In the end, it is Nifleheim that proposes its princess, setting her forward to cement relations between both countries, a guarantee of peace to augment the armistice finally signed between them both. There is no way around this, no maneuver that can be managed -- Noctis buys time, desperately searching for any way out of this, anything except marriage, but the world is never fair, and it swallows up sacrifices for its own sake. Sometimes there is no payoff, sometimes all you can do is bleed.
Noctis resists until it's impossible to delay any longer; he clings to Ignis to the very last moment, knowing how this hurts his lover too, how their love must always take a backseat to Lucis and its people, how sometimes the hits don't stop coming and a lesser man would crumble under the weight of it all.
The wedding happens, and Noctis puts up a front and accepts it as his duty. The bride is beautiful, warm and clever, but she is no Ignis, and he does not love her. She is enamored by the king, this much is clear, but the king loves only his royal adviser, now forever relegated to the shadows. Ignis tries to end it, time and time again -- and Noctis, mired in a marriage he has no say in, refuses. He remembers the conditions Ignis had set, how he could not bear to see Noctis with another, but is he truly with another when Ignis is all that he loves, that even now he is all that he sees?
It's grown more and more obvious as the days become weeks become months, the whispers that the king's heart does not lie with his queen but the adviser, and Octavia, gentle-hearted the way her grandfather wasn't, had borne these rumors with her head held high, her misery locked away in the royal chambers. Consummating the marriage had been a necessary evil, but Noctis had not initiated anymore after that even if he had always been civil and polite to her, just as gentle and ensured that she had everything she needed.
To her, she had seen very clearly where his heart lies, a truth that causes her no small amount of private grief. Kings have always had their own lovers, of course -- she is not naive enough to believe that love often comes out of political marriages, but she had hoped, of course. Hoped that perhaps one day it is her that Noctis orients himself to whenever she enters the room, that it is her he had his eye on when she stays.
Unfortunately for all three of them, neither can have what they want. Noctis wears Ignis' ring around his neck like it's the most precious thing in the world to him (and it is, in every way), and he breaks every rule in the damn book in his continued pursuit of Ignis, no matter how often the latter had told him how an affair like theirs ought to be ended, how there will be no happy ending. Noctis had laughed bitterly and kissed him, and told him that there are no such things -- that he ought to disabuse himself of the fact that there could be a scenario where happiness set itself within their reach.
His love for Ignis doesn't fade, but it becomes dangerous, a sharp-edged thing that hurts with no relief to be found. They try, of course, they try to move from each other in search of that elusive balm, but each and every time the curse of their bond renders such efforts moot.
It doesn't mean that Noctis doesn't hurt when he sees Ignis bringing someone back to the Citadel, to his own chambers. It doesn't mean the thought of sharing Ignis with other doesn't feel like a knife in his chest, keeping him up in his study as he broods, marking the exit for his paramour's inevitable departure.
When his paramour does, Noctis pushes open Ignis' door without so much as by-your-leave (it's his goddamn fucking citadel, he doesn't need permission), anger and jealousy bitten back with a ruthlessness Noctis had always hidden from most others. ]
V2 - Bad
In the end, it is Nifleheim that proposes its princess, setting her forward to cement relations between both countries, a guarantee of peace to augment the armistice finally signed between them both. There is no way around this, no maneuver that can be managed -- Noctis buys time, desperately searching for any way out of this, anything except marriage, but the world is never fair, and it swallows up sacrifices for its own sake. Sometimes there is no payoff, sometimes all you can do is bleed.
Noctis resists until it's impossible to delay any longer; he clings to Ignis to the very last moment, knowing how this hurts his lover too, how their love must always take a backseat to Lucis and its people, how sometimes the hits don't stop coming and a lesser man would crumble under the weight of it all.
The wedding happens, and Noctis puts up a front and accepts it as his duty. The bride is beautiful, warm and clever, but she is no Ignis, and he does not love her. She is enamored by the king, this much is clear, but the king loves only his royal adviser, now forever relegated to the shadows. Ignis tries to end it, time and time again -- and Noctis, mired in a marriage he has no say in, refuses. He remembers the conditions Ignis had set, how he could not bear to see Noctis with another, but is he truly with another when Ignis is all that he loves, that even now he is all that he sees?
It's grown more and more obvious as the days become weeks become months, the whispers that the king's heart does not lie with his queen but the adviser, and Octavia, gentle-hearted the way her grandfather wasn't, had borne these rumors with her head held high, her misery locked away in the royal chambers. Consummating the marriage had been a necessary evil, but Noctis had not initiated anymore after that even if he had always been civil and polite to her, just as gentle and ensured that she had everything she needed.
To her, she had seen very clearly where his heart lies, a truth that causes her no small amount of private grief. Kings have always had their own lovers, of course -- she is not naive enough to believe that love often comes out of political marriages, but she had hoped, of course. Hoped that perhaps one day it is her that Noctis orients himself to whenever she enters the room, that it is her he had his eye on when she stays.
Unfortunately for all three of them, neither can have what they want. Noctis wears Ignis' ring around his neck like it's the most precious thing in the world to him (and it is, in every way), and he breaks every rule in the damn book in his continued pursuit of Ignis, no matter how often the latter had told him how an affair like theirs ought to be ended, how there will be no happy ending. Noctis had laughed bitterly and kissed him, and told him that there are no such things -- that he ought to disabuse himself of the fact that there could be a scenario where happiness set itself within their reach.
His love for Ignis doesn't fade, but it becomes dangerous, a sharp-edged thing that hurts with no relief to be found. They try, of course, they try to move from each other in search of that elusive balm, but each and every time the curse of their bond renders such efforts moot.
It doesn't mean that Noctis doesn't hurt when he sees Ignis bringing someone back to the Citadel, to his own chambers. It doesn't mean the thought of sharing Ignis with other doesn't feel like a knife in his chest, keeping him up in his study as he broods, marking the exit for his paramour's inevitable departure.
When his paramour does, Noctis pushes open Ignis' door without so much as by-your-leave (it's his goddamn fucking citadel, he doesn't need permission), anger and jealousy bitten back with a ruthlessness Noctis had always hidden from most others. ]
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