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There’s so much blood.
Her dress is soaked in it. His hands drip crimson. Luna. Luna smiles softly, fondly, without a flicker of pain across her features even though she doesn’t have to hide it from him of all people. Noctis presses his hands firmly against the wound in her side. So close to her stomach but not close enough, it bleeds and bleeds into a slow death and he can’t tell if the salt on his lips is from the tears or the ocean spray.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, settling a shaky hand on his forearm. She’s not crying. Her hair sticks to her face, her skin is as pale as her dress. She’s not supposed to be this pale. “Noctis, it’s okay.”
Noctis chokes on a sob. “It’s not,” he forces out. For the first time since he’s left Insomnia, he’s glad his clothes are black. He can ignore the blood staining the cuff of his sleeves. It’s not his blood, he could handle his own blood. “It’s not okay. You’re supposed to live. Screw all this preordained shit.”
Luna’s breathing stutters and her chest moves a little shallower. She tries to grip his arm, but she’s too weak. There’s barely a hint of pressure. “I…I was never…going to…survive,” she pants out. Finally. Finally, a crinkle of pain appears around her eyes, carves into her forehead, tightens her mouth. “The gods—.”
“I refuse.”
She sighs. “Noctis—.”
“No.”
He had magic once. Not like the magic he has now, cut off and choked by trauma and darkness. His dad said he set his crib on fire when he was only a few months old. He remembers making it snow in the middle of June in his room, delighting nannies with elaborate snowflakes forming in his palms. He remembers shocking Ignis with more than just static from socks on carpet, his friend’s teeth burning and his hair standing on end.
Once, he would’ve, could’ve been capable of magic like his father, like the mages of the Kingsglaive. But that was lost to a marilith and that damnable Niflheim.
But this is different. Now Noctis has ten Royal Arms, one of them is even the Founder’s glaive. He has all but three of the Astrals’ blessings. If there were ever a perfect moment for his magic to work the way it’s supposed to, now would be the time.
If he can shove a potion into a flask and create a lightning bomb that can heal him and destroy monsters at the same time, he can conjure a healing spell to his hands and heal one of his oldest, dearest friends.
“Noctis, please,” Luna murmurs, eyelashes fluttering as she struggles to stay awake only to try and convince him to let it be. She feels numb, has felt numb since Ardyn slipped that dagger between them and through her skin. The fire that burned for the briefest moments, like it’d been trying to gain her attention and make her feel pain, is a small smoldering through her nerves, hardly noticeable past the exhaustion.
His eyes take on a shine so different from the tears bubbling over. They’re blue, bluer than Luna ever remembers them being, and between one blink and the next, they burn magenta. Unnatural, otherworldly. The power of magic even beyond what an Oracle can reach at their most powerful. A gasp catches in her throat at the sight, something like hope wells in her chest before it’s dashed by the reminder that if Ardyn doesn’t kill her, then the impact of waking the gods will continue to wear on her until everything she is, is all washed away.
Luna very carefully wraps her hand around his closest wrist. She shakes so much, and her grip is too loose. She feels like she’s falling away and as much as she doesn’t want to—doesn’t want to leave Noctis behind, doesn’t want to leave Ravus to wallow and drown in guilt and anger and revenge, she’s fadingfadingfading.
Until.
Until she’s not.
Noctis’ fingers dig painfully into her side, blood squelching up. She cries out, head thrown back, body arching. Green blossoms around his hands, magic flickering like flower petals dance in the air. The smell of fresh, dark soil curls around them, smothering the stench of fish and salt and burning buildings. A cloying scent of rotten flowers blooms, then fades into something new and whole. Sylleblossoms first and chrysanthemums and daffodils follow.
She hears, over the roar of blood in her ears and the desperate gasping coming from her own mouth, a soft croon of a lullaby in a language no mortal should understand. Shiva—Leviathan—Carbuncle?—no, Etro. Etro whispers to her, ushering her away from the light. The forgotten Astral looms over Noctis, hands on his shoulders as if supporting him, her visage indistinct and getting blurrier the better Luna feels.
Phantom hands cup Luna’s cheeks and she smiles as her mother’s perfume wraps around her. “Not yet,” Sylva says softly. “Wait a little longer, sweetie.” A kiss on her forehead, as fluttering and fleeting as a moth’s wing. “Have faith.”
Luna opens her eyes, can’t even remember when she closed them, to see Noctis hovering over her. His face pale, hair curling along his jaw, spots of blood under his nose and in the curve of his ears. His eyes are fever bright and blue again—blue as the horizon at dawn, the best blue she’s ever seen. A small relieved smile pulls at his lips even as visible exhaustion weighs him down.
“You did it,” she whispers in awe. Not even the strain of waking the Astrals lingers.
His smile widens. “I had help,” he rasps.
Her hands no longer shake as she sits up, curling them around his shoulders to pull him against her. He burns hot where he leans into her shoulder, his forehead cradled in the juncture of her neck. “No,” she says. “That was all you.”
Noctis lets out a broken laugh, tears drenching her shoulder though it holds nothing to the ocean water that’s ruined their clothes.
“All I ever wanted to do was to save you,” he mumbles as engine noises fill the air and Niflheim takes their leave thinking their work here is done. He grows heavier and heavier in her hug, words slurring together.
Luna drags a hand up his spine, cupping the back of his neck comfortingly. “You did,” she presses to the side of his head. “Thank you, Noctis. Rest now.”