[ He wakes with a shudder, a gasp of air, pulling himself up into a sitting position unsteadily, disoriented. The hall is quiet, but when he focuses, he finds that he can hear something. Water dripping, maybe, a steady, slow pat, pat, pat sounding as if it's coming from somewhere above him. The presence in his mind is gone as if it were never there, but it leaves his mind in patchwork pieces. He knows who he is, his name, but can't remember anything but the last ten years in flickers.
It takes ages to get his legs under himself, to rise up and grope for his daggers, panting with the effort. Through all of it, the sound never stops, steady and unsettling for some reason. Everything is still dark, but after a few moments of steadying himself, something feels...different. There are windows in the massive room, floor to wall windows but it never mattered until this very moment, when he turns, the blackness in front of him shifting to a dull, dark gray and then bleeding brighter bit by bit. He staggers his way over to them and presses a hand there, holding his other hand in front of his eyes to test it, but there's nothing else it could be. It's the sun, filling the room slowly but steadily, brought back, warming the glass under his hand. It's so jarring he doesn't know what to do at first.
Ardyn's...gone. He can tell, somehow, whatever connection binding them together severed into ragged edges. Slowly, he makes his way to the massive stairs on either side of the throne they'd fought in front of and climbs toward the source of the dripping, groping a hand out. It meets cold metal first, sliding over and then hits what he realizes is a shoulder. It's too slender to be Ardyn and when his hand travels further into the center of his chest, he presses against cold metal again, realizing. It's not a shock to come to the conclusion that Ardyn had lied; without his presence in his mind, will overwhelming Ignis' own, the truth is laid bare. He'd nearly killed the true king, the chosen king, and it's that man in front of him right now. Delicately, he feels around the source of the injury, fingers slick with blood - the source of the dripping, he realizes. The armiger is still active; Ignis pulls a potion from it and crushes it, then another, another, until the dripping stops and only then does he curl his hand around the sword in Noctis' chest and heave. It takes two attempts, buried so deeply into the throne, but when it releases it's with a slick, wet noise and a scream of metal on metal before it drops, vanishing.
He can't see the damage, but he can certainly feel it. Noctis' chest is soaked with blood and his pulse is thready under the cool line of his throat. Operating on instinct, he pulls from the armiger again and crushes the remaining potions until he can press against Noctis' chest and feels scabbing rather than raw edges. It'll have to be enough.
It takes too long to get down the stairs and longer still to get down to the bottom floor of the Citadel while holding Noctis like so much dead weight, but he knows he's found them when he hears strangled shouts of Noctis' name, feels the rising sun on his face.
Prompto and Gladiolus want to bring him in too, but he gives them a choice: they can try to save their king or they can argue. It's not much of a choice at all, but they agree to it just as he knew they would.
In the new world that Noctis has brought about, Ignis drifts. His memories are still uneven, ragged tatters, surfacing mostly in dreams that he can't recall when he wakes up the next morning. He takes a job hunting since it's something he's good at, killing pests and saving money that way. A woman at the coffee shop he frequents tells him that the prince survived, somehow. That he's ascended the throne and things will finally get back to normal. Ignis smiles thinly and takes his coffee out the door, back to the tiny, sparse apartment he's been living in. There are notebooks scattered along the table there, filled with the bits and pieces he scrawls from what he remembers. He can't reread them, of course, but he needs to do something to get it out of his head and he isn't going to record it on his phone; that feels too strange. Life settles into an odd sort of rhythm, hunting, avoiding large crowds and people who may know him, keeping to himself. ]
2/2
It takes ages to get his legs under himself, to rise up and grope for his daggers, panting with the effort. Through all of it, the sound never stops, steady and unsettling for some reason. Everything is still dark, but after a few moments of steadying himself, something feels...different. There are windows in the massive room, floor to wall windows but it never mattered until this very moment, when he turns, the blackness in front of him shifting to a dull, dark gray and then bleeding brighter bit by bit. He staggers his way over to them and presses a hand there, holding his other hand in front of his eyes to test it, but there's nothing else it could be. It's the sun, filling the room slowly but steadily, brought back, warming the glass under his hand. It's so jarring he doesn't know what to do at first.
Ardyn's...gone. He can tell, somehow, whatever connection binding them together severed into ragged edges. Slowly, he makes his way to the massive stairs on either side of the throne they'd fought in front of and climbs toward the source of the dripping, groping a hand out. It meets cold metal first, sliding over and then hits what he realizes is a shoulder. It's too slender to be Ardyn and when his hand travels further into the center of his chest, he presses against cold metal again, realizing. It's not a shock to come to the conclusion that Ardyn had lied; without his presence in his mind, will overwhelming Ignis' own, the truth is laid bare. He'd nearly killed the true king, the chosen king, and it's that man in front of him right now. Delicately, he feels around the source of the injury, fingers slick with blood - the source of the dripping, he realizes. The armiger is still active; Ignis pulls a potion from it and crushes it, then another, another, until the dripping stops and only then does he curl his hand around the sword in Noctis' chest and heave. It takes two attempts, buried so deeply into the throne, but when it releases it's with a slick, wet noise and a scream of metal on metal before it drops, vanishing.
He can't see the damage, but he can certainly feel it. Noctis' chest is soaked with blood and his pulse is thready under the cool line of his throat. Operating on instinct, he pulls from the armiger again and crushes the remaining potions until he can press against Noctis' chest and feels scabbing rather than raw edges. It'll have to be enough.
It takes too long to get down the stairs and longer still to get down to the bottom floor of the Citadel while holding Noctis like so much dead weight, but he knows he's found them when he hears strangled shouts of Noctis' name, feels the rising sun on his face.
Prompto and Gladiolus want to bring him in too, but he gives them a choice: they can try to save their king or they can argue. It's not much of a choice at all, but they agree to it just as he knew they would.
In the new world that Noctis has brought about, Ignis drifts. His memories are still uneven, ragged tatters, surfacing mostly in dreams that he can't recall when he wakes up the next morning. He takes a job hunting since it's something he's good at, killing pests and saving money that way. A woman at the coffee shop he frequents tells him that the prince survived, somehow. That he's ascended the throne and things will finally get back to normal. Ignis smiles thinly and takes his coffee out the door, back to the tiny, sparse apartment he's been living in. There are notebooks scattered along the table there, filled with the bits and pieces he scrawls from what he remembers. He can't reread them, of course, but he needs to do something to get it out of his head and he isn't going to record it on his phone; that feels too strange. Life settles into an odd sort of rhythm, hunting, avoiding large crowds and people who may know him, keeping to himself. ]