no masters or kings when the ritual begins;

[trash_uncle]

'I've never been called 'Your Majesty' before; Would you do me the honor?'

He hadn't expected the man to agree: but then again, everyone had their breaking point. He knew that better than most.

"This world means nothing to me--"

The ring had been held out then and what a small, tempting thing it was, the small gem being the focal point of the tableau painted before him. A man whose love and loyalty to a single person had eclipsed his care for the rest of the world. Pride cracking and breaking, choosing to prioritize a man's life over that of the world and its future, offering out the object needed for the Chosen King's ascension to their enemy. Shakily dipping to a knee, lips pressing together in a tight line, as though struggling, before whispering out:

"Your Majesty."

Choosing one life over the entire world.

It wasn't expected. But in a way, Ardyn preferred that. Surprises were few and far between, this far into his life.

He'd planned on leaving the young retainer bloodied and dying: a physical motive for the prince to ascend, rather than continue prolonging this game. (Emerge from the crystal and be struck down, thwarting the gods' prophecies, or finally be killed and earn oblivion himself. Either option, he was looking forward to.) But now-- now there was another possibility.

As the battered man kneels, ring held out as an offering of loyalty, Ardyn takes a careful step forward, rolling the words over in his mind. 'Your Majesty-' It struck him somewhere in the chest, thrumming like a string had been plucked, reverberating out and into his limbs, his fingertips. A numb, tingling feeling of sheer pleasure at the unexpected acquiescence. He could still kill the man. Still let Noctis ascend. Or--

(take it for yourself. rule as you were always meant to, as the gods denied you. take the ring, the crystal-- take the man. take what the so-called chosen had, make it your own.)

The thoughts echo harshly in his mind- his own, or those of the scourge and darkness manifest within himself, he's never known or cared. The result is the same- nodding along as though to suggestions only he can hear as he carefully reaches out to pluck the ring from Ignis's offering hand. "And I suppose you'd be my first sworn subject, then." With little fanfare, he slips the ring onto one of his own fingers- a small flash of light attempts to gleam from the gem held between the small ornate setting, but it dies quickly enough, coated with a light film of a dark, sludge-like secretion.

Ardyn's lips quirk up, head tilted slightly. This would be an even better offense to the gods and the Kings of Lucis still trapped within the realm of the crystal and the ring.

He holds his hand out towards where Ignis kneels, as though prompting a formal kiss to the gem set on his finger. "Swear it, and your little princeling will go unharmed. You'll have my royal oath." Again, there's that thrum of excitement, of pleasure-- one he'd hardly felt in centuries.

Oh, yes. He could quickly get used to this.

Comments

[handsprings]

He's never said the words aloud, though the ghost of that train of thought has followed him for longer than he cares to admit to; the boy now a man that has molded himself to other's expectations, based his own self-worth on the success of someone so much more important than himself is now faced with the ugly truth of his own purpose, and that is without Noctis … he doesn't have one. Without Noctis, he is little more than a child displaced from a home he's no longer sure he can properly remember, and without Noctis the world beyond the tips of his fingers holds very little interest. Very little purpose of its own without the one thing he'd been placed to watch over and care for.

( Ask any variant version of his past self if he would have ever thought to find himself in this sort of position, so willing to give up the one thing that stands between them and the purging of the Scourge and he might have laughed, might have dismissed the thought entirely. As if he would have betrayed his friends for the sake of one life above all others — ah, but there's the thing.

It doesn't feel like betrayal when it's him. )

Still, there is something in him that aches as he kneels before the king that time has forgotten, the one left behind; his eyes are trained on the ground beneath his knees, head bowed in a way that doesn't allow him to see the outward stretch of the other's hand, at least not immediately, and it takes him a moment longer to lift his gaze just enough to see the way the ring sits between joints. A light already dimmed by the Scourge, and the pit of his stomach seems to bottom out entirely, leave him hollow in a way that he's sure no one has ever felt before now.
And yet —

"I swear," comes the roughened murmur of his voice before his tired-broken-numb brain can catch up with the movement of his mouth, lips little more than a thinned, sharp line that barely allows for words at all, let alone the sort of thing that he's sure will condemn him to the darkest part of the coldest hell. "Leave him, and I —"

He ignores the hand in front of him, gaze trained again on some neutral bit of ground beneath him, brows drawn. "And I am yours."

For him, he amends, and only to himself. Even if he must live in darkness. He will live.

