The Far Edge of Fate (Final Fantasy XV)

CHAPTER 35 - HOMECOMING

The Crystal's will was bottomless; an unfathomable pit of memory and information and power. Bahamut had told Noctis as much as he'd entered and, at the time, he hadn't understood. To the Crystal, all possibility is memory, and all memory etched within, wasn't exactly clear advice, after all, but when he began witnessing memories of Eos—events long before his birth and how long this prophecy had been in motion for, how long Fate had been laboring to rid the world of the Starscourge, he understood.

He saw Ardyn's fall from grace, the lies Somnus spit to paint him a monster. He saw Somnus murder Aera—Ardyn's beloved fiancee—and related to the grief that he stewed in for two thousand years. He saw Ardyn lay waste to Insomnia, and his father rise up to stop him. He watched Bahamut intervene and Ardyn choosing to defy the will of the stars—to defy Fate—unaware that he was a Fatewalker already.

He saw the grief his father carried when Noctis was proclaimed to be the King meant to die to banish the darkness. He saw the way his father turned the other cheek to the criticisms lobbed his way when he enrolled Noctis in a regular public school, and again when he allowed him to move out on his own. He saw how his father strove to give him a normal childhood, to enjoy life while he could before Fate commanded it away from him.

He saw how Lunafreya forged every Covenant, how it tore away at her very essence until there was hardly anything left. He saw how it wouldn't have mattered much, even if Ardyn hadn't killed her. There wouldn't be much left to save. He felt immeasurably guilty—he indirectly was responsible for her death. So sheltered by his upbringing, he was oblivious to the suffering of the people closest to him.

He watched the world flourish. He saw hundreds of Lucian kings before him ascend and abdicate the throne. He watched Niflheim, Accordo, and Tenebrae all grow into the countries he knew in the present day. He watched Ardyn's release from Angelgard Island, how Versael Besithia was manipulated by him, and, in turn, the Emperor himself was lured in by a promise of Immortality granted to the Crystal. He watched how Darkness came to engulf the world, brought about by an immortal man hellbent on the destruction of the world and his family line along with it.

Then, when he thought his head may burst from an overflow of information and grief, he saw her. She was younger—younger than he'd ever seen her—but he'd recognize her anywhere. It was Aaralyn.

He saw the night Galahd was invaded and the very moment she was turned into a Fatewalker. He watched her struggle to fit in when she moved to Insomnia, and the saving grace Cassielle had been for her. He watched her grow up with the Glaives, how they all doted on her like a collective group of older siblings. He watched them die, the emotional turmoil that had torn her apart afterward. For the first time, he realized the depths of her affection for him, and how he meant so much to her that if he really had married Lunafreya, she'd been willing to bury everything that wasn't remotely platonic so long as it meant he could stay in her life.

He watched her struggle through the revelations of her powers, how she hated what they did to the people around her, and yet remained grateful that it allowed them to live. He got to watch their whirlwind of a romance in real time all over again, from their first kiss to his awkward confession outside of the Leville in Altissia.

'Lyn, he thought, looking at her. His heart ached. He knew what was expected of him as the King of Prophecy. To bring the light back would not be an easy task in the slightest, and the price for commanding such monumental magic would be his life.

It wasn't fair.

He wanted more out of his life. He didn't want to die young, he'd wanted to ascend the throne, to make his father proud of him. He'd wanted to marry Aaralyn, start a family with her, and spend his life with her until they were old and gray and he was still telling her she was beautiful with wrinkles on her skin and her hair turning silver.