This is a dream, she thought. I’m almost certain of it.
The light grew. It reminded her of her beloved, as if his smile had turned to rays of warmth.
“Noctis!” she cried out.
“Luna!” she heard him reply, and then she saw the Noctis she had known as a child, when she was twelve and he was eight. She looked down at herself and realized that she, too, was again a child.
“So you came to see me once more,” she said.
“Yeah. Just like I said I would,” he replied.
There was that smile she loved, the one that had been in her heart all these years, giving her strength, always and forever.
“It was all our friends,” Noctis said. “They brought me to you.”
He announced it with a hint of pride. You are blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people, she began to say, when she realized that she, too, was blessed to have such good companions at her side.
“I . . . ” She hesitated. “I, too, made it here thanks to much help from others.”
A gust of wind snatched up some of the sylleblossoms, sending petals swirling about. Flower and light filled her vision, and she involuntarily shut her eyes against the glare. The wind stopped. Lunafreya opened her eyes.
Before her now stood the man. Oh, how she had longed to see him.
“My dearest Noctis . . . ”
There was a mountain of things she wanted to tell him. She knew the time they had would not suffice for even a small portion, but she could at least say the most important.
“As Oracle, I lived bound to my calling before all. But now my eyes are open. In the short time I shared with Sol, I finally learned to value the words in my heart. And that is why . . . ”
Noctis gave a nod, as if encouraging her to continue.
“That is why I was finally able to choose freedom, to dedicate my life to my own desires, rather than surrender it to calling or command. I was able to live for me.”
“Luna . . . ” His voice was soft and gentle.
Yes. This was Noctis’s voice. This was how he sounded now that he was grown. She’d never had a chance to hear it before, but strangely, she somehow knew it already. Why?
“This may be our true and final parting, so please, allow me to speak from my heart.”
It was strange that she should know his voice, but it did not matter. All she cared about was that he was here, before her eyes, and she’d been granted one last chance to tell him how she truly felt. It was all she could ask for.
“Noctis, would that I could live by your side.”
The sylleblossoms began to blur, and the petals in the wind seemed to melt and wash away. Lunafreya sank, headed for the ocean floor.
“Noctis!” she cried, thrusting one hand out.
It was the moment she had died in Altissia, replaying all over again.
“Luna!”
But unlike that day in Altissia, this time she could hear him. His voice reached her with perfect clarity.
“Then live!” he shouted. “Stay with me forever!”
Lunafreya’s eyes opened wide. She strained upward, reaching toward him with all her strength. She did not want to be pulled away from him. Not again. Not this time.
Her outstretched fingers swept through the water.
She felt them brush against something surprisingly warm.
Then live! Stay with me forever!
The sound of Noctis’s own shout stirred him awake. He’d been with Lunafreya in a sylleblossom field, and then it had been that terrible day in Altissia, with her body sinking beneath the waves, his hand stretched out toward her.
Noctis, would that I could live by your side.
Had he imagined those words? Was it another dream? This time, he thought for certain he’d managed to grab hold of her hand. He remembered the feeling of her soft skin and delicate wrists.
“Noct, are you all right?”
He opened his eyes. A concerned-looking Prompto sat on the ground next to him, peering into his face. Beyond Prompto’s shoulders, he saw Gladio and Ignis.
“I’m fine,” he said, head beginning to clear. “How about you guys? Holding up?”
His Shield was the one to answer. “Remember who you’re talking to. Who’s gonna stop the three of us?”
Noctis tried to lift himself upright. That was when he realized he was still holding Lunafreya securely in his arms.
“Luna?!” he exclaimed in surprise.
Her eyes were shut, and her face was deathly pale. Noctis pressed his fingers to her neck. Her pulse felt weak and somewhat erratic, but it was there. Lunafreya was unconscious but alive. She was alive.
Relief swept through Noctis’s body. He’d managed to make it after all. This time, he’d gotten her back.
“Are you able to stand?” Ignis asked.
“Yeah.”
He didn’t have time to be sitting around. He gently laid Lunafreya on the ground beside him, then hauled himself to his feet.
“Looks like you guys took a beating.”
All three of his retainers were badly bruised and scratched. On recovering consciousness, Noctis’s first thought had been of their safety. Gladio had brushed off his concern with his usual brazen air, but Noctis wasn’t fooled. Their battle with the avatars wouldn’t have been an easy one.
“Mind looking after Luna for a bit?” asked Noctis.
The battle wasn’t over yet. Bahamut had neither fallen into slumber nor depleted his strength. However, it occurred to Noctis that the conspicuous absence of the avatars in the sky suggested that Teraflare had drained the Draconian more than he was letting on.