[trash_uncle]

"I'll do even better for you," The words are a careful purr, his fingertips (so cold, practically like a corpse-- had they always been?) carefully moving to stroke the young man's angular jaw in response to his pledge. Those golden eyes rove over him, as though fully taking in everything for the first time. of course he'd made note of the man before- the Prince's most faithful retainer, the strategist, the mother hen of their little group. The one Noctis had turned to for answers nearly every time he'd run into them. The one apparently willing to damn the world for the life of his charge.

His hand moves to rest softly at exposed throat, thumb rubbing a prominent cheekbone, and he continues speaking. "I'll leave him. And I'll keep this offering of yours and the crystal. And your beloved Noct will never ascend. Never be king."

Lips split apart, baring his teeth- and perhaps it's surprising how human they are, for how devlish his smile is. For the darker gray of the sclera of his eyes, for the faint drip of black from a nostril. "And with that, he'll never be the gods sacrifice. Never have to kill himself on the throne for the sake of a world he owes nothing."

Some pressure to Ignis's jaw, and he forces him to look up. "And you, my pretty little hawk. You'll be right with me. A King needs loyal subjects such as yourself more than some would-be prince who failed in his prophecy and faded into peaceful anonymity.

Can you do that for me?"

[handsprings]

Here — here is the clincher, without pretense or pretext, the very bottom line of the whole thing; Ignis would, without a shred of hesitation not only damn the world but tear it down for the sake of the life he's attempting to save here, with every beat of his heart and every fiber of his being, and of course it's been mentioned elsewhere already but the mantra that plays over and over in his head, the song of how do I save him how do I protect him how do I keep him whole will not stop until he takes his last breath, and even then? It's sure to follow him even in death.

( And what would he say then, to the king he'd promised such a thing to? I'm afraid I must ask forgiveness — would not be good enough in the face of the man that had treated him as his own son, accepted him and trusted him with his own flesh and blood. )

Ignis is still, so still that for a moment it seems like he's stopped breathing along with everything else, but there are fingers against the exposed column of his throat, the brush over his cheekbone clammy and just sort of. He's not sure there is a word for what it is that leaves him feeling like there are a billion invisible things crawling over him all at once, and he doesn't mean to shiver but he does, minute as it is. When he looks up, he can only focus on the drip of black that slowly outlines the topmost crease of Ardyn's top lip, a disease with no better word for it, and even with his best ( oh, no, no ) intentions in the palm of his hand, he may as well already be infected.

Little hawk. And here he is, with clipped wings. "Yes," he grates out, even as everything in him shrieks out no in some vain hope that Noctis might be able to hear him, to understand, to forgive. "My fealty is sworn to you."

I am sorry, I am sorry. His heart beats, and it aches.

[trash_uncle]

"Well, then!" Perking up, Ardyn brings his hands together sharply. It's a single, mirthful clap, the sharp sound of it reverberating off the walls of the ruined, crumbled chamber around them, echoing back in intervals into a sick facsimile of applause. His lips spread across the jaw full of stubble, the dark sludge fading just as quickly as it came, along with the danger of his mood. "I suppose this calls for a celebration of sorts. I don't know about you, but this has been quite the productive day for me."

Murder the Oracle. See a large number of the Niflheim fleet destroyed in the aftermath. Drag Noctis's trusted retainer from him. Obtain the ring of the Lucii itself, and the possibility of keeping it.

(a part of him wonders if he shouldn't kill the boy outright anyway. It's not as though the crystal will ever accept or acknowledge him, ring or no. And with Adelcapt raving and incapable, Ravus potentially traitorous-- well. If he truly wanted to rule the world, it would be right at his fingertips even without this trinket.

But the gods don't want him to have it. Noctis will suffer internally at his friends choice. And that....

That is something he wants, too.

He can always kill him later.)

His fingers continue stroking gently, warmth bleeding back into his fingertips as he's lost in his own thoughts for a moment, all the aforementioned considerations. Finally, he speaks- half-absently, as though still thinking ahead. "I don't recall what a true coronation entails, admittedly. I never did attend my dear younger brother's. But I'm certain you and I can think of something suitable." he finally pats the cheek he had been caressing his fingertips over, allowing himself to pull back the slightest bit and smirk down at where Ignis still kneels.

"But I must say. That's a good posture for you. Plenty of practice, I take it."

[handsprings]

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he feels something in him sink; something that had once been so steadfastly anchored at his core, the center of everything, now jostled and loosened to the point of hanging by little more than a fraying thread. The faith he'd had in himself to protect his prince, his king faltered despite doing this for him, and him alone, sealing the fate of countless lives just for the sake of one. The sharp clap of hands almost startles him out of the pit he's nearly tumbled into, and he forces a dry swallow that works his throat in a way that physically hurts, strain and stress and everything else bearing down on him almost to the point of pushing past where he should have already broken.

