Collateral Gods (The Weight of Idle Hands Chpt. 1)
Collateral Gods - The Weight of Idle Hands (01) Summary:
She wasn’t just a symbol, paraded around for show. She spoke to gods. They listened. If the wrong hands forced her, or if fear pushed her, she could bring down firestorms and calamities that no wall in Insomnia could keep at bay. The Ring of the Lucii, the one thing keeping Niflheim from storming the gates outright, could slip from Regis’s grasp with a single misstep.
If the gods decided to follow her lead, even the Empire wouldn’t be safe from the fallout.
Fandom: Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV
Pairings: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret x Nyx Ulric
Type: Multi-Chap
Words: ~4k
The capital sounded different from the gates.
Out here the city’s heartbeat thudded, faint and muffled, as though the sound had been smothered beneath a heavy blanket. From the checkpoint, Insomnia looked flawless: the low thrum of Magitek generators reverberated through the streets, mingling with the shuffle of boots on cobblestone and the rattling of trams overhead. Vendors screamed themselves hoarse above the noise, voices breaking against a crowd that surged past with no particular interest. Traffic crawled along the avenues, horns blaring as drivers fought over scraps of asphalt.
The city moved along, relentless, all-consuming, and too blind to notice the world burning outside, too comfortable to imagine that the flames might eventually reach it.
Thirty years of power sealed behind these walls while the rest of Lucis was left to rot.
Nyx knew better. He’d seen the outlands, and had lived in them. Out there, time moved much slower, and technology showed up decades late, if at all. Towns survived by scraping together what they could, and he’d watched as commerce dried up, industries collapsed, and the roads inevitably crumbled into dirt. Insomnia hoarded its comforts, locked them away, and merely let the outer provinces bleed just to buy a scrap of Crown-made steel.
Out there, the war was tearing the kingdom apart.
In here, Insomnia pretended not to notice.
Regardless, that wasn’t his burden to carry. He owed King Regis; owed him for pulling a half-starved refugee kid out of Galahd’s ashes and giving him a place among the Kingsglaive. Griping about what Insomnia hoarded, or what the outer territories lacked, would dishonor that debt. So Nyx held his post.
He stood beside the checkpoint arch with his shoulders squared, kukris resting easy across his back. His posture was regulation-perfect: feet planted, balance centered, eyes sweeping the flow of citizens drifting in and out of the capital. To anyone passing through, he was the picture of a Kingsglaive: steady, unreadable, immovable. Exactly what the uniform demanded.
Underneath that however, his patience was wearing thin.
Guard duty.
For a glaive, it was the closest thing to exile without being kicked directly from the ranks. The why of it still burned, fresh as a bruise that he constantly pressed.
A failed recon run in the Northern sector, a slip of the tongue during war council–or the exact reason buried underneath the first two–he’d put Lieutenant Drautos’ smug nephew flat on his ass during drills. Hard.
In Nyx’s defense, the kid should’ve known how to block a feint; it was the oldest trick in the book, one that the senior glaives pulled on the rookies for sport. Apparently, teaching a superior’s bloodline a lesson was “unbecoming of a glaive”. Drautos’ words, not his. The old bastard hadn’t wasted a second before shipping him off to the gate, like tossing a dog outside for pissing on a rug.
Two months.
Two months of standing around, watching strangers filter in and out while the rest of the glaives took missions worth bleeding for.
“Chasing glory,” they’d called it.
Nyx called it being useful.
A sigh slipped through his teeth before he could stop it, and his jaw tightened in response. He rolled his shoulders, working the stiffness out of his muscles. Drautos had planned it that way: stick him at the gates, chain him to the sight of a city he’d nearly bled out defending more times than he cared to count. He could hear him, all gravel and venom, barking orders with that special brand of contempt, grinding down glaives until they eventually broke. The old bastard wanted him restless, wasting away on monotony, chewing on frustration until it’d eventually hollow him out.
It was a daily reminder that regardless of how many missions he survived, and no matter how many times he dragged the Crown’s shining jewel back from the edge, he was disposable. Replaceable. Just another blade in the rack.
