Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fire, and ruins.

The place as itself was already in ruins before the battle; now, it was in an even worse state. Like any aftermath of any battle of any war.

There were multiple soldiers made of metal scattered across the wide roofless room, destroyed and useless. Many still suffered short circuits at spontaneous times. Some were being consumed by flames, not great enough to threaten on setting the whole place on fire, but enough to make the Magitek Troopers chirp and slowly get reduced to melted iron and ashes.

In the middle of the room stood the only non-Imperial, and only creature on his feet. The responsible of the so many destroyed MTs and all the chaos, and the winner of the encounter.

Cor Leonis, Lucian Marshal, head of the army of the kingdom, stood alone in one spot. Calm, quiet, and not requiring to keep a defensive or offensive position. Only standing there, as if nothing was going on. The fire was enough to make him sweat slightly, but not enough to threaten the place, so he did not mind it much. Besides, he wanted to see if he had gone too far or not.
The winner, with his katana sheathed but in hand, stood in the middle of the room, alone, doing but watch the destroyed mech some meters from him.

The middle of the room was covered in multiple metal pieces of various sizes. What had once been a high-tech robot was now but trash, teared to pieces scattered around, deformed and some on fire. It was only natural, as it had been the mech itself what had blown up, hence, the source of the flames of the room.
And among the ruins, a human figure.

From his spot, Cor could only see the legs hanging from a piece of the destroyed mech; the rest of the body hid behind, except for a hand, that laid on another shard. None of the limbs he could see moved for a while. Cor watched with attention, eyes on the feet and hand he could see. It was quite a sight; the destroyed mech in ruins, many parts of it on fire, and someone lying in there. Someone that Cor did not feel pity for; someone that Cor was letting stay there, among the ruins and the flames.
Cor had only done as he was forced to do. It was horrible, but that was war.

So Cor stood there hoping that the explosion of the mech had been enough to kill him; that way, Cor did not have to stab him or look at him to the eyes when doing it. He could even convince himself that he had only destroyed the mech, and the pilot’s death had only been a consequence of it. That way, in some way, he had not killed him at all.

But, sooner than later, the hand that he could see suffered a spasm. Immediately afterwards, the feet started moving as well, and the hand disappeared to move down to the floor.
Cor sighed.
He watched the General use his hands to sit up. It took him a while, but soon enough, the figure of the Nif general appeared from among the ruins, sat. He was dirty and bloodied, part of the armor missing. Cor was already well acquainted with that look.

He watched the blond young man clean some of the blood of his mouth with the back of a hand, and, then, he looked up at the Lucian.
His eyes were not the palest Cor had seen, but they certainly were the ones with the most hatred, the most poison, and the less heart he had ever looked at.
With that sinister and silent murderous glare looking up at him in dark silence, Cor stared back, expressionless.

Both stared at each other in silence. The only sound was the chirping of the fire around them. Cor, naturally imposing, stood straight and calm on his feet. The Nif, defeated and injured, half-sat among the destroyed pieces of his mech, looking up at him with the coldest and angriest of glares.
What are you waiting for? Finish this.
Every time they fought, Cor won. And some of those times he looked at the general, and the general always gave him that glare that seemed to always say the same thing.

The Lucian continued staring for a while, unfazed despite the glare which was brutally loaded of raging hatred. Why not finish it. This boy was a danger to some degree, but more than that, he was merely annoying and took too much time from Cor. So why not finish it, indeed.
For the eleventh time in his life, Cor made his katana disappear back into armiger.
“Go home, kid.”

That was all the exchange of words.
After that phrase of both annoyance and advice, Cor turned around and calmly made his way out of the ruined place.

For the eleventh time, General Tummelt did not follow.

--

-

“Attention!”

Three hundred feet moved in unison, all to meet their respective pair. Three hundred men in uniform stood still, backs straight, shoulders squared, and chests out. All of them were lined up in files and columns arranged in an almost millimetric order, at perfectly measured distances one from the other.
The only sound that could be heard in the fortress’ courtyard was the clicking of metal steps on the ground; slow but firm, and quiet.

Blue eyes traveled from man to man. Scanning. Analyzing. Daring.

After a couple steps more, the metal feet stopped at a spot and faced the lines of soldiers.
The same blue eyes narrowed a little when the frown appeared upon the man’s face.
“At ease!”

At the single command delivered from the top of the stomach and which echoed throughout the entire courtyard, the three hundred moved a leg so that their feet were at shoulder width, and their hands moved to their backs, gripping the opposite forearm. Chins up, eyes staring at nowhere, and trying to do nothing but blink, all the soldiers stayed silent.
Blonde hair made a side fringe that curled slightly up at the tips contrasted against the grey of the building. Fair skin, against the black of the armor. And the same blue eyes continued going from man to man, one by one, from left to right, from closest to farthest.

After a tense yet usual silence, the general decided everything was in order. He had already lined the men as was correctly and everyone seemed to be in their place.
“Rest!” the officer commanded, and the soldiers obeyed. “Dismissed!”
The soldiers, before dismissing, presented a mechanical salute to the man at the front. Instead of breaking formation, however, they had been dismissed only from his orders and given to the second in charge, who was waiting patiently at the left side of the formation, which he soon made the front with one simple command.

The first officer continued staring for only some moments, watching the men do as the second at command was asking from them. When they started marching, the man in charge finally turned left and started walking away.

General Loqi Tummelt, Brigadier General in charge of three and half thousand soldiers when counting both humans and MTs, and current officer in charge of the entire fortress, had other things to do.

Being the man in charge sounded like something simple; it’s only looking after what others do instead of doing the things. Problem was when the other people worked in hundreds of things; at least they had to do only their one job, but the man in charge had to look after the hundreds of ’one things’, and fix it if it was not working, whatever it was.

This led to having to walk around the entire fortress every day, looking after everything that every person did. The morning march, the switch in guarding hours, the training, the mech service and reparations, the Magitek Troops service and reparations, the reports, the records, not to talk about all the paperwork. It was a heavy job, but one he was used to and which he did with only the normal quantities of stress (normal for a war, of course). The daily for Brigadier General Loqi Tummelt.

“Sir! I request permission to speak, sir.”
“Speak up.”
“The soldier you put in punishment asks if he can lower the arms now. Says he won’t stand all three days like that, sir. Says he’s tired, sir.”
“Oh, yes? He’s tired? The poor thing. Tell him it’s fine if he lowers the arms now. Except I’ll rip them the fuck off his torso, maybe that way he’ll stop picking fights with his own mates, am I right? Either he keeps the arms up or he doesn’t keep them at all, whatever comes first, so he learns the goddamn lesson.”
“Understood, sir!”

“Sir, General, sir! Permission to ta-”
“Talk.”
“There is an MT that’s giving us troubles. The engineers have tried it all, but the MT won’t respond. We were hoping you could lend us a hand, sir.”
“Lend you a hand. You bunch of useless twats, I hope they’re not paying you all for this when it’s me doing your job. Show me that piece of metal garbage, lead the way.”

“Sir! I request-”
“Motherfucking Shiva, just talk! Titan’s balls, why do you all make me lose so much time requesting for ‘permission to talk’, why would I even say no? Do I have any option? What is it?”

The usual in his life.
Walking around the fortress under his charge when not in his office, coming and going everywhere. The most active general officer many soldiers had been with; usually, officers would just walk around answering questions and giving orders. General Tummelt did that as well, but also got into action whenever he was requested for it, or when he thought he could be of use. If he was not giving orders, snarling at someone, being passive-aggressive, or answering questions, chances were he was helping people at their jobs, repairing an MT unit, or with paperwork, everything while swearing or growling. Or as was usual, with half the body inside a mech.

Many had discussed behind the General’s back and mostly in a joking undertone that perhaps it was his ridiculously small size what made him so brilliant with machines; he could slip the body into the mechs in places no one else could, and his hands could do a more millimetric job, so of course the boy was good at handling technology the way he did.

That was one of the many tasks that were not in his duties to look after in his contract, but which he did anyway. As a Brigadier General, Loqi had all rights to only stand there and command things with the pointing of a finger, but it seemed to be a personal liking, repairing and upgrading the mechs.

If one could not find the General across the fortress or in his office, chances were he was off-armor, hair made a mess, entire body covered in oil, and half the body inside a mech.

That was how the messenger found him one day, some days after his last encounter with the Lucian Marshal.

That day, the messenger stood in front of the greenish mech and saluted as was requested from the military etiquette.
“Sir! I’m looking for General Loqi Tummelt, sir!”
“He’s talking” was the reply he got. All that the messenger could see were a pair of feet in simple shoes poking out from under a tiny space between the mech’s body and the floor. For a moment, the messenger had his doubts; could a man really fit in such a small space? He stood there, quiet, not sure if he had heard wrong and maybe the body under the mech was being crushed to death, when he was taken out of his thoughts by the same voice. “What?”
“Oh- uh- I have two letters for you!”

After a few seconds, the small man came from under the robot, pushing the creeper he was lying on until he was back outside. The messenger saw him like he was not used to see a general officer; the messed up and dirty appearance was usually reserved for the lowest ranks and the engineers. Tummelt was the only general the messenger had ever seen doing the dirty job himself and, after a second into the surprise, and with those cold, poisonous eyes on him, the messenger irrationally feared that the General was reading his thoughts, so he flinched and by instinct tensed in an unnecessary salute position.

He ended up delivering two envelopes to the man before being dismissed. Normally, Loqi would have someone take the paperwork to his office and he would do that later, but not this time. He ended up leaving the mech as unfinished as it was with the letters in hand, headed straight for his office.

The engineers were not entirely surprised at all. It was not rare that the General received letters that could make him drop the middle of a battle itself. Many wondered who could be messaging the General so frequently, but many already knew the answer. Either way, no one bothered the General when he was reading his personal mail. And whoever did dare interrupt usually came immediately back out of his office with a bump on the head or yelled at like they had just ruined all the war.

Loqi Tummelt was not a bad boss, but everyone knew that putting him in a bad mood was something no one wanted to experience.

That was the daily life of General Tummelt, and his reputation as a soldier.

Snarling, growling, yelling, swearing, screaming profanities, red in the face from the anger, slamming the hands on the table, slamming the doors shut, storming in and out of every room, punishing soldiers for the most microscopical of mistakes, stepping on soldiers who were in punishment, a cruel interrogator that could pull the information out of almost every prisoner, sometimes laughing like a maniac, once or twice flipping the desk out of anger, hitting, yelling more, swearing more, and always glaring at everyone with those horribly frightening eyes.

General Loqi Tummelt, small in appearance, but with quite a reputation.

--

According to a report by the Imperial Center for Health Services Research at the University of Gralea, the cases of Scourge and Daemon transformation have increased in the city of Vianard in the Zrence region, south of the continent. There is clear fear in the surrounding areas of Vianard, and the pressure on the government increases; some citizens demand that the city gets closed down so the plague won’t spread further its borders, but this same idea causes panic and anger in other groups of people, who claim it to be a cruel answer that violates human rights and morality.

Closing the borders of the city, hence closing the access of food and medicines from the outside, and abandon the citizens of Vianard to their fate, letting them starve or die from the Scourge, while the rest of the continent stays free from the threat, or leaving the borders open, with the risk that the plague spreads out of the city and into the vicinities, along the risk of letting the infection spread throughout the rest of the imperial continent, seem to be the only answers people are looking at.

Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt has said that he’s aware of the risks and the fear, but asks for the people to not panic; he has claimed before that he has no intentions of closing the city and abandon its people, but also won’t allow the plague to spread, and that he will focus in the researches of the Scourge in an attempt to find a cure, so that, in his own words, ‘not a single citizen of the empire has to be neither abandoned nor frightened’. In an interview held during-

“Vianard will end us all, man.”
“It’s amazing that so many people have been catching the Scourge in that specific area. The government should really put more security so no infected makes it out. Imagine if it spreads.”

The two imperial soldiers looked at the cards in their hands a little distractedly. Their attention swung between the game on the go, and the news on the radio. One of them took the cigarette between his lips and let the smoke out. The other took one of his cards and set it on the table. The first looked at it, raised an eyebrow, and stared at his friend with a serious, unamused expression. The second soldier gave him a bit of a cocky smile and grabbed two other cards, while the first discarded one to a side. The radio still spoke in the background.

“They should shut the borders” the first soldier suggested. “I don’t want that thing to spread. It terrifies me. Imagine turning into a daemon. I’d rather die by torture or by Lucian hands.”
“I don’t know, man, it feels a little wrong” the second soldier said. “I think what if my family lived there. But, to be honest, sacrificing one city for the good of the entire world…” after a pause, he sighed and shook the head. “Don’t know. Still feels bad, if you ask me.”
“Whatever they do, they better be quick” the first one muttered.

There was a long pause in their conversation. The radio spoke in the background, and the shifting of their cards joined the only noises in the room.

“Vianard…” the second soldier muttered, eyebrows furrowing. “Say. Isn’t that the city where…” he paused. “…where the…general lives?”

He did not get any verbal answer, but the soldier with the cigarette lifted his eyebrows and cocked the head to a side in a very clear ‘You bet’ gesture. The second soldier stared at his comrade with a slightly parted mouth.

While the first one was making his movement, trading and moving cards, they heard a distant voice and steps. As they were off their shift, there was no necessity to drop their activities; nonetheless, recognizing the voice, both left their cards on the table and stood up, facing the door.

A few moments later, there was a knock and, waiting no answer, the door was opened to reveal the small but somehow still imposing figure of the brigadier general standing outside, still in armor.

The soldiers saluted, staring at nowhere on the wall instead of directly at his eyes, as they had been trained to do with any high ranked soldier.
“Everything in order?” the man at the door asked, dry.
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. You may rest. Lights off at ten.”
“Yes, sir!”

With that, the blond outside closed the door. The soldiers stood still, staring at the last spot where they had seen the man in charge. They waited until there was no sound of steps, and still waited a little more, and then both men went back to their chairs, picking up their cards.
They retook their game in silence at first.
“Have you ever been in another brigade or battalion before General Tummelt’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too. And, so far, he’s literally the only one that does that” the second soldier said with a big smile, both men keeping up the cards while talking. “Visit every room of the human soldiers, every night, and he doesn’t go to bed until he’s visited everyone. He has no need or orders to do that, but he does it anyway. I like it.”
“Some find it annoying.”

“I think he cares” the second soldier said on a clear firm defensive. “He’s often acting rude and aggressive, but I think he cares. He’s not checking if we’re hiding something, if that was the case he would send anyone; he checks up himself and asks ‘Everything in order?’ like he wants to ask ‘Are you okay?’. I don’t know, I find it to be a good gesture. I think he’s good as a general; I had my doubts at first because he’s so young and so small, but we’ve never once lost with him in charge. He’s good.”
“We have lost once or twice” the first soldier reminded him, dropping a card and taking another one. “But there were minimum losses. I think the boy is good.”

The second soldier smiled proudly and nodded.
“But his weak point is the Lucian Marshal and his obsession over him” the cigarette soldier added. “Boy may be good, but the Immortal is ten times the good, and that, the general won’t accept. That stubborn little prick.”
“Don’t talk like that about the general” the second soldier replied, frowning slightly. “He’s a good leader. Moody and difficult to handle when he’s upset, but…he worries about us. As in, sincerely. He wants us all to go back home safe and sound when the war is over.”
“I know that. I wasn’t insulting him” his comrade replied as he took the cigarette away of his mouth to let the smoke out. “I respect the general. Despite how stupidly young he is, the boy has tremendous skills and he knows how to lead an army. Not like Captain Enebro, or General Ulldor. Boy may be moody and a prick, but he’s a good leader that cares about us. He has my respect.”
“Ah. For a moment there I thought you disliked general Tummelt” the second soldier replied as he put down one of his cards and took another one. “I was about to hit you on the fucking face.”

The cigarette soldier replied with a muttered ‘nah, man’ as he looked at the game set on the table. The radio continued talking in the background. The first soldier took three cards off his hand, dropped them, and took one. The second one muttered a low curse.

“…there’s only one thing I dislike about the general” the one with the cigarette said. The other looked up at him. “Where he lives.”

The second soldier stayed still some moments. And, then, as if hating to admit it but having no choice, he hesitatingly nodded in agreement.

“I dislike it mostly because I worry for the little prick” the cigarette soldier admitted lowly, but still kept the eyes and hands focused in the game. “That plague has been spreading fast, and the government is pressured. The Tummelt should better move out of that city before catching the Scourge, or before the government shuts its borders” the first soldier said as he set his whole hand of cards down on the table.

The second one pushed the few coins on the table towards him, silently accepting his defeat.

“Or before they do what they plan to do to control that plague, whatever the fuck it is.”

Chapter Text

General Tummelt was at his desk when the messenger interrupted him.

The personal office of the general-officer on the head of whatever battalion was occupying the fortress was never any luxurious thing. As fortresses were not meant for comfort or for personal living, it was only a room more.

Loqi had spent the evenings of the past three months in that office. The empire often switched the armies of fortresses, so he never spent more than six months in one before they sent orders of switching.
It was a quiet evening; it had been five days since the last encounter with rebel Lucians and two weeks since he last tried fighting the Lucian Marshal. The past couple days had been relatively peaceful.

That day, his desk consisted of two different piles of paperwork on the right side. Next to them laid a closed envelope. On the left side waited three closed documents with imperial seals, and a colorful envelope that seemed rather out of place. Loqi was focused writing something in a paper, usual frown on, and entire focus on his task. It was as he was mid writing that there was a knock on the door.
“I’m busy” Loqi replied from his spot, not taking the eyes off his paper. Despite his words, the door opened nonetheless. He growled under his breath but did not look up.
“My apologies, General Tummelt” some man he knew as a messenger said from the door. “They sent this directly from the Imperial Palace, sir.”

Loqi’s hand stopped and he glanced up at the messenger, without lifting the head. He said nothing and so didn’t the messenger.
“So?” the blond broke the silence. “Give it to me.”
Said that, the messenger saluted once, approached him, and delivered the letter. It was an envelope rather than a large document, something rare; this was not paperwork, this was a message. It had the Emperor’s seal on it.
“Thanks” Loqi said while frowning with confusion at the envelope in hands. “You may leave.”
Once more, the messenger saluted, presented a bow of respect, and turned over his heels, quietly taking his leave.

Loqi put his pen to a side and leaned back on his chair, eyes still focused in the emperor’s seal. He opened the envelope and brought the paper out.
He gave it a careful read. He had to give it a second one.
He stared around the office in confusion as if expecting to find someone standing there that could explain, or at least confirm it as real. He looked at the signatures on the paper; the emperor’s, the High Commander’s, and the Chancellor’s were there. Real and official. Loqi had to give it yet a third read.

After that, while still confused and not sure he was understanding, he put the letter down and grabbed his own. He looked at the half-finished letter he had been writing, and he realized that he was going to be able to deliver it personally, hand to hand.

The emperor was giving him…unexpected vacations.

--

-

Three days later, Loqi was arriving at his home city, Vianard.

Recently, whoever entered or left the city had to undergo some tests to see if they had not caught the Scourge. Despite being able to enter via personal aircraft instead of coming and going among the common people, Loqi too had to stop nearby the borders to be checked. He offered no complaints. As usual, his results were negative. Usually away of home, and belonging to high class with more access to clean environments, less people, and some other vantages, it would be highly unlikely he or anyone in his family would catch the Scourge, despite living in the Nif city with the sudden spurt of the plague.

Despite its size, the Tummelt manor had no place for an aircraft to land, so Loqi did as usual, landing on the nearest accessible spot, and being driven the rest of the way.
While he was on the road, he paid attention to the outside. He noticed there were more people in the city as usual. He wondered if suddenly everyone in Vianard had gotten vacations, because, at least, all the Tummelt did. All of them. All his siblings, even his parents. Truth be told, Loqi found it suspicious, but he still could not tell exactly why.

Speaking of his family, he remembered, they all had to be home already. Two of his siblings were always there; the other three had been in either closer spots to Vianard when they were summoned back or had had less duties to complete than him. His parents were late, surely with as much paperwork as he had had. But they were already there; all the Tummelt were home. He was the last to appear, and it was honestly rather…uncomfortable. That left him with no option but greet them all. It was easier to be said hello one by one than say hello to everyone.

After a quiet, peaceful ride, Loqi was soon at the Tummelt manor under the rarest of the circumstances: everyone was home.

The first person to greet him, besides the maid that drove him home, was one of the butlers.
“Good evening, master Loqi” he was greeted by the grey-haired man who stepped aside.
“Good evening, Daniel. Everything in order?” the blond greeted as he made his way inside, allowing the older man to help him out of his coat.
“It’s been pleasant, master Loqi. I miss going downtown, but it’s not unpleasant staying home. Your siblings are truly a treasure.”
“Yeah” the younger man replied as he took his gloves off and handed them to the butler. “How’s Wendy?”

The second person to greet him, some minutes later, was one of the maids.
“Hello, master Loqi! It’s very pleasant to see you home again.”
“Hello, Wendy. Daniel was telling me about you” Loqi said as he allowed the maid to greet him with a kiss on the cheek, something she would not in a million years dare do to or in front of any of the other Tummelt. “Has everything been in order?”

It was minutes later that the third person he saw was someone blood-related to him. And the hello was,
“You’re late, Loqi.”
“Paperwork.”
“No excuse. You should be able to do your paperwork faster.”
“Of course.”

A woman with a hair of a lighter blonde than his and some grey strands finally caught up with him and stood in front of him. And stayed there, in front of him, arms crossed and frowning down at him with that usual authoritarian pose and expression. She stared at him directly to the eyes, and he stared back as intensely, as if both wanted the other to be first to look away. None did. After a long pause only glaring, she was first to speak.
“Numbers.”
“Three victories, one defeat. Five lost mechs, recovered three, a Lucian aircraft ruined. The fortress under my charge stayed intact and there was no attempt of invasion. Everything in order.”
“One defeat” she muttered. “Surely you didn’t try facing the Marshal again.”
“He won against me, but we managed to force his entire battalion for retreat” Loqi muttered back. “He defeated me, but we won the encounter.”
“Humiliating” the older woman said and turned her back on him, walking away. “Try harder.”
“Yes, mother.”

Loqi stood in the hallway, watching her figure go away. Strong, authoritarian, fierce, aggressive, stubborn. The fact that he did not get along with his mother was maybe only because he had too much of her in his own system. The difference was she was his mother…and had the charge of Lieutenant General. Despite being as aggressive and fierce as her son, Laufey Tummelt was still above him in ranks.

The fourth person that he saw was his older brother.
“Hey, I thought you had died in the battlefield” was the first thing his brother said as a greeting. He approached the younger man and punched his arm, a bit too hard.
“Jord” Loqi greeted back, lips staying straight as a line. “When did you arrive?”
“Two days ago” his brother replied and put the hands to the waist. “My number went up to fifty.”
“Good” Loqi replied as blankly as before. There was a long pause between the two that made it a little awkward. “I’ve…got somewhere else to go, Jord. Haven’t said hi to everyone.”
“Sure thing, twerp” Jord replied with his usual cocky grin. He punched his little brother’s arm again, harder than when he greeted him. “Nice to see you didn’t die this time.”
“Yeah. Same.”

It really was not a bad relationship. It was merely…inexistent. Annoying most of the time. At least Jord Tummelt, two years older than him, many ranks below him, and with fifty Lucians killed across his military life, was easy to deal with, if he ignored him.

The fifth person to say hello was his father.
“Loqi!” the older man greeted in what was the first time someone other than butlers and maids said his name, going closer to him and opening the arms. His son turned to look at him and his expression softened. He even smiled a little.
“Hey, dad” Loqi greeted and approached him too. As they got closer, his father wrapped the arms around him in a quick, casual hug, and let go.
“Good to see you, boy” his father greeted, squeezing one of his shoulders. “Numbers?”

Loqi stared at him some moments and gave him a summary of the past three months that he spent away of home. He added more details than he gave his mother, and listed a couple more things that she would have tagged as unimportant or bad. His father listened in silence, if maybe frowning a little at times, and then nodded.
“You have to try harder” his father said the same words than his mother had said, but in an entirely different tone. Loqi stared away and nodded, calm. “Who stayed in charge of the fortress?”
“Caligo’s brigade” Loqi replied. “What about you, father?”

Loqi spent a few couple minutes talking numbers and mere work with his father.
He was not a bad man. He was a good man who had no idea how to be a good parent. He had been raised a soldier with no skills with children. But he tried.
As much as Loqi did not agree with him in many things, as much as his father may have hit him in the past, as distant as they were, Loqi still felt some sort of affection towards Aegir Tummelt, Lieutenant General like his wife, and not-good-at-it-but-he-tried-and-that-was-enough father.

The sixth person Loqi saw was the one that he saw the least among his family. He saw the butlers and maids with way much more frequency with which he saw him. Incredibly busy, often having vacations when Loqi was away on missions, and often away on missions when Loqi had vacations, he was a rare figure that Loqi saw every now and then every each months, half a year, and once or twice for an entire year.
Loqi was pacing through another of the large corridors when he heard someone coming downstairs behind him. He turned over his shoulder to get a glimpse.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening.”

And that was all.

Major General Bestel Tummelt, the eldest of the Tummelt children, and only one above Loqi in ranks, walked past him like one would walk past a stranger in the street, almost not glancing his way, calm and firm, like a ghost.
Loqi did stare, just to see how much his older brother had changed since he last saw him ten months ago.

The seventh person he saw was still in armor when he saw her.
“My, if it isn’t the dwarf.”
“Like you’re a skyscrapper, Mai.”
“Taller than you, I am.”

The blonde woman stopped next and slightly behind him once she reached him. Having stopped in his way, he turned around to see her, only to be greeted by her fingers already waiting for his forehead in the correct place. Loqi involuntarily hissed in complaint when his older sister flicked his forehead, hard and with nails strong enough to leave a red spot on his (secretly too sensitive) skin. As reflex, he moved his hands up to cover the spot that she hit. At the same time, she laughed lowly and darkly, in mere mockery.

“Go fuck an MT, Mai” Loqi hissed at her as he tried to turn around, letting go of his forehead.
“Like you’re one to talk, midget!” she replied with a cocky grin, grabbing him by a shoulder. He turned around roughly, and as violently pushed her hand off him.

”Fuck off, Mai” Loqi snarled at her slowly, adding emphasis on her name, and looking up at her. She laughed again. He tried to turn, but she grabbed him once more.
“Are you not going to ask me why I’m still in armor?” she asked him, still giving that smug, stupid smile.
“Believe me, I couldn’t care less. Now let go of-”
“I just arrived some hours ago” she explained nonetheless, brushing some of her long hair behind her shoulder. “I had to present some of my reports at Gralea. Captain Enebro was rather impressed with my skills.”
“What was it? Head or ass?” Loqi asked her, lifting an eyebrow. “Fucking your way through ranks is cheating, slut.”
“Like you’re one to talk!” she laughed again. After that, she put a hand to her waist and grabbed him by the chin, a little too roughly, lifting his head up. She leaned slightly down, faces some inches apart. “How many cocks did you suck to get the Brigadier General rank yourself, huh? Surely with that face of yours, I’d say you’re a bottom. And the generals seem rather kinky, into baby-faced doll twinks, it seems, hm? Do you role-play as a minor for their perverted kinks?”
”Fuck off, Mai!” he said louder this time, smacking her hand away. “You truly disgust me.”

All that she did was laugh again, and then started walking away.
“I don’t know how you got the brigadier general title, dear little brother” she said while stopping in her way. “But don’t think that I’m going to stay behind you for too long. That title had to be mine.”
“Sadly, it seems I suck cock better than you do” he replied scathingly. “Must be depressing, that your baby brother is better than you at giving head, isn’t it?”
She looked over her shoulder just to give him a sarcastic, poisonous smile and the lift of an eyebrow. She looked at him from head to toe, chuckled bitterly, and walked away for real this time.

Loqi was sure that he did not make his way to his rank through sexual favors. If anything, he had even earned the hatred of some superiors. What had put him there was his own hard work, but there was no explaining that to Mai. Jord said nothing, but Mai…she truly did not believe he had done it out of merits alone. And she never lost time to spread those false rumors on him.

He was not sure if the rumors about her, Mai Tummelt, Second Lieutenant, older than him for five years, were true. But he would believe they were lies; as attractive as she could be, Mai did not require of any ‘favors’ to ascend through ranks as she had been doing. She was cold-minded, fierce, brutal. She could not be tagged of cold-hearted because she simply did not have a heart. Rumors had it she liked to make unnecessary prisoners and squeeze their entrails barehanded until they died out of pain.

Loqi never really used the word slut as an insult. The only reason he treated his sister like that was because his sister was not a woman. He doubted she was human at all.
A more fitting definition for Mai Tummelt would be that of a demon.
That day, she had been in the best mood Loqi ever saw her in. Her usual self was terrifying, and possibly half the reason Loqi was always angry.
The rumors about the entrails, Loqi would not be surprised if they were not exaggerations.

The people living in the house consisted of eleven: eight Tummelts and three servants.
There was a butler and two maids that Loqi got along with better than his family, but not enough to call family. Part of the blame was on the strict traditional order his parents maintained in the manor, which forced the staff to maintain a solely professional and strictly attendant-to-Lord/Lady relationship with the family. There used to be two more servants, but his parents fired them earlier that year.
As for the Tummelt themselves, only two years ago there were also two uncles, an aunt, and three cousins, but they all were victims of the first lines of war, and grandma Tummelt had passed away earlier that year. Now it consisted of the main family; mother, father, and six children.

In the domestic life away of missions and war, Loqi had to deal with a cruel mother, a father that wanted to love but had no idea how to, a stranger, an asshole, and a demon. A true hurricane.
But every hurricane has its eye. And in this case, it had two.

“Doki!”
“Doki!”
“Hey! You two!”

The brigadier general leaned slightly down and opened the arms as soon as he saw them; for the first time since he arrived at his house, and for the first time in a very long while, Loqi did what many thought impossible.

He smiled.

A face unknown by most of the world; not a hint of his usual frown, a wide and sincere smile, gleamy eyes, and the face radiant of happiness and dear affection. It was something that went further the visuals; it was the aura around him, so incredibly happy and so different to the Loqi everybody else knew, that it was like transforming into a different person.

The reason, that pair of children that ran towards him at full speed, grinning from ear to ear.

Loqi received both in arms at the same time, stumbling slightly backwards when they crashed against him. Both children spoke at the same time at him, and he could not focus in what they were saying. And all that Loqi could do was something he had not done in three months; he laughed.

He kept both children hugged against him. They were looking up at him with radiant freckled faces, bouncing on their feet, talking and yelling at the same time, hugged to his hips. Loqi let them go on for a while before he could not help another laugh, and he put his hands on the top of their heads.
“Hey, hey, calm down!” he said among laughter.
“Doki, we missed you!” the ten-year-old boy grinned up at him, pulling a bit from his jacket and bouncing slightly on his feet.
“And I missed you too, Frey!” Loqi said as he stroked his little brother’s blond hair, messing it up and earning a laugh from the child.
“Doki, I missed you too! Did you miss me?” the nine-year-old girl at his other side claimed his attention, pulling from his jacket as well. Loqi turned to look at her, and smiled.
“Of course I did, Nannie!” he cheered and picked her up, earning a laugh from her. He brought her close to his face to give her a kiss on the cheek, making sure to annoy her on purpose a little by rubbing his nose against her face, and only earning more laughs and a flailing little sister in his hands. “Look at that face! I swear each time I come home you have more and more of those beautiful freckles, Nannie.”

She giggled as response, putting a shy hand to her face. He smiled at her and put her down, next to their brother.
“Doki, Doki, tell us about your mission!” the boy cheered, pulling again from him. “Did you catch him? Did you catch him now?”
“Did you win against that Marshmall this time, Doki?” she asked, sharing her brother’s hype as both pulled from their older brother’s clothing.

Loqi stared at them in silence, smiling. After a pause, he went down on a knee in front of them. He looked up at them per turns, building up suspense on purpose, keeping them attentive and making their enthusiasm grow and grow until they grew impatient and started bouncing on their feet again. Loqi’s smile widened.
“…I almost had him this time” Loqi told them lowly. Said that, his little siblings let out loud ‘Aaw’s as each reacted with some sort of impatience and excitement. Loqi could not help a little chuckle, watching his siblings almost throw a tantrum out of eagerness.
“He won’t escape next time!” she cheered, throwing a fist up. “I know it! It’s you!”
“Yeah! You’re the best, Doki, you’re going to win for sure next time!” the little boy joined, looking at his brother with wide and happy eyes, just like her.

Loqi’s smile widened and he only stared at them per turns. These two saw him and the Lucian Marshal as some of the hero-and-villain duo they watched on TV. Leonis was that villain that always managed to get away just for plot reasons, to make a story, because what would the point be if they caught the villain in the first chapter, right? And Loqi, of course, was the hero that had struggles to win, but who, in the end, would have the definitive, final victory. It was always like that on TV and comic books; the hero always won. So, to Nanna and Frey Tummelt, still not in military, there was not a single doubt that Loqi would win sooner or later.

They still needed to grow up and understand how war really worked, and that there was no villain and hero. But Loqi knew that, even when they would understand that, they would still be the only ones to keep faith in him, because that was what these two little creatures were: hope and innocence.

“Doki, I learned how to make a paper crane, you have to see!” his little sister, Nanna, cheered as she started pulling him again. “I can teach you if you want, I’ve made so many and I’ve been waiting to show you, did you receive my letter?”
“Yes, Nannie” he replied sweetly as he stood up and let his sister take his hand and drag him across the hallways, with his brother running behind and bouncing all the way.
“Doki, after that you have to come see what I learned too!” Frey happily cheered as well while bouncing behind him, sometimes throwing himself to the older Tummelt to cling from him a few steps before letting go. “And you have to see, I finished one of my sketchbooks just last week!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah! And you have to see-!”
“But wait until you see what I did the other day, Doki, I also learned how to punch!”
“Oh, you did?”
“Yeah!”
“Doki, wait!”
“It’s my turn with him, Frey!”
“No way, he has to come see this first!”
“Now, now, don’t fight. I’ll see everything you want to show me, alright? Frey, Nannie did ask me first. You have to respect her turn.”
“Alright, if you say so.”
“Yay! I swear I don’t take long, brother, it’s right in this one room, you’ll see it’s awesome!”

Loqi let her drag him along with her hand, small, still tender, still stranger to weapons and training.

Loqi was not most of his time at the Tummelt manor, and he did not get along with three quarters of his family, but if there was something he called Home, it was them: the boy of golden hair, the cute smile, and the grey eyes, and the girl with the ashy curls and the most beautiful freckles in the world. Nanna and Frey Tummelt, his real and only family.

Chapter Text

“Doki.”
“Hm?”
“Take us to the park.”
“I’ve already told you, Frey. We can’t go.”
“But why not?”

Loqi took in a subtle but deep breath through the nose. Slowly and so subtly no one else noticed, he let it back out. Talking war was difficult enough, but his siblings were somehow relatively prepared for that. They were growing in a solely-military family. But the Scourge was an entire new and more complex matter. It was not the biological part of it what was difficult to explain. It was only…difficult, talking with kids not older than ten about such a horrible plague. Even more when they were living the city with the increasing cases of infected.

“Because…” Loqi started, pausing for a moment while he tried to find a way through it. “We…have to stay home for a while. You two know that already.”
“But why?” his little brother insisted from behind him.
Loqi flinched slightly in place but closed the eyes and forced himself to keep quiet, repressing the little yelp that he almost let out when his brother pulled a bit too roughly from his hair. He caressed Nannie’s softly and moved the brush a little in his hand before he put it back on her hair, softly, so he would not pull from her hair as Frey was pulling his.
“Because…” Loqi started again. “The Scourge is a very ugly illness that spreads very easily, and our parents don’t want any of us to catch it.”
“But if we catch it, we take medicine and soup and we’re healed, right?” his little sister suggested innocently from her place.

Loqi could not help a little smile. Another accidental pull from Frey took him out of his thoughts and made him hiss very subtly.
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Nannie” Loqi said as softly as he could manage, hands continuing combing her hair. “If it was that simple, no one would be sick, don’t you think?” his sister only replied with a hesitant hum. “You know that the Scourge started spreading in the city like a year ago, and each day more and more people are…sick” he decided it was a better word than ‘daemonized’. “And now the people to have caught the Scourge are so many, no one is allowed to leave their house. Don’t you think that if it was as simple as taking medicine and soup, no one would be sick?”
“Well, that’s because they don’t have the medicines that we do” Nannie pouted. It sounded rather classist, but that was something Loqi didn’t notice; to him, it was normal to live privileged, so it only sounded natural to him.

“Right, but don’t you think that if our medicines worked, we would be allowed out of the house?” Loqi asked, and it seemed to finally destroy both his siblings’ argues, as both offered a tiny sound of pout and silence. While Frey’s hands continued pulling from his hair here and there, and with his own hands working on Nanna’s head, Loqi talked again. “I won’t lie to you both, things out there are ugly. We’re privileged to get to be in the gardens.”
“Well, I’m not scared of any silly Scourge!” Frey cheered from behind him, forgetting he was holding to Loqi’s hair and pulling roughly from it without even realizing. Loqi did hiss and let go of Nanna. “It’s been so long since you last took us to the park! We wanna go and we’ll go, Doki, I’m not scared of catching the Scourge!”
“No, but I am.”
“You’re scared of catching the Scourge, Doki?”
“I’m scared that you will catch it.”

The younger siblings stayed entirely quiet at the response. Loqi stopped his work on Nannie’s hair to turn and look at his brother, and he gently grabbed his arms, looking up at him firmly.
“Frey” he called softly. “We are not going to leave the house until I know it’s safe for you two. Even if it’s years and even if you hate me for it. Did you understand?”
His brother stood paralyzed for a few seconds, but he then looked away, slightly pouty, and merely nodded. Loqi knew his brother was a bit stubborn and tried to always hide gratitude behind pouts (a very familiar, not to say it was his own, gesture), so he did not feel bad for what he said. After murmuring a little ‘fine’, Loqi turned again and the three continued on their tasks.

Nanna was sat on the grass, doing but stay hugged to her old bunny plush doll. Sat behind her, leg-crossed, Loqi was brushing and braiding her hair, giving his best and trying to tame those wavy locks. And behind Loqi knelt Frey, who had taken some of Nanna’s hair bands and clips and was tying Loqi’s hair in multiple little tails like a spikey hedgehog. The three stayed quiet for a while, only attending to hairs and braids.
“Mom says the Emperor will do something about the plague” Nanna said after the long pause.
“Of course” he said, concealing the doubt he was feeling. “You’ll see the Empire will do something to fix it, and we’ll be able to go to the park soon.”

His siblings did not cheer too much about it, but they did show some enthusiasm at the idea. Loqi smiled, but felt a little bad; he really trusted that the government would do something about the situation, but he could not promise that it would be good, or ‘soon’. Still, that was something he did not have the heart to tell his siblings.
He wanted their innocence to last a little longer.

“Well. You’re all set to go now, Nannie” he said with a sigh as he let go of his sister’s hair, leaning back. Nanna used the hands to touch the braid crown that Loqi had made with her hair, and gasped contentedly.
“Yay!” she cheered and stood up. “Thank you, Doki.”
“Bet you can’t catch us!”
Before Loqi could process what was happening, Frey poked him and both him and Nanna ran away at full speed, leaving him sat there alone and startled.
“H-hey!” he yelled and started standing up. Almost by reflex, his hands went up to touch his own hair; Frey had given him at least fourteen different tiny ponytails that spiked up in different directions. It had to look denigratingly humiliating.

Still, it made him smile. He did not undo any ponytail as he started chasing after his siblings.

--

The Tummelt family had all gotten a full month of vacations. Loqi spent all his free time as he spent all his vacations; with his little siblings. When they were not available, was it because they were being tutored or merely not in the mood, Loqi tried to be with his dad. One or two times he also tried to be nearby Bestel, try to get to know him a little. But it was rare that the little ones were not in the mood to be with him; indeed, the biggest problem with them was how to get them away of Loqi.

Loqi had a reputation of moody, angry, and even cruel at the army, but he was an entirely different person as a brother. He was, perhaps, not the best at the role, but he tried. And it was not difficult to be a good brother when the rest of the family had no sense of familial love; the older siblings had no interest in the little ones. Maybe only Jord, but his interest consisted on wanting the little ones to say bad words and practice being cruel with a dummy pretending it was a Lucian. Mai showed ‘interest’ at times, as well, but her was a morbid interest in destroying the kids’ fantasies and trying to force them to see the world as cruel and dirty as it was. Bestel probably didn’t even know about their existence. And mom did not even need to do anything; the kids were frightened at her sole presence. Dad had no idea how to be good with kids, but he was not mean, reason of why he was option number 2.

Option 1, though, would always be big brother Loqi. He knew how to play, he was funny, and he could always offer cuddles without even being asked for them. He was all the comfort, care, and love that the kids did not find in anyone else in the house.

If you said that to anyone in the army, they would be sure you’re talking about some other Loqi. There was no way the General Tummelt they knew could have fun, or like children. And no way he could feel something as human as love.

Those vacations were not the exception; Loqi spent all his free time going to his siblings like metal to a magnet, and his siblings would always be already running his way.

--

“Is it ready? Is it ready? Is it ready, Doki?”
“Frey! He can’t concentrate with you yelling in his ear!”
“Is it ready yet!?”
“One minute.”

Loqi was an engineer, the kids knew. He made and fixed machines and space rockets. So it was only fair that he would make some amazing mech for them each vacation.
“Is it ready!?”
“Frey!”
“Don’t smack him, Nannie” Loqi laughed while his hands still worked on his invention. “And…ready!”
“Wow, cool! Let me see!”

Loqi moved slightly back while his siblings basically threw themselves past him to get a look of the new inventions. Both kids let out long and loud “Wow”s and took their time staring.
“Doki, this is amazing!” Nanna cheered as she took a box in hands. “And it only took you a week!”
“Wow, look at mine!” Frey cheered as he started shoving himself into the robot. “I’m gonna beat your butt, Nan!”
“You dream!”

Loqi could only laugh while he watched his siblings hurry to dress up.

Each vacation, Loqi built something for them. The kids knew that it was a one-day only experience, because their parents (or the older siblings) always threw away the costumes and mechs that Loqi made for them as soon as the kids were asleep and hence unable to protest. So each vacations, Loqi tried to make something more epic than last time, to both annoy his parents, and to let his siblings have fun and play as the kids that they were.

That was how the Tummelt woke up to a noisy chaos of two kids dressed in cardboard robot costumes that could easily win each and every Hallow’s Night costume contest of the next decade, chasing each other all across the manor and through the gardens, yelling ‘Pew pew’s and ‘Beep beep’s.

Loqi had not only built the two cardboard costumes, he had also built a “spaceship” for them.
“You know mom will kill you for treating them like toddlers, right?”
“Fuck off, Mai.”

And that was how Loqi spent the next six hours pushing the huge decorated box with his robot siblings in it all throughout the house.
And down the stairs, of course! There was no better feeling in the world than getting in the box, hug his siblings, and flick the middle finger at Mai before making the box slid downstairs.

--

“Water balloon fight!”

One of the balloons landed right on dad’s shoulder. The kids and Loqi froze mid-play and stared at dad, but all that papa Tummelt did was sigh and shake the head, take his papers, and leave back to the house, muttering ‘these immature children’. But he did not force them to stop, and that was something!

“Treasure hunt!”

One of the treasures was squished between Bestel’s ass and the chair, but that did not stop Nanna from grabbing it. No matter how much Bestel searched around him to see what had caused that uneasy sensation in his butt, he did not find the enemy.
Nanna was curled up under the chair, the only blind spot for Bestel, and Loqi was trying to not burst out in hysterical laughter from the other side of the room.

“Tag!”

“Hide and seek!”

“Detective!”

“Lucians and Nifs!”

“Snowball fight!”
“But we’re indoors, Frey.”
“-with socks!”
“Na- no! That’s unfair, stop throwing-! No, why do you get to team up against me, that’s-! No! Nannie! Frey! You tiny cheaters, get off me, no! I’m going to- wait- no- a-ah!”

Jord did not even question the loud thud and the noises as if though an elephant had fallen in the room upstairs. It was the usual from the idiotic three youngest.

--

One day, Loqi could not find Nanna.

After not finding Nanna in the usual spots, and knowing her, Loqi headed straight to her bedroom. He knocked and called, but got no response. He tried again with no success, but still opened the door and walked in.
He had no idea why his sister did it when she was upset or where she learned it, but Loqi immediately reached for the bed, went down on hands and knees, and looked under it.

“Nannie?” he whispered, eyebrows furrowing in concern. “What’s wrong, baby girl?”
His little sister, as he feared, was curled up under her bed, hugged to her plushie. She was avoiding eye contact with him, keeping the eyes down. Loqi gave her the same worried look for a while, and then sighed.
“Is it okay if I join you?” he asked in a soft, tender whisper. His sister said nothing for a while, but after a pause she nodded.

Loqi crawled under the bed. It was a narrow space, but he had no problem or discomfort making it into it. He laid flat on his back next to his sister, putting his hands on his tummy. He spent long minutes only lying next to her in absolute silence, before he rolled onto his side so he could face her. Still, he kept quiet. After a while, he caressed her hair and passed a lock behind her ear, lovingly.
“…what’s wrong, baby sis?” he asked in a whisper again.
It took a very long while and a few encouraging words more before Nannie decided to talk.
“…Mai told me-” she paused there. Loqi’s jaw tensed and he had to force himself to untense and calm down. The only mention of the name made him sick, even more in this context, because he already had an idea of what that demon had done. He waited for his little sister to go on. “…Mai told me…something bad.”
“Something bad” Loqi whispered. “What did that evil girl tell you?”

Nanna looked up at him for the first time in a long while and kept eye contact, as if unsure of whether to continue or not.
“…she said that fairies don’t exist” Nanna whispered, lowering the eyes. Loqi blinked, taken a bit off-guard. He stayed quiet and let the pause linger.
“Oh, yeah?” he whispered. “That’s what she told you?” timidly and sadly, his sister nodded. Loqi nodded as well, slowly, and looking somewhere else. After another pause, he looked at her again. “Hey. If I tell you something, you promise not to tell?” the question made the girl look up at him, curious, but still sad. She nodded. “Fairies don’t exist…only to grown-ups.”

Nanna gave him an attentive but confused glance. Loqi only smiled at her, wider for each second.
“When someone grows up, fairies disappear for them because they become bad” Loqi whispered to her. “And you know fairies are good. But they don’t disappear for good adults, and, mostly…” he moved a hand up and softly poked the tip of her nose. “…they don’t disappear for children.”
“But I’ve never seen one…” his sister whispered back.
“Ah, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist” Loqi whispered with a wide smile. “You’ve never seen Lucis, but you know it’s there, don’t you?”

As if that had revealed all the secrets of the universe to her, Nanna gasped and opened wide the eyes, staring at nowhere for a good while with those giant blue eyes.
“Like the Marshmall!” Nanna said a bit louder. “I’ve never seen him, but I know he exists!”
“See, it’s the same” Loqi did not even flinch at the mention of his ‘archenemy’. Nanna almost made it sound cute each time. “You’ve never seen a fairy, but I bet they’re closer than you think.”

It took a bit of a pause, but after a few seconds, Nanna looked up at him again and smiled. It was a tender and cute smile, a bit shy, but immensely grateful. Loqi smiled back as tenderly, and reached close to caress her hair again. Nanna’s smile back, Loqi’s mission was complete.
But he went even further than that.

“Say, why don’t we go look for fairies later?” Loqi offered. “In the gardens. I bet we can see one, or some sign that there’s fairies nearby.”
“In the gardens?” Nanna gasped. “But…Doki…Mai said-”
“Then, we prove her wrong” Loqi interrupted. “She says fairies aren’t real. So why don’t we find out? What about that, baby girl? Today, before dinner. Hm?”

It did not take much more than that to convince her.

Of course, Loqi did not say ‘right now’ and offered ‘before dinner’ instead to earn as much time as he could.

After lunch, Loqi went to his room with the excuse that he had some stuff to work on. His siblings offered help, but Loqi said it was work stuff that he had to do alone, and sent the kids to play somewhere else. He grabbed some stuff he needed and stayed locked in his room, working alone.

Jord walked past his door saying some of his usual jerky nonsense, but he was like a rat; ignored, he left. Mai was more insistent, and kept knocking on his door and teasing him. Loqi was sat at his desk, with a big magnifying glass set between it and him, and his hands doing an intricate work under it. Loqi had his usual frown on while working on the millimetric matter. Mai kept banging at his door and calling him ‘twat’. It only worked to make him frown more and more while keeping focus in the needle and the little cloth his hands worked on.
“Hey! Midget! You listening?”
“Fuck off, Mai!”

After a few more banging, Mai left as well. It did not take long before Loqi was done with his work. He put the magnifying glass at a side and looked at the tiny orange cloth in his fingers, making sure it looked as real as it could get.

And once at the gardens, Loqi made sure that Nanna was not looking when he hid the tiny dress he made out of a glove among the grass and snow.

As he promised, he took his little sister to the gardens, both with their magnifying glasses. He let her use his old hat from when he was a cadet, because she insisted it was a detective hat. Loqi brought her to the gardens and, as the Brigadier General on command, he told her where to look while he looked on the other side.
Loqi pretended to be looking among the grass for a good while before he took the little dress from a pocket. He looked around to make sure that Nanna and no one else would see him with it. He looked at the orange dress the size of the fingertip of his thumb, and left it in the grass.

He made sure to not tell Nana he had found it. Instead, he kept ‘searching’, and soon enough commanded his sister to look nearby the one spot.
“I’m sure I saw some sparkles around there.”
“Here?”
“…uhm. A bit more to the left.”
“Here?”
“Yes! I’m sure I saw some mysterious things there. Could you investigate the area, detective Nannie?”

Nanna spent a bit far too much searching in vain. She had even left the spot multiple times because ‘there was nothing there’, and it took Loqi a lot of work to hint her to the little dress without being too obvious and exposing himself. He’d have to go and subtly bump into her, anything to cause her to get closer to it.
After a good while, however, Loqi felt his heart skip a beat out of joy when she heard her loud, excited gasp.
“Doki! Doki, Doki, I found a dress! Doki, I found a little fairy dress!”

When Loqi looked back at her, she was almost hysterically bouncing on her feet, holding the little dress, and made a chaos of excitement. There was no describing the joy on her face, the way she bounced and ran towards him to show him, how many times she said his name and told him to look. When she went to show him, he made sure to show surprise and excitement back, and asked to see the dress. Both siblings stayed sat in the gardens looking at the little cloth, talking about it, and sharing the excitement. Nanna cheered and acted like she had discovered the cure for the Scourge or like she had found the biggest treasure to have ever existed.

“Doki, let’s show Mai, that way she will-!”
“Nan- no, no, no. No, Nan, stay here” Loqi rushed his words as he got to grab her by the wrist before she could run away. She stayed quiet and looked down at him (as he was still sat). He looked at her with the same softness of always. “Nan, we don’t want to show that to Mai!”
“Why not?” Nanna asked innocently.
“Because…” Loqi looked away only once. “If we show her, she’ll start…hunting for the fairies!”
A loud gasp.
“No!”
“Yes” Loqi made sure to pretend he was trusting high secret information with his top detective. “Fairies will be scared of her and will leave. And we don’t want that, right?”
“We don’t want that!” Nanna agreed.

“So no telling anyone, okay?” Loqi whispered, and gifted her a wide, soft smile. “It will be our secret.”
Nanna smiled widely at him. They shared an entire conversation through a long silence. Loqi winked an eye at her, and then stood back up.
“But you can tell Frey, or the maids, what about that?” Loqi offered. “Bet you Wendy will love it.”
“Yes!” Nanna cheered loudly. “And I’ll show Jamie too!”

Said that, the girl lost no time; she started running back to the manor, screaming the nannies’ and the butler’s name from the top of her lungs.

Loqi stayed alone in the gardens, chuckling to himself, and shaking the head.

--

“And, if you put these together, what do you get?”
“…uhm…”
“Come now, Frey, you know the answer.”

His brother didn’t reply. He only stared with clear distress at the paper in front of him. Loqi could not help but furrow the eyebrows while looking at his brother.
Both brothers were lying on the floor of one of the many rooms of the manor, tummies to the floor and elbows standing their weight. In front of them laid a notebook full of algebra equations, half of which were already complete.

Loqi still tried to give his brother a bit more of time, but all that Frey did was scratch his head with the bottom tip of the pencil and give a wrong answer. Loqi looked away of him to point at the notebook, guiding what he said with a finger.
“Remember: if there’s parenthesis, you solve first what’s inside that. It doesn’t matter in which order, just clear what’s inside. So don’t stress, little one, go part by part” Loqi pointed at the first parenthesis. “Ignore that number on the left. Just focus on what’s inside. Sixteen plus thirty eight…”

Despite the young age, Frey did not look at his fingers. He looked up at the ceiling. Loqi found it to be a bit sad, because he knew how rough they must have been on him to force him to not use fingers.
“…fifty-four?”
“Fifty four” Loqi smiled at him. “So, imagine the equation inside doesn’t exist. That it’s just fifty-four. So, fifty four in the parenthesis and to the left a 5, it means you…”
“…multiply!” Frey cheered, and got down to work on writing the equation on a different paper.

Loqi smiled and stayed quiet to watch his brother do his homework.
Normally, if anyone of the family saw him helping them, Loqi would end up chided. They wanted the kids to do algebra on their own. Loqi understood; they had to learn alone. But they were still a couple years from algebra, for damn’s sake, this was too difficult for them. So, whenever he got the chance, he would sit down with both to help them with their homework, whether his family saw him or not. He would not stop just because they told him so.

“…two hundred and seventy?” Frey asked once he was done.
“Yes” Loqi smiled again at him. “Well done, Frey” the adult stopped a bit just to watch his little brother’s wide grin, content of, for once, being praised. “So, 270 is the result of this side. Let’s ignore the plus sign for a bit and go to the parenthesis on the right. We have 530 minus 167 multiplied for 3. We have three signs here, but, unlike the parenthesis, we can’t ignore the order. If you think about it-”
“Doki.”
“What is it, Nannie?”
“I don’t understand this part…”
“Okay, baby girl, give me one minute.”

The kids sometimes let homework pile up because they couldn’t solve it alone and no one in the house wanted to help them, so it was only during Loqi’s vacations that they could get his help. That was how, each vacation, Loqi sat down with them some days to solve months of delayed homework. He tried to get done as much as was possible so the kids would not be overloaded when he had to leave again.

As usual, Loqi switched from one kid to the other, explained as best as possible, and was as patience as he literally could not be with anyone else. He kept Nannie in his lap and arms while verbally guiding her through math and biology problems, switched to Frey, switched, switched, spending all night some nights just like that.

“Doki?”
“What is it, Frey? Are you stuck?”
“We’re not…taking time from you, right?” his little brother asked from his spot, looking at his older brother with clear guilt. Loqi stared at him a bit surprised, but forced a smile and shook the head.
“Of course not” Loqi said softly as he reached to sit closer to him while Nanna stared. “I’m on vacation, remember?”
“Yeah, but sometimes you have homework from your job” Frey said as innocently as before, toying a bit with his pencil and looking up at his brother. “And you look tired.”
“I’m not tired” Loqi said as if mockingly. “I’m just old. That’s what we old people look like. And you’re just twelve years from looking like this, you know that?”
“I’m never going to grow up!” Frey cheered, making his brother laugh.

“Are you sure we’re not taking time from you, Doki?” Nanna asked from her place.
“I’m telling you it’s fine” Loqi smiled at them.
“You don’t have homework or things to do?”
Loqi smiled and reached close for Frey to press a little kiss to his head.
“No, I swear” he said gently. “You’re not taking time from me. Promise. You tell me when you get tired, okay?”

They went on for an hour and half more until past midnight.

And, needless to say, of course Loqi had his own paperwork to do. Vacations in the army were not ‘vacations’ entirely, and he did have paperwork to do and send.

It was not rare that Loqi spent past 3 in the morning filling papers, reading, and filling more papers. It was, hence, very usual for Loqi to accidentally fall asleep sat at his desk, and wake up with some paper pasted on his face. Sometimes, Mai knew he had spent the night awake (how it was that she knew, it was beyond Loqi) and went to loudly bang at his door at five in the morning for no reason, startling and terrifying him awake.

That was one of those nights. Loqi told his siblings he had no work to do and helped them with homework until it was too late for the little ones. He accompanied Nanna to her room, and carried with an already sleeping Frey to his, and tucked him in. After that, he left to his room after visiting the kitchen for caned coffee to sustain himself through the night, and went to his room, where the large pile of paperwork waited for him. All that he did was blow a lock of hair away of his face and curse under his breath for three hours straight while filling the ‘fucking useless papers made of-’.

He fell asleep among the cans of coffee and papers, sat at his desk. Without fail, Mai banged at his door at five in the morning to startle him awake. It was more of a favor, Loqi liked to think; at least, he got to wake up and go to bed for a few hours more of sleep.

All of this, of course, done in absolute secret. The least he wanted was to make the little ones feel guilty.
They did not have any reasons to feel like that; it was not something Loqi made out of duty, it was something he made out of pleasure and joy.

Loqi, like everyone, had different titles in life. Loqi, the Brigadier General, Loqi, the soldier, Loqi, the engineer, Loqi, the pilot.

But if he had to choose a favorite and one that he would always prefer doing before any of the others, that was the title of Loqi, the older brother.

Chapter Text

Loqi sat at one of the balconies of the manor, hot coffee in hands.

Vianard, like all of Niflheim’s cities, was forever cold since the Glacian’s murder in Ghorovas. Being spring, there was far less snow as usual, though. Loqi had already spent most of his life in that weather and handled it fine, so, despite the chill of the night and the few timid snowflakes, all that Loqi needed was a sweater and his coffee.

From the balcony, he watched the city in the distance. The Tummelt manor was not in a very high hill, but it was still a hill. Loqi could see a big part of the little city.
Anywhere his eyes looked at, there were signs of activity. There were more lights than usual. If he paid real close attention, he could see cars here and there.
There were, as well, a few of the lights from the special patrols that were on daemon hunt and Scourge inspection.

He wondered, while staring at the distance, behind which window they were hiding a person that had recently caught the Scourge, in which alley hid another infected, in which car traveled the unlucky bastard that had caught it and had yet not noticed. He got a few goosebumps at the idea. The horrible sudden spurt of the Scourge plague in the city was truly terrifying…

He had already spent there an hour alone before he was interrupted. Tummelt father, Aegir, opened the sliding door and went outside with him. They shared a quiet greeting, and then both went to silence, looking at the lively city in the distance. Aegir leaned against the balcony’s edge, where Loqi was half-sat.

The silence lingered.
Loqi took in a calm but deep breath that he let out softly through the nose.

“They’re going to shut the borders” Loqi said lowly. Aegir did not react and only stared with the usual frown at the distant buildings. Loqi did not look at him either, and sipped from his mug. “The city is far too active. It was suspicious that we all in the house got vacations at the same time, but it’s not just us, father. The entire city is here. Everyone’s home. Everyone got vacations at the same time.”
“That’s what I noticed, too” Aegir said after another long pause, nodding slightly. “They want the whole city to be in the city.”
“So they can shut the borders, and leave everyone inside” Loqi completed in half-a-mutter. “I can’t believe the empire really decided that.”

“Desperate problems need desperate solutions” Aegir replied, but still sounded a bit bitter. Loqi stayed quiet and nodded, a little doubtful.
“It’s sort of disappointing” Loqi admitted. “I really trusted the empire wouldn’t shut the borders, but the plague is spreading too quickly. They made the right choice.”
“As usual” Aegir said, “let’s just trust in the empire. Everything will be fine” Loqi nodded in agreement, not content but at least confident. There was another silence that Aegir broke with a sigh. “I just don’t understand why neither your mother or I, maybe even Bestel, were not notified of the plans…if not as officer generals, at least as Tummelts…”

Loqi stayed quiet. Yes, it was weird. They were elite, high society, rich and noble. The empire always notified them about the things they did not make public, always made sure to give them priority and vantages that the common people did not get. It was normal. So why not this time? It was obvious to Loqi and his father that the empire was planning to shut the borders of the city to contain the plague, so it was as simple as sending them a letter that said what the intention was, merely to let them know. As a privileged family, they could exit the city anytime they wanted, even after the borders were shut, but they were always notified nonetheless. It had always been that way. It was strange that they did not send anything this time…but Loqi trusted in the empire. As did all his family. So he did not find it suspicious, and trusted wholeheartedly in whatever decisions the emperor was taking.

“We should leave soon, dad” Loqi said. “We don’t know when the empire is going to close the borders. We should leave as soon as we can. The house at Pagla already has stuff, so we don’t even need to pack much.”
“I’m not stupid, Loqi” Aegir said, rather softly. “Of course I’ve thought about that. I’ve talked about it with your mother, but she says we should wait some more. Says the empire will notify us sooner or later.”
“But what if they don’t?” Loqi insisted. “I trust in the empire, but it’s more than obvious that they’re about to do something in Vianard.”
“I know that, Loqi” Aegir insisted. “I too would like to wait some more, but…”

Loqi stared at his dad, waiting for him to go on, but Aegir didn’t. After some moments in his thoughts, Aegir sighed and shook the head.

They returned to silence once more. Loqi stared away again, and both spent long minutes only looking at the distance.
As busy as he was, trying to understand the empire’s plans regarding the Scourge, Loqi’s thoughts digressed and changed entirely with each second. Alone with his dad, whom he moderately trusted, Loqi felt an air of familial love he rarely felt with him. It was rare that they got to be alone, and he really valued those moments. So he wanted it to linger as much as was possible before he would break it.

“Let Frey draw.”

“What?”
“Let him draw” Loqi repeated. “As in, professionally.”
“Oh, Loqi, not again!”
“He’s great at it” Loqi insisted, raising the voice as if for it to be louder than Aegir’s previous complaint. “He doesn’t need to be instructed in military. Nanna either.”
“Of course they don’t” Aegir said with clear sarcasm. “Why raise them into military? How foolish of me. Let’s have artists, why not? They will be so useful in these times of war.”
“They’re ten and nine” Loqi said between clenching teeth. “By the time they’re adults, the war will be over.”
“How can you be so sure?” Aegir asked him angrily, almost as if offended, frowning at him, but Loqi was not looking his way. “You can see the future?”

Loqi stayed quiet. He kept the gaze on the distant lights of the rest of the city, usual frown on.
“…by the time they’ve grown, this war will be over” Loqi muttered. “I swear.”
“Until I see that Insomnia starts giving up, I’ll accept the war is ending” Aegir said firmly and turned to look at him. “Until then, I’ll raise them as soldiers.”

Loqi was frowning deeply by that point; nose shrugged up and eyebrows furrowed and glaring. But the look itself in the glare, it was not angered as his expression would tell, and so was not the lack of tension of his body. Those spoke more of some sort of sadness.

Aegir did not wait for a reply; he turned around and walked away, finishing the conversation there.
Loqi stayed sat at the balcony, looking at the city for a little while more.

--

The butler and maids were not allowed to dine before the Tummelt, and even less with them. Their task was serving, taking away the finished dishes, and attend to any of the family’s tantrums. Jord was, by far, the one that made the servants change his dish multiple times and cook again. Bestel sometimes asked for a change, too, but he at least said thanks. Maybe he was not that much of a bad person, but Loqi wouldn’t know.

All eight Tummelts sat at dinner together. It was mostly quiet. The usual conversations, if any, were between Mai and Jord and their parents, Mai and Bestel, and Loqi and the kids. Jord sometimes tried to talk with him as well, but his jerkiness got severely annoying two phrases in. Bestel, when not talking, was mostly entirely quiet and ate like he was alone. Loqi sometimes wondered if he was not an MT that just looked like a human. Bestel did not look like a bad person; he knew he was cruel as a soldier, but that was just Tummelt genes. But besides that, maybe he was not bad at all. Loqi made a point to, maybe, take a bit of time of the last weeks of his vacation to talk with him and get to know him.

Mai and Jord were sharing some unimportant conversation, and sometimes kicked each other under the table and snarled at each other, but returned to conversation as if they were best friends again. Mom and dad ate in silence. Bestel, expressionless as always, ate in silence. On his part, Loqi sometimes tried joking with the kids, but with poor results.
“Enough” mom or dad always snarled at them whenever Loqi engaged in the slightest of conversation with any of the kids. And mom’s or dad’s word was a must. The three had to sit back straight on their places and focus full on the food and not mutter a single thing.

Loqi knew that his parents, mostly his mom, did not agree with the way he treated Nanna and Frey. ‘You treat them like children’, they said. ‘That’s what they fucking are’, was the response. It usually ended in being chided or a slap. Loqi hated to obey when he was told to stop. Truth be told, he did not stop because mom said so; he did it only because he feared that, if he went past the limits, mom would finally do something to take the kids away of him for real. The kids needed of him. And, sometimes, he too needed of them, in his own way.

At some point, Nanna was served some more food, and she started engaging in conversation with the maid. Loqi subtly started looking between his little sister and his mother; he knew how furious mom became whenever anyone of the family interacted in a friendly way with the servants. Loqi tried to hope that Nanna would stop soon, but she kept going, and the more she spoke, the harder Laufey glared at her. He decided to chime in before Nanna would be chided.
“Excuse me, Nannie, could you please hand me the-”
“Her name is not Nannie” Aegir said firmly from his spot, without even looking up. “She’s Nanna” he looked up at Loqi. “It’s time you start dropping the baby names. They’re not babies anymore.”
“But he doesn’t treat us like babies!” Frey tried to defend his brother. “Doki lets us do algebra alone!”
“And his name is not Doki” Laufey said much louder and even a bit aggressive from her spot, frowning at the boy like he was a Lucian. “Pronounce it correctly. Or do you need diction therapy? Are you retarded, is that how you want us to treat you?”
“No, sir…” Frey whispered, lowering the head and sinking a little in his seat.

Loqi was frowning and could not stop. His jaw clenched, and he had to use all his might to not open the mouth. It was useless; it would be useless until he earned a rank like Bestel’s or higher. That was how the family worked; via ranks. And even though his was the second highest, it was not enough yet.
Loqi let go of his glass when he felt he would crush it and tried to calm down. ‘Sir’. He hated the way his parents were raising the kids. They were learning to fear them as general officers, they even called them by ‘sir’. Loqi feared them like that, too, but there was a twelve years difference…

Loqi calmed down when he felt Nanna’s little hand touching his thigh. The girl was pretending she was eating, and in secret kept the hand there. Loqi, pretending to be eating as well, put his other hand gently on top of hers and gently squeezed. It was a sweet gesture that Loqi adored; maybe Nanna was too young to understand the messed-up childhood she was having, but she could always tell when Loqi was upset. She was not doing it seeking comfort, she was offering it. The innocence of it always took Loqi out of his rage episodes.

The family continued eating in silence for a bit. Loqi was very conscious of the mocking looks that both Mai and Jord were giving him, but he decided to not look. He knew himself, and if he saw them, he would flip the marble table and use it to smack the hell out of them.

After a while of eating in dead silence, Aegir put his utensils down and sighed.
“It’s decided” he said loud enough to call the attention of all the Tummelt. Everyone looked at him in silence, not eating, waiting for him to go on. “We’re leaving. We’re going to move to our house in Pagla.”
“Are we going on holidays?” Nanna asked excitedly.
“No, little girl, we’re leaving because this city is doomed and everyone will die one by one turned into horrible daemons-”
“Shut up, Mai” Loqi growled.
“What? It’s the truth” Mai said from her spot, and smirked again at the kids sat across her. “What has Loqi told you? That we’re going on holidays to have fun at the beach? How sweet and naïve.”
“Fuck off, Mai” Loqi said louder, slow, and frowning at her.
“He hasn’t told you about the horrible creatures out there crowding the city, slowly transforming into giant spiders and ghosts, the way people rip their own heads off in desperation, or the way the Scourge gets into your system without you knowing.”

Loqi frowned more.
“It can be crawling up your skin right now, little ones” she continued whispering at them. “The plague could be on your skin right now, microscopic, silent, piercing through your pores. And before you know it, you’re dead. Worse than dead. You’re a monster. Before you know it, you’ll be eating each other and your own entrails and tearing your own leg off and-”
“Fuck off, Mai!” Loqi properly yelled, slamming the hands on the table.
“Stop it right now, you two!” Aegir yelled, slamming a fist on the table. Both Loqi and Mai stayed quiet; he frowned and glared intensely at her, and she only gave back a smirk and those demon eyes. It took all of Loqi’s self-control to not use his fork to stab them out their sockets. “It’s decided” Aegir said after he had gotten everyone’s silence again. “We’re leaving next week.”

That was the last word that was said in dinner. Loqi continued eating as angry as usual, only calming down when he subtly looked at his siblings. True, that was the horrible truth of the Scourge. He did not lie to his siblings about it, but he found it unnecessary to go into details.
Sometimes, he wondered if he really was too soft with them.
But even if that was the case, he really did not give a damn.

--

“Doki.”

Loqi woke up gasping, startled, and pushing himself up on his hands, turning to look in the direction of the voice.
Knelt next to his bed, Frey was looking at him with his big greyish eyes, sparkly in the darkness.
“Frey” Loqi breathed out in a whisper. “What’s wrong, little one?”
Frey hesitated a little. Loqi tried to rub the sleep off his eyes, and waited patiently.
“I…had a bad dream” Frey whispered, fingers shyly toying with the folds of the bedsheets.

Loqi stared at him in silence, eyelids still heavy, and expression still a little confused. He thought his brother had more to say and waited, but Frey only looked at either him or down.
“Ah…” Loqi said. He forced himself up until he was sat and rubbed his eyes again.
“Sorry for waking you up” Frey whispered.
“No, it’s fine” the older brother replied as quietly and gave him a sleepy smile. “Let’s go to your room, okay?”

Frey showed some nervousness at the comment. He seemed to hesitate, but he looked down and nodded, giving in. Loqi didn’t like that his brother understood everything about that comment, and it made him feel bad to be unable to do something about the guilt that was already building up inside Frey.
“Come on” Loqi said and left his bed, heading for the door. Frey walked behind him and grabbed him by the hem of his shirt from behind, and didn’t let go in the rest of the way.

Loqi looked into the hallways to make sure no one was there. The manor was silent, and both guys tried to keep their steps as ghostly as possible to not make a sound as they crossed the entire building from an end to the other. It was no coincidence, of course, that Loqi’s room was the farthest from the kids’. Even Nanna’s and Frey’s were still away of each other.
Once they reached the boy’s room, Loqi opened the door and let him walk in first. He closed the door as silently as possible, and headed for the bed.

Everyone had a king-sized bed, except the kids, who did not need that much space and only had a queen size. So it offered no troubles when it was about sleeping together.
Loqi got in first and kept the sheets down as an invitation. Frey climbed in afterwards and laid next to him.
The older brother seemed to be ready to get back to sleep, as he closed the eyes immediately. Frey stared at him silence for a good while.
“Doki.”
“Hm?”
“…isn’t mom going to yell at you?”

Loqi opened the eyes again and looked at his brother for a long pause, before shaking the head.
“Don’t think about that” he whispered. “I’ll handle it. Don’t worry.”

Frey hesitated and even nibbled at his lower lip, nervous. Loqi didn’t like to see him start getting anxious, even less when the reason was their mom. He reached close and wrapped an arm around his little brother, bringing him close.
“Leave it” Loqi whispered. “Sleep.”

After a few more hesitant seconds, Frey nodded and snuggled against his brother’s chest, hugging him back and holding to him.

It made Frey nervous, because he knew the consequences. If Loqi did not escape back to his room without being seen, mother would know. If mom knew…it usually ended in a slap or sometimes even a proper punch or a knee to the stomach (or lower), and a very bad nagging session, and sometimes grounding.
“A nightmare” she would say with poison in the voice. “You’re raising them as faggot weaklings. They should not even be frightened of nightmares in the first place, that’s humiliating. And you should not spoil them to the point of sleeping with them. They’re not kids anymore! Let them face the fear alone, they’ll grow up as scared, useless, weak idiots!”

Loqi did not know the consequences until the first time it happened. Nanna had gone to his room, and he welcomed her in his bed. But when mom found her in his bed, Nanna took a very bad hit that was still printed in the back of Loqi’s mind.
Mom did not hit Loqi; she hit the person that left their room.
It was not about Loqi cuddling his siblings to sleep, it was about who abandoned their room. If Nanna or Frey were found in Loqi’s bed, Nanna or Frey took the hit.

That was why Loqi had not offered his own bed and walked back with Frey to his; that way, if they were caught, mom would think it was Loqi who went to visit him, and she wouldn’t know it was the other way around.

--

One day, a crash echoed through some of the hallways of the manor.

Loqi was in one of the living rooms, reading, when he heard it relatively nearby. It was the noise of glass or something similar breaking. The first thing that crossed his head was, of course, his siblings, and he was immediately up on his feet and rushing to the source of the noise.
The second worry he had was that any of them could be hurt, but the first was exactly the one that had happened.

Nanna was fine. But she had broken a flower vase.

Loqi rounded the hallway and stood there, frozen at the sight. Nanna was in the middle of the hallway, with her little hands covering her mouth, paralyzed, and looking at the pieces of the broken vase with huge, truly terrified eyes. She looked at it as if though she had accidentally killed someone.

“…Nannie” Loqi whispered. Nanna flinched in her place and gasped, turning to look at him. Her eyes immediately watered when she saw him, and her face turned into a mix between desperation and sadness.
“Doki” she said in a thread of a voice. “Doki, I broke it, I broke the vase, I’m going to be hit, Doki, they’re going to hit me, mom is going to-”
“No, no, no, Nannie” Loqi hurried but kept the voice gentle as he got closer to her. Nanna was still crying and talking non-stop about what she had done and what mom or dad would do to her. Loqi got close and went down on a knee in front of her, and grabbed her hands firmly. “No, Nannie, no, stop- stop, baby girl, no.”
“Dad is going to hit me, Doki” Nanna cried, properly sobbing and sniffling, with two rivers of tears rolling down her face. “Or m-mom and-“
“No, Nannie, shh” Loqi still tried hopelessly to shush her. “Look-”

“I swear to the Infernian, if I find anyone down there-!”

Nanna flinched and freaked out at the sound of mom’s roar from upstairs, and the noise of her heavy steps already coming their way. Loqi hurried to put a hand to her mouth and forced her to look at him, and he put a finger in front of his lips, asking for silence. Nanna looked at him with crying, terrified eyes.
“Go” Loqi ordered in a whisper. At the order, Nanna opened the eyes even more and started shaking the head, and whimpered loudly against his hand. Loqi mentally cursed and prayed to everything he knew that mom could not hear her. “Go, Nannie!”
Still, his sister resisted and shook the head, crying even more. The steps of mom already roared downstairs, nearby.