( But he has, hasn't he? Split and fractured and cracked from the weight of everything that has led him to the here-and-now, folded like a single sheet of newsprint in the rain, dissolving just as easily? )

The ground beneath his knees is hard, unforgiving in the sense that it leaves him with no manner of sinking lower than he already has; there's nowhere left for him to run, even if it stands to question if he really understands the definition of such a thing in the first place — he's never turned his back on anything before, facing everything that comes to him in stages, varying degrees of logic taking over and making him the tactician he'd once thought himself to be — but there are so few options here, none of which see the end of any preferable outcome, and when he raises his voice again it's just a little bit too coarse, like his throat has been passed over with the coarsest grain of sandpaper. Left raw and bleeding.

"The coronation does not make the king himself … Majesty." Gods, but he hates it, that word on his tongue and leaving the taste of death and betrayal like a film of filth. "If you prefer I remain like this —" He can't finish that sentence, not with the way his stomach tightens, clenches and freezes up even while the rest of his body wants little more than to curl in on itself, draw up and away from the touch to his cheek that leaves him feeling.

Corrupted.

[trash_uncle]

"Does it not?" There's a faux-questioning lilt to his voice at that- as though he already knows the answer, and just wants to wrench words out of the man captive and submitting before him. "Then, my dear little hawk: What would you say does?"

With a flourish, he's crouching on the balls of his feet, one hand clasping at ignis's chin dangerously to hold it up and keep eyes contact: his own sharp, golden stare matching with the verdent green offered. He's leaned forward slightly, and the layers of his clothing- scarf, jacket, vest, everything- practically mold his silhouette, give him the appearance of a raven trying to choose whether to peck out one eye over the other.

"Is it that Gods' acknowledgement?" His words are icy, grip growing firmer for a moment, before relaxing. "Or simply a possession of the right objects? Or is it the loyalty displayed by subjects?" His head tilts, voice growing a bit more careful- something of a razor's edge in sound alone, barely held back. "Aldercapt certainly believed he could become King... and I believe before he had that unfortunate incident at the treaty signing, so did our dear High Commander."

He brings his opposite hand up, using his knuckles to stroke down Ignis's chin- and being sure to dig in with the one bearing the ring. "This trinket in particular seems to be what most of them fixate on."

Finally, he lets go, standing back up again and staring at where the man kneels, as though considering. "Now, now. Finish your sentences. Because I certainly do prefer it."

[handsprings]

He isn't sure — at all — where he'd been going with his previous train of thought, foresight allowing only for a few seconds here and there before his brain catches up to him and screams that he cease this at once, keep his mouth closed; with the other man so close to him, looming above and around him he swears he could count every individual hair follicle that shadows the line of his jaw, every pore from the line of his brow to the bridge of his nose and more still, damn near see his own reflection in those bright, yellow eyes.

If there were ever such a thing as personal space, Ardyn Izunia has never possessed knowledge of it, or perhaps he simply delights in invading others' so far beyond an acceptable level of discomfort that the boundary line has all but been obliterated. A fifty-fifty chance on either, though he would put every gil to his name on the latter if pressed.

The fingers that grip the very edge of his chin may as well be talons with the force put behind them, the way they feel as though they could pierce pale, beauty-marked skin with the smallest effort, the slightest shift of pressure from one finger to the other and back again. His attempts at maintaining his own stability without lending any of it to the man that now holds him captive are becoming … a bit futile, fruitless in a sense that he knows he will not win this, no matter how he chooses to look at it. The usurper was won on a technicality, and by his own submission has sealed his own fate, even if it keeps Noctis from his, and keeps him safe.

I am sorry, his consciousness calls out again to the surrounding darkness as a small sound escapes him, a breathless and devastatingly helpless thing.

It takes everything in him not to pitch forward when the other stands so abruptly, swallowing hard around the lump settled in his throat, suspiciously close to the same point at which the ring had dug in. He doesn't make an attempt to give an answer to those first few questions, well aware of rhetoric when he hears it — and so he focuses on the last little bit, the way his body goes numb at the implication, a peripheral sort of tingling as a pinched nerve recovering sensation.

He swallows again, throat dry, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth and making speech difficult. "Perhaps if I knew of something you … desired." He pauses, still not looking back up now that his focus isn't being forced upward, the ground beneath his knees just as hard and unforgiving as the man in front of him. "We could find a way to celebrate your ascension as you see fit."

Well. There goes the fucking neighborhood.