But that was the point. Punishment, not reassignment.
He’d pissed off the wrong man. Again. It wasn’t the first time, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last if he had any say in it.
Nyx resisted the urge to scoff.
His gaze swept over the endless churn of foot traffic again, families clutching bags, traders hauling crates, couriers weaving through the flow with the desperation of men whose minutes were worth more than their lives. Insomnia’s veins, pumping steadily, and feeding its own heart. Some faces held purpose in their strides, eyes sharp and fixed on whatever lay ahead, and others shuffled along, hollow-eyed, worn down by routine, simply surviving another day under the Crown’s shadow.
Then a voice, pitched low and tight, threaded through the cacophony.
“—I’m telling you,” someone murmured, “they’re sending a full escort North tomorrow. Straight to Tenebrae.”
Three glaives strode past in a loose cluster, uniforms rumpled from the humidity, rifles slung over their shoulders, moving with the ease of men who thought the uniform alone made them enough.
“Yeah?” One muttered, doubt roughening the edges of his tone. “What for? Another summit that goes nowhere?”
The first, broad-shouldered and cocky, shook his head with smug certainty. “Not this time. Big deal. Oracle herself’s being brought in.” He gave a low whistle, lips curling like the name alone carried the taste of privilege. “Lunafreya Nox Fleuret.”
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret.
Her name had been hammered into the public consciousness, flashing endlessly across city screens, polished broadcasts, and propaganda reels. A saint, they called her. A vessel chosen by the gods to soothe the kingdom’s wounds. Even Nyx, who cared less than nothing for the Crown’s games, knew the script by heart. Tenebrae’s youngest Oracle, paraded like a symbol. Niflheim’s “honored guest,” a loose term for hostage.
And now, they were dragging her here. To Insomnia.
“To wed Prince Noctis,” the second glaive added.
“Except the Prince ain’t even here,” the third cut in with a scoff. “Last I heard, he’s off playing hero in the wilds.”
“So we’re stuck babysitting a royal handbag delivery?” The first snorted, loud enough to draw a few glances. “Figures. Maybe he’ll mail in his vows on a postcard.”
The three of them laughed: sharp, careless, and disappeared into the tide of bodies, eventually indistinguishable from the rest of the city’s noise. The Oracle coming here; that was news worth paying attention to, but the way those idiots tossed her name around made it sound like gossip traded over cheap ale.
Half the new blood wore the uniform like a badge of importance as opposed to a responsibility. They’d forget it soon enough, when the war demanded more than swagger.
Nyx himself didn’t move. Didn’t react. Not a muscle twitched under the weight of his uniform. Something about their words clung to him though still–like grit—irritating, and persistent. The Crown didn’t parade divine assets around for spectacle. Not unless they were desperate, or trying to hide the fact.
An Oracle. A prince. A marriage dressed up like hope, but reeking of politics. He told himself it didn’t matter, and it shouldn’t have. The Crown’s gestures, its treaties and stagecraft, all belonged in a world far above his paygrade.
His job was simpler.
Follow orders.
Bleed when told.
Keep the threats outside from getting in.
No luxury for much else.
Still, his gaze betrayed him. His eyes tracked sideways, just far enough to catch the mag-rail cutting deeper into the city, its lights a blur against the falling dusk. For Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Insomnia wouldn’t be salvation. It would be a cage—gold-plated, and polished bright enough to blind her—but a cage all the same.
The thought lingered just long enough to sour before a faint crackle snapped him back. The comm in his ear buzzed with static, followed by a clipped voice that cut in sharp enough to nearly make him wince.
“Ulric. Report.”
Nyx didn’t sigh, didn’t shift, didn’t give Drautos the satisfaction of hearing anything human in the response. “Nothing to report, sir.”
A pause, long enough to carry weight, then the clipped voice returned, brittle with authority. “Good. Carry on.”
The line went dead.
Nyx exhaled through his nose, shoulders pulling taut beneath the weight of stillness.