Loqi muttered an unintelligible curse and looked at his sister again.
“Go!” he ended up half-snarling at his sister. Even though Nanna wanted to stay loyal to him, the fear of the little nine-year-old drove her to obey. She stayed paralyzed in her spot for a few seconds, frozen due to the terror, before she hesitatingly turned around. She looked back at Loqi once, but he only hurried her again. With that, and mom’s steps already on the hallway next to that one, Nanna rushed away of the crime scene and went to hide behind the corner.

Almost as soon as she disappeared through there, Loqi stood back up, and Laufey Tummelt appeared from the other hallway. The first thing Loqi heard was her gasp.
“You- stupid imbecile!”
“It was an accident!”

Nanna dared to subtly look into the hallway, hiding behind the corner. She saw mom walking closer to Loqi, furious. Loqi did not even try to defend himself or get away when she raised the hand.
Nanna gasped and hid behind the corner again when she saw her mom slapping Loqi so hard in the face it sounded even louder than the breaking vase; even though it was immediately afterwards, Nanna was already hidden and couldn’t see what the second hit was, but she heard the hit and Loqi’s loud groan, followed close by the sound of him hitting the floor.

The youngest of the Tummelt stayed paralyzed in her spot, heart racing.
“Brigadier General, aren’t you?” Laufey was growling to Loqi in the hallway. Nanna heard Loqi hiss. “Then behave like one!”

In the hallway, Laufey let go of her grip on Loqi’s hair, and only by reflex he did not hit his own head on the floor. Mother Tummelt turned around and stepped on the piece of the vase while walking away, thankfully taking the hallway she had appeared from.
Loqi already knew that the ‘it was an accident’ argument was useless. Tummelt parents did not care about accidents, even less about the vase; they cared about strict, military, perfectly clean discipline, and doing something careless like breaking a vase was an outrageous violation of it. Sometimes, Loqi thought that they kept vases in the house just to put every generation of Tummelt to the test.

He started sitting up and by reflex put a hand to his injured belly, hissing. Nanna looked into the hallway again, and, when she saw mom was gone, she quietly rushed back to her fallen brother.
“Doki, I’m sorry-”
“No- leave it” Loqi reassured her, sat on the floor with Nanna down on her ankles next to him, her little hands holding him by the shirt.
“I’m sorry…” she whispered again, lowering the eyes. Loqi stared at the obvious guilt.
“Hey” he called in a whisper, and gently hit her chin with a finger. “I’m daily battling the bad guys when I’m off in missions. This is nothing. It doesn’t even hurt.”

Nanna still did not look convinced. She avoided eye contact with him no matter how hard he tried.
“Your cheek is super red” she muttered. Loqi put a hand to his face as if that would help at all, and contained the hiss when he realized he was an idiot and that touching made it hurt again. He tried to think of something to say; he could not lie to Nanna or hide anything, and it was difficult to think of a way out of it.
“…yes, well, and your face is super freckled” he tried with a smile. “Look at that. You didn’t leave any freckle to me!”

Nanna still wouldn’t stop looking at the floor and looking guilty. It took a few pokes on the face before she dared look up at him, and a smile to get hers back.

--

-

That was how Loqi spent his vacations. Having fun with the little ones, saying ‘Fuck off, Mai’, and dealing with the parents’ usual abuse. Everything about his vacations was the usual, and he would not change a thing about it.

He spent three weeks doing those things. There was less snow than usual, so he got to have a lot of outdoor fun with his siblings different than the usual snow activities. He had looked throughout Frey’s sketchbook and had modeled for him, and had been Nanna’s co-protagonist in her invented plays. He had taken the blame for them for different things a couple times, but nothing out of the ordinary. He had even gotten to talk a bit with Bestel; his older brother reacted nicely, and while he was dry, at least he offered some sort of sensation of security, and he did not seem to be a bad person. Loqi had also managed to make Jord choke on his food, which was horribly pleasant. But he stuck to the usual; the little ones, all day, all week.

One evening, Loqi sat at his desk, working on fixing a little gadget. He had his big magnifying glass helping him with the delicate work, hands holding a pair of tweezers so he could handle the little cables without struggle.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
“Doki?”
“It’s open.”

Loqi finished connecting two cables while hearing the door open and the pair of feet coming in. He put the tweezers down and turned around on his chair.
“Hey, you two” he greeted with a tiny smile. “Got anything on your minds?”

Frey and Nanna shared a look. After a pause, she went to close the door carefully, and he stood a bit shyly in place, with the hands behind himself. Loqi stared at them with some confusion.
“Anything the matter?” he asked, and he had to wait until the siblings shared more looks and little gestures, as if trying to decide who spoke first.
“Uhm…well…Nannie and I were thinking” Frey said shyly, not keeping eye contact with his older brother. “…well…you- you took the blame for us again.”
“And you were hit” Nanna whispered. “Again.”
“Little ones, I’ve told you it’s fine-”
“And we know it’s fine.”

Loqi blinked and stayed silent, not having expected the response. He looked at them by turns, not sure what to think or if he was missing something.
“We know you don’t mind” Nanna said. “But it’s still something super brave!”
“And super cool” Frey added. “And we wanted to say thanks.”
Loqi smiled.
“With a gift!”

Loqi’s smile disappeared again and he blinked in surprise once more as Frey pulled his hands from behind himself and got closer to show him what he held in hands.
Resting on his palms, Frey held a homemade necklace. It was made with a shoelace with the tips molten one on each other so it was forever sealed, and it had two pendants; a pair of metal nuts.
Loqi blinked again and his mouth opened a little more at the sight. He stayed quiet and spent a long while just staring. By the time he looked up, he found both kids smiling excitedly.
“…you…made this?” he asked lowly, a small smile starting to form on his face.
“We each chose a different nut” Nanna explained. “I chose this one. This one is Frey’s.”
“Bestel wouldn’t let us use the fire thing to make a chain one, so we had to use a shoelace” Frey added.

Loqi smiled widely but slowly, and then silently chuckled. He looked down at the necklace again and reached for it with a hand, but it stopped before he touched it. He continued staring at it for a good while and his smile grew more, and then he did reach to take the necklace.
He held it in hands and took a close look of each nut. There were vaguely any differences at all, and it amused him that Nanna ‘could’ tell them apart so easily.

He spent a long while only staring at it and moving it in his fingers, before he looked up at the siblings with a wide smile, one of the sincerest he had given them those past weeks.
“This is going to be it” Loqi murmured to them, showing them the pendants. “This necklace has the power of both of you in it” Nanna and Frey looked at each other, surprised, as if not having thought about that. “So when I leave again for the war in a week, and next time I see the Marshal, I’m going to be wearing this” he gave them a side-smile. “And it’s going to give me the strength I need to finally defeat him.”
“Really?” Frey asked with a grin and a gasp, both him and Nanna looking at their older brother with wide, ecstatic eyes.
“Of course.”

Nanna and Frey looked at each other again and bounced on their feet, excited, and containing all the cheers they wanted to let out. Loqi watched their silent hype in silence for a moment, before he simply could not resist.
“Come here, you two” as he said that, he opened the arms, and both kids got closer to wrap the arms around him. Loqi hugged them back, holding them close, and closing the eyes. He focused in their presence and only that, like he had not done in a good couple days. Loqi took in a deep breath as if to memorize Frey’s smell, slowly let it out, and repeated with Nanna. It was like their usual secret goodbye hug before he had to leave for war again, even though he still had a week before that. He didn’t think about it as a prelude for disaster, and saw it only as a loving gesture that happened every now and then with unexpected and valuable moments like this one.

After a good while hugged, they broke apart. Loqi grabbed Nanna by the face and pulled her close to kiss her forehead, and then he did the same with Frey.
“Thank you, little ones” Loqi said with a smile. “This is the best gift I have ever received. I love it.”
The children smiled happily at him by response.

Afterwards, Nanna and Frey started talking with him about how they made the necklace, and where they had gotten the materials, and one conversation led to another, and that one to another, until the three started spending the night together. The kids had to leave when their parents ordered them to, but that was one of those nights when the three youngest of the Tummelt could not be away of each other.
Loqi sneaked out of his room near after everyone had gone to bed and went straight to Nanna’s bedroom.

“Hi, Doki!” both kids greeted him when he closed the door, one on the bed, and the other hidden under it. Loqi smiled at the sight, greeted back, and proceeded to get to work.

It was one of those rare, risky, but beautiful nights in which Loqi built up a fort with the pillow and bedsheets, to create their own little fortress, a little world where the rest of the Tummelt did not exist, and spent most of the night telling them stories, or the three making shadow figures on the walls, laughing, talking, making stories up, and playing as quietly as possible.

Before leaving to his room an hour before dawn, Loqi did sleep a little; thrown on his back, with Frey and Nanna hugged to him, each child on each of his sides, and the three siblings protected by the walls of cotton and the dozens of little lights that came from the bulb chains settled around to simulate their own little cosmos above their heads.

Whether mom caught him or not, Loqi did not mind, and dared to sleep a little in that secret momentary haven, hugged to his siblings, and feeling that those had been the best vacations he had had in a long time.

Chapter Text

It would have been nice to say that Loqi had expected it.

That he had felt a strange sensation, that he had had a hunch, that he had suspected it.

But the truth is that it took him completely off-guard.

It was still half-a-week before vacations were over. He had already packed most things to leave with his family in two days for their house in Tenebrae’s zone of Pagla. He had finished his paperwork as well. There was little to do but enjoy the last days of vacation.

It happened during the night, at the darkest moment of it. There was no moon, as if the heavens had known what was to come and decided to close their eye. The sky was clean of clouds.
But it was soon invaded by some little figures, like black stars that crossed the sky like comets. But closer; much closer than stars.

--

-

The manor was silent and dark, as usual.

Loqi was in the deepest zone of sleep, curled in his bed, lying on a side.
Suddenly, without warning, and breaking through the usual silence, there was a loud, ear-breaking detonation, and the earth shook to the point of making things fall off their place.
A quarter of a second after the roaring explosion and while the earth still shook, Loqi screamed and sat up in his bed, startled fully awake.

Loqi stayed sat in his bed, confused. He thought, for a second, that maybe it had been a bad dream. He put a hand to his chest and heard the impossible fast race of his frightened heart. He was breathing heavily and shakily.
Only a bad dream, he tried to convince himself.

But a second detonation corrected him.

There was a horrible and deafening second boom and the ground shook again, in a way different than that of an earthquake.

With adrenaline pumping through his veins and the eyes wide in terror, Loqi rushed his way out of bed and reached for a window, and pushed the curtains open. He looked at the city, and saw many distant columns of smoke and the sparkle of some fire.
Soon enough, catching the movement, his eyes went up to look at the sky.

It was plagued.

Countless aircrafts crossed the night sky, one after the other, scattered across the sky as if to cover it all. When one seemed to leave, another one appeared.
They were dropping something. Big shadows fell from each aircraft and into the city.
And each time one landed, the ground shook and there was the piercing noise of a boom.

Loqi’s heart dropped, and he felt the bitter taste of vomit on his tongue.
They’re bombing the city.

Loqi was at the window only a few seconds, and he did not need more to process what was happening. He still stood frozen in his place for a while more, not understanding.
He noticed, from the shape of the aircrafts, and the logo he could see on one of them that passed nearby, that they were the enemy.
Lucian aircrafts.

But how had the Lucians gotten such a big float? And why Vianard, among all Imperial cities?

The Lucians are bombing us.

His heart stopped.

My siblings.

Loqi turned around immediately at the thought, but there was a nearby detonation that made the manor shake so hard that he fell to the floor. He heard multiple crystals break and many things falling and breaking.
Terrified but moved by adrenaline, Loqi stood back up and rushed as fast as he could to exit his room.

Once in the hallway, there was another nearby detonation that pushed him against the opposite wall and made him lose balance; the chandeliers were swinging uncontrollably on the roof, and things kept falling off their place.
Astrals above, my siblings…!

Loqi started running across the hallways, as fast as he could. The detonations started becoming more frequent, and the aggressivity of them varied; sometimes it was soft enough to keep running, sometimes the earth shook so much he inevitably fell again or stumbled against walls.
There was already activity in the house; the Tummelt had all woken up, as well as the servants, but Loqi did not pay attention to what they were doing; he ran past them or their voices without looking twice, with only one concern in mind. My siblings.

“Master Loqi!” he heard the butler call him when Loqi ran past him, but he did not stop and continued running.
At some point, there was a detonation so close that it threw him to the floor again. He covered his head and stayed down while the earth shook and things fell off their place; paintings, photographs, tables, and other furniture. He saw a chandelier in the floor below fall and shatter, and another bomb exploded nearby. The amount and volume of the noise and the chaos were overwhelming, past beyond overwhelming, but he did not let his body freeze for longer than was necessary.

He pushed himself on his feet again and continued running.
“Frey!” he yelled as he entered the wing of the manor where his brother’s room was. “Frey! Nannie!”

Despite the ear-piercing noise and the constant rumbling, Loqi made the door of Frey’s room fly open, and he rushed inside.
“Frey!” he yelled as he looked around the room.
It was empty.
“Frey!” he yelled again and reached for the bed, and looked under it. He took the time to look in the closet and any other possible places where his brother could be hidden, but he was not there. He had left his room. “Frey!”

Fuck!
Loqi ran out of the room, high on adrenaline, head throbbing and cold sweat dampening his skin. His first thought was that Frey had to had run with Nanna, so he dashed off to her room.

Somewhere in the way, a bomb dropped meters from the manor.

The previous bombs had made Loqi fall down due to the shaking of the ground, but this one was so close, it literally sent him flying away forwards. The noises were unbearably loud, and the chaos had become worse.
When Loqi pushed himself up on his hands and looked back, his heart dropped at the sight; a side of the building had disappeared some meters behind him. The wall that had been there was gone, and there was some fire on what was left of the inside.
Gods above, my siblings!
“Nannie!” he yelled from the top of his lungs and forced himself back up on his feet, and he continued running.

The noise of the rumbling and the bombs were too loud, and made it impossible to hear the screaming of the people in the manor. Trying to look for the particular noise of his siblings’ voices was impossible, so Loqi had no option but to blindly search for them.
Among bombs, the shaking earth, the chaos, and the windows and walls that broke, Loqi made his way to his sister’s room.
Only to find it empty as well.

Loqi’s heart dropped and he desperately searched for any sign of her or Frey somewhere, but it was, once more, completely empty. After the frantic search calling their names endlessly, Loqi had to stay down on the floor and cover his head again when another bomb detonated too close. He heard a noise similar to the walls and floor that had collapsed in the hallway previously, but further away. Somewhere in the manor, another part had to have been blown away.

“Gods, fuck…!” Loqi muttered in a trembling, terrified sigh as he stood back up, but hesitated. He had no idea where to go; for a moment, terror petrified him in his spot, and he felt hopeless. The desperation made him feel lost and it drove him crazy, but he forced himself out of it, and decided to keep looking. On trembling legs, he exited Nanna’s room and looked around, unsure of where to go, but desperate to start running somewhere, anywhere.

He had no option but to start aimlessly running around the house, calling their names, and hoping to have luck at finding them.
Please, be safe, please, be safe, please, be safe…

Loqi started running again and decided to head downstairs. He caught glimpse of someone else running, but when he turned, it was only Bestel hurrying through hallways as well, alone. The kids were not with him. Loqi turned and ran to the opposite direction from where he saw his older brother, and stopped when a detonation made the house shake as if it was but a doll house in the hands of a child. While he was heading downstairs, another detonation made the wall in front of him explode and shatter; he had to hold to the railing and fell either way. Finding the way blocked, he had to return upstairs and tried to look for another way down.

As he was heading through one of the hallways, he caught glimpse of another adult figure running, right before a bomb fell next to the manor and sent whoever-it-was flying forwards along the rest of the wall. The explosion was enough to also throw Loqi back despite the distance, and it earned a loud yell of mere terror from him. Loqi stayed thrown on the ground, holding his weight on forearms and staring at the wall that had been blown, shocked.
This time, the terror paralyzed him for longer, and it was after the ground shook three times that he could force himself out of it and go back up on his feet.

In his race downstairs, he lost one of his socks, but he kept running. He stayed pressed to a wall for a second after the ground shook, and he had to avoid a falling bookshelf.
“Nannie!” he yelled as loud as he could. “Frey! Nannie!”

All through his race through most of the manor, Loqi kept yelling their names over and over in the hope that the little ones would answer, but he had not had luck.

While the Lucian aircrafts continued dropping endless bombs, and as the ground shook, Loqi continued making his way through the chaos, heart racing, and pupils fully dilated in fear.
“Frey!”

He continued running for a while on the lower level, looked into the kitchen, and then ran into the dining room.
“Nannie-!”

“Doki!”

Loqi had not seen them until they both yelled his name at the same time. He looked down and found the youngest siblings hugged to each other, curled up under the thick marble table.
His heart dropped at the sight and he felt it stop. His whole world crumbled around him, but in relief, and a sudden new sort of terror.
“Doki!”
“Little ones” Loqi breathed out in a thread of a voice and he dropped to his knees, at the time the kids rushed from under the table and ran towards him. They yelled his name again and threw themselves at him, hugging him so tightly, they almost asphyxiated him, but he did not even notice because he was squeezing back. “Gods, little ones, thank the Astrals-“

“Doki” Frey sobbed, still hugged to him. “Doki, what’s happening?”
“Doki, I’m scared.”
“I know, little ones, it’s okay” he tried to reassure them, caressing their backs and hairs. “I’ve got you now…I’ve got you…”

A distant bomb made the house shake again. Utensils in the kitchen fell to the ground, and the chandelier swung with a creepy noise that made the siblings hold tighter to him and made them cry louder.
“It’s okay, little ones, I’ve got you, we’re going to be fine” Loqi reassured them and forced them to break apart enough so he could look up at them. “Listen to me” he tried to conceal his own terror and be as firm as possible. “Listen to me…” he repeated. “We’re- we’re going to be fine, okay? We just need to stay calm and together, okay? Don’t run, stay with me. Alright?”

The kids, looking down at him, were still crying and sobbing, but they paid attention and nodded. A loud detonation made the earth rumble again, and the kids hugged him again. Loqi kept them close and tried to not panic.
“Doki, we’re going to die-”
“No one is going to die, don’t say that” Loqi said a bit more roughly than he would have wished, and realizing it made him stop and take in a breath to calm down as best as possible. “We’ll be fine, just…calm down.”
“Doki, what do we do?” Nanna asked him between sobs. Loqi broke apart from them again and looked up at them per turns, realizing he had not thought about it.
“…we…” he stuttered. He looked through the window, and his heart stopped at the sight of all the fire, the columns of smoke, the endless aircrafts, and the falling bombs. Part of the gardens, mere meters from them, were on fire.

The Tummelt had a bunker of sorts, but it was not designed for bombings. The Lucians were not supposed to have the technology for bombs in the past, and in the present, they did not have the money or strength enough to get into Nif territory, let alone to bomb one of their cities, so the Tummelt had not prepared for that. And the hideout was outside, they had to cross the gardens…which was a simple task but…what if a bomb fell right on them in the way?
Loqi did not dare risk the kids to going outside for a bunker that was not even designed for bombs.
“…we…” he tried again, swallowing. “We’re…we’re going to go to the basement, okay?” he looked up at the siblings again, taking a hand of each in his. “Let’s go to the basement” he stated more firmly. “We’ll be safe there.”
“And dad?” Nanna asked while sniffling and cleaning her tears.
“And Bestel and Daniel and Wendy and Jamie?” Frey added.

Loqi could not answer them. He only stared at them, frozen, still trying to control his terror. He swallowed and tried to say something, but it took a long while before he could force anything out.
“They will…join us there, they’ll have the same idea” Loqi said. “Now let’s go, stay with me and don’t let go of my hands, okay?”
The kids tried cleaning the tears off their faces and eyes, sniffling and sobbing, and nodded. Loqi whispered a hesitant ‘Okay…’ and stood up again, keeping one of each his siblings’ hands in his, and he froze. For a moment, he forgot where everything was; something as simple as the basement, and he forgot if he had to go left, right, up, or down.

There was a detonation that made the siblings yelp out and reach to hug him by the hips again, tightly, like their lives depended on it. Loqi felt terror quickly paralyzing him and driving him into panic.
It’s not the time for panic, take them somewhere safe!
Forcing himself out of it yet again, Loqi glanced out the window once more, looking at the Lucian aircrafts one last time, before he turned around, not sure how he could move at all, and hurried out of the dining room, holding his siblings’ hands more tightly than he had intended to or noticed.

It was a very short journey. The three exited the dinning room and carefully but hurriedly walked through a couple of hallways. They slowed down along the shaking of the ground each time it happened, and once Loqi pulled them closer to a wall when a nearby bomb made the house shake even harder than the previous times. His siblings yelped that once, but other than that, they remained mostly quiet and obediently followed him. For a moment, Loqi wondered if they were too terrified to speak or make any sound, or if they were far braver than he was. Because he, at least, felt way more terrified than he had ever felt before, even more than the near-death experiences in the battlefield itself.

Once they reached the correct door, Loqi opened it and let the siblings walk in first. When he was inside, he closed the door, as if to keep the bombs and aircrafts on the other side, in another reality. He knew it was senseless, but in those moments of irrationality it felt vital to close the door. He didn’t lock it…in case Bestel or anyone else would really have the same idea.
His siblings were waiting right behind him, as if unable to go downstairs unless he was holding their hands again. He whispered a few more encouraging words and started hurrying downstairs, but trying to be careful enough to not run and lose balance with the constant but random moments of shaking. He felt his head still throbbing, and he feared that his legs, that trembled even more than the ground and felt like made of wet paper ready to break in any moment, would give up.

After what felt like the most horrible and dangerous five seconds of his life, he left the last step behind.

And then he had no idea what to do.

“Doki” Frey called, and while he sounded scared, he was not sobbing anymore. The boy held to his brother’s pajama shirt and looked up at him with slightly reddish eyes. “Doki, now what?”

Loqi stared down at them. His mouth gaped and his head throbbed even harder. He looked at both pair of eyes, one after the other, at the patient, expecting grey and blue that needed him to say something.
“…n-now…” Loqi tried starting. He could feel his heart in his throat and he had to swallow and lick his lips while he tried to think with clarity. “Now…we…wait.”
“For what?” Nanna asked him a bit insecure.
Loqi continued staring at them. How could they be so relatively calm? How were they not paralyzed by the fear as he was? They looked scared, yes, but Loqi was terrified. Not understanding their calmness and the bombing outside, Loqi stood paralyzed and not saying anything for a while, slightly shaking the head, until he forced himself out of it for the millionth time.
“For- the…for the bombs to stop” Loqi said a bit hesitatingly, not sure that he had said the correct thing by saying ‘bombs’ in front of his siblings. It was another senseless thing; the kids had seen the bombs and aircrafts, there was nothing to hide from them, but it still felt bad. “We wait together.”

“What if they don’t stop?” Nanna asked him lowly, holding to his shirt. Loqi found it easier to calm down this time, moved by her innocence and fear.
“They will, baby girl” he said softly. “You’ll see everything’s over before you know it.”
“Can we turn the lights on, Doki?”
“I’m afraid not, little one” Loqi replied softly to his brother, caressing his hair. “It’s not safe right now. But don’t worry, there’s nothing scary down here, and you’re safe.”
“And we’re with you” Nanna added.

Loqi turned to look at her, taken by surprise. He stared at her in slight shock, not sure his throbbing head could understand. She explained nothing and only smiled at him.
’How can she smile in moments like this?
It was not much of a complaint as it was a serious question. Both kids looked so much more confident and far less afraid, and Loqi could almost not process it as real.

Another loud detonation made the ground shake; even dust fell from the roof, and the loud noise and rumbling made the kids yelp and gasp at the time they hugged their brother like he was the only thing immune to everything. The movement and their hugs made Loqi force himself to act, and he put a hand to their heads.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you” he murmured sweetly. “Let’s go sit, okay?”

After a few seconds, the siblings nodded and obeyed. Loqi took them closer to a wall, and they had started sitting when a deafening boom exploded close. His instinct was to hug them both and hover over them while the ground shook. The noises were unbearable, and Loqi thought that the bomb had sounded way too close for his liking. Terror overtook again, and he stayed hugged to his siblings for much longer than was necessary, trembling so hard he did not feel when the ground stopped because his body was still shaking.
Control yourself, Tummelt, this is not your usual self!

What was happening to him? He had handled bombs before. Never- on the victim’s end…but he had handled them. Sometimes, when he fired missiles from his mech, they had to land right at its feet. He had heard noises this loud and worse, he had been on the front line of the battlefield, hell, he had been in an exploding mech and survived, he had been taken off-guard in the middle of the night, none of this was new, so why was this so terrifying!?

On the differences he could only find one: it was the first time he lived something war related nearby his siblings.
It was the first time they had ever been in risk.

When Loqi could manage to control himself enough, he found his eyes covered in tears, and he forced himself to not let them out. He could not cry in front of his siblings, not right now. After everything was over, then yes.
But not right now.
They needed to see him as the unmovable warrior they thought he was. They needed to see the hero they thought he was. The one that would win in the end. The man with a cape. He needed to be the Super they saw in him…

After forcing himself to calm down again, Loqi broke apart from the hug he had on them. The shaking ground made some dust fall from the roof onto his shoulder. He looked at it and analyzed, and thought of the worst-case scenario, as was best to do.
If the room collapses…
“…let’s- move to that corner, alright, little ones?” he murmured, voice both firm and gentle to not scare them. “Corners are safe.”

They did not question him. One crawled and the other ran their way to the nearest corner and sat there, curled up. Loqi stared around for anything that could fall during the shaking. He pushed a shelf far away, and even took the time to put it down himself. He made sure to cut the electricity for good, so no cable could make short circuit if anything collapsed. After attending to everything he could remember of what to do in those cases, he returned to the corner with his siblings.
The kids were still surprisingly calm. They had stopped crying long ago, and they were waiting patiently for him, scared and a little pale, but definitely not terrified like he was.

“You okay, little ones?” he murmured as gently as before, going down on his knees in front of them and holding them by an arm each. Both kids nodded. Loqi stayed petrified for a second, marveled at their peace. “You’re doing amazing…” he could not help the comment, smiling a little, and forcing himself to not cry. He caressed their hairs and faces, tenderly. “I’m so proud of you.”

The kids smiled at the comment. Loqi smiled back and swallowed to get rid of the knot in his throat. Then, the earth rumbled again along the distant noise of a detonation; the kids quietly yelped, while Loqi immediately wrapped the arms around them. He kept his siblings tightly hugged until the rumbling ceased. He knew he was shaking, but it was out of his control. He broke apart from the hug rather insecurely, not wanting to.
More than needing to protect them, Loqi mentally realized in shame, all he wanted was to hold something. Never had he felt this terrified, and he needed an emotional anchor.

His siblings seemed to be doing far better than him; they sat there in absolute silence, looking at him as if waiting for instructions. Loqi hated it for a moment; gods, he had no idea what to do, how could he expect to lead two other human lives when he was terrified about himself? As bombs landed and detonated above his head and as the house rumbled, Loqi admitted to himself what he had denied all his life; he was scared of dying. He was not an adult, he was not an officer of war, he was a dumb boy in his pajamas without a sock that was at one second of a nerve breakdown, and who didn’t want to die, he just didn’t want to die.

“Are you okay, Doki?”
Nanna’s question and her little hand on his arm brought him out of the sudden panic. He looked at his sister and forced a smile, and nodded, unable to talk. His little siblings smiled a little, but immediately went back to those sad, nervous looks, the sort they made when they were being chided. Loqi stared at them by turns and, once again, forced himself to calm down. He could have a nerve breakdown after the bombing had passed; right now, they needed of him.

The three stayed sat in silence for a while, hearing the distant detonations, and doing but stare at the roof whenever the earth rumbled. After a couple minutes, there was a detonation almost on top of them, which made a deafening thundering noise, and made the house shake harder than the previous times. When it detonated, Loqi’s siblings once again yelped out and Loqi once more got closer to hug them tightly, strongly, arms shaking and holding tight to them like they were the answer.
“Doki, why haven’t they stopped?”
“Doki, I’m scared.”
“When will the Lucians stop?”
“…I’m…not sure, little one…”

Loqi broke apart from them, but stayed close this time, as if prepared for the next time a bomb would fall as close. He kept staring at the ceiling, as if wanting to see the aircrafts through the building and see if they were gone. Why were they taking so long? The Lucians were not even meant to have these many aircrafts, or these many bombs. They were losing the war, they were not supposed to be attacking so fiercely…

There was another detonation; this time, his siblings reacted more than he did. Both yelped and covered their ears, snuggling close to each other while Loqi held them, a bit softer this time.
They’re freaking out. Think of something, Tummelt, don’t let them lose it.

After a bit of thinking, the idea hit him like a bolt.
“Hey” he whispered and broke from the hug, enough so that his siblings could look up from his chest to his face. “Why don’t we sing the Little Snowflake while the Lucians leave?” he suggested and smiled at the kids. “It’s been a while since we’ve sung it. What about that?”

His suggestion, however, did not seem to work very well; Nanna and Frey were not six-year-old he could easily trick into singing to keep calm, and raised as they were, the kids were more aware than they should of what was going on. They stared, unsure, at their brother. Loqi swallowed once and prayed to the Astlras that his voice would not break and betray him.
“Little snowflake, little snowflake, are you there?” he sung in almost a whisper, trying to keep a little smile on. “Where are you going, little dear friend?”

Nanna and Frey still stared at him in silence and blank, slightly nervous faces, but Loqi noticed their shoulders untensed a little.
“Are you going to the river? Perhaps to the frozen lake” he continued. “To the top of the mountain, or to buy a cake.”

A detonation made the earth rumble slightly. Loqi’s heart skipped a beat, but he contained and hid his fear, swallowed subtly, and continued as firmly as he could manage.
“Wherever you’re going, I’m coming with you. Little snowflake, I’m coming with you.”

Nanna and Frey seemed a little more calm and secure, and if Loqi looked closely, there was a ghost of a smile on each their faces. A little more confident, he relaxed a bit and gathered courage enough to continue.
“Whether it’s scary…” he sung while looking at Nanna, caressing her cheek. Then, he looked at Frey and stroked his hair. “Whether it’s dark…” and he looked at them by turns as he continued, “Wherever you’re going…I’ll follow behind.”

The kids smiled and Loqi paused just to look at them. Another detonation and rumbling made Loqi hug them slightly again, but he made sure to not panic, and took only a few moments before he continued, trying to recover the previous confidence. He looked down at the siblings and swallowed. It took more effort to continue than he expected, though he was not sure of why.
“I love you, little snowflake” he sung in almost a murmur. “You are my home….”
As he sung that last bit, he looked at each his siblings and let the pause linger. Perhaps singing had not been the best idea; the lyrics were making him emotional, because it was only now, in the risk of dying, that he realized the impossible size and depth of how much he really meant that particular bit of the song.
“So if you go somewhere…” he sung even more quietly, the voice breaking and eyes starting to itch. “I’ll follow you there.”

He had to pause there. The kids noticed his mood change and their smiles faded as well, and they looked at him as if not sure if they should be upset too. A slight rumble of the ground made Loqi gather courage again, and he forced himself to conceal his terror.
“If you go up, if you go down” he continued singing, recovering the forced but soft smile. “If you go left, if you go right…”
“If you cross the ocean, if you cross the sky” Frey sung in a whisper with him. Without shutting up, Loqi’s smile widened and he nodded at his brother, which seemed to give the boy courage to sing a little more loudly. “Wherever you’re going, I’ll follow behind.”

Loqi stared at his sister this time, and so did Frey.
“If you stay here, I’ll be here with you” both boys sung.
“We’ll play a game…” Nanna joined in barely a whisper, but a smile and nod from her older brother while singing made her smile back and gave her confidence to sing louder. “And bake cookies, too!”

“But if you want to leave, I won’t let go” the three sung together. “Little snowflake, I’m coming along.”

There was another of the louder detonations and a terrible earthquake; Loqi, once more, brought his siblings closer to himself and kept them hugged while the rumbling ceased.
“You won’t be lonely, little snowflake” he continued alone in a whisper, before breaking apart from his siblings only enough without letting go.
“Because if you go somewhere” the three sung in whispers, the kids looking up at their brother, and him looking down at them by turns, “I’ll follow you there.”

The song was supposed to end there. Loqi smiled at the kids, and they smiled back. While keeping them in arms, he leaned close and gave a kiss to Frey on the cheek, before reaching for Nanna to do the same.
“Because if you go somewhere” Loqi sung alone, in a murmur. He looked at the kids by turns, “I’ll follow you there…”

That was not just a song. It was a promise that Loqi made to them every vacation that he saw his siblings, one he had done for six years by now, and that he meant to keep up for the rest of his life.
And the kids knew it.
After a few more glances, the kids reached closer and hugged their brother in a different way than before; they were not shielding behind his chest for protection, they were rounding his neck for the only purpose of showing him love. Loqi, of course, hugged them back, one in each arm. The earth rumbled and there were distant booms, but none of the three was startled, or flinched. Like the world outside did not matter anymore; like the basement of their house was an unbreakable box which no Lucian could ever open, no matter how many bombs they threw on them.

“My little warriors” Loqi whispered when the kids broke apart from the hug, looking at each of them with a smile that, this time, was sincere. “So brave and so strong…” he used his hands to caress their hairs. “You inspire me, did you know that?”
By any response, the kids only smiled at him, no hint of any fear in their innocent faces anymore. Loqi could not help a wider smile while he looked at them.

He had done it for them, but only now realized it had worked for him too; he had meant to keep them calm, and it turned out to work for him as well. For a moment, he felt very idiotic; how foolish it had been of him to think that anything could happen to them. The manor had three floors and it was strong; there was no way a bomb could break to the basement. And the Lucians were but poor savages with no technology; even if these were their bombs, they couldn’t be strong enough. Loqi felt suddenly so safe, too safe, and very confident that this would stop soon.

It did not. At least, he remained calm most of the time; he was sat on the floor at a corner, a sock missing, and hugged to his siblings. They were a bit too big now, not like when they were five and four, so Loqi could not keep each sat on his thighs, but they still stayed snuggled next to him, hugging him. Loqi caressed their arms, backs, and hairs while the three waited together in silence, and while the distant detonations and the earth rumbling went on for longer and longer.

They tried singing the Little Snowflake again, this time the three together from the beginning.
Still, even after finishing a second time, the bombs had not stopped.
It was only midways through the third time singing it that Loqi did get nervous.
Since when are the Lucians so…aggressive?

“If you cross the ocean, if you cross the sky…” the three were singing quietly. The kids even seemed to have gotten a bit sleepy, snuggled against him, eyes closed. Loqi, on his part, was suffering the opposite effect and getting less calm. “Wherever you’re going, I’ll follow be-”

The last syllable came out as half-a-yelp from the kids. At the time they were finishing the verse, a bomb fell somewhere nearby, and caused the loudest deafening boom they had heard so far. This, plus the horrible consequent earthquake, made the three curl up together; Loqi held his siblings to himself and he once more tried hovering over them as best as he could in a protective reflex. Despite the yelp, the kids remained mostly calm in his embrace.

During the last seconds of rumbling, Loqi moved the head up and saw some more dust falling from the ceiling. Loqi remembered about the worst case scenario, and thought that just coming to the corner of the room was not enough. He hated to think of the worst scenario, but if he had to do that to think of safety measures to keep his siblings and himself safe, then so be it.
“…listen, little ones” he murmured and looked down at the kids. “I want you to stay this brave all the time, okay? Nothing bad is going to happen to us” he explained, and the kids, confident, nodded. “So don’t panic if anything happens; we’ll be okay, so long you do as I tell you. Understood?” once more, the kids nodded. “If I tell you to move down…” he swallowed and broke apart slightly from them. “You’ll let yourselves down on your side…do it, please. Like that. And you’ll hug each other, as close and as tight as you can; you will cover her head like this, and you will cover his head like this…”

As he gave the instructions, he grabbed his siblings’ little hands and limbs and adjusted them to the correct places.
“Did you understand?” Loqi asked them after he had given a couple more of instructions.
“Yes, Doki” the kids replied together, sitting back up and smiling at him. Loqi forced a smile back, still not understanding very well how they could be so calm. He guessed it was the lucky side of being a child that had never been to war or under any risk of this size. Loqi had meant to also give them safety instructions of what to do afterwards in case the roof did collapse on them, but their smiles made him weak, and he did not think he had the heart to scare them. He would explain only if they got to that scenario. And if he was in conditions to do that…considering his position was riskier than theirs.

If anything happens to me…they will understand one day why I did it, and forgive me.

He trusted the empire, though. In case anything happened to him and he couldn’t give them instructions, it didn’t matter; the empire was probably already on their way to help, and they would rescue the kids. The empire would save them.

“Anyway…” Loqi said after a distant detonation. “Let’s…continue. Where did we leave the song?”
“Uhm…I think it was in the ocean and sky” Nanna said calmly.
“No, we already sung that, we’re in the baking cookies part” Frey replied, and soon enough both kids were arguing about where they had left the song. Loqi smiled, still marveled at how easy they were taking this. He even managed to laugh a little while watching them.
“Okay, okay, stop” he said with a chuckle. “Let’s retake it from the ocean and sky. That way we won’t miss anything, just in case, right?”
“Doki.”
“Yes?”

The three stayed quiet. Loqi had expected maybe what Nanna had to say was related to the song, but after the silence lingered, he realized this was more serious. Frey was looking at her too, waiting for her to say whatever she had in mind.
She smiled.
“Thank you.”
Loqi blinked and felt his heart wrench inside.
Please, don’t make me get sentimental right now…
“I was really scared before you came for us” she said a bit shyly, fingers toying a little with her pajama pants. “I couldn’t even move or do anything. I thought I was going to die.”
“Yeah, me too” Frey joined, nodding, and turning to look at his older brother. “I didn’t even dare look through the window. We hid under the table because it was the first thing we saw, but really, we couldn’t move. I felt bad that we had sneaked to the kitchen, I thought if I had stayed in my room, I could have been safer.”

“I was scared” Nanna repeated. “But then you were there, like always.”
“Yeah, you really are like the friend of Little Snowflake!” Frey cheered, looking happily at him, oblivious to the way Loqi’s heart continued breaking and wrenching inside him. “I thought it was just a song, but you really followed us there, even when it was so scary!”
“Please, don’t-” Loqi tried interrupting them, but his voice broke and he did not dare continue, fearing he would end up crying.
“So really, thank you” Nanna said and got closer to hug him again, rubbing her head against his chest. “I’m happy you’re here, Doki.”
Frey got close and hugged him too, needing no words.

Loqi didn’t have courage enough to say something back. He kept the kids hugged and thanked the gods they were not looking at him; it took all his self-control and more to not burst into tears. He stopped breathing, jaw clenching, and eyes so tearful, he couldn’t see anything. His heart hurt almost literally, and he really needed to gasp in for air and cry, but he couldn’t dare.
Is this why they’re so confident and calm? Because I’m here, is that everything?
Dear Six, I’m not unbreakable. I’m not immortal. Why do they think I am?

They spent a long while hugged like that. The bombs and detonations continued, but the kids didn’t even flinch as response. Loqi trembled in his place and forced himself to calm down with every second, until he was calm enough to lean down and press a kiss to each their heads.
“…hey, I did say we’ll be fine, right?” he whispered, hugging them close and caressing their backs. “I’ve got you…”

No one spoke afterwards. The three stayed hugged together, snuggled in the corner of the basement while the earth shook, and the bombs continued falling above their heads.
Loqi did not count how long he stayed hugged to his siblings, but it felt like an eternity, both as a good and as a bad thing; on the bad side, it felt impossibly long ago since the bombing started, and on the good side, he felt he had spent hours cuddling his siblings, and that warmed his heart.

After a good while, the kids broke from the hug. Loqi cleaned his eyes quickly; while he had not dropped tears, they had stayed trapped in his eyelashes. He looked down at his siblings and smiled.
“Thank you, little ones” Loqi said. “I wouldn’t be strong without you, so it’s all on you. Did you know that?”
“You’ll see, when we grow up and we’re so strong and big like you” Nanna started saying cheerfully, “we’ll help you with the Marshmall!”
“Oh? Really?” Loqi followed the game, smiling.
“Yeah!” Frey joined in as cheerfully. The bombing continued as they spoke. “It’ll be three against him! He won’t have a chance!”
“You’ll be Dynamo, and we’ll be Gadget and Wire!” Nanna cheered even more joyfully than before. The comparison earned a sincere if quiet laugh from their older brother. “And he’s the evil MagiMan!”

Loqi continued laughing a little while his siblings went on about the TV cartoon, using Loqi, themselves, and the figure of the Lucian Marshal as the new protagonist and side-kicks and villain.
“You, crazy things” he murmured lovingly. “Alright. We’ll be a team.”
“Yay!” Nanna cheered. “We’ll be your buddies in justice, Doki, the best friends! We’ll fight the bad guys and defeat them. And it’ll be like the song; wherever you’re going, we’re going too.”
“Yeah, like you do, except now it’ll be us following you!” Frey said happily. Loqi smiled at them, and wondered if they were aware of the meaning this was having to him. “And then-”

The deafening noise of a bomb interrupted them. The kids, almost by reflex, immediately snuggled against their brother, and Loqi already had them in arms. He pressed them close as a second bomb did not give time for the earth to recover before it was already shaking again, and then one more, and one more.
Despite the lighthearted and even funny air of only a few seconds ago, the sudden aggressivity of the bombs destroyed the earlier mood and put Loqi back into terror, and the kids back into fear.

Once the bombing stopped for a bit, Loqi shushed his siblings and tried to keep them and himself calm. This was starting to drain him; this had lasted far too long, and faking he was not scared was getting on his nerves, but he couldn’t drop the lie. He had to keep the kids calm, let them know it would be okay, and he would until the end, but it really was mining him mentally and draining him in every sense.
Be the hero they think you are. Be the man with the cape.
“It’s okay” Loqi whispered. “I’ve got you. It’s almost over…”

The kids didn’t reply. They stayed snuggled against him, and this time they didn’t break apart. The previous bombs had been the loudest so far, and the fact that they came one immediately after the other did but scare the kids to silence.
They spent the next minutes in silence. The bombs continued detonating, some distant, some closer, and the earth rumbled according to how loud the noises were. Nanna and Frey had sat each on one of his thighs, despite them not being as little as they were only a few years ago, and kept the heads rested on his chest and shoulder, while he caressed their arms and hairs, and sometimes kissed their foreheads.

Things were getting bad. After even longer hugged in silence, it was clear the bombing had lasted way too long to be normal. Loqi knew better about these things, and this was not normal; bombings were quick, and this had lasted for far too long. And the longer it went on, the more dangerous. His siblings had never been to a warzone, but this had lasted so long, even they had noticed things had gotten bad, and none of them dared talk anymore. If they did not seem terrified like anyone would be, they were quiet and nervous, toying with the fingertip with the folds and buttons of Loqi’s pajamas, but any sign of their previous cheers, conversations about cartoons, or singing, it was all gone.

Loqi hugged them a little tighter after a close detonation.
“…Doki?” Nanna whispered. “Papa hasn’t arrived…”
“I’m sure he’s fine, baby girl” Loqi lied in a whisper, kissing her head.
“Doki” Frey whispered. “Are we…in risk of dying?”

Loqi stayed quiet. The silence went on, interrupted only by the noises of the bombs and the cracking walls.
“You’re not” Loqi whispered, firmly. He broke apart slightly from them to look at them in the eyes by turns. “You’re not” he repeated a bit louder. “I swear…on my life, little ones…” he removed some of Nanna’s hair from her face. “I swear on my life that you’ll be alright. I promise.”
Even if it costs mine.

He was determined. Terrified, but decided.
Things were bad. And if they got worse, Loqi was already mentalized enough to not make it out of there alive, but only in exchange of saving both his siblings. They were more worth it than he was; they were better than him, would be better than him. And he also had his selfish reasons, because he simply could not imagine a world without them. Maybe they couldn’t imagine one without him, he knew, but he still trusted that they would understand one day. Besides, two imperial lives for one, that would always be worth it. And from among all the people in the world, anyone deserved death more than these two. Even Loqi himself could deserve it, but not them, never these kids.

“I’m happy you’re here, Doki” Nanna repeated quietly, pressing her head against him again. “Thank you…”
“I’m happy you’re here, too” Frey said and mimicked his sister, leaning back to hug their brother again. “Thank you.”
This time, Loqi didn’t reply. He kept them on his lap, hugged firmly but softly.

Be the hero they think you are, Loqi…

The three stayed sat in the dark basement, hugged together, and waiting in silence while the bombs went on non-stop. Loqi continued caressing their hairs, their faces, their backs, breathed in their smells, kissed their cheeks, everything slow and taking his time, trying to memorize everything about them, how they looked, how they smelled, how they felt, how they sounded. Loqi hated to do it; it felt like saying goodbye, and he was not planning to say goodbye to any of them anytime soon. It was not like he would remember once dead, but it felt important, leaving this world with a last treasured something in his head, and not the idea of the fucking Lucians killing him in his own house.

The Lucians needed only three bombs more.

Perhaps, if the aircrafts had been a little more to the right, or a little earlier, or a little more to the left, the Tummelt may have had a happier ending. But the Lucians only needed three of the last bombs to ruin them.

The first bomb they could hear even before it hit the ground. Already acquainted with the noise falling bombs made, the kids covered their ears, curled up as if wanting to hide in their own chests, and hid in Loqi’s as well. Loqi wanted to cover his ears as well, but he found it impossible to make his arms get away of his siblings, and he kept them tightly hugged, the face buried in their hairs, and the bomb detonated right on top of what had been the already destroyed bunker across the garden. That, they couldn’t know, but they did feel how close it had been.

Nobody made a sound, but the way their little hands held to Loqi’s pajamas so tightly like the world was ending and the way he hugged them the same way kept their terror clear. The roof dropped a lot of dust, and something cracked.

Be their hero…

The second bomb landed, some seconds later, on top of what had been Frey’s room.

The siblings had barely tried to get away thinking it was already over, but immediately went back to hugging each other at the noise of the second, even closer detonation. Loqi’s heart beat madly inside his chest, his head throbbed so loudly he was sure it would explode, and he lost the sense of hearing for a second and only heard a high-pitched beep.

It was after he recovered from the deafening noise that Loqi heard it.
At first it was subtle enough. Then loud. Then terrifyingly loud and close.
Loqi was breathing heavily and with troubles only out of terror while he was curled up in the corner with his siblings in arms, but he could still hear it. One, two, then five and ten more of the same sound.
The sound of something cracking.

Be their hero.

Trembling beyond control, with the kids in his lap and hugged to him, and him hugged to them, Loqi slowly started raising the head to look up, little by little, trembling harder by every inch that his head moved up. But as terrified as he was, he forced himself to look up to the roof.

The roof of the basement was holding together by mere luck; it was cracked beyond repair, and more and more cracks continued appearing at an alarming pace. At first, they were only a few, but they continued spreading until they covered the entire roof.
“…oh gods” Loqi breathed out in barely a thread of a voice while staring at the roof full of cracks that did but continue breaking.

That was when the aircrafts dropped the third bomb.

Loqi heard it as it was falling. Bombs did not whistle like in movies; the fact that he could hear it could only make him imagine how close it was.

Loqi’s eyes flew wide instead of shut when the bomb landed on a spot right on top of them. The noise was the loudest they heard in all the night; it did cause the siblings to yell this time.

Save them!

“Down!” Loqi screamed half-a-second after the bomb had landed. The siblings lost no time and hugged each other, throwing themselves down on their sides as Loqi had taught them.

At the same time that the roof started falling, Loqi threw himself towards his siblings, hovered over them, forgot to cover his own head, and used the arms to hug them instead.

And the house collapsed on them.

Chapter Text

Vianard was in ruins, destroyed beyond repair.

Thousands of buildings collapsed, burnt and destroyed down to debris, ashes, and fire. Millions dead. The streets were but debris and ruins, ashes, a desolated ghost town.

The morning after the bombing, there was one group of people who had come to aid. The cold weather had helped cease the fires, but the group of people still had a race against time and worked harder than was in their capabilities to find and rescue the survivors.

This group of people went around the city, removed rocks and debris to find as many people as possible; they gave peace to some survivors by finding the corpses of their loved ones, and sometimes they found people alive as well. They went around looking for anyone that had survived, conscious or not, in need of medical aid or not. The team of doctors helped the injured and unconscious, and the non-instructed received a quick lesson to help with anything.

The survivors in good shape joined this small group of people in the rescue missions; going from building to building, looking for anyone trapped in the destroyed places, saving as many people as was possible.

And who was leading this group of people was the Lucian Marshal, Cor Leonis.

--

-

Cor witnessed the bombing.

He had been sent along eighty people to Imperial lands for infiltration; the empire always expected the Lucians to infiltrate and try to invade the fortresses that were scattered throughout Lucian territory, but it would never cross their heads to expect a Lucian invasion in fortresses that were in Nif territory. It would be a suicide mission, and precisely because the imperials were so confident that the Lucians would see it like that, they would get lazy in security. The element of surprise was in their favor.
They were supposed to go in ten groups of eight, to eight different bases. Vianard was the point where the squads took each their own way.

The night of the bombing, Cor and his little battalion were camping at the south outskirts of the city. They could see the distant, very distant lights of the city, but they were too far to see or hear anything. Vianard was only a dot made of many little dots of light, that later on became a dark shadow in the horizon.

The Lucians did not light a fire that night, in case the imperials would be overflying as nightly patrol. Most of them were having troubles adapting to the snow and the freezing weather, and preferred curling in their tents early instead of sitting at the non-existent fire for dinner. Cor hated the freezing weather and could not wait to go to his tent, but he waited until everyone else had gone to sleep before he did so too. They left the guards on turn alone, and most of the soldiers went to sleep.

Cor’s phone interrupted his sleep around three in the morning.
He reached for it and answered at the time he got out of the sleeping bag and went outside, as to not wake the young man sleeping next to him.
“Hello-?”
“Marshal” a male voice breathed out at the other side of the line. “Marshal. Oh, Six, where are you right now?”
“Vianard” he replied, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Sadda, what happened, why do you sound so terrifie-?”
“Fucking Six, Marshal, are you in the city?”
“No, we’re outside” Cor replied, turning to look at the distant shadow that was the city.
“Are you far enough?”
“Enough for what?”
“Marshal, you have to get away of Vianard, get as far as possible, it’s not safe-”
“Sadda, what do you mean by that? Calm down and explain it to me.”

There was only a small pause after that.
“Marshal” the voice said. “I know I came in looking for other information, but I stumbled upon these…terrifying papers. It’s the Empire, and they have…Six, you won’t believe this- it’s-” the man at the phone sighed. “It’s complicated, Marshal, just please tell me you’re distant enough from Vianard and somewhere safe.”
“I believe so” Cor replied, still not understanding. “But I would really like to ask…”

Cor didn’t finish his sentence. While looking at the distant city, the corner of his eye caught movement and he looked to a side.
That was when he saw the endless float of aircrafts heading towards the city.

Cor stared in silence, while the man at the other side of the line talked about something, but he couldn’t pay attention. He looked at the distant aircrafts, in the first place because they were so many, they could blow up an entire city, and in the second place, because they looked vaguely familiar and he was not sure he was seeing correctly.
Cor looked in silence, frozen. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew what was about to happen, but he was also sure it could not happen at all.

They’re Lucian aircrafts.

And so, after staring only a bit, while the first aircrafts were already flying above the city’s territory, Cor saw the first little black dots that fell from the aircrafts and onto the city.
His heart stopped when he saw the first bomb, even before it landed.
Despite the kilometers in between, despite the great distance that made of Vianard a dot in the horizon, Cor could still hear the bombs as they landed; the noise was quiet from his spot, but it was there.

For a moment, he panicked.
He stayed frozen in his spot, lowering the cell phone to his shoulder, and watching with wide, confused, and shocked eyes as the dozens of aircrafts started bombing the city, one after the other, only for the first to return to the back of the files to continue.

Cor spent a while staring at the unexpected and horrible events that were happening right in front of his eyes. It felt surreal.
A few soldiers started coming out of their tents to see what the distant noises were, but instead of complaining about fireworks as they had thought, everyone stayed paralyzed and staring at the sight.

Only then, Cor remembered he was still on the line, and that the man on the other side apparently had the answers.

He brought his phone back up to his ear, but his eyes stayed full and attentive on the distant bombing.
“Nobody told me we would bomb the Imperial city of Vianard” he said somewhere between anger and shock.
“That’s because we’re not” the man said as if breathless. “It’s not us, Marshal.”

“Dad?” the young man that was sleeping in his tent was now coming out of it. Cor did not look back at him; his eyes stayed full on the city and the rain of bombs.

“It’s the empire” the Lucian spy continued. “They’re bombing their own city, and framing us for it.”

Cor’s heart skipped a beat and wrenched. He let out a shaky breath.
The empire…it was the empire itself doing this.
But…why?

Cor stayed paralyzed in his spot, watching the distant city and the endless aircrafts that flew above it, like flies attacking a rotten fruit. A couple soldiers joined him soon, standing nearby and watching the flashing lights, the columns of smoke, the distant fire, and the bombs.
One by one, every Lucian soldier stood in the hill where they were camping, watching the city before them be reduced to ashes.

Cor didn’t move or said anything in a long while. It was not the first bombing he watched, or the worst he had lived, but this had to be the most…cruel that he had ever witnessed.
The empire killing its own people…only for the sake of war? All those millions of lives, used like less than toys, considered useless and unimportant, lacking any value for their own country, and used as sacrificial lambs. All those thousands, millions of people that had gone to bed trusting the empire, that were dying still trusting the empire, who gave their whole selves to the empire…betrayed by the empire.

Cor knew the Nifs could be cruel, but he had no idea there could exist someone so heartless as to do something so horrible…

After a while watching the bombing, the soldiers started asking why their aircrafts were doing this, and why nobody knew forehand. Cor explained in two sentences that this was the empire’s doing. Everyone witnessed in silence the excruciatingly and agonizingly long half-an-hour of bombing, unable to fully grasp the idea of someone so cruel they could do this. It was easier to think it really was the Lucians who were doing these atrocious actions than believe the empire was cruel enough to do it.

“Marshal” a soldier called as the bombing continued. “That’s a solely-civilian city.”
Said that, the soldier turned to look at him, looking lost.
“…what do we do?”

Everyone turned to look at Cor after the question. Everyone had the same sort of expression; there was no pride, no excitement, no joy. They were lost, shocked, and even concerned. They waited for instructions, waited for whatever the man on the lead had to say.
Cor stayed quiet, not believing that he had yet not woken up from this strange dream. He stared one by one at the soldiers and medics that surrounded him.

“…we’re going to help” Cor stated. “In the morning, we’ll go to help the survivors of that city.”

Everyone knew it was a Nif city, that the survivors were Nifs. The people that had been killing them for over thirty years.

But no one opposed to Cor’s orders.

--

That was how the eighty-one Lucians that had gone to infiltrating missions across the Niflheim continent all ended up in the destroyed city of Vianard, running around, yelling rushed orders, carrying corpses and injured bodies, removing rocks and debris, gathering the injured and patching them up, digging people out from under the collapsed buildings and bringing them to safety.

It was a day that would stay forever printed in the minds of all the Lucians and the Nifs of that city.

The tragedy was great on its own, and what was happening the following morning was an event to go straight to history books; not only had the group of Lucians given up a mission that could have given them a vantage hand to help an enemy civilian city after the bombing, but the surviving Nifs were joining hands with them in the rescue missions and tasks.
There were Nifs that identified them as Lucians despite the lack of uniform or emblems, and tried to attack or run away, but the Lucians tried explaining; if the Nifs didn’t believe that it had not been the Lucians who bombed them, they at least understood that this particular group was not part of the bad guys, at least not momentarily. That they really were there to help.

That day, there was no Lucians and Nifs, dark-haired or blondes, commoners or imperials; that day, everyone was only human. Human hands of whatever color removing debris to look for a life under it; human voices, or whatever accent, ordering, suggesting, asking for help, and giving courage to both workers and the injured; human feet running around in the desperate search of living humans; human hands, of whatever status, color, origin, or beliefs, holding together and pulling from each other to get out from under the ruins.

The Lucians did not agree with the Nifs; the Nifs did not agree with the Lucians. But every pair of hands were needed in the rescue tasks, so, even if just for one day, it was a call for peace, and a call for help and aid. A call for hope.

The Lucians divided themselves in ten teams of eight people, all of which went to different sections of the relatively small city, trying to look for as many survivors as possible.
It was, however, a race against time.

“The Nifs are bombing their own city to control the spurge of the Scourge that’s been plaguing the city for a year now” the spy explained in more detail to Cor after the bombing had passed last night. “It was their answer to the problem; eradicate the entire city, blow it all up, kill everyone. No one can transmit the illness if there’s no one that has the illness. They didn’t want to shut the borders as to not make the people upset and turn against the empire, but they didn’t want the Scourge to spread even more through the continent. So the answer was simple; they gave vacations to everyone they knew lived in Vianard, all at the same time, so that everyone was home during the same days. They stole and built Lucian aircrafts, and armed them with Nif bombs; tonight, they used the Lucian disguise to bomb the city, so that they could get rid of the Scourge problem, and not be to blame.
>>Everyone wins that way; the empire gets rid of its ugly crust, they blame us for it, and that throws wood to the fire of the imperial citizens’ anger towards Lucis. It was brilliant, Marshal, so horribly brilliant, it frightens me.
>>But what’s worse is that they need everyone to be dead. Not a single soul can survive Vianard’s bombing; the survivors will notice, when the shock passes, that the bombs are Nif technology. And even if they dare believe the Lucians simply stole that technology, there are chances that any of the survivors still carries with the Scourge germ. That’s why the Empire bombed the city in the first place, to get rid of the Scourge. So, no one must survive; one word of this, and the whole plan is ruined, and the people turn against the empire.”

And because the bombs would not be enough and the empire was conscious of it, they had sent elite soldiers and Magitek Troops to finish the survivors. They would arrive in the evening, armed, and with orders to shoot and kill anything that still moved or breathed in the city, be it human or animal.

Not only was this a difficult mission of bombing survivor rescue, it was also against the clock. The Lucians had to wait before heading to the city due to the risk of a stray aircraft that could appear even if the bombing seemed to already be over, which took even more time. Trying to convince the Nifs they weren’t there as enemies, and trying to remove the debris with only hands, it was taking time and more effort than they could give. What was worse and literally sickening was that Cor and the Lucians were aware that this was not a mission to rescue everyone; this was a mission to rescue as many as they could, flee when it was time, and abandon who knows how many thousands to die in the hands of their own government.

They knew that right under the debris of the building they left to go check another one, there could be someone else, more people that were still alive, that still had chances to be saved and live, and would not make it. Only because of fucking time.

With guilt, still in shock, and racing against the time, the Lucians and the Nifs were running around the city looking for as many people and animals as they could save.

Cor and the squad he was with had stayed at the South region of the city. After many hours spent there, they had managed to save plenty people, and three times the number of corpses. Cor had had to deal with the heart-ripping sounds of people crying their lungs and hearts out, be if for fear, or what was much, much worse and unbearable, when they cried someone’s loss.

In those moments, however, he focused solely in the rescue tasks. Along his little team and the Nifs that were in conditions to help, he had gone around removing rocks and debris, helping carry the bodies, whether alive or not, out of the buildings and somewhere safer.

After having made his way building after building from north to south, Cor was taken in one of the cars that had survived to a zone that seemed to be the rich part of the city, but that had not survived the bombing and was currently being looked at by the rescuers.
He hopped off the car and went uphill to the ruins next to investigate.

Cor made his way up hurrying but not running. The place had big gardens to the sides and surely on the back too, and despite its poor state of ashes, debris, it still looked like it had been a very important and wealthy place.
The Marshal made his way towards one of the soldiers that seemed to be on the head of the little squad attending this building. While getting close to him, Cor heard some noises and turned; nearby, coming out of the debris, two people carried with the corpse of a blond male. Cor followed them with the eyes to a place that was half-hidden from his sight, where he could see at least another five pairs of feet that no one was attending to, simply because there was nothing to do about it anymore.

Cor sighed and put the hands to the waist, staring at the lineup of corpses.
“What used to be this place?” Cor asked the soldier in charge, who turned to look at him. “A private library? Government palace?”
“A house, Marshal” the soldier informed. “It’s big and definitely wealthy, but it was a house.”
Cor nodded and looked at the ruins; apparently, it had had low level and two floors. It was wider than taller. Only one zone of the building kept the two floors; the rest was down as a messy pile of debris. There were zones that had clearly been on fire for a while. If it wasn’t for what little stayed up, it was almost ridiculous to think this had been here just the day before.
It looked like the privileged, as privileged as they could be, couldn’t make it out of war anyway. There really were things money couldn’t buy…

“What about the people?” Cor asked, staring around calmly. “Is there any way to know how many lived here or who?”
“The Nifs of the vicinity have informed us that this used to be the Tummelt manor.”
“Tummelt…” the Marshal whispered, lowering the head and caressing his chin. “Ah. The military family?”
“Yes, sir” the soldier replied. “We also found a photograph we’re using as a guide to look for survivors. Give me a minute.”

Said that, the soldier left to reach for another one that was around and shared a small talk with him. While he was away, Cor heard some steps behind him, so he turned to see who was coming.

Holding his camera in hands, and being careful where he stepped, the young blond man that he shared tent with was going his way. He was already a little dirty from all the hours he had spent helping around in the destroyed city, but he seemed to still want to go on.
“You need help here, dad?” the blond asked once he was close enough.
“Not sure yet, Prompto.”
“Ah…”
“Here it is, Marshal” the soldier from before said as he handed Cor a photograph, no frame or glass to protect it.

Cor took it and looked at it. At first sight it looked like a weird line-up of strangers in the army, but it was a family of imperial soldiers. There were two that wore the same high-ranked uniform, full of medals and emblems on the chest. By the ages, he assumed those were mom and dad, officers with very high ranks.
He saw a young man in a low-rank uniform, nowhere near an officer charge, but still higher than a cadet. A woman of wavy golden hair, in armor with a short cape, nearby officer charges but not quite yet. He saw another man, handsome, younger than the parents, but older than the others, of cold, serious eyes, in a high-rank uniform. It reminded Cor a bit of the navy, but it was still army-style; mostly white and red decorations, and his respective hat. Definitely the second in charge.
He saw an even younger man in a stupidly big armor he could recognize; brigadier general.
And quite frightening to him, he also saw two kids; trying to look as serious as the rest of the family, in mini-uniforms of cadets.

Cor liked to think that it was a symbolic uniform. At first he thought no Nif could have heart so cold as to make kids barely the age of maybe eight start the military formation, but then he remembered the empire had just bombed one of their own cities…

“There are eight people in the photograph, from which we’ve found four, all dead, and two extra corpses” the soldier explained. “We’ve found who we assume to be the father, this lady, and this man. The two extra corpses, we suspect, were perhaps a butler and a maid, but there’s no way to know if there were more than just two.”
“Father, lady, and man” Cor repeated. “You said four?”
“Yes, uhm…” the soldier glanced quickly at Prompto, then back at Cor. “One of them is…not in one piece, sir. It’s difficult to identify, but we believe it may be an adult female, hence the mother.”
“Right” Cor murmured. “So, possible servants and four of the family still missing…”
“Hey…hey!” Prompto called, quiet at first and then loudly, as he looked at the photograph Cor was holding. “I know this guy!”
“What?”

Prompto got closer and Cor showed him the photograph better. Prompto pointed at one of the people.
“This guy, I know him!”
“Prompto, how do you-”
“It’s the guy that’s obsessed with you!” Prompto exclaimed. “I could recognize him anywhere! Don’t you remember, dad? He’s tried to kill you like, twenty times by now!”
“Really?” Cor asked, eyebrows furrowing and taking a closer look of the photograph.
“It’s him!” Prompto insisted. “Dad, you can’t not remember! The guy you swear never shuts up and that’s always swearing you die today and stuff.”
“Ah! Yes, I recall now” Cor nodded. He still looked with curiosity and some confusion at the photograph, eyes locking on the young man in brigadier general armor.

Ah, yes. Cor had tried to not mind him much, but now that Prompto reminded him, he was right. There was no way Cor could miss his eyes, especially looking straight at the camera as they were; full of hatred, burning with wrath, heartless, cruel beyond anything Cor had ever seen. At least in someone so young. Even in that photo, he had the same look in his eyes as he remembered; piercing and poisonous. Proud, aggressive, colder than a hell of ice. In the photograph, he wore his red and black armor, and kept the hands behind himself, standing firm and still, and slightly in a three-quarter view.
Yes. It had been a bit more than a month since he had fought this young man, and had spared his life again…

“…what a small world” Cor murmured. Prompto nodded and agreed.
What a small world, he mused. This boy was more insistent and annoying than a pebble in the shoe. He sometimes appeared out of nowhere, and he insisted on chasing after Cor to try to kill him with his mech every time. The boy was good in strategy and leading, for it was only half the times that Cor faced him that the Lucians had a clear victory; the Nif’s team would win, but the boy by himself, he had always failed. Miserably. The boy did offer a fight; Cor never felt in risk of dying at his hands, but he was good enough to make the fights long and tedious and difficult enough only to be annoying.
The guy that he had fought multiple times, who always swore to end his life one day…and now Cor was in a rescue mission to find him, in whatever state he was in.
What a small, and very strange world.

Said no more, Cor joined the rescue missions in the ruins of the Tummelt manor. Prompto helped too, removing debris and helping in any way he could.
Prompto had gone with him in his usual job; he was not a soldier, spy, or medic. He was a photographer.

It took years to convince Cor to let Prompto be a photographer of war. Prompto insisted, and Cor knew, that the job was as important as it was dangerous. But as much as he knew the risks, Prompto also talked about the importance he saw of it; the importance of recording history, to keep the memory of the bad and ugly times alive, so the future could always remember to not repeat it, and so that the present could see the size of what was happening, and raise awareness of it. Prompto believed that photography was in itself a weapon, one that costed no lives, and could save thousands.

He usually did not get involved in the missions themselves, unless it was necessary. Or a unique situation, like that in Vianard, where he snapped less photographs as usual to lend his hands to the rescue missions instead of his camera.

Both Cor and Prompto, along another ten people, worked in removing debris around what had been the Tummelt manor. At times, they requested absolute silence, and one person spoke requesting that, if there was anyone there, could they please make any noise. They then waited for long, tense seconds waiting for any sign of a sound, someone knocking, someone screaming, even someone just whimpering, but there was never a single sound.

After searching for a good while with no results, people started leaving one by one to places that could be of more importance and still have survivors, so to not lose time looking for someone that wasn’t there.
Cor saw when they unburied someone else; the high-ranked man in his late twenties or early thirties. Two people carried him from under the armpits and by the legs. He was in pajamas, and looked at peace, despite it all. He was the only one they had found so far that was unharmed.
Despite that, after checking him, they laid him next to the other corpses, instead of taking him to the doctors, and so, task completed, the two rescuers left for another building.

Staying behind was only Cor, Prompto, and two more people that tried to keep looking.
“I think that’s it in here, Marshal” the soldier that had been in charge said, getting closer to Cor. “We’ve moved debris enough to have reached a possible basement. No sounds and no signs, I’m afraid the rest either blew up, or they’re under here somewhere, just dead” the soldier sighed. “We should move on to the next building.”
“Yes” Cor agreed, calmly. “Finding corpses is honorable, but we don’t have time for honor right now.”

The soldier nodded, and with that, he hurried to leave the ruined place. The other soldier followed behind, leaving Cor and his son alone for a moment.
“Prompto” Cor called, turning to look at the young man; Prompto had taken a few moments to snap some photographs. “We’re leaving.”
“Yes!” Prompto replied and took one last photograph before turning on his heels and rushing towards Cor and past him.

Cor sighed, looked around with only the eyes a last time, and started leaving, walking through the debris and rests of what had once been the inside of the house.
Not long after Prompto had jogged past him, the blond took his camera up to check how the photographs had turned out. Watching his camera, and walking through debris, Prompto was not focused enough in the way, and he stumbled upon a rock; luckily, he managed to keep balance, and continued his way as hurriedly as before.
Only by reflex, Cor looked down at the spot where Prompto had stumbled.
And his eyes flew open.

He was not sure he was seeing correctly, and he knew the chances were low, but he still dared to take the risk. Cor got closer to the spot where Prompto had stumbled and crouched to get a closer look.
Prompto’s foot had stumbled upon a rock, and the hit made the rock roll to a side, revealing what was under it; a thin path of some dry substance that Cor, now close, immediately recognized as blood. Following it led somewhere under the debris.
Blood meant a biological body; something with life. Whether present or past, life.

Cor didn’t dare call for the other soldiers; he could be mistaken, or whatever was hidden in there could be in pieces or not alive, so it was not worth taking the time of the rescuers for this. So Cor did it alone.

He started digging some smaller rocks, removing them, and following the little path of dry blood. Soon enough, and before he had expected, he uncovered the source.
As soon as his brain understood that what he was seeing was a human toe, Cor flinched, heart racing in his chest; despite 30 years of experience in war, finding a corpse was still never a not impacting sight. Even less when there was still the chance that it was in pieces.

Cor calmed down and continued; he dug through smaller rocks until he had removed most of them, so that when he removed the big ones the smaller ones would not collapse. After some digging of smaller rocks, Cor found the toe attached to its respective foot, and later on the foot attached to its respective leg, that had been crushed by the rocks. The rest was under two big rocks that laid one on top of the other.

Cor put the gloved hands onto the piece of collapsed roof that was on top. He pushed, groaning out of the effort, and had to try again to remove it. He pushed it to a side, and it made a loud noise as it fell onto the debris.
“Dad?” he heard from the distance, but ignored it and put the hands on the second piece of roof, and started pushing.

It took more effort than Cor thought it would to remove the second big piece of roof, and he had to try from different angles before he managed to pull it and move it to a side. Cor hissed as he let go of it, and he didn’t have a single second of mental preparation before he saw what was underneath.

Cor stood paralyzed, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. All that he did for the next seconds was stare at the sight before him, not sure how to react.

Among the ruins, Loqi Tummelt.

The Nif was in one piece, lying facedown among the debris. One of his feet was lacking the sock; the same feet that had bled, which had guided Cor to it. If he had been wearing a sock, the cloth would have sucked all blood. For whatever reason he lacked a sock, it had been what allowed Cor to find him.
The young man was still in pajamas. His head was turned enough so that Cor could see a side of his face; his hair was a disaster, and it covered part of his face, but Cor could recognize him easily. It was not the first time he saw this man among ruins, but it was the first time he saw him like that out of armor. In pajamas.
He was still in his pajamas.
…dear Six, this boy was still in his pajamas.

Suddenly, the weight of it started falling a little more on Cor; this boy was in pajamas, he had been sleeping when the bombing happened. He had gone to bed like any other night; he had trusted his life in the empire, he had gone to bed thinking he was safe, and now Cor found him among the ruins still in his pajamas. Not protected; not in armor. He was not in war; he was a civilian that had gone to bed, not involved in war for one night.

And in pajamas, thrown among debris as he was, he looked so…small.
So tiny.
He looked so harmless.
And so…vulnerable.
In need of help…

Cor felt his heart wrench inside, and he looked away for a moment; he was suddenly overthinking, and he had to stop himself. He would have time for shock sometime else; right now he had no time to waste in philosophy.

He looked again at the brigadier general. He was, like every other person they rescued from the debris, so covered in dust it looked like he had been dipped in a huge tank of flour and dropped there. His hair, blond from what Cor could remember, was now grey. His face was the same color, as so were his pajamas. It was almost like watching a statue. The only color in him came from two different spots of his right leg; the sole, covered in blood, and somewhere nearby the knee. His right leg was made a disaster; one glance was enough to know it was broken. It was positioned in three unnatural angles, and there was a pool of blood coming from under it.

Cor got a little closer and looked better at his grey stone-like face. It was bruised, and invaded by his own hair.
He did not move. Did not seem to be breathing.
He had not made it.

Cor kept a heavy sigh in his chest, and stared calmly at the body before him.
What a waste. The boy could not give him troubles, but he sure had potential. If he continued the way he had been working, in ten years he would be a terror for the Lucians. He had potential, and the heart that was proudest of the empire that Cor had ever seen.
What a true waste.

Cor sighed again and got closer, already done with the ten seconds of honorary mourning. He moved down to put the hands on the young man’s body, ready to lift him up to take the corpse with the rest.
But as soon as he was down on a knee and with a hand on the general’s arm, something caught his sight, and he turned to look.

Immediately, Cor gasped and flinched, standing back up and taking a step back out of reflex and fear. He felt his heart skip a beat, and he stayed frozen for a moment, not sure he had seen correctly.

Feeling himself shaking a bit, and for once giving unsure, scared steps, Cor got closer again to get a better look. As he got closer, he prayed to the Six for one thing and only one thing, prayed from the bottom of his heart and with all his might.
…please, don’t be a child.

Cor heard Prompto call for him again, closer, but he was too busy with this. Still scared, not sure he was ready to see whatever he had to see, Cor moved down again, trying to not look, and got a hold of the brigadier general’s body. Hesitating and with the heart beating madly inside him, Cor tried to get ready and moved the Nif to a side, rolling him onto his side in the process.

It was not a child.
There were two.

Cor stood back up and took a step back, losing the breath. Only to realize that taking distance only made the sight even worse; for a moment, Cor couldn’t move or breathe, not even blink.

The sight before him was but ruins, and among the debris, three human figures. There were two kids that were covered in dust, looking like statues of little sleeping angels. They were facing each other, and kept their little hands entwined in between them. Their eyes were softly closed; they looked almost peaceful, was it not due to their messy hairs and all the dust. They laid very close next to each other, like a pair of siblings that had played until falling asleep together out of exhaustion from too many laughs and games.
Next to them, laid their older brother.

He was still hugged to them.

Loqi laid on his side next to his siblings. There where the kids were entirely unharmed except for the dust, it was Loqi who had taken all the hit; he had a massive bruise on his forehead, a cut on the cheek, and the broken, bleeding leg, and that was only what was for the eye to see. Who knew how else he was under the pajamas.
Even though Cor had rolled and moved him, one of Loqi’s hands stayed gently resting on top of the tummy of the girl, arm across the boy. Like he was still hugging them.
Some of the fingers of the little boy’s hand were stuck in one of the gaps of Loqi’s pajamas, by the chest. Like he was still holding close to him.

It was a sight…both unbearable to watch, and hypnotizing.
The only words Cor could think about watching the sight in front of him, those were two.
Tragedy.
And Love.

Cor blinked, but could still not move, or react at the sight before him.
He looked at the kids, tried to catch any sign of life in them, and, in panic, he looked at Loqi again.

Cor gaped. His mouth moved and he blinked a bit, but it took longer than he expected so he could react.

