#akingoftragedy

Cor Leonis had never been a child. He’d joined the Crownsguard at the age of thirteen and was promoted to the King’s bodyguard by the age of fifteen. He was a soldier and a damned good one. He had never really experienced failure and that had made him cocky. He charged headfirst into battle without thinking and it had finally backfired on him. He’d picked a fight and he’d lost. Badly. 

The Blademaster had seen something in him though. Despite being outmatched, Cor hadn’t given up until he was too beaten to stand and even then, he’d managed to take out one of his arms before the fight was over. The Blademaster had spared him making him the only warrior to face him and survive.

Noctis had always been quiet but after the Marilith attack he’d been more reserved than ever. It had been around six months since the attack. He’d visited Tenebrae to be healed by the Oracle. He’d befriended Lunafreya but then the Empire attacked – looking for them – and Luna had stayed behind with Ravus rather than escaping with them. Noctis didn’t need the wheelchair anymore, but his legs still got tired quickly. The nightmares were the worst though. Sometimes it was the Marilith and other times it was the man in armour. The man that killed Luna’s mom.

Tonight it had been the Marilith. It had been a bad one. So realistic but at the same time, different. Noctis didn’t remember much about that night. He supposed his consciousness blocked it out, but it slipped out in his dreams. In the dream, his dad never came. He woke up screaming just as the daemon bore down on him with its blades.

He did what any child would do and sought out the person he loved and trusted the most. His dad. His dad always made things better. Barefoot, he padded towards the man’s room. Some of the guards looked at him, asking him if he was okay, but nobody stopped him. When he reached the man’s bedside, he hesitated. He wasn’t a baby anymore. He was eight years old – practically a grownup! He was too old to be needing his dad to chase away the nightmares. Before he had chance to contemplate leaving any further, his dad woke up.

As the hand reached for his face to brush away the tears, more began to fall and Noctis leaned into the touch. He blinked when the lamp illuminated the room making his puffy red eyes more noticeable. He hugged his stuffed toy closer. Out of all the expensive gifts the boy had been given over the years, it was a simple stuffed toy he seemed to love the most.

● - || @akingoftragedy​​​ continued from HERE.

● - || Like father like son, it seemed he had learned a thing or two from his father’s many wise speeches. While the Prince never thought he had memorized enough details about them to make them relevant, when he said what he had it surprised even him. It sounded far wiser than he expected it to but that wasn’t a bad thing. If anything, it showed his growth and maturity over the years under his father. 

“I’d say you taught me more than just something.” Noctis mused lightly as his sky-blue eyes peered upward at his father.  “I think you’ve taught me more than anyone ever could.” Not a statement of sucking up but one out of honesty and heart. No one in this life or the next would teach him more than the man who was standing before him could. His father was full of endless wisdom that only continued to fill Noctis’ head with wonder. 

A scoff, when in truth the word did well to hit something he'd long buried and thought dead: the child he'd been when last he and His Majesty had seen one another. The boy who had cried out for help then died with his mother in the fires of Tenebrae, rising like a bitter phoenix from the ashes to become something more than he ever could have been beneath the trees of Tenebrae.

(And yet how Ravus loathed what he now was.)

His gaze cold, he regarded the Lucian monarch, distant and distrustful. May King Regis never know how his heart ached with those words that had come far, far too late to be of any true use to him.

"Your Majesty, perhaps you should instead give such words to your son," Ravus replied; oh he knew the prophecy. He knew full well what awaited Noctis and Lunafreya, the unfortunate and brainwashed children that they were.

Regis pulls away sharply, the look he gives Angelic concerned and stern. He was rather bold to just up and touch him the way he had done, unprompted and such an unwelcomed intimate way.

 “If you fancy keeping both hands, I’d refrain from doing such again.” He’d never call for someone to be mutilated for such actions, but he couldn’t say Clarus would afford them any mercy. 

----------------------------------------------------

And there it was. Letting his hands drop, Angelic moves his head about as if looking about the ground and sides, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes ever movement, to hear such words, the much smaller figure frowns and shrugs before adding a bow at the end. 

send ⛓️ to find my muse bloody, bruised and restrained

He was on his knees, bound in thick chains. Thick enough to keep even him contained. Bruises and patches of dried blood stood out on his skin. Fresh blood even, from his lip that kept reopening. He was on his knees, his arms bound behind his back, in a cell far beneath the Citadel.

He had been betrayed. How fitting was that. The traitor, betrayed. Of course, he didn't really think of himself as a traitor. Not to what mattered. It was the King who had betrayed them all, hiding behind his wall, caring only about his son and his city, while their homes and families were killed. Who promised to help them, but in the end, only sent them to their deaths while he sat in his palace, enjoying the peace of his city.

And he was the traitor.

He glanced over toward the sound of footsteps outside the door. Regis. His eyes narrowed.

My muse is blindfolded and listening.

So. This was it. Years of working for both sides, years of sacrifices and compromising himself.

"I see." He flexed his hand slightly. He felt the armor shift within him, responding to the threat of the moment, to his own adrenaline. It began to crawl over him. "That's unfortunate."