Nothing to report.
Just the city humming along while the outer territories burned, the Wall swallowing the truth whole. Nothing unusual at all.
The air clung heavy beneath his uniform, thick with the day’s heat and the constant pulse of magitek generators. Sweat slicked his skin, making the fabric stick in places he couldn’t ignore. His boots stayed rooted where regulation demanded, heels locked against stone until his calves ached and his knees hummed with a restless throb. His mind refused the same discipline. It wandered in careful, dangerous increments. Never far—because a glaive who lost focus on post didn’t last long—but far enough to scratch at the edges of his patience.
By then, the sun had dipped lower, slanting across the checkpoint in long, jagged shadows that carved the cobblestones into sharp, uneven patterns. The light hit the glass towers beyond the walls just enough to make them glitter, but it also cast the streets in a tired, almost hollow glow, mirroring the exhaustion that Nyx was starting to feel.
He worked a tick in his jaw, small, almost imperceptible, the only rebellion he allowed himself.
“Some hero you turned out to be,” he muttered, dry and low.
“You look like you’re thinking awfully hard for someone on gate duty,” a voice drawled behind him.
Nyx didn’t bother turning. He knew the voice, rough around the edges, cutting in from his left. Familiar enough that he didn’t need to look.
Libertus Ostium leaned against a support column, arms crossed, his grin worn but real. The kind that said he’d pulled his own shifts at the gates once, before figuring out smarter ways to burn the hours.
“Libertus.” Nyx pulled his gaze from the churn of boots, cars, the grind of magitek wheels. His tone stayed flat, though the faint twitch at his mouth gave him away. “Hard to think at all with your voice polluting the air.”
“There he is,” Libertus stepped into his peripheral vision, arms folded, a smug little tilt to his chin. “Was starting to think Drautos lobotomized you when he stuck you out here.”
“I’m only here because someone,” he nudged Libertus with an elbow, “convinced me knocking out Drautos’ nephew wasn’t worth losing my stripes over.”
Libertus lifted a brow. “Oh, don’t drag me into your crimes, Ulric. Besides, I said maybe don’t break his nose. You went for the full collapse, Mate.”
“He shouldn’t have been bragging about things he didn’t earn.”
“True,” Libertus admitted, grin deepening. “The kid had it coming. Always struttin’ around like his shit smelled like phoenix ash. Still, ” he clapped Nyx on the shoulder. “You clocked him hard enough to make most of the rookies believe in divine intervention.”
“That got me two months at the gate.”
“Could’ve been worse,” Libertus countered cheerfully. “Could’ve gotten you latrine duty. Or worse: Drautos could’ve stuck you in archives. Imagine you, buried in paperwork. You’d’ve chewed your arm off in a week.”
Nyx huffed, half a scoff, half amusement. “Shouldn’t you be off blowing something up?”
“Redeployments up north,” Libertus said, sobering just a shade. “Command’s twitchy. Something’s shifting and the brass smells it.” His eyes slid back to Nyx, sharp beneath the easy exterior. “Figured I’d swing by before we head out. Make sure you haven’t rusted into the pavement.”
“Not yet.” Nyx swept another line of civilians with a practiced glance. “You volunteering to take my post?”
Libertus barked a laugh, rough and unrestrained. “Hells no,” he said, shaking his head as if the thought alone was absurd. His grin lingered for only a heartbeat before he tipped his chin toward the checkpoint arch. “You hear the news?”
“About the Oracle? Hard not to,” he shrugged. “Word spreads fast enough these days.”
Libertus’s grin faded, replaced by a tight line. “Mm. Turns out it’s worse than they’re spinning it. Niflheim’s not just handing her over; they’re sending their own soldiers to escort her right into the heart of Insomnia.”
Nyx’s brow lifted, slow, deliberate. “Niflheim troops. Inside Lucis?”
“That’s the rumor.” His jaw flexed, his tone flat. “Supposedly, council signed off on it this morning. They’re calling it a ‘gesture of good faith.’”
