Noctis

With the knowledge that it's finally, finally over, Noct lets himself fall. His eyes close, the echoes of searing pain fade - and then, there's nothing. The change is so abrupt that it might have been startling if he had still possessed the presence of mind to be startled. Instead, he drifts, surrounded by silence and darkness. It's peaceful, and after so long spent fighting, it's tempting to give in, to stay here.

Then, there's a hand on his shoulder, and he does jolt, abruptly aware of his body for the first time in what could have been moments or could have been centuries. He opens his eyes - and finds his father standing before him. Unlike that last day so long ago, and unlike the vision in the throne room, he looks whole and healthy, like Noct remembers from his childhood, and he feels his eyes burn. "Dad," he tries to say, but his throat is tight with emotion, and the sound dies before he makes it.

Regis seems to hear it anyway. "My son," he returns, voice warm and proud.

"Thank you," he blurts, because he needs to say it, because he should have said it so many times, because he's needed to say it for years, now, and something is telling him he doesn't have long here. "I should have..." he begins, and Regis shushes him gently.

His hand tightens again on Noct's shoulder, and he shifts into the touch. "You did everything I asked of you. You did everything you needed to do. I couldn't be more proud of you." As he speaks, his voice grows fainter, the feel of his hand on Noctis's shoulder losing solidity, and Noct can feel something trying to pull him away.

"No, wait!" he cries, reaching for his father's arm, and Regis lets go of him entirely.

"It's time for you to go," he finishes with a smile, just as he disappears- and Noctis is again plunged into darkness.

Again, he drifts, and again, he doesn't know how long it is before the darkness recedes and he begins to dream. He does know he's dreaming, though, and he lets himself be tossed between images of his father, of Luna, of Prompto and Gladio and Ignis, lets the warmth of family and memory wash over him like the sea at the quay.

The heat builds, and above him, the sky darkens. The first drops of rain hit his face seconds before a wave crashes down on his head, plunging him, breathless, under the water. He struggles to right himself, to swim to the surface, but he is caught in a current that drags his feet from under him, spins him around, disorients him - and the world explodes. Fire surrounds him, now, blades and claws slashing at him as he grabs for weapons that won't answer his call, as huge metal beasts fall from the sky, crushing everything in their path.

Something rushes past him, faster than sight, and he sees a blade plunged through Gladio's chest. Bullets whiz past him, and Prompto is dragged from his reach by grasping metal hands. Explosions dazzle his vision, and Ignis disappears in a wall of flame. Electricity surges through him, and he screams as he fights to take a step, as he fights to get to his brothers - and his feet sink into the floor, tendrils of black ooze climbing his legs as he thrashes, as the muck pulls him deeper into a darkness no longer peaceful, a darkness that clings and tears, and he reaches, desperate.

There's a series of voices, urgently worried, and a hand much larger than his catches his wrist, a deep growl telling him to hold on, dammit, and Noctis follows the command and pulls, and lets himself be pulled. Other, slimmer hands help pull him the rest of the way onto solid ground as a flash of gold moves at the corner of his eye and light blooms overhead, driving back the monsters and darkness alike, and he --

He opens his eyes to see Luna at his bedside. She looks older, and he feels it, but around them is his childhood room in Tenebrae, where he recovered after the daemon attacked, toys and books scattered around the bed. "Luna," he breathes, voice again choked with emotion, and she smiles, reaching out to him, to brush sweat-soaked hair off his face, and he turns toward her coolness like a man fresh from the desert.

"I'm here, Noctis," she assures him, and the coolness spreads through him as she runs her fingers through his hair. He shivers in the wake of her touch, reaching up to catch her hand where it lingers on his cheek.

There's a worried pinch between her eyes, and he frowns at the sight of it. "What's wrong?"

She still looks worried, but another more complicated emotion lies behind it, now. "Nothing." She bends down, kissing his forehead, and he lets his eyes slip closed. "Rest."

He does, and his dreams are simple and calm, a tent behind him, the sea stretching out in front of him, light reflecting from the lighthouse in the distance.

When he opens his eyes again, the carbuncle is sitting at the foot of the throne, and Noct reaches immediately for his phone when the fox chirps a greeting.

"It's time to go," Sabian tells him, and Noct sits up and then stands, all traces of lingering pain gone.

He follows Sabian down the stairs from the throne, through the hall - and into a clearing. When he looks back, the doors of a royal tomb are closing behind him. "Where are we going?" he thinks to ask, because he's suddenly not sure he isn't dead.

"It's time for you to wake up, your Majesty," Sabian tells him through the phone, and that poses as many questions as it answers, but Noctis nods, trusting the messenger.

Sabian seems satisfied, too, and leads him on, through the wood where Ramuh moves through the trees, past a river where Leviathan soars overhead, around a bend where the Titan looms in the distance, to another lake, half frozen, pale figures dancing over its surface, and finally to a fathomless hole that Noctis follows Sabian into without hesitation.

At the edge of Lestallum, his chocobo waits, and he mounts up. The land stretches out before him, but it's too quiet, and he misses the others at his side. Sabian leaps onto the saddle in front of him, and he looks down at him. "What about...?" he begins, and his phone chimes before he can finish the question.

"Safe and waiting for you," the text says, and Sabian tilts his head, ears twitching faintly before he turns his back to Noct. "Let's go."

The chocobo seems to know where it's going, and Noctis just holds on as they race across the open fields. On the reins, he sees scars on his hands fade - and around him, the scars of destruction disappear. Rust falls from signs and structures; whole, unbroken glass shines in well-lit shop windows, and all around him, the land recovers from the damage done to it over ten long years of darkness.

Finally, the chocobo comes to a stop at Hammerhead. It's empty of other people - but also is it empty of its fortifications, returned to its previous position as the first major stop after the gates of Insomnia.

Sabian jumps down, heading for the diner, and Noctis follows - and finds himself in Insomnia, as it was before the devastation that followed the signing ceremony. He doesn't need the carbuncle's prompting this time to head for the castle and then for the garage - and he knows before he slides into the Regalia's backseat what's about to happen, so it's no surprise when --

He wakes up to the sound of a sputtering engine and groan from beside him.