[ffxv] kings and guardians, pt 1

[gigantomachy]

 So this thing is a hecka rough draft of a thought that happened while doing those ten-second fics!  Written for ninemoons42  over on tumblr -- there will likely be reworking, but I figured I'd put it somewhere that isn't tumblr and I don't think it's ao3 ready by any means.

This. This is the last piece, Nyx thinks, sitting up a little bit straighter as he watches the white-cloaked figure approach the throne, shedding rainwater with each echoing step. Between the fighting and the grieving and everything else that followed the grim shock reverberating across Galahd in the wake of Arra’s attempted coup, he’d … forgotten.  Entirely.

Nyx doesn’t need to look beneath the hood to know. He can feel it – has felt it all morning, the sourceless, inexplicable thrill of anticipation purling in his blood and gaining intensity by the hour – heedless of his exhaustion and the persistent ache of wounds just barely beginning to mend. Only now does he recognize the source; and recognize, too, how painfully unprepared he is.

Here kneels the manifestation of the promise of the gods to the kingdoms of Eos, a promise renewed without fail to each ascending monarch. The final proof – the mark of legitimacy in the eyes of the hexatheon, Nyx knows at least that much – but whatever grim satisfaction he might have tasted in the moment is eclipsed by loss. He does his best to shunt aside those thoughts, as he’s tried since his father’s crown was laid on his brow just four days ago; perhaps there will be time to grapple with the endless litany of doubt plaguing him, but not now. Not for a long time, probably.

Long fingers curl around the edges of the rain-soaked hood, drawing it back over stern, knife-sharp features and short-cropped hair, eyes like the sky after a winter storm and Nyx can see that this man is just as startled as he is, the hard, inscrutable cast of his expression undone by the awe in those eyes, the way his mouth parts as he breathes in an almost inaudible gasp. There are eyes on them; Nyx can feel them like an afterthought, the silence hanging over the various elders and guards so absolute that the rain beating against the skylights overhead feels almost deafening.

A promise, delivered.

It doesn’t matter whether or not Nyx is ready to receive it – only that he must.

He curses the fine tremble in his arm as he reaches out, slow and dreamlike. Sees the faint hint of a relieved smile flicker along the edges of those remarkable eyes as the man bows his head and steadies Nyx’s hand within his own, the rasp of calluses over the backs of his knuckles and then the scratch of wiry hair, the petal soft pressure of lips and breath against the center of his palm.

It –

It’s not grief that’s got Nyx blinking tears. He doesn’t know what it is, only that he’s filled with it – some aching sense of profundity that tears loose the air from his lungs and moves through him like tangible thing, slipping into the empty spaces his father’s betrayers had carved out of him and curling there for a few blessed moments of tranquility. Distantly, he feels his mouth move to make the shape of words. Aword. “Cor,” Nyx whispers into the silence between them. He has no idea how he knows, but he does.

A flicker of approval then, faint but present in the back of his mind – a response that he knows with absolute certainty is not his own.

Cor lifts his head in acknowledgement, and that feeling of peace ebbs some, leaving Nyx fighting the immediate urge to reach out with his unclaimed hand in an attempt to find it again. He doesn’t – but Cor does, his fingers curling around Nyx’s like he’s responding to that unspoken thought – and Nyx finds himself relaxing again. “My king,” Cor says, an island of calm in a raging storm, a harbor.

The king had expressly forbidden mention of the guardians long ago, and Nyx had never gotten the chance to ask anyone else who knew; all he had to guide him were scant childhood memories of a woman in shimmering white who stood at his father’s side, who sailed off with him one day and did not return. Truthfully, he’d been mostly convinced the whole concept was an outright lie, a clever fable from the elusive priesthood to keep the Eosian monarchies in line with their own chosen handlers. In Nyx’s daydreams, when he’d thought of what he’d do when his time came, he figured he’d be content enough to play along – at least until some great choice loomed before him and he’d show his previously underestimated mettle by siding with his people over some inscrutable priestly machinations.

But here, now … Godstouched, Nyx thinks, over and over again. Their chosen instrument. This absolute stranger that feels like an old friend, and the inclination to trust that feeling that can’t possibly be his, either. Nyx can’t stop staring, and it’s only when he feels his knees begin to protest that he realizes he’s no longer seated in the throne, but is instead kneeling down to mirror Cor, his hands still cradled in that sturdy grasp.

“What are you?” Nyx asks, and his voice sounds so small to his own ears.

Another little smile, as Cor lowers his head in some vague approximation of a bow. “What you need me to be.”