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verseleth · 2 days

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This is technically for Ardyn's birthday on 4/30, but I was too impatient. Give this man a happy ending. I will post the text here, since it's short, but you can read on AO3 via the link above.

Summary: Ardyn wakes after the events of Dawn of the Future, reunited with his beloved.

Audience: Teen and Up

It was the warmth of the sun against his closed eyelids that stirred Ardyn from his slumber.

He blinked his eyes open, the light nearly blinding, as if he had not opened them in a millennia, or more. It hurt, he realized, the harsh rays of what seemed to be a mid-afternoon sun. Yet, it did not hurt as it had once. The scourge beneath his skin was oddly quiet.

As his eyes adjusted, he glanced around, finding himself in a place he often visited in dreams. Fields of golden wheat flanked him on all sides, and a great Linden tree grew marvelously to his right, little yellow buds bursting forth from its leaves. He could smell it - not just the earthy scent of the wheat, but the sunny, honey-fragranced blossoms from the tree. He had forgotten, somehow, what this place smelled like, and it made his heart ache.

In all his dreams, whether set upon him by his own tortured mind, or from the Bladekeeper himself, he had never felt the sun on his face, or breathed in the natural scent of the world around him. This alone motivated him to sit up, anticipating the usual ache of his limbs, the stirring of the scourge in his veins whenever he moved. But there was nothing. He felt, for the first time in how many thousands of years, light. He moved his arm about in front of him, testing the sensation.

A familiar, tinkling laugh flooded his ears, the sound so overwhelming his eyes began to water. He scanned the environment, turning his body with an uncharacteristic ease. The sun behind her cast her frame in shadow, but he recognized her, of course. She was a frequent visitor, though it was difficult, at times, to ascertain whether it was the woman from his memories, or from the Bladekeeper’s dark visions.

“Ardyn,” she called out, drawing out his name on her lips, her voice as carefree and beautiful as he remembered. Sometimes in dreams, her face was but a shadow, or missing entirely, and it caused him great anguish upon waking. But as she grew closer, he saw her, clearer than he could ever remember.

Was this some trick? he pondered. He knew the Gods’ own cruelty too well to trust that such visions would be benevolent, and he eyed her, cautiously, though his heart raced with affection.

She stopped suddenly, setting her hands against her hips, her face set in a scowl. “You cannot greet your fiancée properly?”

Ardyn looked up at her, confused. In all his dreams she had never been like this. He began to laugh, daring for a moment to believe this truly was his beloved.

She made a “hmph” sound, looking away from him for a moment, before she moved towards him once more. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you, my love?”

She stood above him, hands at her hips, looking as petulant and beautiful as he remembered. She wore her traditional Oracle gown, a white cotton draped delicately over her small frame, golden bangles clinking on her wrists. Her hair was as he remembered, cut short, just above the shoulders, and the same shade of blonde as the linden tree blossoms that were scattered on the grass. Her eyes were a brilliant cerulean, so similar to the eyes he once had, before the scourge had turned them a sickly yellow. My Aera, he thought. His heart felt as if it might burst.

“This is a strange dream,” he said aloud, and Aera huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I know!” she said, excitedly, before kneeling down before him and grabbing his hand.

He looked at his fingers curiously as she held them, no longer adorned by his usual leather gloves, and he realized he was not wearing his usual clothing at all. He had on his old linen shirt, and simple trousers - what he used to wear, however many hundreds of years ago.

He felt a sudden pain radiating from his hand, and he looked in stunned surprise as Aera bit him, her teeth sinking into the flesh of his index finger. In all his many dreams, she had never done that. He gasped, trying to comprehend that what he was feeling was actual pain.

In all the time he had lived with the scourge, his body grew dull to most sensations. Even the harshest pain was like a faint touch, the only sensation, truly, was the one of the scourge writhing within himself. That ached, of course, but the pain of the scourge drowned out everything else, so that even when Noctis had defeated him, even those feelings were overwhelmed by the scourge dancing inside him like an unruly flame.

He furrowed his brow. Noctis had defeated him. So where was he now?

Aera was looking at him expectantly, her teeth still embedded in his finger.

“Is this the Beyond?” he asked, though in truth, it did not look as he remembered.

She released his finger. “No, you silly man. There is no Beyond, not anymore. Don’t you remember?”

He tried to remember. “The Chosen King,” he said slowly. “He killed me.”

Aera flung herself dramatically against the grass beside him, huffing. “You don’t remember anything!”

He smiled at her, despite his confusion. He had forgotten in all this time how endearing she was, how genuine her emotion, the way her eyes seemed to twinkle, an everpresent love and affection always radiating off of her. The true Oracle, he thought. His Oracle.

