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Something was wrong with Chief Besithia.
Rufus had been assigned to security detail for the research department for a few months now. He'd seen Chief Besithia at work. He’d seen shit that would give people nightmares. He'd like to think he'd gained some experience about things.
And something was wrong with Chief Besithia.
Take Besithia's body language: from the start of this transport, he’d been swaying his head from time to time, like he was listening to music that no one else could hear. Usually, you could mistake him for some kind of statue, at least when he was in the middle of examining something.
Besithia stopped swaying and cleared his throat. “How long until we reach Angelgard?” His voice was wrong, too: it sounded like he was choking. It was supposed to sound like something had clawed his throat out and he was yelling at the world because his throat had been clawed out. Not to mention that he was actually speaking to his security detail. He usually treated them like they were only there to carry things and fire rifles.
“We touch down in 47 minutes,” Seius responded.
Besithia cleared his throat again. His hands began patting out a rhythm on his lap: not clasped together in front of him, not clasped together behind him, and absolutely not motionless. “Thank you for informing me.” He coughed.
“Thank you for informing me ”? Who says thank you to someone you only used for the heavy lifting? Rufus leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He should get some rest before they arrived.
Besithia stayed quiet for the rest of the trip. Every time that Rufus’s curiosity got the better of him and he checked on Besithia, Besithia was swaying his head or tapping his fingers on his lap.
As soon as the carrier came to a stop and the hatch opened, Chief Besithia unstrapped himself and headed out. Alone. Into enemy territory.
Seius said what they all had to be thinking: “Sir? Your instructions for your security?”
Besithia stopped, coughed, and turned around to face them. “I won’t need to be accompanied by any security. I can handle myself.” Besithia cleared his throat again. “Secure the perimeter around the ship.” He turned around again and left. And they all let him.
Something was absolutely wrong with Chief Besithia, but Rufus wasn’t here to think; that was Chief Besithia’s job.
The Accursed waited alone in the dark for the end of the world. There was nothing and there would be nothing but the shadows and the solitude. Nothing until the time was right.
Then, there was light.
A light that burned his eyes and his skin and his soul. The scent of smoke began to fill the air. The Accursed closed his eyes, because that was all that he could do. Nevertheless, the light continued to seek him out. The chains binding him made seeking him out quite simple.
"Ardyn? Can you hear me?" A soft voice with an unknown accent. Ardyn. What was an Ardyn? The Accursed turned toward the sound. The burning intensified a few degrees. He opened his eyes.
The light awaited him, stinging, but softer, safer. The light revealed a woman in strange black garb. A name emerged from the abyss of memory: Aera.
The name was the wrong one. She had Aera's countenance and bearing, but she was not Aera. She held the trident of the Oracle, the source of the light, but she was clothed and veiled in black , not white. The black was important. She was without the red cloak Aera used constantly. It’s lovely, Ardyn. I’ll wear it always .
Ardyn. The name was… the right one; once upon a time, the Accursed was called Ardyn.
The woman in black spoke again. "Can you hear me, Ardyn?" Her voice was stronger, her words slower. She said nothing about the smoke.
The Accursed-- Ardyn --rasped out, “I can.” His voice was weak with disuse. His throat was raw from the screams of a lifetime ago.
Her face relaxed with relief. He knew that look and the hope it represented. He’d seen it on countless faces in his time as--as what? The correct fragment of memory was beyond his reach.
"We are here to help you," said the woman. He knew that sure, calming timbre of voice. One would address the afflicted in such a tone, then begin the treatment. “We wish to free you and heal you.”
A flare of pain and ripples of movement from the legion under his skin. He jutted his chin towards the trident. Stinging came at even this slightest of motions towards the light. “Are you the Oracle?”
A slight nod. “I am.”
More movement within him, like hackles being raised. “And you know… what I am?” A susurration of laughter at the back of his skull.
“I know who you are.” Banish the afflicted’s fears with one’s words. Let one’s assurance become the afflicted’s assurance.
A man's voice shouted something about the moon, then the voice veered into the rattling of a tongue the Accursed--that Ardyn --could not place. The Oracle called back in the same unintelligible tones, mentioning the night. Watchwords? Gilgamesh had always been one for watchwords.
