light on the surface
@gravislux | not required listening, but relevant I feel
It’s a miracle.
Their bodies are exhausted from lack of sleep, so tired from all the fighting these past few days. They are broken, battered, the beginnings of grief forming in their chests as Noctis leaves them for the last time, and once the daemons are dead… None of them know what to do except wait.
They don’t know how long it… Will take, and no words are shared as they stand outside the doors. Ignis… Wants to run to Noctis. Wants to hold him, wants to assure him that surely saving the world can wait one more day.
He deserves one more day.
After what the Gods did to him.
It’s astonishingly selfish, and Ignis tries to let the feeling have its moment – pass, with a deep breath, because he knows that if they took one more day, then they would surely take another, and another, and another…
Regardless, the ache in his chest is not any less, and Ignis keeps his hands at his sides, stands, facing the door, his head down. He doesn’t think he’s moved since he heard Noctis ascending the steps to the citadel.
And then… He hears them come back.
A brow twitches behind his visor, he hears a gasp from Gladio, pacing behind him, and Prompto, huddled on the steps, moving as if he’s standing, turning around.
“Prompto…” Ignis says, his voice tight, quiet.
“Yeah, Iggy. It’s him.”
–
It’s weeks later, and none of them have yet had the strength to ask him how it was done – how the gods had allowed him to live, and Ignis does wonder. Deeply.
But the King has been quiet on that front, has offered no explanation, and Ignis waits until he is ready. All of them put their efforts forth into the rebuilding of the city. A truly monumental feat.
In the wake of the sunrise Ignis has been hesitant to resume the relationship they’d had all those ten years ago – some part of him nervous he’s no longer wanted, some part of him practical, because after all, as King (a real, proper King; something Regis had never been expected to prepare him for) Noctis will be expected to take a wife, surely. Continue the line that should have died with him.
Some part of him afraid to tell Noctis that while he was gone, he’d been with others.
Cooking breakfast has been something that’s been removed from his daily responsibilities, replaced with countless strategy meetings and planning committees and paperwork to file for the funds they will need to raise to truly begin to fix what they’d left behind so many years ago. But somehow, he finds a moment to knock on the door of Noct’s office, coffee in hand for his King.
“We’ve managed to secure contractors from Accordo to help us in our efforts to rebuild the citadel, at a discount for both your efforts to support them when Leviathan destroyed Altissia, and for saving the world. Well done, highness.” He enters ready with an excuse to be here – news to distract Noctis from any personal affair he might have for Ignis these days. In the wake of the tragedy having ended, they are left with the harsh reality of what lies between them.