“I’ve- I’ve found children!” Cor yelled. Right as he was yelling, Prompto appeared to sight, above him by walking on a higher hill of debris, and looked at him puzzled. “I found chi- Prompto, tell them I’ve found children! I need help!”
Prompto gave only a quick glance at the three bodies, hurriedly nodded, and left again. Cor heard him yell a little, and then stay quiet and come back.

Cor stared at the scene, frozen, and suddenly feeling a little anxious. His heart beat heavy and loudly inside him.
Prompto carefully went around the debris and hurried to join him, only to stop dead in his tracks with a gasp as soon as he properly laid eyes on the sight in front of them. Cor said nothing, and let Prompto stay quiet and watch, understanding he was probably having the same reaction than him, understanding the same things Cor could understand with one sight alone.

A bit surprisingly, Prompto hesitatingly brought his camera up. He looked many times like regretting and wanting to put it back down, but he ended up forcing himself to put the camera to his face, took only a few seconds adjusting the lens, and then he shot. He stayed paralyzed for a few moments, and, as if the weight of it had finally fell on him, Prompto started lowering the camera, shaking a little. Cor tried to look at him, offer some comfort because he understood how shocking the sight could be, but he simply could not look away of the three siblings that laid in the debris, together, and still hugged.

Prompto looked at the three for longer, and then he swallowed.
“…you know, dad” he said lowly. “I’ve been in this for two years. I’ve seen…horrible things. So many tragedies. I was born in the middle of war, everything I see daily is tragedies so big, I didn’t think it was possible for so much sadness to be real” after he said that, he let out a shaky breath and shook the head. Cor turned to look at him, and he saw Prompto clean his eyes from not-dropped tears. “…so I never thought that I would see something sadder than everything I’ve already seen. And even less did I think that the saddest photo I would ever take and saddest story I’d ever see…would be a Nif’s.”

Cor stayed quiet, looking at his son for a moment only, and then looked back at the three siblings.

The boy’s little hand holding Loqi’s pajamas, the little hands entwined, and Loqi’s arm hugged to them. It was unbearably painful to watch.

Prompto sighed and he put the head down, covering his eyes with a hand. A few moments later, he pressed himself against Cor’s side, and Cor rounded him with an arm, caressing Prompto’s, and trying to offer some comfort.
They stayed quiet, standing before a tragedy.
“This is so cruel…” Prompto whispered. Cor wanted to tell him that he knew it, to offer some understanding, but he could not speak. What laid before them, it was beyond anything he could put into words, so he didn’t.

Not long afterwards, two people arrived running, and rounded the debris to go down. Cor tensed a little and stared at them as they got closer to the siblings, talking about having found children and the possibility of calling the medics.
Suddenly, Cor felt a little bad for having called for help; it felt like the three siblings were meant to stay hugged like that forever, and that these people were intruding and breaking something valuable. Still, Cor knew their help was necessary; there was a chance the kids were alive, and someone needed to check it.
Cor could have done it, but…he felt unable.
He was…scared.

He saw the two soldiers go down nearby the kids, one for each of them. Cor contained the breath while he watched the other men start looking at their vital signs; they checked their eyes, opened their mouths, and they started looking for a pulse. When they did so, Cor contained the breath and watched in tense fear.
The medics looked for a pulse first in the kid’s wrists. They let go, and Cor’s heart skipped a beat; the medics checked then on their necks…and let go.
Just hurry up…
They then checked in the hollow of their throats. The longer they spent looking for a pulse, the more tension built up in Cor and the more he wanted to scream to just say the answer already. He saw the soldiers check yet again, and then they looked for a heartbeat. They continued checking for a pulse again, and even tried putting an oxygen mask to their faces by turns.

Cor did not see any breath in the masks, but…maybe they were just breathing gently…

The soldiers removed the masks and once more looked for a pulse and heartbeat. Cor was so tense, he was sure he was going to break as soon as they gave a diagnose, whatever it was.
…please, just say it already.

The soldier that was checking the little girl removed his fingers from her jugular.
“There’s no signs of life in her.”
Cor’s heart dropped.
“The boy didn’t make it, either.”
And it shattered.

“Oh, gods” Prompto breathed shakily next to him, and then put a hand on his mouth. Cor himself felt his breath abandon him and he felt something in his stomach shrinking, and something in his chest aching. It felt like his lungs were being squeezed by a chain.

Oh gods…gods, no…

Unable to do anything about it, Cor watched the two soldiers take the kids, one for each of them.
Loqi’s hand stayed on top of the girl’s tummy, until they lifted her. He let go of her only until his hand couldn’t reach her, and it fell still on the debris.
No…leave her there…he was not ready to let go…
Then, he watched the other soldier take the boy in arms and lift him up as well. As he was standing up, the boy’s little fingers unhooked from Loqi’s pajamas and let go.
No, he wasn’t ready either. They haven’t said goodbye properly, don’t take them away.

But Cor didn’t say anything, and didn’t do anything. All that he did was swallow to try to do something about the huge knot in his throat, and watch with teary eyes as they took the tiny figures of the kids away. The soldiers walked calmly, leaving the scene and taking the corpses of the children somewhere else.
Maybe everyone and anyone deserved to die in a war…but not the kids. Never the kids…
And these two, who had stayed hugged to their older sibling, who had made the sacrifice of his own life to save them…
This is so unfair.

Cor stared at the scene again. There where there had been three siblings hugged, now remained only one. The man that had given his life to save his siblings, and had failed.
The worst of the sight was that Loqi laid alone. He had been in company of his siblings, and now he was…alone. Bleeding, bruised, made a mess, dirty. Thrown among debris. In ruins, in many ways.

It was not right; if he had given his life for the people he loved, he did not have to die alone.
Despite what he had said earlier about not having time for honor, Cor felt the uncontrollably necessity to bring this man to his siblings again. If there was nothing he could do to recover lives, the least he could give them was an eternal rest all together. They died together, hugged, then the same way they had to leave. Together, like a family that had stayed literally hugged until the very end.

That was why Cor forced himself out of his shock and decided to leave the sadness for later, and let go of Prompto to approach the Nif that laid alone. He stepped onto the rocks and made his way again back to the young Tummelt. Once more, Cor took a few seconds to admire the man that that day had shown to be more than a heartless soldier. He mourned his death more sincerely than he had done before.

Cor saw him and tried to see the cruel general that had tried to murder him so many times, but all that he saw was a fallen hero.

Cor went down on a knee next to him, ready to carry him, but took a minute.
He knew it was senseless and that he already knew the answer; there was no way this boy had survived. But it was still protocol, checking vital signs before anything.
Not expecting anything, Cor put two fingers to the man’s neck, on the jugular. He stayed quiet and tried to pay attention. He could not feel anything. There was a strange sensation under his fingertips, but…
Just to make sure, Cor checked in the man’s wrist, but found nothing either.
It was until he put his fingers in the hollow of Loqi’s throat.

Cor stayed quiet, eyebrows furrowing. He thought he had felt- but he could be mistaken. He paid attention, focused.
…beat.
Cor’s eyes flew open.
It couldn’t be true…
He has a pulse…!

“He has a pul-…” Cor whispered and the sentence died in his mouth. He lost the breath and put a hand to Loqi’s chest, and put some fingers to his jugular again, and Cor marveled again, marveled enough to lose the breath in a quiet whimper, as if near hysteria or tears.
“Dad?” Prompto called when he saw his reaction.
“He has a pu-” Cor whispered again, in shock, and turned to look at Prompto, back at the Nif, and so on and on, not sure who to look at. “Prompto, he has- he’s ali- he has a pulse.”
“What?” Prompto asked in a breath, eyes wide.

Cor didn’t answer. Instead of that, he quickly but carefully slipped an arm under the Nif’s knees and one around his shoulders. Cor made sure to adjust him in arms, gently, and then he stood up, carrying Loqi’s only unconscious but living body. Cor started hurrying his way up the debris, holding the young Nif in arms, making sure to be careful, trying to hold him in a way so Loqi’s head would not fall backwards too much, as to avoid any possible damage in a possibly injured neck.

The Lucian Marshal came out from among the ruins carrying with the man that he had fought so many times in the battlefield before, not sparing his life this time, but rather saving it.

Unconscious, breath so weak it was unnoticeable, pulse so weak Cor almost mistook him by dead, a destroyed leg, covered in dust, still in pajamas, lacking a sock, and surviving not only a bombing but a collapsed house as well, Loqi Tummelt and his life hung from a thread, and from his arch-nemesis’ hands.

“He’s alive!” Cor roared out when he was at ground level, trying to call the attention of any nearby person. “I found a survivor! He’s alive! I need help!”

Prompto had hurried to exit the debris with him, and hurried to take some photographs. After one or two, Prompto rushed as fast as he could downhill, going to look for the nearby medics so they could be prepared by the time Cor arrived. Cor had to go slower as he was carrying with an injured, and thanked that Prompto had been smart.

Cor hurried downhill until reaching the place where they had lined up the injured. The majority were awake, some could even stand. Loqi was one of the few that was unconscious.
Once reaching the spot, there were already two soldiers ready to attend Tummelt. Cor carefully but hurriedly went down on a knee and carefully laid the young Nif on the ground, dropping the back first, trying to not cause harm to his already broken leg, and letting go of the head last, as gently as he could.
He moved back enough, but suddenly was unable to move away; straight away, the medics started checking him.

Cor saw Loqi’s eyes were red when they opened them to check them with a flashlight, surely due to the quantities of dust he was exposed to for so many hours.
“Vital signs are weak, but stable-”
“He’s having severe troubles breathing, I need an oxygen mask right now or we’ll lose him-”
“The damage of his leg is beyond our control, this needs surgery-”
“Respiratory tracks are mostly blocked, he’s going to asphyxiate-”
“It seems like the bleeding has stopped but we need to clean immediately-”
“Where is the oxygen!?”

Cor stayed quiet, watching the medics do their job. His mind had yet not finished wrapping around the fact that the only one he had assumed dead since the beginning was the only one alive. That the only one that had dared give his life for someone else…had been the only one to survive.
Cor had thought when he thought the three siblings were dead that it was unfair.
What he felt right now had no comparison.

Prompto had left to help somewhere else, but Cor stayed to watch. He saw the medics put an oxygen mask to the Nif’s face. He didn’t react for the first two or three seconds.
But afterwards, Loqi finally showed the first explicit signs of being alive.
With the oxygen mask on his face for a few moments, Loqi started showing little movements, and then, out of nowhere, like he was coming back to the surface after almost drowning under water, he took in a loud, sharp, and long inhale. His whole body trembled along it. When he exhaled, it was as shaky and heavy as the inhale, and then he repeated.
The new inhale, however, was cut midways when he started coughing.

“Help me sit him up.”
Cor watched the medics bring the Nif up so he was sat. One of the medics was on a knee behind him, holding him against his chest so he wouldn’t fall, and the other kept the mask on his face. Now sat, Loqi started coughing more violently. The medic removed the mask and shook it to clean it from all the dust and even tiny rocks of the debris that Loqi had inhaled, before putting it back to help him breathe and continue cleaning his lungs.

After some coughs, Cor saw the Nif’s eyelids fluttering a little, but they fell shut immediately, and he dropped on dead weight again against the Lucian medic. They looked after him a little longer, and once his respiration was much more stable and normal, the Lucians started lying him down again.
Soon enough, the two medics left him to attend previous injured that still required attention, and Cor was left alone some meters of distance away, doing but stare.

There were many things that he wanted to think about, many concepts that his mind had not finished grasping; the past nine or so hours had been full of shocking events that almost seemed to have made some of Cor’s realities turn upside-down. The brigadier general Tummelt was one of them.
But right then was not a moment to think. Cor needed to continue in the rescue missions.

Cor forced himself out of his shock and had barely walked away a few steps before he was stopped by his ear gadget activating. He pressed it.
“The Nifs are coming. Retreating for south as you commanded, sir” came the voice from the other side of the line.
“Remember to bring what I asked you for and whatever you think may be absolutely necessary” Cor spoke as he got closer to the injured people again. “How many vehicles do we count with?”
“We’ll be tight, but it’s enough to bring all the survivors, sir.”
“Great. We’ll meet three kilometers south of the city, leaving in ten minutes. We won’t wait for anyone; if anyone stays behind, it’s all the way south, same route we took, same place where we touched Nif territory.”
“Understood, sir.”

That was the end of the conversation.

There was no time left; the Nifs had already mobilized their troops that were destined to finish the survivors of the city, and they were close enough to be a risk. Cor had ordered they gave the ratreat signal only when the Nifs were much closer than what was comfortable, trying to get as much time as possible to save as many survivors as possible.

It looked like young Tummelt was his last one.

Cor reached for the survivor he had been looking at. Once more, he slipped the arms under the unconscious but now much more alive form of Loqi, and picked him up in arms. The boy weighted nothing, and he fit in his arms just fine.
“Marshal, now what?” a soldier asked as he approached him.
“We’re leaving” Cor stated firmly. Loqi quietly and tremblingly gasped in his sleep, in Cor’s arms. “Call for retreat. If the survivors refuse, you know what to do.”
“Yes, sir” the soldier nodded, and lost no time into calling for his mates via radio.

Cor lost no time either, and he went around yelling the retreat orders, and using his own ear gadget to contact the Lucians’ squads scattered through the city. Despite the movements and noise, Loqi didn’t wake up, or offered the tiniest sign of being conscious.

After vaguely two minutes of moving his own people, Cor decided to approach one of the nearby trucks with survivors, but stopped dead in his tracks.
…it’s no time for honor, Leonis. Just leave it…
But the thought would not leave him alone.
It was the sight. It would not abandon his head; the picture of the three siblings among ruins, still hugged, it was printed inside his eyelids and into his mind.
Leave it.
Loqi had not hesitated to give his life for them. How much did he have to love them for such a sacrifice, even if it had not turned out as he expected…?
Leave it!

But Cor could not stop thinking about it. He closed the eyes and quietly hissed in exasperation against himself.
He turned around and spotted the nearest soldier.
“Tobul” Cor called. The soldier immediately paid attention. “Could you…bring…” Cor hesitated and then sighed. “…Could you bring the children, too?”
The soldier gave him slightly wide eyes and a blink of confusion, a clear look that questioned Cor’s order, not as if thinking it wrong, but as if not understanding.
“The…children, sir?”
“The ones…we found in that house” Cor said as he nodded in the direction of the ruins uphill, but not looking. “Could you bring them, please?”
“…it’s not…that I won’t, Marshal” the soldier replied carefully. “But…you are aware they didn’t make it. Right?”
“I know” Cor murmured, and looked down at the man he was carrying in his arms.

Loqi seemed to again have troubles breathing, but at least it was clear he could and was breathing. He thought again of the sacrifice he had not hesitated to make; how it turned out; how horribly, terribly unfair the results had been.
He thought again of the image of them in the ruins.
The kids were dead.
The kids he had tried to save, dead.
…how will I tell him when he wakes up?

“I know” Cor repeated lowly again, and closed the eyes. “Please. I won’t be at peace if we leave them here.”

The soldier gave him a look of surprise and confusion, but he remembered there was no time to lose, and he nodded, before hurrying his way uphill again, to where they had left the corpses of the kids.

Once given the order, Cor turned on his back again and approached the trucks, still with Loqi in arms; some were already leaving, some were still being loaded with the priority; the survivors.

While approaching them, Prompto passed by his side and gave him a glance. Cor only gestured for him to hop onto the truck first.
“Let’s go.”

Cor was last to get onto the truck, still carrying in arms the man who was not a soldier, a Nif, or an enemy, at least not that day.

That morning, Loqi was only a brother who had loved, and failed.

Chapter Text

The escape from Vianard was much tougher than the rescue missions in the city.

During the rescue missions, people were still in shock and high on the adrenaline of both surviving and helping around, and the weight of the tragedy had not fully fallen on them.
But now, on the road escaping as fast as possible, people were finally breaking down.

There were many panic attacks; even more sobbing and hysterical crying. People were starting to become conscious of the people and belongings they lost, entire houses, literally everything they had. The Lucians seemed to be very affected as well, and Cor did not question why. He, too, felt sickened and in a terrible emotional state.

Not only were people having breakdowns; some also started to die.

Having to pull entire houses off someone barehanded and with scarce help was the easy part. Surviving to the frozen desolated ice desert for over six hours, with severely injured people, and almost no medicines or enough blankets, that was the rough part.

People started dying in the way; some out of pain, and most due to toxins. The bombs the Niffs used were also chemical weapons. Upon detonation, some of the survivors told the Lucians, they released some toxins that did not smell, and basically poisoned whoever inhaled it. Some people may have survived the detonations, the fire, even being crushed under debris and rubble, even asphyxiation, but there was nothing they could do about breathing in the toxins, reason of why there had been unharmed corpses, reason of why so many of the survivors were dying in the road, and reason of why some had not woken up.

Loqi Tummelt, for example.

Cor had traveled in the same truck where they carried Loqi, still unconscious, and the corpses of his little siblings. There was something about what Cor had seen that did not allow him to go anywhere else. Sometimes, because some soldiers were going by feet, or hanging from the outside of the trunk, they reached the limits of how much could they could stand, and switched places with someone in the vehicles to warm up, Cor being one of them, so sometimes he had to be away at times, but he always returned to that spot in front of the Tummelt siblings.

Loqi was surviving poorly. In only pajamas, and counting with only one blanket, the boy was freezing, and it was noticeable even when he was unconscious. He still had random moments where he seemed to be asphyxiating, and most times they did try to give him enough oxygen to help him but as little as possible, because there were not enough tanks. The medics theorized that he must have inhaled an amazing quantity of toxins, hence why he was barely alive and still not waking up. The question was if he would make it in time to the ship, where he would get oxygen enough to clean his lungs, or if he would join the dozens of people who survived the city in ruins, only to die in the escape road.

The caravan did not stop one single minute for four hours; the Niffs, the evil ones, could catch up with them at any moment, so they could not allow themselves the luxury of resting. The constant blizzard would cover up their tracks, but that did not mean they were free of risk of being caught.

The injuries, many of which were getting infected, inhaled toxins, the horrible weather, the freezing temperature, and mere destiny, nothing was being gentle or having mercy on the group of survivors and the Lucians. Not only physically; Cor noticed, as more time went on, that everything was dying. The people; the hope; the strength. Everyone was getting quickly drained, his people had not slept in more than twenty-four hours, and the Niffs were too injured to stand the difficult situation. And the spirits…that was what had died the most.

Cor was not feeling well, either. He stayed sat in the trunk, arms and legs crossed, and eyes lost on the three siblings that laid in front of him. Despite the bumps in the road and the noise of hysterical crying, screaming of pain, of desperation, or anything else, Loqi didn’t wake up. He laid, injured, dying, and mere inches from the corpses of his siblings, yet completely unaware of any of this.
The kids dead. The older brother not waking up.
Cor felt, for the first time in many years, profoundly hopeless.

“Marshal” a soldier appeared in the road and hopped onto the moving trunk with some effort. “We need to stop.”
“Reasons?” Cor asked, calmly. The soldier seemed to hesitate and sighed.
“…we’re…too slow” the soldier tried to explain, and got close to continue in murmurs. “Too many have died. Carrying with corpses, as honorable as it is, slows us down. If we want to make it out alive with as many survivors as possible…”
“…yes, I understand” Cor replied lowly. There were some moments of silence while he seemed to think about it. “Call for a stop. We’ll take a one-hour break.”
“Understood” the soldier respectfully nodded, stood back up, and hopped off the trunk.

They made a stop to rest. The medics tried to attend the injured as best as possible, and many other people, both Lucians and Niffs in conditions, started digging a big and large hole in the snow and the ground.
Cor had never liked mass graves. It felt like throwing everyone in there to oblivion. But there was no time, strength, or conditions to make an individual grave for all the forty-three people that had died in the short lapse of four hours in the road.

Cor helped to dig the grave, trying to see if he could clear his head that way, but it did not help. Digging the grave only reminded him of the kids that he had left behind in the trunk.
He knew that they were going to bury the corpses to gain speed, it was for a good reason, for the better. But he didn’t have the heart to bury the kids.
He still hasn’t said goodbye…

After resting, they continued on the road, having left behind a whole trunk that they tried to hide in a cave.
Back on the road, Cor took his place of always, with the Tummelt siblings. Prompto was sat next to him, silent, and with the head down. Nobody said a word.

Cor was switching between watching Loqi and his troubled sleep, or the kids, and how…terribly peaceful they looked.
It was horrible. What war did, the consequences of war…it was all horrible.
Prompto tried to hold his hand and stroke his arm to comfort him, but Cor could not take the eyes off the children. It was the most heartbreaking and soul-ripping sight he had seen in a long time. He had seen children dead before, but…never Niff civilians. And never a pair that had been so loved until the very end.

The more time they spent on the road, and the more time Cor spent watching the kids, the more the weight of everything fell on him.
When the group stopped a second time, and feeling dizzy, with headache, and brokenhearted for people he did not even know, Cor threw up feeling literally sickened by everything that had happened in the last hours. Prompto tried to ask him to rest, but Cor, stubborn, refused and said he was fine.

The group continued. Cor stayed in the same truck, in the same spot, in the same pose.

Cor stared at Loqi, all the time asking himself the same questions; how was he supposed to tell him when he woke up? Did he have to just wait for him to see his siblings lying next to him? How would he react? Would he cry their deaths, go mute in shock? Cradle their bodies in arms, or be too scared of touching them? Would he scream from the core of his soul, or would he cry quietly? What was Cor going to tell him?
…was he going to wake up at all?

When they made a third stop, Cor almost didn’t notice until Prompto gently called for him five times.
Prompto asked to take his place in the task of helping dig another mass grave for the new thirty corpses. Cor stayed sat at the improvised camp, surrounded of a few hundreds of tragedies; Nifs cradling in arms severely injured family or friends, Lucian medics trying with basically no tools to help them, the dozens of soldiers that sat with the gaze lost. As if part of themselves had died along the imperial city and the Nifs they had not been able to save.

The freezing weather was bearable, even heaven, when compared to how disheartening, discouraging, and hopeless everything felt.

While at camp, the Glaive Tobul approached Cor and sat next to him. For a long while, there was only silence between them.
“Marshal” the way the Glaive said it gave Cor an idea of what was to come, but he pretended to not know, only frowning and looking somewhere else as if he had not heard him. “What you’re doing…I think it’s very honorable.”

Cor still didn’t reply or looked at him. The silence that followed was tense, and Cor’s heart raced the more it lingered. Finally, the Glaive sighed shortly and softly shook the head.
“…but we don’t have time for honor right now” Tobul whispered. “Marshal: the Magitek Troops are after us. The people are dying. We need to go as fast as we can if we want to save the ones that we still can save.”
Cor only frowned a little more deeply, but lowered the head. Still, he gave no reply.
“I saw him hugged to the corpses of his siblings, too, I still think about it” the Glaive said. “And I know what you feel, the necessity of bringing the kids too, so that he can at least say goodbye. But it’s not the time, Marshal. We can’t allow ourselves or him that luxury when a few hundred lives still depend on us.”

Cor sighed shakily through the nose, a little cloud forming in front of him when he did.
“…we’re almost at the coast” Cor muttered. “It’s only a few hours more. We can make it with the children, too.”
“Marshal” Tobul called, firmly but softly. “We could get rid of two trucks right now. But we need that space.”
“I- can’t. We don’t have to leave them behind, we can still bring them along-”
“Marshal-”
“They don’t occupy much space, they are so-” Cor stopped dead in his tracks there. He had been rushing and talking rather loudly, on the defensive, but as soon as he said that, he paused instantly and lost the breath.

After a moment, Cor shook the head, lowered it, and put a hand to his eyes.
“…they are so tiny” he whispered in a tone that felt like he was thinking about something else, the voice but a thread. There was a long pause. Cor caressed his temples and kept the head down, and then he sighed shakily. “…gods, they are so tiny…”
There was a much longer silence this time. After a while, the Glaive put a hand to his shoulder and let it stay there.
“…he hasn’t said goodbye” Cor said after he recovered a little. “The guy that survived. He hasn’t said goodbye to them…”

Tobul gave him a sad but comprehensive glance. He swallowed and nodded.
“I understand, Marshal” he said lowly. “And I think it’s beautiful that you want to give a little peace to his soul when he wakes up to the news. I think I too would like to hug my family one last time, even if it’s just their bodies…”
Said that, he let go of Cor’s shoulder, and he gave the Marshal a sad smile.
“I think it’s a heartwarming intention. But, sometimes, for better that your intention is, and for harder you try, life just…won’t agree.”

Cor lowered the eyes, and his shoulders untensed. What the Glaive said, it was sort of what had happened to the Tummelt siblings. To Loqi, in specific; he had his intention, he tried, and it simply didn’t work out as he planned.
He lowered the head a little more, and his jaw and shoulders untensed. He stared at nowhere at all, in silence, for a long while.

Once more, the Glaive put a hand to his shoulder, and then stood up.
“I won’t tell you what to do, Marshal” Tobul said, “because you already know what’s maybe not the correct, but the wise thing to do. And there is nothing shameful or nothing you should feel guilty for, Marshal. You tried.”

With those last words, the Glaive left.
Cor had a knot so big and tight in his throat that he had to open the mouth and gasp in for air. His eyes itched, and he covered them when he felt them start to water. He fought with all his might to not burst into tears.

From all the decisions he had had to make as a soldier and captain, in thirty years of war, this had to be one of the hardest he had ever made.

Cor went to the truck to get the siblings. When he entered, he had the hope that maybe Loqi had already woken up, so that he could look at his siblings and get the chance to say a last goodbye. But he hadn’t. When he opened the back of the trunk, Loqi was still as he left him; pale, freezing slowly to death, and in a troubled but deep sleep, vaguely breathing. Cor sat in silence for a while, staring at him, and pleading from the bottom of his soul that he please woke up now, now, now.
But he didn’t. Loqi stayed asleep, and Cor had to force himself to not wait anymore.

Cor decided to clean the corpses a little. That way, he also got a bit more time in case Loqi woke up. Using cloths dampened with the snow, Cor tried to clean the kids as best as possible, as they were so covered in dust they looked like made in stone. He did it carefully, almost with care, as if they could still feel and he feared to wake them up or hurt them. From time to time, he glanced towards Loqi to see if he had woken up, but he had no luck there.
Once clean, Cor took a moment to look at the siblings. And, despite it all, he could not help a little smile.

They made a pretty family. Like three siblings asleep after a long day of games, all next to each other.
The kids had freckles, where Loqi had none. The boy had a few, but the girl had an entire galaxy of constellations on the face. The boy looked a lot like his older brother, except his hair seemed to be brighter, like Prompto’s, where Loqi’s was a darker shade, which he shared with the little girl. Their hair seemed to have a tendency for wavy; it was more noticeable in her, with pretty little curls. It was not very obvious in the boys, unless he looked at the tips, where the hair had this tendency of curling.

The kids were both unharmed. Even when he pulled up the sleeves and pants to clean them, the most he found were tiny bruises, but they were entirely unharmed.
Cor focused in Loqi again. For some reason, it made a knot in his throat again, and all he could think about and see was a hero. A bombing, fire, and a collapsed house, and Loqi had still somehow managed to protect his siblings to the point that they didn’t have a single scratch on themselves.
It was both a reassuring and beautiful thought, but also frustrating. Loqi had gotten such a victory, and it still had turned out as the worst of defeats…

Cor still waited a little more, pleading, begging, aching internally for Loqi to wake up before Cor would do it. But he didn’t. And, as much as he hated to do it, as much as he hated himself, and as much as guilt would eat him for the next couple years, Cor had to force himself to stop waiting, and took Loqi’s siblings away of him before he could say goodbye.

It was a difficult walk, perhaps the most difficult Cor ever walked in his life; carrying with the corpses of two tiny kids, victims of a horrible war, away of the brother who had decided to give his life for them, to bury them in the snow desert of Niflheim.

Cor didn’t have the heart of throwing them into the mass grave the others were still filling. He knew it was selfish, perhaps unfair too, but he chose to give them a personal grave.
Cor walked away of camp towards a nearby chain of mountains. He dug the two little graves in the snow and the frozen earth in front of a rock wall. After he gave them a decent depth, Cor took first the corpse of the little girl, and gently, almost with fatherly care, he put her down in the first hole, letting go of the head last. He caressed one of her freckled cheeks with a finger, a little scared. Then, he took the corpse of the boy, and as carefully, as gently, he put him down in the hole next to hers, and he caressed softly his golden hair.

Both looked so peaceful that it was almost unbearable to look at. Gods, they were so tiny. Digging a grave was always difficult, but digging one the size of a child…
Cor’s eyes teared up and a small tear did drop to one of his cheeks. The sensation brought him out of the long minutes he spent staring at the kids and mourning them, and he forced himself to start burying them. It felt wrong, sickeningly wrong to throw the ground and snow onto them, no coffin to protect them or anything, just the dirt and the snow right onto their faces and little bodies. Cor almost fell into desperation and almost dug them back out in remorse, but he forced himself to continue until the children were properly buried.

Cor didn’t know their names, so the only thing he left as a signature were a pair of T’s, standing for Tummelt. He used his knife and a lot of strength to carve the pair of T’s on the stone wall, on top of the improvised and poor graves, to mark the spot where the Tummelt children were buried. It felt important; he knew the empire could find it, but it still felt important to mark it. Like not doing it was a way of saying the kids had never existed.

Once done that, and with the body trembling almost violently, half due to the weather, and half due to the crazy tornado of emotions in him, Cor took some steps back, and dropped to his knees in front of the graves. He sighed, stayed silent for a long while.
Then, Cor put the hands together, and prayed a little. The Nifs could be enemies, but the gods were international.
After a little prayer, Cor moved down to put hands and forehead to the snow, eyes closed.
“I’m sorry” he whispered in a thread of a voice.

With some effort, he stood back up, started walking backwards slowly, and then, having to use more strength than he really had, he forced himself to turn around and leave that place behind.
He did look back, once. It hurt. But he didn’t go back.

When he returned to camp, where people were already packing again to restart the march, Cor found that he was not the only one that had prayed that day.
Praying was not a common practice. But he still found many people murmuring some to any of the gods of Eos that day.
Prompto was one of the people that Cor found praying. The boy had the head slightly down, the eyes closed, and a little Shiva rosary that he didn’t use frequently. When Cor got close to him, he heard the last words, and title, of his prayer in ancient Lucian.
Et misericordia.
And mercy.
For my loved ones; for my enemy too; keep us safe, let us heal, give us hope, and mercy.

Cor gently put a hand on Prompto’s shoulder when he was done. Prompto didn’t look at him, but he nodded and stood up, and accompanied him to the truck.
The caravan continued their way, faster, but also more disheartened.

In the truck Cor and Prompto had been traveling in, they found Loqi still asleep. Now alone, without his siblings next to him. Feeling bad at how much he seemed to be suffering from the cold, Prompto took off his coat and gently put it on top of the Nif. Cor didn’t say anything, but he gave him a proud if sad smile, and kept Prompto hugged to help with the cold.

Loqi did but worsen each hour. All along the journey he had been a heart-wrenching sight and he only grew worse. He was bruised all across the body. He had a very troubled sleep, surely due to the pain of his broken leg. He could barely breath; loudly and rapidly gasped in for air, shakily. There was only one blanket available for him, and he was freezing. In only pajamas, lacking a sock, and in the ice hell of the Niflheimian snow desert, chances were he would catch an hypothermia at least. He was so pale, Cor was sure they could leave him on the snow and he could easily fuse with it. If he didn’t die out of the toxins that were still poisoning his body, asphyxiation due to half blocked respiratory tracks, or intense physical pain, he would for sure freeze to death.

“And mercy.” But what exactly was mercy?

Was saving his life equal to mercy? If he did, the boy would wake up to something worse than death. He had lost his home, his entire family all at once. The two siblings for who he willingly gave his life for. He would wake up in a foreign country, surrounded by the people he hated, with the body destroyed, poisoned, maybe with some severe illness from almost freezing, and alone. He would wake up to a destroyed body, a destroyed heart, and a destroyed soul.
Was that mercy?
Maybe mercy was letting him rest. Maybe mercy was letting him die the hero he tried to be. Maybe mercy was letting him rest after twenty-something happy years, than let him live other sixty miserable and painful ones.

Cor didn’t have the heart to kill him. That was not the point. But he hoped that, maybe, Loqi would die on his own. That death would have mercy, and would take him.
It was a macabre, morbid wish, but it felt like an answer.

But, as they reached the coast, Cor noticed that it was one of the most wrong things he had ever thought; death was not the answer. It was not mercy; it was the simple answer, but not mercy.
Even though Loqi didn’t wake up even when they reached the coast and they took him to the little boat that would take them to the ship with destiny to Lucian waters, he didn’t die.

That day, death gave Loqi a chance, and mercy. And let him live.

--

-

Loqi woke up in the journey by sea.

The Lucians left as they arrived; in a ship disguised as tourist service from Accordo, serving for the Lucians in secret. Precisely because it was a tourist ship instead of a military one, there were enough rooms for all the Nifs, and there was more medical access to try to keep them stable until they could touch Lucian (and hence safe) waters, where the aircrafts would arrive and take them to a proper hospital in Insomnia.

Loqi, apparently, would live. He had been drugged enough to let him rest in less pain, but it also put him in a deeper sleep, and they had momentarily bandaged his leg. He was one of the worst cases of intoxication, so he kept the oxygen mask almost the entire journey.

Cor had taken more than he could, so even though he felt the responsibility of looking after the Nif, he decided to be selfish and left to try and get some rest. His body was knocked out, but he woke up feeling restless. For more he tried to clear the head from everything, he kept returning to the hallway where he knew Loqi’s room was, and only in the last moment he always forced himself to leave.

One of the times he almost visited, Loqi was already awake.

Loqi came to his senses slowly, far too slowly. It was like his eyelids were made of iron, and for harder he tried to open them, they shut again. He dozed in and out of consciousness for over half an hour. The drugs he didn’t know he was on were not helping. He felt as if his entire body had shut down on its entirety, and energy was coming back slowly. He felt heavy, too heavy, too slow, too lost. Even when he did manage to half-open the eyes, he was still not conscious at all, and all he could see was blurry colors.

He felt…achy. Still heavy; like he had never used his body before and was only now trying for a first time.

Loqi, high on medicine, and shocked, was not even half conscious when he woke up, but the other half forced him out of bed without his permission.

The first thing Loqi did after waking up was move one of his dumb, heavy hands to his face, to try to see what was on it. His fingers crashed against plastic instead of touching his mouth, and he panicked a little, not knowing what it was. He touched it a little more, and the less he could understand what it was, the more conscious he became, until he could finally put the hand around the oxygen mask. Not conscious of it, his first reflex was to take it off. But when he pulled from it, he felt the band wrapped around his head, the one that kept the mask to his face. He panicked a little more, not understanding what this was, and he pulled harder until he broke the band, and he dropped the mask to a side, at the time he started sitting up.

He did it tremblingly, with effort, but faster than he would have done was he not drugged. Once sat, he noticed a piercing pain in his right arm because he had used it to sit up, so he let go and tried to not lose balance, cradling his hurt arm in the other. He breathed shakily, but without effort now. He stayed sat in a bed that did not look like belonging to a hospital, but was not his own either, and stayed frozen a few moments.
…where…was he?

Even though his mind did not finish wrapping around where he was, how he got there, and what had happened, the back of Loqi’s mind, despite the medicine, knew the basics.

Loqi pushed the blanket off him and moved to the edge of the bed. It was big enough to make his legs hang. Loqi put down the left leg first, and then tried to put down the right one.
Not expecting it, Loqi let out a scream of pain as soon as his foot touched the floor, and he fell forwards, crashing loudly onto the floor.
The noise called the attention of two Lucians that were in the room, and who let out gasps and started hurrying their way towards him, asking if he was alright, and asking him to not get up yet.

Cor had been taken to the hallway by his feet around that moment. He usually turned around some steps from the door, but that once, he heard people talking in the room. Curiosity caught him and brought him to the half-opened door.
When he looked inside, he could see the two Lucians helping Loqi back up on his one healthy foot.
The sight of him awake made Cor hide behind the wall; his heart skipped a beat and he felt a bolt strike his body.
He suddenly felt scared. Terrified.
Loqi was awake.
Which meant he would hear the news at some point…

Cor didn’t want to see his reaction, but he had also thought he would be the one to tell him. Too scared to act but not wanting to leave, Cor subtly looked through the half-opened door and continued looking, to see what happened.

Loqi had allowed the Lucians to help him on his foot, but he lifted the head and made eye contact with one. Visibly high, Loqi did not seem to process who he was looking at, like he wanted to remember who this person was. Half-understanding it was a stranger, Loqi snapped the arm away of his grip, and then looked at the other man, and got away from him. Even though he said nothing, Loqi hesitatingly, even…a little scared shook the head, and continued pushing their hands away whenever they tried to hold him.

“Are you okay, sir?”
“Please, go back to bed.”
“We’re only here to help you…”

But Loqi only stared with that lost and scared gaze, shaking the head, and trying to push them away. Even though they knew they had to help him to bed, they let him be to not trigger the young man into panic, thinking that maybe getting acquainted with the environment would help him trust a little.
Loqi stared around the room a bit until he spotted a third person. Even though he still had no idea where he was and as cloudy as his mind was, his drugged brain did process that the uniform was that of a military nurse. His head did not comprehend the difference between Lucian and Nif uniforms; the only thing his brain saw was a nurse, and hence, the answers.

Shakily, and with the other nurses following behind in secret in case he would collapse, Loqi started making his way to the female nurse, using only his good foot and the tip of the right one, and the left hand on the wall for support.
Cor watched with some nervousness as Loqi made his way across the room. He looked bad; even though he was not pale like snow anymore, his eyes looked terribly in shock and lost, his hair was still messy, and he was still in his dirty pajamas.

After a moment, Loqi was soon reaching the female nurse, who was reviewing some papers.

And like Cor had not had enough, the first words Loqi said after surviving the whole mess, were, of course,

“My…siblings.”

Cor closed the eyes and stopped breathing, feeling as if though something had punched him in the stomach.

Loqi had hesitated, and his jaw had moved a lot before he said those words, as if he had not talked in a thousand years and was trying for a first time since. Cor’s heart beat loudly and heavily in his chest, and the terror of the idea of telling the Nif the truth paralyzed him in his spot.
He could only do but look again.

The nurse was looking up at him, waiting for an explanation. Loqi, holding to a wall, stayed quiet for a long while.
“…my- siblings” he repeated, as if that clarified it all. The nurse shook the head in tiny and short movements to state she was not understanding. Loqi took a long while to push the words out, licking his lips in the process, and gasping for air. “I’m looking…for my siblings.”
Said that, Loqi started looking around in the room with the eyes.
“…they were…with me- uhm…” he blinked rapidly and put the head down, and then spent a long while only searching around again. “I’m looking- excuse me…I’m looking…for- for my siblings, they are-…Nanna and Frey Tummelt.”
“I’m sorry, who?”

Loqi stayed quiet, as if not understanding how someone could not know those names.
Nanna and Frey.
Cor stayed quiet in his spot, repeating the names in his mind as if to not forget. So those were the names of the angels he buried in the snow…

“Nanna” Loqi repeated. “Frey. My- siblings.”
The nurse stood up and tried to ask Loqi to sit, but he ignored her and continued looking around, apparently getting a little desperate that the lady was not understanding.
“My siblings, they were with me when-” he stopped and breathed shakily. He did not seem to remember what had happened, but it was clear that he knew something had happened. “They were with me. Uhm- if you could…tell me where they…”

Cor had to look inside and pay attention to make sure that the man he was listening to really was Loqi Tummelt.
He sounded so different. In the battlefield, he sounded firm, cold, mocking to astronomical levels, cruel. Overconfident. And the man that was talking right now…he spoke so lowly, and so softly. It was almost like a new voice.
…and, to be honest, Cor really preferred the cruel voice. At least that one didn’t sound as terribly vulnerable as this new one…

After a moment and explaining that she had no notice of any Nanna or Frey Tummelt on board, Loqi froze and stared at her, not understanding.
“…Nanna and Frey Tummelt, they are-“ he paused again to breathe. “They are…this tall, a-and…they are ten and nine, and they were with me, and they are- they are- she has- they…they look a little like me, but…”

The pause that followed was different. It was a little more conscious, clearer. A little sadder.
“…but he has hair like gold and the grey eyes, and she has the most beautiful freckles in the world…”

Cor was not sure if his heart broke, but he at least knew that everyone who had heard it were feeling the same. A different sort of silence. Everyone, with that phrase, had understood. He was the only one that was not sharing the same sensation of dawning and pity.
“…ah” the nurse said quietly. When Cor looked up at her, he could see it clear in her eyes; she already knew what he was talking about. It made Cor’s heart skip a beat again, only to start racing so fast inside that Cor had to put a hand to his chest to make sure his heart would not break through his ribcage. He felt the bitter taste of vomit in his tongue, and he suddenly felt true, pure terror. He knew they had to tell him, that he would know sooner or later, but he suddenly didn’t want to. He had to force himself to not do some stupidity, and only watched. The nurse was bringing a chair. “If…you could please sit down, sir-”
“No-”
“-your leg is injured and I require of you to sit do-”
“No!”

Everyone stayed quiet after that. Everyone stared at the Nif with a little surprise, perhaps because no one expected him to raise the voice angrily, not in such conditions. Loqi, surprisingly, seemed to regret it a little, staring around a bit insecurely, and lowering slightly the head.
“…where?”
No one needed to ask him to clarify. The nurse was looking at him with sympathetic, gleamy and concerned eyes. After a long silence, she still spent a minute or two trying to ask him to sit, and even though Cor and the others knew why she was so insistent, the Nif did not understand, and for harder she tried, she could not convince him.

She was forced to tell him while he stood in front of her, injured, and drugged.
She hesitated a little, but not much. Cor decided to leave it to her; she had not seen what he saw, she had not been the one to rescue the Tummelt. To her, this was one of the other endless dozens of Nifs to be told his loved ones had died. Cor was not sure he would have been able to tell him, because it felt more personal to him, so he decided to be selfish and let her do it in his place.

He saw her ask for Loqi’s hand, but he didn’t give it to her. After a tense moment, and Loqi having to make the question again, she took in a deep breath, and told him.
“When…we arrived, there was nothing we could do anymore” she said very carefully. Loqi stared at her with the same scared eyes of all the time he had spent awake, and did not seem to process what that meant. She tried to let a pause linger to see if he caught it. “I’m very sorry, sir.”
Cor expected for anything; a quiet reaction, a hysterical one, he was even ready in case Loqi tried to attack anyone. His heart was starting to ache, and the longer the silence went, the more he felt Loqi would explode. But, to his surprise, what he heard next was only an insecure question.
“…what-…what do you mean?”

Cor looked at them. The nurse tried explaining, and Loqi listened, interrupting at times to ask her to repeat, what she meant, if she was not confused. Loqi and the nurse spent about three minutes only in the same conversation.

“…I don’t understand” Loqi said lowly after a long while. Cor knew it was mostly shock, but he knew that the drugs where not letting him think clearly either. Indeed, he would not be surprised if Loqi was not even conscious at all.
Which was bad. Because it meant that they would have to tell him again, when he really, really woke up.
He’s going to have to go through the news twice…

Cor was about to interrupt to ask the nurse to not tell him, but he again was frozen by himself in his same spot. Terrified at the sole idea of having to make eye contact with Loqi, terrified at the idea of the Nif being aware of his presence. And even if he had wanted to interrupt, it was too late; the nurse tried to explain again.
“Sir” she called softly. “I know who you’re talking about. Your little siblings, Nanna and Frey Tummelt. Correct?” she spoke slow to help Loqi process the info. Slowly, he nodded. “You were with them during the catastrophe. Correct?” once more, he nodded. “We were the rescue team. We found you and them. But by the time we did…you were the only one alive. The kids…” she paused there, and softly shook the head. “They didn’t make it. There was nothing we could do. We saw the three of you, but only you survived. The kids had…already…died.”

Cor knew that was a crude word, but he also knew it was the correct one; state it as softly as possible, but as clear as it was. Cor kept the head and eyes down.
“…I-I don’t- no” Loqi insisted. “No…” he chuckled bitterly, and stared around as if not believing it. “No” he stated more firmly. “They were…” a long pause. “…they were with me. I was…protecting them” and, as if only after saying it he could remember it clearly, he stated much louder and firmer a second time, “I was protecting them! There is no way- they can’t-” he sighed tremblingly and lowered the head, shaking it. “…I’m alive. I was protecting them. There is no way-” he looked up at the nurse again. “It makes no sense, I was protecting them, I’m alive, so they must be alive too, there’s no way I survived while protecting them and they-” he sighed shortly, as if lacking air. “…and they…didn’t.”

Cor took in a deep but subtle breath and contained it. He lowered the head and shook it, putting a hand to his eyes. This was more difficult than he thought; he could not imagine how harder it would have been to have been the one to tell him. It was already unbearable, and the boy had yet not even understood.
There was a much longer and tense silence afterwards. Only Loqi’s rushed, heavy breath was audible, and Cor noticed it did but get worse with each second the more the idea wrapped around his head. He knew he should stop looking, but he couldn’t help it and looked inside again.

Loqi was breathing shakily and rapidly, staring with panic to the ground, with terrified eyes. He spent a long while like that, sometimes glancing up at the nurse as if asking if this was real.
“…there is no way” Loqi whispered after a while. “No…you’re lying…”
“Sir” the nurse said as softly as before, and gently took one of his hands between both of hers. She gave him a sincere sympathetic and pained gaze. “I am so sorry. I wish I was…”
“No-”
“-but I’m not lying.”

Loqi kept his wide, terrified eyes on her, not breathing. And then, the fact that she did not look away, and the heavy, solid sincerity with which she looked at him, it made her words fall heavy on him.
“I am so sorry for your loss.”

It still took a moment. Everyone was quiet after that; the heaviest, longest of silences so far. Cor waited for a reaction, staring with concern from his hideout. Loqi, on his side, was paralyzed in his spot, like a real statue, not breathing, not blinking, not moving. Staring with those huge and terrified eyes at the nurse, mouth open.

He was so long in there, silent and not moving, that Cor was wondering if time had stopped. It was such a long, long silence where the nurse and Loqi only stared at each other, that the other nurses in the room started sharing glances as if not understanding how someone could stay still for so long, and if it was normal.

After an eternity frozen in a heartbreaking silence, Loqi finally dropped a tear.

The silence was so thick that Cor could swear he heard the noise of the tear when it landed on the floor. It made Cor look up again.
Loqi was still in the same pose, but now he was shaking, and had the eyes covered in tears. Even though his eyes stayed wide and terrified, tears still escaped him and rolled down his cheeks, almost as if he didn’t even notice them.
After another long while, Loqi took in a shaky breath.
“…no.”

The voice was but a broken thread, barely a whisper. They returned to silence for a while again, and Cor only watched with empathetic and brokenhearted eyes as the man shook the head, and took his hand away of the nurse’s, his body trembling almost violently.
Loqi stared petrified at the nurse as if she was death itself. After a moment, he looked back and found the two other nurses standing there, heads down as if in respect and mourning. After a while staring at them, Loqi started slowly shaking the head.
“…n-no” he said a little louder, and turned again to find the female nurse still there, as if he had expected for her to disappear, for it all to be a bad dream. “No…”

It took some more moments for Loqi to process the idea. He stared at the nurses by turns, and then around the room as if to find someone else that never appeared. Cor made sure to not be in sight range as the Nif looked around, and looked inside again when he found it safe.
Loqi seemed to be starting to panic. He looked like he would break out running in any moment. But he didn’t.

Instead of panicking, Loqi’s eyes started transforming from terror to understanding, and with it, a wave of pain. His eyes did but gather more and more tears until they covered the entirety of his sight.
Soon enough, his face transformed from shock to pain.
“…no” he let out in a shaky whimper. Tears continued to roll down his face with no control, and his face only deformed more into sorrow, eyebrows furrowed, eyes squinting, and lower lip trembling. One look at him brought tears to Cor’s eyes, and brought back that giant knot in his throat.

After a moment, Loqi stared away of the nurse and his eyes focused on nowhere in the ceiling. He silently sobbed, and shook the head again.
“No.”
After that, Loqi moved a hand up and gripped his pajamas by the chest, as if trying to hold his heart. He gasped for air, and stayed quiet a few moments.

That did not last long. After a few seconds, his face deformed entirely into heartbreaking pain, and he sobbed loudly.
“No…!” he let out loudly in what Cor would tag of a yell. The sight and sounds made Cor look away; he could not stand the purity and size of Loqi’s pain, so huge it was almost tangible. Cor put the head down and closed the eyes, not wanting to see more.

But he did. Cor looked up when he heard a thud, something hitting the floor.
When he looked up, he found an even more painful sight: Loqi had dropped to his knees, not even minding the pain of his leg, as if the pain of the heart was so much greater that his body had become numb. The nurse stood nearby, knowing it was best to let him be. She stood calmly next to him, and Loqi stayed down on his knees, both hands holding his pajama shirt by the chest, so tightly he was almost ripping it apart, and staring at nowhere in the ceiling, mouth fully open and desperate to drag air in, resulting in loud sobbing and some whimpering.

Cor managed to keep the teary eyes on the terribly heart-wrenching sight of a young man who had just received the news of the death of his little siblings.
Until Loqi screamed.
Still gripping his shirt with all his strength, and shaking violently, Loqi took in air and opened the mouth, and screamed.
“No!”
It was beyond loud and long; the sound of it must have echoed through almost the entire ship. The noise was hoarse and broken, loud, hysterical. It sounded far worse than anything Cor had ever heard in the battlefield, even worse than the computer-made screaming of terror movies.

The scream was not only hysterical and high-pitched, it was also so heavily, profoundly, and so sincerely loaded of a pain Cor had never experienced or seen before, that it sent a thousand bolts through his body, and it forced him to look away. Cor himself suddenly went breathless, and he too gasped for air, feeling as if though his legs would give up in any moment, and feeling he had nothing to hold to.

Cor tried to force himself away of that door, but he heard yet another thud. He looked inside again; Loqi had moved down so he was still on his knees, but had put the forehead to the floor, and he gripped his hair with his hands, tightly, like he wanted to tear his own skull into pieces. He still trembled violently and sobbed.
In that position, Loqi took in a deep breath again.
“No!”

The second scream was louder, longer, and even more full of pain. Cor got away of the door to press his back against the wall, and he gripped his shirt by the chest like Loqi had done. Cor did made noise when he tried to catch his breath, but Loqi, much louder, did not hear anything.

Inside the room, after a moment of pulling from his hair, Loqi started hitting the floor with a fist, desperately and loudly sobbing, before his hands went back to his chest.
By that point, the three nurses were already surrounding him slowly and trying to call his name, trying to put his feet back on the ground, and trying to do something to help him to at least continue crying, but without harming himself.
While they tried to get to him, Loqi, still down on the floor, stayed mute for a few moments, as if his pain was so great that he had reached beyond the limits of the noise he could make to express it, and he simply went mute. Like his pain could not be expressed even in the loudest of screams.

He did, however, let out a third one. It was much quieter, much more broken, but still filled of pain.
It was then that Cor tried to force himself to leave, when he heard a third thud, and he felt obliged to look inside once more.
“Astrals- sir!”
“What happened-?”
“Give me space!”

The three nurses were going down on their knees around him, because the thud had been Loqi dropping on his side. When he saw he had collapsed, Cor’s instinct, like the nurses’, had been to rush for him to see if he was fine, but he stopped as soon as he stepped into the room, and stayed petrified there. The nurses ignored him.
Loqi still heaved as if unable to breathe, but he had gone strangely quiet. One of the nurses was checking him.
“…Six above, he’s knocked out- help me take him to the bed again, this is not good.”
Even though she said he was knocked out, Cor still heard him cry, and, as they picked him up, he still saw his face still deformed by pain.

All the way to the bed, Loqi moved the head weakly, and whimpered. Lamented. Not in pain; agonizing. Cor was able to stare with tearful eyes for only a little more, until they put him down on the bed. One last of the heartbreaking, heart-wrenching, and piercing laments, and Cor had enough.
He could not stand more. One more whimper from the man, one more tiny noise of his pain, and Cor would break.

Having had enough, far more than too much, Cor shook the head, and ran away.
He had promised to be the one to tell him, he had always meant to help. But it was unbearable; Loqi’s pain was so great and so profoundly real and sincere, it had spread in the air and hit Cor right in the heart, so deep, Cor could not remember the last time he had ever felt this much in real absolute pain.

He knew it was wrong to think, but he suddenly hated that Loqi had not died. They would have spared him so much pain, so much of this unbearable, burning agony. Why had the gods not had not given him mercy? Why did he have to suffer so ungodly much?

Cor let go of the door, immediately gave his back to it, and hurried his way through the hallway, so fast he was almost running. He bumped into a couple people in the way through the ship’s hallways and stairs, stumbled, almost ran into things, but he did not stop for one second, almost as if stopping for a bit would make his thoughts and the feelings catch up with him, where he was precisely escaping from them.

His instinct brought him to the room he was staying at. He startled Prompto awake at how loudly he opened and closed the door.
“Dad?”
Cor did not hear it. He locked the door and stayed paralyzed, suddenly not knowing what to do. He tremblingly made his way over to his bed, and slowly sat down on it, with the gaze lost.

It took a few minutes before he realized that Prompto had approached him, very slowly and carefully to not startle him. He did flinch a little nonetheless, and looked up at him still in that sudden state of numbness. Prompto gave him a sad but gentle smile, and then, slowly, sat down next to him.
Acquainted with the look in Cor’s face, Prompto waited some moments, and then he slowly took one of his father’s hand.

Prompto said nothing. He only looked up at Cor with a sad smile of comprehension. One that almost seemed to explicitly say “It’s okay. Let it go.”

And Cor did.

It took a moment, and maybe it would not have been possible without the safe haven of comfort, understanding, and security that Prompto was, but Cor did what he had not done in a very long while, and what he had kept bottled since he first saw the Tummelt siblings among the ruins, still hugged together.

For people he did not even know before all this, for someone that hated him, for all that he had seen and witnessed in the past hours, Cor first dropped a few shy tears, and ended up with the face buried in Prompto’s hair, crying his lungs out with no stop, almost without control. Loudly sobbing, shaking, feeling empty and hopeless, and feeling his heart break intensely.

He was not sure he could explain why, but that day, something about the Tummelt, something he had lived that day, it broke Cor’s heart.

And he cried.

Chapter Text

The Lucians fled the city with almost six hundred and forty Nif survivors.

Only four hundred and five made it to Insomnia. 640 was already a pathetic number, considering the city of Vianard had been home of at least two million people. To have lost more than two hundred people across the day was disheartening. The Lucians felt like they had failed.

Back on the ship, Cor, mentally and physically exhausted, had cried to sleep against Prompto’s shoulder, and woke up in bed, with his son gently shaking him awake and telling him the aircrafts had arrived.
They had contacted Insomnia and had sent an emergency signal, asking for aircrafts with enough capacity. Cor decided to get up and take the lead in helping and organizing the way people would board the aircrafts. The priority was, of course, the Nif survivors; the first aircraft was loaded with the most injured people, and a couple Lucians to both explain and be of aid.

Cor helped bring Loqi into the second aircraft.
Loqi had been given enough medicines to have been knocked into deep sleep after that terrible event when he received the news of his siblings’ deaths. Not even the noise and the dumb transportation woke him up. Cor was very much awake while watching him go into one of the aircrafts. Like he did not have enough with the image of Loqi hugged to his siblings among the debris randomly flashing in his mind, he now also had the ripping sound of his heartbreaking scream and the mental image of him down on his knees, staring at the ceiling like his whole universe had collapsed.

Cor had no idea why this was affecting him so much. He had seen and lived worse. He did not even know this man, not personally, and what little he knew, he despised.
Perhaps it was just his empathy, overdeveloped and exaggerating…

The Lucians were not idiotic; they knew what they had thrown themselves into when they decided to start the rescue tasks in Vianard.

When they entered the city, they already knew the Scourge was spreading massively in it. They also were conscious, at first as a theory, later on confirmed, of the bombs containing toxins. The Lucians were fully aware that they were carrying not only with injured, but with possible infected, that they could have caught the illness too, and that they had possibly inhaled the toxins, even if less than the Nif citizens did.

During the journey by air, everyone, Nifs and Lucians the same, were given oxygen to clean the toxins, and were diagnosed by blood samples. No Lucian caught the illness; the only wrong things with the Lucians was severe exhaustion. The Nifs were separated in two groups; those with the Scourge and those clean.
Once in Insomnia, at night, those with the Scourge were taken to a separate hospital in the outskirts, but within the Wall, specialized in the illness. Those clean were taken to the royal hospital, three minutes from the Citadel.

Cor had still tried to sleep in the aircrafts as much as he could, and once more it was Prompto who shook him awake when they arrived. His orders were to go straight to the Citadel to tell the Council what had happened, and arrange some papers.
With that duty at hand, and after the whole day watching him, Cor finally walked away from Loqi.

-

Cor was not given a single minute to change his dirty and bloodied clothes or to rest; he went straight to the Council room and gave his testimony.
The Council listened carefully, but tense, too tense. The news had turned the government to chaos; Lucian aircrafts bombing an innocent civilian city of the empire. It was a giant problem. The spy Sadda, who had caught up with the Lucians when they were boarding the ship, explained in more detail what had happened, and presented the stolen original documents of the mission.

Cor, however, was questioned further. The problem of the bombing was big enough, but having saved people from the city and escaped, it was an even bigger problem. The Council went nuts about fake propaganda, being able to prove themselves innocents, but that way accepting they had been in Niflheim, hence making the empire search and find their secret route of access and block it, not knowing whether to keep quiet and let the world buy the lie, or tell the truth and earn more problems.

“Cor” the king said at some point while they debated whether to make public the photographs or not, making eye contact with the Marshal, who was standing tall and still in place despite his clear exhaustion. “The photographer. We must not reveal his name to the public.”

It had not even crossed Cor’s head. He blinked as if in realization, but forced himself to react, and nodded. Regis stayed quiet, staring directly at him for some moments, and then his shoulders untensed.
“We will have a ten-minute break” Regis announced suddenly, and the council agreed. Everyone was letting the panic of the unexpected news get to them, and everyone needed to clear their heads before continuing.

After everyone left the room, Regis approached Cor and caught up with him, and put a hand to his shoulder.
“Cor” Regis called, not in his firm and solemn king voice, but in that warm voice of an old friend. “You dropped a mission that could have given Lucis, after hundreds of years of war, a vantage hand, to go to the aid of Nif civilians that would have surely impaled you under any other circumstances.”
Cor lowered the eyes and the head. He knew that it was only his exhaustion and the chaos of emotions whirling inside him, but for a moment he thought about saying sorry and that he should quit his job, if not for treason, at least for being a disappointment.
However, Regis only squeezed his shoulder a little, and smiled at him.
“I couldn’t be prouder of you” Regis murmured. “Dropping a mission of war for the sake of saving innocent lives. That’s honorable, and takes a giant, kind soul. I’m not surprised it was you.”

Cor tried to come up with an answer, but all that he could do was give a tired and shy smile. He valued the comment, he really did, but…he did not receive it well in those moments. He only kept the head hanging low.
“You must be terribly exhausted” Regis said as he let go of his friend’s shoulder. “Almost twenty-four hours of no sleep, all the physical effort, the escape, and all the things that you must have seen and heard…” Regis commented with concern. “You have done well, my friend. More than anyone could ask from you” Regis gave him an empathetic smile. “Now go to rest. We will take care of the rest.”
“Thank you, Regis…” Cor said quietly. The fact that he did not say ‘your Majesty’ only spoke about his exhaustion and absent-minded state. “I will. But…before that, I…”

Cor stayed quiet, and Regis did not pressure him.
“I have…something to do.”
“Very well” Regis nodded. “If there’s anything I can help with, do tell me. Good luck, and I hope you can go home and rest soon.”
“Thank you” Cor said and gave him a forced but still grateful smile. He had started to turn around, stopped himself, presented a bow to Regis, and then excused himself.

He went straight to the royal hospital.

--

During the journey back to Insomnia, the Lucians asked the Nifs that were conscious enough for their names; the most injured ones were given an improvised paper wristband with their names on it, in case they passed out, as to keep record of who they were. In the case of those that remained unconscious, they asked other Nifs if they could identify this person; sometimes they had luck and could write their names on their wristbands, but there were still many Nifs without a name, and whose tags only read “Civilian” and their respective given number, until they could wake up and give their names.

Loqi had not woken up to give his name, but it was not necessary; even before finding him in the debris, Cor already knew who this man was. That was why Loqi, too, carried with a wristband with his name on it, and hence why it was easy to find him.

When Cor went into the hospital, there was not chaos as he had expected. There were multiple nurses and doctors hurrying and giving out orders everywhere, but it was not chaotic as Cor had imagined. He knew there had to be dozens of doctors and nurses attending the dozens of injured, but the lobby was relatively at peace. Seeing someone behind the main counter felt even a bit surreal; after being in a warzone and after the horrible escape where everything he saw was bloodied people hysterically crying in both pain and fear, the calmness of the lady behind the counter was unsettling.

“…excuse me” Cor said, not very much in his full senses. The lady did not seem altered by his messed up and dirty clothes and face. “I’m looking for…”
He paused there. It felt stupid; like the quiet of the lobby was not surreal enough, he was about to ask for General Loqi Tummelt, from the Niffs, that pilot that had tried to kill him like fifteen times. A man he barely knew; a despicable, cruel, and annoying boy on the enemy’s side, who would not hesitate to slaughter the Lucians. And Cor was about to ask for him in a hospital, like he was a friend.
Talk about surreal.

He took in a breath to calm down and try to get rid of the strange sensation.
“Uhm…Tummelt? Loqi Tummelt? I’m…” Cor did not finish his words, and only gestured a bit with the hands, uncomfortable. The lady nodded and started searching in her computer.
“…yes, he’s here” the lady confirmed. “He’s currently undergoing surgery for a leg injury.”
“I thought- it’s just…” Cor hesitated. “I…thought he had gone into surgery as soon as he arrived, and it’s been two hours, so…”
“Yes, he’s been in surgery all the time” the lady confirmed, calmly. “His bones were severely damaged, and the surgery has been delicate.”
“Delicate?” Cor asked. “As in…is he not…stable? Is he-”
“Oh, no, sir, no” the lady hurried, but still soft and calm. “He’s okay and will be better. The only problem is for the doctors, who have needed to make a very intricate job to repair the bones.”
“Ah…yes…” Cor murmured, looking away, and suddenly feeling a little dumb. “Uhm…thank you…”

The lady sweetly smiled when she replied. Cor was about to step back and go to sit in the waiting room, but he thought again and returned.
“Uhm, excuse me” he called again. “I have…a…petition” she patiently waited for him to go on. Cor hesitated, almost as if wanting her to question him or to say no, but as she only waited, he felt forced to go on. “I don’t know if it’s possible, but…I would like to request…”
He paused again to breathe.
“…I would like to know if he can be transferred to the Citadel, I mean, after…this surgery…”

The lady gave him a bit of surprised eyes, unsure of what to say. Normally, permission from someone related to the injured was required, but when talking about unexpected Nif refugees with no relatives or acquaintances…
“Uhm. Sure, I will…require that you sign a paper. I think” she murmured the last bit. “Just to clarify that you take full responsibility for him.”

Full responsibility. Cor knew it was only during three minutes of travel to the Citadel, but the words ‘full responsibility for him’ made him feel like he was agreeing to something more important.
He hesitated; for all he cared, Tummelt could wake up in this hospital and be attended by whoever and do whatever. Cor was only meant to rescue him from the debris. From that point on, whatever happened to the boy was not supposed to affect him.

He sighed.
“Yes” Cor said lowly. “Where do I sign?”

--

The Citadel had its own micro hospital, usually reserved for the throne family, the noble families, the closest attendants, and the workers that spent most their time in service of the crown, like the Glaives. As head of the army, Cor had his own reserved place in the Citadel’s hospital, whether it was him who needed to use it, or to lend the services to a relative or friend.

That was how he was able to get a place for Loqi in the Citadel’s medical services. After the surgery, they had taken him to the Citadel and into the room that was reserved for Cor’s personal use. His medical reports were handed to a pair of doctors of the Citadel so they could continue attending him where they left, but for the day being, there was not much to do other than the normal nurse patrolling every each hours to see everything was in order.

Loqi had not woken up. For a moment, Cor felt almost as if they had kidnapped him; unconscious since he found him in the ruins of his house, not waking up at first because he was dying, then because he was drugged without his consent, even if it was for a good cause. And when he did wake up, they just drugged him again. And even if that medicine had faded, they had once more drugged him for the surgery, and again to let him sleep at night. The Nif had basically slept his whole day away. He had literally traveled a big part of the Nif continent, across an entire ocean by ship and aircraft, and had been given surgery, all while unaware. It felt wrong. But it was not like those were conditions where they could ask him for permission first.

Cor did visit when they told him Loqi was already in the room of the Citadel. He felt guilty when he remembered that he had wished Tummelt died, and felt it was protocol to visit, as if it was redemption for his thoughts.
The contrast was huge. Cor remembered mostly the state Loqi had been in during the travel by ground; he was pale like snow, and even with a subtle sickening yellowish shade due to the poison in his body. He breathed raggedly and with effort, as if there had been an invisible hand squeezing his throat, not letting him breathe enough to be alive, but not enough to die. The leg was deformed and drenched in dry blood, the hair was made a mess, and he looked as if made of dust and stone.

Now that the doctors had stabilized him, Loqi looked entirely different. For one, his sleep was far from troubled. He slept as peacefully as if the bombing had never happened, and he was still in his bed, peaceful, in full trust that nothing would happen. They had cleaned him, too. Instead of stone, there were colors. He had turned from a statue to a person of flesh and bones. And the colors were not just there, but also much more alive; what had been snow was now fair skin, even with the cheeks slightly colored. He was warm, one could tell from just looking at him. He still had that massive bruise on his forehead and a small one on his jaw, and the doctors had patched the cut on his cheek.

His right arm was bandaged to the elbow. His right leg was in a thick cast. The other leg was covered under the bedsheets, so Cor could not see it. But now that the boy was out of his pajamas and into a gown, Cor could at least see his left arm. To be the unharmed arm, it still looked pretty bad; covered of bruises and scratches. If his face and arm were bruised, and his leg and other arm bandaged or in a cast, it was natural to assume the rest of his body had to be hurt in some way, too. That he had been in the corner of the basement had made the debris fall in a way that the rocks did not crush him, sure, but it still had been a bombing, fire, and three floors on him what he had survived to. His current state was a miracle.

He looked at peace. Cor knew it was only the medicine, but, at least for one night, this boy was sleeping at peace. Alive. Cor still thought about the tragedy, but, even if just for a minute, he allowed the sight to feel like a victory.
He did not sit or said anything. He only visited and stared for a bit. He was interrupted when the door opened. He turned to find a nurse standing there, who greeted him with a quiet ‘Goodnight’, and proceeded to go into protocol, checking Loqi’s vital signs, and injecting something in his IV. Cor stared to see if there was any reaction, but all that happened was that Loqi took in slow breath in that made his chest rise, and he let it out very quietly.

The word ‘Goodnight’ reminded Cor of how late it was. Suddenly, he realized how agonizingly long the day had been. It felt like eternally ago when he saw the bombing in the distance, and when he was in the destroyed city removing debris with his hands. It was almost surreal to think that just earlier that evening he had been in Niflheim.

Not believing the quantity of things that could happen in less than twenty-four hours, and suddenly realizing how his body ached as if pierced by a thousand swords, he murmured ‘Goodnight’ to the nurse, turned over himself, and went home.

-

By orders of the king, the eighty-one Lucians that were involved in the incident were given two weeks free, unless they felt stable enough to work. Cor was not one of them.

Even though it had not been his homeland or a city of Lucis, even though nothing about it was personal, something about the events of the bombing of Vianard had had a huge impact on many of the Lucians involved; they were suffering of emotional instability, and there were even some nerve breakdowns. Most of the Lucians had to be treated by a counselor; most were dealing with heavy guilt. The experts said it was normal; that in their situation, they felt that they had to rescue everyone, and the fact that they didn’t was breaking them. Some felt that, even though they knew it was not Lucis who did it, they were to blame somehow.

There were some that were dealing with having heard Nifs in the debris screaming for help, and they left them behind. The medics were some of the most affected, dealing with ‘If I had had the tools’, ‘If I was more skilled’, ‘if I had been faster’.
A good summary for everything was that the Lucians were mourning in their own way. The tragedy weighed heavy even when it had happened to the enemy.

Prompto was in a bad state, too. The first time he broke down was because Noctis, the prince and his best friend, visited. The second time was when Cor comforted him and congratulated him for his courage.

Cor, like him, had preferred to stay home and try to get over the emotional impact of the events.
That was why he had not been in the Citadel when things happened, and they had to phone him to ask him to come.

--

Cor had left the Citadel the first night with orders that even though there was someone occupying his reserved space in the hospital wing, they did not have to contact him unless it was an emergency and they needed his help. He wanted the doctors to attend to Tummelt without informing him; he was giving him access to the medical services, but he was nothing personal to this man, and he did not want or need any information or updates.

They did not call the first day, and Cor did not expect them to call in at least a week.
But by the second evening, he was required in the Citadel.
It was an emergency.

-

Cor hurried through the hallways and tried to stay calm in the elevator as he made his way to the hospital wing. From the moment he put a foot into the floor his room was supposed to be in, he had already noticed the disaster; there were some noises and yells from somewhere, and some people were trying to get a look of the hallways as if searching for the source. Cor stared a little startled at first, and then started hurrying his way again. A nurse caught up with him.
“Mister Leonis!”
“What happened?” Cor asked as if impatient and continuing his way, with the small nurse jogging behind him and trying to not stay behind.
“It’s- your…visitor” the nurse tried to explain, sounding rather concerned. “He’s- awake and no one can control him, we’ve tried everything but we can’t do anything in the state he’s in but we-”

“Easy” Cor stopped in his way, the nurse almost crashing against him. He turned to look at her with patience. “Explain it to me.”
She looked at him for a few moments, and then sighed to calm down.
“It’s the refugee in your room” she started over again. “Because he was exposed to the cold, he caught a very bad cold, so yesterday he was feverish and not very conscious” she continued. “Due to the medicines and the cold, he spent the day drifting in and out of consciousness, throwing up, and suffering of short-lapse memory.”
“Alright…” Cor encouraged her to continue.
“But today he’s much better, and so he’s much more conscious than he’s been so far, and…”

Cor stood there calmly in the hallway, still not understanding, hands on his waist. She stood in front of him a little nervously, looking away and biting the nail of her thumb.
“…he…noticed we’re Lucians” she said. “And he got…angry.”
After she said that, there was the noise of something breaking, and another loud, very angry yell.
…oh.

Cor had also given orders about what to tell him when he woke up. The doctors and nurses knew his siblings were dead, so they had orders of telling him as softly as possible in case he had forgotten and asked again. What worried Cor most was the fact that Loqi would wake up in the country he despised with every fiber of his body.
“Why did you decide to keep him here, Marshal?” the nurse asked as if wanting to ask ‘why did you throw this hell at us?’ but not wanting to sound rude.
“He’s…used to a privileged treatment” Cor explained. “He…lost his home, his family, and everything in one day. I thought…maybe if he woke up in a hospital room that suited what he was used to, it would help reduce the emotional impact a bit.”

She nodded, but lowered the eyes as if thinking it had been a bad idea. Cor did not disagree.
He knew how proud Loqi was. How immensely, profoundly proud of the empire he was; every time he was in the battlefield, he would fight ‘for the empire’. There was no one prouder of his country than him; Cor was sure that if the empire requested him to skin himself alive, Loqi would do it joyfully, smiling, and not regret anything. He knew how profoundly he hated Lucis, how he considered its people savages, how much he longed to turn the kingdom to dust. It was only natural that if he brought Loqi not only into Insomnia, but into the Citadel itself, he would at least get angry.

Cor knew that, but he still had wanted to help the boy with the emotional impact. He thought maybe he would not recognize the room and building, and he had asked the medical staff to not tell him he was in Lucis. They were not pretending to be Nifs, but they were not supposed to tell him the truth either, even if he asked. They had to give him vague answers and slowly prepare him mentally until it was appropriate to tell him where he was.
But the boy…he had been more intelligent. Cor thought that, with how easily he let the anger blind him, he was a man of instinct only who did not use the head, but he should have known that a Brigadier General of such age did not earn the title for brute force only.

“And then what?” Cor asked the nurse. “How did he notice?”
“We don’t know” the nurse said. “He woke up today, let us treat him for the rest of the morning, and slept a little. When he woke up by midday, we helped him to sit up, he looked at us, and then he just said ‘You’re Lucians’” she explained and paused. “And just like that. We didn’t say anything to give us away, he didn’t look anywhere else, he just looked at us for three seconds and noticed.”
“And then?” Cor asked.
“Well, then…” the nurse looked away again, nervous. “He…lost it.”
“What do you mean ‘lost it’?”

For any answer, he heard the noises of more yelling and arguing somewhere nearby, and something crashing.
“He lost it!” the nurse said again, as both her and Cor retook their way to what was Cor’s room. “He went full rage mode, he’s been attacking everyone that goes into the room, he’s screaming at us, thrashing his room, he even ripped the IV off his wrist” she panicked a little while explaining. “We’ve tried to control him, but no one has been able to get close to him, and we’re all too scared to get close because we may hurt him.”

Cor rounded the corner and hurried into the last hallway, where the yelling was louder.
“We’ve tried to explain everything to him, but he won’t listen” the nurse continued, running behind Cor. “We don’t know what to do to control him, Marshal.”
“Yes, I understand” Cor said, arriving at the correct door. He turned to look at the nurse. “Leave it to me. Stay here in case I need anything, but don’t go in unless I ask you to.”
The nurse nodded, looking nervous and still a little scared. Cor wanted to tell her that it was fine, but he really was not sure. He did not know much about Loqi, but what little he remembered of him was all aggression and wrath.

Cor had already anticipated that Loqi would not believe what had happened. He brought the only thing that would help Loqi see the truth, but there was still the problem of calming him down first. Which Cor had no idea how to do.
He took the knob of the door, turned it, and went inside.

The first sight he had was that of three nurses in defensive positions on a side of the trashed room. And on the other side, standing with some support from the bed, and in a position that said he could throw himself at the nurses in any second, Loqi Tummelt, face deformed by anger, and eyes burning with a fury so great, Cor could swear they were on fire.

He did not have much time to look at the scene; as soon as he opened the door, everyone in the room turned to look at him.
Loqi included.

They made eye contact.

