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this isn't a competition

i wasn't in a good state at the time but i felt you leave, that day

[felt, not heard. those were not footsteps, and that was a man in extreme distress in his own right.]

i'm sorry about that, i've tried to keep that contained but it doesn't always work like i would wish it to.

i won't claim i wasn't distressed myself, but that isn't your fault. no one got hurt, and i am neither upset nor any worse for wear. you saw what you thought was a threat and reacted accordingly. you did the right thing.

dad said the same thing. i don't agree though. and yeah no one got hurt but someone COULD have been. it's just luck that it was the two of you

[Attacking Ardyn would have caused no permanent damage, physically; he'd seen firsthand what sort of "death" the man could heal himself from, after leaving him a pile of shattered ice fragments on the train's floor. And his father creating the shield between them had prevented any harm to befall the two. What if it had been someone else? Anyone else? They'd have been left to the mercy of Noctis' memory, which at the time had been too fragmented to act sensibly, his Armiger ready to strike on command.]

i

i want to explain

you can say no

[There was silence on Ardyn's end, for about the length of time it would take to pull the cork out of a bottle of wine. Gods, if only this worked on him, because this wasn't the kind of talk he'd want to remember in the morning.]

[Whatever he was, whatever he could be--he knew he couldn't keep dancing around the subject forever. Asking the others would be out of the question, opening up any number of healing wounds. Having the information offered (from someone he actually trusted and not Verstael) was another matter entirely.]

[...He knew he was going to hate this, and double checked to make sure the door was locked in case he hated it more than could be contained.]

I'm still here.

Go ahead.

[He has some time to get into that wine, because Noct's response doesn't come immediately. He needs a few minutes to decide exactly where he wanted to take this. There's... a lot he's not prepared to say. Not yet. Not like this. Maybe not ever, considering he's aware that Ardyn doesn't want to know. But he hates leaving it all as an unknown, a mystery of why he said what he said, why he woke with fear in his eyes and turned his blades not just on Ardyn but on the father he knows and loves.]

i don't know what changed in altissia. up to that point he was helping us, even if he was weird about it. but during the rite for leviathan's blessing he showed up with a whole fleet of imperial ships. he

[luna, luna, luna--]

some people got hurt. i saw him, what he did. he wanted me to see him

["Oh, prince! Your bride awaits!"]

he followed us on the train to gralea. he knew i'd want to kill him after what happened, so when i saw him that's what i did

["Dude, are you seriously trying to kill me?"]

it wasn't him. he knows some kind of illusion magic, he can make other people look and sound like him. i didn't see it, i was just so angry

i almost killed prompto

["How long were you in the dark?"]

[Ardyn could venture a guess or two as to why he'd been helpful, given what Ignis had told him. But that was the last thing he wanted to dwell on or hypothesize about right now. There were far more important things to deal with. He wasn't sure where to start or how to address any of that, eventually coming up with:]

Was he alright? Prompto, I mean.

not really

he survived and he said he's fine but how could anyone be, after that?

i pushed him off a moving train, we had to leave him behind. the imperials took him to gralea and i know they hurt him.

[The state they found him in, strung up like a puppet in that miserable room, hurt and exhausted, surrounded by tools made to hurt. There's nothing alright about that, either.]

he used prompto as a way to get me to the capital. he didn't even have to, we were going there anyway. just

did it because he could. to hurt me

I already said that I can't possibly blame you for reacting as you did. Honestly, the more you say the more justified you sound.

I want to apologize, but I suspect you'll call it unnecessary. I rather fail to come up with much else of worth to even attempt to say.

i mean we can sit here and blame ourselves or NOT each other and apologize all day but it won't make either of us feel better about it, and that's not what i brought it up for

so yeah don't apologize

i just, idk. thought you deserved an explanation. lot of mind games happened lately, it was hard to know what was real and what wasn't.

and he told me next time we met he'd kill me so waking up to see you was kind of

yeah.

I understand.

I still don't think you were wrong to react as you did. At the very least, I don't want you to blame yourself for it.

no matter the reason, i don't want to think of it as right or acceptable that i tried to hurt my family. not ever.

[It wasn't okay with Prompto, and it's not okay now, either.]

Very well. But you're a good and kind person, Noctis. Please don't ever doubt that, at least not now.

yeah im a real paragon of virtue, great chosen hero

[because ha ha ha, what is accepting a compliment when you feel like garbage.]

you don't have to be perfect, or a paragon of virtue

just yourself.

are you even physically capable of being mean

like for real, would your brain just seize up

probably

i've never much cared for anger and the like, myself.

yeah that tracks.

its weird but not a bad thing

[One more difference, one more missing trait that won't be missed at all.]

i would certainly hope not

[...]

you're still willing to consider me family? even after all this?

[He does hesitate when he responds here, so he can give a proper honest answer. Technically - or biologically, whatever - either version of Ardyn would be family. But that's not the truth of it; he knows that here, at least, he chose that distinction. He can choose it again if he wants.]

it's not you who's changed

i don't see why that would have to change either

i'm glad to hear that

i know this is difficult, to phrase it lightly, but i do care about you. for whatever that might be worth.

it's worth a lot

[The eyes are the worst, he thinks. When Izunia had finally revealed himself, there'd been so much hate in them, let loose after being restrained for gods-knew how long. It was frightening, to have those eyes turned on him.]

it's worth more than you know.

is that right? oh, dear. i'll have to set about reminding you every so often, then.

[....

hah.]

don't go overboard either, say it too often and it won't be believable

me, go overboard? goodness, i wouldn't dare.

please

you're at least a little bit extra, sir granduncle

[that is unfortunately genetic throughout.]

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