A man with his brother’s face stepped into the Oracle’s light. His brother’s face, but older, softer . This man in the Oracle’s light would not race to burn anything that had the slightest hint of the Scourge. He was dressed in the same black garb as the Oracle. Livery of some sort?
The man with his brother’s--with Somnus’s --face frowned and began conferring with the Oracle in that strange language. Where were they from? Why could he only remember names and faces that did not fit those before him?
The man spoke again, but in Ardyn’s own tongue: “We want to help you, but this will hurt.” His voice was hesitant and had an accent different from the Oracle’s. “Our apologies, Great Granduncle.” The man neared Ardyn’s chains, his hand outstretched.
Great granduncles, Ardyn thought, should be relegated to meandering stories told by ancient cousins during the days for honoring the family’s ancestors. Great granduncles would not be chained to a rock in the middle of the sea, left to wait for the end of the world.
A pulse of magic shot from his great grandnephew’s fingers, snapping away at the chains holding Ardyn’s arms up. His arms dropped to his sides, one and then the other. His muscles felt no relief. The hooks in his hands were pulled out and away. The hooks in his sides and in his feet followed. Chains clattered against the floor and the walls now that they were slack. Ardyn, too, was slack. He fell to his knees. The world was growing dark again.
Four hands, four arms, kept him from collapsing to the ground completely. A healing spell pulsed through him, waves of heat followed by spikes of cold. Something surged up, thick and viscous, then flowed out and away. A pustule being lanced. One pustule on a body full of them, and that one had nearly put him into another swoon. Images, words, ideas bloomed in his mind from chaos. No, from Noctis and Lunafreya.
The work would be long.
Ursula could not abide incompetence. One of the newcomers, Nox, (Where had the Crown found him, anyhow?) had been stumbling around Adagium's cell as if it were an exhibit in the Insomnia Zoo. Was he expecting Adagium to come out and ask for treats? To do tricks for his delight?
Gawking was only one of Nox’s transgressions. He’d also been flirting with one of the other newcomers, Stella, (Ursula did not know her or could place her, either.) all night. Wasn’t there a rule against fraternization? Weren’t there several rules against fraternization?
Movement from the right edge of her vision. She waited a few seconds to verify it wasn’t one of her fellow members of the Royal Guard. Moonlight reflected off dark armor and revealed blond hair. Ursula turned on her radio. “Intruder spotted.”
She waited a few more seconds. “Intruder heading towards Adagium. I’m in pursuit.” Ursula unsheathed her dagger and threw it as far as she could, warping after him.
The black livery robes fit Ardyn ill; they hung on his frame too loosely. They shielded him from the light, however, so they would serve.
“Too big. Don’t know how much he’s going to stick out.” His great grandnephew--Noctis, his name was Noctis--had grumbled in that garbled tongue, yet Ardyn found he understood the words. His nephew switched back to Ardyn’s tongue. “I apologize, Great Granduncle. They are the only things I have that would be of use to you.”
It took some breaths to arrange what Ardyn wished to say. He still had to make sense of the knowledge that he’d… gathered? consumed? “You can speak in your own tongue, Noctis. I understand it.” The sounds of their language were clumsily wrought on his lips. How did one not bite off one’s tongue forming the words? “Worry not about the livery, it is of better use than rags.”
“You know who I am?” Noctis said.
“I know enough,” Ardyn answered. Kings chosen and unchosen, duels in this world and in the Beyond, the light restored after an age of darkness. “It’s as you said before: I am your great granduncle. Though with rather more generations between us than that title suggests.”
The Oracle, Lunafreya, went over the pulse points at Ardyn’s wrist and at his neck. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ll recover with time.” The phrase had been such an automatic reassurance to others when he’d been a healer, whenever anyone worried about the strain of the work.
Another voice came from the darkness, raw from overuse: "Noct! Luna!" Noctis and Lunafreya brightened and turned to greet the newcomer.
A blond man in dark armor stepped into the light, sighed, and threw himself gracelessly to the ground. "My throat hates me so much right now.”
Ardyn squatted down to be at the same height of the seated man. “Drink a tisane with honey,” Ardyn replied by rote. “Add the juice of a citron if one can be found.”
The blond man started and recoiled. Ardyn was brought to mind of an easily frightened chocobo that needed constant reassurance. The blond gave a beseeching look to Noctis. "Is he... safe?"
Noctis nodded.
“He’s perfectly safe,” Lunafreya said.