For the first time since their last encounter, Cor made eye contact with Loqi. The Nif had turned roughly to look at him, almost violently; at first, there was nothing but that anger that blinded him as if he was in some sort of feral mode. But a second later, when Loqi’s brain processed who it was, his expression suddenly softened.
His eyes returned to consciousness, and his frown disappeared almost fully. What had been full anger turned to recognition.

“…you” Loqi whispered after a second. Cor carefully closed the door behind himself, not breaking eye contact with the Nif, frowning slightly. Suddenly, Loqi’s frown came back, less animalistic and much more conscious, which only made the look on his face more terrifying. His eyes turned from the previous blinding fire to a sudden hell of ice; it burnt too, but in a different and much more cruel way, because it was more conscious, and it pierced deeper. Loqi looked at him with profound, cold hatred. “It was you!”

After yelling that, Loqi basically threw himself across the bed, going in a straight line towards Cor despite the obstacles in between. The fact that he started going towards him on a broken leg made Cor freeze in his spot and took him entirely off-guard; he had trusted Loqi could not stand without support.
The nurses tried to reach him, but Cor put a hand up as if to indicate them to stay away at the time Loqi caught up with him. Once more, Cor was taken off-guard; he had prepared to Loqi being unable to hit him due to his injured arm.
He forgot he was left-handed.

Suddenly, he had Loqi yelling things at him at the time his left hand flew up and hit Cor in the face, despite the abysmal height difference. Loqi continued using his good arm to try to cause more harm anywhere he reached, while still screaming at him; Cor was taken off-guard by the sudden violence, not expecting someone that was barely alive last time he saw him could be in conditions to attack him like this, but he quickly got out of his shock and pushed the Niff off him.
“It was you, Leonis!” Loqi screamed at him from the top of his lungs at the time he pointed at him with a finger. He tried to return to Cor, fists made, while he continued yelling. “Fuck! Where are they!? What do you want from me!?”
“Wait-!” Cor dodged whatever hit Loqi was sending his way, but did not attack back. He thought about it, but realized how very injured Loqi was, and he feared that the slightest of hits would cause major harm. So all that he did was try to stay in the defensive and not touch him. “Wait! If you could listen-!”
“Where are they, Leonis!? What have you done to them!?” Loqi continued screaming, talking at the same time and not listening. “I swear on everything I know and on every Six, if you touched a single hair of their heads, I will tear you to pieces barehanded and make you suffer so much, you beg me to kill you!”

As much as Cor was trying to stay on the defensive, Loqi was making it hard. Cor could not even grab him by the arm in fear of harming him, but the way Loqi had him against the door and attacking mercilessly, even if it was with an injured arm and a good one, it was getting bad.
“Calm down! Tummelt!” Cor screamed as loud as he could to try for his voice to get over Loqi’s yells. “If you would listen-!”
“Listen!? You want me to sit here and listen while you’re keeping my siblings who knows where in gods know what state!?”
“Your sib- what are you talking ab-!?”
“Don’t play fool on me, Leonis!” Loqi screamed so loudly, Cor was sure the entire Citadel heard. “Tell me what it is that you want from me!”

Loqi tried to do anything; scratch, hit, slap, anything that his useless arms could do. Cor still either dodged or kept the arms guarding and receiving every hit, but Loqi would not tire or give him space.
It was clear Loqi would not listen. Cor could stand there the whole day and Tummelt would not calm down, and if he let him go all day, they would reach a point where Cor tired.
He could not continue like this.

Even though Loqi was attacking with all his might, he was badly injured and acting only on adrenaline. This was nowhere near his full potential, so while it was an aggressive attack, it was something Cor could resist to very easily. He only looked for an opening where he would cause as less harm as possible.
While Loqi yelled at him and continued throwing brute hits, Cor waited a bit, saw his opening, and pushed the young man off him. He stumbled backwards and luckily didn’t fall; the distraction was enough; Cor reached for him to take him by the arms.
“Calm dow-!”
Before he could finish his sentence, and with a squirming Loqi in his grasp, the Nif suddenly kneed his crotch. It made Cor let go of him and fall to his knees; Loqi, losing balance, fell backwards, leaving both of them down on the ground and quiet for a moment.

The nurses did but stand there, still frozen, unsure if they had to do something now that Loqi was down for a couple seconds. Orders from Cor were orders, so despite hesitating, they didn’t move.

Cor and Loqi stayed thrown on the floor for a couple moments, while both recovered. Loqi pushed himself up on his good hand, and Cor eventually forced the pain away.
“…calm down” Cor tried again in a hiss. “I’m not here as your enemy. I can explain everything…”
“Like I need you to!” Loqi said, his words transforming into a growl. He brought himself up faster than Cor expected and basically threw himself towards the Marshal; Cor fell backwards to the floor, with Loqi on top of him and using his left hand again to punch him. He did land a hit on Cor’s face once, but soon enough Cor was struggling with him and dodging. “Not my enemy!? Not my fucking enemy, what do you take me for, a fool!? It was you, Leonis, it’s all your fault! I hate you! I fucking hate you, and I will kill you!”

Cor still tried to calm him down while trying to catch his hands. Cor cursed under his breath; if this boy was not hurt, or maybe if Cor was not this terribly soft, he could fight back not caring if he hurt him. It would be so much easier.
After struggling for a while, Cor managed to push him off, quickly move backwards, and dumbly stand up. Loqi stood up even before him and was approaching him again to continue attacking.
“I’m going to tear you to pieces, Leonis!” Loqi was yelling as he kept throwing punches. “How could you do such a thing, what do you want from me!?”
And so, finding an opening, Cor put a hand on Loqi’s chest, and used it to roughly push him around, not letting go until switching their positions, and then, Cor pushed hard enough to make Loqi crash against the wall behind him.

Cor kept him there with the forearm. The Nif only did but squirm in his place, hands holding Cor’s arm and trying to take it away, almost like Cor was strangling him and Loqi’s hands could not go anywhere else. In a way, that was the case; Cor was putting pressure enough to cut his air a little, only enough to make Loqi put his focus there and not anywhere else, but not enough to asphyxiate him.
“Let go of me, Leonis!” Loqi screamed. “Let go of me!”
“Calm the fuck down, now!” Cor roared, frowning down at the Nif. “You keep demanding I tell you what I want from you, but you won’t let me talk!”

Loqi spat on his face.
By reflex, Cor did look away when the spittle landed on his cheek.
Everyone stayed quiet.
Cor kept the eyes closed; he had thought it was distraction, but Loqi did nothing but stay still, breathing heavily and quickly, waiting for Cor to do the next move. Cor moved a hand up and used the sleeve to clean away the saliva, before looking again at the Nif he kept pinned to the wall.
Loqi was frowning at him. Glaring with such intensity, it was absurd to believe he had nearly died only two days ago.

For a moment, Cor found it fascinating, how far this man would go, how much he would fight to the end. How, even when everything was against him and he had no chances, he still dared spit in the face of the enemy as if saying ‘I’m not scared’.
He remembered about him in the debris, how valiantly he tried to give his life for his siblings.
So reckless, he would spit in the face of death itself.

Cor frowned back at Loqi.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about” Cor growled quietly.
“Liar” Loqi hissed back with poison.
“Tell me what you know” Cor ordered before Loqi could go on in his non-stop yelling. “According to you, what happened?”

Loqi opened the mouth ready to scream something, but shut it immediately. He was still breathing heavily, hands holding to the arm Cor kept against his chest. He looked as if he had been ready to lose it again, but now, pinned to the wall, he realized it was senseless, and he had to talk.
“You bombed us” Loqi hissed. “You, savages, somehow managed to go into Niflheim, and you bombed a civilian city” his voice raised. Cor did not fight him and only frowned at him. Not seeing him argue back made Loqi frown deeper, but also noticeably a little more confused, and he continued. “Then, somehow, you found me and kidnapped me. I don’t know where I am, but this is Lucian territory; you tried to disguise it as a hospital, you people are trying to act nice to me, you’re fucking lying to me” he said louder as he continued, looking behind Cor and glaring at the nurses at the other side of the room.

Loqi was shaking. There was no fear in his eyes, and he continued glaring at the nurses before he glared back up at Cor.
“You tried to fool me into thinking you’re on my side to make me speak” Loqi continued. “And whatever you want from me, you made sure I would speak even if I noticed you were Lucians by kidnapping my siblings!”

Cor’s heart skipped a beat at the mention.
He did react at that point, frown softening and mouth opening slightly. It took a moment, while Loqi clawed at his unmovable arm and growled, demanding him to let go and threatening him, while Cor processed what that meant.
Loqi had forgotten.
He had been high on medicine when he received the news…and even though he reacted, he was not conscious. He forgot he had been told.
He still doesn’t know…

Cor forced himself back to reality to not lower the guard while Loqi still squirmed in his place.
“-and I swear to the Six, Leonis, if you touched a single hair of their heads…!”
Cor put a little more pressure against him. Loqi involuntarily let out a tiny moan of pain and shut up immediately; Cor was not enjoying having to hurt him to make him shut up, but he was leaving him no option.
“Repeat that” Cor ordered lowly.
“Are you fucking deaf…?” Loqi hissed. “You kidnapped me. You want something from me. What, I don’t know. But to secure I will speak, when you found me after the bombing, naturally you found my siblings with me. You must have assumed I care about them, so you’ve kidnapped them too as your key to be sure I will speak” he continued, so firmly and sure, it made Cor’s heart weigh even more. “You want to use them against me. You, savages, are using a pair of innocent civilian children that are not even the age of eleven to blackmail me!”

He tried to attack again, so Cor once more forced himself to put more pressure on his chest. Loqi hissed and stayed tense; he stopped breathing and put the head down, focusing with all his might on not letting out any sound that gave away in how much pain he was. Cor stood frozen some seconds.
His anger was gone. All that he felt…was that miserable empathy. That sadness.
He thinks they are alive…

“-you, heartless- savages, how low can you go to try and get a vantage hand in a war it’s clear you can’t win!?” Loqi was yelling at him, shaking and still holding his arm tightly. “Where are they, Leonis!? What do you want from me!?”
“Shut up” Cor ordered, and hated that it did not come out as firm as he had meant to say it. Despite disliking it, he forced himself to be firm and as rough as he needed to be to make the boy listen. “Alright; you’ve told me what you think happened. Now here is what really happened-”
“-what do you mean ‘really’-”
“It was not us who bombed you-”
“-you think I’m a fool? What do you-” Loqi paused. “Not you? Not you? Well, fuck me, you really think I’m an idiot, don’t you!?” he yelled. “I saw the aircrafts! I saw the emblem on them, it was you-!”
“Shut up for a fucking second and listen!” Cor screamed, half-interrupting him. “You told me your version of the facts, now I tell you what really happened while you were knocked out!”

Loqi still tried to argue for a moment, but, surprisingly he shut up. Despite the silence, he was still glaring up at Cor, and his upper lip twitched like a dog ready to bite at the first wrong movement.
“You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you as it is, the empire bombed their own city-”
“No-”
“-to get rid of the problem with the Scourge-”
“-no!”
“-blamed us for it, and we rescued your sorry ass that we could have left behind to die in the hands of your own beloved empire.”
“No!” Loqi screamed, rage burning in his eyes. “You’re lying! It’s not true! The empire would never-!”
“You just need an ounce of common sense!” Cor screamed. “Why would Lucis want to bomb that city!? Why would we have such a big air float when we’re losing the war and barely have any resources in the first place!?”

Loqi scratched his arm again, and while it did hurt, Cor only applied more pressure.
“And even if we did have the money to make so many aircrafts and bombs, explain to me how we would have made it into Nif territory!” Cor continued yelling. “You Nifs would throw down any Lucian aircraft as soon as it entered Nif waters, and if not, don’t you think there would at least have been time enough to get an alert signal from the borders!?”
“No” Loqi said, and while he still glared at Cor, the doubt was more than clear in his eyes. “No, it’s not true!” he glared up again. “It was you! It’s not true-!”
“Let’s suppose we had the technology for the bombs and that we could make it into Nif territory, then!” Cor yelled. “Why would we care about a pathetic, unimportant city like Vianard!? Don’t you think that if we had one chance to infiltrate Niflheim and bomb them, we would have aimed for Gralea!?”

Loqi stayed surprisingly quiet after that. His frown softened again and transformed more into surprise and sudden fear. He kept the mouth open and breathed shakily. He swallowed and looked lost for a moment.
“…no” he whispered.
“If we only had once chance, we would have aimed for the capital city, and you know that” Cor growled at him. “We could have potentially taken out the Emperor and all the high officers. All the people that is important to this war. Not civilians that are no use for us.”

Loqi stared down, mouth slightly open. He trembled badly in his spot. It reminded Cor a little of how much he suffered from the weather in the escape from Vianard. He had to force himself back in his present to not lower the guard.
“…it’s not true” Loqi whispered. “The empire would never-”
“Maybe once you let go of your fucking pride you’ll unblind yourself to the crude truth” Cor growled. “Those are the facts. The empire you kill for tried to kill you, and you’re alive just by luck and thanks to us.”
“And I guess I should say thank you, huh?” Loqi asked angrily. “You want me to believe that? Do you want me to believe that the empire bombed us and by a sudden miracle and coincidence of life you Lucians just randomly happened to be there, ready to help us!?”

Put that way, Loqi had a vantage hand. Cor knew the truth, but it was too difficult to explain and make it sound reasonable.
“You want me to believe that you Lucians were there to ‘save us’ just by coincidence” Loqi hissed, and then slowly shook the head. “You’re a fucking idiot, Leonis.”
“I know it sounds unreasonable, but I can explain” Cor said a little less firmly than he had wanted to sound. “It’s a long story, but yes. We happened to be there” before Loqi could answer or spit at him again, Cor continued. “And if you must know, we gave up our most important mission of the past thirty years and our only chance of infiltration just to try and save your people “he pressed Loqi a little harder against the wall and got closer. “Yes, you should say thank you. But I don’t expect you to.”

Loqi only glared up at him with the same piercing eyes of always, jaw clenching and breath heavy.
“…it’s not true” Loqi insisted. “You want something from me. There’s no reason for you Lucians to save me, I’ve killed thousands of you, I am your enemy, I’m an officer of the enemy country, there’s no reason for you people to spare my life!” he yelled. “Anyone would kill me. I’m part of the enemy army, I won’t buy for a single second that you saved me just for mercy, you must have reasons!”
“We saved you because you were a civilian in those moments!” Cor yelled at him. “We were not thinking about the army, you were not in armor! We may kill each other in the battlefield, but that was not a battlefield. All that you were was a civilian more, regardless of whatever job you have.”

“You’re lying” Loqi insisted. “Or why else would you be keeping my siblings away of me!? Huh!?”
Cor’s heart skipped a beat again. He stayed quiet and frozen, not responding to that. It angered Loqi to not have an answer, so he squirmed a little more against the wall, and waited until he lost his patience.
“Where are they, Leonis!?” he screamed. “I knew you were keeping them! Where are they!?”

Cor didn’t want to tell him. How was he supposed to do it?
Loqi continued squirming and yelling at him, trying to break free, and ordering him to let go, to explain, and threatening him.
It was a terrifying idea. After seeing the siblings hugged in the ruins, after having buried the kids in the snow in the middle of nowhere, after having seen Loqi’s reaction to being given the news for a first time, how was Cor supposed to have the heart to tell him?
Loqi was still yelling, and his hands continued clawing at Cor’s arm. It was full of scratches by then, even when he had long sleeves that were somehow protecting him.
Loqi’s whole universe had shattered around him already. How was Cor supposed to make him go through that suffering again…?

Swift; fast. In one mortal hit. One lethal and quick hit would kill him instantly and not make him go through pain. It was better than trying to do it slow and with care.

“I swear to the Six” Loqi was threatening him, “if you don’t tell me where they are-!”
“You want to know where they are!?” Cor yelled, and while his voice and face were full of anger, his broken heart beat fast with fear. “You want me to tell you the truth!?”
“-if you touched them-!”
“They’re buried in Niflheim, that’s where they are!”
“It’s not true!” Loqi yelled at him from the top of his lungs, ripping his vocal cords. He tried more violently to get away of Cor’s grasp, and Cor did struggle this time to keep him in place. “It’s not true! Liar! You’re lying, you’re fucking lying!”

Cor struggled with him for a good while before he pressed Loqi with the arm that was against his chest, and using his other hand to roughly push and keep his head against the wall too.
“You want the truth, I’ll tell you all of it!” Cor continued. “We found you among the debris, and yes, your siblings were there, but it was too late.”
“No-!”
“By the time we arrived, only you were alive” Cor continued. “We did see all three of you, but they were already dea-”
“No!” Loqi screamed again, squirming harder in his place.
“I tried to bring them along! I tried!” Cor yelled, almost as if not telling Loqi, but telling himself. He closed the eyes and took a moment to calm down. “But we had to leave them behind. I have no way to prove it, and trust me, I would rather your theory was true-”
“No-“ Loqi breathed out.
“Trust me when I tell you that it would be wonderful if we really were the savages you think-”
“No!”
“But it’s not true” Cor sentenced. “We don’t have them. We couldn’t save them.”
“No…” Loqi said shakily and surprisingly quiet, but still glaring with hatred at him. “No, you’re lying…”

Cor stared carefully at him, analyzing him. Trying to see if he was processing the information or if his denial was so strong that nothing was sinking in.
“Let’s suppose you really are here for interrogation” Cor murmured. “Why would I lie about your siblings? In your theory, we’re keeping your siblings to torture them in front of you if you don’t speak, right?”
For the first time, Loqi’s expression softened and changed from anger to sudden fear, as if the word ‘torture’ said aloud had made him realize the weight of the possibility. Cor felt a pinch in the heart, and for a moment he felt like he had to let go and apologize. He forced himself not to.
“So why would I lie about them?” Cor asked. “You would speak to save their lives; if I said they’re dead, you’d have no more reasons to talk. So I have no reasons to lie about it.”

Loqi hesitated. He had stopped struggling against Cor, only did it mechanically and absent-minded at random times, but his eyes remained lost in nowhere. He was still shaking, but now it did not look like it was out of anger or effort.
“…for…torture. Mental torture, that’s why you’d lie about it” Loqi argued, but did not sound very confident on it. He closed the eyes and shook the head. “No. I refuse-” he swallowed. “I don’t…and won’t believe a single thing of what you said. It’s all lies.”
“Whether you believe it or not doesn’t matter; those are the facts” Cor said as a final argument, and pushed Loqi a little harder a last time, earning a groan from him, enough to distract him.

Once distracted, Cor took him by the arm and dragged him some steps again, before pushing him as soft as he could to the bed, enough to make Loqi stumble and sit down, but not enough to hurt him.
“If you don’t want to believe me, don’t” Cor stated firmly, while Loqi, trembling with effort and holding back his pain, stayed sat on the bed. It was then that Cor pulled out the large envelope that he had kept in his jacket, and showed it to him. “Believe the facts.”
Said that, he put the envelope down on the bedside table. Loqi put his eyes on it for a moment, then glared up at Cor as if questioning.
“We’re not idiotic enough to give you the original. But that copy of the Imperial permission for Vianard’s bombing that a Lucian spy stole should be enough to clear it all away.”
“No-” Loqi still hissed.
“We didn’t bomb that city-”
“No-”
“-you’re not kidnapped-”
“No-!”
“-and we don’t have your siblings.”

Loqi stayed quiet. He lowered the head. He breathed shakily, remaining silent for a good while.
“…what do you want, Leonis?” Loqi asked softly, with clear fear in the voice. “Information? Infiltrate you into Gralea? Into the emperor’s palace? I can do it” Loqi took in another shaky breath, and he lowered the head even more, closing the eyes tightly. “I’ll do anything. Just tell me…tell me they are okay…”

Cor instantly softened. His frown faded entirely and his body untensed. He felt another pinch of guilt inside that made him want to apologize, and once more he had to stop himself from that. He looked down and away, and stayed quiet for a long while. He only heard Loqi’s shaky breath.
“…as I said…”
“No-”
“-I’m not lying” Cor admitted again. He stayed quiet and looked up, for the first time looking at Loqi with compassion instead of anger. “I’m sorry.”
“It makes no sense…” Loqi hissed lowly, shaking the head slowly and looking at him desperate to hear what he wanted. “No…”

Cor looked away again, as if not sure what to do or what was correct to say now. After a moment, he looked at Loqi again and pointed at the envelope.
“All your answers are there” Cor said. “The empire betrayed you. All I said is true.”
“No” Loqi growled at him, still shaking, but the spark of anger starting to gleam again in his eyes. “You’re lying!”
“Take all the time you need to accept the truth” Cor said. “Until then, stop attacking the doctors.”
Said that, Cor turned around, but before he walked away, he sighed through the nose and put the head slightly down.
“And…” he said and half-looked over his shoulder, eyes down. “…I’m sorry for your loss.”
“-no” Loqi exhaled. “No” he said louder.

Cor looked up when he saw him starting to move; Loqi was trying to stand up, but now, adrenaline gone, he could not stand on his broken leg and he fell to his knees.
“You’re a fucking liar, Leonis!” he screamed at him from the top of his lungs. He took an apple, that he had thrown down earlier along the rest of the tray with his food, and threw it at him. Cor barely dodged in time. “I’m going to kill you! Give me my siblings! Now!”

Cor looked at the nurses and gave them a nod. As if understanding with that alone, the nurses all hurried to exit the room; in the meanwhile, Loqi stayed on the floor looking for things to throw at Cor, all while screaming at him.
“I’ll rip you in pieces, Leonis! I don’t believe you!” he was yelling while crawling on the floor and tossing things at the Marshal. Cor, on his part, ignored him and started going towards the door. “I don’t believe you! Fuck you! Fuck you and your lies!”
Cor exited the room and was closing the door. He left it half-open for a moment, only to hear a last yell.
“I hate you!”

After closing the door and leaving an angered Loqi alone inside, Cor put the head down and took in a breath. He heard Loqi yell an obscenity so loudly it was unintelligible, and then the sound of something being knocked over. The nurses were quiet, around him as if waiting for more instructions. Cor only stayed pressed to the closed door, head down, and listening to the young Nif trash his room and scream in complete denial.

Slowly, he let out the breath he was holding.
“Let’s go somewhere quieter” Cor said to the team of nurses, and with that, the Lucians left the locked door and the hallway behind.

In the room, Loqi spent only a minute or so throwing things at the door like Cor was still there. He stopped only when the pain of his leg was unbearable and he let himself drop on the floor, next to the bed, breathing heavily out of only fury.
“…fuck you” he muttered under his breath, frowning and glaring at the spot where he last saw the Marshal.

Loqi stayed alone for a long while, alone with his thoughts. That it had been the empire? Impossible. Illogical. The empire was the greatest nation to have ever exited, full of honorable people who would do wonders to the world if only the savages of the Lucians would give up already. Nothing that Leonis said could be true. The empire, the plan…his siblings…

It took half-an-hour sat in his room, only thinking over and over about the things Cor said. Some things did not make sense and were full of holes. Some others…sounded terrifyingly logical. Why would the Lucians bomb Vianard, indeed. How they had gotten the technology, how they made it into Nif territory.
Every minute that passed, Loqi hesitated more about everything. He was sure that Leonis was lying. Had been sure…but the more he thought about it, the more sense he found in what the Immortal said.

But no. Loqi wanted to believe in the empire. Checking whatever was in that envelope would show weakness, it would show that he was doubting about his government, his emperor, and his country. Loqi had no doubts on them, not a microscopical one. He did not need to see what was in that envelope, it would only be more lies. He trusted wholeheartedly and with his whole soul in the empire, and did not need to look at those papers.

…yet, after another half-an-hour in silence with the mind going in circles around it, he looked at the envelope. Stayed frozen, watching it in silence.

Finally, with the heart racing, and knowing that whatever was in there would be a lie, Loqi dared stretch the hand.

He trusted the empire, he really did.
But there was no harm in making sure.

Quietly, with fear, he opened the envelope.

Chapter Text

There was chaos internationally in the following days.

The empire, of course, had turned even more aggressive against the Lucians. Accordo was demanding an explanation. Lucis, on their side, stayed quiet.
The news of Lucian aircrafts bombing an imperial civilian city was the matter most people talked about for the following days, and what caused most chaos among politics, military, and newspapers. The news were received with anger by the Nifs, who were demanding justice and the king’s head, and claiming more strongly than any time before for the past century that Lucis had to perish.

Lucis was not offering much fight. They declared once, in a short announce, that they claimed themselves entirely separate from the events of the bombing, but they offered no further explanation or arguments to prove it. The Lucians were unsure and divided; those that believed fully in their kingdom’s word of innocence, those that were in doubt, and those that believed the Imperial lie. Most the council and most the people who knew that was false propaganda, mostly the team of Glaives and Crownsguards that had been in the team of rescue for Vianard, were pressuring the king into already presenting arguments and evidence to back up their innocence. Why was Regis not explaining further? Making the photographs public, make the news of the rescue missions known, anything?

“They are angered” Regis explained once during Council meeting. “The people of the empire are blinded by anger. We can do everything in our power to prove ourselves innocents, but they won’t believe us. Right now, the imperials need someone to blame. You cannot explain your innocence to someone when they are screaming and their voice covers yours. Even if it’s unfair for us, even if it’s frustrating, as much as we want to tell the truth and show all our evidence, it’s not the correct time. When in this situation, you must wait for the counterpart to vent it all out, and then, only then when they finally tire from yelling and need to stop to breathe, you clear out the misunderstanding. Otherwise, anything you say will merely go unheard or, even worse, taken as lies.
>We must wait until the anger eases enough so at least some imperials are willing to listen, but not enough so that the anger they vent on us represents a physical risk to our people. I understand your concerns, but today is not the day we prove our innocence. You cannot show the light to someone that is not willing to open the eyes.”

The photographs were kept a secret by Prompto and a few dozens more, all who had promised to the king himself to not ever reveal the name of the photographer. The photographs showed not only the destruction, but the Lucians and the Nifs working together. It was, perhaps, their ultimate weapon to prove their innocence. And if they managed to prove that, the imperials would then eventually understand not only that it was not the Lucians, but who the real culprit and enemy was; the empire’s own government. And if that was the case…it could represent a very big problem for the empire. If not its end, at least problems the size of civil wars, or losing loyalties.

If that happened, if anything turned against the empire’s odds, the empire would look for a culprit. This would lead them to the photographs, and later on, to the photographer, who would end up being their only target to ease their need of revenge.
That was why Regis had requested urgently for the name to not be revealed. Perhaps in the future, after the war was over, after maybe all the current generations were dead or old, they could reveal the name, free of any sort of risk. But for the time being, a secret it stayed.

Cor preferred it that way, and thought about it too frequently. Sometimes he regretted having allowed Prompto to take up the job of photographer of war; he knew this sort of danger was possible, and now Prompto was not only exposing the truth of a battle, he was exposing the truth of a whole war. He had not only taken a risk, he had taken the biggest. Cor sometimes let his mind wander to dark places that triggered his anxiety, thoughts about what if the empire discovered it had been Prompto, about what if there was a spy somewhere who already knew and was now after his son, what if Prompto was not coming back home today.

Like he did not have enough with all that he witnessed in Vianard, crowned by that of the imperial general and his siblings, he now also had to add the worry about Prompto’s safety to the list of endless thoughts that were not letting him sleep and that were triggering him into uneasy episodes he had not had in months.

Lucis saying nothing and waiting for a ‘correct moment’, and Niflheim burning in anger against Lucis, the world was but a chaos of misunderstandings, and a bad situation for the kingdom.

--

Cor didn’t know anything about Loqi for almost two weeks.

He had to admit that, for a moment, he did worry; not for the kid, but rather what could have happened. The day he visited, Loqi was hysterical, blind in wrath. He was not going to accept the facts fast or easy, which could only mean that he was going to give much more troubles to the medical team. And there was, however, not a word in almost two weeks. Had he really accepted it all with just the copy of the imperial papers that Cor gave him? Or was he still in denial and giving troubles and the medical team was just too shy to phone Cor about it? Or was he in denial but not giving troubles? Could he…have died? Cor did say to not update him on anything unless they needed of him urgently, and he was not exactly required at a funeral…

But that was nonsense; obviously, they would tell him should Loqi die. Still, it left Cor wondering why they had not phoned him again after that fatal first day.
He always told himself he didn’t care about the Nif, and still, every night he thought of him. What he could be doing, why there were no news, what he was feeling. Cor still thought about him holding his shirt, by the chest, down on his knees, and watching his universe collapse. Him, pulling from his hair, the forehead to the ground, screaming his lungs out. And that cursed picture of him hugged to his siblings among the ruins after the bombing.

Needless to say, Cor had had troubles to sleep like he had not had in years. For the days that followed the bombing, it was not rare that Cor and Prompto started taking up old habits and were sharing bed; if it did not help them sleep, they could at least stay awake in someone’s company. Prompto felt safe and stopped feeling observed by inexistent Nif eyes when Cor was there, and Cor had the comfort of knowing Prompto was there, alive and well, and not in hands of some imperial. But he still thought about Loqi.

Cor spent that week and some days recovering slowly and resting, and then, after wondering daily what Loqi could be doing, he was phoned again.

Yet another emergency regarding “his refugee”.

--

When Cor exited the elevator, there were no noises of screaming or things crashing like the first time he was summoned. Doctors and nurses worked in peace and silence, and no one glanced his way twice. Only when he got closer to the hallway where his room was did a nurse, the same from the first time, catch up with him.
“Good evening, mister Leonis” she greeted quietly, with an upset look on her face that did not go unseen by Cor. “I’m so glad you came…”
“He’s giving troubles again?”
“Well…not exactly?” she said as if confused, which only did but make Cor more curious.

She still gave him an upset look and a sad forced smiled that clearly said things were bad, before he invited her to move aside as to not block the hallway while they talked.
“How has he…been? Did he…” Cor paused and took in a short inhale. “…does he believe us now?”
“Hm…more or less?” the nurse asked again and once more did but put Cor in more of a puzzle. She sighed. “After you left, he continued giving troubles. As in, attacking and being aggressive. He tried to escape once by taking a hostage, but in his conditions there’s not much he can do” Cor nodded. “Miss Monica was the only one that was able to put him down anytime he raged on us like that day that you assisted us, mister Leonis.”

So it had not been just once. Cor was not surprised; he did not know much about Tummelt, but from what little he could remember, the boy radiated anger even when he was not angry at all. He nodded again to encourage the nurse to go on.
“He was in denial and with those random moments of violence for about three days” the nurse informed. “And then he…calmed down? He…” she shook the head and sighed. “I don’t know how to put it. It was not easy and we required of a couple of people to talk with him, but-”
“Wait” Cor interrupted her. “Someone talked with him? Who?”
“Well, he requested someone told him the truth. He was demanding to see ‘the person in charge’” she explained. “But before we could call you, a Glaive heard and said he would go and talk with him.”
“Who was it?”
“I believe it was mister Tobul, sir.”

Cor looked away and nodded slowly. Tobul…not only had he been the one talking sense back into Cor during the escape road.
He had also been one of the Glaives that checked the Tummelt kids and confirmed their deaths.

Cor was trying to imagine what he could have told to Loqi, but it was beyond obvious. Tobul had a good way with words when it was about knocking sense into people, and not only that, but he had also seen the facts firsthand. If there was someone much more suitable to talk with Loqi, that had to be him.
Cor had tried, but…the kid hated him. Cor could tell him two plus two equals five, Loqi would still tag it a lie and try to bite him. It was better if someone Loqi did not know talked with him about it. Even better if it was someone who actually knew how to talk, unlike Cor, he thought.

“Anyone else?” Cor asked after a moment, trying to conceal the sudden sadness and nervousness that overtook him.
“There were two different Nif survivors” the nurse continued. “I believe one was a neighbor, the other a former soldier. I…think it was wrong to eavesdrop, but we…needed to make sure they were not talking about any matter that could…affect Lucis, sir…”
“Yes, that’s perfectly fine” Cor reassured her. “What did they talk about?”
“The Glaive and the survivors tried to make him understand that all we said is true” she said. “About how everything was fault of the empire. The former soldier spoke…bad about Niflheim, he’s very, very angered at the empire. Swore to never again step on its lands and to never again fight in its name, it was…” she stopped there, shaking the head slightly and staring at nowhere. All she did was whisper ‘Wow’. Cor understood the reaction and only nodded.

They stayed quiet for a bit, until she sighed and got herself out of it to continue.
“He gave descriptions to your refugee about the bombs and the tactics, to make it clear that it was a plan with imperial signs all over it, and imperial artifacts only” she said. “But to keep it short, he basically interviewed all three of them separately to gather info about the real culprit. He requested to see the original papers the spy stole” at that, Cor raised the eyebrows as if questioning her, and she immediately shook the head. “It’s okay, sir; there were guards making sure he wouldn’t touch it and would only…look. I guess…he must have wanted to see the original to see if he found something in it, the ink that was used, or something that said it really is from the empire and not a false…”

“So, he talked with three different witnesses, and saw the original papers…”
“Twice.”
“…and then…he finally believed it?” Cor asked carefully, feeling again that pinch in the stomach at the idea. She pressed the lips into a thin line that said it all. Cor looked away, nodding slowly, and letting out a silent breath. “…I see” he had to adjust his posture and clear his throat to pull himself out of the thoughts. “How did he react?”
”Really bad…” she lowered the eyes. “At first there was nothing. Then, the next two days after he saw the original papers, he was…quiet. Like…silent. Not a single word or noise, nothing. He did everything we asked from him, but he looked…lost” she paused. “I admit I was scared at first, I thought he was planning something big. But he wasn’t; he was just…silent.”

Cor looked at her with curiosity, eyebrows furrowing slightly.
“I believe he was in shock” she explained further. “And then…the next day…well…he…understood” she said with a forced and sad smile. Cor saw her eyes starting to gleam, and her voice hesitated when she continued. “He hasn’t been…well.”

Cor felt yet another pinch, this time in the heart.
“Once out of the shock…well, he let out what he didn’t in those two days of silence” she shook the head. “To keep it short…we’ve needed to attend him for hysteria and panic attacks five times in three days. One of those days it got….so bad, I thought he was having a heart attack. I mean, maybe he was? We were there and helped him before it got to that” she continued and sighed tremblingly. “He was either losing it, or back in shock. It’s been…a really fragile matter…” Cor waited for her to continue; she sighed. “It’s been bad.”

“Yes, I imagine…” Cor murmured. “Guess he must have been crying?”
“Day in, day out” she nodded. “When he’s not having a hysteria episode, he’s crying. Sometimes it’s loud, sometimes quiet. But he doesn’t stop, Marshal, it’s-“ she stopped yet again and closed the eyes. “It’s terrible Marshal. I always wished that all the Nifs would suffer, but I never stopped to think- that they…feel, too. You know? I thought about them as villains and never…as real people, with feelings…”

Cor stayed quiet and felt a sudden punch in the entrails. He kept quiet and shared the heavy silence of guilt with her, understanding.
After a moment, Cor saw her lift a hand to clean non-dropped tears.
“I-I love my job, I really do, but having to deal with things like this…” she tried to force a smile. “It’s so hard, Marshal …I’ve never seen someone…so brokenhearted…”
“Yes, I understand” Cor murmured, and then gently put a hand on her shoulder. “You should go rest, miss. You’ve worked hard and endured a lot. I’ll…try to see what I can do about this.”
“No, Marshal, it’s not his crying what’s giving us troubles.”

Cor stayed quiet again, taken a little off-guard.
“Then what is it?”
“…the problem is, he doesn’t want to eat.”

Again, he blinked in surprise and furrowed the eyebrows by reflex.
“What do you mean?”
“The hysteria attacks were mostly the first days after the shock faded” she explained. “After that, it’s been…quieter, but much worse. I think…” she stopped again and took in a breath. “…he’s…depressed…” there was yet another long silence. “…he’s not wanted to cooperate with anything. He won’t take his medicine, won’t let us help him sit up or anything. He stays in bed all day, Marshal, all day doing nothing. Wakes up in a pose and sleeps not having moved a single inch all day. The only thing he does is go to the bathroom, but that’s because, in our theory, he knows that if he evacuates in bed, we’ll clean him, and he doesn’t want us to touch him.”

Cor bit down on his lower lip, nodding.
“And it’s not that he’s aggressive anymore. On the opposite; he’s…depressed” she explained. “He doesn’t seem to have the energy or the will to do anything. It’s not that he doesn’t want our help, is that he doesn’t want…any” she said with another sad smile. “And we thought it was…relatively fine. That at least he would heal physically. But…he hasn’t eaten. Refuses to even look at the tray. And no matter how hard we’ve tried, or how many of us, or who, or what we say, he just won’t eat” she moved her hand to again start biting on the nail of her thumb. “I…know it…may sound ridiculous, but…we’re desperate, Marshal. We’ve tried it all, and the only thing we hadn’t done was…” she shrugged. “…call you.”

Cor stayed quiet for a moment, understanding.
“How long has it been since he last ate?” he asked. She gave him a nervous, guilty look.
“…by now, it should be a little more than seventy-two hours, or three days, Marshal” she murmured.

Cor’s eyes immediately flew wide open and his mouth parted slightly. She lowered the head a little as if apologizing. He continued staring for a bit, not believing it, and then looked away.
He knew it would be a hard hit when the kid understood, but…it really was worse than Cor thought.
He looked at the door that led to the room. Cor had always had to deal with aggressive imperials and he knew his way around them…but he never learned what to do in case of a depressed one that didn’t want to eat.

“…I see” he murmured. He looked away, tried to keep his subjective and objective thoughts separate, tried to not think of the tragedy again and focus in only thinking of an answer, and spent some moments standing there, caressing his chin. After a while, he let go and looked at her again. “I’ll see if I convince him. Bring me the tray with his food, please.”
She nodded, and as she turned and started walking away, he stopped her.
“Make it two dishes, if that’s okay.”

--

Cor requested no one interrupted him while he was in the room with the Nif.

He was nervous, if he was honest. About his reaction. About…just seeing him. Cor was aware that Loqi had been crying a lot and reacting bad, but that did not make it any easier to witness it firsthand. Cor felt particularly nervous about this one Nif refugee; he felt he could go visit any of the other survivors just fine. Cor had dedicated his whole life to war, and that implied both the part of fighting, and the part of dealing with survivors and victims. But there was something special about Loqi’s case that made Cor feel like this was the first time he ever dealt with a war victim; he felt dumb and inexpert, lacking the correct words.

He guessed the fact that there were children involved must have softened his heart, and all he felt for the kids, all he channeled in Loqi.
Nervous and not very sure he had any plan, Cor pushed the door open and made it into the room with the tray.

The room had large and clean windows that let the evening light in, but not even that eased the thick and sad air in the room. One glance at Loqi, even just by the corner of the eye, filled the room with that piercing sadness that was almost tangible. It hit Cor right in the stomach, but he tried to conceal any reaction, and closed the door quietly.

Loqi barely reacted to his arrival.
The young Nif was sat in his bed, silent. He was in gown, the legs under the sheet. His right arm, the injured one, was in a sling. The shoulders down, the head as low as it could hang, almost like he had fallen asleep in that position. When the door opened, all that he did was turn half-an-inch in the direction of the door, absent-mindedly, but did not properly look up. His hair fell onto his face and hid it from Cor’s sight, but he did not need to see it to read his emotions.

Cor took a moment to look at him, and his heart sped up at the nervousness. He felt a pinch of something, guilt or concern. He retook his steps and rounded the bed, trying to not glance in the Nif’s direction.
Loqi didn’t glance either.

Cor put the tray down on the table, which he pulled until it was between the bed and one of the chairs, and so, between him and Loqi.
Still, Loqi didn’t glance his way.
Cor hesitated, and then sat down in the chair across the Nif. It took some moments before he dared look up.
Little could he see of Loqi’s face, due to the ashy blond hair hiding it from him. All he could see was the tip of his nose, red and with dry snot underneath. And he could see the tip of his eyelashes, long and curled.

There was a heavy and long silence, in which Loqi stayed in his own world, silent, and Cor only stared and tried to think of something to say without coming off as an asshole.
“You must be hungry” he said instead of apologizing for his loss, which he thought would have earned a bad reaction. He let the silence linger, try to see if there was a reaction; if Loqi had not noticed it was Cor, who he considered some sort of ‘arch-nemesis’, now he must have.
And still, with his arch-nemesis right next to him, the man that made him lose his cool by just existing…Loqi did not react or glanced his way.
Cor felt his worry grow, and he did admit he now felt concern for the kid himself.

After a moment, Cor took in a quiet breath and let it out.
“I…understand you may not feel appetite” Cor said as soft as he could manage. “What you’re going through is not easy. I don’t blame you for refusing the food…”
No reply.
“We can’t force you to eat” Cor continued. “But I do suggest you try. Not eating is not going to lead you anywhere.”

As long as the silence was, Loqi offered no reaction or answer. The Nif sat there in the same position, not moving an inch. Head hanging low and in dead silence.

After noticing he was going nowhere, Cor tried changing his tactic.
“You don’t need to worry about poison in your food or anything” Cor said while he tried to act casual and took a pair of utensils, and started picking at the food of one of the two dishes on the tray. “We’re not as bad as you think. And really, for once, we’re not here as enemies…” he paused and took in a few bites of his food. “We just want to help. And the food is good. Not your regular hospital food, if that’s what you fear.”

Still, he got no reply. If anything, Loqi’s head moved to the opposite direction. Cor looked at him carefully some moments while still chewing. Perhaps, he thought, he should get someone else to get him to eat, like they had to get someone else to convince him to see the truth. Cor was useless at this task, especially due to the kid’s grudges against him…still, it felt wrong to not try.
“I…can’t say that I understand how you feel. So I won’t tell you what to do” Cor tried. “I’m just trying to help save your life. But you have to let us help.”

Nothing. Cor stopped eating for a moment and looked down at his food. He really was not hungry, and each second in the atmosphere loaded of sorrow only did but spoil his scarce appetite even more.
“…I know I’m not good with words” Cor murmured. “But I’m trying. I just want you to eat, but…I guess it’s understandable. I guess…it must be quite a weight. What happened to you was horrible. It’s no wonder you don’t want to eat…”

Cor stared only some moments, and then focused on his food again. He cut a small slice of his steak and quietly chewed for a couple seconds.
And, then, finally, he got a reaction.
Even more: an answer.

Loqi did not turn to look at him properly; he only moved the head slightly in his direction, but he stayed hidden behind his hair.

“…if you’re here…to laugh…”

Cor froze when he heard the mere color of his voice: it sounded hoarse and dry, like he had not spoken in a hundred years and, as result, his voice was but a broken murmur that hesitated. He sounded like he had ripped his vocal chords and it now took a physical miracle to let any sound out.

Cor stopped chewing and looked at the Nif with wide and attentive eyes, and the mind frozen. His hands lowered on their own, and all he could do for a while was stare.
“…no” Cor whispered. “No-” he hurried as if finally understanding what he had been told, and he put the utensils down, swallowed his food, and looked with much more attention at the younger man. “How can you think…?” he started, but closed the eyes and sighed, cutting the question there. “Why would anyone want to…laugh at…?”
Again, he did not finish the sentence and only shook the head.
“Listen- I know…I’m not the best emissary, I know I’m the last face you want to see” Cor said. “If you want, I won’t come again. I just…got worried when I heard you weren’t eating.”

All that he got as a response was a very subtle shake of the head, and Loqi looking away once more. Clearly, he did not believe any of what Cor was saying. Again.

Cor looked at him in silence, and took in a quiet, deep breath, and as quietly let it out. This was proving a far more difficult challenge than fighting him in the battlefield…
The battlefield. Thinking about it made Cor think of another possible way to get this situation fixed. He had already thought about it; considering how aggressive and proud Loqi seemed to be, Cor thought maybe the kid would react better when faced firmly, no softly. Cor had not had the heart to not be soft; it was not natural. He felt pity for the boy, sympathy, he felt guilt, he could not just say anything mean, even if it was for his good.

But the boy was not eating. He had a bit more than three days since he had last had something. At this pace, it was going to kill him. If Cor needed to be mean to save his life, then so be it.

Trying to gather courage and remind himself to not step back once he started, he took his utensils again and retook his eating to look as casual as possible.
“Look” he started. “All that I’m saying is that if your plan is to starve to death because life lost its meaning, fine. Who am I to stop you?”
Loqi seemed to react a little to that; Cor saw him move the head slightly, and heard a subtle hiss, as if in a weird gasp of sorts from being taken off-guard.
“I just thought you’d rather die somewhere else” Cor said as firmly as he could, and hoped he was not going too far. “I don’t know you very well, but…among Lucians, in the heart of Insomnia itself…” Cor shrugged. “Sounds sort of humiliating, talking about you.”

Cor discretely looked up while pretending to be focused on his food. He still couldn’t see Loqi’s face very well, but he did see his jaw tense slightly.
“Don’t get me wrong. We’d bury you regardless of your nationality” Cor continued. “But if I was you…I think I’d rather let myself die back home. If not for the land itself, at least…” Cor stopped and hesitated there, and only because he forced himself to say it did the words make it out of his mouth. “…at least so you reunite with your family. Right?”
He heard Loqi let out another hissed breath; he saw the Nif’s body starting to shake, and he wondered if he had crossed the line.

Cor let a pause linger as to give Loqi a breath from the sudden aggression. Loqi’s breath had become audible, heavy and shaky, but he still seemed to try to hide it.
“You hate Lucis, right?” Cor said after a moment. “All you’re dealing with is a broken leg, it’s easy; really just a matter of a few weeks before you heal” Cor continued acting as disinterested as possible, focusing on his food like it was the tastiest dish he had had in his life. “So do whatever you want. All that I’m saying is that I don’t think that you want to die in Lucis. After losing literally everything, that’d be the summit of humiliation for you, don’t you think?”

Cor felt a pinch in the stomach and he stopped chewing. He felt he had crossed the line again, so he subtly looked up; Loqi was clearly tense and he was trembling visibly, and he again let out a shaky exhale. His good hand was made a fist.
“From all people and places, you choosing to die in Lucis…” Cor let out a sarcastic ‘hah’, without looking up. “But what do I know? Maybe you have no troubles about it.”

By the corner of the eye, he saw Loqi turn slightly his way. Cor didn’t dare look up. He was going to deliver the final punches, and he didn’t want to soften if he found the kid crying.
“I was just curious. I mean, you lost everything” Cor felt his stomach twist and he had to stop chewing, fearing he may spit at his own comment. He doesn’t need to be reminded, he thought. That was crossing the line for real. He heard another subtle breath, but still didn’t dare look up, and forced himself to continue. “Everything except your life and, I don’t know, something like your honor or whatever that you’ve always been so proud about” Cor put down a utensil and looked up.

For his luck, Loqi’s face was still not visible from behind his hair. But he could see a reddened cheek from the new angle, and his mouth slightly open.
“Listen, son” Cor murmured, staring intensely at the Nif and not looking away. “Not eating won’t bring anyone and anything back. Eating won’t do it, either, true” Loqi’s fist tightened and he trembled harder. “There’s nothing you can do about anything. Nothing” Cor let the pause linger for a bit. Slowly, Loqi turned a little more in his direction. Cor saw red and puffy eyes, so before he could soften, he pushed on. “Except your own fate. You live, you die? That’s on you. But at least you, unlike many other innocents, can choose where and how you die.”

Loqi turned an inch more in his direction, and now Cor could get a clearer look of his face.
His heart immediately wrenched at the sight.
Loqi’s cheeks were reddened; it almost looked like the freckles he didn’t have. His nose was red. His mouth was slightly open, the lower lip quivering slightly. His eyes were so puffy and dark, it almost looked like he had been severely beaten up. He was still bruised, and it didn’t help to make the sight less shocking. His eyelashes, long and curly, stuck to one another as result of being soaked.
And his face was dampened. His cheeks, the sides of his head, and what Cor could see of his neck were covered in both dry and fresh tears.

And his eyes. The eyes that Cor remembered to be heartless, empty, soulless, and full of demon-like wrath and hatred…now so fragile. With a sorrow so deep, Cor froze again and only stared, hypnotized. His eyes made Cor regret everything he said, made him regret having come into the room. Cor was sure that Loqi would have never allowed him to see his eyes in that state, see him in that state…and the fact that he was letting him, like he didn’t care anymore, it spoke of…hopelessness.
Hopelessness. That was what his eyes looked like. The greyish blue eyes lacked any of the heartless wrath Cor remembered and had seen just a week and some days ago. The gaze did not look proud, stubborn, or angry anymore.
It looked weak. Vulnerable. His eyes did not look sad, that was an understatement.
It was like the light of his eyes, be it good or bad, had been extinguished, and he was left in a void. Worse than alive, worse than dead. Merely…empty.
He looked so miserable.

Cor stared for a while; Loqi held eye contact with him from behind a couple locks of his hair. They shared some silence, before Cor forced himself to look away and back down at the dishes. He cut a slice of the food on Loqi’s tray and ate it.
“No poison” he stated simply, and then he stood up, picking up his own empty dish. Loqi was looking at his movements, absentmindedly, with that lost gaze. “So it’s on you, Tummelt.”
At the mention of his name, Loqi stared up from Cor’s hands to his eyes again, without lifting the head much, like he didn’t even have the strength to do that. Cor’s jaw stayed tense until he forced himself to speak.
“Where and how you die or live” Cor shrugged and shook the head. “It’s on you. But you can’t choose if you’re dead, so it starts by surviving” Loqi, who had looked down at his dish, looked up once again to the Marshal, silent. “At least for a couple weeks.”

Loqi kept eye contact with him for a bit, with the same sad and red eyes that continued silently crying. Cor stared back, firm, and cold. After a moment, Loqi put the head down and used his good hand to clean his face, at the time he shyly sniffled.
It was truly pathetic. Something Loqi would have never allowed Cor to see.
How broken is he that he doesn’t care anymore…?
Cor would have liked to stay, make sure he really ate. But that would throw down his entire act. So, after having made Loqi cry, Cor forced himself to turn away and head for the door, hating himself and the world.

He left, not once looking back, and hoping wholeheartedly that he had not done wrong.

Left alone in the room, Loqi didn’t stare as Cor left. He kept the head down and the eyes closed, both fists tightly made, and his body trembling almost violently. He was trying to contain himself as best as possible; the Marshal could have left already, but Loqi did not want to cry even if he was alone. He had done it too much already. He was sick of it.

He tried to keep it in and not burst into tears yet again, but as tears continued escaping him, he cursed under his breath and tried again to clean his face.
The gods curse Leonis. That fucker.

Yet, Loqi hated to admit…Cor had hit a sore spot.
It would be a lie to say Loqi had not thought about going back to Niflheim. His former neighbor had told him and confirmed the fate of his siblings, and everything seemed to point at Niflheim as the real culprit, but…
He could not believe that. Any of that. Not until he had proof, until he saw his siblings with his own two eyes.
And at the same time he knew it was hopeless. Most, if not all of him, knew the truth. He knew it was senseless and hopeless, he knew the Lucians were not lying. But part of him still wanted to believe that his little angels were out there, somewhere, back home. And he needed to get back to them. He needed to see what had happened to them, and until then, he would not believe anyone else. Even less that idiot of a Marshal.

…and even if he was right…even if his little angels had…even if he had lost them, Loqi still had the wish of going back. Because even if he found them dead, at least he would find them.
Loqi did not wish to do anything, and Leonis had hit in the most correct and sore spot in his heartstrings: life did not make sense. Not when he thought about a world without his little siblings, or even the empire to give him some sense of identity. He had no reasons anymore, except one thing: find his little siblings. Alive or dead. Cradle them in arms.
See them. Loqi desperately needed to see them…

And, as much as he hated Cor, the man had made him notice something Loqi had not thought about.
Was he really going to let himself die there, in Lucis? In the savage country, among the horrendous insects that were its people?
…miles away of his brother and sister?

After forcing himself to not burst crying, he turned to look at the tray next to his bed. He stared for a bit before lowering the eyes. His lower lip started quivering, and tears continued streaming down his face, out of his irritated and swollen, exhausted eyes.
He was not hungry. Despite the hours he had spent fasting, he was not hungry. Not eating almost felt right; how was he supposed to do such a trivial thing like eating when his siblings were…?

He closed the eyes and looked away, jaw and fists tensing again. The mere idea of eating gave him nausea. And it had been Leonis’ advice. Screw Leonis. May the gods turn him to dust, Loqi wished.
…still…he had been right. He was too far from home. Too far from…them.
Whether dead or alive, Loqi’s heart belonged nowhere but in their hands.
He could not die this far away of them.

Slowly, Loqi pushed himself to the edge of the bed, sniffling quietly, and trying to push his hair away of his dampened face.

After three days, he stretched his good hand and took the fork.

Chapter Text

Cor was soon back at working at the Citadel.

As the head of the army, he was rarely sent to the battlefield itself unless it was an important mission, or if he considered it vital, something that had rarely ever happened in the past nineteen years. He used to enjoy of the battlefield in younger days…but ever since he adopted Prompto, he thought twice before putting his life to risk. He could die and whatever, everybody dies. But what about Prompto? He would be left alone, and sad. If Cor didn’t decline going to the battlefield for himself, then for Prompto.
It was amazing, what love could make, he often thought. Love could push a man to the battlefield, or drag him out of it.

Whenever he was away at war, all the time he was thinking about Prompto. He always thought about not dying for him.
He wondered, while watching the recruits train, if Tummelt did the same, if he thought about not dying so he could always go back home to see his siblings again.
Cor could not imagine what the kid had to be going through. Loqi, like him, was a man of war, so it was clear that he did think about his loved ones every time he was away on missions. One of those nights that he could not sleep, Cor thought about how Loqi had always kept in mind that he was at risk of dying, and always fought to go back to his siblings, to not let them go through the pain of his loss, and how he never prepared for the opposite scenario.

It was impossible to imagine what it must have been to live through such a turn of events; being the one at risk of death, and survive, only to find his loved ones dead. Cor tried to imagine how he would react to survive to the battlefield, only to find Prompto dead once back home. It almost sounded illogical. He always thought about what if he died, but never did the idea of losing Prompto cross his head. He would be more than devastated. He doubted he would ever be happy again. He couldn’t imagine himself ever smiling again if something like that happened…

If that was what Tummelt was going through…Cor really pitied him.

Even after two weeks and some days after the events of the bombing, Cor still thought about the Nif on a constant basis. Being back at working at the Citadel did not help; he only remembered that they were in the same place, just many floors away in opposite wings, but still the same place. It was weird, being in the same building than…him. Cor was not even sure how he thought about Tummelt anymore; the heartless soldier that had tried to murder him multiple times? The cruel general that once did step on him with a robot? An unlucky civilian? The fallen hero that tried to protect his family? It was confusing. Loqi still hated him and still swore to kill him, but Cor really could not see him as an enemy as hard as he tried. How could someone that tried to give his life to protect a pair of innocent kids be bad?

Constantly thinking about him drove Cor to visit a couple days later.

Cor had already stopped to ask once about him, the day immediate after the evening that he tried to convince the Nif to eat. They told him that he had finished his meal, refused dinner, but ate half his breakfast. He was not eating well, but at least he now had something in his stomach, and that was enough. Now, Cor guessed it would be prudent to go ask again about how he was progressing.

After his work shift was over, instead of heading to the parking lot, Cor went to the hospital wing.
Everything was quiet when he arrived, thank the Astrals. Once nearby the room, one of the nurses that were in charge of attending Loqi saw him approach.
“Good evening, mister Leonis” he greeted with a slight bow of the head.
“Good evening. Everything alright?” Cor asked.
“Thankfully, yes” the nurse nodded. “He hasn’t been aggressive the past days. Except…maybe verbally at random times, but nothing important.”
“I apologize for his rude behavior” Cor said. “I hope he hasn’t said anything that’s affected you or anything…”
“That’s okay, I understand” the nurse shook the head and gave him a comforting smile. “I wouldn’t be happy if I was being looked after by Nif doctors, either. It’s not his fault he’s grown learning to hate us. We grow up learning to hate them, so it’s not like we’re any better.”

Cor murmured an agreement with a sad smile.
“Has he eaten? Any troubles with that?” he asked after a pause.
“He still rejects some meals. Most, to be honest” the nurse informed, checking his clipboard. “We’re adding the vitamins to every meal we prepare for him, as you commanded, sir, so even though he’s not eating as he should, the vitamins are working as substitute for at least a small part of the nutrients he’s not eating on his own” Cor nodded slowly, crossing the arms. “And, as you commanded, we haven’t told him about the vitamins” the nurse did not question him, and Cor mentally thanked him for that.
“Do you think it’s…good enough?” Cor asked him after a pause. “I mean, do you think that as little as he’s eating is enough?”

The nurse gave him a weird look, shrugged a little, and hesitated between shaking the head or nodding.
“Eh” he said as if in an answer. “I…think it could be better. There’s no pattern; sometimes he skips two meals before eating one, sometimes three before eating half of the other, it seems to depend a lot on his mood. Which…is not bright at any moment” the nurse pressed his lips together before continuing. “He’s eating…enough to survive, but it’s doing no good to him. He’s losing weight rapidly, and as injured as he is his body requires even more nutrients than it normally does, so…to answer your question…” he hesitated again, looking away as if searching for an answer. “Yes and no. Again…I think it could be better.”

Cor stayed quiet. He kept the arms crossed, with a hand up so he could chew on the nail of his thumb. He slowly and absentmindedly nodded, looking at nowhere, frowning slightly, and clearly deep in his thoughts.

It really had never been in his intentions to visit Loqi himself. The kid hated him; Cor visiting only worked to make him go nuts all over again. But the matter about him not eating was concerning him. And all that guilt…
“Is he awake?”

--

Cor went into the room as quietly as he could manage, in case Loqi was asleep or…in case he accidentally walked into him…crying or anything. Thankfully, Loqi’s eyes looked dry that day, if only still red and exhausted.

While Cor closed the door behind himself, he stared a bit at the Nif. The kid was lying in bed, his injured hand on his tummy, and the other one above his head. If Cor ignored the hospital gown and bed, it could almost look like just any other troubled teenager staring at the ceiling for answers.
Loqi barely reacted to his arrival, but at least it was better than last time. Last time, Loqi had not even bothered looking at him. This time, he turned enough to look at who had come in, but, surprisingly, and worryingly, he did not lose it as usual. Normally, young Tummelt would freak out at Cor’s mere presence; would start throwing things and trashing the room, yelling and cursing.

The fact that all that he did was stare in silence spoke a lot about how bad Loqi had to be, mentally speaking. Cor was not sure if Loqi was too sad to have the energy to freak out, or too broken to care. Perhaps both.

Cor felt stupid saying any kind of hello, so he didn’t. He looked away, fearing Loqi would be upset if he stared too much at his red eyes. The Lucian approached calmly and reached for the nearby chair and pulled it close enough to the bed to keep it clear he wanted conversation, but not too much so that it was awkward. Loqi’s only reaction was a quiet derogative snort and the slight shake of the head, before he looked away to focus on the ceiling once more, but closing the eyes. Cor tried to not get upset at the clear rejection and pretended to have heard nothing. He stayed quiet, hands clasped together, and staring at either the opposite wall or the ceiling. He let an awkward silence linger.

“So…I’m, uh…”
“If you’re going to make a comment about my eating habits, keep it” Loqi interrupted him. His voice was still a broken whisper, and he spoke slowly, but that did not seem to stop him. “I don’t want to see you, Leonis. Fuck off.”
“I know you don’t” Cor whispered, looking away. “I don’t want to see you, either.”
“A funny thing for someone that keeps coming back every certain days to say” Loqi muttered bitterly. He brought the hand that was above his head down to rest it on top of his other hand. “Fuck off…”
“I don’t keep coming back because I like it” Cor answered a little angrily. Noticing he was getting riled up, he paused to take in a subtle breath and remind himself to calm down. “If I’m around, that’s just because I’m trying to make sure you don’t die. Seen as you’re not giving a damn about it yourself.”

Loqi’s reply was a sarcastic smile and rude exhale that said it all. Cor felt a pinch of anger inside. After a while, Loqi quietly and bitterly chuckled, shook the head, and looked away. Cor stared at him for a moment, slight frown on his face. He looked away and tried to calm down, and remember that, as annoying and rude as this kid could be, he was still…in need of help, even if it did not seem like it. Both looked at opposite directions, each in their own sort of silence, for a very, very long while.

During the silence, Cor thought about leaving. This was senseless; there was no timeline or universe in which this kid would ever listen to him or try to let go of that baseless hatred he held against Cor. He was wasting time on someone that would never allow him to help.
But then, for whatever reason, Cor could not bring himself to leave. Instead, he sighed and spoke.
“I know what bothers you the most, I’m aware of the things that happened” Cor explained. “It’s not that what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this place and this moment. So don’t freak out on me, you know I’m not referring to the big things” Loqi was not looking at him, but the look on his face reflected some pain in his pride. Which was good. “What bothers you the most? I mean, is there anything we can…change or improve so you can feel a little more…comfortable? Is it the nurses? You’re not happy with the treatment? Or is it because they’re Lucians? Or is it the food? What is it?”

He got silence. Cor felt awkward and a little humiliated after a while; the pause was so large and uncomfortable, he thought about leaving, taking for granted Loqi was going to ignore him for the rest of his life. However, a few seconds before Cor convinced himself to stand up, Loqi surprisingly let out a little breath and replied.
“I hate this fucking place” he murmured in his now usual broken voice. He opened the eyes but kept staring absentmindedly at the ceiling. Any trace of the sarcastic smiles had long disappeared. Cor stayed quiet, a little surprised at the honesty with which Loqi seemed to be replying. It did not surprise Cor to hear Loqi say such things; he was surprised at getting an answer. “…I’m in the Citadel, am I not?”

Cor did not reply. He stared in silence, fearing that anything he said would make Loqi regret speaking and hence shut up. The Nif frowned.
“I hate Lucis. Naturally, the part I hate most about Lucis is its heart. And, naturally, what I hate the most about Insomnia is its heart” Loqi continued. “Just knowing I’m in the Lucian Citadel itself…it makes me want to die” the way he said it was so loaded of hatred, Cor almost felt it was tangible and smacking him in the face. “I’d rather be in the sewers or rotting in the desert being eating by wild Sabertusks than this” Loqi closed the eyes. “I hate this place. I hate the people. I don’t want to be surrounded by all these Lucians. I don’t want to be in this bed that belonged to who knows fucking who.”

The mention made Cor look down and his heart to speed up even if just for one beat. Loqi was angry enough already…if he knew that that bed had been occupied only by Cor, the man he hated even more than Lucis itself…
“Fuck this place” Loqi muttered calmly. “It would have been kinder of you to sell me as a tortured slave forced to serve some Lucian ‘noble’ or to throw me to the garbage. But I guess bringing me here was more entertaining for you, wasn’t it?”

Cor did not reply to any of the comments. He felt a pinch in his stomach that made him look away and nervously start chewing on his nail.
So in how many ways exactly had Cor unknowingly fucked up so far?

Cor tried to put aside the guilt and the overthinking and leave them for later, and focus just in his current personal mission; Loqi’s progress.
The kid was being rude at the nurses and doctors, refused to take any sort of medicine, and rejected most of his meals. The nurse said that it depended a lot on Loqi’s mood; hence, if Loqi was in a good mood more often, it would be more likely that he ate better, or at least more frequently; hence, the answer was in doing something to help improve his mood.
What bothered him most was the place he was at. There was no way Cor could take him out of Lucis; impossible to take him out of Insomnia. Hence, the only thing he could do to help brighten his mood even if just one notch was taking him out of, at least, the building. But where could he…?

…Astrals above, no. Why did I even think about that possibility? Please, no, please, stop thinking about it. Please, no. Please.

Cor stared at the wall for a long while, arms crossed. For each second that passed, his face dropped more and more as did his own mood. He thought long and deep about it; hesitated, made multiple mental lists and comparisons, drew entire mental diagrams of cons and pros, panicked, fought again and punished himself, everything while staying quiet and still on the outside.
It was madness. The kid would freak out as soon as Cor told him; the only option Cor had in mind was worse than selling him as a tortured slave or throwing him to the garbage and sewers. This was the worst of the worst of the possibilities. Loqi would never…

…but he’s not eating, Leonis.
Cor sighed and closed the eyes.
Oh my god, I must have lost the most basic of my common sense to be doing this.

“…you know” Cor spoke insecurely, feeling his skin hot as if ready to start coldly sweating in any second. “I…think that we can fix that. As in…I think you don’t have to stay in the Citadel if that’s as you wish.”
“Hooray, my hero” Loqi muttered with poisonous sarcasm. “You’ve fixed the world. Saved my life. Everything is good and happy again now that I can change shelter. What would I do without you?”
“You don’t-!” Cor forced himself to stop, closed a fist, and contained himself. He had to stop breathing and mentally count in his head to calm down before he could sigh. “Look, I don’t give a damn. I’m only trying to give you a hand in what little there is that can be helped, but if you’d rather stay here, stay. Happy stay in the Citadel, the heart of Lucis.”

The worst part was that Loqi did not even reply. Cor stood up as soon as he finished talking. He still took a moment to stare, annoyed and with a frown, down at the Nif. Loqi was frowning too, staring at the ceiling, and trying to look as disinterested as possible, like a child in tantrum trying to pretend that Cor did not exist. The Lucian tried to not snap out at him, turned around, and started walking away.
Before he could get to the door, he heard the Nif sigh audibly enough to make it clear Loqi was calling for him.

“Right. Fine” Loqi said and slowly started sitting up with clear effort, but too proud to ask for any sort of help. Cor controlled the impulse of helping, but the sight at least helped him to let go of the anger and remember about the fragile state of the Nif, which made him return to the soft treatment. Once sat, Loqi stared at him still with a frown. The Nif sighed. “Literally nothing can be worse than here.”

--

“You have to be fucking shitting me.”

“I did tell you that you wouldn’t like it.”
“When you said I wouldn’t like it I was expecting the sewers. A fucking bar, some brothel” Loqi’s voice raised as he listed. “But from among all possible places of Insomnia, from among all the most humiliating-“
“It’s not that bad-”
“-from any other place of this city-”
“Look, I’m sorry-”
“-you had to take me to your own fucking apartment!?”

Cor stared at the ceiling and mentally asked the Astrals for strength and mercy. Loqi stood next and in front of him, at the doorframe of the apartment, in silence and glaring with deep hatred at the inside. After a long while with Loqi standing there not giving a single step inside, Cor feared maybe the apartment was dirty, so he looked from above the Nif’s head and into the place to check if everything was in order, even when he already knew it was as clean as it could be. He had cleaned it just before bringing Loqi. There was nothing inside that should earn such reaction from him.

Cor looked down at him again, not sure of what to say.
“I’m not going in there.”
“But why not?”
By any answer, Loqi glared up at him, frown as deep as it could get. Cor didn’t question him any further.
“Look, I’m sorry, but it’s the only place I can think about.”
“You seriously thought that taking me from the Citadel to your house would help at all?” Loqi asked him a bit too angered. Cor shrugged a shoulder. Loqi glared harder. “You fucking retard, you really think I’m the biggest dumbass on Eos, don’t you?!”

Cor nervously scratched the back of his neck. This really was more difficult than he thought it would be. And more stressing.
Despite what he was saying, Loqi started limping his way into the apartment. Cor stared with some surprise but decided to take the chance and go inside after him to finally close the door; only the gods knew if the neighbors were home and listening. Once inside and in a little more private, Cor stared at Loqi, still nervous that he would fall and hurt himself.

Loqi had refused a wheelchair. He had gotten so upset at the mere offer and mention that he could not even formulate words, and only managed to mutter unintelligible noises while lifting a pillow as if ready to smack the nurse with it. Cor, thankfully, had gotten in the way before the Nif would unleash his fury. Wheelchair or being carried in arms were his options; Loqi had a broken leg and his right arm was injured, so it would be harmful if he used crutches. But Loqi profusely refused any of those options and demanded a one-handed crutch.
It was not working. Loqi still needed to use his injured arm to get support from nearby walls or railings to not lose balance. He acted like his arm was alright, but Cor knew the kid was probably hiding the pain only out of pride. It was worrying, and it stressed Cor because he felt the kid was going to fall down at any moment, but there was nothing he could do to win over Loqi’s pride.

At least, he had not refused the clothes. But he did not have any option in that case.
He had lost literally everything. Even the dirty pajamas with which he arrived; they were bloodied and dirty enough to be beyond repair, so the medics had merely thrown them away. The Nif had literally nothing, not even underwear. And so, seen as he could not go out in a hospital gown, Loqi had had no option but to accept whatever they brought him.
When Cor went to clean the apartment, he also made sure to make another stop to grab some of Prompto’s clothes. Only when grabbing the clothes he noticed that he had no idea how much height difference there was between the two, but he guessed there couldn’t be much.

And only now that Loqi was dressed in some of Prompto’s clothes did Cor notice.
Loqi was…tiny.
Cor noted that the only times he had been close to the Nif, the latter had been in armor. Maybe that gave the illusion that he was bigger. And when Cor was carrying him around in arms after finding him in the ruins of his house, he was too busy in the emergency to make a proper comparison. Now that he was in civilian clothes and standing, the height difference was more noticeable.
And it was an even clearer impact when Prompto’s clothes, where Cor already considered Prompto to be small, fitted him big.

It was nothing too ridiculous or obvious, but Prompto’s clothes fit the Nif a bit too large. The collar was loose, and Loqi was constantly pulling at the hem of the pants when he could. They weren’t too big they would drop if he didn’t pull them up, but they still dropped some inches from where they were supposed to go. Cor guessed that the fact that Loqi was losing weight did not help.
He stared a little amazed at the realization, wondered how tall the kid was, tried to make an approximate, but he feared that Loqi would see him staring and would find it offensive, so he didn’t say anything about it and tried to not think too much about how small Loqi was.

Cor stayed in a long, awkward, and heavy silence with the Nif, who was barely two steps into the apartment and staring around with a frown.
“Look at this fucking- when I said it would be kinder if you threw me to the garbage you took it too literally, Leonis” Loqi said fiercely. One of Cor’s eyebrows twitched and, even though he didn’t admit it, he did feel offended. “This is what you call home? This dumpster?” Loqi snorted sarcastically. “I knew you Lucian ‘nobility’ were poor savages, but this is ridiculous. If this is what nobility looks like, is everyone else literally living in a pool of dirt?”
“I’m…not nobility.”

Loqi surprisingly stayed quiet and turned to look at him, looking seriously surprised and even doubtful. He stared for a while as if expecting for Cor to undo the lie, but all that Cor did was stare back.
“Really?” Loqi asked. Cor nodded, and looked away. “Cor Leonis, the Lucian Marshal…a poor plebeian.”
“We’re not here to get into a classist argument-”
“I mean, it doesn’t surprise me” Loqi continued as if Cor had never spoken. “You don’t have class or the face to be nobility, but I had no idea the head of the Lucian army was a proletarian.”
Cor, once more, felt a punch inside, but refused to fight back. He frowned and looked away.

This didn’t surprise him, either; Nif nobility? The worst of the most classists and xenophobic creatures. He shouldn’t feel as offended about this rich, spoiled brat making fun of him for something as meaningless and medieval as lacking a noble title, so he tried to not mind it much.
“The head of the army, a random pleb” Loqi continued mocking him, taking a step more into the apartment, holding to nearby furniture. “No wonder you guys are losing the war.”
“We’re not here to discuss that” Cor reminded him.
“Sure your salary offers more than…this?” Loqi asked, still looking surprised and not believing this was Cor’s home. Cor only stayed quiet, which Loqi took as an answer. Surprisingly, the Nif smiled. It was a mocking and cruel smile, but it still made Cor feel a little surprised.

He had thought…that maybe Loqi was too…sad, even depressed, and he wouldn’t have energy to fight or have one of his very usual annoying arguments. How had he gotten better enough to be back into his…sassy, rude self so fast?
Loqi stared away again to look around the little apartment.
“Fuck off. This is a joke. I’m not staying here-”
“Well, then let’s go back to the Citadel” Cor said a bit more roughly than he wanted. Loqi stayed quiet, and Cor reminded himself that, as rude as this kid could get, he was just paining and needed some comprehension. He calmed down and breathed calmly to not snap out at him again. “I’m sorry. But you only have three options; the Citadel, in my dumpster of a house, or to the improvised Nif refuge, living with another few hundreds of people, all in the same place, sleeping in the same room on second-hand cots, and eating with the same utensils they all use, and all sharing the same bathrooms.”

If it wasn’t because the kid was injured physically and mentally, Cor would have found the look of terror on his face hilarious. He let the pause linger, see if Loqi finally calmed down.
“You’re telling me that my only options are back in the house of King Asshole, in a hospital full of weeping, smelly people, and this?” by any answer, Cor shrugged and shook the head, keeping it clear. Loqi still stared at him with some disgust and disbelief, but soon enough looked away with a sigh. “…incredible.”
“Look, it’s not that bad in here” Cor tried to explain, and suddenly he wasn’t sure if he was telling that to him, or to himself. “It’s not a castle, but it’s much more private than the Citadel. You’ll have your own room, with its own bathroom” Loqi turned to look at him again with a glare that said it all. “And…you won’t have to see me. I won’t use this other than to sleep. In the other room that’s literally on the other end of the apartment. I won’t check up on you as the nurses did, I’ll just bring your food, but besides that you’re…free to be alone as you wish. No Lucians. No me.”

Both stood each in their place, Loqi staring to some wall and still frowning slightly, and Cor staring at him, waiting for a reaction. Loqi’s jaw was tense and he seemed to be breathing a little heavier than normal, in clear contained anger and frustration.
“…fine” Loqi muttered a bit too lowly. He didn’t say anything else. Cor felt relief, but, for some reason, it didn’t lift his mood. He looked down and nodded, letting out a silent breath.
“Come. I’ll show you your room” Cor said a bit insecurely, not sure if he had to offer a hand to help the Nif. One-handed crutch was literally useless when it was about a broken leg, and he really didn’t want Loqi to fall down, but he guessed that the Nif would rather break all four limbs before letting Cor touch him.

Still, Cor made sure to be careful and not rush so Loqi could follow just fine. The Nif looked beyond frustrated and upset, but this was what Cor could offer, so he had to adapt to it. Cor almost let a ‘careful’ past his lips, but he contained it as to not make Loqi upset. Soon, he was going into a small hallway and opening the only door, and patiently waited for Loqi to catch up and limp his way past the doorframe. Once in, the Nif looked around. Cor was unsure of what to expect or if he had to prepare for another argument.
It was not the great thing. It had its individual bed and plenty furniture, an average room that Cor tried to make look as presentable and tidy as possible. Still, Loqi did not seem content. Thankfully, though, he didn’t freak out again, so even if he was not content with the room, at least he was not complaining.