It was Prompto who voiced the group’s concern.
“We’ll take care of her,” he began, but added, “You sure you’re gonna be all right on your own?”
Noctis needed to take the fight to the sky. To get up there, he’d have to warp. He would’ve preferred to take his companions along, but it wasn’t an option. They’d have to stay behind.
Noctis gave a decisive nod. “Yeah. I got this.”
He had a promise to Lunafreya to uphold. One he had made way back when they were kids, sitting beside each other in the manor at Tenebrae. Lunafreya had explained that only the True King, anointed by the Crystal, could purge the Star of its scourge.
She’d promised to help him see it through, and he’d responded, I won’t let you down.
When he’d said it, a glow of happiness touched Lunafreya’s cheeks.
Today, he’d see that promise kept, along with their new promise, to be together forevermore.
Noctis set his sights on the Bladekeeper, floating proudly in the sky high above.
“Irony. The one thing of which life is never in short supply,” Ardyn grumbled, as he climbed the steps to the Lucian throne.
He’d never had the honor of sitting the throne. In fact, it was the denial of it that had prompted him to walk the path of darkness, stained red with blood. As he awaited Noctis’s return from the Crystal, he’d established himself in Insomnia, making a point of lounging upon the throne as an affront to all, to emphasize that it was merely a chair like any other. That it was not his place to sit was the sum of its appeal.
But now he was ascending it in truth.
“And that the True King would allow it,” he mused. “Even after two thousand years, it seems life can still manage to provide a surprise or two.”
He settled down onto the seat.
“He cannot forgive and continues to hate. Yet he would see me find peace. My, how the wayward prince has grown.”
He recalled Noctis as he had appeared during their first encounter at Galdin. The young prince had been almost an entirely different person.
I can’t forgive you or let go of my hatred. But I want all the lives on this star to be saved, and you are one part of this world.
Those words had struck him deeply. Noctis was but a whelp, yet Ardyn, with two millennia at his disposal, had never been able to find it in his heart to offer Lucis quarter despite his hatred. Noctis’s magnanimity seemed only to emphasize Ardyn’s own shortcomings.
Still, he wasn’t headed to the throne now to anoint himself the hero. Not after all these years. He would use the ring, yes, but not for Noctis or for the world or for anyone else. This was an act taken to fulfill his own selfish ends.
“My revenge is finally at hand,” he muttered as he slipped the ring upon his finger.
“Kings of Lucis . . . come to me!”
He thrust his sword down at his feet. The Lucii appeared, weapons in hand, each in turn charging directly at Ardyn.
It was like a blue-white flame boring a hole straight through his chest. In the courtyard, he’d claimed to have lived through the worst agony the world had to offer, vainglorious of everything he’d endured. Not a moment of it compared to the pain he suffered now. Not even the false Aera with her false Trident conjured up by the Draconian had managed to impart such torment.
At each stab from the spectral monarchs, his consciousness very nearly left him. The kings had warned he might crumble to dust, and now Ardyn understood that it was no metaphorical threat.
Still, he had to endure. He could not faint yet.
“This . . . will not . . . stay me,” he said through gritted teeth.
He forced his eyes open against the pain. Above him only the Mystic remained, hovering still.
“Come at me, Somnus!”
And then, when the Blade of the Mystic pierced his heart, he heard a faint whisper.
“Farewell, Brother.”
The sky was still dark, and Noctis was not sure why. Wasn’t all the scourge supposed to have been drawn into Teraflare? Though the spell had been executed, darkness persisted.
Either the Draconian’s spell hadn’t been fully charged, or the pall cast over the Star was so thick that even the Bladekeeper’s attack could not consume it all.
As Noctis approached the Bladekeeper, the god’s voice resounded in the dark sky.
Still the mortal fool would persist in his defiance.
A wayward king seeks to turn god-gifted strength against the selfsame god.
Abandon such folly. What can one frail creature hope to do against the divine?
Noctis tightened his grip on his sword, undeterred by the Bladekeeper’s derision.
He shouted back, “I do not pretend my power is my own! But it is no gift of yours!”
In all likelihood, the ring itself had been fashioned by the Draconian. But the power gathered within was of the kings of Lucis. It was a power born of mortal life and death. The ancient monarchs each gathered this strength, honed it, and passed it on from one generation to the next.
Though not almighty gods, humans were by no means frail. Noctis recalled the many past foes over whom he thought he might never prevail. He had persevered, slowly amassing strength, until each foe that once intimidated him was easily surpassed.