#dawnfrayed

Noctis can’t sleep, which is what brought him out here to the training arena at this time of night. It’s good to know he’s not the only insomniac (hah); the Glaive he sees practicing with kukris is familiar enough, if only because he’s one of the most-known of the entire Kingsglaive. Nyx Ulric. Noct considers it as he runs through a few drills with his Engine Blade. He should make conversation.... Try and connect, since they’re both down here in the liminal hours between late and early. It feels rare and somehow special; the kind of bond you can only forge in the grey hours before the sun has risen. Something rare and kind of precious, a thing that should be acknowledged- the two of them, too restless to rest. 

@dawnfrayed

Their headquarters-slash-secret-base-slash-clubhouse had turned into something resembling more of an eclectic combination of a grade school classroom and a war bunker. Which was all the same because it no longer really was their headquarters anymore.

A hodgepodge of construction paper and crayon art covered every inch of the four walls, many of which overlapped each other several times over in layers of clumsy drawings and clumsier messages. Libertus' dedication to teaching their charge new words might have fallen short, but she had seized upon learning to write with emphatic interest. Many of the signs contained only her name as if actively claiming the home as her own through each awkward scribble of Crowe, Crowe, Crowe.

Crowe. She had started to write it with that 'e' on the end after Libertus had so prudently informed her that the extra letter was only there to make words prettier. There had been a point when he'd looked intent on correcting her spelling, but that happened to time in at just the same moment that Crowe had broken a crayon with a particularly vicious glare aimed solely at him. Libertus had decided the 'e' was just fine.

Crowe, as she was now known, still did little talking apart from their names, her yeses and her nos, and the occasional echo that parroted the boys' words back to them. She still yelled a lot. She still glared a lot. But they had grown accustomed to her acerbic behavior and often fights were just part of the games they played (which always seemed to have a lot to do with wrestling or chasing).

The game tonight was no different. They lounged on the floor, sharing Crowe's makeshift bed of moth-savaged blankets and old clothes as they slapped cards down on a pile and drank from a canteen of juice. It was a simple game of liars and math and one that gave each of them the excuse to shout and slap each other-- which Crowe had discovered was a favorite pastime for boys in general.

"Horseshit!" Libertus cried, triumphantly smacking his hand down over Nyx's as he laid down a card. "You ain't got an ace, we already played all the aces! Crowe, back me up, he's lying."

"Lying," she chimed obligingly with a somber nod of her head before also slapping her hand down over theirs.

the farthest shore, pt. 2. || @dawnfrayed

Noct surveys the damage from the balcony of the airship. In about a year after daylight returned to the southern lands, this is only now that the Lucian army - or remnants of it - venture into former imperial borders. Not that the sight before they reached Gralea had been cheerful enough. Entire towns reduced into their skeleton shelves, no citizen in sight. The Long Dark had gathered thickest and fast in the former empire, and there the first damage had been inflicted before it had spilled out of the borders.

And now, of course, the former capital. The great sky fortresses the renowned Nif engineers built have fallen and crushed buildings, streets. The bones of a sick animal, left out to rot under the sun. There have been reports of stragglers, small pockets of survivors in the outlying towns and provinces, and relief will get to them at the soonest possible time. These days, he makes no move to distinguish citizens of Niflheim, Tenebrae or Lucis. Everyone is a survivor, and everyone needs help.

He hears Nyx Ulric’s words of course, though the King does not turn to him. “Their luck ran out the moment Aldercapt put Verstael in power and approved that ill-advised acquisition trip for the Adagium,” he answers. Noct absently trails his right index finger on the smooth metal of the balcony’s railing. 

PLOT SHIT WITH ME

how do i like this more than once

She catches him gently by the wrist, tugging him forward a little.

YOU DID IT