The Noctis that comes home after Tenebrae is even more withdrawn than he was after the Marilith attack. He is quiet and haunted and Ignis thinks something must have broken inside of him, because Ignis cannot see the brightness in his eyes anymore, just a gaze that seems miles away from the present. He is disinterested in everything and Ignis watches him from the corner of the room during his physio sessions as he struggles through his exercises silently, then sits quietly in his room without moving until he eventually falls asleep.
The creeping feeling of helplessness is almost suffocating and reaches its peak when darkness falls and Noctis has a night-terror so vicious, he does not stop screaming even when he wakes.
Ignis is the first to hear it, sleeping in the next room when he is startled awake by the desperate sound of the Prince's voice. He fumbles with the handle of their connecting door, wild with panic, and enters to the sight of Noctis struggling with the sheets around him. He is followed by guards bursting through the main doors of the suite some scant moments later and when they try to wake him, they are knocked aside with blue bursts of magic. One of the guards manages to get behind him and pin him against his chest, but Noctis does not stop writhing and kicking, and his eyes are wide open now, though unseeing. Another guard goes for help, calls the doctor, calls the King, and Ignis can't stop shouting Noctis' name, pleading with him to wake up.
In the end, they have to sedate him, but the sight haunts Ignis for days after and stays with him always from then. He tries asking about it, in increasingly roundabout ways, but Noctis never wants to talk about it, becomes distant when Ignis tries to probe about what happened the day of the attack on Tenebrae, and Ignis wonders what he saw. But after surviving the violence of the Marilith and Niflheim's Magitek troopers, he supposes to himself that the trauma can manifest in many ways.
So he stays away from that subject from then, feeling that it was better for Noctis to want to talk about it, than be forced to, and thinks of asking about other things. Thinks, but does not ask, because for a few days after the terrible nightmare, Noctis is not open to anything and Ignis just sits beside him doing his own homework, hoping that at least companionable silence is better than nothing. It is as if Noctis is a boat unmoored, he thinks, drifting away from them all. He does not know how to bridge that distance, but thankfully something happens.
It is as they sit in the tea room, which opens out into the Queen's garden, that he hears it through the open patio door: a soft barking, movement rustling the flowering Duscaean lilac-bushes. Noctis turns, the first time he has shown such alertness in days and Ignis wonders in the back of his mind why none of them had thought to draw Noctis out of himself with his soft spot for animals. Noctis gets out of his seat with care and wanders slowly to the slowly to the doorway, lingering there until the sight of a small pale-furred dog with distinctive markings makes him run outside.
Sudden concern, and not a little curiosity, makes Ignis follow him, but the dog seems more than friendly, gambolling around Noctis's legs and jumping at him, and Ignis stops. His ears must be deceiving him, he thinks, because he can hear Noctis laughing. It's the first time he's heard that sound in nearly a year.
Noctis doesn't even seem to remember Ignis's presence though, and Ignis watches him laugh with the dog till he falls onto the lawn exhausted, chest heaving and smile fading. The dog curls around him and Noctis buries his face in its fur and begins to cry. The dog raises its head to look at Ignis then and that's when Ignis approaches the pair, sitting as close as he dares, fingers itching to stroke the soft looking fur.
"Noct?"
He doesn't receive an answer straight away, lets the silence go because it isn't uncomfortable, just curious and a little worried - when Noctis does answer, his voice is muffled by fur.
"…this is Pryna. She's a messenger, sent by Luna. Luna's ok."
He lifts his face away from the dog's - Pryna's - chest, but doesn't look up, just plays with Pryna's ears. "Luna's ok." he whispers it softly to himself, and though his cheeks are tear-stained, he is no longer crying. Ignis hopes he has reached some catharsis.
There is a red notebook in his hand and Ignis wonders where he got it from. "This is a secret." he tells Ignis when he opens it. Noctis doesn’t lean it towards him but just the act of opening it in front of Ignis is a show of trust, so Ignis does not look over his shoulder to read it. He just watches the flicker of each emotion as it passes over his face as he reads it: the way his eyes widen, his lips purse, his nose scrunches. When he's done, he looks to Ignis and his eyes look a little clearer than they did before. Still unmoored perhaps, but drifting to shore rather than further out to sea.
"What is she like?" Ignis asks. He is thankful for her, he thinks, if not a little jealous that she has the power to ground Noctis through words on a page when Ignis and all the people of the palace have been struggling for so long. But he wants to meet her, to thank her, to know more about her.
And that seems to be the best way to get Noctis to open up - after such a long silence, it is like a dam. They sit until darkness falls, just like that on the lawn with Pryna curled between them, talking they way they hadn't since before the Marilith's attack, seeming so long ago now. And he's glad, because he's been missing Noctis and he's been missing Myrna, and there's no chance for one of them to come back.