Loqi walked inside a couple steps more, still looking around. Suddenly, Cor felt a little…humiliated. His class situation had never bothered him, but he suddenly found himself thinking that he had a noble, who used to live in a three-floors mansion, in this little two-rooms apartment, and he felt tiny. Even when it was Loqi who couldn’t be more than 5’5 tall, Cor suddenly felt small in his presence.
“Uhm” Cor tried to snap out of the thoughts, “I’m really sorry I don’t have more, but thanks for accepting it anyway. I know this isn’t pleasant for you.”
Despite the politeness and sudden softness, Loqi did not warm in to it. He only raised an eyebrow for a second and subtly nodded, in clear sarcasm.
“Uh…I will…get you new clothes. Sorry about…the size of these, I wasn’t…” Loqi didn’t turn his head, but he did glare his way. Cor decided to change the subject about his height. “Right. So…” he sighed. “Yeah.”

Loqi was still quiet for a while, only staring around. He limped and hissed his way to the desk, which he used for support. Cor thought it would be better if he left, so he turned around and headed to exit the room.
“Leonis” he heard Loqi call, so he stopped at the doorframe and turned around again, surprised, and not sure what he had to be prepared for. “That Nif refuge. Why was I the only one in the Citadel?”

It was not exactly the question Cor was preparing for. The Lucian stood in his place a little startled, not sure of what to say. He thought about lying, but when he opened his mouth he found it impossible.
“I…thought…” Cor hesitated. Loqi was facing his way and frowning, waiting firmly for his answer. Once more, despite his size and the cast and the sling and his tiny size, something about his presence and eyes made him look regal and imposing, and made Cor hesitate a little more. “It’s just-” he stuttered. “I…thought- what with you being nobility and all…” he scratched his jaw out of discomfort as he continued. “…I thought-that maybe if you were in a room that suited your…As you’re used to a more privileged treatment, maybe if we gave you a more privileged treatment too, we could…help a little…” with the emotional impact “with, you know, your…comfort.”

Loqi stared at him in dead silence, still frowning. Cor felt his heart beating a little faster than normal. He was not sure he was catching the whole mess with dealing with a man that had tried to kill him so many times in the past. Cor stared uncomfortable as the silence went on. After a while, Loqi slowly nodded and he looked away.
“Don’t get any foolish ideas, Leonis” Loqi threatened. Cor was quiet, a little tense, waiting for more and not sure he understood. “This changes nothing. Don’t think that letting me live in your…’home’, or you ‘helping’ until I heal changes anything of what I think about you.”

Cor didn’t reply. Loqi put his injured arm back in the sling.
“This doesn’t make us ‘allies’ or any other form of positive acquaintances” Loqi continued. “Don’t think that just because you’re trying to act like a savior I’ll spare your life.”
Cor couldn’t help but widen slightly the eyes and continue staring with slight surprise.
“Don’t think that I will hesitate or stop just because you let me sleep in your house for a few weeks” Loqi continued. “When I go back to Niflheim, and I put a new armor on, I’ll go to the battlefield again. And if I find you, I will kill you.”

At the promise, Cor lifted the head the few inches that he had dropped it and his lips parted slightly. He stared with full surprise this time at the Nif standing across the room, not hiding anything. Loqi did not seem to catch whatever had surprised Cor; he stayed immutable, glaring with piercing hatred at him. Both stayed quiet, sharing a long and promising silence.
“…I understand that” Cor said lowly. “But I don’t understand- I mean-…you’re really…planning to go back to working for the empire?” before Loqi could freak out, Cor continued. “Does that mean that you still believe that we did it?”
Even though Loqi seemed to have been right about to interrupt him, the last question seemed to take him off-guard, and changed his expression. It softened.

The silence that followed was uncomfortable and thick; different from the previous ones. After a while, Loqi broke eye contact. He looked in clear distress and hesitation.
“…it-…was difficult to believe” Loqi muttered, not glancing in Cor’s direction. “But…I checked the original twice and…” he let a heavy sigh out. “It’s real. Too much to explain to your brute head, but there are…things in there that only us Nifs can understand. That confirm it as real…”

They stayed quiet again. ‘It doesn’t make sense; who’d want to go back and keep working at the service of a government that kills its own people?’, Cor wanted to ask. But he let the silence go on, see if Loqi answered without having to ask him.
“So no, I don’t think it was you, Lucians, anymore” Loqi replied bitterly, glaring at him. “I’m aware it was the empire” even though Cor did not ask, Loqi seemed to see the question in his face. “And yes, even knowing that I’m planning to put my armor back on again.”

Another long and heavy silence took over the room. Even though the unspoken question was beyond obvious, Loqi did not say anything, so Cor forced himself to say it.
“…they…took everything from you” Cor whispered. “Everything. Even then are you planning to…?”
Cor did not finish the question, but none needed him to. Loqi stared away.

The heavy silence returned; none said or did anything. During the abysmal silence, Loqi shook the head, and limped his way closer to the bed. He stood dead silent, not glancing in Cor’s way.
“…the empire…did what they had to” Loqi whispered. “The things that were lost and…the…” a long pause. “…casualties…are lamentable losses…” his voice was too quiet and too unsure. Cor said nothing and watched Loqi drop the head and close the eyes. The Nif sighed subtly before forcing himself to lift the head, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at the Lucian. “…but the people who-…the…” he hesitated and lowered the head again, shaking it. “It’s lamentable. But if the empire didn’t do it, we all would have died in hands of the Scourge. It must have been a difficult choice, but they always do the correct thing in the end, as terrible as it may be. They do what is necessary.”

Said that, he turned to look at Cor.
Even though it was the same glare and frown that he had seen all day by now, it was like the mask had broken and fallen off the Nif’s face, and Cor could now see the real look on his face; the still reddish and exhausted eyes, the whole aura of insecurity and sadness around him.
“The empire did what was necessary…” Loqi repeated and, as he spoke, his voice trembled and hesitated. He forced himself to look away again. “They were trying to save the rest of the country. Taking difficult choices like these are what make of heroes, heroes. Of course I’m fucking planning to go back. Get a new armor. Fight for what’s right, as does the Empire…as it always has done…”

Cor said nothing. He was trying to come up with a reply, but he couldn’t find a way to say all he wanted.
“Desperate problems need desperate solutions…right?” Loqi whispered and seemed to be talking or thinking about something else. He lowered the head again, sighed through the nose, and looked somewhere else.

Cor could see it; in the way he moved…the way he acted, the way he looked.
The kid was lying. Loqi was trying to convince himself. He knew it. Cor knew it; Loqi knew that he knew. And still, he kept up with the lie as if pretending both believed it.

This is how he’s coping.
With his family’s death and all the things he lost; that was how he chose to cope. Lying to himself and feeding on the idea that the empire did what they had to, and that it had been right. Blinding himself behind loyalty and pride; trying to desperately keep his unbreakable loyalty for the Empire up, as if fearing to lose even that. Mechanically repeat what the empire made their people believe: they did what they had to, they were always right.
Thinking that Nanna and Frey died in name of a greater good; that their deaths were lamentable, yes, but only part of somebody’s job.

With the realization, Cor felt bad for having been angry at Loqi only some minutes ago. He regretted the arguments and snapping out at him even if he had stopped himself in time. His stomach wrenched and shrunk, and he felt overwhelmed by pity.
Loqi was looking to a side, eyes gleaming with tears that he didn’t drop; jaw still tense, lower lip subtly into his mouth so he could bite down on it, body shaking slightly.
He was not buying his own lie…

What did it feel? Cor wondered while looking at him. To have lost everything, from material things, to his whole family and everyone he loved, to things like ideals and his whole view of the world; to his pride in his country; to his faith. To the core of his trust. What did it feel like? To have lost everything to the point of trying to desperately hang to the last of the broken things he had left, knowing that it was going to break at some point anyway?
To be twenty-something, only, and be so strictly instructed as a soldier, that he was trying to think of himself as a weapon with no feelings, and trying to see the deaths of his siblings, that he clearly tried to protect to his last breath, as ‘lamentable but whatever’.

You know, it’s okay to mourn. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to not want to work for the people that killed your family.
But Cor couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Everything felt overwhelmingly intimate and he knew it would be of no good results. Still, he could not help but feel that necessity of helping the Nif; only trying to imagine how much he had to be paining made Cor’s heart drown in pity, and it was not on him to ignore someone that was suffering.

“You said I wouldn’t see you” Loqi said after a short but audible inhale, finally daring to make eye contact with him. Cor stared back; Loqi was frowning and glaring, and Cor tried to see the classist jerk that had gotten on his nerves only some minutes ago, but all he saw was a man too young and lonely. “Fuck off.”
“Right…” Cor whispered. “I’m sorry.”

And with that, despite having too many things yet to say, he took some steps backwards before turning around and finally exiting the room. He closed the door so that Loqi wouldn’t have to keep limping on his broken leg to get anywhere.
Cor sighed and caressed his temples, and tried to not overstress about this. He only had to look after the kid until he healed and went back home. After that, he was free of all this mess.

That night, Loqi refused dinner. He also asked Cor if he was aware that, sleeping in the same apartment, Loqi could, at any point of the night, sneak in his room and slit his throat, and asked if he really was stupid and weird enough to even then let him sleep there. Cor replied, without threatening, that he would hear Loqi approach even before he would open the door.
The kid was stressed, depressed, and apparently still struggling with denial and grief, not to say he was physically injured and had a broken leg. He wouldn’t be a threat.
…still, Cor locked his door. Just in case.

Allowing the enemy in his house. Sleeping in the same apartment than him. It was like life was a surrealistic dream since the night of the bombing, and it was getting really stressing that Cor could not wake up from this mess.

That was how Loqi was allowed out of the hospital, and taken in oversized clothes to spend the first of many nights in Cor’s personal apartment.
That day, Cor misunderstood and thought Loqi was already out of the grief process. Giving sarcastic smiles and chuckles, glaring, back at his aggressive and mocking self, nothing of that spoke about depression.

But Cor understood with that conversation at Loqi’s new room. It was even clearer when despite the distance between both rooms, when night hit, Cor could hear some of the muffled sobbing and sniffling from the other bedroom.

Loqi was nowhere close to being alright.

He didn’t know what was worse; that Loqi was not aware that Cor could hear him, how much he had been holding in all day, that he probably didn’t know he was holding back, or even worse, that maybe Loqi could be aware he was holding back, and only tried to force himself to fake better.

Or that Cor worried for him. Maybe that was the worst part.

Chapter Text

A few days passed.

As promised, Cor was not home most of the time. He did not feel safe leaving Loqi alone because only the Astrals knew if the kid would dare try anything stupid against himself, so he hired a nurse; made sure it was a male, thinking maybe Loqi would be more comfortable that way, and to leave him with instructions to not check up on Loqi unless he was mysteriously quiet or mysteriously strange in any way.

That way, Cor left in the morning nearly after the nurse arrived; the nurse stayed around the apartment, or in Cor’s room in case that motivated Loqi to come out of his own, something that never happened; the nurse attended to Loqi if required, served him his meals, and sometimes motivated him for some early-stages therapy for his leg (when it worked, it was thanks to Cor’s instruction to ‘motivate him with the idea that the more he cooperates, the faster he heals, and so the sooner he goes back home’); Cor returned home, paid the nurse, and finished the day.

It was strange to Cor; despite how rarely they saw each other, they were living in the same place. And despite how little they spoke, Cor still felt the necessity to take care of him. Cor knew it was a normal thing; he saw the kid lose everything and everyone, empathy was only natural. But Loqi made it very difficult by getting angry at his presence, or not cooperating.

Dealing with Loqi was proving a challenge. He was moody, annoying, and rude most of the time; uncooperative, unresponsive. His stubbornness about being okay slowed the process of his right arm’s healing. Convincing him to take a daily shower was a daily war. That was one of the things that, instead of annoying, Cor saw as sad; in others’ eyes, it could come off as Loqi being unnecessarily stubborn and being an annoying, spoiled brat. Maybe he would have come off as that to Cor too if he didn’t know the context. To Cor, Loqi refusing to do something as simple as taking a shower, it spoke of a real and severe depression, one that put Loqi in a mental state where he could not feel the energy or motivation to do something as basic as going to the bathroom.

That was the worst part; his depression. Physical injuries aside, the core of everything was Loqi’s mental state. He rarely got out of bed, still refused most of his meals, and Cor could still hear him crying at nights. Being uncooperative felt like it was more because Loqi didn’t feel the energy to respond as they asked from him than because he didn’t want to. Cor had given him the motivation of working on healing fast to go back to Niflheim, and it had worked; Loqi had a fuel. He only…couldn’t turn the engine on. Little could a machine do even with a full tank if the engine refused to work.

If this was what Loqi was like while still in some degree of denial, what was he going to be like when he fully grasped what had happened?
Every day that went, Cor thought he cared less about him; every night he heard the muffled sobbing, he noticed he only did but worry more.

Time went slow and heavy; for Cor, for the entire kingdom, and mostly, for Loqi.

To Cor, it was a daily battle of struggling with a depressed, moody, and uncooperative Nif refugee living with him, even if he only saw him from time to time.
Loqi’s behavior was crude, bitter. He insulted Cor, tried humiliating him with comments, he was rude in general.
And yet, Cor stayed the opposite.

Even when Loqi did get on his nerves at times, Cor never dropped the kindness; every time he spoke to Loqi, he did it softly. Even when the young man yelled or insulted him, Cor stayed soft in what he said and how he said it. If he ever had to treat physically with Loqi, with things like adjusting the cushion of his leg, or helping him into clothes or out of them, he made sure to do it as gently as possible. Even when Loqi could smack him or shoo him away, Cor respected his choices without complaining and without fighting back, and always agreeing softly.

Soft. That was how Cor behaved through Loqi’s recovery; soft. In his words; in his voice; in his actions; in his empathy. In everything he did. As much as Loqi raged, ignored, or refused, Cor continued behaving soft and understanding, gentle and kind. He knew his limits, which made of the interaction something more formal instead of intimate, but even then he remained kind and soft.

Loqi did seem to like it.

--

Only a few days after bringing the Nif to his apartment, Loqi unexpectedly raged on him.

“I’m back. Is everything in order?” Cor asked as every day. Loqi rarely replied, and if he did, it was always something sarcastic or extra crude. That day, he stayed quiet. Cor went to the closet. “I got new clothes for you. I’m not sure what your…fashion taste is, so I got neutral things. This time the right size, I hope.”
“Why?”

Cor stayed mute after the question. He forgot everything he had to say and stayed blank, and looked back at Loqi; the Nif had said it with so much hatred, it sounded like they were back at that evening Loqi argued with him at the hospital. Cor found the younger man glaring at him; he was sat at the edge of the bed, his good hand gripping the bed sheet in a tight fist, so hardly that Cor thought he would rip the whole mattress apart with only a hand; he was breathing heavily and angrily. Cor had not paid it much mind thinking maybe Loqi had been crying before he came in and choosing to pretend he wasn’t hearing it, but now he realized it was not sadness, it was mere anger.

Cor stared in silence, not sure what to say. Loqi’s eyes, while still reddish and exhausted, were glaring at him with intensity worse than the times he had seen him in the battlefield. At least, in the battlefield he had some wicked fun. Right here, he had the look in the eyes of a man that had nothing more to lose, and hence, nothing left in the heart.
Which was probably exactly what he was.

“…because I thought you needed some more clothes-”
“No” Loqi breathed out between clenching teeth. “You know what I mean, Leonis. Why are you doing this?”
Cor was quiet. The tension in the air was thick; it felt like as soon as any of them moved, a dam would break and a catastrophe would be unleashed. Cor preferred to not reply; instead, he turned to the small closet again, opened a drawer, and started putting some of the new clothes inside.
Loqi’s glare and frown deepened, and he growled under his breath. He was still breathing heavily, and only gripped the bed more tightly.

After a moment in silence, Loqi used his good leg and kicked the bedside table, hard enough for it to make a loud noise, but not enough to flip it. Cor left what he was doing and looked over his shoulder back at him.
Loqi was up on his good foot, holding to the table for support. He was glaring at Cor.
Finally, Loqi was who unleashed the chaos.
“Why are you doing all this!?”

Cor didn’t reply at first. Loqi was no jokes; had never been. The Marshal understood there was no way around this.
“What’s ‘all this’?” he asked calmly. While staring, he noticed Loqi was still slightly bruised from the events of a couple weeks ago. Despite the injuries, Loqi glared at him as if severely offended, and he proceeded to gesture around himself.
”This Loqi growled. “You’re being…nice. To me.”

It was a conversation he was and wasn’t expecting at the same time. Cor guessed he could only go certain days before Loqi asked it like that.
“And is that a bad thing?” Cor asked still as calmly. Perhaps it was that he was not fighting back and stayed so calm what earned such reaction, but Loqi only seemed to get even angrier.
“Well, yes?” the Nif almost yelled. “You’re the enemy! I am your enemy! You’re not supposed to be doing any of this, not supposed to be acting like this; you have no reasons to be taking this so far!”
“Just a few days ago you were upset that my house wasn’t enough” Cor argued back, yet remaining as soft and calm as before. He put some more of the clothes in the closet as he spoke. “What’s ‘far’ for you, then?”

Loqi growled from his spot. Cor wasn’t looking, but he felt the way the Nif’s glare pierced through him; thinking it may make it easier if he showed he was listening, he turned around to face Loqi again. The blond was frowning, but Cor caught a tiny glimpse of insecurity. Perhaps it was fault of his now eternally sad eyes.
“All this” Loqi made a heavy pause. “…saving me.”
Cor didn’t reply. He stared calmly and tried to come up with something to say.
“You had no reasons to- save me” Loqi continued, a little quieter. “I understand you rescue the civilians, but you had no reasons to save me. But let’s say you’re…stupidly kind, fine” his frown deepened and his voice raised again. “But to go this far? Taking me away of the zone of disaster was enough, you could have dropped me anywhere else and I could have found my way through alone.”

Cor blinked with slight surprise; Loqi sounded so firm and determined, it almost convinced Cor that Loqi really could have done it alone. For a moment, Cor imagined him; dragging himself through debris and a city on fire, badly injured.
He imagined him trying to approach the Magitek Troops, thinking they were there to help, and ending up with a bullet in his head.
“But to take me to Lucis” Loqi took him out of the thoughts, talking his words slowly and with poison, “to the royal hospital, and then bring me to your personal shelter? Give me my own room!? Bringing food and clothes and being…nice!?” he yelled. ”What are you doing, Leonis!? What do you get out of all this!?” he continued raging and raising his voice. “If you wanted to give me a shelter, fine! But why are you trying to be nice!? Why do you insist on trying to talk to me, trying to touch me, why are you trying to…befriend me!?”

Cor stood nearby the closet still, quiet and calm. Loqi, apparently getting tired from standing, and trying to make it look as casual and as less humiliating as possible, sat back down on the bed, as if he had stood all the time he could force his body to. Cor didn’t react to it, as to let Loqi know he didn’t think of it as a defeat. Cor, not sure what to say, lowered the head and held a shirt with both hands.
“…I just want to help you.”
“Help me?” Loqi asked with clear anger as contrasting to Cor’s murmur. “I can walk and fight perfectly fine on my own!”
“Yes, but I’m trying to help in other ways besides the physical injuries.”

The air immediately changed; Cor let it out by mere reflex, having forced himself to admit the truth as sincerely as possible without thinking, because if he thought, he wouldn’t say it. And it had an immediate effect; the silence, previously thick and fragile, changed instantly, as if it had dropped and become a little softer. Still fragile, but not threatening. It was like touching fragile strings with quiet water drops instead of a whole dam threatening to break.
Loqi had not expected that statement, and it was clear in the way his frown instantly changed to a look of surprise and confusion. He didn’t even try to hide it; he spent the long silence staring back at Cor with that clear surprise in his eyes.

Cor lowered the eyes slightly after a bit. Little by little, Loqi’s frown started coming back, as if it was slowly dawning on him.
“Is that-” he looked away and snorted with sarcasm before looking at the Marshal again. “That’s…that’s what you think you’re doing?” he hissed slowly. “You think I need…emotional help?” Cor had opened the mouth as if to say something, but Loqi interrupted him, frown deepening fully. “You think I’m some weakling that needs hugs? Warm blankets, milk, and a pat on the head!? That’s what I am to you, some pathetic-!?”

Loqi interrupted himself; he looked away, closed the eyes tightly, and took a deep, shaky inhale. He had done a fist with his injured hand as it to drain the energy through it. After calming down, he turned to glare at Cor again.
“Don’t try to fix me” he hissed. “I’m not broken.”

Cor, once more, remained calm and quiet. He wasn’t idiot enough to scan the guy from head to toe, but he did try to analyze him; the way he had almost spat the last word, his reaction to what Cor had said, the look in his eyes.
He didn’t like to be treated like this. Not by Cor, at least. Even when doing the right thing, Cor was still ruining it.

“…I’m not trying to fix you” he said lowly again, gesturing a little with the hands. He started approaching him, but after the first step, Loqi, as if by reflex, growled at him, almost like a trained and mistreated dog. Cor, by reflex as well, stopped in his tracks, but after a few seconds making sure Loqi wouldn’t jump onto his neck, he continued. He reached for a nearby chair and sat on it, staring at Loqi directly to the eyes. He took in a quiet breath and tried to remain as soft as possible. “I just…thought that you could use some company. And some…kindness.”

Loqi reacted as if Cor had spat on his face; he gasped and frowned, at first looking at Cor with wide eyes that clearly said he couldn’t believe Cor had said such thing. Still, Cor continued talking.
“Because I thought it must have been quite hard for you. Would’ve been for anyone, really…”
Surprisingly, Loqi closed the mouth after that. He looked confused and surprised, as if he had anticipated many outcomes of this conversation except the one it was taking. Cor stared as calmly as before, serious, and touched by a hint of melancholy. He lowered the head and eyes a little.
“I…have outlived people that I loved, too, but…” he sighed and shook the head. “Never my entire family at once, and never in such a cruel way. I understand people were turning into daemons, but to bomb the whole city to get rid of the illness…”

The servants. The kids. Among all the victims, the kids were the saddest tragedy of them all. Cor wasn’t brave enough to say it aloud. Yet, it was beyond obvious that Loqi was thinking about that too.
Loqi stayed unexpectedly quiet; Cor had expected a lot of things, maybe even being hit in the face by the sudden sincerity and lack of tact with which he was suddenly talking about it. But he thought they had spent too long pretending nothing had happened. He thought Loqi would react aggressively at the first proper mention of the bombing in so long, but the Nif stayed frozen and mute. Cor didn’t dare look up to find with what eyes Loqi was looking at him.

And Cor was hopeful, even if just a bit, that maybe all that Loqi needed was some empathy. To be shown that Cor understood, if not his feelings, at least their existence. He thought that, maybe, speaking about it with comprehension could help Loqi to warm up and drop the anger. Maybe it could help him…to heal. Cor had been focusing too much on his physical recovery, and had done nothing so far for the emotional one. So he thought that showing some empathy was a good first step.

“It mustn’t be easy. To have lived through that. Survive to it…” Cor continued murmuring, every word sincere. “It leaves an impact. And I thought…”
He stopped there. He had never been very good at talking, even less when it was about feelings. And to do that with someone that considered him an enemy, it proved a challenge that Cor couldn’t finish completing; at that point, he felt overwhelmed thinking that it was getting too inappropriately intimate, and a little scared that…maybe it worked, and it worked so good, Loqi would end up crying in front of him. He was scared; wouldn’t know what to do, and it would hurt. Loqi was paining so much, Cor could feel it even without seeing him cry; he couldn’t imagine how worse it would be if he had to witness the Nif doing so.

So instead of continuing with the sincerity, Cor took in another quiet breath and let the silence linger. After a moment, he looked up and made eye contact again.
“I’m not trying to fix you, and I don’t think you’re broken” he said. “But why would I want to be rude to someone that just went through such horrible things?”

Loqi was looking at him with a face Cor could not quite read. It was not the piercing hatred from before, but it was not sympathy either. Loqi stared at him as if not understanding, not sure if he should be upset or not. Cor could catch the distrust in his eyes, but also a lot of new confusion. He was still frowning, but, for once, Cor didn’t feel at risk of being slapped or spat on. Loqi’s face was a frown, and he was not giving him friendly eyes, but it was not anger; it was…confusion.

Loqi could not read him, either, not fully. Cor had never been a mystery to him; he had only been a target. Never a human that could think, even less in such depth and…empathy. Loqi heard his explanation, but it did not quite finish clicking in his head.
“…it doesn’t make sense” Loqi whispered. Cor realized that he had heard the Nif said the same words multiple times across these few weeks. Loqi continued frowning and staring. “…we’re enemies. You’re not supposed to feel empathy for the enemy.”
“Why, because ‘that makes me weak’ or something?” Cor asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s not about what it makes you” Loqi interrupted before he continued. “It’s that it’s not…natural.”

Cor could not reply to that. It had been totally natural for him; what was he supposed to do? Just leave him there? Look at every victim he rescued, and if they were part of the army, not save them? Choose to not save a life when he could? It had not been a battlefield; there was no enemy, there were only victims. To Cor, the unnatural thing was not helping. Why was it so hard for Loqi to see?
What sort of education did the Nif soldiers receive?

Not answering only gave Loqi time to continue staring. Cor either stared at him, or down at the shirt he had kept in hands. Every time he looked up, Loqi was staring, unashamedly, analyzing. Trying to read what was in Cor’s head, try to see if he was lying, or perhaps trying to kill him with the eyes. Whatever he was doing, Cor didn’t like the look in his eyes; it was piercing, and so cold that Cor literally felt the temperature lower, but they were also profoundly sad and brokenhearted. It was a chaos; did he hate him? Did he pity him? Both at once?

Loqi stared for a long while in silence, sat at the edge of the bed. Cor, once more, felt a little intimidated in a way he didn’t let show.
“…you’re not a hero, Leonis” Loqi whispered. Cor made eye contact with him. “Kindness won’t fix anything of this fucking disaster” the way he said it was so loaded of poison and hatred, Cor felt a pinch in the heart. “So keep it to yourself. I’m not…sad” he said the last word as if disgusted. “Something as ridiculous and unimportant as ‘being sad’ shouldn’t get in the way. You don’t call in sick because your feelings hurt” Cor looked up at him as if ready to object, but Loqi’s glare made him stay quiet. “My body will heal, and so, it will be ready to go back to work. I don’t need any emotional healing to be of use, so don’t bother. It…heals with time. I mean, if I needed that, but I don’t. I’m not- sad.”

Loqi looked away; his words had been firm at first, but the more he spoke, the less sense his web of thought seemed to be. Loqi’s upper lip twitched and he growled under his breath, as if mentally nagging himself, before he tried to look at Cor again. He opened the mouth to say something, but he shut it, as if realizing that the more he spoke, the more he would get in troubles. Cor only continued staring, which made Loqi frown deeper and snap the head to a side.

They spent a while in silence. The tension in the air was noticeable again, in a different way; even though it had not been an argument, the silence felt tense as if Loqi had lost or was about to. Cor didn’t like the sensation; it didn’t feel like a victory, it felt like he was forced to choose which string to touch, but no matter which he chose, they all would break, and he was not ready to face that. He didn’t have the heart or mind to act if he made Loqi cry.

After a while in the silence, Cor took in a slow breath, and calmly let it out through the nose.
“…it’s not about being of use” he murmured. “It’s about being okay.”

Loqi blinked in surprise and slightly opened the mouth. Cor stared back as humbly as before, and pressed the lips into a thin line before dropping the head.
After a while in silence, Cor pushed himself up on his feet, and he calmly made his way back to the closet. He folded the shirt, put it inside the drawer, and closed it.
As he headed towards the door, Loqi moved a little on the bed and turned in his direction.
“I don’t need you, Leonis” he said as almost a yell.

Cor reached the door and put a hand on the knob.
“I know” he said after a sigh. He turned to look back at Loqi once more; despite the Nif’s attempt to go back to anger, Cor, as usual in the past days, remained soft. He looked at the blond for a while in silence. After a moment, Cor continued, serious, slow. “You’re strong enough on your own; I know, I’ve fought you.”

The Marshal was not sure if it had been an appropriate comment, considering he had always won whenever they fought. But he didn’t need to be defeated to measure an enemy’s potential; if Loqi had not proven to have the skills to kill him just yet, he had at least shown, if not determination, at least stubbornness. Which could be bad in the social life, but when it was about surviving? It was, perhaps, the strongest of traits.
And Loqi sure had a lot of stubbornness to give.
So, when he considered it, Cor had not lied at all.

Loqi was looking at him with surprise, this time greater than all previous times the Marshal got to take him off-guard. He had the eyes slightly open and in clear confusion; the look in his reddish eyes and his face was an open book that spoke about how unexpected the comment had been and how shocked he was.
Cor gave him a pause to process what he had been told. The Lucian smiled with some sadness and looked down for a while, but then, with another sigh, he looked up again.
“I’m not trying to fix you” Cor said. “It’s just…I think…” he shrugged. “The world’s given you shit enough already so that I give you more.”

Loqi didn’t reply. He continued staring from his spot, in silence. After Cor’s reply, he slowly let his shoulders relax, and, eventually, his frown softened enough. He looked as if trying to still come up with something to be the one with the last word, but defeated at the same time. For a moment, the Nif looked to the sides before locking eye contact again, this time with an unsure look on his reddish eyes that almost made him look vulnerable. Cor forced a sad smile and looked down, as if saying ‘I know’, even though he didn’t know what Loqi was thinking.

None bid goodbye or goodnight. Cor merely walked out and closed the door as he had been behaving ever since taking Loqi in as his refuge; softly.

That night, Loqi ate almost all his food at dinner. The previous nights, he had been rude and angered the whole time; that night, it was the first Loqi dropped the act. Whether the conversation with Cor made him understand that being angry was not going to stop the Marshal, or had confused him and he was still thinking about it, Loqi was surprisingly quiet at dinner. There was not a single insult, or a snarl, he didn’t throw any of the utensils, or spat at the food just to refuse it later. He said nothing when Cor arrived, ate slowly, and didn’t argue the five times Cor had to insist that he ate ‘only two bites more’; he may have growled under his breath, or sighed with anger, but never did he behave rudely, or disobeyed.

He couldn’t make eye contact with Cor. Or didn’t want to, at least. Cor was not sure if he had messed up further with the conversation that evening, or if his silence was a good sign; perhaps some guilt for having behaved so bad with Cor, and realizing he had been wrong. Maybe Cor was being too optimistic, and maybe Loqi was only upset like any other night.
Whatever it was, it felt like a bit of progress, nonetheless.

Cor went to bed that night not sure if Loqi would ever soften or warm in to the kindness, but realizing that it really didn’t matter; it was only matter of time before the guy’s leg healed and he went back to his country, and he would not be Cor’s problem afterwards. And in the meanwhile, it really wasn’t about Loqi warming in; it was about helping him, regardless of his lack of gratitude.

‘Feeling empathy for the enemy is unnatural’, Loqi had said. It kept Cor awake for a while. Loqi had made his life difficult, both in the battlefield, and now also out of it. Cor was giving him patience and kindness he didn’t deserve, and Loqi had literally spat on him and kicked him, called him names, rejected him. Empathy really should feel and be unnatural.

But even then, it didn’t. Cor still wanted to help him; wanted to see him walk out the door not just on a fixed leg, but on a healing heart. Cor was aware that a heart took much longer to recover, and in Loqi’s case, it could take even years, so Cor was not aspiring to fix his heart; he only aimed to try and make Loqi see his truth, as crude as it was. Cor wanted to let the kid know, before he left to Niflheim, before he joined the army again and went to war again and before he forced himself to block away the emotions, that it was okay to not be okay. To ask for some help. To need help.
To call in sick because his feelings hurt.

Not having any idea of where to start helping Loqi in the emotional side, Cor mentally asked the Astrals for a little help, and decided to call it a day.

Chapter Text

One day, the nightmares started.

The first thing Cor thought was that someone had broken into his apartment and was trashing everything; the next he thought, a natural disaster he couldn’t name. But as he was already on his feet, he realized it was none of that.

--

The night was quiet as usual. It was around two in the morning when it happened.

At first, there was some yelling. It started subtle enough, like loud noises of complaint or discomfort only. Cor didn’t wake up to them; he moved subtly in his sleep, but it wasn’t enough to bring him awake.
After a few more noises, which increased in volume and frequency the more the seconds passed, they turned into proper yells.

There was a first yell, which was quickly followed and shadowed by a louder scream; noises full of terror that startled and scared Cor awake. He was still sitting and waking up after the unexpected and piercing scream when there was another loud noise; a thud. Cor was still throwing the sheets off himself and swinging the legs off the bed as quickly as he could when more noises came in; more thuds, another scream, and a door being slammed open.

Moved on adrenaline, Cor shot out of bed and rushed to his door as fast as he could; he tried swinging it open, but found it locked. He had forgotten that ever since Loqi slept in the same place than him, he had been locking it. He cursed under his breath while the chaos outside continued, quickly unlocked the door, and flew it open.
There was another wordless scream; then, the noise of a dish breaking, and many utensils and other kitchen tools falling to the floor.
And then another scream. This time, a word.
A name.

“Nannie!”

Cor, with the heart beating so loudly he swore it was about to break through his ribcage, started looking around the apartment while he dashed through the small hallway; he saw some movement in the kitchen, something hiding or moving behind the counter. He stayed frozen when a second scream cut the air.
“Frey!!”
The screams were raw; coming fully from the throat, ripping vocal chords. Cor realized that maybe those names had already been said, but in such a loud yell, he had not even noticed they were coherent words.

He tried looking around to spot the danger, any Nif aircrafts outside, see a shelf to make sure it was not an earthquake, trying to spot the invaders, but there was nothing. Not stopping for a second to process what was, and what was not, happening, Cor immediately rushed to the kitchen, where there were some more noises of things falling off their place and the screaming going on.

When he arrived and got a look of what was behind the counter, he froze.
Loqi.
He was surrounded of a mess of utensils and pans, curled against the corner, the arms and hands pressing to the cupboards behind him like he was trying to get away of something that had cornered him. He was breathing heavily and rapidly, so much that he almost wheezed with every breath he took in and out; he was sweating so badly, a few stray locks of his hair were dampened and attached to his forehead, beads of sweat rolled down his face, and there was a soaked stain on his pajamas’ shirt by the chest.

Cor stared eye-widened for only a few seconds; Loqi seemed to be truly terrified. Beyond scared, it was terror in pure state. His eyes only confirmed it; even though he was not looking at Cor’s direction, Cor could see they were wide as plates, and frantically searched for something, with agony, with desperation.
The Lucian didn’t understand. There was nothing in the apartment or out of it that should be triggering Loqi into this.

Cor had barely opened the mouth to call him when Loqi screamed again.
“Nannie!!” he screamed from the top of his lungs again, desperately looking around and didn’t find Cor even when he was standing nearby and in sight range, and continued breathing raggedly, pushing himself backwards against the corner. “Nan!”

Cor was still petrified by both fear and confusion; still startled and his heart still raced in fear since the first scream that woke him up, and he was only now starting to process what was going on.
That’s…his siblings’ names.

Again, the Marshal didn’t stop to analyze what was happening; it looked like a desperate situation, so he acted instead of thinking. He went into the kitchen, trying to not step on anything and making things to the sides with his feet.
“Hey-” he called in a whisper, but Loqi didn’t turn his way.
“Frey!!” Loqi screamed tremblingly yet raw, violently snapping the head in another direction. “Frey!”
“Hey-”
“Nan-!”
“Hey!”

Cor managed his way through the hallway and went down on a knee in front of Loqi, and immediately grabbed him by the face. All that he earned was that Loqi started kicking the floor and utensils, at the time he yelled in panic.
“No, no!” Cor tried aimlessly, noticing the way Loqi stared up at him with the eyes even wider and more terrified than before, yelling wordlessly. “No! Calm down, it’s fine, what’s wrong!?”
But Loqi continued yelling; at some point, he panicked and grabbed one of Cor’s wrists roughly, and put the other hand on the Marshal’s face, dumbly but strongly, trying to push him away. Cor tried looking away, but Loqi started scratching him like an animal in panic only throwing the claws anywhere attempting to cause any harm without purpose.

Cor had to struggle with him; Loqi fought without strategy, on mere instinct, but that made his movements more unpredictable for Cor; he tried grabbing his wrists, tried putting his hands away, but the Nif continued screaming, trying to push himself back further into the corner, and struggling with Cor.
“Hey- Tummelt, calm down!” Cor called loudly, catching his hands but losing his grip on them almost immediately. “Tummelt! Hold yourself together!”
Loqi screamed as reply. He seemed to be about to call for another name, but Cor took an opening, grabbed him by the face with both hands, and shook him.
“Tummelt!”

Finally, Loqi made eye contact with him without looking away or screaming; his eyes were still widened in terror, and he was still breathing heavily and loudly, but he was now paying attention. Cor did but stare intensely at him for a couple seconds in silence to make sure he had Loqi’s attention for real, forcing him to it. The Nif stared back, not fighting back. Cor tried to scan him in the meanwhile, see what was wrong, but all he found was a conscious man terrified of something.
“It’s fine” Cor whispered, confused. “You’re okay” even though the silence lingered, all that Loqi gave as an answer was a gaping mouth and a nervous swallow. He looked away once, but Cor, with his firm grip on his face, shook him slightly and forced him to focus back on him. “…what’s wrong?”

Loqi stared with wide eyes of shock. Cor noticed his pupils were so dilated, they covered almost the entirety of the greyish blue of his eyes.
“I can’t find them” Loqi whispered. Cor stared in confusion. Loqi shook the head in tiny but quick movements. “Th-the empire- it was- a-and they thought…” he paused and swallowed, trying to catch his breath. “The bombs are- too much, the house won’t stand it, I need to get- they’re not…safe here, a-and…” he looked down; Cor let him, softening the hold he had on Loqi’s face, but not letting go. “The house won’t, it’s not- and all the fire, what if it spreads? I was running to them, they were there, they were right there, and then I got close and then they- weren’t there, and I run, and I’ve run across all the house already but they’re not there, where are they? It’s not safe, the bombs are- too much, the house won’t-”
“Hey-”

Cor noticed Loqi was starting to panic again; he tried opening the mouth, but before he could say anything, Loqi tensed again in his spot and started raising the voice, both in volume and speed, and went into saying all sort of nonsense about his siblings, the bombs, and the house flying into pieces.
“Hey, hey- hey” Cor hushed after a moment, interrupting and trying to make Loqi look at him again. Loqi did, still breathing heavily. Cor, once more, gave him some time to pay attention and focus. He still held his face, cupped; he could feel the sweat under his fingers. He tried to clean some of it away with the thumbs. “…it’s okay. It’s over.”

Loqi didn’t seem to process that information; he stared silently and still with widened eyes, but, as the seconds went, his breath started calming. Cor nodded softly to encourage him.
“You’re not there” he whispered. He removed a hand to try and get Loqi’s stubborn fringe away of his face, enough to uncover him; having his eye hiding away felt wrong in some way Cor couldn’t quite explain. A little noise of surprise sounded in Loqi’s throat when Cor pushed his hair away and kept the hand there as to keep his fringe behind his ear. “See? You’re not there.”

The Nif looked up at him again; his breath continued calming with every second, and his eyes were eventually coming out of the terror, his pupils growing smaller into a more natural shape.
“…Fre…Frey?” Loqi asked with fear, still trembling. Cor felt a pinch in the stomach.
“…he’s…not here” Cor explained softly, in a calm whisper. Loqi visibly swallowed and kept staring at him with the same widened and terrified eyes.
“…Nannie?” he asked more quietly, but still shaking and looking as deep in the fear as before. Cor let the silence linger for a bit to see if Loqi became a little more conscious, and to not come off as too direct.
“Not here” he repeated as softly as before.

Loqi stared at him for only some seconds, before lowering the eyes. He was still curled up against the corner, tense, breathing heavily and shakily, but he seemed to be in a better state than the complete terror Cor first found him in.
“It’s fine. It was a bad dream only…” Cor whispered, letting go of the fringe and going for Loqi’s forehead, touching it gently with the back of his hand. It was damp, but not hot. “You’re here. Not there. Alright? That’s it, just…calm down. Breathe slowly; keep it in” he waited a few seconds. “Now let it out…see?” he said with a tiny smile. “You’re doing great. A few more times, okay?”

Cor lowered his hand to rest it on Loqi’s shoulder instead; the other he couldn’t move, as Loqi was still holding his wrist, a little too tightly. He guided Loqi through breathing slowly and calming down, encouraging him with very breath he took, and doing it with him. It was slow, but Cor was patient. Eventually, Loqi’s expression started changing to something more relaxed, and the look on his eyes transformed from lost terror to something much more conscious.
After a while breathing together, and once his breath was back to normal, Loqi stared down. Slowly, he started looking around; at first, at himself, then at the floor and the utensils lying all around him.

Cor looked at him with attention, and noticed Loqi’s gaze start to become clearer and more aware. He continued looking around, up at the counter nearby, then at Cor, then the cupboards next to him.
Finally, he let go of Cor’s wrist and put the hand down. Cor let go of his shoulder and face, but stayed on his knee in front of him.
“It’s okay” Cor whispered. “You’re alright.”
It took a while, but soon Loqi timidly nodded, keeping the head down. The Nif sniffled once, and moved a hand up to use the sleeve of his pajamas to clean his face a little from all the sweat.

Cor smiled with sadness and gave him time.
“You okay?” he asked quietly after a moment. Loqi looked at him for only a second, looked away, and continued cleaning his face, and his eyes. He nodded again, as insecurely as the first time.
“…I just…don’t- remember…how I got here…” Loqi admitted in a whisper, body relaxing a little more, but he clearly looked in some distress.
“You don’t-?” Cor started asking, but kept the question. “That’s…alright. Let’s get back to your room. Okay?”

There was silence; Loqi still refused to look at him, but at the same time he looked defeated. He nodded once more, saying nothing. Cor whispered a low ‘Okay’, and started helping Loqi up on his one healthy foot. He got a firm if slightly awkward hold of the Nif, hoping he wouldn’t freak out at the contact; Loqi held back when he found it necessary, leaning weight against Cor, and hissing in discomfort in the process. Instead of asking him, Cor thought it best to just help him; if he asked, he would give the chance to Loqi to say no, and Cor was not up to watch him limp his way alone when he clearly could not do that. So, Cor wrapped an arm around Loqi’s waist to support him.

Surprisingly, almost by reflex, Loqi held back to him; Cor was too tall for Loqi to wrap an arm around his neck, so he only half-hugged him as best as he could, and held to the back of Cor’s shirt.
“It’s fine, I’ve got you.”
“Yeah…”
They shared very few whispers in the way, mostly to try and do a decent team work as Cor helped Loqi limp his way out of the utensil-trashed kitchen, into the hallway, and into his room.

Once there, Cor helped Loqi get to the bed, and even there he helped him to sit down. The sheets were made a mess. From what Cor could gather, Loqi’s nightmare made him fly out of bed, hence the mess, and made him run to the kitchen; even when he had the eyes open and he was yelling and replying to Cor, the kid was still asleep. Or not conscious, which was almost the same.
It happened sometimes; look conscious, but still be trapped in the nightmare. Mostly to people who experienced incredibly dangerous, violent, impacting situations that left a huge shock and sure PTSD. It was common in soldiers.
Cor would know.

He helped Loqi sit down and accommodate himself on the bed. The Nif didn’t lie down; he pushed back until he was sat in the middle of the mattress, with Cor helping him to lift his right leg and lie it down as gently as possible. Loqi hissed as he moved his injured limb.
“You must have taken quite a hit” Cor was saying lowly while helping him. “Does it hurt?”
“N-no…” Loqi whispered. “It’s fine…”

While Loqi tried to relax sat on the bed, Cor left him alone for a few moments and went to the closet; he grabbed a clean shirt from a second pajama set, and a handkerchief. He returned to the Nif, and, slowly as to not trigger him into panic again, he sat down at the edge of the bed, facing him. Loqi didn’t look up at him; he kept the head and eyes slightly down, looking both confused and still a little startled. Cor waited some moments in silence, trying to give him space to recover.
“You’re soaked” he whispered gently, and softly reached for him with the handkerchief. Loqi showed himself a little startled and uncooperative at first; by reflex, he lifted a hand as if ready to smack Cor’s away.
And then he didn’t; before he pushed the Lucian’s hand away, he seemed to realize what he was doing, and he put his own hand down. He didn’t dare make eye contact. Cor waited to make sure it was fine; he sighed and looked down for a second. “Take that shirt off. Here’s a clean one…”

At first, Loqi didn’t move. Cor didn’t insist; he focused on the Nif’s face again instead. He moved the handkerchief in his hand a little, nervous, and looked at the younger man with some insecurity. His hand hesitated as it got closer to Loqi’s cheek; as it did, his heart skipped a beat. He could feel his heartbeat in the hollow of his throat.
Finally, he touched him…insecurely. Lacking confidence; it was the first time he touched Loqi’s face like this, even if through the handkerchief. He had never…been this physically close to him. He had never touched him without it being an aggressive movement.
Loqi seemed to be a little insecure as well, or a bit confused, but he didn’t move away. Cor slowly and a little tremblingly laid some fingers on his face, and stayed frozen.
It was strange. Touching him like this. Gently. Not trying to cause any harm. Not receiving any.
…it was nice.

Cor watched him a little, not moving, the hand lying gently on Loqi’s cheek. The Nif swallowed, still looking a little troubled by the earlier events, but he didn’t complain or move away. Considering it rude to stare, Cor started moving, and used the handkerchief to clean Loqi’s sweat off his face. Loqi didn’t complain in any way; he stared with a strange look at nowhere while Cor rubbed his cheek softly, moved up to his temples, caressed his chin, every move slow and gentle. The Nif looked troubled, and still in shock. Cor felt bad for him, but said nothing.

He spent a while cleaning him; forehead, nose, even his neck. It was not as if he had fallen into a pool, but he still had traces of sweat on his skin. After what felt like so long quietly cleaning him, he reminded Loqi in a whisper about his shirt; it took a second before Loqi blinked in surprise, rushed a whispered ‘Yes, yes’, and started unbuttoning the shirt, almost not thinking about it and only obeying. Loqi had gone hysterical any previous times that Cor had offered to help him change his clothes, so that he was letting the shirt drop off his shoulders like it was nothing, and how he was doing things without fully understanding, it spoke about his state of shock.

Still, Cor let things flow and he took the sweaty shirt away, and offered Loqi the clean one. In the few seconds he got to look at Loqi shirtless, Cor couldn’t help but be a little amazed; for one, Loqi’s body was strong. He had defined pectorals and abdominals; nothing too outstanding like Gladiolus or even like Ignis, the prince’s retainers, as Loqi was much, much smaller and slender. But it only added to how amazing it was that he was not skinny under his clothes after all; strong arms, his strong torso, well defined in general. And that, counting with the fact that in the past weeks, Loqi had been losing weight rapidly.
So he’s more than a child pressing a lot of buttons in a robot…
The other thing was that he was still a little bruised. The purple marks and the scratches were small and subtle, but still there, even weeks after the bombing. Either Loqi’s skin was too sensitive, or he had been very badly injured.

Cor didn’t focus much in either realization, and focused in his present only. He rounded Loqi’s shoulders with the clean shirt, and Loqi himself, calmly, slipped the arms in the sleeves.
Loqi tried to button it. He failed.
Cor noticed. Holding the button and the shirt ready to do the simple task, Loqi was shaking badly. For a moment, Cor wondered if he had forgotten how to button a shirt, because the Nif spent a long while just staring down at his hands, shaking, doing nothing. When he did try to do it, his hands were trembling so much, he failed. He tried again, but he never got the button to go into the gap properly.

Cor stayed sat at the edge of the bed, calmly watching him attempt and fail over and over. He didn’t intervene until Loqi cursed under his breath.
“Here, let me help-”
“No” Loqi said a little too harshly, even if still in a murmur. It was enough for Cor to decide to keep quiet. “…I can do it.”
“It’s okay; no need to feel bad about it” Cor tried reassuring him, getting a little closer. “It’s natural you’re shaken up. Nightmares aren’t easy-”
“Shut up” Loqi said between clenching teeth, pushing Cor’s hand away when it tried to reach him.
“You’re in all rights to feel like this-”
“I said, fuck off…!”
“-it’s okay to feel shaken after something like that. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been for you to experience-”
“Six, Leonis, calm down, this isn’t the worst one I’ve-!”

Sudden silence. The incomplete statement immediately made Cor stop trying to get his hands on the buttons and made him look up directly at the Nif’s eyes; Loqi, on his side, had immediately closed them and looked down and away, not breathing, jaw tense.
They shared a frozen and heavy silence, tense like a string ready to break at any second. Cor didn’t look away. Loqi, conscious of it, didn’t look at him despite how much the silence lingered.

Slowly, Cor’s shoulders relaxed as did his expression, his eyes softening with realization.
“…this isn’t the first nightmare you have” Cor stated in a murmur. Loqi didn’t say anything in return, and only pressed his jaw harder. Cor was quiet for a while, softening and feeling a bad hit of something similar to guilt in the entrails. “…this isn’t the first-…oh gods, I should have-” he looked down, shaking the head, and sighed. “Of course. You don’t…survive to something like that, live through what you’re living, and not have nightmares. It’s natural, why didn’t I think about that earlier?”
“Chill, Leonis” Loqi hissed, finally turning to look at him.

The Lucian looked up at him and decided to ignore what he said.
“Of course you would have nightmares” Cor sighed. “If I had thought about it earlier…”
“It’s not like you can do something about it” Loqi muttered bitterly, lowering the head and using the shirt as an excuse to keep his focus there, going back to try and button it. “And as I said, it’s not the worst one I’ve had” before Cor could question him or contradict him, the Nif continued. “I mean, I’ve had worse ones, and if I’ve dealt with them, I can deal with this perfectly fine, thank you.”

Cor stared silently, like he needed some seconds to process everything before he replied.
“…it’s not just- okay to live with nightmares” Cor said. Loqi shook the head and was ready to fight back, but Cor was faster. “They consume you.”
“It’s just bad dreams” Loqi said louder, looking up and frowning deeper. “They can’t do any harm.”
“They can terrify.”
“Being scared of nightmares is absurd” Loqi stated sure of what he was saying. “I’m not a useless weakling. I’m not frightened by stupid things like nightmares like some…infant.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me they’re not draining you.”

The Nif was at the last button of the shirt, but stopped midways. Through a few bangs of his hair, he made eye contact with Cor. Even though he was glaring, the Lucian was not; Cor had a firm look in the eyes. Sure of what he was saying, but not angered or upset. ‘They’re not draining me’, Loqi ordered his mouth to say.
In the end, he looked down, insecure, hid behind a frown, and focused in the last button again.
That was an answer to both of them.

Cor didn’t say anything; he wanted to insist that they had to do something about it, but Loqi, as stubborn and proud as he was, would only keep refusing and rejecting him rudely. Cor didn’t know what to do; he couldn’t not help, but trying only led to messing up further. How was he supposed to help someone that didn’t want to be helped?
Both stayed sat in silence. Loqi sighed quietly, apparently finally calming down enough.

After a while in the silence of the night, Cor, staring at nowhere on the ground, dared make a question.
“…you said this isn’t the worst you’ve dreamed” he murmured. “Yet, it’s the first night you’ve run out of your room like this. I would say this one was the worst, so why don’t you?”

Loqi stared absentmindedly with a slight frown to nowhere, away of Cor. The Lucian stared and waited patiently, even after the silence got so long that it seemed like the Nif was not going to reply.
It took a moment, but soon, Loqi sighed shortly, shook the head in small movements, and took in a breath.
“This was the worst of the easy kind of nightmares” he started. “I just…dream of the bombing. The earth shaking, things blowing up, fire. Me running through the house” he said with a shrug, as if he was talking about a matter of no importance. Cor pressed his lips in a thin line and felt a pinch inside; to him, it had been a light spectacle from the distance. To Loqi…Cor tried imagining him; his panic, his desperation while running through a collapsing house, the deafening noises, the terror. “Those nightmares are easy; it makes no harm, it’s not happening for real, and even if it was, I’ve already survived to it, have I not?”

Cor didn’t reply; the Nif wasn’t expecting an answer either. Still, both stayed quiet for a little bit.
“…the real bad nightmares are much quieter” Loqi murmured. “And the worst are silent. Bombs are easy. But when I dream of…”

Nothing. Loqi stayed quiet and still, as if he had suddenly been taken somewhere else. He looked absentmindedly at nowhere, and Cor looked at him. None moved or said anything for a long while. It didn’t take too much brain to make a guess of what Loqi was thinking about; Cor didn’t insist. He pressed his lips into a line and sighed quietly through the nose.
After a while, the Nif shook the head softly and looked back down at his shirt, toying with the last button. Cor was sure that Loqi wouldn’t talk, and he didn’t want to push him to it.

Loqi could never explain it to himself later. All that he knew was that it felt natural in that moment. Maybe he was still shaken from the nightmare and not thinking clearly, or maybe he had spent too long keeping it a secret and he couldn’t take it for longer, and needed to let it out anyhow, and saw his chance there. Maybe it was something else.
Whatever it was, Loqi’s eyes started itching a little, and the mood in the room dropped like temperature.
And then he told him.

“…the real bad nightmares are just…them.”

Cor, who had looked away during the silence, turned to look at the Nif again. There was a long pause; Loqi didn’t ever turn in the Lucian’s direction, but Cor still stared, attentive, and surprised. Loqi stared at the void before he came out of his head, took in a breath, and continued.
“They’re just…there” the last word he said in a breath and with a smile. Like someone proud, or profoundly in love. His smile was full of joy, yet his eyes gleamed with a greater sadness. Cor was quiet, watching him smile and hearing him whisper. “Sometimes they’re playing. Sometimes they’re…sleeping. Sometimes they’re just…there.”

Cor couldn’t help a smile by instinct just by watching Loqi’s smile widen into a grin. The Nif kept the eyes down and the voice low, and it didn’t take long for his grin to start softening until returning to a smile, which eventually softened as well until it faded. Cor’s smile faded alongside his. He waited, sat at the edge of the bed, as the Nif traveled through his thoughts and memories, until his smile was entirely gone.

“…and then…they’re not” he whispered.

The statement stayed in the air for a very long while, thickening the silence and weighing heavy on Cor’s shoulders and heart. He looked up after staring down for a moment, and found Loqi biting down on his lower lip; he was shaking slightly once more, and seemed to be fighting hard to contain himself. The Nif drew in a breath before speaking.
“I dream that they’re not there” as he spoke, his eyes started drowning in tears. “And then I wake up, and…” he turned to look at Cor, eyebrows furrowed and face frowning as if ready to break into tears. “And they’re really not there.”

Cor lowered the eyes and nodded subtly, understanding. Loqi stared away as well, and breathed in shakily, containing himself. He swallowed and waited.
“…those are nightmares” Loqi stated in a murmur. “Dealing with something that isn’t happening is a matter of waking up and it’s over. But these? The worst part of these nightmares is, precisely, waking up” he said with a slight frown as if angered, yet his eyes kept that same sad gleam of before. “The thing with those nightmares is that, when I wake up, they’re still there…”

Cor didn’t say anything afterwards. He saw in Loqi’s words something poetic, but profoundly painful. It pulled at his heartstrings and made him feel awful in the empathy he felt towards the Nif. He looked at him with sad eyes, or down. Loqi still wouldn’t look at him, lost staring at nowhere, busy in his thoughts or memories.

The Lucian thought, too. About for how long the nightmares must have been harassing Loqi, how bad they were, if they were the reason he woke up with the eyes red. Knowing Loqi had been having nightmares since who knows when made a lot of other things make sense. Cor also thought about the sort of things the Nif must be seeing in his sleep, and he thought, again, like almost every day since he had found the fallen hero in the debris, about how much he pitied him and how much he wanted to help.
He thought about how terrible it had to be for Loqi to dream his reality and live his nightmare. How he could help, how to fix it. If it was possible…

Some moments into the silence, Loqi sighed and closed the eyes, putting a hand to his face. It was what brought Cor out of his own head, and he once more looked at the Nif. Loqi caressed his temples and eyes, sniffled quietly, and looked away.
“…I’m sorry you’re having nightmares” Cor whispered. Loqi closed the eyes as if ready to roll them, and had started shaking the head, but the Marshal didn’t give him time to complain. “It’s not easy. Having to deal with them. They can’t do harm physically, sure, but I don’t think it’s absurd to be scared because of them” surprisingly, Loqi said nothing about that. He was quiet and looked at Cor for only a moment. Cor looked at him, trying to be firm, but not helping a little bit of insecurity. “…they can be draining. Mental health-”
“I don’t need a lecture from you, Leonis…”

Cor stayed quiet immediately, and felt a little hurt. All he wanted was to help. Loqi didn’t look as aggressive as other times; he still tried to frown, and his interruption had been rude, but he looked rather…nervous. Perhaps he was just…scared. Maybe Loqi didn’t want to hear anything about mental health because he still insisted he was fine. Cor understood that, but, maybe because night has a different sort of silence and aura than day, he could not help but feel a little sensitive, and hurt about it. He tried to do as the past weeks and ignore himself to focus on Loqi.

“I’m sorry” Cor whispered. “Didn’t mean to lecture you. Just know…” he hesitated, not sure if he was doing the right thing or if he was going to mess up more. He took in a breath and subtly let it out through the nose. “…just know that…there are things we can do about it” he looked up at Loqi. The Nif stared back through bangs of his hair, still with the forced frown on. Cor looked at him gently, in contrast. “And I’ll make sure to find some way or ways to…make it better. Or less worse” he paused for a bit and gave Loqi a forced and quick sad smile. “You don’t have to live with them daily. I’ll find something. I promise.”

Loqi didn’t say anything. He looked at him a little confused, and still trying to handle it with a frown. But some seconds later, he was lowering the eyes, and his expression was softening a little. His jaw tensed for a second, but then his whole body relaxed.
He lowered the head a little bit. And Cor couldn’t help but feel like…it was a gesture that almost felt like Loqi was lowering the guard. Like he didn’t think it necessary to stay on-guard anymore.

Without giving it a second thought, Cor folded the handkerchief, and he stood up from the bed. He took the sheets and covered Loqi’s legs with them; the Nif did but stare at his actions and then up at him, still with slight confusion. By any answer, Cor gave him a sad smile.
“If there’s…anything…” he started saying, lowly. The Nif looked up; he didn’t look angered anymore. Once more, he had dropped the act, and let Cor see him as vulnerable and confused as he was. “…that you think may help ease the nightmares…anything…do tell me” Cor said softly. “I won’t judge you or anything you say or do. You could even write it if that makes you feel more comfortable” he tried to give him a smile, but only managed a slightly awkward and shy press of the lips into a line. “Anything. Okay?”

Normally, Cor would think the next day, Loqi would have snarled at him, or at least say a very rude comment, and definitely tell him off.
That night, however, Loqi looked at him with gleaming and vulnerable eyes, almost with innocence. Then, he lowered them, and he nodded, timidly. He didn’t say anything for once, nor made a sound, or any gesture. He only…nodded. Cor smiled in response to the…not negative response he got.
“Try to go back to sleep, alright?” Cor murmured gently and even a little sweetly. The tone made Loqi look up at him again, with the same innocent confusion than before, like a mistreated creature receiving sweetness for a first time and not knowing how to react to it. “If you need anything, or if you have troubles with it, call me. Okay?”

Cor would have offered to stay there until Loqi could manage to get some sleep again, but he assumed that that was the last thing the Nif would ever want.
At his offer, Loqi stared at him just like before, and even more softly. He seemed to relax even more, and then his expression transformed into something that looked similar to sadness. His hands shyly messed a little with the blanket’s fabric that rested on his lap, and he put the head down. He almost looked…a little guilty.

He nodded. Cor could not help to feel bad about the way Loqi looked so terribly sad and vulnerable, hated the sensation of not being able to make things completely okay, but he knew there was little else he could do.
“Okay” Cor whispered with a sad smile. “I hope…the rest of the night can be easier for you.”

Once with that said, he gave a step backwards before turning his back on the Nif, and headed for the door. As had apparently become usual whenever anything awkward or unusual happened between them, Loqi only stopped him when he was midway through the room.
“Leonis.”
Cor felt he had almost anticipated that. Loqi had some sort of mania for saying things only when he realized Cor was leaving for real. Still, it didn’t annoy him; he understood and calmly turned around, looking at the Nif with serene eyes.

Loqi was giving him a strange look, still with some sort of slight guilt. He seemed to want to say something, but all he was doing was give Cor the same vulnerable and troubled look. He hesitated, opened the mouth, closed it, subtly bit his lower lip, looked away a couple times, and made eye contact again before he said anything.
“…I…” he looked down. “…I trashed your kitchen.”

Cor blinked in slight confusion, waiting for Loqi to go on and say more. The Nif was trying to look like he didn’t care, with that usual slight frown of his, looking to a side to avoid eye contact, and said nothing.
It took a couple seconds with Cor analyzing what he had meant, and trying to connect it with his behavior.
…it’s either his way of apologizing, or he’s waiting for some sort of…reprimand.

It was a fleeting thought only, and Cor didn’t give it importance at the time, but he had a vague idea of the extremely strict military formation they received in Niflheim, so maybe it would make sense that in Loqi’s view of the world maybe he deserved punishment for something as trivial as breaking a dish…?

“It’s…fine” Cor said with the slight shake of his head. “Don’t worry about that.”
Loqi turned an inch in his direction and looked at him with a puzzled expression. The Nif seemed to analyze him only for a moment, before shrugging it off and looking away again, nodding as timidly as before. Cor gave him a reassuring smile and a blink that said ‘it’s okay’, but it only made Loqi look even more confused.
“Goodnight” he said very lowly a last time. Loqi didn’t reply to it. Cor wasn’t expecting him to.

Cor left to his room again, but stopped for a second to look out through the large window of the hallway. He looked up to the sky. The subtle traces of the magic wall were there. It was literally impossible for any aircrafts to overfly Insomnia, and even more impossible for any bomb to make it through the shield. That didn’t worry Cor and never had.
In the way to his room, he tried to think of something to do. How to help someone with nightmares?
It was lucky that Cor had more than only vague experience with the matter. It didn’t take him long to come up with multiple answers.

For that night, he couldn’t do much. He would have to wait for the next day. But he could do at least one thing.

Cor didn’t go back to sleep straight away. Instead, he started looking in drawers and digging through the furniture to try and find something that he hoped he hadn’t left somewhere else. It took a while as he had no idea where it was, and he highly doubted that Loqi had managed to get back to sleep.

That was why he didn’t buy the lie when he walked back into Loqi’s room and found him pretending to sleep. The kid had clearly been struggling with that, and Cor would not be surprised if, besides being woken up in the middle of the night by nightmares, Loqi found it difficult, some days even impossible, to get any sleep afterwards and stayed awake waiting for dawn. The exhaustion he experimented during the day was what exposed him. That, and some little corporal languages that Cor knew how to read, made him realize that Loqi was lying.

But he didn’t point it out, or consider it bad. On the opposite, he saw it as a sad gesture.
The young man really wanted to deny as much help as he could…

Later that night, after having spent almost an hour searching across the little apartment, Cor made his way quietly back to the Nif’s room. He opened the door as silently as he could, slowly and careful. He looked inside, and found Loqi in bed, face-up and head turned to a side, eyes closed. Cor looked at him for a couple seconds, and then started heading towards one of the bedside tables. All he did, he did as silently as possible, even when he knew Loqi was not asleep, until reaching the table.

There, on the plug next to it, Cor connected a little night light.

He turned when he saw Loqi react a little to it accidentally by closing the eyes more tightly after it had looked like had meant to open them and see what had happened. Cor looked away in case the Nif opened the eyes, so that he wouldn’t find the Lucian staring, and so, letting him believe that Cor was buying the lie.

Cor still spent a few seconds more trying to make sure the light was neither too bright nor too dim. Once with it set, he looked at Loqi only once, and then turned around, exited the room, and didn’t return across the rest of the night.

He knew that if he offered the night light to Loqi, the Nif would get so angry he would probably gather strength from nowhere and would punch Cor so hard, he would end up flying backwards across the whole city. So he didn’t; instead of asking Loqi, he only gave it to him.
He knew Loqi would have profusely refused something like a night light, popular among children who feared the dark. But Cor, more than anyone, would know how helpful it could be, and that it was no shame or embarrassment.

It was a small gesture, perhaps a little silly as well…but Cor wanted to help. So, that night, he walked into the dark room and silently gifted Loqi the only thing he could offer at the moment: a little light to try to reduce the fear. To try to fight the nightmares, or at least, to not give them their favorite scenario; the dark.

Cor wasn’t expecting Loqi to say thanks for it. And Loqi didn’t.
He didn’t say anything about it the following day, or any other time else. Both would go on through their days as if the little night light didn’t exist.
Yet, one night that Cor decided to check up on Loqi, he found the Nif sleeping much more peacefully than he had seen him ever since the first day of recovery. He knew it was mostly thanks to the pills that Cor would give him the day after that first nightmare, and one would think that the little bulb was of no help.

But, every night since Cor secretly set it, Loqi would be facing the side where the night light was.

With a little smile, Cor would silently close the door to let Loqi sleep for real this time, and as peacefully as he deserved.

Chapter Text

Cor was having nightmares, too.

He did acknowledge that the nightmares were not as bad as Loqi’s. Loqi dreamt of horrors of real life where his family died right in his arms. Cor, not quite. His dreams were more the sort of ‘What if it had been me in his place and Prompto in the kids’?’ at worst, but, more frequently, it was either reminiscences of old nightmares from other events, or him witnessing the bombing from closer. The dream-him was never at risk of harm, but the horror was watching all those strangers die, scream, blow up in pieces.

…and sometimes he dreamt of the Tummelt, too. The kids he never knew, and the young man that was giving him so many troubles. Cor always told himself, daily, that none of this was personal, but dreaming so frequently about Loqi was no help. Every time that Cor thought he was about to get over the pity and empathy he felt, he dreamt of him again and all the guilt rose again, stronger.
Sometimes, he dreamt of the moment he found the three siblings in the ruins. Sometimes he dreamt that all three had died. Those were relatively easy to deal with.

The worst nightmares related to the Tummelt were another kind. Sometimes, he dreamt of only Loqi. The Nif once told him he could have just unburied Loqi and then leave him there, he could do the rest himself. And just that one mental image that lasted three seconds in his head was triggering frequent nightmares about it. He sometimes saw Loqi digging his way out of the debris; pajamas ripped like they had been thrown into a giant blender, two broken legs (at best), bleeding to an unrealistic and hence very gory degree, full of scratches, bruises…he looked so beaten that he looked more like he had been tortured for years.

Like that, dirty, in his ragged clothes, bloodied, and deathly injured, he dragged his way through the city alone with only his hands, giving more effort than he could give, nails bleeding and tearing apart from dragging all his weight through the dirt. He would finally reach a group of MTs that stood abnormally calm in the destroyed city. He would look up at them with the most agonizing face Cor had ever seen, and he would whisper ‘Please, help me’. Three words only, and sometimes they were enough to shake Cor awake. ‘Please, help me’, he would beg.
And then the MTs would shoot him in the head. If the whisper was not enough to bring Cor awake, the bullet sure was.

But the worst of them all was one that, whenever he dreamed it, was always the same no matter how hard he tried to make it different. In the worst of all the unsettling dreams, he still saw the barely alive Loqi dragging his way through the fire, in agony. And when he was supposed to get to the place where he met the MTs, there was only one figure. No armor, just a jacket. No helmet, just short hair. No gun, just a katana.
And even knowing who it was, Loqi was suffering so much that he would let go of all his pride, and would drag himself to the feet of Cor himself.

Cor, standing there, looking at him and doing nothing. With a cold gaze full of hatred and lacking any sort of mercy. Loqi would still look up with the same crying eyes, he would still whisper that desperate plea. And even though the conscious-him wanted desperately to pick the young man in arms and take him to safety, the dream-him only stood there, not helping; he would only look down at Loqi despicably, and then he would only say three words back.
“Go home, kid.”

And that was it. It could not sound terrifying, but it sure was unsettling. It shook Cor awake from guilt and the horrible sensation of not having helped. Watching himself be ice cold and lacking any heart or soul, it was more unsettling and even scarier than he could understand. Once or twice, he saw the dream-him unsheathe his katana, but, thank the Astrals, he always woke up before he used it.

Whenever Cor woke up after dreaming of Loqi or his family, he tried to not care about it.
Once or twice, though, he would visit Loqi’s room to see he was there.

--

The day after Loqi’s nightmare, the one that made him run out of his room, Cor went to the hospital wing and looked for the doctors that had attended him. He kept Loqi’s privacy secret, not sharing what had happened in detail, but he did speak about some concerns he had so the doctors could understand and make the most precise notes. It would have been preferable that Loqi himself would see the doctors for a more appropriate diagnose, but Cor could barely convince Loqi to take a shower every two days. There was no power on Eos that would bring the boy out of his room, even less out of the apartment.

Cor did not pressure him. He was going to make sure to ask someone on how to effectively convince someone with depression to go out, even if just to the hallway, because he knew that Loqi staying locked away would only worsen things, but he also knew he couldn’t force him to it. He had to make Loqi want to go out. Perhaps, Cor noted, he could ask Ignis, or maybe even Prompto. The fact that Prompto had used tactics on him did not mean Cor knew how to apply them himself.
So for the moment being, he let Loqi stay cloistered in his room while he went to once more fix his life.

Once in the apartment, he made sure to be careful as he approached Loqi’s room. It was no surprise to walk in and find Loqi in pain. He had taken a bad hit when the nightmare threw him off the bed, he had just poorly lied about it.

Cor found Loqi sat on the bed, tense, and trying to adjust himself standing his weight on his hands. His right arm had healed enough but not fully, and he seemed to have troubles with not wanting to put weight on it, but tensing at the pain of his leg. He was trembling and trying to contain himself, biting his lower lip, breathing shakily, and staring at his leg with worried eyes as if trying to force it to heal with just the gaze. He did not even bother on trying to pretend he was fine when he saw Cor walk in; he looked up at him, stared some seconds in silence, and then looked back down at his cast.

Cor felt a pinch inside. The kid’s state was a true miracle. He was told at the hospital that the first days were a mess; he kept throwing up, suffering headaches, still some troubles breathing, neck pain, intense back pain, alarming exhaustion. Back there the drugs helped with the pain, but here with no IV, and after the hit he took when he fell off the bed, he was struggling. Sure, he was good enough to have been allowed out of the hospital, but good enough did not mean pain-free.
Physically in pain, mentally dead, and emotionally in agony…every time he remembered about that, Cor really did not mind all the times Loqi had snarled, yelled, or spat on him.

Cor approached him quietly at first. He knew Loqi would hate him if he pointed out the situation, so he didn’t.
Loqi bit down hard on his lip, as if trying to fight back the pain entirely before Cor arrived at his side, but failing. He continued staring at his foot and breathing heavily.

“…you’re doing good” was the first thing Cor told him when he arrived to his side. Loqi didn’t dare look up at him, and he didn’t reply either. But he was not frowning; that was how much it had to be hurting, enough so Loqi couldn’t be his usual angered self. Carefully as to not startle him, Cor sat down at the edge of the bed and offered a hand. Loqi stared at it puzzled, and then up at his eyes. “You can squeeze it. If that helps deal with the pain.”
“…it’s not like I’m- giving birth, Leonis” Loqi snarled. Cor put the hand down and didn’t feel surprised or amused at the comment. “F-Fuck off…”
“You can’t refuse help forever” Cor told him at the time he started digging into an interior pocket of his jacket. “One day you’ll realize the only answer is asking for help. And you’ll learn that there’s nothing bad or humiliating in needing a helping hand every now and then. Even the strongest need so sometimes.”

Loqi stared at him as if trying to be angered, but still overwhelmed by the ache of his broken leg. He still looked at Cor rather altered, apparently trying to come up with one of his usual crude answers, but he didn’t get to say anything when Cor pulled the hand out of his jacket.
Loqi stared in silence as Cor opened the little bottle and took out a pill.
“For the pain” Cor said, fidgeting a little with the pill before showing it to Loqi. “You only need one, and only when the pain gets bad.”
There was no answer for a long while. Loqi just stared at either him or the pill, as if questioning which one was going to disappear first, or if it was a joke.

After a moment, however, Loqi raised a hand. For a moment, his hand stayed frozen on the air, hesitating whether to take it or not. Or, more than the pill, he seemed to hesitate about getting physically close to Cor, even if it was just his hand. In the end, despite the hesitation, Loqi grabbed the pill, took the glass of water Cor always made sure to keep full on his bedside table, and drank it. After swallowing and putting the glass away, Loqi stayed quiet some seconds, still frowning at his foot, tense in his place.

“It’s not working” he muttered.
“It’s not magical, kid” Loqi snarled and glared at him. For some reason, Cor understood he was angrier at being called a kid than he was at the comment itself. Still, he didn’t start an argument, and Cor didn’t say anything either.

While Loqi dealt with the pain of his leg, Cor looked away and dropped the head. His hands fidgeted distractedly and rather sadly with the pink bottle of pills he was still holding. For some reason he could not understand, while he thought about the other thing in his pocket, a sudden wave of sadness washed over him and made his mood drop underground. He felt a little nervous, and he was about to decide to not say what he had to say.

Still, he had gone all the troubles to get those, and he really wished to help Loqi with the nightmares. He knew the struggle it could be; the kid was suffering enough when awake and Cor could do nothing about it, so the least he could do was to help ease his nights.

Cor had to take in a breath, contain it, and very slowly let it out to try and fight the sadness as he decided to let it out.
“…I also…” he started. He made a long pause while he put the pink bottle back in his inner pocket. Loqi gave him a questioning frown as Cor’s hand continued digging in another pocket. Once more, Cor was about to pretend it was nothing, stand up and leave. He spent some seconds in silence, frozen, as if discussing with himself to carry on or not, but he finally brought the hand out of his jacket.

Cor sighed and closed the eyes for a moment, and looked at Loqi again.
“I also got these” he said at the time he showed Loqi his open hand. The Nif looked down at it, and back up at Cor, questioning. Cor subtly swallowed and waited for a reply, but got none, so he felt forced to explain. “It’s…for the nightmares. Uhm- they can…help you have easy, fast, and dreamless sleep, so…” he put the eyes down and shrugged. “…not dreaming isn’t the same than dreaming good, but not dreaming is better than dreaming bad. I guess…”

Loqi stared down at the blue bottle on Cor’s palm and his frown softened in realization, finally understanding. Cor kept his eyes on him, attentive, and nervous. It felt like an inevitable conversation was to come, and he was not ready.

After a bit of looking at the pills, Loqi’s eyes moved up and they made eye contact. Both stayed in silence for a while, as if sharing some sort of complicity; not the fun kind, but rather the ‘we both are thinking the same dark idea, but none of us is willing to bring it up’. Despite the ugly air, Cor took in a slow breath and put his attention into opening the bottle.
“I tried to give the doctor as many details as I could to get the best option for you” Cor explained as he popped the cap open. He took two pills out, and closed the bottle. “One is enough. Doctor said two at max if it’s really, really bad.”

