I’m On An Fdf Kick Rn And I’m Abt To Fucking Ramble

i’m on an fdf kick rn and i’m abt to fucking ramble

ardyn feels like his head had gotten smashed in with the heaviest hammer he can’t even fathom existed. like the draconian just tried to kill him with a sword through his head

it takes him a little while to sort through memories—which is weird, he can’t remember daemonifying someone and taking their memories, but he supposes he will—and then pauses as he remembers the chosen queen ascending to claim her divine throne and kill him, eyes bloody and red, face twisted up in grief and resignation as her sword plunges into his chest to kill him

i await you in the beyond, he’d said. carefully, confusedly, he scans the room. it is his office in gralea, with the paperwork he enjoys to mess up on purpose on his desk with ink spilt over it and onto the floor. ink that matches the black on his fingers. and it is ink—he knows that for a fact.

and then he thinks, chosen queen? the title is the chosen king. not queen—not king—not queen—

ardyn grabs his head and grits his teeth. this, he thinks, is the most disorienting experience he has had.

then more memories sort through, gentle and teasing, just like the oracle and queen who had propped themselves up against ardyn’s side and talked to him in the beyond. well after ardyn had been purified and cured of the starscourge. his niece nocitfera and his granddaughter lunafreya had remained there with him despite them being able to move on, even though ardyn could not.

noctifera had done something (of course she had, his niece was many things, but overly lucky she was not) and the beyond began to get swallowed up before all six of the astrals came swooping in and panicking and sweeping them away—

and then ardyn woke up in his office in gralea with another set of memories. and they were another set of memories, ardyn can tell. he is not the ardyn that had been purified and bonded with those two girls in body even if he most certainly is in mind and heart. no, he was the ardyn that was fated to be killed by a chosen king not a chosen queen.

and he was still infected. the starscourge was crawling at his mind, slithering around in his body. he frowns as he turns away to look at the mirror and looks at unnatural gold eyes—different from when he overused his magic. this was from the scourge and it makes him frown harder at the mirror.

then he pulls away and answers a call from verstael with a half-hearted tap of the phone screen and lifts it up to give route greetings and go through the motions when verstael eagerly cuts him off, talking about a fleuret and a lucis caelum practically landing in his lap.

ardyn nearly smashes his phone to bits, but acts pleasantly surprised and intrigued and extracts a location with only minor buttering up and a promise to not start anything until he got there. he wants to say hello to these two wayward souls.

and... even if they’re not noctifera and lunafreya, they’re his. his nibling and grandchild. verstael’s hands would get sawed off if he even thought about touching them without any given permission.

but there they were. noctifera and lunafreya, both seeming to be teenagers and trussed up with cuffs and magic suppressors. both of his girls glaring at verstael and only looking at him when he says, “well! i must say, this is a surprise!” and he looks over them worriedly, frowning.

then he spins on his heel and demands, “let them out.”

verstael pales and ardyn distantly registers that his true face is on and the scourge is flowing in the air around him.

“uncle,” says noctifera. ardyn looks over at her. “you can’t just daemonify him.”

“i wasn’t planning on it, my dear niece,” he informs her honestly, but dramatically. “i don’t want him in my head.” then he perches his hands on his hips and saunters forwards, watching the cuffs pop open and feeling the jammer turn off. “you two should be home, my dears.”

“what,” wheezes verstael in the background.

“in a moment,” ardyn says dismissively. he grins at them, winks, and then crosses his arms, mock-sternly.

“it’s not our fault astrals decided to kidnap us,” lunafreya defends half-heartedly. “well, it’s not mine.”

noctifera huffs, but doesn’t argue.

ardyn sighs and then resigns himself to secretly buying a new house in gralea—his was too small to have housed two girls and an adult man for long. “i suppose if you’ve been abducted by the astrals, it’s fine. the least they could’ve done was put you closer to me, honestly. you two aren’t allows to go off on your own.”

“we try not to,” lunafreya tells him. “but sometimes the temptation is there and we do.”

oh. so they wandered off. did they land close by and see him dissociating through sorting the influx of memories and wander away? probably.

ardyn turns to verstael, who’s watching this with a pale face. “regardless, girls, we seem to have been rude. verstael, these two are—”

“i’m flora izunia,” lunafreya says, “ardyn’s daughter.”

“vespera izunia,” noctifera says, “his niece.”

and ardyn grins at verstael’s suddenly chalk-white face.