#kittfox

They smiled at him, the light of freedom between them both sobeautiful and bright it could have made him cry. But there were no tears indeath, he was starting to understand. If the dead took their tears with them,it would rain every day on Eos, and there would be none left for the living toshed.

Maybe it was that thought which helped him hear the voice in thedistance. At first, he hardly heard a thing, just mistook it for a whistle ofthe wind through the flower petals. Like a thought that was forgotten, but juston the verge of becoming remembered, it nudged at the back of his mind. Itslowly grew into a faint, confusing whisper.

“It’s not going towork…”

He turned to look across the fields, searching the ivory horizonfor a face to match the voice, but it was as bare as unwritten paper. For amoment, he imagined that it could have been a remnant of his own voice. Thethread of mortal doubt that strung itself around him as he’d approached thethrone of Lucis.

“Get out of my way!”

No, it wasn’t his own voice… although he knew this one as if itwere. The sound of it, so far away and desperate to be closer, tugged insidehim, made him tilt a little towards it.

“Noctis?”

“You don’t hear them?”

He looked back at Regis and Luna, curiosity plain on their faces.They shared a brief glance before looking back at Noctis. Regis’s smile sobered,a mixture of relief and remorse swirling in his eyes.

“They’ve accomplished what I could not, it would seem,” he said,peering out at the field as if he could find them, too.

A new light, red-gold and familiar, began to illuminate aboveNoctis’s skin. He couldn’t quite place where he recognized it from, but it madethe distant voices draw even closer, until it felt like they were yelling rightnext to his ears.

“He’s gone, man! Wedon’t want it to be true either, but…”

“Fuck that! I’m notaccepting that! They can’t have you, do you hear me?”

The flowers began to shiver, bending against a strong gust of windthat suddenly sailed across the field. Strange silhouettes appeared in thedistance. Like outlines of objects sketched on an artist’s canvas, slowly fillingin beneath a brush he couldn’t see. When he turned back to the others, he foundthe opposite effect afflicted them. Color was beginning to drain from the twoof them, turning them into transparent lines the more the rest of the world wasfilled in. Yet, neither of them seemed concerned by it, both of them continuingto smile at him.

“I’m grateful that I could finally say goodbye the way you deservedto hear it, my son,” Regis said. “And as much as I miss you, I’m grateful thatthere is still so much more life left for you to live.”

“Can’t you have it, too?” Noctis asked as the golden light grewstronger.

“It’s far too late for us, I’m afraid,” Luna said, her hand movingas if she wanted to reach out and touch him before she held it back. “I don’tenvy you this second chance. I’m only proud that you’re so loved as to begranted it. Please, live the life you deserve. And please… pass on my eternalgratitude to Nyx. For all that he did for us. And for being there to love youwhen I couldn’t.”

His heart pinched in his chest, wishing that he could bring herwith him so that she could tell Nyx herself. Why did it have to be too late forthem if it wasn’t for him? They smiled at him again, hearing what he didn’tsay, and the contentment in their faces soothed the pain in his chest.

“I love you,” Noctis said, before he lost his chance to say it everagain. “And thank you.”

The light engulfed him then, erasing the phantom lines in a burstof white and gold and red. He couldn’t feel time passing as he lay suspended inthe light. He couldn’t tell if an eternity passed or just a single momentbefore the rest of the world’s colors were filled in, and the voices began totake form.

Faces winking into existence all around him. Voices ringing againstthe walls of a room both like home and not. Friends that had never beenstrangers, even in all the time that had passed where they could have been lostto him. And a lover, wrought with passion and spite, half-mad with the threatof loss posed before him.

His eyes shone like glass, sharp enough to kill, but ready to breakat the slightest fault. Red around the edges, but dry of any tears to shed.Grief made him angry before it ever made him sad. It made him spit unfaircurses at the friends that were already struggling with tears of their own. Ittook a tired reprimand from his king to pull him back into line.

“You think after ten years you might have learned to play well withothers.”

All four of them stiffened before snapping their eyes to him, thecolors and hues like well-worn paths Noctis had walked along all his life. The lastcrimson sparks of a tuft of phoenix down simmered from Nyx’s hand to sink deepinside of Noctis, warming through his very soul and binding it back to hisbody. Nyx bit down on a sound that Noctis had never heard him make. Somethingcaught between a sob and a cheer that summoned the shimmer of tears he didn’tthink he had left to the corners of his eyes.

“You stupid, selfless son of a bitch,” Nyx cursed before heavingNoctis into his arms.

The motion made Prompto, Ignis, and Gladio all jump forward too,piling onto the throne around Noctis and fighting to pull them all into eachother’s arms. It was messy and painful, wet with tears and loud with laughter.

“You’re insane, Nyx!” Prompto said from where his face was buriedinto Noctis’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry I called you an asshole, idiot,” Gladio apologized in ashuddering voice from somewhere above Noctis’s head.

Ignis didn’t say anything, curled around Noctis’s waist and tryingto contain a slight tremble that racked through him, unable to maintain any composurebeyond it.

Noctis managed to wiggle his face free enough to find Nyx’s,smiling at the glimmer of tears that he was stubbornly trying to keep off hischeeks. “My hero,” he said, reaching around the bodies clutched around him totouch the tears at the corner of his eye.

That was enough to make them fall, dropping onto Noctis’s fingerslike morning dew. Nyx shook his head and hid his face in Noctis’s hair. “And you’remine.”