Said that, Cor stood up from the bed and put the two pills on the bedside table. Of course, Loqi noticed that he was putting both bottles back into his jacket; the Nif reacted with the twitch of an eyebrow and subtle gestures that said he was ready to complain.
“I’m giving you two, but the second one is only, strictly, if it gets really bad” Cor said as firmly as he could, frowning at Loqi, and putting as much emphasis on the words as he could. He kept staring as if expecting to hear an ‘understood, sir’ as he was used to. Loqi, however, only looked at him with his usual poisonous glare, full of hatred, wary, a gaze that almost spat on Cor without the need of saliva.

Both kept that tense eye contact for a long while, both waiting for the other to give up first.
“So” Loqi was first. “You’re not leaving the bottles here. What if you’re not home when I need more?”
“You don’t need more than one a day” Cor said with a hint of anger in the voice. “The bottles stay with me. Don’t waste your time during the day looking for them in the apartment. They’ll be in my pockets day in, day out, and under my pillow at nights. So don’t bother.”
“So that’s what you think, huh?”

There was a tense silence. Cor’s heart beat like a scared bunny in his chest.
Loqi smirked.
“You think I’m coward enough to try to overdose myself to death.”

“I think-“ Cor stopped when he noticed he was about to yell, took in a breath to calm down, and continued, still louder and more altered than he had intended. “I think you’re reckless and impulsive, a very bad mix.”
“You’re trying too hard, Leonis” Loqi said still with that horrible smirk that, for the first time, made Cor feel denigrated, stupid, and even a little intimidated. “You’ve made a lot of subtle things that I thought a coincidence, but turns out, you’ve been doing it on purpose” the Nif’s side-smile widened a little. “You think I’m a coward that, at the first chance, will try to take his own life.”

Cor didn’t reply. He kept the head lowered. Body tense, jaw clenching, and still, overwhelmed by a sensation of sadness.
“You’re trying too hard to keep alive someone that wants to kill you” Loqi said. “The question is, why? What do you care?”
Again, Cor said nothing. Loqi’s questions were good, but he had no answer. He was right. Cor really didn’t have to care. He had no reasons.
“I’m asking you a thing, Leonis. Why not leave the bottles here? See if I surprise you in the morning?”
“Stop taking it as a joke” Cor muttered between clenching teeth, not looking up at the Nif. “I’m leaving the two pills per day only, and that’s twice what I should be giving you. Be satisfied with that.”

Cor was not sure if he didn’t have the time to deal with the kid’s questions…or if he was scared of answering them. He preferred to lie to himself and try to pretend he was the mature and wise one there and that he definitely was not scared of this subject, and he started walking away, telling himself he was tired of Loqi’s shit, and not that he was running from the situation.
“I knew you thought me weak, Leonis” Loqi was yelling at him as he left, but this time, Cor didn’t stop in his way to the door. “But I never knew you thought me a coward!”

Cor closed the door right in time to hear something crash against it. Lately, Loqi had been taking up on the habit of throwing something at him every time he opened the door. He hoped he had not just triggered the habit of throwing something at him every time he exited, too. Still a little altered from the conversation, he left, and hoped he had done right.

Loqi wanted him dead and hated him, but Cor would not let him die. It was not right. He preferred the idea of being at Loqi’s sword point one day, than go back to the battlefield knowing the empire was missing one of their generals, and not as result of war.

--

It took two months for Loqi to break.

Normally, anyone would have broken instantly. Loqi, however, Cor would learn later through the months, was the most stubborn person in the world, and the proudes; too proud, too stubborn. To Loqi, accepting something he didn’t want to accept was the second toughest thing he could ever do, only under saying ‘Thank you’. Rarely did he break, and never to these measures.

It was natural it took him two agonizingly long months, as it was natural that it broke him as bad as it did.

Two months. Among all his duties, the shock of the bombing, the international chaos with the whole thing, his son, and the Nif he was looking after, Cor barely noticed time flying by so fast. It had not been easy; he was sleep deprived, and not doing very well mentally, and he was physically exhausted every day. Cor could say it had been the two toughest months he had had in a very long while, but still, they went by very fast.

Loqi spent the two months apparently unaware of the pace of time. He didn’t have any calendar or device in his room, and never asked for one. Cor later would figure out it was on purpose; trying to cloister himself from the world as much as he could.
His leg had suffered a severe rupture, hence why it was taking so long to heal.

Those two months, Loqi was…difficult. He was rude, crude, classist, xenophobic, angry all the time, and when he was not, he was as if dead, as if turned off. He threw things at Cor every time he visited, he had spat on him more times, he bit him four or five times, smacked his hands, threw a punch and a kick, had yelled and snarled at him, offended, insulted, attacked him. He had been in a depression that made it only more difficult, because it made him even more moody, and uncooperative; Cor had had to deal with him not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to take a shower, not wanting to eat, not wanting to even sit up. Loqi had spent the past two months struggling with the toughest stage of depression, with a broken leg and an injured body still recovering, not cooperating, and made a disaster in all ways.

And two months later, he finally broke.

It was the middle of the night. Cor was sleeping in his room. He was not very deep asleep, however, and the noises eventually brought him awake. The sound of the door was the first, but what he really was first conscious about was the little shy steps in the hallway outside. His first thought was that Tummelt had really been stupid enough to try to sneak into Cor’s room at night to get the pills. The door was locked, and he was awake, so he tried to shrug it off. The little steps still echoed, louder as they got closer; a firm step, a bit of silence, a firm step, as he was unable to use one of his feet.

Cor heard the quiet steps stop right at his door. He waited for the moment Tummelt tried to force his knob open.
But he immediately knew things were serious when, instead of that, he heard a noise as if Loqi had tried to knock on his door but ended up just placing his palm there.
And then the impossible.

“…Leonis. Please…”

Cor immediately sat up, heart skipping a beat, and a shiver traveling through his body like a bolt. There was a sudden rush of terror through his veins.
Loqi’s voice…it sounded…
Please…help me.
…like in his dreams. So…agonizing. Hopeless. So…desperate.

Loqi’s voice had been a thread of a whimper. The entire opposite to his usual self; in the same measures Loqi could be crude, could he be weak. He sounded…just like he was; a young man that had been taken from everything. A soul in despair; a broken heart with no way to be fixed.
Loqi sounded profoundly, piercingly in agony.

Never in any reality would Loqi allow Cor to see him in a weak state. The time Cor first convinced him to eat was an exception, as Loqi had been given the news only some days before that, and he was in the toughest of the toughest part of depression. Loqi, back then, had been so broken, that it was as if his whole being had shattered, and hence the part of him that was proud and would never allow Cor to see him like that had disappeared too. Only like that would Loqi allow it; only if his whole self broke.
…so that could only mean…

He’s breaking right at my door.

Waiting no more, Cor got out of bed, heart beating madly inside him, fear running through his veins, but he didn’t stop. He was terrified of what he could find, had always been terrified of the idea of ever having to see Loqi put through the pain of everything, because he knew it was too much for only one living creature to stand. Still, he got to the door and opened it.

Loqi was right outside, using a hand on the doorframe for support. He was trembling visibly. Head down, face dampened, eyes red and swollen, and tears streaming down his face.

Cor stood in front of him, unsure and paralyzed. If Loqi was letting him see him like that, it was because, once more, he was broken beyond his pride. How much, however, Cor had yet to find out.
He was paralyzed for a few seconds watching the Nif, terrified, and not sure how to handle the situation, or if he could do it.
“…Tummelt” he murmured softly. “It’s okay…”

Cor tried to slowly reach for the younger man, try to see if he could grab his shoulders. But before his fingers got there, Loqi suddenly dropped to his knees. By reflex, Cor called for him and in a rush asked if he was fine and offering to help him stand up, but Loqi did not seem to listen. He stayed down on his knees, a hand holding his pajama shirt tightly by the chest, head down, and still trembling violently.
“Leonis…” Loqi sobbed. Cor kept quiet again, and crouched in front of the younger man. He stayed attentive, watching the Nif with worried and scared eyes. “Please…I…I beg of you…” said that, he shrugged a little more, and both hands went to grip his own hair tightly, as if wanting to tear it apart. “…I beg- please- Leonis, I…”

Cor finally put the hands on Loqi’s shoulders as softly as he could manage.
“Shh, Tummelt, it’s fine” he whispered, but before he could go on, Loqi shook the head and continued sobbing. “…Loqi-”
“Leonis, you can’t- torture me any further…” Loqi whimpered. Cor let go of his shoulders, staring at him still with concern, but now also confusion. Loqi sniffled and continued crying. “I-I’ve…reached my limits. You literally can’t torture me any further just because this can’t hurt more” he sobbed. “I-If what you wanted was break me, fine, I’m there. I’m there…so stop it already…”

Cor stayed quiet, moving his hands away of him absentmindedly and very slowly. He was not quite catching what Loqi meant with this, and for a moment he wondered if this was not a strange episode of a bad nightmare and Loqi was asleep in those moments.
“…I’ll do anything, Leonis, anything” Loqi cried. “I’ll kill whoever you want. I’ll win this war for you. I’ll kiss your soles, subdue to you for the rest of my life, I can wipe all of the Niflheimians if you want me to, but please, please, I beg of you…” he shrugged even more in his spot, shaking violently, hands going back to grip his shirt by the chest. “…please…” he breathed shakily. “…give me my siblings back…”

Cor’s expression softened; inside, however, it felt like being pierced with a blade. It hurt; pulled at strings inside, and made his heart shrink. He stared at Loqi as he cried, mind blank for a long while. He tried to come up with something to say, but all he got was his lower lip quivering a bit. In the end, he could not think of an answer. Loqi stayed down on his knees, hands on his eyes as he sobbed and sniffled with no stop.
“…let’s…go to your room…okay?” Cor suggested as softly as he could. He moved an unsure hand up to softly touch Loqi on a shoulder. “We can talk there…”

Loqi didn’t reply; he continued crying. Cor was not sure if he had heard or not, or if he had processed the question, so, after a while with no answer, he tried holding the Nif by the arms and stand up, see if he followed, but Loqi stayed in his spot as if he had not even noticed. Cor tried one, two more times, but Loqi would not move from his spot, or react at all.
In the end, Cor, noticing he was not moving the young man from there, decided to move down on his knees as well, in front of him.

He was quiet, and let Loqi go on. It was not rare to hear Loqi cry at nights, but it was always muffled, frustrated. This, however…this was pain. Pure, true pain that came from within. Emotions born in the entrails and set ablaze. And it was okay; it was exactly what Loqi needed. Cor didn’t know how to handle it, how to comfort him, how to help, but as much as he hated the situation, he knew it would do good to Loqi’s heart and emotional health. Loqi had cried for not being able to save them, but he had not cried them.So he let him go on.

“…please, Leonis…” Loqi whimpered among sobs. “Please…I’ll…I’ll take them any way they are…” he cried. He tried cleaning his eyes with his palms, but his eyes continued letting rivers of despair pour out and drown him. “…I’ll take them any way…”
“…Tummelt…” Cor tried to call again, but once more failed at coming up with a way to put it into words without feeling like a monster.
“Any way…” Loqi insisted in a desperate sob.

Cor was quiet; he stared with guilt and concern. He felt a little desperate not knowing how to help the young man that sobbed and sniffled and cried with no control in front of him, down on his knees, head down, and shaking as if freezing to death.
“I’ll take them any way” Loqi repeated in another sob. He looked up at Cor with the most desperate and red, swollen eyes Cor had ever seen. Loqi’s lip quivered. “Tortured…missing limbs…mind-controlled, blinded, muted, even if they’re amnesiac and don’t remember me, fuck, I’ll take them even if in a coma they’re not waking up from- fuck!” Loqi cursed at the time he hit the floor with a weak fist. He held his weight with trembling arms, head down, hair shielding his face away. He took some moments to breathe tremblingly, shaking violently. He tried swallowing, and sobbed as he tried to catch his breath. “…any way. I’ll take them any way, just- give them back to me…please…”

Cor felt his heart shrinking again and as if being pierced by a giant needle. He opened the mouth and gasped tremblingly, still trying to come up with something to say. It was…incredible. That Loqi was behaving like that in front of him. Cor knew, because Loqi had told him, that Tummelt hated him even more than he despised Lucis itself. The fact that Loqi was crying with desperation, begging on his knees, to Cor…
And his words. How terrible, how…desperate. Willing to hold in arms a barely unresponsive child, tortured into a coma, because even then there was still hope; even then, they could still heal.
How much Cor ached for any of those scenarios to be real. How much he wanted to give Loqi the children, if not for the children themselves, at least to finish Loqi’s terrible agony that kept him on his knees, begging, dying alive.

“…Tummelt, I’m…” Cor tried to speak, but he stopped there, shaking the head slightly. Loqi did but sob and sniffle in his place. “…I…am afraid that…I…” fuck, why was this so difficult? Swallowing a knot in his throat, Cor tried to continue. “…all that you know, it’s all true. We…don’t have your little siblings-”
“It doesn’t make sense” Loqi interrupted him with a loud sob. He moved his hands up to hide his eyes behind them, but he kept trembling and crying. “Leonis, it doesn’t make sense…” he sobbed and shook the head. “They can’t be dead. They can’t- they can’t…I get it from anyone in my family except them, they can’t be dead…”

Cor lowered the eyes and swallowed, but all he did was tighten the knot in his throat that was threatening on asphyxiating him. Shit, two months, and the kid was still in denial? He guessed it was natural, but Loqi had acted like he was past that. Why had he lied? They did tell him that he had had emotional crisis so bad when he first understood the news back at the hospital that he had had literal hysteria and panic attacks, and Cor had liked to believe that the worst of the denial stage had stayed there.
Apparently, Loqi had just bottled up half of it, and it was finally breaking out through the cracks of his heart.

“…I…don’t know what to say” Cor admitted, feeling stupid, and useless. “I’m…just…so sincerely…sorry for your loss…”
“They’re not d-dead” Loqi insisted among tears and hiccups. “I-I was…I was protecting them, if they- if they had- they… couldn’t have died without me dying first” the Nif looked up at Cor once more, shaking the head. “…they can’t be dead if I’m not…” he paused to sniff. “…please, Leonis, I…I’ll take the truth, as crude as it is, but it can’t be this…”
“…I’m so sorry, Tummelt, I…” Cor was at loss of words, and could only shake the head, and talk as softly as he could. “…I’m sorry…but…it’s true. I swear on- my name, on my kingdom, on everything I know…that I’m not lying, and I wish I was. But…” he lowered the head. “…only you survived.”

It took a very long while. Loqi had apparently calmed down, but, lamentably, Cor knew it was shock, not peace. Like an eruption; holding back only meant a greater explosion, not the ceasefire. The Nif was still looking up at him, mouth open, not blinking, and tears rolling down his cheeks like rivers. Cor could almost not tell individual tears apart, as they fell so quickly, one right after the other. Cor tried to keep eye contact with him to try to let him know he was telling the truth. The bad part is that it worked. Which only broke Loqi further; necessary, but terrible.

After he processed the information, Loqi’s face started eventually transforming into a deeper sorrow, and something in his eyes changed. It was not quite literal, but Cor would describe it as if a shadow had hovered over Loqi’s gaze and into his heart. And so, his lower lip quivered, and he started shattering.
“…gods…damn…” he cursed lowly. He took in a desperate inhale, sobbed raggedly, and dropped the head, shaking it more furiously than before. “Six damn!” he yelled. He put his hands to his head, once more as if trying to pull his hair off, and he bent the torso until his forehead almost met the floor. ”Fuck!”

Cor tried to call for him, but before he could, Loqi slammed a fist onto the floor, once, twice, over and over a couple times while cursing.
“I knew it!” Loqi sobbed. “I-If I wasn’t…this…stupidly small, if I was bigger, then they wouldn’t have…!” he didn’t finish. He growled, cursed again, and continued hitting the floor. “If I was bigger, if only I wasn’t this fragile, they would’ve been better protected, th-they wouldn’t have- they wouldn’t have…!”
“…what?” Cor whispered, eyes wide. He needed more seconds and all the while as Loqi raged to process what he had heard. Understanding felt like another blade to the heart. “…Tummelt, you can’t- are you…” Cor swallowed, staring at Loqi with shock. “…no. No, Tummelt, it’s not-…no.”

Loqi was down on the ground, still on his knees, but with the forehead to the floor, and the hands on his head. He was crying out frustration among the sorrow, and still trembling madly.
“…Tummelt” Cor called. “…it wasn’t on you.”
“I didn’t try hard enough” Loqi whispered in a thread of a voice among his loud sobbing. “If you want, you can. Isn’t that what they always say? You can, you- must, there’s- always a way, but I…” his grip on his hair tightened. “…but I didn’t try hard enough. Astrals, if I was bigger, if I had had my armor on, then maybe…!”
“No, Tummelt” Cor sounded firmer than he thought he could. “How can you blame yourself for not wearing the armor? You were in your house. You wouldn’t know it would happen. You couldn’t have possibly known, or had the time, and even if you had been in armor, or if you were bigger, they still would have-” he changed his words. “They still…wouldn’t have made it. Because it wasn’t on you.”

“…if I had taken them somewhere safer…” Loqi continued as if not having heard any of what Cor said. “…the basement. Among all places, I had to take them to the basement- Six, fuck, it was obvious they would die in there, how did I ever think that putting them under all the weight of the house would be even remotely safe!?” Loqi let go of his hair only to hit the floor again, almost violently. “Why was I so stupid!? Why didn’t I take them to the shelter, why was I so stupid!?”
“The shelter?” Cor asked. “A room at the gardens?” his questions seemed to call Loqi’s attention, as he slowly pushed up on his hands and looked up at him, as if questioning ‘so what?’. Cor took what he thought could be the only chance with him paying attention. “That thing blew up in pieces. If you had taken them there, it still would have happened, but they would have suffered. There where you took them, and as you protected them, they were unharmed.”

“Unharmed” Loqi repeated angrily. ”Unharmed” he said in a breath. “And yet, they died. You’re trying to tell me they just- stopped breathing?” a whimper sounded in his throat. “…don’t lie to me, Leonis” Loqi pushed up so he was once more on his knees, but he dropped the head and closed the eyes. “…don’t try to tell me they were in one piece and didn’t suffer. I won’t believe you. They couldn’t have died peacefully in a bombing…” he sniffled, but none of his hands moved up, as if deeming it senseless to try to clean his face anymore. “…a h-house collapsed on them…and I wasn’t enough to keep them safe…”

Cor watched him in silence. Loqi’s anger seemed to have faded, and he was back at looking sad. The Lucian stared with guilt and sadness, not knowing how to help, and feeling his heart ache in empathy. The Nif looked devastated, but also a bit like a child; the face of an innocent heartbreak, with the eyebrows furrowed, the uncontrollable tears, and his little weak fists trying to stop them.
This was more terrible than he thought. Loqi was dealing with a lot of denial, and with the most broken heart Cor had ever known about, but turns out that, even more, he was also struggling with bargaining and guilt, all at the same time? Blaming himself? How long had Loqi been keeping it quiet?

Cor could allow many things. He understood the heartbreak, accepted the denial. But Loqi blaming himself…?
If there was a reason Cor was taking everything so personal and was giving everything to keep Loqi safe and comfortable, that was not just empathy for a young man that had lost everything. Cor would not be doing any of this if he had not seen Loqi’s heroic act. Cor would not have had so much patience with him if he didn’t see in Loqi the greatest hero he had known in his life.
And Loqi was admitting to not only not see the hero he was, but to turning himself into the villain?
Cor could not allow it to stay that way.

“…hey” Cor whispered. He slowly raised the hand, and softly laid it on Loqi’s shoulder. The younger man barely reacted, too busy crying. “…Tummelt. Look at me. Please.”
But Loqi didn’t. He continued rubbing his eyes, cleaning his cheeks, sobbing among hiccups. Cor tried calling for him a couple times, but Loqi didn’t reply. Even more, the Nif started whispering more ‘If’s and other stupidities blaming himself.
“Tummelt” Cor called. And then, almost not thinking about it, he took Loqi’s face between his hands, and made him look up. “Eyes on me.”

Loqi stayed quiet, apparently surprised from the fact that Cor was cupping his face. But he still cried, not helping it. Cor making him look up made him feel humiliated, so he tried to look down even if just with the eyes.
“Tummelt.”
He tried to lower the head, but Cor didn’t allow him. He tried to keep the eyes down, but Cor would only raise his head even more.
“Loqi.”
One of Cor’s thumbs cleaned away a few of his tears. Feeling defeated and with no escape, Loqi finally looked up with his exhausted, red eyes.

Cor was looking at him softly, but with profound sadness. There was great and clear empathy in them. His eyes traveled all through Loqi’s face between his hands. He saw a little scar next to an eyebrow and some subtle birthmarks, things he had not paid attention to before. And, he realized that it was for the first time despite having spent the past two months with him, he paid attention to his eyes. Cor was used to blue eyes; Noctis’ sapphires, Prompto’s violet gems, his own ice orbs. Yet, he found the shade of blue of Loqi’s eyes to be its own kind of pretty. Cor, for a moment, regretted to not have ever paid attention to Loqi’s eyes before the tragedy; had they always been this sad, had they always ben this deep in sorrow, had they always been so empty…?

After having waited some moments staring at his face, and trying to pass some of his calmness to Loqi, Cor gently shook him when Loqi lowered the eyes again, to make him look up once more. And, once with his attention, and a relatively calm Loqi in his hands, Cor’s lips turned into a sad line for a moment.
“…it was…not on you, Loqi” Cor whispered. Loqi blinked rapidly a few times, and he lowered the eyes again, clearly not believing it. Cor, once more, made him look up. “I don’t know how long you’ve thought that stupidity, but it was not on you” the Lucian cleaned a few more of his tears, taking his time, and talking lowly and slowly. “I know that…you think that if you had tried harder, this wouldn’t have happened, but…sometimes it’s not like that.”

Loqi stared at him with the same exhausted, sad, and empty eyes as was now usual in him. His lower lip quivered, and he continued crying, but apparently attentive to Cor. Cor’s words seemed to have captured his attention…but he was mostly staring to the tears that had appeared in Cor’s eyes, and now blocked his sight.
With a thick wall of tears in his eyes, Cor gave the Nif a sad smile.
“…sometimes, you try your best” he whispered. “You give all you have, and even more than that; you fight with nails and teeth, you keep pushing to the limits beyond the limits, you- sometimes keep walking through hell itself, sometimes you really do give all you can, and more, and more than that…” Cor’s sad smile widened, and a few tears stayed trapped in his eyelashes. “…and sometimes you still fail” he took in a shaky breath. “And that’s okay. That’s life.”

They stayed quiet, looking at each other. Loqi didn’t stop crying; a couple seconds later, his eyebrows furrowed again and his face transformed into the face of agony again. He started softly shaking the head, slowly, in shock, and his mouth gaped as if he was trying to say something. Cor took in a breath to calm down and decided to not give him time to say anything.
“You think you could have done more, or better, and maybe then they would be here today, with you. But it’s not like that” he whispered. “I wish it was, but it’s not like that. What happened to them was…entirely beyond your power. You could have- and you gave all you had, and more, and more than that, you did phenomenally” Cor let out a shaky breath, and cleaned a couple more of Loqi’s tears. “But whatever you could have done, or how much you could have given, it was…beyond you. And you can’t blame yourself for that.”

The Nif didn’t reply. He lowered the eyes again, and tried lowering the head. Cor let him for only a moment before pulling it up again, all while Loqi kept the eyes down and cried.
“You blame yourself because you think if you had been bigger, or stronger, or had taken them somewhere else, they would have made it” Cor gave him a sad, forced smile. “But it’s not that way. The truth is…you couldn’t know what was happening. You actually don’t know what happened” Cor pulled his face upwards a bit again, enough to make Loqi understand he wanted him to look up. Once he had the Nif’s sad eyes on him, Cor made sure to lock eye contact. “…but I do. I saw your house after the bombing. I saw you. Your siblings. I know what and what didn’t happen. And it’s because I know that I tell you for sure, in the name of all Six - that you were a hero that night, Loqi.”

The Nif closed the eyes, face deforming into pain as if Cor’s words had been a blown of physical pain. Loqi looked away, and gave out a little huff among his sniffles.
“A hero…that saved no one-”
“Listen here, Tummelt. I’ll tell you what happened.”

That seemed to have caught Loqi’s attention. He looked like he wanted to keep complaining, but he stayed quiet, save for his sobbing and sniffling. Cor adjusted his hands on the Nif’s face a little, holding him softly, but firm enough. Cor looked at him with worried and sad eyes for a while, trying to figure what and what to not say, and how.
“…the bunker blew in pieces to the last corner” he started. “Only one spot of the house stayed up, but it was on fire. The basement was the only safe place” he cleaned Loqi’s cheeks again, in vain. “You took them to the only safe place, Tummelt, you did.”

Loqi tried to put the head down, but Cor didn’t let him. He tried to keep the eyes closed, but Cor gently and subtly insisted by slightly tilting his head a bit more upwards until Loqi opened them and looked at him again.
“And even if you had been bigger, or stronger, even if you had had you armor on, it still wouldn’t have worked” Cor admitted with the sensation that his heart shrunk inside him, being wrenched by a chain. Loqi trembled in his spot and started breaking a bit more into tears, but Cor tried to remind him to keep looking at him to remain calm. Cor swallowed and fought with all his might to stay calm and not cry, but, gods, this was the most difficult part of the explanation. “…because they didn’t die by injury. They weren’t crushed by any rock; they weren’t hurt by any shard, not burnt by anything.”

“…a…h-house…collapsed on t-them…” Loqi cried. “…and I…”
“And you saved them from that” Cor whispered, trying to sound as firm but soft as he could. “The place you took them to, and you protecting them, it saved them from any injury.”
“…b-but…”
“The thing is…” Cor interrupted him, aware of what Loqi had to be thinking. The Nif didn’t fight him. Cor had to let the pause linger a bit and he had to arm himself with courage to say what he had been keeping from Loqi all those months. “…they…died by toxins…”

Loqi’s eyes moved up to find him again. His face was a mix between the profound sadness now characteristic of him, and confusion. He seemed to be asking Cor if he was telling the truth. Cor gave him a sad and forced smile that faded immediately into a subtle quiver of the lip and a sad, short exhale.
“…if you had taken them somewhere else, you all would have died in a worse way” he murmured. “And even if you had been bigger, stronger, or protected…” he paused. The Lucian felt a pinch in the heart; what he said next felt like every word was a blade, and saying them was pulling them out from his chest; necessary, but painful. “…it would still have resulted in the same, because they died by toxins in the air. Not by injury of any kind.”

Loqi didn’t reply. He had even gone quiet in his crying; the sobbing faded, and there was only ragged and shaky breathing. His tears still rolled down his face almost without his knowledge, but other than that, he looked at Cor with a slightly open mouth, and eyes that didn’t blink.
“…only you were injured when I found you” Cor admitted in a murmur. Loqi stared at him with gleaming and attentive eyes. The Lucian felt bad; it didn’t feel like he had kept a secret he shouldn’t have kept. It felt more like he knew the truth was necessary, but still horrible, and he hated to be the messenger. He had to push his courage to make his mouth go on. “…I…tried to bring them along, too. So that…you could say goodbye…”

The Nif didn’t seem to finish understanding that. He stared at Cor with understandable surprise and confusion. Cor decided to not give any explanations regarding that, and spoke only what he thought necessary.
“…in the end, we couldn’t bring them, so…” he paused to gather more courage. He kept the eyes down, and almost let go of Loqi’s face. “…I…decided to bury them. The only thing wrong with them was that they were…a little dirty, so I decided to clean them. And you know what I found?”

Loqi, of course, didn’t reply. He kept the sad and attentive eyes on Cor.
“Nothing” Cor gave him a sad smile. “Not one scar. Not one injury. They had a bruise or two, maybe, but that was it” Cor used the thumbs to caress Loqi’s dampened cheeks again, brushing away a couple tears. “Loqi, there was not one injury on either of them. Sure, you didn’t save their lives, but you- you saved them from any pain…”

Cor looked away. He breathed in shakily, his lower lip quivering, and the thick wall of tears coming back to cover his eyes.
“…how can you blame yourself?” his voice came out as a fragile thread. “You stopped the roof that fell on them. Took them away of the fire and detonations. Fuck, you didn’t doubt on giving your life for them. But how would you have stopped them from breathing? How would you know the air was toxic? How can you think that you could have done more, if you did literally everything and more than anyone could have done?”

Cor stopped there because he had to close the eyes and look away. Not meaning to, he let go of Loqi’s face and used his hands to clean his own eyes, cursing under his breath. He forced himself to calm down and stay still, and when he could manage to look back at Loqi, he found the Nif staring down at the floor, mouth open, still shaking, and apparently finally finishing to process the information.
“Tummelt” Cor whispered and moved a hand up, but suddenly had no idea where to put it. He ended up touching Loqi’s fringe with his fingertips, but he didn’t dare move it away. “…there was nothing else you could have done, because you did everything, and more…so don’t blame yourself.”

After that, Cor decided to take Loqi’s face between his hands again, and once more made him look up. The Nif trembled and sobbed again, keeping the eyes down.
“Maybe you didn’t save their lives” Cor whispered-shouted. “But you still were a hero that night…because you managed to keep them unharmed to the very end” his words only seemed to make Loqi break more; he shrugged a little more in his spot, and he closed the eyes tightly, sobbing louder. “They died, and that’s terrible, and I wish there could have been something anyone could have done, but…” he took in another shaky breath. “…if their deaths were inevitable, then you at least…spared them from any pain” Cor tilted the head and gave Loqi another sad smile; this one, much more sorrowful than any other so far. “…Loqi, thanks to you, they only…drifted to sleep. Painlessly, peacefully…” Cor caressed Loqi’s fringe and moved a few locks of it behind his ear. “…hugged to you.”

There was more Cor wanted and felt he needed to say. However, Loqi didn’t let him; he took in a very shaky breath and kept the eyes closed.
“…they can’t be dead” Loqi whispered. He sniffled and sobbed again, eyes closed, and still, tears managing to come out of them, as if a dam had broken and he simply couldn’t stop even if he tried. “…th-they can’t…” he sobbed. “…I can’t believe it…” and again, even though the pause was big, Cor couldn’t find the courage in time. He tried opening the mouth and shaking the head, about to talk, but Loqi, once more, took in a ragged breath and lowered the head. “…it doesn’t…make s-sense without them…” he shook the head, Cor’s hands still on his face. “…this war, this- life, it doesn’t make sense without them-!”
“No, no, Loqi” Cor interrupted him in a shushed whisper.

But the Nif opened the eyes and broke louder into his sobbing.
“Why, Leonis…?” he whimpered. The Lucian stared at him as sadly as before. A few seconds later, Loqi stared up at him in an even worse state than before. “…why didn’t you leave me there?” Cor barely had time to open the mouth before Loqi continued. “Why didn’t you let me die with them? It would have been more merciful-”
“Because it’s worth it” Cor said as soon as he could and gave Loqi a wide if sad smile. “Living. Your life. It’s worth it” he stopped and took in a breath, closing the eyes before he could cry. He took a few moments, and forced another smile while trying to keep eye contact with the younger man. “I know- that it may not feel that way, I know that you’re paining, and that’s okay, but the void you’re feeling, it won’t be there forever.”

Loqi continued crying, a little breathless, and only worsening with every second. Cor tried cleaning his cheeks again.
“I know that right now you must be feeling like it’s senseless, feeling so…empty, I know” Cor said and, even though he had not dropped a tear so far, he sniffled. “…I know that right now you must be in so much pain, in such deep and profound pain, that there may not be words for it, something so great that you can’t imagine it ever easing…”

Loqi only lowered the head even more. Cor tried to get closer to him, and cupped his face better, more softly, and gently made him look up. Loqi stared at him through crying eyes.
“…but it’s worth it” Cor whispered, caressing the Nif’s face with the thumbs. “…it will ease. This pain is not forever. These sensations will ease…” Cor got a bit closer again, and let go with a hand only to move Loqi’s fringe away of his face. “…you just…need to give yourself time. Time and care. And you will heal; and the pain will heal” he cupped Loqi’s face again, pulling it slightly upwards. “And in the way, as you work on letting yourself heal, you will find a new purpose. You will find love in new people. Maybe not as you expect, or in who you expect…but it will come to you.”

Cor had not expected for Loqi to stop crying. He knew that letting it out was good for him. He had hoped, however, that his words could help Loqi gain some faith and hope, maybe that he would understand and believe in them. Cor had hoped that maybe it would help ease Loqi’s pain.
Maybe that was why Loqi’s answer hurt much deeper than Cor thought it would.

Loqi softly touched Cor’s wrist one by one, slowly, gesture that made Cor put each of his hands away.
“…I don’t want a purpose” Loqi sobbed. “I don’t want to be loved…”
The Nif dropped the head. He took in a shaky breath, and dropped the most pained tears he held within.
“…I just want them back…”

Cor felt his heart being pierced in the right spot that instantly broke it.

He was silent, watching the Nif before him break into tears. Cor had a sad look on his face, and he did but stare, lost more in the feelings pouring out of his heart than in thoughts.
He didn’t think about it. He would realize it only hours later, and would hate himself for not doing it earlier.
It was crystal clear. And yet, it took both of them two months to get over pride and hatred, and they needed of a moment so emotional that there was no space for rationality for it to happen.

“…oh, boy” Cor whispered, shoulders relaxing.
And then, finally, a pair of tears rolled down his face.
“…oh, Loqi…”

And so, while Loqi continued crying, Cor got a bit closer, moved the hands up-
-and pulled Loqi against himself.

The Nif stopped crying for a moment, taken off-guard and paralyzed by surprise. Cor held him in arms in a way so that Loqi could rest the head on his shoulder. Thrown on his knees, and crying, Loqi was shaking embraced in the Lucian’s arms. They rounded him almost entirely, holding him firmly. One of Cor’s hands was buried in his hair, softly but firmly pressing his head against Cor’s shoulder. He held him close, firm.

Normally, Loqi would have raged.
In that moment, however, he felt irrationally safe.
And so broken.

Loqi would take much longer, weeks even, to realize it, let alone admit it, despite how clear it had been all this time.
He desperately needed a hug.

From anyone. Even from his nemesis, whom he hated more than anything and anyone in the world. That was how broken Loqi was; to not only cry at the feet of the man he so profoundly despised, to not only allow him to see him at his worst…but to allow him to hug him. To want it.

He knew it was Cor, the Lucian Marshal, the man he had tried to kill so many times, his self-proclaimed nemesis…but, despite who he was, the fact that Cor was holding him in such a firm but careful way, with so much sentiment, with so much sincerity…just the fact of holding him, it made Loqi feel safe, broken, and a strange sensation, as if his heart was being broken and put back together, at the same time. A strange paradox he could not understand.
It felt like Leonis was hugging him tight enough that the pieces of his heart were being put back together; good, yes, but still so painful.

He never hugged back. Loqi was at a point where he desperately needed the hug, but could not hold back; his arms didn’t have the strength to round him back, hold to him like Cor was holding him.

But he cried. Oh, did he cry. With the head resting on Cor’s shoulder, and a pair of arms finally around him after two months in which he had not even noticed he desperately needed a hug, Loqi started breaking into tears even worse than before. He had thought that dropping on his knees to beg and sob had been his worst; it turned out he had even more to let out.

He was down on his knees. His body stayed up only thanks to Cor holding his weight in the hug. He kept the head rested on Cor’s shoulder, adjusted it only to rest the chin on it instead.
“Oh, boy…” Cor lamented in a murmur, and tightened the hug a little bit. “I’m so sorry…”

And so, Loqi let it all out; he trembled violently in his place, body loose, and he cried like never in his life had he done.

It started with the normal sobbing and sniffling, but eventually, if quickly, it transformed into something that had no description. It was raw. It was crude. It came from deep within, from the core of the entrails. A minute into the hug, Loqi’s cries turned into desperation like Cor had never heard it before. His sobbing became screaming. He reached a point where he was screaming so much, so bad, so painful, Cor started to think he had to be in hysteria or a panic attack.

Cor cried, too. Nothing comparable to the Nif, and Loqi didn’t notice, but Cor cried, too. For the kids that died, for the guilt of leaving them behind, and mostly, for Loqi’s pain, deeper than a void and greater than a multiverse. For Loqi, and all he was suffering. For how unfair it was; for how painful it was to not be able to fix him. And with Loqi crying in his arms, with such crude, piercing agony that burnt to the soul, it was impossible to not be empathetic and cry just by listening to him. He cried properly, for a very long while; shy and silent tears rolled down his face and ended up lost in Loqi’s hair or clothes, he sniffled quietly, breathed shakily every now and then, and for harder that Cor tried to stop, he couldn’t.

Half of Cor’s first hug to Loqi was to try to ease the pain in the Nif. The other half was to try to ease his own. And so, both cried; Cor, silently, sobbing quietly, and holding tightly to the man he could not fix no matter how hard he tried, and Loqi, tearing his soul apart in screaming that seemed to come from his heart ripping into pieces, something as hysterical as painful.

They spent what felt like the rest of the night that way; Loqi screaming out the pain he had refused to admit he was feeling, and Cor holding him, tight, firm, as if he could not stop Loqi’s heart from shattering into ruins, but was trying to, at least, keep the broken pieces together with a first, profoundly sad, and sincere hug.

Chapter Text

Loqi cried to sleep.

He was aware he was drifting into sleep, so he tried not to let it happen. At least not while he was still being hugged by Cor. Every time that he was dozing off between sobbing, Loqi would try to shake himself awake. But in the end, he failed.

That night, he cried and screamed from the bottom of his soul, but, like everything, it eventually calmed down. The screaming went back to sobbing, and the sobbing went on until becoming quiet breaths. He was not conscious of how long he spent there, or how bad it was; all that he knew was that he was in a pain that made him feel as if being on fire with no way to turn the flames down, and then, though who knows how long the process took, he was burnt down to ashes.

He was on his knees, sobbing silently, and breathing slowly. His weight was still being held in place by the Lucian. And it was then, as his eyes had run out of tears, that he started dozing into sleep, and trying to shake himself awake each time.
But, every time he got to come awake, he could never do anything to break the hug. When he avoided sleep, he told himself that it was over, that he could now break apart and stand back up, that he could leave…but he couldn’t; as if each tear had contained part of his energy, and now after he had cried every single drop he had, his body was…not working. His hands didn’t move; his legs were unresponsive; hell, not even his mouth could move beyond the shaky breaths he was taking in and out. It was like being asleep, while awake; he was conscious, but he was unable to make his body move. So he didn’t; he stayed thrown in the same spot, silent.

Cor never let go. Loqi noticed that Leonis’ hug on him did but somehow mirror Loqi’s own crying; when it got too intense, Cor would hug him tighter. As it grew quieter, Cor’s hug would soften, but never let go. Even as Loqi was done crying and only tried to avoid sleeping, Cor still kept him in arms, firm but soft, the hand into his hair, and his head pressing to his. Loqi heard Cor sniffling once, but he could not quite process why.

In the end, as hard as he tried to avoid it, Loqi ended up knocked out in his spot. Cor realized many minutes later when he noticed Loqi’s breath had turned too slow and soft, thinking he had calmed down enough to talk with him again, only to break from the hug and find the young man asleep. It was only fair; Loqi’s heart was suffering too much. It was natural that his body asked to be knocked out. Sort of like the same than physical torture; get to a point where the pain is so bad, one is simply…knocked out, as to stop feeling.

Cor cleaned his own dampened face with a hand before adjusting the Nif in arms. He could not help but remember about the moment when he was carrying Loqi out of the debris; an arm around his shoulders, the other under his legs, and adjusting his light weight and tiny body in his big, strong ones. How nicely Loqi fit in them. How vulnerable.

Once with him in arms, Cor stood up. He noticed Loqi weighed less than the first time he carried him; enough to be noticeable. Like Cor had not had enough worry and stress for one night, the rapid weight loss did but add to his concerns.
Cor took him to what had become Loqi’s room, and laid him in bed as carefully as if this was Vianard all over again, and he was lying him on the ground. After tucking him in and making sure his leg was comfortable and safe, Cor noticed that the sky was starting to lighten, near dawn.

That new day, he decided to call in sick, not because he wanted to sleep what he missed, but because he worried for Loqi, and didn’t want to leave him alone that day.

Despite staying home to look after Loqi personally, there wasn’t much Cor could do besides check up on him every now and then. Mostly because Loqi decided to sleep his whole day away.
Naturally, he slept the hours of the night he didn’t spend in bed. But it was worse than that; even after waking up from that, Loqi took one of the pills Cor had left there the previous night. He was aware it was daytime, that he had slept enough, but he took one of the pills to continue in bed. And even after spending almost all day asleep, the only reason Loqi didn’t take both pills at once was to reserve the second one for the moment he woke up from the first; and so, after the effects of the first pill eased, Loqi took the second one to sleep even more.

It was no mystery to Cor. He noticed the Nif was sick of being awake, too tired of the endless thoughts and whirlwind of emotions, so he tried to stay asleep as much time as was possible. Cor understood, but it was still highly concerning. Watching Loqi starve and drug himself asleep the whole day stressed Cor to the point he ended up taking his phone and calling Ignis, the prince’s adviser. Ignis was who dealt the most with Noctis regarding his own mind, and hence who knew best on depression. Normally, Cor felt a little too shy to ask for advice, thinking he could be worrying others. That day, however, he stressed and worried so much for Loqi, he ended up phoning Ignis to tell him the situation and ask for advice.

Ignis, as Cor expected, was wise and patient and didn’t get away of the phone despite his busy schedules until Cor had calmed down properly and had no more questions. Ignis gave him a better view and ideas on how to deal with Loqi from that day on, what to and what to not say, how to convince him out of the room, into the bathtub, to eat, etcetera. There was one very obvious advice Ignis calmly insisted on many times throughout the conversation, and which Cor avoided or didn’t talk much about; therapy. And it wasn’t that Cor didn’t think it was good, he firsthand knew it was necessary, the thing was…

Loqi was not going to want it. As soon as Cor would suggest it, even at the slightest mention of it…Loqi was going to rage. Unleash his wrath and destroy the whole building while yelling something like ‘Are you suggesting I’m weak and in need!?’ Oh, Six, Cor could almost hear his screamed answer ringing in his ears. He was starting to know him well enough to know what his reaction was going to be.

Cor didn’t put much thought on it that day. That day, all he was thinking about was Loqi. He spent the day checking up on him, even knowing he was asleep. A few times, Cor sat at the edge of the bed. Sometimes he stared, sometimes he didn’t. Once or twice, he moved Loqi’s hair away of his face, traced with a fingertip the marks of his tears that went from the eyes to the jaw.
Many times, he made sure to adjust Loqi so he was comfier. Put two more pillows nearby him, an extra blanket, pulled him to the middle when he was too close to an edge, adjusted his leg on its cushion.

When he was not looking after Loqi, Cor was still thinking about him. The events of the previous night had been so…rare, it wouldn’t abandon Cor’s mind. The kid at his door, both on their knees, hugged and crying…it was something that Cor knew he was not going to forget for the rest of his life.
He had hugged Loqi. Back then, it felt natural and necessary…and now, calm and away of him, only then Cor processed fully what he had done. He had hugged him. The young man that hated him, had spat multiple times on him, who Cor had mentally murdered at least ten times in his mind due to how annoying he could be. The man that had claimed Cor was his ‘arch-nemesis’, and who had seriously tried to kill him at least ten times, if not more.
Cor hugged him.
Loqi allowed it.

Cor once or twice looked down at his hands and his arms. If he focused a little, he could physically remember, as if his skin had its own memory, how it felt. Loqi’s body against him, how he felt in his arms. His hair. Cor could still feel Loqi’s blond, soft hair on his palm and through his fingers. His hair was incongruously soft for someone that constantly refused to take a shower. Cor could still feel the Nif’s dampened face and his hot breath next to his ear and close to his neck.

He had been…so close to Loqi. Even closer than the once he had that nightmare. None trying to kill the other, none pushing the other away. Embraced in a hug.
It was…a strange concept. But it felt okay.

--

Loqi was in a terrible state for at least two days more. It was like back in the hospital when Cor first convinced him to eat; Loqi would sit or lie in bed all day, mute, silently crying, eyes red and exhausted. He wouldn’t answer to anything, not even complain when Cor touched his leg to adjust it on the cushion. He didn’t throw anything at Cor whenever he walked in…and Cor almost missed having to dodge.

He barely ate. Cor almost fed him himself, and it was only due to what tiny reminiscence there was of Loqi’s pride that the Nif didn’t let him and did it himself, even if scarcely. Two times, Loqi cried a little more in Cor’s presence, the first time in denial, the second, bargaining. Cor still talked him through it and tried to support him, dealt with Loqi’s ‘If’ situations. Even though he cried properly, he still seemed to be exhausted as he did it. Cor didn’t question why the boy had to be so worn out…not after that night.

Thankfully, like every wound, Loqi started healing with time. He didn’t get any happy or cheerful with the days, but he at least seemed to be less exhausted and eventually stopped crying, at least in front of Cor. In a matter of almost two (very long) weeks, Loqi was back in his normal mode; sassy, rude, and aggressive. Cor almost preferred him that way, when compared to the crying Loqi he had held in arms.

Loqi swung between being his aggressive and rude self most of the days to having some breakdowns here and there, mostly in the form of being passive, silent, and sometimes still daring to cry in front of Cor. There was no other event that could compare to the night Loqi called at his door; his breakdowns had turned into quiet crying or going silent. Whether he was aggressive or silent, Loqi was back at being uncooperative and a pain in every inch of Cor’s existence.

Still, Cor preferred him that way. Each day Loqi spent alive meant a day closer to his recovery, and that was what mattered.

The days went on, turned into weeks. Loqi was showing to be Cor’s toughest task at date, one anyone else would have given up long ago, and which Cor considered every day to drop, but decided to carry on with.

And so, like that, another month went by.

--

Three months after the bombing meant three months since Loqi’s leg surgery, and so, that meant that it was time for the cast to come off.

Loqi was particularly enthusiastic that day, as good as his enthusiasm could get in amidst such horrible depression. Cor wasn’t surprised; he had, from the beginning, fed the Niff’s scarce hopes with the idea of ‘cooperate to heal, because the faster you heal, the faster you can go back to Niflheim’. Whether he still believed with unbreakable faith in the empire’s decisions, or just wanted to leave Cor’s life and go back to his country, Cor didn’t know. Surely, it was both things. Cor couldn’t blame him; he guessed, in his place, he would be as eager to go back to his homeland and his friends.

It was the first time in that agonizingly long while that Loqi left the apartment. With his arm fully healed, he found less troubles holding for support on the walls to walk. Cor still stayed close just in case in the way to the parking lot.

Loqi’s instinct was to sit at the backseats. Or, better said, his instinct was to stand in front of one of the back doors and glare at Cor like he was a strange alien until the Lucian opened the door for him, and then sit in the backseats. Cor had thought it was a strange behavior, and he at first thought Loqi was trying to be as far from him as possible. But then it clicked on him.
Ah, yes. Nobility. A rich brat, used to have the butler drive him everywhere, and he deserved to sit on the backseats like the spoiled kid he was.

The worst of it all was that Cor felt humiliated, even if only a bit. Whenever he had to stop at a red light, he felt like a robot butler with gloves and a ridiculous hat that kisses his masters’ shoes as payment. Moogles, not even Noctis in his bad spoiled-brat days had ever made him feel even half like that.

Loqi was cooperative, but still rather rude with the doctor. Cor wasn’t sure if Loqi just wanted to make enemies everywhere he went to or if it really was just his nature, because he was not as crude as he was with Cor, but he wasn’t particularly kind either, and he did make a comment on ‘Lucian doctors not being as useless as he thought, at least she knew what the stethoscope was called’. Cor apologized to her multiple times; Loqi didn’t try anything to say sorry or pretend he didn’t hear.

Loqi did everything the doctor asked from him. At some point, Cor felt frustrated and almost offended; how dare he be so cooperative, that little shit? Why couldn’t he behave half like this with him for the past three months, not even one day? He could only guess how eager Loqi had to be about going back to Niflheim, being extra cooperative for once.

When the cast came off, none Cor or Loqi could hide their surprise.
“Oh…” Cor let out while his gaze traveled across the calf, very slowly, as if trying to measure the size. “That’s…a pretty long scar…”
Even though Loqi usually snapped out at him for pointing the obvious, that time he stayed quiet, and did but stare at his own leg with surprise, mouth slightly open.

One of the ends of the scar started on the inside side of his foot, traveled to the ankle, curved upwards and continued up all along the calf, and ended only a few inches under the knee. It was a very long line, with little dots on the sides all along it, and which would apparently never disappear.

“Yeah, it was a complicated fracture” the doctor said after a while with both men staring openmouthed at the long line. “We had to add bone; your leg was so broken, some parts were made unfixable dust. An inch more, and you’d have lost the knee. You’re lucky you kept the leg, blessed to have healed in only three months, and it’s a miracle we didn’t need to add any metal. The scar is the best result you could’ve had, really. Besides, you scar nicely. I’ve had patients that not even with healing creams make it any decent. Yours looks as if it’s been healing for years, really. In a few months, it’ll look better.”

Loqi didn’t thank her or said anything; he continued staring at his leg and the new scar. Cor subtly and secretly looked at him, trying to read his feelings about it, but he still didn’t know him good enough to decipher what was going through Loqi’s mind.

The cast coming off was no miracle or instant healing, as Loqi found out; he still needed to go on his crutch, not put full weight on his leg yet, and spend the next days doing minor and gradual movement therapy before he could start walking normally.

Loqi didn’t seem content with the idea of having to spend even more time living with Cor, and it was pretty noticeable with the grumpy mood he wore during the ride back to the apartment. At least it worked to keep him quiet.

--

Once back, Loqi insisted on wanting to start using his foot already. Cor tried to help him and stay alert in case the Niff stumbled, but allowed him to start using the tiptoe. It was a very slow walk through the hallway, and Loqi sometimes hissed, apparently from the effort and not pain, thankfully.

Once arriving at the apartment, Loqi made his way alone into it while Cor closed the door and left some things at the nearby counter.
“Remember the doctor said you have to wash your leg” Cor reminded him. The Niff, not stopping in his limping way to his room, only shook a hand as if dismissing him. Cor tried to not mind him, sighed and rolled the eyes, already rather used to Loqi’s uncooperative behavior, and continued minding his own stuff.

He took off his jacket, put some water for coffee on the stove, and tried to start checking some papers. He heard Loqi opening and closing the door of his room. Cor really tried to focus in his papers, but most of his attention was in trying to hear what Loqi was doing. Cor was almost sure he heard Loqi lie down in bed. The thing is he never heard him stand back up. Cor tried to mentally nag himself, remind himself that he couldn’t just fix everything in this toddler’s life, Loqi had to learn to get out of the struggles and do something for himself every now and then. Cor didn’t have to spoil him this much, Loqi would get used to have someone else do the job for him, Cor had no necessity to…

…goddammit.

Cor left the papers he was trying to review, and his coffee, and headed to Loqi’s bedroom ten minutes into trying to convince himself not to.

Of course, when Cor walked into the room, all he found was Loqi thrown half-facedown half on a side on his bed. The Marshal couldn’t help a subtle exhale; apparently, Loqi couldn’t give him one day of break and do things himself, could he?
“I will assume you’ve already washed your leg as you were told” Cor said. Loqi didn’t even flinch or sit up; he only shook a hand again and made an unintelligible noise, a moody hum that said ‘Yeah, done’ in a clear lie. Cor sighed again and frowned, more in concern than anger. After three months dealing with him, and Loqi having more angry days than sad ones, Cor was learning to not always treat him as if made of glass, and sometimes be firm…and still, Cor could not be angry at him. Not properly, or not enough.

That day was no exception. Cor had already learned the different styles on how to deal with Loqi depending if he was on his rude or his sad mood; both involved kindness and patience, the difference was on whether Cor had to be soft or a little more…active on making Loqi cooperate. And so, as Loqi was only on his angry state, Cor found no troubles on being the latter.

Cor frowned and got closer, rounded the bed, and got to the desk. Loqi stared, but Cor didn’t glance back; he focused on grabbing the chair, pull it and turn it in one movement so it was in the middle facing the outside, and then, to Loqi’s rage, Cor turned his way.
The Niff stared at him with slightly widened eyes and his usual slight frown deepening a little. They held eye contact for a bit, as if the younger man was daring him, already having an idea of what was to come but refusing to believe Cor would do it really.

He should have known better than anyone that Cor was no games.

Saying nothing, Cor got closer to Loqi and didn’t give him time to move or even say something when he was already grabbing him as if to pull him up.
“Wha- No! Leonis, what are you-!? How dare you grab me like that, do you have no sense of fucking modesty!?” Loqi started raging on him in his usual non-stopping rants while Cor pulled him up and closer to the edge of the bed at the same time, and tried to catch him in arms. “No! I said let go! Leonis-! Fuck off, I can’t believe- you get your filthy hands off me, you, brute barbarian, I didn’t give you the right to- no! Leonis!”

Cor ended up tossing the younger man onto his shoulder. Loqi flailed and punched his back with both fists while still yelling at him, but Cor barely reacted to the hits, and only turned around and got closer to the chair. Soon enough, he was bending and pulling Loqi off himself and sitting him down, much more carefully than Loqi noticed. The Niff stayed surprisingly quiet and startled once he was sat, as if not sure he understood the sudden movement or change of position. After a couple seconds, he looked up at Cor with a half-glare half-confused gaze. Cor stared back firmly and with his usual moody frown, but after some moments staring, he looked away and headed for the bathroom.

Loqi stayed sat, despite it all. He rested the arms on the armrests, let out a moody huff, and put the weight of his head on a hand. He heard the water starting to run in the bathroom.
“So what?” he asked in almost a yell, pulling his head up. While the water still ran, Cor came out of the bathroom just to toss his jacket onto the bed, and return inside. “Leave it, Leonis, I’m not feeling like it” but the water kept running. Loqi sighed angrily. “Leave it! I’m not in the mood, okay?” that said, he tilted the head to rest its weight on his hand again. “I’ll do it some other day, whatever…”

The water stopped. Cor came out of the bathroom with a pair of little flannel towels on the shoulder, and a plastic tub. Loqi stared at him and lifted the head again, attentive, and giving him a questioning glare. Cor frowned back. After ignoring the Nif’s daring gaze, Cor got close to him and put the tub down at Loqi’s feet.
“Leonis, forget it, I’m not going to do it right now and you can’t force me to!” Loqi snarled at him, watching as Cor put the towels on the edge of the bed. “You’re not going to make me…-!”

Cor went down on a knee.

Loqi shut up immediately with a quiet, short gasp. He watched as Cor reached close for his leg and softly but firmly took it in a hand and moved it close to himself.
Even though it was more than clear what his intentions were, Loqi tried to convince himself that it couldn’t be true. He watched with surprise and the heart racing as Cor started undoing his shoelace. Loqi, as proud, forced himself out of the shock to try and keep fighting.
“…y-you, indecent pig!” Loqi snarled at him, though hesitatingly. “I don’t allow you to touch me like this, you…you…!”
“You talk too much” Cor muttered as he continued undoing the lace, and soon starting to carefully pull the shoe off. “Shut up and just…sit back, gods.”

Loqi tried to keep arguing; he took in a loud breath, the kind that Cor had learned was to keep yelling, but the Niff kept quiet. He was frowning so much, his nose was doing a silly tremble, perhaps result of the corner of his upper lip quivering, like an angry dog about to bite, but, again, he held back and only stared in shock and surprise.
“…wh-what do you think you’re doing!?” Loqi asked him while he watched Cor let the shoe down on the ground, only to start removing the sock. “I told you I’ll do it some other day-!”
“You won’t have to do it, stop yelling at me” Cor said without looking up and focusing in the task. “I’ll do it. Alright? Just…stop.”

Loqi stopped breathing by reflex after a tiny sound of surprise, and he stared eye widened at the Lucian. Cor stopped what he was doing to look up at him as if asking if it was fine, though he still frowned slightly, as if reaffirming he was in charge. Despite the eye contact, Loqi was too surprised to look away, and he kept his wide eyes on the older man. After a couple seconds, Loqi’s face suddenly…burnt red. It started on his cheeks, but the color soon invaded almost the completeness of his face; his fair skin got colored so quickly and suddenly, Cor himself couldn’t help a little blink of surprise.

Reacting to both the way his face burnt and Cor’s tiny reaction, Loqi forced himself to do something, and his instinct was to move a hand up to hide the lower half of his face, make another little sound of surprise, and pull the leg back a bit too roughly.
“N-no!” he said loudly, but he didn’t sound as angry as he sounded profoundly embarrassed. Cor didn’t react fast enough to keep the younger man’s leg in his grasp, and he found himself with the hands empty, and looking slightly defeated. Loqi kept the hand near his blushing face, the leg tucked up, and the scared frown on.

Cor sighed and put his hands on his thigh, and he looked up at Loqi. He didn’t say anything, but the look on his face was expressive enough. He looked tired of Loqi not cooperating, but even after three months of dealing with him, he still had a hint of patience in his eyes. Loqi stared back, tried to glare hard enough that the older man would retreat.
But it suddenly clicked on Loqi. His expression instantly softened, and his blush of embarrassment started fading. It took only a few seconds as Loqi finished processing his own idea, before he put his hand away of his face, and his expression changed.

“…or…I changed my mind” he said with a voice far different from the previous embarrassment. His voice had gone quieter, much more confident, and with that poison, that tone that reminded Cor of either a spoiled evil prince or a snake. His face had that evil look, too, the one Cor was used to in the battlefield; confident and cold eyes, and a stupid smirk. Suddenly, Loqi sat far more comfortably in the chair, like he owned the damn place, like it was a throne. He let an arm loosely rest on one of the armrests, and on the other, he put his elbow. He tilted the head to a side, and rested his temple on his knuckles. He stared down at Cor with those piercing freezing eyes and that smug smile.

Then, Loqi moved his now nude foot up, and he put his sole on Cor’s face.

The Marshal tensed in his place and gasped in. Loqi’s smirk widened. He applied pressure enough with the foot so that he pushed Cor backwards, but not enough to hurt him.
“Do it” Loqi smiled. “I’ll enjoy it” he put his foot down, but kept it up enough as an invitation for Cor to take it. The Marshal glared up at him. Despite the harsh look that would have put men to surrender, Loqi only widened his smile and narrowed his eyes. “Cor the Immortal, down on his knees for me, washing my leg. That’s a show I won’t miss.”

In his spot, Cor breathed louder than was normal, staring slightly down. His jaw was so tense he started hurting his own teeth. His nostrils fluttered with every heavy breath in rage, and he looked near real madness. Loqi stared down, as if waiting to see how much Cor could take before exploding, ready for the detonation…
But all that he saw was Cor closing the eyes, starting to control his breath, and apparently bite his tongue for a moment, without opening the mouth.
After some long seconds calming down, Cor opened the eyes again, didn’t answer to Loqi’s words, and only took his leg again, as softly as before.

That alone made Loqi’s smirk fade and his expression turn from his prior over-confidence to another sort of surprise, something less embarrassed and much more serious. Calmly, and quietly, Cor started pulling the hem of Loqi’s pants up to the knee. The Nif watched the slow process quietly, mouth slightly open, and heart weighing on him.
Suddenly, he felt something…not usual. A pinch in the heart that made him feel terrible. Like he was a bad person.
…maybe he shouldn’t have-
…whatever.

Loqi tried to relax in the seat again, but his smug smile didn’t return. He tried to act casual and rested his head on his knuckles again.
“…you really are going to do it?” he asked quietly once Cor had already pulled the pants to the knee. The Lucian looked up at him as if not having expected for the Nif to make the question, or as if to find out why Loqi had lost the sass in his voice. Loqi tried to act as rude as before, but he failed, broke eye contact, mouth doing the slightest of pouts. Cor stared at him for some moments, and whatever he was seeing in the Nif made his expression and shoulders…relax a little more. After a moment, Cor nodded, and focused back on the leg.

He used his hands to cup and pour some of the water on Loqi’s skin. Loqi tensed a little, but relaxed instantly; the water was…warm. Very, very comfortable, and nicely warm. Loqi was still tense in his seat for a moment, not at the temperature or being in discomfort, but rather at the mere…action of it. Like he had really expected Cor to abandon this in the last moment, as if, even though it was so clearly happening, Loqi could not believe it until it really was happening.

And so, Cor started washing the leg of his war enemy.

Loqi was tense for a long while, marveled at what was happening. Cor, on his side, was calm and worked slowly, carefully, not muttering or bickering, not pulling back, not hesitating. He gently poured water on the Nif’s leg, covered it really nicely, and repeated. After a minute or two of being tense out of being stunned, Loqi decided to force himself to relax as to not give himself and his shock away. He leaned back in the seat, tried to act as casual as possible, but he continued staring at Cor with clear surprise.

It was…incredible. Cor really was doing this, despite their rivalry.
The only reason he dared to put his sole on Cor’s face was because he didn’t think Cor would really do this…

After a moment of soaking his leg, Cor took a little soap he had brought, covered his hand on it, and dragged it onto Loqi’s leg, all along it, very slowly. His skin was very soft and smooth; despite the three months in the cast, and the state it was in, it was still soft. Cor could only imagine how absurdly softer the rest of Loqi’s skin had to be, the healthy parts.
While Cor caressed his leg up and down to cover it in soap, Loqi watched with awe, still marveled.
“If I hurt you, tell me” Cor said lowly, without looking up.
“…yeah…” Loqi murmured rather insecurely, all traces of his sassy confidence gone.

For a moment, something in Loqi asked him to tell Cor something. He licked his lips quickly, swallowed, and he tried to pretend he had no idea what it was that he wanted to say, even though he knew that he knew. He tried a couple times; opened the mouth, it moved a bit, but the words…they were…they were so hard for him, he could not push them out. At some point, the words were right in his tongue, but as hard as he tried to push them out, they refused to leave his mouth.
He tried, kept pushing them…
“…say…uhm…Leonis.”
“Hm?”

Loqi stared. He stopped breathing for a moment, and armed himself with courage to say it, forced himself to it.
“I…wanted to say…”
But in the end, Loqi changed his words.
“…that- night” he said, and mentally cursed for having said something else to what he knew he really had meant to. However, he decided to take the chance to talk about something that still occupied his head. “…you know. That night…”

Cor’s hands slowed down noticeably, to the point they stopped. The Lucian stared absentmindedly at nowhere, before looking down. Loqi stared away, too, knowing how…uncomfortably intimate that subject was.
“I was not…very lucid” Loqi continued, trying to sound as casual and uninterested as possible. “I still have some questions. And I expect you can answer them.”
“…yes” Cor murmured. “As I said…I haven’t lied, I was there, and I know what happened” he explained, and his hands continued with their job. “What is it?”

Loqi took some moments before he said anything. He watched Cor, now down on both knees, still washing his leg. He noticed he was particularly soft whenever he caressed the scar, despite it being fully healed.
“You said…they…” he made a long pause, took in a deep breath, and changed his words. “You said it was toxins. But they and I, we were breathing the same air. So shouldn’t I have died, too?”
“They were much smaller than you” Cor explained calmly and lowly, without looking up or stopping his task. “Smaller bodies, smaller lungs. The smaller the lungs are, the faster the toxins do their job.”
Loqi hummed in response.

They fell in silence again. Cor didn’t look up, a little nervous as he had no idea where the conversation could go, and he was not sure he had the heart to go into details. However, the way Loqi was behaving made it sort of clear that the Nif was accepting his answers; not being stubborn in denial, and not content with what he was listening either, but, finally, even if it took three months, not questioning him either. Loqi was not defying him; he was calmly looking for answers and taking what he was given.

Loqi took a breath that felt like it indicated a change of conversation.
“What about the rest of my family?” he asked, a bit too calmly. Cor felt it was a little unsettling, how calmly and casually Loqi was asking this; aware that there was a bomb massacre no one survived, and asking about it as if it was the weather. Cor stayed quiet for a bit, and only saw by the corner of his eye that Loqi was still sat in that overconfident pose. “They all died, right? How do you know it was everyone?”
“We were using a photograph we found in the debris” Cor explained calmly. “Eight Tummelt, right?” he looked up just for the answer. Loqi gave him a nod. “We found all eight. That’s how we know it was everyone.”

Loqi, once more, gave only a hum in response. Unlike the previous one, this was longer and less sharp, clearly not affecting him as much as the first answer.
“So” Loqi said, “where was everyone else? How did the others die?”

Cor was quiet again, nervous. He didn’t like how Loqi made it sound, how…unimportant. Cor stopped his work for a moment, though keeping the eyes on Loqi’s soaked leg, while he swallowed away the sensation of heartlessness the Nif gave away. Cor remembered; remembered Loqi crying at his feet, Loqi telling him his nightmares…and Loqi hugged to his siblings in the debris. If he had not seen any of that, he would really believe that Loqi was heartless.
But no. Cor knew better, he did now.

Cor swallowed shortly again and moved the head slightly.
“…well” he started lowly, and his hands returned to the task. “I arrived by the time they had found most of them.”
“But you still must have seen them, right?” Loqi insisted calmly. “Must have heard some report or something?”

Cor was quiet for a moment, took in a calm breath, and let it out as he nodded. Because the Nif let the silence linger in an invitation, Cor felt he had no option but go on.
“Your…family…” Cor started, hesitating, and his mouth gaped for a bit. He let go of Loqi’s leg again to look up at him. “…do you really want me to tell you?”
“Why not?” Loqi asked. “It was my family. I think I have the right to know how they died” he leaned further back into his seat. “I’m not five, Leonis. I’m a general and I’ve seen far worse things than victims of bombs” he stated so firmly that Cor, for a moment, felt a little intimidated. “Say it as it was. There are worse things than a corpse blown in pieces, uglier stuff happens every day.”

Well, yes, but did he have to say it like that? So calmly, and like it had no importance, like war was not crude and terrible and like lives didn’t matter…? Cor, once more, had to remind to himself that Loqi did not have a void in the chest like it could seem.
“…alright” Cor whispered. “Well…your…” he sighed. “Your dad…was…” Astrals, even though Loqi asked him to say it as crude as it was, it was still so impossibly difficult. How was Cor supposed to talk about his family’s horrible deaths without feeling like a heartless monster? It felt stupid, that he was caring about this much more than Loqi himself. “…Your dad apparently died by injury” he said softly, and he felt like the most horrible person in the world for saying it just like that. “Or asphyxiation. They told me he was found half-trapped under the debris, so that probably limited his respiration, and maybe caused some internal injuries. The mix of both things must have led him to pass away…”

Loqi didn’t offer a response. He stayed quiet, and only gave a moody hum after a while as if telling Cor he could go on. Cor frowned a little in confusion, not having expected the kid to not react to his father’s death. Maybe they didn’t get along?
“Your mom…” Cor stopped and sighed. “Never mind her, it’s-”
“Tell me.”
“Loqi, it’s too cruel-”
“She blew up in pieces?”

Cor was quiet again, and stopped his work once more to look up at the Nif, not hiding his surprise and confusion. Sometimes, people mourned through anger, so he thought it could be the case…but no matter how long he stared at Loqi, the Nif remained calm and unfazed. The only reaction he had was the slight raise of an eyebrow after the silence lingered, as if he was asking Cor what was wrong and why he had stopped. The Marshal tried to act casual, like it didn’t matter or like nothing was confusing, and returned to his task, head down.
“So?” Loqi insisted. Cor took a moment and sighed before forcing himself to answer as Loqi wanted.
“She…was in the bunker” Cor said hesitatingly. “And you know how it turned out…” his hands let go slowly of Loqi’s leg again. “…I’m very, very sorry, Loqi…”

But, by any answer, not even with a significant pause before, Loqi gave a lazy ‘Eh’. Cor once more looked up at him completely confused and surprised at the lack of emotional response. Loqi still stared at him entirely unfazed. With Cor’s intense questioning stare on him, all that Loqi did was shrug a shoulder, as if saying ‘That stuff happens’.
Was he serious? Did he really…not care? Cor would understand parent and child quarrels, but to…not give a damn, not even the tiniest? What sort of person did not care about their mother?
If it wasn’t for the mental images of Loqi he had seen in the past three months, Cor would be entirely sure with this that Loqi was not human, and surely had a black hole in the chest.

That’s what she gets for being a selfish bitch, Loqi thought about saying. Running to the bunker on her own, leaving her own children behind? Karma doesn’t fear you, mom, have fun in hell.
But Leonis looked altered and offended enough with Loqi’s lack of sympathy, he didn’t want to destroy his innocence with such comments. A Lucian, he forgot. Unnecessarily emotional people with a primitive sense of family and bonds.

“What about my older siblings?” Loqi asked after the little pause. Cor again took a few moments and a breath before answering.
“Hm…you had three, right?” Loqi nodded. “Your brother…not the eldest, the other one…something hit his head in a deathly blow, if I remember right” Cor poured water on Loqi’s leg, already done with the soap, and didn’t look up as he continued. “Your sister…well” he raised the eyebrows one second. “She had major burns and she must have died that way” Cor moved Loqi’s leg slightly in his hands to reach its back part. “And your eldest brother…he was…unharmed.”

“Unharmed” Loqi repeated. Cor remembered about the night a month ago when Loqi had dropped at his door, and had not believed him at first when he said his little siblings had suffered no injuries. Loqi seemed to remember too, as he looked away, his expression softened, and he tensed a little in his seat, but straight away looked for change of conversation. “He wasn’t in the basement with us, so…it’s a bit hard to believe he was unharmed if he was in the upper levels, if you say the whole building blew up.”
“I was there when they found him” Cor said. “So I’m absolutely sure about him. I asked what happened to him, as he had no injuries, not deathly ones” Cor’s hands continued moving on the Nif’s leg. “That’s when they told me about the bombs being toxic. Apparently, your brother was in a place that collapsed on him, but not in a dangerous way. He must have stayed there for as long as he could handle before the toxins…won.”

“He was bigger than me” Loqi said after thinking. “Physically, I mean. Yet, I didn’t die. He couldn’t have died by toxins.”
“Yes, he did” Cor insisted, as he covered Loqi’s leg in a second wave of water just to make sure no bit of soap stayed on his skin. “You, in the basement, had barely any space; it was a tiny corner, a narrow spot that must have had poor access of oxygen. Your eldest brother, however, was in a more open space, and closer to the places of detonation. The wider access to oxygen ended him faster than you” Cor sighed as he let go of the Nif’s leg, and he reached for one of the towels he had brought. “It was, ironically, the almost asphyxiating environment you were in what saved you.”

And a sock. A sock Loqi lost somewhere was the other key that saved his life. And Prompto, accidentally stumbling upon that little rock…
…Astrals. It was so many tiny details, so many things that could have easily been missed, and if only one of those had failed, Loqi would not have made it. If the rock that crushed his leg had been a little more to the left, if Loqi had never lost a sock, if Prompto had not been distracted as he walked through the ruins, if there had been a little crack more to let air in to the spot Loqi and his siblings were in, or one less…

Cor only got to place the cloth on Loqi’s leg before freezing for a moment, busy in his thoughts and realizations. Loqi, being there, sat in that chair and making sassy comments and pressing his sole to Cor’s face…it was more than a miracle…

“Well” Loqi said as if bored, and adjusted a little in his seat. Cor forced himself out of his head, and started using the cloth to dry the Nif’s skin. “Mom and Mai deserved it. Jord was an unnecessary waste of oxygen. But I guess you, Lucians, must be happy about dad and Bestel. Two strategists less, the empire did you a favor.”

Cor stopped again and frowned. He looked up with a look that made it clear he was going to deny being happy for anything, and maybe also ask Loqi how he could say such things. He decided to not say anything. Loqi and his lack of empathy for his family’s outcome were strange enough and he had no idea how to deal with someone like this. Loqi was quiet too, looking away. He looked thoughtful, more for each second that went. Right when Cor thought he had stayed quiet for good, the Nif sighed quietly and spoke without looking at him.
“…it’s strange from Bestel, though” the Nif murmured, sounding more like talking to himself than to the Marshal. Cor decided to not reply and let him think. “He’s…was too smart. He should’ve made it to the basement before me…” there was another long pause in which Loqi did but frown and look at nowhere, thoughtful. “…he must’ve been searching for something and got bombed. For someone as smart as him to take that risk…” he sighed subtly. “Wonder what he was looking for…”

Cor didn’t reply. He tried to make memory of this ‘Bestel’, the man in his early thirties or late twenties. They found him in a hallway, nearby one of the rooms…but Cor wouldn’t know what he could have been doing. It was an ordinary room, not an office or storage.
While thinking about it, Cor stopped for a moment and felt his heart skip a beat when the name finally clicked on him.
“…Bestel Tummelt” he whispered. Loqi instantly if subtly turned to look at him, cold as usual, with an eyebrow up. Cor, in just one second, made an entire train of thoughts: Loqi seemed obsessed with self-naming himself his ‘arch-nemesis’ or something, yet Cor wouldn’t have known who this man was if it wasn’t for this mess. But Bestel Tummelt, holy Six, Cor knew that name. Feared strategist, genius, highly gifted child, one of Niflheim’s gems, the man’s name was written in the empire’s short list of options for replacement for High Commander. But Cor didn’t want to offend Loqi; he didn’t want him to know he could tell his brother’s name straight away while Loqi’s name had brought nothing to mind even after so many fights against him. He would make it seem like Bestel had been far more important and relevant and better than him.

So Cor looked down with a slight blush of embarrassment and the heart beating fast in nervousness.
“So you know him” Loqi said in his rather sassy tone. Cor mentally cursed. “Doesn’t surprise me. Bestel was a giant of the empire, he did justice to his name. He was…the best.”
Cor started working a little slower on Loqi’s leg, thoughtful. The Nif sounded neither proud nor angered, and yet, it wasn’t a blank statement. It was some sort of mix of emotions that Cor couldn’t quite read, but that also didn’t seem to upset the Nif too much.

Cor reached the toes and started drying them, but Loqi’s foot flinched in response. Cor stayed still, a little surprised, before trying again. Loqi’s foot instantly flinched many times as Cor tried drying it, and he could see the Nif tensing in his seat, but didn’t pay much attention to it.
“And say, Leonis” Loqi called as if to distract Cor from the way his foot reflexively flinched as Cor dried his toes. “Did you find…other people, too? Besides us eight, I mean.”
“You mean the house-workers” Cor stated directly, but softly. “Yes. We found two.”
“And were they…?”
“…yes. They…seem to have passed due to toxins too, so…they didn’t suffer…”
“…I see.”

