@royalbratprince from here
"No."
It was a promise. From Bahamut himself, it was a promise. He only needed to do one thing, just one, and live to see the world he was to save. One more thing, one last act, but he wasn't told what. just sent out with a sword in his hand, familiar and unfamiliar in steps, and that no one could go with him. Something he had to do alone.
He didn't know what he'd been expecting. Not this.
Everyone... everyone has suffered. And for ten long years to everyone else, barely the space of a dream to him, they've lived in darkness. Waiting. Waiting for their designated savior to return. Waiting on the sacrifice of years and sunlight and so many friends and family and things familiar... The entire world had been waiting.
"No! Do you hear me? I won't do it!" Noctis' voice broke with that scream, Ardyn looking right back at him. Terrified and tired and--
"You can't ask this of me! Or anyone! You can't--"
There was no echo, no answer. No response.
Noctis could hear his own breath, his own heartbeat in his ears. He felt the weight of expectation.
Who else knew? Did anyone?
There was no jolt awake, no blissful realization that it was just a dream.
The last thing he remembered was his brother being pulled into a crystal. Hearing a scream from the others, not sure if it was for their king or for him. When he woke up, it was in an abyss, no light, trapped up to his waist in ooze.
He called for what felt like hours, his voice going hoarse from the effort. Eventually a figure came approaching in the darkness. His brother! He smiled at first, only to see that while Ardyn hadn’t aged, his brother looked at least a decade older. He looked desperate and hopeless, and he was holding a sword. Ardyn frowned. Had he been sent to kill him? But Noctis didn’t want to, and Ardyn didn’t want to die. He struggled out of the muck he was trapped in, running to his brother with no thought of the weapon. Just a tight hug as he buried his head into the chosen king’s chest.
“Let’s just go home, you don’t have to do anything!” He insisted, “We’ll figure it out right? Like family! Lets just find everyone else, Please Noct.”
Tears fell down his cheek as he held on tight. Not looking at his brother, just hoping they could leave. To pretend this place didn’t exist. Things had to be better if they decided to be a team, right?