starter! @glaciena
“You’re here..” Noctis breathes out, head lowered and fingers tight around the hilt of his father’s sword. Aside from his panting, the drip-drop of his blood hitting the floor is the loudest sound echoing off the cavern walls. He looks up now, eyes like ripe pomegranates and skin pale like a snow covered mountain top. “I-- I didn’t think you’d come.” Summoning the gods and goddesses took nearly all he had, more than he told his friends.
He had his reasons for that -- always wanting to be the one who shouldered everything, including their own issues which stacked atop his many own. The future king brings himself to a knee, then pushes himself up onto unsteady feet. He could not look WEAK in front of the deity, not now. Not ever. “I’m fine,” a lie that he says so much these days that he’s starting to believe it. “There shouldn’t be many more left.”