Cor subtly looked up at the Nif to see his reaction. He had sounded a bit different than the previous times…and looking at him confirmed that, this time, Loqi did react. He was looking down, and his face reflected some…sadness. He looked as thoughtful as he looked sad. Cor felt a little pinch inside. Watching his reactions through the whole conversation and putting some brain into it, Cor tried to make a theory out of it, and came up with the possibility that, being a noble and military family, maybe the main family didn’t get along, and maybe the ones raising Loqi weren’t mom and dad, but the house-workers. Maybe, more than house-workers…those had been Loqi’s nannies. His real parents, who raised and…maybe even loved him…and who, maybe, he had loved back…

Cor swallowed after feeling another pinch and hating the sensation. He took in a calm breath and as slowly let it out. Trying to distract himself, he put the first towel away and took the second one, to make sure Loqi’s leg would be as dry as possible, and so, with it in hand, Cor retook his work on the last details, and started dragging the towel very gently on Loqi’s calf.
“Thanks for the information, Leonis” Loqi said in an exhale after coming out of his thoughts, and looked away. “It’s not…gratifying. But it’s a question less.”

Cor didn’t question him or said anything else. On a side, he was still marveled at Loqi’s lack of emotional response. It was amazing how heartlessly he reacted to the rest of his family…especially compared to how hysterical he had been when it was anything regarding his little siblings.
The conversation seemed to have ended there. Both were silent, and focused in other things. Loqi stared away, looking excruciatingly bored…but also thoughtful, if Cor had learned to read him. He looked away before Loqi would notice him staring, and focused in his own task, drying the Nif’s leg. He was doing it very slowly and carefully, not wanting to miss one spot, but not wanting to cause any harm to neither the Nif or his skin.

Cor was almost done with drying the leg with the second towel, and sometimes he touched very slightly with a few fingertips to make sure the skin was as dry as it could get. He had been very sure that the conversation had already ended, so it took him a bit off-guard when Loqi spoke again; Cor was focusing on his ankle when he heard the Nif take in a breath.
“Say, Leonis.”
Cor gave a little hum to let him know that he was listening. Loqi seemed to hesitate, and Cor noticed he had gone a little tense. He stopped his work for a moment to look up anad see what was wrong, and found the Nif pouting a little, his lower lip gone into his mouth so he could bite on it. After a while, Loqi took in another breath, and acted as casual as he could get.
“…and…it’s a stupid question with no importance, I was…just wondering…”

Cor was quiet, patient. He tried to give Loqi a patient and soft look to encourage him to go on. The Nif looked down and bit his lower lip again, hesitating. He cleared his throat and looked away, though he clearly was nervous about this.
“…was I…per chance…” Loqi murmured. “…wearing some sort of…weird necklace?”

It was a very specific question, Cor noted. Which meant it was not some random ‘stupid question’. It was a specific necklace, and it didn’t take a genius to understand that. Cor tried to remember, even though he already knew the answer, and he started working on Loqi’s foot. Again, it flinched and reacted as soon as Cor touched it. The Marshal tried to be as gentle as possible.
“…no” Cor said after a thoughtful pause. “You were in pajamas only. The only outstanding thing was…” the Lucian felt a little pinch inside remembering how the tiny detail had meant so much. “…that you didn’t have one sock. But that’s it. No necklace.”

While Cor continued softly working on Loqi’s foot, he heard the Nif take in a slow, big breath, and quietly let it out.
“No” Loqi said sadly. “Of course not.”
Cor’s hands started slowing down. He tried to not stop too suddenly, and took a moment processing what the Nif had just said. Loqi sounded…so profoundly sad. So sincerely sad…
After finishing drying Loqi’s toes, Cor still kept them in his hand, and looked up. Of course, Loqi looked as sad as he had sounded. Every trace of his previous overconfidence and lack of emotion were gone. His expression had softened, and while it wasn’t a profound frown, it was his eyes what expressed everything the rest of his face and his mouth didn’t.

Once more, Cor found his eyes gleaming as if they had been crafted by literal sadness. His gaze was…vast, like an ocean, or like space. It would be beautiful, was it not for the fact that that entire ocean was made of a sorrow Cor could barely imagine. But, damn, could he feel it…
Loqi was staring to a side, the gaze lost and with that gleam of sincere, heartbreaking sadness. After a moment, his lower lip disappeared into his mouth, as he was clearly biting down on it. Cor saw his eyes started watering, and right as the tears were on the edge of his eyelids, Loqi closed the eyes and stopped breathing.

Cor decided to look away. He couldn’t imagine what sort of necklace Loqi was talking about, or what the importance could be, but his theory was that it had to be related somehow to his little siblings. Nothing else seemed to put Loqi in an emotional state; he had not reacted to his family’s tragic deaths except for the kids’, and Cor had spent the past three months dealing with Loqi being devastated about his little siblings, so it didn’t take a genius to imagine possibilities as to why Loqi cared so much about some necklace.

While Cor put the towel away, he heard Loqi take in another very slow and long breath, which he let out as slowly. The Lucian didn’t question him and let him think, and soon started putting the sock on its place. The foot was still a little swollen, but the doctor had said it was normal and would ease.
“Leave it, Leonis” Loqi said after a little sniffle. Cor looked up at him. Loqi was not crying, but he didn’t have that angry frown of always. He looked rather…down in the dumps. “I’ll take my other shoe off too, so…it’s not necessary.”
“Alright” Cor whispered, and took the hem of Loqi’s pants to unroll it.

However, before he could do it, Loqi gestured, softly and wordlessly telling him to leave it, and he unrolled his pants himself. Cor watched him with a bit of surprise, but Loqi didn’t glance back. He decided to not think too much into everything, and grabbed the little tub.
“Leave it” Loqi insisted. “I…can take it to the bathroom, if you want…”
“No, I’ll do this” Cor said as he stood up and left. “You still can’t carry weight.”

Loqi only replied with a quiet hum. When Cor came out of the bathroom, he found Loqi putting the chair back in its place at the desk. It was a normal action…in someone normal. And the thing is, Loqi was everything but that.
Cor watched a little unsure and surprised as Loqi carefully put the chair in its place, and he wondered, wouldn’t it be more natural, coming from him, to wait until Cor did it? It was a petty thing, really, but it still put Cor to think. Then again, maybe it was just his head seeing too much into things, as usual.

He looked away before Loqi could find him staring, and headed for the door.
“Leonis!”
And, of course, the calling of his name when he was midways there. Cor stopped and looked at the Nif, waiting for whatever he had to say. After a few seconds with nothing, he turned completely to face him properly, and his shoulders dropped a little at the sight; Loqi seemed…different. He tended to act overconfident in his presence. And right then and there, after having called him a bit louder than was necessary, he looked…nervous. A hand toying with one of his fingers, face relaxed, eyes full of innocence. He even looked a little…timid.

“…what’s wrong?” Cor asked as soft as he could manage. Loqi opened the mouth, closed it later. He took in a breath, shut the mouth. He let out a syllable, but never continued. The Nif stood there, strangely awkward for his usual self, mouth gaping and eyes trying hard to communicate something that the Lucian could not quite catch. After a moment, he saw Loqi close the mouth, lower the eyes, and then shake the head. Cor took it as a gesture that said he was not going to say anything, so he gave him a little nod, and turned to the door again.
“Wait- Leonis!”
“I’m listening…”

But as softly as Cor looked at him and as much patience as he gave him, Loqi didn’t say anything. He stood still in his place, fingers toying as if he was twisting an invisible ring, and mouth moving a bit. A few moments later, Loqi’s hand stopped, he looked away, and shook the head again. Cor stared at him some moments, trying to figure out what was going through Loqi’s head and see how he could help, try to understand what was bothering him, but he could not grasp it. Cor whispered a last ‘Okay’, and left the room.

Later that night, Loqi was…surprisingly cooperative at dinner. He didn’t snarl at Cor, and he didn’t need the Marshal pulling him to make him sit up. Loqi sat on his own, took the utensils himself, and ate without having to be ordered. Cor was quiet and even felt awkward; dinner was a usual struggle with the Nif, so that for once he was quiet and eating with no pauses, it made a silence that Cor didn’t know how to fill. He thought Loqi would be uncomfortable too, but he never showed any signs of it. Before Cor knew it, Loqi had finished his dish without a complaint in between.

It was…odd. Cor was not sure if there was something he was missing and not catching, or if Loqi was about to play some prank on him, or a trap. He was behaving strangely…good. Even obediently. Cor had spent so long struggling with him and arguing that a peaceful day, instead of peaceful, felt off. Then again, he didn’t want to point out what was happening, so he kept all his confusion to himself.

Cor cleaned up, and failed to notice Loqi staring at him all the time as he did. Cor gave him the usual reminders and instructions of how to keep his leg safe and unharmed. He stopped midways when he noticed Loqi had yet not interrupted him or snarled or insulted or even growled, not even rolled the eyes as he always did when Cor gave him the nightly lecture. Cor stared at him almost in shock while the Nif patiently listened to him and said nothing.

Cor continued staring, this time even frowning a little, but Loqi didn’t do anything other than look at him as if not understanding what was wrong. The Lucian continued telling him the usual.
“And if you need anything, just call” Cor finished as he put the two sleeping pills on the bedside table.
“Alright…”

Again, the Lucian looked at Loqi with a frown of confusion. Normally, Loqi gave a sarcastic huff or said a derogative comment, usually accompanied by an insult. The best Cor had gotten so far had been silence, during Loqi’s sad days. But never had he replied…like that.
Again trying to ignore Loqi’s new and strange behavior, Cor whispered a little ‘Alright’, took the tray with the empty bowl, and started heading for the door.

Of course, it didn’t fail.
“…Leonis, I’m…!”

Cor stopped once he was nearby the door, and turned around. He gave Loqi calm and patient eyes that tried to encourage him to go on. It didn’t take a genius to understand the Nif was trying to retake what he didn’t say earlier that evening. Once more, Loqi was standing in his place, using only the tiptoe of his right foot, and looking at Cor as if petrified. The Lucian tried to transmit as much gentleness and patience as he could through silence and a gaze, but Loqi still took his time, doing but stare with slightly widened eyes, the lips straight as a line, and the body a little tense.

After some moments of eye contact without looking away once, Loqi took in a breath as if to arm himself with courage before talking.
“…what I did earlier” the Nif started. “…with-… about your face…back when you were washing my leg…”
Cor couldn’t help but transform his patience into confusion.

His heart skipped a beat; was Loqi really…was he really going to…?

The Nif swallowed and licked his lips quickly, looked away, and his mouth gaped. He looked back up at Cor and took in another breath, said nothing, and took a breath in again.
“…I didn’t mean-“ Loqi stopped there and continued staring at cor with wide eyes and a face that could easily be misunderstood by fear. “…I mean…I…meant to do it, but I didn’t mean to mean to do it, I mean-…”

Loqi stared at him with the chest up and the face still petrified. A few seconds later, he was letting out a sigh that made his body relax, but his hands continued nervously toying with each other. He looked away and took a longer time doing but move the mouth and try to make eye contact again.

Cor, on his side, could not help but stare with the eyebrows a tiny bit furrowed and the mouth very slightly opened, and with the ghost of a smile on the corners of his lips. His heart was beating fast and excited in his chest, and he felt an absurd sensation of joy at what he was witnessing. Loqi was not saying it, but the way he acted, and what he was saying, it was making his earlier good behavior finally make sense. Cor didn’t insist on anything, and he forced himself to not smile too much because Loqi could think he was making fun of him, and it was not that. Cor knew how much it had to be taking him. Imperials were proud to the bone. And Loqi was the most imperial of imperials that Cor had ever known about.

…of course admitting to have done wrong was difficult for him. And even harder it had to be for him to apologize.

Cor didn’t rush him. He stood at the door with a sensation of happiness that he couldn’t help, and smiling very subtly at the Nif, and waited. Loqi either made eye contact or kept staring away, trying to go on.
“…what I mean is…” Loqi tried again. “…maybe I shouldn’t…” he looked away and took in a breath to calm down. After sighing calmly, Loqi stared with a forced frown at nowhere on the floor and to a side. “…maybe I shouldn’t have done that…”

He didn’t say more. Cor was not sure if Loqi was going to say it explicitly, say the exact words, but he didn’t force him to it. Cor considered standing there until Loqi felt forced to say it, but Cor was way too understanding, maybe more than Loqi deserved, and he preferred to not put him through the hell of saying sorry. Cor really wanted to hear it. He knew he deserved it. But Loqi behaving for one evening, and Loqi daring to get as far as admitting he shouldn’t have done what he did…it was incredible and sincere enough for Cor. Knowing Loqi, saying what he had already said was far, far more than Loqi was used to. The intention alone was enough for Cor, and he decided to keep it there.

After a couple moments standing in silence and processing the info, and while his heart swell with joy and a sudden pride, Cor gave the Nif a smile. Full of happiness and even feeling touched at the gesture, Cor gave Loqi a gentle nod. And his smile widened.
The Nif reacted a little to that. As soon as he saw Cor smile, Loqi blinked and stared in surprise. Cor didn’t notice that it was the first real smile he gave him, but Loqi did. For the rest of the night, the Nif would think about that sincere curve of the lips that, for some reason, made him feel even worse about his earlier behavior.

“…I understand” Cor murmured after a while, staring down, but still smiling. He needed more moments in silence while he processed everything about Loqi’s unsaid apology and everything behind it, before he realized he was maybe making it awkward, and he decided to continue thinking about it in his room. He looked up at the Nif again. “Thank you.”

Loqi didn’t reply. He was still staring with surprise at the Marshal, and only when Cor said those previous words did Loqi react by blinking as if he had been caught off-guard, looking away, and nodding. He looked a little upset, but not in a bad way; a little awkward, nervous, and even timid. The sight made Cor smile a little more, because it felt like Loqi was being very sincere. Then again, that was another thing Cor decided to think about in privacy.
“Goodnight.”

He turned around and put a hand on the knob when it happened.
“Goodnight, Leonis.”

Cor froze. He stayed still for a couple moments, brain not processing what had just happened. Some seconds later, he was turning over his shoulder to look at the Nif again, confused. Despite his confused frown, Loqi didn’t frown back. He only stared as if not catching what was wrong, with…innocence. The innocence of someone that was not hiding anything, and really not understanding the problem. Cor stared at him some moments, and even took in a little breath ready to ask if Loqi had just spoken or if Cor only hallucinated it. In the end, he decided to keep the question to himself. He stared at Loqi as puzzled as before for some seconds more, before he looked back at the door, opened it, and walked out.

He made sure to look at the Nif a last time, almost as if to make sure he really was there. Loqi was still giving him that innocent and timid look that expressed more remorse than maybe the Nif himself noticed. Cor forced himself to close the door, but stood outside some moments, staring at nowhere. He had the tray in hands, and frowned down at the empty bowl, yet not really looking at it as busy as he was in his thoughts.
It was…odd. And unimportant. It was unimportant. A very petty little thing that really shouldn’t mean anything, Cor knew, it was not that he was giving it any weight, it was just a note, but…
…it was…the first time Loqi ever said ‘Goodnight’ back at him.

Cor let out a tiny silent breath. Something inside him softened, softened so much and so instantly that he put a shy hand to his stomach as if to stop the sensation.

He couldn’t help a tiny and shy, but very sincere smile. Earlier that day, with Loqi’s sole on his face to humiliate him, Cor had been at one second of giving everything up and attack the Nif. But once more…once more, Loqi was surprising him. A good behavior result of guilt, a shy unsaid apology, the sincere look of remorse and innocence on his face…and saying goodnight for a first time. It all made Cor feel a huge but gentle flame of pride inside.

But, more than that, it reminded Cor that, unlike what Loqi tried to show every day, the Nif had a heart. Bigger than it seemed, warmer than it acted.
One that was worth saving.

Chapter Text

One day, Cor found Loqi packing.

Loqi never gave any signs of it, nor did he act any strange that day. Everything had gone as usual, and Loqi never said anything about it. Of course it would take Cor off-guard.

It was the weekend. Cor had had no need to go to work, and he had spent the day checking up on Loqi as usual. Some time in the evening, Cor had spent a while watching the news before deciding to check up on the Niff. He opened the door, expecting nothing, and froze at the sight.

Loqi was coming and going from the closet to the bed. He was taking clothes from the first, and tossing them onto slightly messy piles on the latter. He didn’t even bother looking in Cor’s direction; he continued doing his stuff as if the Lucian was not standing there, staring eye widened at the unexpected activity in the room, and trying to process what was going on. Despite it being relatively clear, Cor still took a time staring at closet, Loqi, bed, Loqi, his pile of clothes, and Loqi again, quiet and with that look of confusion upon his face.
“…what are you doing?”
“Toasting bread” Loqi said calmly, raising the eyebrows but not looking in the Lucian’s direction. “What does it look like!? I’m packing!”
“Packing?”

Despite already knowing in the back of his head how much Loqi despised questions being repeated, and hence, despite knowing it would be obvious that he would get angry, Cor still tensed when the Niff stopped in his tracks and huffed angrily.
“Packing, I’m packing, that’s what I said!” he yelled at Cor, finally turning to look at him. Cor blinked and reacted a little to Loqi’s raging gaze of blue fire, and said nothing, almost as if intimidated. Loqi’s frown deepened a while into eye contact, and he roughly looked away to continue on his stuff.

Cor stayed still at the door, hand still holding the knob and apparently unaware that he had not let go yet. He stared at Loqi with the same confusion than before, mouth slowly and slightly opening.
“…oh” he let out a little awkwardly after a long pause. “…so that means…you are going back to Niflheim?”
“Where else would I go!?” Loqi yelled, angrily accommodating his piles of clothes and basically slamming one shirt on top of another one. He stopped for a moment to turn and glare at Cor. “What’s wrong with you today, Leonis? You’re more stupid than usual.”
“I’m sorry” Cor murmured. His voice came out low and not very confident, unlike the way he normally responded when he argued with Loqi. The Nif noticed, and his nose shrugged up a little more, but he didn’t point it out; he looked away as if to ignore him.

The Marshal stood at the door some moments, body relaxing. Loqi didn’t move for a while, either, but they didn’t make eye contact. A moment later, Loqi sighed and tried to return to his activities. Cor approached the bed slowly while Loqi limped his way to the closet. Cor sat at the edge of the bed, torso turned enough so he could look at the messy piles of clothes.
“…it’s just that…” he started murmuring. “It’s…a little beyond me.”
“Why? Because they bombed my house?” Loqi asked while turning to look at the Lucian again. Once said that, he didn’t continue. They made eye contact and were quiet, as if only after it was said they noticed Loqi had touched a fragile string and, at the first wrong movement from either of them, the ice would break. After a moment, Loqi tried to deepen the frown as he looked away. “I told you already…”

But he hesitated. His voice had faltered and come out insecure. The fact that he had spoken before with his usual overconfidence only made the contrast greater.
“…they did what they had to” Loqi muttered, staring at nowhere. “It wasn’t personal. It was a…necessary mission accomplished in order to keep the world safe from the Scourge. It was…valiant.”

Loqi let out a noise after that, like he had meant to use the word but, once said aloud, it had turned to disgusting. He shook the head in little movements and stared around. Cor watched him in silence.
“I can’t…give up my loyalty to my country and my people, I can’t give up my honor and principles, my morality, I can’t give up my whole identity and nationality and my service to fight for what’s right just because…my family was at the wrong place at the wrong time” he muttered, at first trying to sound a little more secure, but it came out as frustrated and forced. Loqi let out a little noise of frustration, angrier than the first, and glared at Cor. “They did what they had to, okay? And I respect their choices. The empire knows best than anyone, they did it for a reason. They had to.”

Cor stared at Loqi for a while more and didn’t reply. After a while staring, Cor gave him a soft and sad gaze that almost seemed to say ‘Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?’ Loqi seemed to catch the message, but only looked slightly away and shook the head again.
“You wouldn’t understand” he muttered.
“I don’t” Cor agreed quietly, looking away. “But I won’t stop you. Are you sure about it, though?”
“Yes” Loqi said firmly, and looked at him with his usual frown.
“Completely sure?” Cor asked as he turned to look at him again. Loqi didn’t look away and kept eye contact. They held it for a pause that didn’t linger much, but still enough to keep it clear that Loqi was thinking about it.
“I am completely sure” Loqi said again, much more firmly. “I’m going back to Niflheim, today.”

Cor stared at him for a while more, in a silence that took up on an aura of strange intimacy. The silence was like another fragile string, tense and ready to pop at any given second. A moment later, Cor looked away and sighed at the time he slowly nodded.
“Alright” he whispered. Loqi didn’t move from his spot and stared slightly down, frowning at the shirt he was holding. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Lucian standing up, and he assumed he was going to leave.

He looked up at Cor’s figure when, instead of heading for the main door, he calmly made his way into the bathroom. Loqi watched in silent confusion, not sure what the older man was doing. Then, Cor came out of the bathroom with Loqi’s toothbrush in hand. He approached the bed, and laid it on top of his messy pile of clothes.
“You’ll need this, too” he said softly and very low. Loqi stared a little eye-widened at the brush, and then up at the Lucian. Cor saw his big confusion and surprise, but didn’t explain anything. The mood in the room suddenly dropped, and Loqi felt some sort of blue pinch inside. He lowered the head lightly, covered that action with looking away and trying to look unimpressed, and he nodded.

Cor went back into the bathroom, and, even though he hesitated at first, Loqi returned to the closet to keep looking for the things that he considered worth keeping, moved by the knowledge that he didn’t have much of an option. Cor returned with a towel, which he put next to the pile. Normally, Loqi was very tidy; even despite the horrible state of depression he had been in, his clothes normally appeared folded, the dirty ones on a chair, the clean ones ordered neatly in the closet. Must be due to his strict military education, Cor guessed. Any other young man like him would just drop everything to the floor and collapse in bed. That his packed clothes were a mess was a little strange and pointed a lot of things to Cor, but he said nothing about it.

While Loqi kept gathering things, Cor dedicated his time to folding the clothes and putting them in order. As he did it, he noticed that Loqi had laid out a smaller blanket on the bed and he was putting everything on it.
“…you don’t plan on, like…using the blanket like a sack, do you?”
“Well, what else can I use!?” Loqi yelled. Even though the Nif really was upset, Cor, for a first time, found the situation somewhat funny. Still, he contained the chuckle and disguised the smile that almost escaped him with a random gesture. He stood up and headed for the door.
“You should have told me earlier” was all that he said and didn’t wait for Loqi to say anything, and left.

He returned to the room with a medium sized suitcase. Loqi stared at it and as Cor pulled the handle up, as if to show him.
“We’re lucky I have this one with wheels” the Lucian said, not looking at the Nif, rather at the suitcase as if he had not even known he had it until just now. “That way you can drag it instead of carrying.”
“I know how a suitcase with wheels works, Leonis” Loqi frowned.

The Marshal said no more, but didn’t seem bothered either. He put the case on the bed, and both started working on putting everything they had gathered into it. They both did it rather slowly, for no apparent reason; shirt by shirt, sock by sock, taking their time. It didn’t take long before the suitcase was full.
And when it was, both stared at it in silence.

None moved, or said a thing. When the suitcase was full, both Cor and Loqi, each on a side of the bed, separated by the case between them, only stared at it as if it was the only thing that existed. Loqi was frowning slightly, where Cor’s expression, as usual, was blank. Yet, both their gazes seemed to not be there at all. Cor took in a breath and contained it in his chest; the noise brought Loqi out of his head, and he subtly looked at the Marshal.
Cor moved. He had finally looked away, and he was standing up from his spot. Loqi raised the head a little more and watched as the older man reached for the bedside table, and took something. He was in the way, so Loqi could not quite tell what he had grabbed.

Cor returned to his spot, and sat down again, hands down. Loqi stared at him expectantly, frowning a little as if daring him. Cor looked down at whatever he was holding, in silence, as if not sure if he had to do it.
Then, he reached for the suitcase, and put the little nightlight on top of everything.

He said nothing. Loqi didn’t, either. None of them did anything other than look at it for a long while, in which the atmosphere seemed to get cold, and the room a little darker.
The way Cor’s fingertips patted it a last time when he let go, despite being so subtle, almost seemed to say ‘You will need this, too’, but none said it aloud.
A minute or two were spent in that strange, intimate silence, both thinking whatever they were thinking, feeling whatever they were feeling, veiled by that sudden coldness and grey scale that made everything seem so…fragile.

After a while, it was Loqi who broke out of it first, taking in a breath and releasing it quietly.
“Well” he murmured, “that’s all, I think.”
“Yes” Cor whispered, blinking a little as if having just taken himself out of the thoughts. “Need anything else?” Loqi shook the head, looking away. “Okay.”

And so, Cor closed the suitcase.

Loqi glared at it for a second, but without hesitation looked up at Cor when the elder spoke.
“You know how to get to Niflheim from here?”
“I’m not a child. Of course I do” Loqi replied as bitterly as always, and, as if to prove it, he started describing it. “I’ll take a bus to the closest town outside the Insomnian Wall, Hammerhead if no closer town is available” Cor nodded. “From there, I can contact the empire from anywhere and they’ll come for me. I’m the head of one of the most important imperial noble families and I’ve gone missing, they’ll come in a matter of a blink for me” Cor nodded again, as if both understanding and agreeing. “In the rare case that I can’t contact them, I’ll just take some other transport to the nearest imperial base. There’s one near the entrance of the city. From there, I can contact them for sure.”

Cor nodded and looked slightly down, as if understanding the conversation was over. However, as proud as always, Loqi went on as if to show the Marshal he really knew what he was doing.
“And in the rare, almost impossible case that I still can’t contact them, I take a bus to Galdin” he continued, fidgeting a little with the zipper of the case, frowning at it. “From there, I take a ferry to Accordo, neutral land, from which I can take another one to Niflheim lands, and once there it’s just a matter of taking a train straight to the capital.”
“Yes. Okay” Cor said, a little unsure of what to and not to say to not offend the younger man. “And…once there…?”
“What do you mean ‘once there’?” Loqi snapped at him. “I’ll put my fucking armor back on, I’d already told you!”

Cor gave him a gaze that Loqi understood. The question was so clear it was almost explicit, and it made the Nif frown to the point where his nose seemed to slightly shrug up in a hint of discomfort, not quite anger. That was not what Cor meant, not entirely, and Loqi knew it. The Nif glared at him as if wanting to pretend he didn’t understand the gaze or refused to answer. In the end, he sighed shortly and rolled the eyes, shaking the head subtly.
“…the emperor will receive me in the palace” Loqi muttered. “Or the High Commander in his personal quarters. Or other generals I get along with” he continued and looked away, frowning at the wall. “…just for a while, of course. I’m nobility and now head of House Tummelt. Some house they will find for me…”

There was another of the intimate and sad silences veiling the room, the sort that seemed to cover them when the subtext of everything, too intimate, too fragile, was at one notch of being said aloud and they waited for the tension to explode.
Cor tried to imagine it. Loqi, in a new house the empire would grant to House Tummelt for all the Tummelt to live in. Where Loqi would live alone. A huge mansion like he was used to, three floors and who knows how many hectares of land, many rooms and corridors and studios. All empty. Loqi, at the head of a huge expensive table, in the only seat. Perhaps some servants here and there, but none who looked at him to the eyes, let alone engaged in conversation.
It was a sad picture.

Well, maybe it could be like that for only some years. Loqi was a young adult in age to restore his family. He didn’t seem like the type to want children, but military families didn’t have them for the joy of it. A purist soldier, surely Loqi would do as his parents and have children just to keep the name alive. He wouldn’t be alone for too long. Perhaps he could have a wedded, too.
Whatever he did, that was none of Cor’s business. The Nif wanted to go back to his homeland, so be it. If he considered it was the right thing, so be it. Better for Cor, finally getting rid of this sassy, depressed child that couldn’t step out of his room without Cor having to drag him out of it. It was best to let Loqi go back to the people he loved than force him to stay. It wouldn’t be healthy to neither.
Good riddance.
Right.

“Okay” Cor whispered and pressed his lips into a thin line, as if forcing a small smile, and lowering the eyes. There was an uncomfortable pause in which neither looked at the other. “Uhm…you…tell me when you’re ready. Okay?”
Loqi didn’t reply, only nodded, lips pouting the slightest. Cor whispered a subtle ‘Okay’ again, hesitated some moments, stood up, and exited the room as calmly as he had entered, and decided to wait in the living room for the Nif’s call.

It didn’t take long. Almost just half an hour later, Cor heard Loqi opening the door of his room, and the steps coming closer. He got up from the couch to hurry his way, and take the suitcase from his hands.
“You still can’t carry weight. Allow me” he offered, and Loqi did nothing to fight it. Cor took the suitcase from the side handle to carry it rather than drag it, and gestured for Loqi to go ahead, and so, they headed for the door. Even with the knowledge that it was the last time he walked out that door, Loqi never once looked back into it.

On the way to the parking lot, Cor secretly watched Loqi and tried to measure how bad his leg still was and if he could do the journey alone. Despite the week and half he had spent slowly working his muscles, he still limped and couldn’t carry weight. For a moment, Cor thought of ways to ask the Nif to stay for a few weeks more until he was healed enough in a way that wouldn’t make him rage at Cor, but, in the end and during the drive to the bus station, Cor convinced himself that Loqi could do it. He didn’t need to carry much weight; he could drag his suitcase, and most of the time he would be sat. Surely the empire would pick him up and continue giving him the healthcare he required of, and Loqi wouldn’t need to do all the journey on public transport alone.

Both were deathly quiet during the car ride. As always, Loqi picked the backseats without hesitating. Cor drove not sure of what he should say or if he was doing the right thing, and convincing himself to stop caring; Loqi, on his side, was slumped in his seat, arms tightly crossed, and frowning at the window. Sometimes, Cor looked at him through the rearview mirror to see if he could read anything in his expression or to make sure Loqi didn’t want to say anything, but there were no changes.

Arriving at the bus station, Cor still carried with the suitcase. He asked for a ticket to Hammerhead; a single one-way ticket. Once with it, they headed for the waiting room, and had no option but to sit there for a while until it was time.
They sat next to each other, but didn’t share a glance or said a word. Cor tried to subtly read the Nif’s intentions, but there was never one tap of the foot, or a swing of the knee. Loqi was not hesitating, or uncomfortable. He was so determined to do this that he was, for once in his life, patiently waiting.
Fine, Cor guessed. He didn’t want to know he had bought the ticket in vain.

Some minutes that felt both interminable and too soon later, the speakers called for the passengers of the bus they were waiting for to go to the security queue to board. Loqi stood up almost as soon as the voice was done; Cor followed more calmly.
“Loqi” the Marshal called right when Loqi had already given a first step, making him stop and turn to look at him with his usual unimpressed face, questioning him. Cor was quiet for a moment, only staring. “Ah…” he forced himself to not make the younger man wait, knowing he hated that, and looked into an inside pocket of his jacket. “I…know that it’s- I feel a little stupid doing this because I know that when you claim your family’s money and all the insurances they owe you this will be entirely useless, but…”

Cor hesitated. Loqi raised an eyebrow and looked down at his hands; Cor was holding a little bag. The Nif looked back up at him, frowning questioningly, but Cor only stared down at the bag with a gaze that was both embarrassed and insecure. His hands fidgeted a little with the bag and he hummed hesitatingly again, before sighing as if saying ‘Whatever’.
“Have this” he offered the bag to him. Loqi frowned at it as if wary. “It’s…not much. But it may be of use in…the rare cases that you’ll need a little extra. For…food or…a hotel or…anything…”

Loqi gazed back up at him, this time moving up only the eyes. Cor looked embarrassed not in a funny way, but rather with strong insecurity, like he feared humiliation rather than rejection. Loqi put the gaze back on the little bag, and slowly brought a hand up. With pauses in between, he managed to get his hand on top of the bag, and he stopped there. He hesitated. It was like the time Cor cleaned his face from the sweat, that night he had that nightmare; realizing he was the closest, physically speaking, than he had ever been to the Nif, without it meaning any harm. Perhaps, Loqi was experiencing it now; realizing that this was his self-proclaimed nemesis, his rival in everything, and the man he had tried and would continue try to kill in the battlefield, and finding it strange to be accepting something from his hands.

In the end, Loqi took the bag, and Cor removed his hand, their fingers or palms never brushing. Cor kept a sigh in his chest, as if glad the tension was over. Loqi decided to not look into the bag, and, after a bit more of hesitation, he put it in an interior pocket of his own jacket.
“Fine” Loqi said. “One…” he cleared his throat. “One day, I’ll…pay you back, Leonis. For…everything” he tried to make eye contact, but his frown seemed unsure. “The money, the clothes, the medicines, and everything else.”
“It’s not necessary” Cor hurried, shaking the head in tiny, rushed movements. “It’s okay.”
“I won’t pay you back for gratitude, you, idiot” Loqi said a little louder than before, and paused when he realized it was not the place to freak out on the Lucian. He sighed through the nose as if to calm down before continuing. “I’ll pay you back for my honor code, and so I owe you nothing.”

Because not owing anything to him was erasing Cor as part of his life, be it negative or positive; erased any and all responsibility he had towards him. Yes, Cor understood the message, and he agreed with it. He decided to not fight anything with the Nif, so he nodded and sighed.
“Well” Cor said, “let’s go.”

Both headed for the people lined up to undergo safety inspection before boarding, and stood at the back of the line. Once more, they were quiet as the line advanced slowly step by step.
Halfway to it being his turn, Loqi took in a breath as if he had meant to say it much earlier but only now found how to.
“I think…” he started, “I won’t get lost from here” he gave Cor a sarcastic smile.
“Yes” Cor whispered, catching it. He put the suitcase on the floor and pulled the handle up, and offered it to the Nif. Loqi took the handle without a word, and Cor, a little awkwardly as he thought or had (too innocently) expected for Loqi to say more, moved away of the line. He stepped back from it, turned around, and got away a proper distance, but he still stopped and turned around, and kept an eye on the Nif.

Loqi looked at him, too. Cor didn’t hide. He didn’t mind that Loqi knew he was staring, and Loqi didn’t seem to mind either. Once more, they said nothing, and Loqi stared away as if pretending the older man didn’t exist or he didn’t care he was looking.
The line kept moving, person by person. It was slow, but steady, and with each person that boarded the bus, the closer Loqi was to the officers.
Cor watched, with the heart beating a little nervous. This was nothing personal to him, but it was still a big event, and one he had not been prepared for. He hated those events; that even if harmless, or nothing he particularly cared about, only for the fact of happening unexpectedly and with no warning made him feel anxious. He didn’t like spontaneity. It felt irreversible, inevitable.

He didn’t take the eyes off Loqi as the young Nif continued on the line. Three people, and then it would be his turn. Two. For a moment, Cor thought Loqi had hesitated when he advanced, and he had turned slightly, stopped, and roughly focused in the file again. Loqi shoved the handle down, preparing for the moment he would need to put it on the band. One person.
While they were inspecting the person right in front of him on the line, Cor saw Loqi moving the head back and stay there for a moment, before looking at his suitcase.
And he roughly pulled the handle back up, grabbed it, and got out of the line; he turned in Cor’s direction, and started storming his way towards him.

The way he looked so raging in wrath that he looked like he would combust at any given moment and the clear way he so angrily stormed his way towards Cor made the latter’s heart skip a beat, before racing like mad in his chest. For a moment, Cor panicked; what had happened? Why had Loqi gotten out of the line? Did Cor forget something? Did he say or do something wrong to upset him? Was Loqi going to not waste the chance and finally try to kill him right there instead of waiting for the battlefield?

Cor stood frozen in his spot, heart racing mad, and body tickling a little in nerves. He had taken his hands out of his pockets, but they were frozen too, unsure of whether they had to be prepared in case he had to summon his katana, or if he was just exaggerating.

Soon enough, Loqi stopped in front of him, let go of the suitcase, and a bit too harshly crossed the arms in a defensive pose. Despite the abysmal height difference, Loqi stood with such determination and the courage of a blaze, he looked almost imposing. Cor, secretly more marveled than intimidated, stared eye widened at him, waiting. It still took a while, as apparently Loqi was struggling a little with either how to say it, or to just…say it.
“Fine. You win. I’m going to say it” Loqi said firmly, frowning up at the Lucian, not giving Cor time to ask what he meant before he was already sighing and started listing. “You…did…an amazing job, fine” Cor widened the eyes a little more. Loqi’s frown deepened. “You…took all the troubles to make sure I’d recover. In the first place you…saved me from under the debris, even when you knew who I was” Loqi stared away for a moment, frown softening. “You made sure I had medical attention, and you went further that as to take care of me personally. And not just…about my leg. You also…”

Loqi stopped there and didn’t finish listing. Cor waited, but the Nif didn’t say anything about his panic attack from the nightmare, or any of his depressive episodes. Cor knew that he didn’t need to say that, but a little part of him really ached to hear him acknowledge it.
In the end, Loqi’s frown only trembled, and when his cheeks lit up with embarrassment, the Nif snapped the head in another direction and frowned deeply again.
“What I mean is, you did a lot to help me, when you didn’t need or have or even wanted to” he continued. “You did more than anyone else would have done. More than I…maybe deserved, at least from a Lucian. Especially from you.”

Cor was a little startled about that last bit of his words, and wanted to question it. He had no personal grudges against Loqi, or a reason to not aid him. But he didn’t interrupt him; what was happening was too…fantastic to be real. Cor wasn’t sure if he liked this or if it was unsettling; never in his wildest expectations had he thought Loqi would really acknowledge this, or say…what he thought he was about to say.

Loqi sighed and looked at him again after a small pause.
“And for that, you have my…gratitude” he said the last word as if it was new to him, strange, and he did not quite grasp the sensation of it in his mouth. He frowned at nowhere for a moment as if processing the meaning of it, and quickly licked his lips before making eye contact again. “I mean…this changes nothing between us. Nothing” he remarked. “I’m going to put my armor back on, and go back to the battlefield, and do my job as I’ve always done it. And if I find you, I won’t think twice” he stated firm and sure like only he knew how to sound and be. “As I told you at the beginning of all this mess, I won’t hesitate about crossing my sword through your heart just because you gave me a roof and food for a few months.”

Cor was paralyzed in his spot, not sure he could understand this tornado of information. Still a little eye widened, he nodded. He really understood, and had never expected for the Nif to have changed his opinion, so this was no surprise. Still, it was a little startling.
A moment later, Loqi’s frown hesitated, and softened.
“…but…” he said very lowly, and that word alone, it made Cor’s heart skip another beat in nerves. “…I may spare your life. Once” there was a pause that, despite small, felt meaningful. Loqi tilted the head lightly to a side and blinked slowly. “…twice” his voice was soft and calm, so unlike his usual self. “But that’s as far as I’m going to go to pay for my gratitu-my- mercy! I meant my mercy, I didn’t…” he paused, sighed, and shook the head as if understanding there was no way to hide it anymore. “…for my gratitude.”

They were quiet again. The speakers called for whatever passengers had yet to board, and while both heard, they did but keep looking at each other, waiting until the noise disappeared. After that pause of hesitating, Loqi took in a breath as if to speak, stayed frozen, and tried again.
“…I’m…just going to say it once” Loqi said, looking to another side, and moving a hand up to pass a lock of his hair behind his ear. He cleared his throat, tried and failed, and stayed quiet. He looked up at Cor after tilting the head to move his fringe away of his face again, as if it was his nervous tic. He crossed the arms and, realizing he was struggling too much, he closed the eyes and stopped breathing for a moment, only to release the breath as slowly as he could.

His arms relaxed a little, and he opened the eyes again, at the time he looked up at Cor again. Loqi took in a breath, and his eyes were sincere when he said it.
“…thank you.”

Cor’s heart did a funny thing at the words, and he couldn’t help but open the mouth a bit and take in a shaky breath of surprise, though subtle. He blinked in confusion and stared at Loqi as if not sure this had just happened, or as if the Nif had just told him the secrets of the universe; difficult to understand and so…incredible. Something that he had assumed impossible to ever hear, and yet, he stood there, only seconds from having heard it. For the first seconds, he could but stay paralyzed and entirely blank, unable to process what just happened. Then, he wanted to ask Loqi to repeat it, not to mock him or to make him say it on purpose, but because Cor had a moment of huge shock in which he was sure that it couldn’t have happened, and he needed to make sure that he heard right. But he was aware that this took Loqi far, way too much effort, the most than he had had to give in months, and that it wasn’t easy to him. He didn’t want to cause a misunderstanding and make Loqi think he was mocking him. One ‘thank you’ from Loqi was far, far, far more than Cor ever expected to have, and he was not going to question it.

Still, it was…so difficult to believe. Those words…Loqi didn’t seem like the type to be grateful. For nothing, to no one, not ever. And Cor was very aware of how much Loqi hated him, how much he despised him. It would have never, not in any universe or life, crossed Cor’s head that the Nif would do it. And there he was, standing right in front of him, with a forced slight frown, but the eyes sincere.
A bolt traveled through Cor’s nerves, giving him some sort of sensation of Goosebumps, but, instead of nerves, all that he felt was a radiant pride, and excitement, and a sudden strong but brief sensation of appreciation for the blond. He had to remind to himself to not confuse the joy from having his effort being acknowledged and thanked for with personal relationships, but that didn’t take away the joy that he felt.

Still, he knew that he was taking too long just staring in awe, and that Loqi could be upset if he didn’t reply soon, so he decided to keep all the pride he was feeling for later, and smiled.
His instinct was to bring a hand up and offer it for the Nif to take and shake it. He didn’t really think about it; it felt like the natural thing to do, not to say a wish of his own. Loqi, however, gave him a weird look, and then looked at the hand he was offering, as if derogating the offer and finding it either offensive or confusing.
“Oh” only then it occurred to Cor, and he put his hand away. “I’m- sorry. I’m sorry” the Lucian apologized, and scratched next to his ear in a nervous gesture, eyes going down. “I…didn’t mean to do that. It was sort of a reflex, I’m sorry, you…don’t need…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, or was given a moment to do so when Loqi uncrossed the arms, waited a second, and sighed. A second later, while Cor stared at the floor nervous and embarrassed, Loqi himself offered him his hand instead. Cor stared at the offer with slightly wide eyes, not believing it, and then up to the Nif’s eyes. Even though they had that characteristic sad gleam in themselves, they looked sincere, and with no hint of his usual wrath and anger. It made the blue of his eyes look…so full of humanity, and life.
“I’m sorry” Loqi said softly. “I didn’t mean to make it seem like I didn’t want-…it just…” he closed the eyes and sighed shortly. “It’s…fine.”

Cor continued staring at him still a bit too amazed by what was happening to be able to comprehend immediately. He noticed the slightly embarrassed look Loqi was giving him, as if he was not too confident on this, but still somehow sincere, and embarrassed by that fact. The way he offered the hand and looked up at him made him seem a little awkward, like he was not used to this sort of stuff either.
Once more, despite the shock, Cor forced himself out of it as fast as he could, fearing to insult Loqi if he stared for too long. He moved his hand up and, hesitating only one second, he soon took Loqi’s, and the Nif grabbed him back.

The grip of their hands stayed still in between them. They didn’t move or shook them, and they stayed there for a long while, staring at the connection of their hands.
It was…the first explicit gesture of…peace they shared willingly. Despite the three and almost half months together, it was constant arguments and fights, and in the few but strong intimate moments they had shared across that time, it was all out of accidents. Loqi shooting out of bed due to a nightmare, or his depression forcing him to Cor’s door.
But this…a conscious offer of a handshake, and the conscious decision of accepting it…it was the first real gesture of peace they shared. Alliance? Maybe not. But peace, even if momentary, was far beyond what Cor ever imagined the Nif would be willing to give him.

Cor looked at their hands and appreciated the sensation. He liked the way Loqi grasped his hand in his own; despite it being so much smaller and much more fragile in appearance, Loqi’s hold was firm, confident, strong. A bit more and it would almost seem authoritarian. The kid had no hesitation, he didn’t think himself inferior, and he knew himself much more than only capable enough.
Cor smiled. He liked that. No wonder Loqi was a general despite his young age and small size; what he lacked physically he made up exponentially in fierceness, confidence, and leadership. It took Cor at least a decade more than he calculated Loqi to have to be anywhere near what Loqi already was.
What an admirable man.

For a moment, he wondered what his skin would feel like. Loqi seemed to have the same mania than Ignis when it came to wearing gloves whatever the weather, perhaps a reflex of practicality. So, gloves on, despite the handshake, Cor couldn’t feel his skin.
After a while, he looked up at Loqi as if to try and see if he too was thinking about anything or if he was just waiting for Cor to be done. Thankfully, Loqi was not giving him any strange looks; he was staring at the grasp of their hands, with a hesitating frown, almost as if he couldn’t understand what was happening. Cor assumed that Loqi maybe was not enjoying of it, and it was taking him effort to understand why and how he had just shaken hands with the man he was obsessed with trying to kill.

A moment later, at the same time, they let go of each other’s hand. They stood in front of each other without saying anything, sharing a glance that neither knew how to read.
The speakers called a third and last time for the passengers. It felt as if though in the busy bus station, it was only the two of them, and the speaker was directed specifically to them, calling them out, complaining about how they shouldn’t be doing this and how Loqi should already be on that bus. It weighed a little on them.

“…well” Loqi said in an exhale. He gave Cor a forced smile and the lift of his eyebrows. “Can’t miss that bus.”
“Of course” Cor murmured. Loqi gave him another forced smile, and reached for the suitcase’s handle. Cor wanted to thank him for saying thanks, to make Loqi understand it was fine to do that, but he also knew that the Nif would probably hate him for his ‘sentimentalism’, so he said nothing. Loqi, once with the suitcase in hand, looked back up at him and sighed shortly, staying quiet again as if unsure of what to say.
“Farewell, Leonis.”
“Good luck, Loqi” Cor wished with a slow nod, and said no more. Loqi stayed in his place for a couple seconds more, before pressing the lips in a line, and whispering ‘Yes’.

A bit awkwardly, he started giving a few steps backwards, slowly. He gave Cor a last glance, which Cor reciprocated. And so, with that, Loqi turned around, and headed again for the security officers.

He didn’t look back, not once. Didn’t hesitate, either. Cor still watched his every step and move; he saw Loqi put his stuff on the band, and be checked by the cop, take his stuff, and head for the doors. The whole huge wall was all windows, so Cor could see the bus from there, and hence, also Loqi. So he also watched as the Nif lent his stuff to someone from staff, and then calmly boarded the bus. Cor hoped Loqi wouldn’t overuse his leg in recovery.
He still waited a few more minutes. He stayed at the waiting room, watched through the windows at the bus Loqi was in, until it shut the doors, lit up its sign, and started moving backwards.

Cor knew the windows of the bus were dark, so he wouldn’t be able to difference anyone on board. He wasn’t even sure if Loqi had a seat next to a window. Still, he watched the windows one by one when the bus offered him its side view.
Some seconds later, the bus started moving forwards, and left the parking lot.
And Cor stood in the middle of the waiting room, alone, with no more to watch or do.
Despite that, he still stayed for a bit more. For whatever reason he couldn’t understand, he stood there. The people walked and rushed past and around him.

After a while in the spot, he took in a deep breath through the nose, and released it as slowly.
Good riddance, he told himself. And yet, it didn’t feel like a victory as he thought it would be.

Cor turned around, and headed for the exit, calmly.

Once in his car, he texted his son, turned the engine on, and got on the way. He took an avenue that he was aware wasn’t the shortest or fastest one to get home, but he kept going. He turned a couple times, stopped at red lights, and kept going calmly, a bit slower than he normally drove. The sky got cloudy, noticeable despite it already being dark. Some minutes later, he took a turn to get into an avenue that not only wasn’t headed to his home, but went the opposite way.
Some minute into that avenue, he turned to take an exit to not take the speedway with the sign ‘Insomnia Exit’.

He drove for a long while again, and, as he had taken the opposite way to the city’s exit, he was headed home some way now.
Still, he took his time. The first shy drops of rain started staining his windshield.
He drove as if returning to the bus station, as if he already knew what he was meant to do and where to be.

Minutes later, the rain had gotten noticeably stronger; nothing too scary or dangerous. Cor was sure he could walk through it just fine was he on his feet, but it was still enough to make people in the streets run to take cover, clearing the sidewalks and disappearing into the buildings.

A while later, Cor finally found what he always knew he was looking for, despite trying to pretend that he didn’t know that he knew.

Cor stared as if to make sure, despite how obvious it was. Calmly, as if he had expected it and didn’t surprise or startle him the slightest, he focused in the road again, only to find the nearest spot to stop at. He parked his car, turned the engine off, and tried to look for something to cover himself with from the rain, but found nothing. Not too bothered by that fact, Cor opened the door, crossed the street, and started heading for the corner he had left some meters behind.

The bus stop was nearly empty, as was the street, and the entire block, and everywhere in sight. People had rushed to their homes, and that really had made it even easier. It was easy enough to spot a blond mane in the Insomnia streets, and with no one else in sight, it was almost outstanding, like the main focus in a painting.
Cor approached the bus stop calmly, quietly. He reached it and stood under the roof, but didn’t sit down. He put his hands in his pockets, and stared gently and softly at the only person sitting there.
It was pretty clear Loqi was aware of his presence. If he had thought it was anyone else, he would have at least turned to look to see what they wanted, by reflex. The fact that he said nothing and didn’t look his way only confirmed that Loqi wasn’t only aware about someone being there, but also about who it was.

Loqi sat at the bus stop, the suitcase occupying one of his sides. He was as Cor had left him some time ago, in his jacket, with his gloves, and hair dry.
When it became clear that Loqi was not going to say anything, Cor took his hands out of his pockets, and very calmly and gently sat down at Loqi’s side, the unoccupied one. And then said nothing. He asked nothing. He didn’t pressure or question him. He only…sat there, in silence, staring at the tiny park at the other side of the street.

The rain intensified a little. It was almost a poetic, if sad sight; the empty streets, dark, and the rain falling all over it.
“…I don’t think another bus will pass” Cor said softly after a long while. Loqi didn’t look his way, and at first spent such a long while in silence that the Lucian thought he was not going to answer.
“…yeah” Loqi whispered. Cor was patient and gave him a while, before realizing it was him who had to look for a way to get to what both knew inevitable.
“I think you can catch another one at the station” Cor offered, despite the air that made it clear both knew what was happening. “I can take you there if you want.”
“No, it’s…fine” Loqi said in an exhale, still not turning his way. “I, eh…” he turned even more to the opposite side. Cor heard him sniffle. “…it’s not…necessary.”

Cor was quiet at first, watching what he could see of his head. As a reply, he gave a low ‘Hm’. Even though he couldn’t see Loqi’s face, he saw him move a hand up and apparently clean his nose, as he sniffled again. Cor looked away from him to focus in the sight of the street and the opposite block, once more remaining in silence.

For a very long while, everything that there was, was the two of them sat next to each other in silent company, under the roof of the little bus stop, while it rained. The inevitable was there, ready to be spoken. But Cor didn’t give the first step. He wanted to give time to Loqi, and he didn’t mind the long wait. He wanted to wait however much Loqi needed to be ready. So he didn’t insist, or asked him directly. Both knew everything, so it was only a matter of waiting for Loqi to arm himself with the courage to say it.

After who knows how long in the quiet, Loqi took in a slightly shaky breath, unsure.
“…why did you take so much effort for me, Leonis?” Loqi asked quietly, head lowering, and eyes focused in his lap. His fingers curled until his hands were made weak fists resting on his thighs. “I don’t understand” he shook the head. Cor was quiet, watching him attentively. After a pause, Loqi lifted the head again and turned to look at him. His eyes were dry, but they still gleamed with a much more explicit sadness than back in the station. Loqi clearly wasn’t caring about pretending to be fine; he knew, ever since the man sat next to him, that Cor knew. There was nothing to hide. So Loqi presented himself as his current state was, in all the vulnerability of his sadness. “You…gave far too much. Too much, impossibly too much.”

Cor didn’t reply. He gave Loqi the same patient look, understanding, but also waiting for more.
“Taking me from the ruins of my house had to have been enough” Loqi said, turning to look at the street. “But you went so much further than that, so much, to points I don’t understand” the Nif continued. “The care you took for me is…unbelievable…” he shook the head slowly. “The nights you spent awake, the patience, all the troubles you took…” he continued listing, before turning to look at Cor again. “I tested your limits on purpose, I very literally stepped on your face and spat on you so many times, and yet you…” he frowned at Cor with confusion rather than anger. “…yet, nothing stopped you. You kept going. Continued being kind, and understanding, and you kept doing everything, as humiliating as it could be, to keep me…alive, and well, and even comfortable.”

They stared at each other for a while, one with patience and calmness, and the other, still with that frown of utter confusion.
“…why?” Loqi whispered. “I’ve tried to murder you so many times. Shot missiles at you, punched you, I once stepped on you with a whole three ton mech” his frowned deepened slightly. “I hate you. I’ve been rude to you. I’ve sworn to kill you and not hesitate” Loqi continued listing, and then stayed quiet. He tried to look for any sign of hatred or disgust or grudge in Cor’s eyes or face, but all he found was the same patience as always. The Nif, once more, started shaking the head slowly. “…why did you do so much for me?”

Cor still was quiet for a while more, doing but give Loqi the same soft gaze as before. A moment later, he calmly turned to look at the street again, as if thinking about it, but not having troubles with it. Loqi stared at him, and saw Cor’s eyes properly for a first time. He didn’t have a very clear view of them, but he found a very beautiful icy pale blue in his irises. Despite everything he had said about him in the past, the way he looked at the close horizon and nowhere at all, thoughtful, Loqi thought he looked wise, and full of some sort of innocent curiosity.

Containing a sigh in his chest, Cor calmly replied.
“When we got to the ruins of your house and they told me who I was looking for, my son reminded me who you were” Cor started. “And I did remember you. But I didn’t remember you for any personal grudge or connection” he turned to look at the Nif. “I remembered you because you’d always left the same impact in me whenever we met. Because you seemed so young, so amazingly young…and yet, your eyes were full of a hatred I hadn’t seen in anyone else, not even the emperor himself.”

Loqi didn’t offer a reaction, neither good nor bad. He was attentive, and listened patiently. Cor turned a little, so his body faced Loqi a little more.
“I remembered you because your eyes were the most cruel I’d ever seen in all twenty nine years I’ve spent in the battlefield, among the crudest of soldiers. But it was you; the man I thought was still a teen, full of so much hatred, I thought you some form of reincarnation of Ifrit himself. It was…shocking” Cor continued, looking slightly away as if lost in thoughts. “…and whenever I thought about you, I would think of that impression I had of you. Your memory evocated…a heartless demon. The most sadistic torturer; a cruel villain. Someone with nothing in the chest but darkness and thirst of blood, some sort of horrible cursed devil.”

Once more, Cor looked up at him and made eye contact. Loqi stared at him with his sad blue stare that scanned his eyes too.
“…I thougth of you, and I thought of your eyes” Cor murmured, “because they were so heartless.”

They were quiet for a bit, looking at each other to the eyes. The silence lingered for so long, Loqi thought that was all. Confused, his eyebrows twitched a little, questioningly. Cor opened the mouth a little, but stayed still and looked at him for a second more. He looked away as if only doing that could he go on.
“…and then I found you in the debris” Cor murmured. “And you were…”

Silence. A moment into the tension, Cor looked down and released a breath.
“…you were…still hugged to your siblings…”
Loqi’s frown softened only a little, but he lowered the eyes and blinked as if having felt an unexpected pinch inside. The silence went on for a while more, as if both were processing their feelings. Loqi stared back up at Cor when the older man sighed softly.
“…that view, Loqi, that sight, I can’t get it out of my head” he admitted as if it weighed on his heart, shaking the head. “Sometimes I dream of it, and I think about it almost every day. You, so injured I was sure there was no way you could have survived, hugged to them. And them, unharmed, untouched, and so…painfully peaceful…”

Loqi’s eyes drowned in tears instantly, and, realizing and hating that, he looked away and used a hand to clean them before dropping any tears. He sniffled quietly and tried to pretend nothing had happened. Cor seemed lost in his head for a while.
“…and it sort of destroyed me” Cor whispered. “I didn’t need anyone to tell me. It was all clear; that sight alone told the entire story of a young man, a tragic victim of this stupid war, whose priority, above everything else, his priority above his own life, was the people he loved” Cor said. “A man still so young who, even in death, was still loving and protecting his siblings. A man still so young who didn’t hesitate and willingly gave his life for the children he loved more than he loved life itself; children he loved more than he feared death.”

Loqi sucked his lower lip into his mouth to hardly bite down on it, forcing himself to stay calm. His fists were shaking, and his eyes were so full of tears, he could barely see a thing. Cor took a moment as well, dealing with a giant knot in his throat that threatened with not letting him continue.
“…and then I understood” Cor murmured. “I understood that I was wrong.”

A moment later, while Loqi won the fight against the tears, Cor looked at him again. Loqi stared back despite the gleaming eyes. Cor stared at him attentively, almost intimately. He looked like he would reach to hug him at any second.
“I looked at you and I couldn’t see the cruel, heartless demon I thought you were, but a fallen hero, who tried to his last breath, who loved wholeheartedly” he said softly, lowly, as if in a secret for only the two of them. “I still do.”

Said that, Cor got a little closer, until their knees could touch, not taking the eyes off the Nif.
“To you, nothing about me changed. But that event changed everything about you to me” Cor explained. “I understood you weren’t what I thought you were. I understood your chest isn’t empty” he waited a little. “I understood you have the capacity to love. And anyone that can love is worth living” his voice lowered even more, audible only for Loqi to hear. “Partly, I felt responsible. I found you, I had to make sure you lived. And despite how rude you were the whole time, I kept going because now I knew what you did. I knew about your heroic act. I knew you would suffer when you knew it didn’t go as expected. And I didn’t want you to” he lowered the head and stayed thoughtful for a moment. “And I knew you had a heart. One that is capable of loving selflessly and do the impossible for love” he made eye contact with Loqi again, and his voice turned to a whisper. “One that I think is worth saving.”

There was no noise other than that of the rain. They were silent, gazing at each other as if it was both the first and last time old time companions saw each other. Loqi’s eyes and their immense, unfixable sadness looked at his eyes and scanned them, moving slightly as they did, but never breaking the contact. Cor remained as calm as before, firm in what he was saying, with that characteristic patience that, now, Loqi could understand.

A moment later, Loqi looked away back to the street, nodding, as if saying he understood. Despite Cor’s sincerity and words, the Nif didn’t smile. The frown on his face was gone, and it had been replaced by some sadness that took over at some moment neither of them noticed. Loqi stared at nowhere at all. His eyes were lost in thoughtfulness, and he almost looked beautiful in some way when he was like that; calm, thoughtful. Even the air of melancholy, as strong as it was, seemed pretty in its own tragic way.
Cor let him be, looking away to not pressure him. He joined Loqi in the silence, listening to the rain and waiting for the younger man to find the courage. ‘It’s okay’, he almost seemed to say in his silence. ‘Take your time. I know it’s tough’.

They shared the silence like they did when Cor arrived, but stronger; in an aura that covered them in the certainty that both knew very well what was happening and what was to come. It was much heavier this time, like a moment near a climax; scary, but necessary to get the push to do it. Cor’s patience and presence seemed to carry that air with him. It was a little scary, but it also felt like some sort of embrace that tried to reassure Loqi; ‘it’s okay, you can say it now’.
So, after the months he spent in denial of one last thing he had yet not accepted, he opened the mouth and let go of the only one thing he had left of his identity.

“…I don’t want to go back.”

Loqi’s voice was a broken murmur. They spent more tense moments in silence, while the Nif trembled not in coldness, but in the effort this was demanding from him.
He lowered the head lightly at the time his eyes drowned in tears, and his face transformed into a frown of great sadness.
“…they lied. Deceived us” Loqi frowned a little, but his eyes stared at the ground in a mix of confusion and pain. “…the empire…betrayed their people…”

Cor remained quiet. He nodded softly, despite knowing Loqi was not looking his way. He turned softly to look at him, and found the Nif biting his lip, fists so tight they were shaking, and his tears right at the edge of his eyelashes. Loqi took in a shaky breath before he could continue.
“…I don’t want to work for a government that does that. I don’t want to be part of them” he finally admitted. “I don’t want to go back to Niflheim” and, with that, he finally looked up and turned in the Lucian’s way. Cor looked at him calmly and warmly, as if to offer him the last bit of trust and courage he needed. With that, Loqi dropped the first tear, and said it in a whisper. “…they killed my family.”

And it was finally let out.
Cor reached up with a hand and gently laid it on Loqi’s shoulder. The Nif cursed under his breath and his hands flew to his eyes, angered at his tears. Cor slid his hand down a little, so he could grab Loqi’s arm and, that way, he was half-hugging him.
As if motivated by that, and knowing he had nothing left of the world he used to have, Loqi reached closer, and he rested his head on Cor’s shoulder. He started sobbing.

Cor was quiet and let him go on as he needed. It was not as long or crude as the night Loqi had finally accepted his siblings’ deaths; this time, he cried more quietly, more contained, but each tear was still a painful load. To have his nationalism, his most characteristic trait, murdered by the nation itself…it had to be difficult. Cor couldn’t relate to the feeling. He had lost family and home like Loqi, but never his identity. Lamentably, Loqi had built his whole self on top of a footing made of his overdeveloped nationalism. Taking that away was throwing everything that composed his identity down. It was a surprise he was not crying his lungs out.

They spent some minutes at the bus stop, half-hugged. Cor caressed his arm and made sure to hold him tight and firm enough. Loqi sobbed and sniffled, moderated, but still lost in his own feelings. At first, he had kept the face buried in his hands, as if to stop the tears. When he noticed he would go on, he let go of his face and, almost by instinct, and as they were close to the Lucian, his hands ended up holding to Cor’s jacket, as if asking him to not let go. The way he held to him was a little insecure, like his hands knew Cor was unexplored territory, but having nothing else.
‘Don’t let go’, the way his hands held to him seemed to say. ‘I don’t feel the ground and I’m scared of falling.’

So Cor kept him close for as long as he needed. He tried to turn a little more in his direction, but he couldn’t hug him properly, sat as they were. Still, he gently put his other hand on Loqi’s arm, letting him know he was there, and not going to let this loss make him fall. The Nif trembled a little in his arms as he quietly sobbed into his shoulder.
Cor kept caressing his back or arm at times, and sighed into Loqi’s hair.

Loqi continued crying and, as much as he tried to force himself to stop, he kept going. Calm and conscious, but still unable to stop. He spent a long while hating himself; hating that he couldn’t stop crying, hating how weak he felt; he hated that he had been so blind to the truth, and hated how long it took him to stop justifying the empire, hated how stupid he had been; he hated the way his hands held to Cor’s jacket and hated how much he felt he needed it, he hated the way he stayed hidden into Cor’s shoulder. He hated that, when everything that made his world had fallen around him, the only one thing standing in the new one he was forced to rebuild was Cor.
He hated that it felt so safe. He hated that Cor felt so warm, so gentle, and safe like no bunker in the world could match. He hated he liked it.

The rain didn’t ease even when Loqi’s sobbing did. Long minutes that felt like hours later, Loqi’s breath started calming down, and his sobbing grew quieter. Despite the sound of his crying easing down, neither of them moved away. Cor let him rest. Sure it had not been a heart-piercing, crude breakdown, but he knew that it could still be draining. Loqi did nothing to move away, as if really needing the rest, and not even realizing it, only staying in his place, quiet, sniffling.

Despite knowing the best for Loqi now was to rest, Cor knew they couldn’t just stay there all night. After making sure Loqi had rested and recovered at least enough, Cor’s hug on him tightened a little for a moment, and he pressed the face a little into Loqi’s hair, closing the eyes.
“Let’s go home” he whispered.
Loqi didn’t react at first. His eyes moved a little, but still remained lost in his thoughts, as they cried silently and almost without him noticing.
…home…?

Cor broke slightly away and squeezed his arm very gently, as if asking him if he was fine. A few seconds later, Loqi broke apart from their hug, and he nodded, keeping the head low. He used a hand to clean his nose as he sniffled, and the other to rub one of his eyes. After a while in which Cor waited for him patiently, Loqi nodded. Cor stood up first and offered a hand, which Loqi accepted, at least as he stood up and measured how to walk on his legs that felt like a baby deer’s just learning to walk.

After steadying himself on his feet, Loqi let go of the support Cor had granted him, nodded when Cor asked him if he was fine, and sniffled again. Cor took off his jacket, and before Loqi could reject it, the Marshal used it to cover both their heads instead of only him.
“Let’s go” he whispered, and so, walking together under the protection of Cor’s jacket, they headed for the car.

Once in it, they headed to their apartment, going back home.

Chapter Text

That Loqi decided to stay meant keeping up with his annoying rude self, but it was still…a relief.

Cor had grown some sort of…bond towards him. One-sided, and not too intimate, but still a bond. He felt responsible for him, and he really wanted Loqi to heal and be alright. When he was leaving, Cor tried to lie to himself and pretend he didn’t care, but the truth was that he wouldn’t be relaxed unless the Nif was either under his care directly, or somewhere nearby.

He knew he couldn’t make Loqi codependent, and that wasn’t his goal…but he felt that, as strict as they were in Niflheim, and as strict as Loqi was on himself, if he went back, he would only worsen. Perhaps a little selfishly, but Cor felt that he was the most appropriate person to look after the Nif. Angry, strict, cruel, Loqi needed to be attacked with all the gentleness and softness only Cor could have the patience for, and he doubted there was someone else in all Eos that could stand him. He was irritating and made mean comments, but Cor could stand that. He was somewhat glad that Loqi had decided to stay.

Or rather, that he decided to not leave. It was not the same.
That poor man. With nowhere to go, hating the only place he could be at, no family. No identity, nothing. Loqi had held so tightly to his loyalty to the empire, that letting go of it had been letting go of everything. After the previous night, Cor was sure that Loqi would stay in bed all day.

Which made it more surprising when, while he was at the kitchen, he heard Loqi’s door open, and then quiet shoeless steps.

That new morning, Cor was preparing breakfast to himself, thinking Loqi would sleep until very late. They arrived at a decent hour at the apartment the previous night, but he thought…what with the impact it must have been for the Nif…
But the steps were there, heading his way. Cor tensed and suddenly felt very insecure for the stupidest reason; Loqi had never seen him cooking. A senseless reason to be alarmed, but Cor couldn’t help the sudden nerves.

A moment later, he turned to find Loqi, still in his slightly oversized pajamas, coming from the hallway, and absentmindedly limping his way to the kitchen. He didn’t turn to say hello or anything, just kept heading his way to the bar. Cor looked at him, and then focused again in the pan, still a little nervous from not expecting him this early.

Like not caring or noticing, Loqi climbed onto the stool chair and sat on it. He rested his arms on the bar, his cheek on a hand, and sighed. If Cor ignored context, Loqi looked more like a teenager who had just gone through a first break-up more than someone who just lost everything and everyone. Cor stared at him, frozen, expecting anything, but Loqi said nothing.
“…good morning” Cor tried.
“Eh” Loqi replied vaguely, looking at nowhere on the bar. Cor still looked at him for a moment, but all that the Nif did was sigh and drop the head onto his crossed arms. Cor turned his attention again to the food. He put the eggs and bacon out, and had to take out a little more for a second dish. Loqi didn’t move from his spot, just stayed thrown in his spot.

That was, until some moments later, while Cor cooked. Loqi, with another breath, pulled his head up and rested it heavily onto his hand again. He rubbed his eyes, and only then he looked at Cor. Even though he had already seen him, he had not processed entirely what was happening until now that he was paying proper attention. Loqi scanned him from head to toe, even though Cor was giving him his back. For one, he hadn’t seen the Marshal in his sleeping clothes, a tank top and sweatpants. It was curious. Loqi had always seen him just in uniform, despite the months spent together. Or maybe he just had not paid attention.

Loqi frowned a little, and then started looking around as if trying to find someone or something. He looked at every possible corner from his spot, easy task in an apartment so small. After finding nothing, he looked at the Lucian again.
“…where are the servants?”
“Excuse me?”
Cor turned to look at him with a frown of confusion. He thought he either didn’t hear well or Loqi was just hallucinating, or talking and walking asleep, but the Nif looked very much conscious, giving him that condescending and still curious look.
“The servants” he stated simply. “Why are you cooking?”
“Serv-? I don’t have servants” Cor said still with that frown, turning to focus in the pan again.
“What about that dork that would wander around in the mornings?”
“That was a nurse I hired for the mornings I wouldn’t be around” Cor explained. “You know, because of your leg…”

There was a large pause. Cor didn’t want to turn around and find whatever face Loqi had to be making.
“…so…you are…telling me…” Loqi started saying, very, very slowly. “…that you…cook…by yourself?”
“What’s wrong about that?” Cor turned to look at him again, with a frown of annoyance. To have just lost his entire world, the Nif sure woke up in his overconfident, rude self. Loqi gave him slight wide eyes for a second, and shrugged.
“Nothing, nothing” he looked away. His fingers started drumming on the counter. Cor sighed and focused in the food again. Now that he wasn’t looking, Loqi continued. “…sort of a denigrating task, that’s all.”
“It’s basic survival” Cor responded. “You’ll tell me you don’t know how to cook? How do you plan to survive out there if you don’t know how to cook?”

Cor turned to look at him as he was speaking, and now waited for a proper answer. Loqi stared at him attentively, but still with that hint of sass in the eyes.
“I’ve always had someone to do it for me” he gave Cor a small but smug smile. Cor looked at him for a second, thinking him pretentious, before he caught the whole idea; him, holding a pan with eggs and bacon just cooked…for Loqi. ’Oh, you, little shit’, Cor told him through a glare, at which Loqi just raised an eyebrow and widened his smile. The Lucian shook the head and decided to go back to his cooking. He made a note to ask Ignis if these sudden bursts of irritability and condescending manners were part of the whole depression issue or if Loqi was just this stupid by nature.

Cor turned the stove off and served the second dish. By the time he served Loqi his food, the Nif had already dropped the head, this time resting its side on his arm. Still, Cor served him his dish. Loqi stared at it, then pushed it away. Cor pushed it back to him. Loqi looked at him without raising the head, and pushed the dish again, only to have it come back.
“I’m not hungry” he muttered as a final statement. Cor raised the eyebrows, and Loqi could do but sigh, pull the head up and rest it again on his hand, and take the fork Cor gave him. He, however, only started poking the food.

Cor thought it awkward, as he hadn’t had breakfast with the Nif before. He always ate before or after he brought Loqi his dish, and honestly, while this had to be good, it felt…awkward. He put his dish on the counter, too, a little separate from Loqi, pulled a stool nearby, sat on it, and started eating.
They remained silent for a while. Whatever Loqi was thinking about, it led him to start looking around the apartment again. Cor subtly gazed his way, try to see what the Nif was thinking, but all he found was those blue-grey eyes traveling all across what sight could catch.

“Say, Leonis” Loqi called when he made his cheek return to his hand. “Where’s Mini-you?”
“…mini-me?” Cor murmured, eyebrows furrowing. Loqi gave him a rude look like Cor was stupid, and only then Cor remembered the Nif’s hatred for repeated questions.
“You have a son, right?” he started looking around again. “It just now hit me that I haven’t seen him in all these months” he looked at Cor and raised an eyebrow. “Suspicious. Where is he? Don’t you live together?”
“Oh” Cor blinked, apparently taken off-guard. “He, uh…” Cor looked away. The reaction made Loqi furrow the eyebrows and stare at him, a little suspicious. Cor sighed as if to calm down, and focused in his breakfast as he spoke. “He’s studying university, so he asked if it was fine if he moved during the semester with a friend of his to a flat closer to the campus” there was a pause, and Loqi raised an eyebrow. “So no, we’re…not living together. Right now.”

Loqi gave a ‘Huh’ for answer and still stared at Cor, trying to see if that had been a lie. Still, his mind was rather cloudy, so he couldn’t and didn’t put much focus on it, returned the eyes to his breakfast, and his body went loose again.
“…pretty sad, that your own son didn’t want to live with you at eighteen-”
“It’s not… that he didn’t want to” Cor was about to snap at him, tell him off for wanting to start an argument. “It was easier for him that way. And he’s nineteen.”
“Big difference” Loqi muttered. Cor’s lip twitched and he contained the breath to not snap at the Nif. After the tension eased, Cor started eating again, slowly. Loqi continued poking his food and, after a long while in silence, the Nif sighed and let his head slip from his hand down to rest its side on his arm, though the other hand continued poking the food. “Look, I’m sorry.”

Cor subtly looked his way. Loqi didn’t turn. His gaze was, as it had been for most the morning so far, absentminded and sad. Cor felt a pinch inside, the sort that always seemed to nag him ‘how could you have been angry at him just a minute ago?’
“…I didn’t wake up in the best of moods, okay?” Loqi muttered. “Didn’t mean to argue.”
“Well, that’s new” Cor replied. “The not meaning to argue part, I mean. It’s pretty clear you rarely ever wake up in the best of moods.”
Loqi moved the head enough to get to look at the Lucian, raising the eyebrows.
“Now it’s you wanting to start a fight, Leonis, but I said I’m sorry. You should be grateful I said I’m sorry-”
“Grateful? It’s your responsibility to notice you’re being rude, not a gift-”
“-rarely ever say it and- see? You want to fight.”

Both stayed quiet looking at each other. Cor let out a breath he hadn’t noticed he had been containing, shook the head, and went back to eat, decided to ignore him. Loqi moved the head again to not keep the neck stretched, once more looking at the dish with a sad and lost gaze, poking his food.

It took a while, rather awkward, as the tension eased again. Once the previous anger was gone, Cor had another of his usual pinches of remorse that always followed whatever argument he had with the Nif, and he exhaled quietly.
“…how are you feeling?” he murmured. At first, Loqi replied only with an ‘Eh’, not taking the eyes off the bacon he poked.
“Lost my home. My siblings. The only thing I thought I could believe in…” Loqi raised his fork and swung it lazily, head rolling off his arm so his forehead met the counter. “I’m doing fantastic.”

He sounded sarcastic, but not rude. Cor’s eyebrows furrowed; he felt a little bad, but already expected it. Gods, the Nif still had such a long way to go. Perhaps it was just the beginning of his recovery. Finishing breaking down the ruins was the first step, and the fast one. Building a whole new life would be…different.
“Comprehensible. That you’re feeling that way” Cor said softly. Again, Loqi only hummed moodily in response. “It’s okay to ache.”
“Yeah, the thing is, I’m sick of it, Leonis” Loqi finally pulled the head up, frowning down at his dish. “I’m sick of crying and feeling like shit, it’s so…unpractical, and boring, and so- unnecessary” he hissed, angry, and went back to poking his food, harder this time. “I’ve accepted it, right? So why can’t I just get over it at once? I’ve accepted it, I should be over everything now, why am I not!?”

Cor blinked a little. Loqi had been so quiet, the sudden burst was a little startling.
“Well…it’s not…something that happens overnight” Cor started explaining calmly. “Accepting the things that happened is not the same than ‘getting over it’, you know. It takes…time.”
“How much?” Loqi demanded, as if they were talking about money and he was ready to spill all his fortune in it without a blink.
“It depends” Cor replied. “On how much and good you work on your mental health.”
“How do I do that?” Loqi continued demanding, and then, while rather softly, he hit the fist that held the fork against the counter. “I’m ready, what the fuck do I need to stop feeling like shit?”
“For starters” Cor pushed Loqi’s dish closer to him: “eat.”