But with Noct - it's just a matter of time. Ignis can wait.
no subject
The creeping feeling of helplessness is almost suffocating and reaches its peak when darkness falls and Noctis has a night-terror so vicious, he does not stop screaming even when he wakes.
Ignis is the first to hear it, sleeping in the next room when he is startled awake by the desperate sound of the Prince's voice. He fumbles with the handle of their connecting door, wild with panic, and enters to the sight of Noctis struggling with the sheets around him. He is followed by guards bursting through the main doors of the suite some scant moments later and when they try to wake him, they are knocked aside with blue bursts of magic. One of the guards manages to get behind him and pin him against his chest, but Noctis does not stop writhing and kicking, and his eyes are wide open now, though unseeing. Another guard goes for help, calls the doctor, calls the King, and Ignis can't stop shouting Noctis' name, pleading with him to wake up.
In the end, they have to sedate him, but the sight haunts Ignis for days after and stays with him always from then. He tries asking about it, in increasingly roundabout ways, but Noctis never wants to talk about it, becomes distant when Ignis tries to probe about what happened the day of the attack on Tenebrae, and Ignis wonders what he saw. But after surviving the violence of the Marilith and Niflheim's Magitek troopers, he supposes to himself that the trauma can manifest in many ways.
So he stays away from that subject from then, feeling that it was better for Noctis to want to talk about it, than be forced to, and thinks of asking about other things. Thinks, but does not ask, because for a few days after the terrible nightmare, Noctis is not open to anything and Ignis just sits beside him doing his own homework, hoping that at least companionable silence is better than nothing. It is as if Noctis is a boat unmoored, he thinks, drifting away from them all. He does not know how to bridge that distance, but thankfully something happens.
It is as they sit in the tea room, which opens out into the Queen's garden, that he hears it through the open patio door: a soft barking, movement rustling the flowering Duscaean lilac-bushes. Noctis turns, the first time he has shown such alertness in days and Ignis wonders in the back of his mind why none of them had thought to draw Noctis out of himself with his soft spot for animals. Noctis gets out of his seat with care and wanders slowly to the slowly to the doorway, lingering there until the sight of a small pale-furred dog with distinctive markings makes him run outside.
Sudden concern, and not a little curiosity, makes Ignis follow him, but the dog seems more than friendly, gambolling around Noctis's legs and jumping at him, and Ignis stops. His ears must be deceiving him, he thinks, because he can hear Noctis laughing. It's the first time he's heard that sound in nearly a year.
Noctis doesn't even seem to remember Ignis's presence though, and Ignis watches him laugh with the dog till he falls onto the lawn exhausted, chest heaving and smile fading. The dog curls around him and Noctis buries his face in its fur and begins to cry. The dog raises its head to look at Ignis then and that's when Ignis approaches the pair, sitting as close as he dares, fingers itching to stroke the soft looking fur.
"Noct?"
He doesn't receive an answer straight away, lets the silence go because it isn't uncomfortable, just curious and a little worried - when Noctis does answer, his voice is muffled by fur.
"…this is Pryna. She's a messenger, sent by Luna. Luna's ok."
He lifts his face away from the dog's - Pryna's - chest, but doesn't look up, just plays with Pryna's ears. "Luna's ok." he whispers it softly to himself, and though his cheeks are tear-stained, he is no longer crying. Ignis hopes he has reached some catharsis.
There is a red notebook in his hand and Ignis wonders where he got it from. "This is a secret." he tells Ignis when he opens it. Noctis doesn’t lean it towards him but just the act of opening it in front of Ignis is a show of trust, so Ignis does not look over his shoulder to read it. He just watches the flicker of each emotion as it passes over his face as he reads it: the way his eyes widen, his lips purse, his nose scrunches. When he's done, he looks to Ignis and his eyes look a little clearer than they did before. Still unmoored perhaps, but drifting to shore rather than further out to sea.
"What is she like?" Ignis asks. He is thankful for her, he thinks, if not a little jealous that she has the power to ground Noctis through words on a page when Ignis and all the people of the palace have been struggling for so long. But he wants to meet her, to thank her, to know more about her.
And that seems to be the best way to get Noctis to open up - after such a long silence, it is like a dam. They sit until darkness falls, just like that on the lawn with Pryna curled between them, talking they way they hadn't since before the Marilith's attack, seeming so long ago now. And he's glad, because he's been missing Noctis and he's been missing Myrna, and there's no chance for one of them to come back.
But with Noct - it's just a matter of time. Ignis can wait.