He let out a short, bitter exhale. “’Good faith,’” he echoed, letting the words hang heavy, sharp with contempt. “Right. Until their boots are walking half the city’s streets.”
Libertus snorted, arms folding as he leaned against the column. His gaze swept the checkpoint with practiced ease; measuring faces, noting weapons, weighing threat against insignificance. “Either we’re about to get dragged into something ugly, or we’re already neck-deep. Half the glaives are betting she never even makes it to the palace.”
Nyx’s fingers brushed the hilt of his kukri, more habit than thought. “…Optimistic bunch.”
“Realists,” Libertus corrected, sparing him a sidelong glance. “You think the Empire’s just gonna gift-wrap their Oracle and wave her off with smiles? Ha! Not a chance.”
Nyx let the words hang between them, eyes fixed on the mag-rail slicing into the horizon, its hum nearly swallowed by the city’s noise. Libertus wasn’t wrong. Nothing about it felt clean: the timing, the secrecy, the Empire letting one of their crown jewels walk straight into Regis’s arms. It was a polished show of diplomacy that smelled faintly of ambush. And Nyx, stuck here at the gate, was the one expected to make sure nothing went wrong.
The Glaive must’ve read the silence because he exhaled with a low, rueful sigh, shaking his head. “Don’t get lost in it, mate. Drautos catches you thinking, he’ll have your ass polishing boots until your reflection stares back.”
Nyx smirked faintly, though the expression never reached his eyes. “Yeah. Wouldn’t want to tack another month onto my sentence.”
“Best kind of work if you like breathing,” he retorted, voice half-teasing, half-sincere. “Quiet enough to think, noisy enough to stay sane.” He let out a low whistle that sounded like a warning and a laugh all at once. “Well, mostly sane.”
“I’ll survive.” His gaze drifted back to the mag-rail, that steel vein carving through the city, humming with energy while everything outside these walls withered. From there, his eyes caught on a small family edging past the checkpoint. The mother’s grip on her child’s hand was taut, protective, guiding them with careful urgency through the press of strangers.
The sight snagged something in him—a memory, raw and half-buried. Dust in his lungs. Smoke over ruins. Kids staring with eyes too hollow, too old for their age. His jaw tightened as he shoved it back down. Guilt still knew how to find the cracks.
“Besides,” Nyx said, voice low, almost casual, “you get used to it. Patience comes with the paycheck.”
Libertus chuckled, shaking his head. “Not near enough of one. You make it sound heroic.”
Nyx’s smirk surfaced again. “Someone has to.”
Libertus tilted his chin toward the passing crowd, his grin fading to something sharper as his eyes swept the checkpoint. “Out in Galahd, a day like this would’ve had us knee-deep in trouble. Stand here long enough… you start noticing what doesn’t make it past the walls. All the things everyone acts like don’t exist. Makes you wonder how long it’ll last.”
Nyx followed his gaze, already knowing the answer. Glaives bleeding themselves thin so a city could pretend war was just a rumor. Even Regis, noble as he was, looked like a king stretching minutes into miracles, delaying the inevitable.
His jaw tightened. “Don’t get philosophical on me. Drautos would love that.”
Libertus let out a low, dry chuckle, humor and resignation tangled in the sound. “Not saying anything you haven’t been thinking yourself.”
“Two months of this,” Nyx muttered, more to himself than Libertus. “Standing here like a glorified statue while the rest of the unit earns their keep.”
“Some statue,” Libertus scoffed, smirk pulling into a full-on grin. “Most of them would’ve cracked after an hour.” He rolled a shoulder. “Maybe Drautos isn’t being a prick,” he suggested, “maybe he’s just keeping you sharp.”
Nyx let the words hang in the air, though he didn’t buy it. Drautos was a prick because that’s what he was, not because he had some twisted calculus of keeping men “sharp.” Sharpness came from blood, sweat, and teeth clenched in the middle of chaos, not standing in the sun, watching vendors push vegetables past a checkpoint arch while the city hummed like it didn’t care.