"If you guys say so,” the blond answered, the doubt thick in his voice. The blond turned back to Ardyn. “Um, I’m Prompto Argentum. Nice to meet you.” He held out his hand.
Ardyn nodded and accepted the hand. “Ardyn Lucis Caelum, though I am sure you know that already.” Third-hand memories of a snowy prison. A father and his many sons. An amalgamation of blasphemies.
Lunafreya addressed Prompto again. "How are you?"
Prompto pressed a hand to his chest. “I don’t feel like I’m going to vanish in a puff of logic, if that’s what you mean.”
More borrowed memories emerged in Ardyn’s mind. Three lives, three threads freed from the wefts prepared for them, set to weave a new tapestry. But why this point in time? Why not earlier?
Prompto sniffed. Did he have congestion as well? “Is something burning in here?”
The recognizable sparks of the Crystal's magic flared at the mouth of the cave. "The Royal Guard," Lunafreya murmured.
Prompto got to his feet and gave Noctis a swat on the behind, as if he were goading a reluctant bird. "You're up."
Noctis put up his hood and donned his veil. "Here goes nothing.” He strode to the mouth of the cave.
Ursula warped after her dagger a final time and waited in front of the mouth of the cave. Flashes of light announced the arrival of fellow members of the Guard.
Nox stumbled out of the cave and stopped in front of her. He took a look around and held up his hands.
Ursula’s mace materialized in her hands. “Tell me why you’re here.”
Nox held his head higher in an attempt at dignity. “I’m here in the name of the King.”
Ursula kept from rolling her eyes. She couldn’t keep herself from letting out a soft huff. “We’re all here in the name of the King.” Her grip tightened on her mace.
Nox looked at her reinforcements and sighed. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out the Ring of the Lucii.
Ursula took a step back. A knot settled in her gut. “Who are you?”
Nox put the Ring of the Lucii back into his pocket. “I’m--the three of us--are here to examine Ar--the Adagium.” Examine? What else was there to know about the Adagium besides that it was to be kept sealed until the end of time?
The blond intruder emerged from the cave with two other members of the Guard. “Hey, Noct, have you convinced--” His face fell. “Oh. You’re not done yet.” He sounded like something had clawed out his throat.
Nox took a breath and gestured to the blond. “Crownsguard Argentum has just returned from a long-term investigation in Gralea. He reports to me.” Argentum, Argentum. There was someone in intelligence named Argentum, wasn’t there?
The blond, Crownsguard Argentum, saluted. Sloppily.
“An investigation,” Ursula said. She looked over Argentum’s armor. “Impersonating an imperial officer.”
Argentum nodded again. “I can prove my loyalty to Lucis. Anything you want to know about Niflheim weapons research?”
Nothing short of a hog-tied Iedolas Aldercapt would do, but she’d hear him out; she wasn’t a monster .
It was about two hours after Chief Besithia left that everything went to hell.
First, Chief Besithia wasn’t answering their calls. And then the Lucians showed up. Fuck his entire life. All of it. They managed to get some damage in, but how were they expected to fight fuckers zipping around like bright blue tracers that could fry you or freeze you with magic?
Rufus managed to get his sights on one of the Lucians who was wandering slowly around, setting his hands on the injured. Healing them? Like an Oracle? Rufus shut out distractions and fired.
The bullets glanced off a magic shield that was thrown up by one of the other Lucians. He wanted to scream, but switched targets and began firing again.
The Lucians were pushing them back towards the ship--not that they had pushed very far away from it.
Seius was screaming into his com for Chief Besithia. Still nothing.
Those survivors who could move were climbing back into the ship. Those survivors who couldn’t were being left to the mercy of the Lucians. That one Lucian Rufus had tried to shoot was approaching one of the injured they’d left behind.
The hatch closed, and the carrier lifted off. They were lighter, much lighter. This was going to be one hell of a SITREP.
Healing the wounded with Lunafreya has tired him, but Ardyn could not sleep. For one, they raced across the water so quickly his head ached and he felt the need to vomit. It wasn’t pressing, so he’d endure.
Prompto tapped his shoulder. “You look like you’re getting seasick. Looking at the horizon is supposed to help.”
Ardyn murmured a word of thanks and kept his eyes on the horizon and his back to Angelgard. The skies did not part, no gods came down to rend him asunder.
Hope took root in his heart.