He reached his hand out to touch hers, so small in comparison, yet when he looked at her, he was in awe of her strength. How much stronger she had always been, compared to him. Did she not realize what he had become?

She looked over to him and smiled, her eyes squinting closed. When she opened them once more, she frowned, seeing the doubt and grief on his face. “This is no place to be sad, my love.”

“Where are we?” he asked, so afraid that if he closed his eyes, he would wake up from this dream, and be cocooned by darkness once more. His eyes watered.

“We are in the realm of possibility,” she said matter-of-factly. “The Chosen King did not kill you, my love. You sacrificed yourself to rid Eos of the Astrals and the Bladekeeper’s tyranny. The Beyond is no more.”

He tried to remember, but it was like trying to recall a dream upon waking, like sand slipping through his fingers. There was a comfort, though, that Aera would remember for him.

She smiled and looked over to him, squeezing his hand. “You are a hero.”

“A hero?” he asked, incredulously. “I am no hero.”

“Ah, Ardyn,” she said wistfully, scooting closer to him and laying her head upon his shoulder. “You took Noctis’s place as the sacrificial King, felt the blades of the 13 before - well, after you, I suppose. To not only dispel the darkness, my love, but to grant Noctis a new life. He succeeded in destroying the Bladekeeper, and that is why you are here now, and not trapped endlessly in the Beyond.”

“You are real,” he said quietly.

She whipped her head up towards him animatedly, her eyes full of a kind of stubborn heat. “I am! And I can bite you again, if you forget.”

He began to weep, unsure why, of all her words, it was these that made him believe. He laughed between his sobs, his chest heaving, and Aera flung herself around him, squeezing him so tightly his breath caught.

He wiped the tears from his face, annoyed that he was crying, because it always stained his face and clothing an ugly purple. But when he looked at his hand it was clear. He wiped it against his white linen shirt, to be sure, but there was no trace of the scourge.

“You no longer have such a curse upon you, my love. You are free.”

“Is this…heaven?” he asked, tentatively, wondering if perhaps the Astrals were simply a microcosm of something even larger - was there a God that existed above the Bladekeeper himself? What remained? Evidently, there was something, and he felt foolish, for all this time believing the Universe to be so narrow.

“You could call it that. But no word can sufficiently define it. I said before, this is the realm of possibility. Where we go from here, my love, is our choice.”

“I want to stay here, with you,” Ardyn said, firmly. Aera grinned at him, and shoved him back onto the grass, pushing on his chest. She straddled him, her face mischievous, and he simply gazed up at her awestruck by her beauty. How had he forgotten?

“You are still plagued with regret,” she said.

Ardyn was silent for a moment. “Yes,” he agreed.

“It’s only natural,” she said simply, “But you must understand, my love, the slate can be wiped clean. You are you, now, truly. My Ardyn.”

“I…I will try. I put my faith into you, entirely,” he said, looking upon his fiancée with reverence.

She smiled. “You are wise to do so,” she said teasingly. “We have an eternity, my love. The memories of your time enveloped in darkness are already fading.”

“What have I done to deserve such an afterlife?”

“It is as all creatures deserve. Someday we will dissolve back into the Source, to be remade, anew.”

He did not truly understand, tears still spilling from the corners of his eyes. Aera’s gentle fingers brushed them off his cheeks, and she leaned down, placing a soft kiss against his lips.

Why had he ever left her? he thought, returning her kiss, threading his hand through her golden hair. In the time before Angelgard, he had sought to rid the world of the scourge, entirely by himself, leaving Aera alone. Now the thought seemed utterly mad. He could not leave her side, now.

“I love you,” he said, the words bursting forth as if by reflex, forceful and intense.

Aera giggled, pressing her forehead to his. “I have loved you always, and I will love you always still.”

She rolled off of him to lay on her side, facing him, her hand coming to his cheek. Ardyn slipped an arm over her waist, pulling her body into his, breathing in her fresh, floral smell, the scent of sylleblossoms flooding his senses. It calmed him, whatever sorrow and regret he felt before fading in her presence.

“She who moves Heaven and Earth,” Ardyn said softly, remembering the verse from the Cosmogony.

Aera laughed, kissing his face. “And I would move them once more, if it led me to you.”

----

Thank you for reading! I know I make Aera a bit sassier than she appears in Episode Ardyn but she IS quite sassy in the Prologue, so whatever. Ardyn loves it.

#t: reblogs #ffxv #weeps for this sweet ardyn #in this house we stand for sassy!aera #give ardyn his happy ending ��👏👏

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