“Yeah, well,” he muttered, voice low, almost a rasp, “if I wanted to be sharp, I’d be where the fight actually is.” His eyes flicked toward the north gate, toward the shadows where the city gave way to the open roads leading to the outlands. “Not stuck babysitting the pavement for two months while the Empire parades their puppet through our streets.”
“Puppet,” Libertus muttered behind him, almost under his breath. “Don’t sound like you’ve got much faith in the prince’s idea of marriage diplomacy either.”
“Faith…” he muttered, low and bitter. “... Isn’t the word I’d use..”
Libertus gave him a sidelong glance, noting the hard set of Nyx’s jaw. “If it’s any comfort,” he said slowly, voice carrying that faint edge of foreboding, “the brass isn’t leaving this entirely to chance. A handful of us are going up north to meet the Empire troops halfway. We’re riding point on the escort.”
Nyx’s gaze narrowed. “Meeting them? And trusting a Niflheim detachment to follow orders inside Lucis?” He let out a humorless laugh, the sound swallowed by the city’s constant hum. “That’s… comforting.”
Libertus smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. Comfort’s in short supply. But someone has to make sure the Empire doesn’t turn a gesture of goodwill into a massacre.”
“So who’s going?”
Libertus didn’t answer right away.
A tram screamed past overhead, its wheels grinding along the track, drowning out half the city for a heartbeat. When the noise finally bled away, Libertus said, “Command’s keeping the roster quiet until morning.”
Nyx’s brow lifted a fraction. “So they’re keeping you guessing too.”
“‘Guessing’ is a polite way to say ‘they’re not telling us shit.’” Libertus nudged the column with the toe of his boot, the tap swallowed by the noise around them. “But don’t get your hopes up. You and I aren’t on the list.”
Nyx tried not to react, but something in his shoulders stiffened anyway. “You sure?”
“Positive.” Libertus flashed a humorless grin. “You’re chained to this slab of pavement until Drautos decides you’ve been benched long enough. And I…” he lifted a hand in mock surrender, “apparently don’t fit the ‘optics’ for a diplomatic gesture.”
Nyx snorted. “Optics.”
“Yeah. They want the clean-cut, camera-ready types. The glaives who can stand next to Niflheim troops without looking like they’re about to vomit.” He jerked his chin at Nyx. “You’d burst into flames trying.”
He wasn’t wrong. Nyx didn’t bother denying it.
“But,” Libertus added, “if you were hoping gate duty would magically end tomorrow? Sorry, mate.”
“I wasn’t hoping for anything.” Nyx adjusted the strap across his chest. “Would’ve been better to be out there, though. Actually doing something instead of pretending this counts as service.”
Libertus shot him a pointed look. “It counts. Glamorous or not, this city stands because glaives like you hold the line. Even when the line’s a damn turnstile.”
A courier clipped Nyx’s arm in passing, nearly spilling his satchel. Nyx shifted half an inch, avoiding collision without ever breaking posture. The man mumbled an apology and disappeared into the tide of bodies before Nyx could even grunt.
Libertus whistled. “See? You’re indispensable. Human barricade.”
“If Drautos hears you calling me that,” Nyx muttered, “he’ll make it official.”
“Could be worse,” Libertus shrugged. “He could make you a tour guide.”
Nyx almost smiled. Almost. The moment faded before it fully formed, worn thin by hours of monotony and the ache in his calves. His gaze swept the crowd again—faces blurring into a single restless mass, voices knotting into a hum that vibrated against his skull.
“Feels wrong,” he muttered.
Libertus tipped his head. “What does?”
“All of it.” Nyx kept his voice low, swallowed beneath the clatter of a passing transport. “Sending glaives to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with Niflheim? Bringing their troops inside the Wall?” He shook his head. “Regis is betting everything on this treaty. Everyone knows it’s going to snap.”
Libertus grimaced. “King’s doing what he can with what he’s got.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t mean it’ll hold.”
