The Far Edge of Fate (Final Fantasy XV)

CHAPTER 37 - WORDS THAT NEVER REACHED YOU

chapter title comes from "Words That Never Reached You" from the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 OST.

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Noctis saw Aaralyn collapse and almost forgot how to breathe. He took off in a dead sprint across the throne room, heart beating in his throat and so terrified for her that he couldn't think straight.

"Aaralyn!" he screamed again.

Beside her downed body, the lump beside her began to rise, using a trident for support. It lifted its head and Noctis immediately recognized the stringy blonde hair at once.

"Luna-" he gasped and barely had time to move out of the way as his ex-fiancee swung her weapon at him. He stumbled away, torn between summoning a weapon to defend himself and being terrified of hurting her—hurting either of them.

Lunafreya was covered head-to-toe in dripping, festering Scourge. It pulsed over her hands and her cheeks, creating deep, black scabs on her skin. Her once blue eyes had turned an eerie golden, the sclera of one almost completely black. Her skin was so pallid that she looked sickly. She inexplicably seemed to be defending Aaralyn, hissing at Noctis like a warden protecting its charge.

"I'm afraid you're out of luck," Ardyn's voice came down from on high. Noctis's head snapped up to look at him, eyes narrowing into a glare. "You're just a touch too late."

Noctis didn't have to guess as to what happened to Lunafreya—the Scourge was too much for her to handle and had completely overtaken her. But Aaralyn, who was on the floor, looked virtually unharmed. Covered in grime, sure, but still as beautiful as the day he'd lost her.

He snapped his head up to glare at Ardyn again. "What did you do to her?!" he demanded.

"Well, to whom? You'll have to be more specific." Ardyn raised an eyebrow and it only made Noctis angrier. "Your former fiancee merely absorbed too much of the Scourge—more than she could handle. As for our lamb, well...I'd assume her mind is no longer her own."

As he spoke, Aaralyn slowly began to stir. Robotically, she pushed her arms beneath her and staggered back to her feet. Her arms hung limply at her sides and when she turned her head to look at him, her eyes were eerily empty. Like the life and the color had been sucked clean out.

"Aaralyn?" Noctis asked, carefully.

She stared at him and did not respond.

"'Lyn it's me," Noctis took a step forward and Lunafreya leveled her trident at him. He glanced at her, swallowing thickly. "It's Noctis." He took another experimental step forward and Lunafreya let out a guttural noise in warning. "Luna—please-"

Aaralyn took a robotic step towards him. He barely had a moment to react when Nyx's kukri flashed into her hand and she launched herself at him. Noctis summoned his blade to parry, barely able to block the strike. It took him a moment to realize that she'd gone for his chest. A chill ran up his spine—she'd not been coming to maim, she'd been coming to kill.

"Aaralyn," he begged, pushing against her and managing to force her to back off. She stumbled a little bit, her expression still empty. "It's me. You have to snap out of it!" He ducked out of the way of her next lunge, barely able to dodge as she pivoted hard on her heel and thrust her blade directly at his throat.

From behind him, Noctis could suddenly hear Lunafreya's approaching footsteps. He barely managed to dodge the trident that came to pierce him through the middle. Grabbing it by the handle, he twisted it hard in her grip to try and make her drop it. Lunafreya growled and tightened her grip on it and suddenly Noctis's world went entirely upside-down. He felt his back slam hard into the floor a split-second before he understood what had happened. Lunafreya had flipped him. With impossible strength, she'd lifted all one-hundred-and-forty-eight pounds of him, like he weighed little more than paper.