue. Lunafreya’s eyes grew wide.
Noctis imagined the same look of shock on his face when he, too, had witnessed Gentiana’s transformation.
“All this time,” Lunafreya whispered, “the Glacian was at my side?”
Shiva’s voice resounded in gentle proclamation, “Let the covenant be forged.”
“My gratitude to the compassionate Glacian and the favor she shows mankind,” Lunafreya responded. Noctis saw her cheeks flush with a mix of pride in completing one of her duties as Oracle and joy at knowing she had been watched over so closely since birth by one of the Six.
Some time later, Lunafreya was able to proceed to Ralmuell, the training ground for the Oracles. Once she had formally inherited the title, her days grew busy with journeys across the land to provide relief to the afflicted and to comfort the bereaved by performing the rites of requiem. It pained Noctis to think of the comfort and leisure in which he’d spent his own days around the same time.
Then came the fall of Insomnia. Regis entrusted the ring to Lunafreya, asking her to bear it safely to his son, and a certain pair of Glaives saw to the Oracle’s safe evacuation from the city. Flames rose throughout Insomnia as Lunafreya fled, slipping between buildings on verge of collapse, speeding along crumbling roadways, her life ever in peril.
I’m sorry, Noctis thought. Luna, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.
After that long, harrowing night, Lunafreya journeyed on all by herself, ultimately making her way toward Accordo.
Noctis reflected on where he would have been during her struggles. Somewhere along his first journey beyond the walls of Insomnia, staring wide-eyed at the world and its many wonders, in the care of his close companions. When the Regalia had broken down shortly after their journey began, the four of them had taken turns pushing the car to Hammerhead, complaining all the way, but even then they’d still in some sense been enjoying themselves. Things were still lighthearted and fun.
Now Ravus’s biting sarcasm―the anger he felt toward Noctis―no longer seemed so inexplicable or unwarranted.
Witness his splendor and glory. All hail the Chosen King, he’d sneered on confronting Noctis at Aracheole.
Ravus had watched his own flesh and blood dedicate her life to
an ungrateful, ignorant child. Lunafreya expended her own existence for the sake of Noctis’s success, and Noctis had regarded her sacrifice as nothing more than her ordained duty. When Ravus looked upon Noctis, he saw not a king but a coward who was undeserving of the title.
Looking back, he found it hard to imagine himself to be more lacking in understanding or maturity. Noctis had spent so much of his time sulking and moping, stuck in his own self-absorbed world, that he’d been unable to see the hands held out to him or the others supporting him from behind.
“How long will you remain the protected? The king entrusted the role of protector to you.”
“Get a grip! Pull your head outta your ass already!”
He remembered the moments he’d been chastised first by Cor and then Gladio. Each time, he’d felt only defiance: he was trying as best he knew how. What gave them the right to criticize, and why did he have to put up with it?
In truth, he was running away. When he claimed to be trying his best, it was for his own benefit, to stave off the ugly truth that perhaps he could do better, and that he only wanted to make things easier for himself. His companions must have seen right through him, and still they were kind and patient enough to stand and fight by his side.
In Altissia, to save Noctis from Ardyn’s malevolence, Ignis had gone so far as to chance the Ring of the Lucii. Noctis watched as the scene unfolded, Ignis declaring, “I swore an oath to stand with Noct and keep him safe. Whatever it takes, I will protect him!” The Kings of Yore descended. They approved of Ignis’s devotion and lent him their power. But in exchange, they took his sight.
Upon Noctis’s recovery, Ignis had refused to speak of the episode, knowing that it would weigh heavily on the young king’s conscience. The advisor’s lips stayed tightly sealed, enduring a darkened world while Noctis was blind even to his companion’s compassion.
