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He knew the dark better than any of them. It helped him accept the Insomnia they returned to. In his mind’s eye, the Crown City still stood, gleaming and proud. The Citadel of the past and its past King, were forever enshrined in his thoughts when, in reality, everything had shriveled to dust and blown away on a cold wind long ago. He was just spared actually seeing it.
Ignis felt sorry for his friends. A strange turnabout, to pity them for having sight, but he did. If ever a moment existed where he was grateful for his blindness, it was that moment, standing in the spectre of a once great city, surrounded by shadows of past glory so hopelessly corrupted he felt it in his belly. A sick feeling. A dead feeling.
But they weren’t dead yet. Though the air was stagnant, long separated from the ebb and flow of natural life, they still drew breath.Though the light had retreated, they advanced.
Macabre noises stabbed at his ears from all directions. He tried to remember the sounds of city traffic and thriving humanity instead of allowing himself to pay attention to the daemon din.
This was not his home, but he wanted to make it so again. Even if not for him, for all the others who soldiered on, a requiem for those they’d lost and for the future of those to come.
They met resistance every few steps. The fighting was brutal, but he enjoyed a melancholy sort of peace as they toiled. The others were more quiet than they’d ever been in the past when they traveled together. Something brewed under the surface of their silence. A rawness cried out from their hearts as they pushed through the skeletal remains of the sprawling metropolis. A door seemed to have shut behind them. Even in all those grim years without Noctis, he knew they all still harbored some small sliver of hope.
It is only human to hold out hope, even when one’s intellect acknowledges hopelessness. It is an innate flaw that clouds judgement to persist in looking for light in a world of everlasting night. Ignis knew only darkness now and so was, perhaps, less flawed. He was calm battling through the daemon ranks while the others quietly seethed, taking their bitter anger out on anything that dared cross their path.
He hoped his friends didn’t exhaust themselves before the end. There would be no rest until then. In this night, only the dead knew slumber and the only light was that which they kindled in their own hearts, on their own terms.
They continued their march.
Prompto was calling forth into his hands more firepower than a normal person should physically be capable of carrying. His small form practically clanked and clattered with machinery on his every movement. Weapons, ammunition, explosives. Ignis fancied that Prompto could level the place by himself with one well-timed overload. But that wasn’t what they were there to do. They were there to support the King. And despite the fact that he and Gladio swore solemn vows to do just that to the end of their days, it was actually Prompto, of his own free will, who had always been the one who would sacrifice all for Noctis.
When Gladio would rage, and when Ignis would withdraw, it was Prompto who held fast and kept the faith. Over the years, the eager boy grew into the weight of that faith. Prompto’s steps became more confident as time passed. Certain. Sure. So unlike the child he once was, full of nervous exuberance, doubting his worth. Ignis knew as they went that Prompto was walking right on the King’s heels, eyes forward, heart true, not a doubt in his mind now of his place and his value as a friend.
Gladio was as he’d always been and as he should be. With his tender heart well hidden behind duty, he walked boldly. He meant to announce his presence to their enemy. Faced with so imposing a warrior, one would only assume there was naught but bloodlust inside his head, but Ignis knew better.
Ignis knew every sound that emanated from the giant of a man. The crash of a shield coming down with vengeance and the swipe of a broadsword cutting through the chaos were blissful, familiar noises as beloved to Ignis as every grunt of effort, every growl of anger and every long lost rumble of laughter that they shared once upon a time in a happier past. Ignis knew this warrior and he loved him.
Only Ignis had experienced the hidden depths of the King’s Shield, the core of the man’s strength. Shrouded in a soldier’s armor, Gladio always seemed unbending, but for all his rigid purpose, Ignis had seen him in private moments when battle cries turned to whispers filled with true loyalty and affection.
For now though , Ignis could almost hear him say, Come Get Some , to their foe in his rich deep bass, though he wasn’t actually speaking.
Inevitably, their campaign reached its end.
When Noctis finally left them on the stairs, it took all Ignis had in him to turn away. He couldn’t see the King’s face but his mind stubbornly thought it did. An older smile, that was no less sincere. Royal raiment worn from fighting, that was no less regal. The boy who was now a man, the friend he’d grown up beside, that was no less his brother than if they'd shared blood. They’d spilt blood together. It was more than enough.
He finally did turn away, sensing Gladio and Prompto do the same. They stood steadfast in their mission to give their King the chance to finish his job, fulfill his purpose and in doing so, fulfill theirs as his servants, his soldiers, his companions.
They fought outside as he fought within. They fought as if they knew they wouldn’t make it through the night. As if they knew they wouldn’t make it out alive. As if they knew Noctis wouldn’t make it out alive.
In that parting moment, they were no longer on a journey to save the world. The cause greater than themselves hissed away like steam and disappeared just as quickly. Their only cause now, their only charge, their only desire, was for their King and for one another. As brothers. This path they’d started together, they would end together even if it meant the end of all of them.
Ignis’ world was reduced to this. Fighting and killing and defending and dying. The last blades of Lucis, the final shields of the King, the only remaining hope of their land. Their task was insurmountable, the monsters they faced were fierce, mercy was a concept long extinguished, but they weren’t dead yet.
His muscles felt as if they’d labored so long they knew nothing but motion. Respite no longer existed for any of them but they bore it as they knew they must. They wanted to shoulder what burdens they could for their brother within.
Respite no longer existed. Until, somehow, it did.
His body realized what happened first and stopped moving before his mind registered that there was nothing opposing them, nothing pushing back. Ignis was dizzy and his legs threatened to give out, unable to acknowledge the solid stillness of the ground beneath him. A hand caught him before he could fall, though Gladio seemed just as unsteady and they had to support one another to stay upright against their exhaustion.
In the abrupt and shocking stillness, Ignis caught the drift of a soft breeze against the back of his neck. A delicate thing. A tiny, insignificant thing. It was a different kind of breeze. Fresh. Clean. Small as it was, though, it cut through the staleness of the air in the never ending night.
But was it still night?
He felt something else. After ten years of night, he could feel it. On his face, in his soul , he felt it. The fragment of warmth, the fraction of a new hope breaking across the distant sky was so clear to him he almost imagined he saw it. It was the blaze of a King’s legacy, a gift for all people, for all time, and for his friends .
Ignis already knew what it was, but he had to ask. He had to hear the words and make them real.
“Gladio…” His voice cracked, parched and weary. “What... what is it ?”
The answer was soft and reverent. A proclamation that none of them felt worthy to give, even if they’d surely earned it.
“Ignis. It’s...it’s...” A deep breath. A whisper. Insufficient but beautiful. “It’s the dawn.”