Libertus didn’t argue. Instead, he studied Nyx with that old Galahd look; part patience, part warning, all trouble. “Look, mate… you can’t tear yourself up over a mission they didn’t put you on. Doesn’t matter if it’s smart, stupid, or suicidal. It’s not ours.”
“Doesn’t change the fact we should be out there.”
“Should be,” Libertus agreed. “But we’re not. And if we’re not, there’s a reason. Or there will be one. Not every shit decision comes from Drautos’ temper, believe it or not.”
“This one did.”
Libertus barked a short laugh. “Alright, fair. This one definitely did.” He clapped Nyx on the arm. “Still, if something blows up up north, being stuck at the gate might end up the safest place in the kingdom.”
Nyx shot him a sideways look. “Since when do you care about safe?”
“Since always,” Libertus said lightly. “I just like choosing when I nearly die. Helps the day feel structured.”
A breath of dry amusement escaped Nyx.
The crowd shifted again; a tram screeched in the distance; banners overhead snapped in the wind. Insomnia never stopped moving, never stopped pretending nothing outside its walls existed.
Libertus finally pushed off the column. “Anyway. I should go. Early call. Gotta be fresh-faced and charming for whenever the hell the Nifs show up.”
“You?” Nyx arched a brow. “Charming?”
“Believe it or not, I can smile without scaring the kids.”
“Bullshit.”
Before Libertus could answer, the checkpoint’s rhythm stumbled. A line of refugees moved through the gates on foot, herded past automated traffic controls and magitek scanners with the efficiency of modern machinery. Families carried what little they could: children clinging to threadbare blankets or small satchels, adults hauling bags and bundles with strained determination. The smell of sweat, dust, and the faint tang of burned fuel from nearby hover-vehicles filled the air. Despite Insomnia’s polished streets and gleaming vehicles, the flood of desperate humanity was impossible to ignore, a reminder that even in the heart of the capital, the outside world pressed in.
Nyx’s jaw tightened. He knew that look too well. Knew what it meant to drag yourself out of the ashes of a province gutted by war, only to be measured, searched, and waved off like baggage.
One of the guards barked at them to move along. A child stumbled in the press, nearly going down before his mother yanked him upright. She looked up, and for just a second, her eyes caught Nyx’s. Wide. Desperate. The kind of gaze that stripped a man to the bone.
Nyx didn’t flinch. He didn’t step forward. Orders were clear: keep position, let the checkpoint do its work. He was a glaive, not a savior.
Still, something sharp twisted in his gut. He’d been that kid once. Dust of Galahd on his skin, nothing but loss at his back. Saved only because Regis had extended a hand. How many more hands had the Crown turned away since then?
Libertus shifted beside him, muttering under his breath. “Another flood from the borders. North, maybe. If that’s Tenebrae, then…” He trailed off, eyes cutting toward Nyx with unspoken weight.
Nyx said nothing, but the persistent thought gnawed. Tenebrae burned in whispers. The Empire’s bootprint was fresh there, and if refugees were already slipping into Insomnia… Lunafreya’s path into the city was anything but safe.
A sharp crackle came through his earpiece, static cutting the noise of the checkpoint. Drautos’ voice, iron and gravel, snapped over the line. “Ulric. Report.”
Nyx straightened, spine locking, mask settling into its practiced immobility. “Nothing unusual,” he replied, tone crisp, stripped of anything that could be mistaken for thought.
A pause. Then Drautos’ voice, softer this time, edged with the same weight that always carried unspoken threats. “Good. Keep it that way. We’ll need steady hands in the days ahead.”
The line went dead.
Libertus let out a low, mocking whistle. “Steady hands, eh? That’s rich, coming from him.”
Nyx kept his gaze forward, muscles tense beneath the uniform, but under the mask, his mind was already moving. Drautos wouldn’t waste the comm on trivialities unless something in command had them crawling with nerves. Libertus was right. Something ugly was already in motion.
And if Lunafreya Nox Fleuret was at the heart of it…
Insomnia’s gates were about to stop being boring real fast.