Loqi gave him a grumpy frown, and his mouth started pouting the longer they held eye contact. Cor decided to stay firm and not soften, not now that Loqi seemed to finally want to do something, even if he didn’t like it. Loqi rolled the eyes and blew upwards to make a lock of his fringe move away, looked down at his food, and continued poking it.
“I don’t see how ‘eating’ does anything for my mood” he muttered.
“It’s not ‘your mood’, Loqi” Cor said. “It’s your mental health” Loqi gave him a look as if he didn’t like that term. “I’m not going to lie: it takes work, and a lot of effort. And I’m sorry about that. But you’ll have to do it if you want to stop feeling like that.”
“So I just eat? That’s that?”
“It’s much more complex and I’m no expert, but there are some clear basics” Cor put the hands on the counter, and listed: “You eat well, you shower, you go out, you sleep enough but not too much, you believe in and validate your emotions, and you exercise” Cor made a pause, in which Loqi only frowned at him questioningly. “Basically, do exactly the opposite of everything you’re doing right now.”

“Look at me now” Loqi said with his pompous irony he’d always use in the battlefield, but, for once, he wasn’t giving that smug smile. “Receiving orders from Cor the Immortal, Lucian Marshal and the man I always wanted dead at my feet, himself” Cor, not sure what to reply, suddenly felt bad, not quite for himself but for Loqi. He hadn’t…thought about that. Loqi, not only losing all his patriotism, but ending up under the care of the last person he would have ever, in a million lives, wanted anywhere close. The Nif dropped the head onto the counter again with a sigh of defeat. “I feel so humiliated.”

Cor wanted to apologize…but then again, it wasn’t his fault to have been the one to find Loqi. It had to feel like the worst joke for the Nif, an entire upside-down turn of events; loving the empire, ending up betrayed by it, hating Cor, ending up under his care. What sort of game were the Astrals playing?

While Cor dealt with guilt and tried to find a way to apologize for the things out of his control, Loqi lifted the head again with a long breath, put it again on his hand, and lazily and sadly retook the poking.
“It’s fine, though” he said lowly. “It shouldn’t really matter anymore. No more empire or siblings for me, no reason to fight the Lucians. No fighting the Lucians, then no need to…” Loqi paused and zoned out for a moment. It took a while, but then Loqi sighed subtly and went on. “…no need or reason to kill or…hate you.”

Cor almost dropped his fork, and blinked in surprise. He stared at Loqi, mouth slightly open, taken off-guard and not sure what to say or if this was happening. Loqi not killing him was logical enough already, but he hadn’t expected the Nif to say it himself.
“Got no more reasons to consider you a rival, Leonis” Loqi murmured as if mourning that fact. “I lost even that…”

There was almost no noise afterwards, other than Loqi’s fork quietly rubbing against the dish when he missed a poke. Cor stopped eating for a moment, a little touched from the comment, just not knowing what sort of sentiment he was catching. It was sort of…bittersweet. Loqi, admitting to let go of his legendary hatred towards Cor…
…wow.
But no time for shock; he had to reply.
“If…it’s worth something” Cor said after a while. He sounded hesitant, and rather awkward. Loqi moved the head up to look at him. “…I don’t think of you as a rival, either.”

Loqi stared. It was as if he was either expecting more, or for Cor to change what he said. It made the Lucian nervous. He was not very good at socializing, but he had never had this much troubles with someone after so long knowing them. Loqi made him really nervous; it felt like the Nif was going to snap out at anything if he wasn’t careful enough.
They held eye contact for a long while. It was…strangely intimate. Like the handshake at the bus station. Something…trivial that shouldn’t feel as intimate as it did.
It felt like something definitive. And good.

In the end, Loqi replied with a little hum, and looked back down at his breakfast. Cor subtly exhaled through the nose, glad that the tension was gone. Cor finished his breakfast in silence, and despite how slow he was, Loqi didn’t get to even try getting a bite. Cor wondered if it was prudent to remind him what he just told him a few minutes ago about how it started by eating, and if Loqi had already forgotten. Cor decided to wait a little longer. He took his dish and put it in the sink, returned to sit at his place, and stared for a bit.

It didn’t take long before Loqi sighed again.
“I can’t believe that to stop feeling like shit I actually have to do stuff” Loqi said as weak as before. “I thought it was just sleeping it away and I’d wake up with energy and done with the senseless drama.”
“Don’t tag it as drama. What you’re going through is real and heavy, and it’s okay to be in ruins” Cor told him. The Nif looked at him for a moment, attentive. Cor waited a little, thinking maybe he had done wrong. When he noticed it didn’t seem to be the case, he continued. “I get what you mean; that’s how it feels. Like sleeping a lot is the answer. You feel tired, no energy, no wish to do anything, so sleeping should be the answer. But, sadly, it’s not that simple. You’ve got a long way ahead if you want to ‘get over it’.”

Loqi offered no answer. After a while, he focused again in his food. Cor thought that he saw him try to actually stab a piece of bacon, but he gave up immediately. Cor thought it was a matter of motivating him through it until he ate, but before he could do it, the Nif stopped poking his food and stayed still, doing but look at nowhere. Loqi let out a sad sigh through the nose. Cor’s shoulders dropped slowly, and he silently wondered what was wrong.
“…it sounds like a lot of work and I don’t think it’s worth it…” Loqi whispered, gaze was lost in nowhere. “I push myself to work hard, I heal, and then…” his eyebrows furrowed. “…and then, what?”

Cor’s mouth opened a little, as if ready to give an answer. Yet, no words made it out. He moved the head a little, trying to find something in it. Loqi put the fork on the dish. He crossed the arms and rested the side of his head on them, letting out another quiet and profoundly sad sigh. The sad gleam of his eyes was particularly shiny and empty that day.
“…I’ve got no purpose.”

Cor felt a pinch inside. It…wasn’t right. Loqi was so young, barely just starting. As many achievements as he had gotten, twenty was the age one barely started learning how to properly live. Many felt it was late, but Cor, in his forties, knew best. And just starting, Loqi felt hopeless and like there was nothing left in his life. It wasn’t right.
“Hey…don’t be like that” Cor said softly. Still, Loqi didn’t look up. “You can find a new purpose as you work on healing” this time, Loqi did slightly look up at him, though not moving the head. “And even if not, you don’t need one” Cor stared at him firmly, making Loqi stay attentive. “Life is not…a trial. You don’t need a purpose to live.”
“So I can just breathe and…exist” Loqi stared away. “Like a plant.”

Cor looked at him, thinking. It wasn’t that he didn’t have an answer; it just felt so familiar, to hear and see Loqi act this way. If he could only…somehow transmit some of his life lessons to Loqi, to help him get out of that tremendously deep hole he was trapped in…have a way to let him know that it wasn’t a cage with no way out, just a hole he needed to climb and that there was light and an exit at the top…how he wished he could make this easier for Loqi.
“Something always comes. I promise.”

Cor’s voice remained soft, but he stated those words like a fact in such a certain way that it caught Loqi’s attention. The Nif looked at him, again with that gaze that seemed to question if he was for real, not in a rude way, but in a…scared-to-be hopeful, but wanting-to-be so. Cor gave him a reassuring smile, standing firm about what he said. Loqi still looked at him some moments, but then, as always, he looked away.
Cor exhaled through the nose. He stared at Loqi some moments, the way he had the head on his arms, the look on his eyes. He had seen him this vulnerable before, even more, but it was still…a not desirable sight. Loqi Tummelt was equivalent to a raging passionate fire, not a dead empty thing. And Loqi showing himself vulnerable in front of Cor, specifically Cor, it had always spoken about how hopeless he was, that he didn’t care having the man he hated, or used to hate, watch his most defeated state.

It was touching in a really sad way, and Cor didn’t like it. Never had. Even less now that Loqi was starting to open up to him and now that, whether he liked it or not, they were starting to form some sort of bond, as messy as it was.
“Hey” Cor called in a whisper. Then, he put a hand softly on Loqi’s head. The Nif reacted immediately, startled, pulling the head up. Cor removed his hand, only to take Loqi’s fork. “I know this is kind of cheesy and you can smack me for it if you want, but I really want to highlight it” said that, he used his other hand and reached for Loqi’s. While the Nif’s instinct was to take it back when Cor’s was close, he stayed still, tense, and watched, allowing Cor to take his hand. At first Loqi was not sure what he was doing, but Cor was not holding it; rather, he reached for his hand to pull his fingers open, put the fork in his hand, and then close his fingers around it.

When Cor let go, Loqi stared at his hand with a mix of confusion and surprise. He looked up at Cor, questioning, but soft.
He found Cor giving him what was, perhaps, the warmest smile the Marshal had given him so far. It was rare to see him smile, and this one smile was…particular. It was a little melancholic, perhaps, but still warm, and full of…something that scared Loqi a little, but not in a bad way. Just unfamiliar. A little too…sincere.
“You’re not alone in this” Cor murmured. “Okay?”

The Nif felt a strong pinch inside; not one that hurt, more like one that released tension. Like an internal sigh. For a moment, he suddenly felt a profound…loneliness. He lowered the head and felt terrible like the previous night. His eyes drowned almost immediately. He hid away and fought the tears back, pretended it didn’t happen, and nodded. He went back to putting on a grumpy face when he pulled his head up to rest the chin on his hand, but he didn’t say any mean comeback. Cor smiled a little.

Loqi still pouted a little and it took a while as he poked the food, but he finally got to put a slice of bacon in his mouth. Cor smiled again, and he thought about making a comment to encourage him, but Loqi, as aggressive and proud, probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Cor sighed and was patient as the Nif slowly ate.
“You know? I think it would help if you did all that stuff in a way you like” Cor suggested. Loqi gave him a raised eyebrow. “To make eating easier, you could tell me what your favorite dishes are. That way even if you feel forced to eat, you’ll eventually regain the liking for it. Same for exercising. When you’re ready, of course, your leg right now still needs some recovery.”

Loqi slowly looked down and seemed to think about it for a moment. He nodded.
“There’s also something that can help you a lot and it’s really simple” Cor continued suggesting. Loqi, again, gave him a questioning look, as he ate in silence. “I found- I mean, there’s a small park nearby, I’ve been going there for my morning runs” Loqi raised the eyebrows at him again. “You could join me. You’d walk, for now. That way, your leg recovers faster, and you start getting some physical activity and go outside, things that’ll do wonders to…the state you’re in.”
“Go for a walk to a Lucian park with the Immortal” Loqi said with a bit of sarcasm, chuckled bitterly, and stabbed his food. “Lovely. Turns out I’m not a plant, I’m a pet.”
“Loqi…” Cor called after a sigh, crossing the arms.
“Fine” Loqi muttered, shoving some of the egg in his mouth. “I really, really, like really don’t want to. I’d really rather rot in this apartment for the rest of my life, but if you’re so sure it’s going to make me feel less shitty, fine” he swallowed. “Not like I have any more dignity or pride or anything to lose, anyway.”

Cor sighed quietly, half relieved and half concerned. Loqi wasn’t taking anything the right way, he was accepting to do things not because he wanted or had the motivation for them, but he at least was willing to do something.
“Okay” Cor said. “We start today?”

Loqi gave him a glare, and it was kept pretty clear that ‘today’ it wouldn’t be.

--

Cor asked for a few days free. He had explained to Regis the situation, and had told him that he didn’t want to let go of this chance of Loqi actually wanting to do something for himself. As grumpy and depressed as he was about it, it was the best Cor could get; maybe if he waited, days later Loqi would have lost hope for real and wouldn’t get out of bed even if the apocalypse was happening right outside his window. Cor had to take the chance. Regis, understanding, agreed and wished him luck.

Loqi didn’t tell him much about his favorite food; specified only what he particularly hated and one minor allergy, but other than that, asking him about the things he liked only earned grumpy hums. He still couldn’t start exercising due to his leg. The only thing they could do besides eating well was to start going out of the apartment.

At first, as much as he said he wanted to do it, he ended up stopping at the main door as if his feet had fused with the ground, refusing to go out. Little by little, however, Cor convinced him. Grumpily, bitterly, muttering curses about Insomnia, the Lucians, Cor, and his ‘mood of shit’, but going out nevertheless. Cor knew that it had been three and half months of trying to convince him, but that sounded like too much. It made him feel prouder and less stressed if he thought about it as ‘the second day since he decided to start recovering’.

The park was small, only a square worth of trees, little paths, and a pond. There was a gravel path that rounded the park for those who were there to run and concrete paths for the rest. There were ducks, the less annoying creatures as compared to the Lucian kids, the Lucian adults, and the Lucian things. No one bothered Loqi or did anything particular. It was just…Lucians. The people Loqi had grown up despising. He pulled away if anyone got a bit close to him, stared with disgust at everyone he saw, and never replied if anyone waved hello or said sorry for getting in the way. Deciding to turn his back to the empire didn’t mean stop hating the Lucians, because, damn, he did. ‘Disgusting’, ‘savages’, ‘primitive’, he would describe to Cor, fully aware that Cor was one of them.

Still, Cor guessed that, so long Loqi didn’t try to pick a fight, it would be fine. Some people did give him looks for his clear Nif genes, strange gazes at best, disgusted or hateful ones at worst, but no one said anything to provoke him. Plus, Loqi being ‘too disgusted’ to look at any Lucian made him go oblivious to most of the stares, which was good. That way he wouldn’t feel tempted to start a fight. Loqi would give disgusted looks even at the dogs. But all in all, their first walk in the park went with no major troubles.

“I can go on my own, Leonis” Loqi had snapped angrily at him, without looking his way, after a few meters walking side by side. “I won’t get lost, asshole.”
“Okay” Cor said with a sigh, decided to ignore all insults as he had done for the past months. “I’m going to do my usual running routine. You sure you’ll be fine?” Loqi growled as response, apparently still too embarrassed that Cor was still next to him in public to dare to make eye contact. “You’re not going to escape, right?”

Loqi turned to glare at him and give him a look like a dog ready to bite. Cor smiled, murmured ‘okay’, and wished him luck before he set out jogging. Loqi cursed him in a murmur as he watched him go.
And then he stayed still. Alone.
He stared at Cor, and for a moment he felt like it had been a mistake. Perhaps he should have asked him to stay; Loqi was in unknown territory, all alone for the first time in months, surrounded by the enemy.
No. I’ve just…gotten used to his presence. I got used to him and my mind thinks that I need him, but I don’t. Fuck him. Fuck psychology.

As much as Loqi hated it, as much as he oh so agonizingly wanted to go back to the apartment and bury himself under the blankets and sleep the next decade away, Leonis had said that if he wanted to stop feeling like shit, he had to do this…trivial, senseless task. He hated it, he loathed it, fuck, Loqi was ready to trash the whole city in a tantrum out of how much he really didn’t want to do this…but he was sick of crying into a goddamn pillow like a stupid toddler, he wasn’t weak, he had to get over it!
So he gave a first step.

By the time he did, Cor had already completed a first lap. Loqi mentally cursed him and wanted to asphyxiate him because ‘how dare he brag about being faster’. So he gave another step, and another, and started walking.
He went slow, grumpy, limping his way through the normal path that rounded the park, ignoring and avoiding the Lucians that passed nearby him. He stopped many times, and most of those times he was at one hair of distance of telling Cor he wanted to go back home to the safety and comfort of his bed. But every time, Loqi felt forced to go on.

When Loqi completed a lap, Cor caught up with him and congratulated him.
“You know that was one fucking square, right? Hooray, I walked three hundred meters, maybe, what a record.”
“Yes, but anyone else in your situation wouldn’t have even walked down the stairs back at the apartment. You did fantastic.”

Loqi pouted and smacked Cor, but Cor didn’t regret it. He knew that, as much as Loqi acted like he hated it, cheering on him for every improvement, even if it was one step worth, could be the only thing that could change everything.

--

Besides the morning walk, that Cor was trying to make a daily thing, he also twice in those few days asked Loqi to accompany him to the store a street away. It was not much, but it was outside, and interacting with others even if just by listening, and Cor really hoped that that could help in a future. Loqi would still move away of anyone that got close as if they were radioactive, but nobody complained.

The second time that they went to the store, Cor was checking his stuff out, while Loqi waited nearby.
Suddenly, the Nif noticed a few costumers gathered around the TV in the corner. And, for the first time in all those months, only thanks to the leisure of having to wait for Cor, Loqi paid attention to something that wasn’t himself. The TV had his attention at the first time the voice said ‘empire’.

Loqi got closer a few steps, enough to catch a glimpse and listen more clearly. The TV was on the news. There were pictures of people from the Niflheim government, but Loqi barely saw it when the images turned to some court from Accordo.
“…threatening with increasing the amount to three billion gil if found guilty” the reporter was saying. “The agents of the Eos Peace Union, the EPU, have announced that, unlike what the Lucian official testimony speech claimed, there was no evidence found on the perimeter and surrounding areas to Vianard. The area was secured so neither Niflheim or Lucian forces can intervene, hence avoiding any possibility of hiding or forging the evidence, and despite that, nothing Lucis talked about was found; no trucks hidden in caves, no mass graves, nothing. Investigations keep going but it all seems to point to the fact that Lucis is responsible for this bombing, and unless evidence is found within the next four months, the punishment of the Union for Lucis could get really severe.”

Loqi could do but furrow the eyebrows, not understanding neither the photos and videos, nor what was being said.
“Accordian Mila Alessi, head agent and judge of the investigations, said that the meeting held last weekend did but bring out more questions than answers; while it all seems to point by logic that it was the kingdom, how did they get the technology for bombs strong enough to blow up an entire city, when we know their artillery is limited and basic and there is not enough money? Assuming the kingdom has millions not registered to the Eos Monetary System, which would count as another first grade crime, how did they make it into imperial lands without one single alarm? And why Vianard, and not Gralea?”

Loqi’s shoulders relaxed a little when it clicked on him. It was exactly the same that Cor had questioned him when he first heard the news and was sure it was a lie.
“Those questions are the only thing keeping the kingdom of Lucis at the edge of its fall; everything else, from testimonies to evidence, both the existent and the non-existent, still points to the Lucians being responsible for this massacre of an entire civilian city.”

Loqi didn’t flinch when Cor’s hand grabbed his shoulder. He stayed attentive to the screen, and Cor didn’t interrupt him.
“Almost four months since Vianard’s bombing, and the investigations are still on the go, with Lucis being at nothing of losing this international trial. In other news…”

The few costumers gathered around the TV started spreading, returning to their activities. Some murmured to each other, and the mood seemed to become dark and cold. Loqi stared at the TV for a while more, not listening anymore to the things he didn’t care about, frowning.
“…you okay, Loqi?”
“…what’s with the world situation?” Loqi asked, still frowning at the screen. There was a long pause before he looked back at Cor. “What do they mean Lucian evidence and trials?”
“…ah.”

Cor was quiet for an awkward pause, coming to the realization…that Loqi had not known anything about the war in all that time. For three months and half, Loqi…had been cloistered away of everything. Not just from people…also from news, from literally everything. It was…a bit surreal, to think of Loqi spending three insane months not once hearing a rumor, watching a new, or reading a headline. Not one thing. Cor found that fact to be strange and impressive, and now that he was being asked, he had no idea how to put three months worth of information into words, but Loqi was staring at him intensely, waiting for his answer.
“It’s…been a lot of things, uh…”

But for harder he looked for a way to start, Cor found it to be a mess of too many things.
“I think it’s easier if you see by yourself” he sighed, motioned for Loqi to follow him, and started heading for the exit. Confused, and giving one last glance at the TV of the store, Loqi followed him.

Once home, Cor took his computer and browsed some news until finding the best summaries he could find. He showed Loqi, who was a little wary at first, but accepted the computer in the end. Cor told him that, if he still wanted to know more, he could use the TV and browse the internet for videos of the news of the past three months to update on everything he had missed.

And Loqi dedicated the rest of his evening to catch up on the war.

--

-

It took dozens of websites, dozens of videos, and dozens of questions.

When the news first came out, Lucis only claimed themselves separate from anything related to the bombing, but offered no more explanation. The Eos Peace Union started having meetings to discuss the situation, not sure what to do; Lucis was clearly the culprit, but there was no way they could have made an attack of that size, no way to do even a small one, not so long it was in imperial lands. A week later, Lucis was announcing their innocence once again, and started giving hints to the real culprit, but kept it ambiguous. Meanwhile, the EPU investigated and called for investigations within the city; however, the empire convinced them that it was still plagued by the Scourge, not a lie really, so the forces did not investigate in the city. The presence of MTs and people shot in the head with imperial bullets, and the imperial-made bombs went unseen (but so did the evidence of presence of rescuers, according to Cor, so neither the EPU nor the empire themselves knew yet about the Lucian intervention).

No evidence was found, and the announcement made the people rage against Lucis again, claiming them guilty. Two weeks after the bombing, Lucis announced the aircrafts that were used had been stolen, and brought up the obvious that Cor had already brought to Loqi’s personal attention; the lack of technology or money for a float or weapons big or destructive enough to erase a whole city, the literal impossibility to invade imperial skies, and the lack of logic behind attacking a civilian city and not the capital or a military base. The EPU continued discussions, all logic pointing to Lucis being innocent, but all testimony and lack of evidences proving them guilty.

Niflheim was raging. It had affected even the battlefield; the anger fed the imperials’ aggressiveness, and they were winning mercilessly at battles. The EPU was a busy chaos full of lawyers, strategists, and neutral judges and agents trying to find the truth. Lucis was divided. The EPU was threatening Lucis with having to pay billions, charging them endless crimes; attack on civilian places when it was stated the war would only be between armed forces, no declaration, ‘unregistered’ hundreds of aircrafts, ‘unregistered’ weaponry, technology, money, fake propaganda, and more.

Loqi’s thirst for information led him even to Kweeter. He checked, mostly, Kweets from the Lucian king and the Nif Emperor, from the EPU, from other politicians and ‘important’ people. But he also checked the citizens’ opinions. Most Lucians seemed to stand with their king, as was expected, and only very few believed the lies. Most Nifs believed the empire; however, there were many, more than Loqi expected, theorizing and writing against the empire itself.

Loqi spent a long while only checking Kweets from imperial citizens that were, for once, shockingly, not with the empire. They Kweeted about the same questions (where they got the bombs, how they made it into Nif territory, why Vianard and not somewhere relevant to the war), mostly, and demanded an explanation. One had claimed that their account got silenced, and questioned if there was something the empire didn’t like about their Kweets or if there was something there that they didn’t want to be seen. Another one that had almost spammed their account went silent the previous month; Loqi stalked enough to find a few people kweeting that this person had gone missing. It didn’t take much brain for Loqi to figure out what had happened. The empire had always found swift, if violent, solutions when it came to reporters they wanted silent.

By the third month, not long ago, Lucis had pushed to one of their last resources and ultimate weapons: admit the truth as crude as it was.
Only a couple weeks previous to Loqi’s sudden realization that he had missed everything that happened, just a day after he had his cast taken off, the king of Lucis had called for an important announcement, saying that he would ‘say everything as is demanded and necessary’. Loqi read many notes about it, but made sure to watch the speech video too.
King Regis talked about everything, almost in detail. He spoke about the Lucian spy they went into Gralea, which caused an outrage for the imperials, who were hysterical about having had a spy in their main base and not noticing. He noted he was aware that the EPU had forbidden spies and that he would accept the punishment, wouldn’t deny they played dirty there, but that it had been vital to uncover something ‘of bigger, vital relevance’.

He spoke about the other group of Crownsguard and Kingsglaives that he sent; eighty Lucians, he said, infiltrating through the only one spot that took them years to find, with the task of dividing and sabotaging imperial bases in their lands. He spoke about the spy finding documents in Gralea.
The speech cuts in the moment king Regis says it: ‘signed by five important figures of the empire, the emperor himself among them, the imperial permission for the imperial air forces to bomb the city of Vianard in order to get rid of the Scourge plague’.
It was cut not by the media, but by the public; there was a roar of exclamations and yelling, a chaos that made it impossible for the king to continue for who knows how long.

Loqi watched the second part. He saw Regis talk about the Scourge, how long Vianard had had that problem, the empire’s idea of bombing it all and frame the Lucians for it. He spoke about the stolen aircrafts, brought back the previous questions that pointed to the logic of why it was literally impossible that it had been Lucis, and spoke about the Lucian team helping in the rescue missions. He said it all. Spilled the truth as it was, everything. Not caring about the punishment for admitting to have had a spy and a whole team infiltrated, not caring about the Nifs detecting and closing the kingdom’s only entrance into imperial lands, talking the truth no matter the consequences.

Loqi had to admit that as much as he despised the Lucian king, he had an incredible way with words. Loqi couldn’t difference if it was because he knew the truth and he was biased due to his current hatred towards the empire, or if even if he had never been a victim he would have agreed, but Regis sounded more than only convincing. He was an incredible preacher, and Loqi thought that if someone watched this speech and didn’t understand it was the truth, then they were just deaf.

…or imperial, raised with a strict overdeveloped nationalism that blinded to the truth.
Regis dared show the document. From what Loqi read and Cor filled in, the document was now in the EPU, being analyzed for legitimacy.
In his speech, Regis had also invited the EPU to look in the city and they would see the presence of the Lucian forces that helped. He invited them to look on a trail of two hundred seventy kilometers between Vianard and the south coast of Halla for evidence of Lucian presence fleeing.
More privately, Regis had sent a couple agents to the EPU to sign on a map the places where they had hidden trucks or done mass graves, so the EPU agents could go see they were not lying.

That was what the news were going on about. None of the evidence of Lucian presence was there.
When Loqi asked Cor, because no news or videos would say, Cor explained that they were theorizing that Niflheim must have moved fast; as soon as they saw the speech, after it was released but before the EPU started investigations, they went to the zones and erased all evidence they found. They only had a general idea, though, and while they must have found a lot to burn down before the EPU arrived, there had to be at least one thing, even if small, that the imperials could have missed. The EPU had more details than them of where to look, so, hopefully, even if it took longer, the agents maybe could still find something.

“And now, what?” Loqi asked after he had been more filled in. “They played dirty, erased the evidence. Now you guys look like liars and guilty.”
“We’re still discussing whether to release the photographs or not” Cor told him. “Most votes say yes, and we’re planning to release them soon.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“Regis is waiting for a better time and…he…doesn’t feel too safe about it. Says…” Cor cleared his throat. “…he worries for the photographer.”
“Just don’t let them out of Insomnia, they’re safe” Loqi said with a shrug.

Cor only nodded, but didn’t make eye contact. Loqi wondered if the Marshal was close or intimate to the photographer, but he didn’t ask. He focused on watching and reading more news.

Cor had been watching everything with him, and had been hanging around to clear all of Loqi’s questions when they came up. After that small interaction, Loqi browsed a few thumbnails on the TV, and then, when he read the title of one of the videos, he moved up in his seat and leaned forwards.
“…funeral…for the Tummelt?”

All he could do for a while was frown at the screen, confused. Cor watched him subtly, nervous about the way Loqi would react, but let him do as he needed.
Loqi put the video on. It was a report from only two weeks ago.
“Retaking the matter that the whole world has been talking about for the past three months, Vianard’s bombing, today, in the imperial capital city of Gralea, they celebrated a symbolic funeral for the members of the Tummelt family.”
“What the…?”

Cor gulped.
“The empire had already celebrated a symbolic funeral for all lost lives two months ago, but this time, it was a more personal event, focused only in the Tummelt family” the screen showed pictures of the event. Cor guessed Loqi had to know the place, a huge yard of sorts, surely in the palace. It looked like a military ceremony. The most outstanding things were the decorated coffins as protagonists. “House Tummelt was one of the twenty noble families of the Niflheim Empire, highly esteemed, one of the empire’s biggest economical supporters, and an outstanding military family with ten generations of some of the most important figures in the army, the navy, and the air forces of the Empire.”

Loqi remained attentive to the screen as it showed some photographs of what Cor guessed was relatives in group photographs, the emblem of his House, and what had once been the Tummelt manor, before going back to the videos of the ceremony.
“It was the only noble family that did not live in Gralea, but resided in Vianard. Reports say the family was off-duty at home when the bombing happened, lamentably” Cor saw Loqi’s grip on the controller tighten. “Despite the empire’s attempts at finding any survivor from any of all eight known Tummelt, there has not been a trace of any of them and today, three months since the day of the bombing, they are closing investigations and pronouncing them officially deceased.”
“Wha…?” Loqi mouthed, and he breathlessly continued to watch with a face that was a mix between horror and shock.

“As entrance to Vianard is unavailable due to Scourge risk, the empire has not been able to retrieve their bodies, so the ceremony today was merely a symbolic act. Empty coffins, but hearts full of sorrow, said the Emperor.”
“That…fucking bastard…!”
“The Emperor, Chancellor, High Commander, and other high-ranked generals and officers were present during the ceremony, where they remembered House Tummelt’s achievements and importance, as well as personal relationships with its members.”
“And they dare…!” Loqi exclaimed as he, literally, stood up on his spot of the sofa, as if ready to throw himself at the TV.
“Today, House Tummelt passes to history, in a sentimental but still strictly military ceremony, as was tradition to them more particularly than to other noble families” the reporter declared. “The Tummelt whose lives were lost in Vianard’s bombing consisted of eight, among who we could find Aegir, ‘Duscae’s Conqueror’, Laufey, ‘The Infernian’, and Bestel Tummelt, one of the few candidates aspiring to High Commander.”

The note ended there. The TV showed recommended videos, but Loqi only stared eye widened and mouth-dropped at the screen. Before Cor could ask him anything, the Nif turned his way.
“You knew about this!?”
“I…thought it was better to wait for a day that you felt better to-”
“Like I would- react any better, oh my Six…!” Loqi yelled, hands going to grip his own hair. There was a moment of silence, in which Cor wasn’t sure what Loqi was feeling. “They…they dared…and they stand there like…!”

And of course, Loqi reacted by making unintelligible noises, grabbing the nearest cushion, and tossing it aggressively across the apartment, letting out a noise that was between a growl and a scream.
“Loqi-”
“Oh my Six!!” Loqi screamed, pulling from his own hair before hopping off the sofa, kicking it (despite being barefoot), and then started storming his way to his room.
“Loqi, just…!” the Nif stopped and roughly turned to look at him. Cor sighed, resigned and knowing that nothing in the world would stop him. “…just don’t break the window.”

Loqi’s frown deepened and he didn’t reply. He stormed his way to his room. Cor stood in the living room, and decided to wait. He heard the door being slammed open, harshly being slammed closed, and then a series of yelling and screaming that would have been otherwise funny if the context was not so serious. He heard kicking and punching and some stuff knocking other things off all while the yelling and loud cursing continued.

Cor waited for as long as Loqi needed, and a bit more after the noises stopped. Still, Cor was very careful when he approached the room, and quiet as he opened the door.
By the time Loqi was done, the room was completely trashed. Except for the window, at the very least. The desk flipped, the mattress flipped, the chair on the opposite corner of the room, and a damn drawer of the closet on the ground. Loqi was still pacing in circles around the room, like a caged beast.
…well, someone has anger issues.

Cor stood calmly, watching the Nif come and go.
“…they’re fucking wicked” Loqi muttered. Cor, as always, decided to help by standing there and letting the other say what he needed to let out. Loqi stopped walking and looked at him. ”They killed us, they were the murderers, and now they’re ‘mourning’ us!?” he roared. “With flower crowns! That was a- motherfucker stupid flower crown on my coffin!”

Cor nodded in agreement. Loqi growled and kicked a nearby pillow on the floor.
“Like it wasn’t enough with killing my family, they have the…audacity, they have the nerve and insolence to make a whole set-up like a fucking musical and they pretend to care and pretend to…!”

Loqi didn’t finish. He went back to his unintelligible noises that ended up with another scream as he grabbed something from the floor and threw it to the opposite wall.
“They’re mocking me!!!” he roared as loud as he could. Once he was done, Loqi turned to look at Cor again and pointed at him with a finger. “They just crossed the fucking line. They’re getting away perfectly with all their damn lies, and now this!?”

Cor nodded. There wasn’t much else he could do; Loqi was right. The Empire was showing to be heartlessly cruel to disgusting points. Cor didn’t doubt that there were people that sincerely lamented the losses of the Tummelt, but it would be those that didn’t know the Empire was behind the bombing. Still, that the Emperor chose to do it publicly…it crossed lines of disgust and respect. The murderer, acting like the first to mourn the dead. It was a little surprising that the concept ‘They think I’m dead’ didn’t seem to be important to Loqi, but Cor guessed he probably already expected that.
“…I’m going to kill them.”
“…wha-?”
“You heard me damn fine, Leonis!” Loqi said louder than his previous muttering. “One day- one…fucking- godsdamn day, I’m going to…grab their stupid, ugly heads and squeeze until their eyeballs fucking explode and…!”

And, once more, Loqi’s anger was so much that his words stayed stuck in the knot of his throat, and all he could do was mutter unintelligible noises and go back to grab something and throw it. He took a pillow and bit down on it, dropped to his knees, and yelled into it as loud as he could, only to stand back up and toss it away. Loqi started walking across the room, muttering curses. When he passed nearby Cor, the latter took the chance and reached to grab Loqi by an arm.
“Loqi” he called as he made him turn, and grabbed his other arm as well. The Nif offered resistance for only a blink, before staying still, sighing, and closing the eyes, as if only the action of Cor grabbing him and saying his name was the reminder he needed to try to calm down.

Cor gave him some seconds as the Nif contained the breath and fought hard on keeping cool.
“I understand” Cor murmured. Loqi opened the eyes, but didn’t make eye contact. “I agree. But let’s calm down for now” he let go of Loqi’s arms, and the Nif relaxed in his spot. “Too much info for one day. I know you still want to know more, but it’s enough for now. You’ve got to clear your head or you won’t be able to sleep even with the pills” Loqi was frowning and looking rather grumpy, like a child that was being taken from videogames and sent to bed. “You’re sick of feeling like shit, right? And we said that to fix that you eat…”
“…and sleep” Loqi muttered, looking further away.
“Yes” Cor sighed. “I understand your anger, and it’s fine to let it out as much as you need. That part is fine, but no more news for today. Okay?”

It took a while in which Loqi was tense and looking as if ready to explode again but, in the end, he let out a breath that seemed to hold all his tension, and he nodded.
“…alright” Cor murmured after he made sure Loqi had calmed down and breathed enough. “Let’s clean your room, yes?”
Loqi muttered a moody agreement, and felt forced to not burst out into anger again. Cor subtly sighed in relief; he had thought that Loqi would be a storm to tame, but he had behaved rather…maturely, as much as his rage attacks could get. He had calmed down quick enough. Perhaps another vantage of some branch of his strict formation as a soldier. Or maybe he was not as difficult as Cor had idealized him, and it was just about trying.

After Cor helped Loqi put the mattress, the drawer, and the chair in their places, the Nif told him he could and wanted to do the rest alone. ‘Need a while alone to clear my head’, he said. Cor agreed, and left to prepare dinner while Loqi continued fixing his mess, taking pauses to control his anger.

Loqi didn’t freak out again, but he didn’t stop thinking about it. Everything that he saw and read, the flood of news spinning in his thoughts, the funeral and everything behind it, and how fucked the situation was, everything kept swirling in his head with no stop, until his skull throbbed and ached like crazy.

Later that night, he had some troubles sleeping because he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted questions, answers, theories. Ideas.

The only thing that pushed him to try to get some rest was what Cor had told him about the basics to get better. He knew that, on his own, it would be impossible to catch some sleep, so he took both pills and tried to keep the head blank.

He only had to wait for the next morning, and he could keep catching up on the world situation. And he decided to, this time, watch them with the head colder, and start taking notes. Because he was not willing to be a plant.

He had to do more than just exist.

Chapter Text

Loqi spent the next days watching and reading older and recent news.

He was not twenty-four hours in it, but he was attentive. Cor had gone back to work as normal, which left Loqi alone in the apartment during most the day in all freedom to use the TV or the computer (which, Loqi found, had no personal info, as if Cor kept it only as a spare). Cor had no more excuse for the nurse, but he really trusted that Loqi wouldn’t do anything stupid when left alone. Plus, he seemed very into updating himself on the war, so he surely would spend the mornings sat at the sofa, possibly in pajamas as he constantly lacked motivation to take a shower, watching the news.

In the next few days, Lucis broadcasted a report of the Nif survivors they rescued. It was a long report. They did say they were going to make a documental if money so allowed in a near future, but for now, as urgency called, they did a quick report. In it, they interviewed the Nif survivors, and the Crownsguards and Glaives that participated in the rescue mission. Some people had their faces covered; most were fine being exposed. Loqi later asked Cor; the Glaives were mostly orphans risking their lives every day, so they had no fear. The Crownsguard were more careful, but they still went to the battlefield often. The Nifs were in a similar situation; most had lost their families and homes, so with nothing else to lose, and with no intention to leave Insomnia, they spoke freely.

It had been a good move, and Loqi hoped that it could give Lucis some more credibility. He didn’t care about Lucis and whatever threat was on them…not much. He cared only in the sense that, should anything happen to Insomnia, he lived there, so thanks but no. But why he really cared that Lucis won more credibility was so that Niflheim lost theirs. They were lying, much worse than Loqi ever imagined his homeland could do, and in the nastiest possible way. They had to be stopped.

Loqi was very reflexive in those days. He wondered and daydreamed a lot. If he and his family had lived in Gralea, or had it been any other city…would he have supported the bombing idea?
…it was a difficult question. Part of him knew that he would have supported it. It wouldn’t be him suffering, so he wouldn’t have cared, and the Empire said it was the answer, so Loqi would have believed it wholeheartedly. Loqi noticed he had had such…blind loyalty towards the Empire. They could have asked him to skin himself alive, he would have done it smiling. But part of him kept reflecting through the days, and he came to the conclusion that yes, he would have agreed, but possibly, sooner or later, he would have realized what he did now; that it was wrong. Because even if it was for a ‘greater good’, it went against the most basic of Niflheimian philosophies.

And that led him to notice something else; he didn’t hate his country. He didn’t hate Niflheim. He didn’t hate its army.
He hated its current government.
The current emperor. The prince. The Chancellor. Whoever signed that fucking paper, whoever participated in the idea. The pilots. Everyone directly involved in the bombing. Because these people, specifically these people, were aware and fully conscious of what they were doing. Maybe the soldiers that stole the aircrafts had no idea; maybe they just followed orders, and never knew what happened to the things they stole. Maybe the bomb makers had no idea; maybe they built them thinking they were destined for Lucian lands. But the pilots, the people who had the idea, and the people who signed the paper, they were fully conscious of their actions. They were aware they were murdering their own people. The people that died everyday for them, that won and lost every day for them, that drank to their sake, that lived their whole lives breathing for them. The people that made the empire what it was.

Loqi figured out, in the days he spent watching the news, that he really hadn’t lost his patriotism. His ideals, sense of ethics, trust, maybe; but not his patriotism, not his roots. He loved his homeland. He loved the people. He loved the flag and everything it represented.
It was the people that wielded it right now who were wrong. They were the enemy; they were poisoning everything that the Empire represented.
Niflheim was victory, light, science.
Loyalty. The Empire was supposed to be loyal above it all.
Whatever they did, everything could be excused; massacres, wars, murders, kidnapping, spying, genocide. Everything could have a reason; everything they did could be forgiven and right if spoken in the name of the empire, if done by the loyalty sworn to the land.
Except treason.
There was no excuse for treason. Under any circumstance.

‘To save my family’ could not be an excuse, for the empire came above your family. ‘To save my life’ was meaningless, for you must endure all and any torture so long you stayed loyal to the Empire.
‘For the greater good’ was no excuse, for the Empire was the only land righteous and intelligent enough to make a greater good to the world, and betraying them, even in the slightest, was putting their success to danger. There could not be any ‘greater good’ without the Empire.
‘To save the world’ was no excuse. Not even if it was the Scourge.
Vianard’s bombing had no excuse.

Niflheim was currently being run by disloyal imperials, people who had used the empire’s name to excuse their actions, but used it for a non-valid reason. The current government was betraying the core of the Imperial essence, and had no excuse. They did not represent the true Empire. They did not deserve the titles they had. They could not be in the chairs they sat at.
They needed to be purged; they needed to be taken out. They were a toxic crust on the real glory and goodwill of Niflheim. There couldn’t be space for them in the Empire.

‘Something always comes up’, Leonis had said. A new purpose, he meant.
And Loqi had one. He was serious when he said he would one day kill all the people that were behind the Empire’s bombing on Vianard. It started entirely personal; they killed his siblings, they destroyed his home, they took everything, both materially and emotionally speaking, from him. He would kill them, now.
Loqi had a new purpose.
Revenge.

At first, it was just a threat. Real, but a threat that stayed on a distant future in imaginary situations.
But now, the more Loqi watched the news, the more that he landed his new purpose to a real project, and the more coldly he thought about it, thinking facts and theories instead of only crazy imaginary scenarios.

At first, Loqi was silent about it, even to himself. The first days it was a delicious thought, but there was always the knowledge that it was impossible, something he would like to do but never would. Revenge was an idea that was present, but only floated around.
However, each night that Loqi lied down and stared at the ceiling and let his ideas knit and grow, the more the idea cleared and the closer it got. So, the more often he thought about it, the clearer, and the more enthusiastic, and the more realistic.

Loqi asked for some paper and a pen. He wrote down the names of those signatures he remembered, be it from the permission of the bombing, or his permission of vacations. Names like the Emperor’s, Chancellor’s, even the High Commander’s as much as he had tried to not write it or had crossed it in regret, and some other important people. He wrote some suspects and wrote a question mark on them. Loqi spent the days not only watching the news, but also going forth and back in his list, adding, marking, and thinking. Stabbing names with the tip of the pen; closing the eyes and imagining; thinking, planning.

His thoughts did not only stop in who he was going to kill, but also how.

He knew the palace. He was not allowed to all its secrets, but he knew a few key points. If he was very smart, he could make a sneaky entrance and get to the offices of those he wanted to kill. He could work on recovering from his leg, gain some lost weight, and infiltrate. He could even ask that one Lucian spy that found the papers to give him advice.
Or he could even announce publicly that he was alive. Do to the empire as they did to him; lie, and pretend to be on their side. Never tell them about his journey to Insomnia, appear at Gralea’s doors. Be taken into the palace. And once there, with their full trust, right in front of their eyes, stab them all and twist the knife in their throats.
He could even do a movie-like act; become some sort of ninja avenger, take out a victim in their own house, and use their blood to write the name of the next one to feed them with panic, let them fear and go insane in their last days of life.
He could let go of the satisfaction of doing it with his own hands and take the satisfaction of killing them like they killed his siblings, and infiltrate into the palace and the homes of the officers not to kill them, but to plant bombs. Walk away as everything detonated at his back, watch the rain of fire and debris.

Whatever Loqi thought about, there were always holes and he always ended up dead. The Empire had high security. There could have been a spy, but there were reasons why Lucian spies only stole information and never attacked. It was impossible and meaningless; attacking, even if successful, would always result in getting caught.
In all scenarios, Loqi ended up caught and dead. Sometimes tortured. It was fine. He wouldn’t really mind dying so long the people on his list were dead. He didn’t care. He wanted to save the empire from those bastards, and avenge his siblings by dirtying his hands in the blood of the murderers. He would even smile as he died.

Some days after the Lucian report of the victims and the rescue mission, Niflheim released their own report. They presented ‘real’ survivors of the bombing, that the empire ‘rescued’, because of course they did. The actors they got were damn incredible; if Loqi didn’t know better, he would have believed their testimonies and acting. Niflheim even had the audacity to claim that Lucis was the one that used actors, and invited the EPU to check for any of those people’s birth certificates in the official archives. Where, of course, they didn’t find anyone from the real survivors.

Needless to say, the credibility Lucis had earned with their report fell and the world turned against them again. Once more, the Lucian attempts at proving themselves innocent were thrown down…only thanks to the Empire’s shameless lies.

When he watched those news, Loqi couldn’t help but wish that someone uncovered the damn truth. The news upset him so much that he forgot for a moment about his personal want of revenge, and had the urge to do something for his country, erase its current government and show the people the truth, do something not for revenge, but for Niflheim. His country couldn’t stay under the command of those traitors.

It was one evening, lying in bed, a leg tucked up, the opposite ankle resting on the knee, and the hands crossed behind his head, that Loqi connected all his ideas, connected the specific personal thirst of revenge and the general necessity to save his country, and created a new train of thoughts.
And it clicked on him.

All those days, he had been thinking about performing his revenge from the inside. Recover, then go into Niflheim to do it; train and practice, then go into Gralea to do it; workout, then go into the palace to do it. It always involved him returning. Entering somewhere. Going in. Doing it from the inside.

…but what if he did it…from outside?

It clicked in his head like such a revelation that it felt as if Loqi had spent all life in the darkness, and was now taking the blindfold off for the first time.
He immediately stood up as if something had pulled him from the chest, and he stayed sat only a second as he processed the shock of how obvious and colossal the idea was.

Loqi grabbed what had become his favorite jacket, out of comfort rather than personal taste, and put it on at the time he headed for the main door. Leonis had locked it, but an old apartment’s metal knob was no challenge to him.
It was the first time Loqi walked out of the apartment on his own. Normally, he would be too disgusted or with no motivation to go outside, but that day he was moved by something greater than anything he felt or thought, and he walked with a firmness he had not had in months.

He was ignorant to the city’s map, but there was no missing the Citadel. It stood tall in sight, and Loqi walked straight towards it. He hitched a ride on a bus’ stairs and didn’t pay, hopped off when it turned in a direction he wasn’t headed for, bumped into people, and kept walking like he was possessed by a superior force that made him unstoppable.

When he reached the main gates, the guards were still asking what his business was when he was already speaking.
“Bring the Marshal, Cor Leonis” Loqi demanded as if he was their superior. “Or tell him to tell you to let me in unless he wants me to break in, and he damn knows I will.”

The guards took it suspiciously and got ready to attack if necessary; a Nif being aggressive at the Citadel’s entrance was no good. However, when they called Cor, he asked them to let him in, and promised to be at the entrance to get in charge of things.

Cor ran and rushed as fast as he could through the Citadel, almost in panic. He reached the doors just as Loqi was taking the last step of the stairs and coming in. Cor was breathless and his heart beat like mad in fear and nerves; Loqi chiming in unexpectedly couldn’t be good. He couldn’t even go to the hallway outside the apartment alone, and he had unexpectedly arrived at the Citadel by his own feet? He had gone all the distance by feet, alone, despite it all, despite hating the Citadel with his guts…something had to be terribly wrong for Loqi to do this madness, Cor thought.

“Loqi, wha-”

But the Nif ignored him.
He kept going through the vestibule as if Cor was invisible. His limp was almost entirely gone now, and even with it he walked like a furious demon; steps with a determination and security Cor had never seen in anyone, not even himself. He rushed behind the Nif as he headed to a receptionist, asked something, left without saying thanks, and then continued through a hallway.

“Loqi, wait! What are you doing here, what happened?”
“I need to see your king” Loqi stated. “Take me with him.”
“…Loqi?” Cor questioned, entirely lost, but rushing behind the Nif as he entered an elevator. “Loqi. You can’t…demand an audience with Regis, he’s busy and it’s an entire protocol and paperwork if you want an audience with him- why are you here? What happen-”
“I need to see him right now, Cor” Loqi said in an authoritarian tone Cor hadn’t heard him use. It startled him; made him shut up and blink, suddenly unable to contradict him.

The elevators’ doors opened and Loqi rushed outside with his determined going. Cor hurried behind him, asking him what had happened, or what this all was about.
Loqi chimed into room after room; sometimes, the guards were ready to stop him, but stopped when they saw Cor behind offering no fight, or asking them to lower the weapons. A few times, the guards did get a hold of Loqi, who broke free and kept opening doors and looking inside. Cor still rushed behind, trying to stop him.

At some point, tired of not understanding what was happening all of a sudden, Cor grabbed Loqi by the arm and stopped him, making him turn.
“Loqi” Cor said firmly. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

The Nif gave him a frown. A pause.
He explained in one sentence.
Cor let go of him, and stood paralyzed, staring at him in shock and awe. And he would have stayed there entirely frozen was it not because Loqi turned on his heels and kept going, and Cor felt forced to go behind him.
“Still…whatever that means- Loqi, you can’t just chime in and interrupt the King like it’s nothing!”

Which is exactly what he did.

Loqi reached a new set of doors. The guards stayed still when Cor, some steps behind, gestured for them to not intervene. Loqi pushed open and chimed into the room, interrupting the King.

Regis was just dismissing someone who left through another hallway. He turned at the time he heard the doors open loudly; at the same time, his Shield, right next to him, stepped in front of him and summoned his sword, getting on a defensive position almost by reflex.
They both stared, curious and confused, at the small Nif at the doors that frowned at them as if he was their boss, and who welcomed himself into the room.

Loqi went straight towards them. No bow, no presentation, not a casual greeting, he just…walked towards them with the determination of an unstoppable storm. Clarus didn’t move from the spot; Regis did only to turn around to face the Nif.

Clarus took the eyes off Loqi only for a second to see as Cor came in right after him, nervous, apparently in distress, and not knowing what to do.
“…is he with you, Cor?” Clarus asked as his eyes returned to the small man that kept going his way.
“I-”

But Loqi gave them no time to talk. He reached them, crossed the arms as soon as he stopped, and stared intensely at Regis as if entirely ignoring Clarus’ existence. Regis stared back, confused, but also with profound patience and innocence.

The Nif frowned, with a blaze in his eyes as furious as it was adamant.

“I’m going to make Lucis win this war.”

Chapter Text

Even though Loqi had wanted to start that day, he had to wait.

It was the evening by the time he arrived, and the conversation with the king went on for longer than he noticed. What had started into “interrupting the king to tell him my plan in eight words then get on it” turned to a private meeting; the king, his Shield, Cor and Loqi, and later on the captain of the Kingsglaive too.

After barging in saying he was going to make Lucis win the war, Loqi explained better. Clarus returned his weapon to armiger when Cor told him Loqi was with him and meant no harm. Regis asked to explain. And so, some or other way, the four ended in the Council meeting room, later on summoning Drautos.

Even though Loqi would have preferred to skip protocol and not explain, because he already had the whole idea in his head and he hated repeating things, he was patient in his own way because he knew there was no way for the others to read his thoughts. He explained better, said in a concise way how he was going to do it, gave examples, and done. If the meeting went on for longer, that was because the Lucians asked things or pointed holes out that Loqi filled in. He sounded so secure and firm, it was as if he had everything planned. But that same security startled the Lucians and made them keep silence in shock because…Loqi was speaking about a way to end the war. After thirty years. After decades of being mercilessly slaughtered, humiliated, and defeated and pushed back to a last bastion. Having a solution out of nowhere for a war they all knew was already lost, and make it sound so…easy. So at a hand’s reach…of course it was difficult to believe.

“Everything sounds great, yes” Clarus said after a long while discussing. “But the question everyone’s thinking has to be asked before we decide anything; can we trust you?” there was a pause of tension, in which everyone but Cor turned to look at Loqi, who was not sat but stood at the head of the table, his usual frown on. “I have no personal grudges against you, but it still has to be asked; how do we know you’re not going to turn this against us?” Clarus leaned forwards in his seat and gave him a severe look. “The power of all our forces, and access to interact with the most important Lucians, the throne family no less, is something that would make it very easy to end us from the inside. Especially so, I apologize, for a Nif.”

“I’m not going to answer” Loqi said, voice not faltering, firm and authoritarian. Cor, who stood at his side, kept the head slightly lowered and the eyes wide, silently wondering if there was anything in this world that could scare Loqi. Clarus could still scare the shit out of Cor after all these years, and his most severe look didn’t make Loqi even blink? What did this boy have for breakfast, steel? “If you have to ask someone if you can trust them, whatever they answer, you still won’t. You’ll have to take a leap of faith. I’m not qualified to answer this.”

They all stared at him for a long while. Cor remained silent, wondering how much Loqi was fighting to not rage out; patience was not his forte.
Suddenly, Regis looked at Cor. He noticed, and lifted the head to make eye contact.
“You’ve spent all this time with him, Cor” Regis noted. The other Lucians turned their attention to him. “And you’ve been my right hand for almost thirty years. I trust you. And I shall trust anyone that you trust.”
The king turned to look at Loqi.
“Do you trust this young man, Cor?”

The Marshal hesitated. He blinked and closed the mouth, moved the head slightly. It was…a huge responsibility. Regis had to choose whether to trust Loqi or not; trust the whole war to him, trust the whole Lucian army, navy, and scarce air forces to him, trust Regis’ life itself and everyone else’s, trust something the size of the world’s and the war’s future and as intimate and greater as his dear ones’ lives…and Regis was bestowing that trust on him. Regis was putting everything in his hands, in one answer. The trust was immense, touching, and terrifying.

He opened the mouth after a pause, but was interrupted.
“’Trust’ in a strict, military sense, Cor” Clarus said, giving him that severe look. “Not personal trust. Can we trust that this man is willing to betray the Empire and help Lucis win this war?”
He asked it slowly, as if wanting Cor to understand every word. Cor hesitated again. Loqi didn’t seem upset at his hesitation. Drautos and Clarus looked severe. Regis looked as patient as always.

After a long while, Cor lowered the head. He turned to look at Loqi. The Nif closed the eyes, aware that Cor was staring, but refusing to look back.
It was slow…but Cor started nodding.
He lowered the head, sighed, and lifted it again as he nodded, much more clearly this time.
“Yes” he answered. “He’s a victim, too. The Empire has taken everything from him in betrayal, and on top of that, thanks to thinking him dead, they are…humiliating his family’s name. He’s not helping us for us, he’s doing this on personal interest, but that only adds credibility to his honesty on this.”

Once more, he turned to look at the Nif. Loqi took a moment, but, in the end, his frown softened a little, and he turned slightly in Cor’s direction.
“I know his reasons” Cor said. “I know they’re real.”
Loqi turned a little more his way, and they finally locked eye contact. His frown disappeared when he saw the gentle way Cor looked at him with.
“…I trust him.”

The gaze they shared lingered. Loqi’s expression softened in some way that almost seemed to want to express gratitude, but also some sort of shyness, or confusion. Cor looked patient, and perhaps a little touched.
“Alright, then” they broke eye contact when Regis’ voice interrupted them. The king looked around at each present man, one by one. “Your offer is very tentative, and my Marshal trusts you. Still, before granting you the permission, I’d like to hear in better detail exactly what you plan to do.”

Loqi exhaled through the nose, and while it gave away his impatience, Cor was amazed that the Nif didn’t lose it in a worse way. Normally, he thought, Loqi would have rolled the eyes and groaned. While he had no respect for Regis, at least he was behaving.

That was how Loqi spent the rest of the evening detailing his plan, and how, much to his anger and complaints, he was told it was late and the soldiers were not ready, and that he could start the next day. It took a lot of Cor and his patience-of-a-saint to control the tiny fury and convince him to leave (and stop yelling at his Majesty and Shield).

The following day, Loqi’s motivation skyrocketed. He was as motivated as if he had spent years in therapy progressing; woke up early, ate all his breakfast, walked without stopping at the daily go to the park, he even showered without Cor having to drag him to the tub. He was impatient to get to the Citadel. And it was such an upside-down turn, Cor was startled and constantly making sure he was not dreaming. Loqi, motivated, doing everything on his own, eager to go to the Citadel.
If Cor didn’t know the reason, he would have already gone insane with so many turns of life.

The soldiers were told in the morning by Drautos and Clarus what the plan was. Everybody seemed shocked, but the captains ordered silence and to accept it. Nobody complained…aloud, and the rooms were a chaos of murmurs and questions.
Because a Nif joining the army files could have been a shock, but whatever.
But a Nif taking the baton of the whole war, and lead them…
Not only was it senseless. It was denigrating.

And that was how Loqi’s first official day at the Citadel started, not as a soldier or strategist.
As a teacher.

“I’m going to arm your people with the most dangerous weapon” he had said.

Knowledge.

--

The doors of the main room at the strategists’ quarters slammed open with a thundering noise.
“Alright, who of you are in charge of the Duscae region?” was the greeting; Loqi’s voice was not a yell, but it resonated through the whole large room and made everyone either stand up or stop what they were doing. They stared startled at the Nif at the door, awkwardly and hurriedly hesitated, then pointed towards the section of the room he had asked for. Loqi started heading his way towards them with those steps like an unstoppable storm. “Niflheim’s main strategist for your zone is dead and out, drop everything you have, you don’t need it anymore, the replacement’s going to be Commander Zellerian, have you heard of her?” a pause. “I’m talking to you! Do you know her? You give me a second, throw those papers and get new ones, you go get whatever info you have on Zellerian, you go throw this out; who of you are in charge of Galahd and-or Leide?”

Losing no time, the people pointed the required section.
“Strategist in charge of those areas is dead and out, replacement is going to be either Enebro or Tacitus, do you know them?” he stared intensely at one of the people at the table until they nodded. “You go get whatever info you have on them, you throw these out, you put that in the bin, and give me a second; who here is in charge of the Nox et Lucis code?” he looked around until another section raised their hands. “We’ve cracked that code, it’s useless, stop it; who here is in charge of the Eneagraph code?” the people of the first code were left with dropped-jaws and in panic out of the news, but Loqi was too busy asking and commanding around, as if to him it had not been the bomb of a revelation as it was to them. The other section raised their hands. “Cracked that one too, it’s useless, who is in charge of-”

Cor had come in only a few seconds after Loqi, but all that he did was stand by the door and not get in the way, watching. As soon as Loqi had given one or two orders, every Lucian in the room suddenly unfroze and started rushing to do as told or to gather or accommodate things. While Loqi paced around and threw questions and orders from north to south, the rest of the room was a busy chaos of people hurrying around, papers flying, voices talking, everything and everyone working under Loqi’s sudden burst of commands.
It was…amazing. Everyone was working at a speed that, even though Cor had seen before, was rather impressive for a first day under a Nif’s orders.

Many Lucians seemed startled out of the sudden cascade of information Loqi was giving. The Nox et Lucis code was probably the most complex coding system Lucis had running to communicate with the troops in an exchange of information that the Empire could not understand. Or so they thought? This Nif came through the door and threw down a decade of proudly working the code and said it’s already been cracked without them knowing? And it wasn’t one, but two coding systems they had deciphered! The imperials had been hacking and listening to their secrets for who knows how long!? And that was just part of what the Lucians were trying to understand and half-panicking about while at the same time receiving more orders and being put to work.

Cor sighed and crossed the arms, watching Loqi come and go, pointing, giving orders, asking things, and doing everything at the speed of light. That was not how Cor would have worked nor suggest to do it, but he knew Loqi was unstoppable and impatient, so he let him work.

It was still…surreal. And very crazy.
Loqi’s answer was to betray the Empire in the biggest way he could; by making them lose the war. The current government was bad, and Loqi couldn’t allow them to neither keep control over Niflheim nor the rest of the world. His answer? Give every bit of info to Lucis, the enemy. Every single thing he knew; plans, strategies and tactics, but also go into the pettiest details. ‘Niflheim may be technologically supreme, but knowing how things work is the key to disassembling those things; an army that relies almost entirely on their technology taken from it is a defeated army’, Loqi had said. He would tell Lucis what to and not to do to win an encounter or a battle; how to assault a base; how to escape a tracking missile; how to defeat the Magitek Troops with one click, everything, every single tiny thing that came to mind.

That Loqi was a Nif was a vantage; him being in the military was greater.
But he was more than that. He was a general. Not only did he know better than the average soldier, he had also been given much more information than ranks below him were allowed into. More secrets, more details, more info, so much more.
A Brigadier General full to the last hair of his head of imperial information, ready to give it all away.
…he really…made the fantasy of ‘Lucis winning this war’ seem possible…

Loqi had switched from a general chaos of talking loudly to focusing more personally, and yell only when he had a question. In those moments, he was at one of the desks of the people in charge of the Nox code, and acting as the leader.
“…but we don’t want them to know” he was explaining. Cor watched with a mix of awe and admiration; despite his size, Loqi was…outstanding with such imposing and leading aura. The Lucians looked at him as if though Loqi had been leading them for years and they trusted his every word. “You’ve got a vantage; don’t throw the code away. Now you know the Nifs cracked it, but they don’t know you know, use that to your vantage. Okay?” the people around him nodded. “Alright, don’t fuck up and don’t do anything stupid, give me a minute and I’ll be back.”

The room continued being a hot-boiling mess of people and papers coming and going, with Loqi among them destroying everything that they knew to start from the remaining debris and build something completely different with the info he had.
If everyone went to work so fast and obeyed his every word instantly, that was not much because they got immediately adapted to the new ‘boss’, but because Loqi had chimed in with so much confidence, they acted by reflex. And of course, like any reflex, some minutes later people were starting to cool down from the instant reaction and started thinking more thoroughly.

One of the Lucians in the room dropped what he was doing, and started approaching Loqi, currently busy at another table with strategists. The Lucian walked slow and calm, eyes fixed on the oblivious general.
“…and exactly why am I supposed to trust a Nif I’ve never seen before?”

The room fell into sudden silence. Everyone stopped what they were doing and kept quiet, everyone’s eyes looking their way. The Lucian had asked it slow and loud as he took the last steps towards Loqi, and finished the question as he stopped mere inches from Loqi’s back. Cor tensed in his spot, as did everyone. Frozen and in a deathly silence, everyone stared at the strategist and Loqi, seeking his reaction. At first, Loqi stood still in his spot, as if not reacting. The Lucian at his back was frowning down at him, defiant.

A second later, Loqi was turning around with a subtle exhale. He crossed the arms and tilted the head slightly to a side. Cor subtly looked around for other people’s reactions, trying to find out if he was the only one that thought that, despite the height difference, Loqi looked far more terrifying. He was much shorter than the Lucian, and the strategist gave him a tough look, but…Loqi was…with a simple cross of arms and the unimpressed look of his face, so much more…imposing. It was as inspiring as it made him feel shivers, to watch someone as small be so fearless.

“I’m not going to answer that” Loqi replied calmly but without losing that air of supremacy. “You want to win this war? Go back to your chair and do what I tell you.”
“You break in and start giving orders like you own the damn place” the Lucian started saying, uncrossing the arms and getting closer to Loqi. At the closeness and threatening looks, anyone would have stepped back. Loqi didn’t. “Why don’t you go give your damn orders to your country, midget?”
“Because if I do that, I’ll end with Lucis in a span of a year.”
“I bet you would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Cor tensed again to force himself to not intervene. He didn’t like the look on the Lucian’s face; he seemed ready to attack Loqi at any second.
“I would, yes” Loqi agreed. “But I’m not going to do that. Go cry to your king and let me work.”
“I’m not going to tolerate a Nif giving us orders!” the Lucian yelled at him. Still, Loqi remained unfazed. “I come to my job to try and desperately survive in a lost war to stop the Nifs from using the Crystal for power and genocide when it’s meant to be used for goodness, and I find one telling me and my mates what to do! Without an explanation, without being asked, they just throw some foreign stranger to tell me how to do my job!?”
“Well, it was clear you weren’t doing it well enough on your own.”

The strategist grabbed Loqi from his jacket and pulled him onto his tiptoes. Uncrossing the arms was all reaction Loqi had; asides from that, he kept giving the Lucian the same unimpressed look. Everyone in the room jumped slightly at the sudden movement; Cor was already heading their way.
“I won’t obey you, tiny fucker” the Lucian growled at his face. “Your people have killed mine mercilessly for decades, and you expect me to accept you as our ‘leader’? Fuck off.”
He let go of Loqi and pushed him. While it was startling, Loqi didn’t fall, and stood unfazed in his place.
“I’m not going to take orders from you, not when you’re a stranger, and a Nif” he said the word as if it was synonym to ‘disgusting’. “They told us to trust you, but what reasons do we have to trust someone that’s the goddamn enemy!?”

Loqi frowned at him in silence for a good while, aware that everyone’s eyes were still on him. The silence lingered a bit too much; some wondered if Loqi was out of answers and had lost, some wondered if they were going to fight.
“You’ve got a complaint?” Loqi asked. Then, he nodded to a side. “Tell your Marshal.”

Cor tensed a little in his spot, some steps behind Loqi, where he had stayed still when the strategist had let go of the Nif. Suddenly, all eyes but Loqi’s focused in Cor, giving him the spotlight. At first, he hesitated. He sighed subtly through the nose to relax and focus, and got closer to Loqi until he was standing only a step behind and next to him.
“I know this was too sudden and unexpected, and I apologize for that” Cor said in the authoritarian voice he needed to use whenever his role as leader came up. Loqi’s head moved an inch in his direction. The Nif silently noticed he had not heard the Marshal like this, not out of the battlefield. He had been used to Cor acting stupid and even meekly. This was…oddly fascinating. “But the situation is asphyxiating. Niflheim is on us, Accordo is on us, the EPU is on us. The way things are going, we’re going to lose this war in a matter of months.”

Some people’s shoulders started dropping, as if they had switched from the tension and anger to a sudden hit of sadness and hopelessness.
“…resisting so long, for nothing” Cor continued. “All these years giving our best, to lose this war thanks to a set-up and lies that frame us as the bad guys to the eyes of the rest of the world” he paused. “If the situation wasn’t desperate enough being pushed to a last bastion and losing three quarters of the country to the Empire, believe me, it is now” he made sure to turn to look at people in the eyes as he spoke.

After a significant pause, he put a hand on Loqi’s shoulder. While it looked firm to the rest, to Loqi it felt…gentle.
“This young man served the imperial forces, and on a very high rank, yes. He did terrible things, yes” and while he knew that Lucians were no saints either, it was not the moment to say that. “But the empire betrayed him. They took everything from him. And many of you know what it feels like to lose all those that you love…”

Some people looked away. Some made weird faces of discomfort, and some whispered a thing or two.
“His personal life is his alone, we’re not getting into that. But I assure you, a betrayal the size of a whole country against one loyal man, it has an impact. And it changes perspectives” Cor raised the voice a little. “We don’t ask you to trust him personally if you can’t or don’t want to. We’re asking you trust in him as a soldier, as a general that has chosen who to help; no country, no government, no emperor or king told him what to do. He thought, he chose who to help according to his sense of justice. And that, a man who chose who to fight for regardless of his nationality, is a man more sincere than those who fight just because they were told to. He was told what to do, but he chose not to, and decided to do what he thinks is right. And that, rejecting what you were told to do and choose justice because it’s the right thing, is honest, brave, and admirable.”

Loqi remained unfazed on the outside, aware that any change of expression would make others look at him. He couldn’t allow that. He had to stay firm and unmovable.
Yet, his inside swirled around with sentiment. He had to remind himself that Leonis didn’t really mean it, not personally, to stay still.
“We’re not asking you befriend him” Cor continued. “We ask that you listen to him. He has enough imperial information regarding tactics, strategies, names, weaponry, and secrets to, if not win the war, at least do more than just survive” Cor stated. “He’s not helping us for Lucis, he’s helping us for himself. But that only adds to his credibility. And, let’s face it, neither we nor him can get what we want without each other’s help. We have the soldiers, but not the knowledge. He has the knowledge, but no army. We may not be friends, but we have one goal in common: to not let the Empire get away with their lies.”

Loqi subtly looked at the man that had previously threatened him, who still stood in front of him. He was looking at Cor, but with a different expression.
“…I don’t know what you think, but I’m tired of not seeing the people that I love return from the battlefield” Cor said lower. Loqi fought himself to not look back; he had thought Cor was just acting, but that sounded…a bit too sincere. And crude. “I’m tired of daily waking up, knowing we’ve already lost this war, and come here to…act like we have a chance. Tell the trainees that they’re going to be fine, that they’ll come back victorious. And then not see them come back, sometimes not even as a goddamn corpse…”

Loqi’s arms relaxed and he looked down. Inevitably, he felt identified with that last bit, but also dealt with some…pinch of something that tasted like vomit and frustration. He guessed it was what people called ‘Remorse’. He heard a sniffle somewhere in the room.
“So if this young man comes here, saying he can give us a hand to at least have one vantage after decades of massacres, I’ll take it. Whatever his nationality, whatever his feelings towards us” Cor continued, louder and firmer than before. “If they’re telling me that we can make a change, or that at least my people can have a fair match instead of being sent to carnage, or that I can save just one life if I just listen to this man…” Cor looked down at Loqi. “…damn, I’ll gladly kiss his soles if he tells me to.”

Loqi turned a little more his way, but not enough to make eye contact. From that angle, Cor could see his eyelashes. Dark, so long they almost seemed they could rest on top of his roundish cheeks if he closed the eyes. The prettiest he had seen in his life.
A second later, Cor exhaled and looked back up at the team of strategists, who either looked at him or down at the ground.
“…so let’s get to work” was his final statement. Despite the looks of sadness, people nodded, clapped once as if to take themselves out of it, one or two cleaned their eyes, and they all got back to their activities. The Lucian that had argued with Loqi nodded, looking more sad than embarrassed.
“Apologies” he whispered to Loqi, turned on his heels, and left to his seat.

Loqi stood quiet some moments, not turning around. Cor let go of his shoulder. Either Leonis was too warm, or the air too cold, because the loss of contact suddenly felt freezing. Some people were still looking at him, as if waiting one next indication.
“Alright” Loqi exhaled. “Who here is in charge of Cleigne?”

Some people raised their hands, and Cor watched Loqi head their way. He sighed, releasing the previous tension, and watched Loqi interact with the strategists, retaking his new job’s activities.

Some time later, when Loqi re-arranged the strategists and gave them new beginnings to start with, he exited the room. Cor was waiting for him, ready to guide him as he was yet not acquainted with the giant Citadel.
While in an elevator, during the silence, Loqi couldn’t help but bring it up.
“You’re quite a preacher, Leonis.”
Cor, a little confused from not expecting conversation, looked down at him, but the Nif’s eyes were focused on the closed doors.
“You know how to lie just enough to sound convincing.”
“But I didn’t lie.”
“Not about your country and your people, I don’t care” Loqi looked up at him. “I meant the whole, ‘he chose who to help’ and ‘that’s honest and brave and admirable’ stuff, to help them think you think I’m good.”

Cor frowned with confusion at him.
“…but I didn’t lie.”
Loqi’s heart skipped a beat. He blinked and his blank expression turned to surprise. He even uncrossed his arms, and opened the mouth slightly, even though he didn’t seem to have anything to say. They held eye contact, one frowning softly and the other eye-widened.
Before anything else could be said, the elevator ringed, and the doors opened. Loqi decided to look away and focus on exiting and pretend Cor didn’t say…that, or that it didn’t make him feel in such stupid way.

Loqi visited one more room of strategists, this time smaller. Cor stayed around, patient and watching him work. He turned many minutes later when he heard a familiar click-and-step nearby.
Regis was heading his way, with Clarus following nearby. Cor greeted him silently and stepped aside to clear the way for him, and Regis walked in calmly. He waited as Loqi worked, pointing things on a map, and with all the Lucians of the team listening to him with full attention.
“…to retreat, they won’t stand a chance with that brigade” he was saying. “There’s a human imperial camp on this side, so have your troops flee through the East, but avoid, and take note, avoid this trail on the mountain, at least a range of…three to four kilometers wide, ten to twelve kilometers length. Go.”

Said that, the Lucians nodded, some even said ‘Yes, sir’, before they all left in a rush through another hallway, unaware of the king’s presence. Loqi looked up from the table at Regis. He had his usual frown on, but the look in his eyes was…different. A little more piercing, if Cor had to describe it some way.

Loqi took in a breath and stood up straight, arms crossing, as he kept eye contact with Regis. The stare lingered. There was a tension different than that of other Lucians that gave Loqi a dirty look…perhaps it was because, while Regis was the king of Lucis, hence the person that represented all that Loqi had grown up hating the most, Regis didn’t…look at him as if he was inferior. He gave Loqi a gaze too gentle, too kind. Almost even a little sad.

Loqi’s nose shrugged up slightly as it did every time his frown deepened a little more than usual, and he was first to speak.
“I won’t bow before you, Caelum” Loqi said. Cor couldn’t help but widen the eyes in the background out of how horrific it was to hear someone not refer to Regis by title, and even worse, by his name. Clarus looked more than offended enough. Regis didn’t answer. “Don’t think that just because I’m helping your troops I stopped hating Lucis or Lucians, or that that makes us ‘allies’” Loqi put a hand to the table in front of him. “I’m a proud Nifelian seeking to save his country from its current government, not a Lucian ally, not a Lucian friend.”

Regis still kept quiet. Cor looked subtly at him as if waiting for a reaction of disappointment.
“And I’m seeking revenge. That you guys take benefit from my actions is collateral. I’m not helping Lucis, I’m using it. I’m not on your side” Loqi continued, frown deepening. “You don’t represent me. You are not my king. For all I care, you’re no one but a coworker. So don’t expect me to bow before you.”

If this had been the first time Cor heard Loqi speak, he probably would have had an aneurism right there. Regis could be his friend since all life, but he just…couldn’t conceive the concept of someone talking like that to him.

Everyone in the room was quiet for a good while. Regis seemed impressed, and Clarus was struggling with hiding his anger and shock.
A while later, however, Regis gave a soft, tiny smile.
“I understand, and respect it” Regis said with a slight bow of the head. “Will you, however, allow me to bow before you?”

Everyone in the room jumped slightly in their place and turned to look at Regis as if he had suddenly grown a second head. Clarus and Cor looked at him in shock. The shock in Loqi’s face, however, was the size of both their surprise combined. The Nif even took half-a-step back as if Regis had suddenly turned into a frightening monster.
“…wh-…what!?”
“Your decision is going to save thousands of lives, both at the battlefield and the innocents at home” Regis said and lowered the head a little more. “Lives that I couldn’t save…”
Cor and Clarus looked slightly away.
“You have my gratitude.”
A second later, Regis was trying to deepen the bow, but he couldn’t do much with the spine ache he was suffering of. Clarus got a gentle hold of him, whispering his name, and asking him to not overdo it.

Loqi stood in his place, startled and shocked, and a sudden pinch made him feel as if his stomach had shrunk. He watched as Regis stood back up straight, with Clarus looking attentively and still with surprise at him. Regis gave him a grateful look before focusing on Loqi again.
“…n-no, you don’t do that!” Loqi exclaimed, as if ignoring the fact that Regis had already done it. “I…don’t want your acceptance or gratitude, old man! Fuck off!”
“Alright, then. I won’t” Regis gave him a smile. “Please, take the time you need. I assume you must also be struggling with your own mental he-”
“No” Loqi cut him. “Unnecessary. I’m focusing on my job.”

Regis was quiet as if he was not pleased with the answer. However, he didn’t contradict him.
“Okay” he murmured. “As I said…your actions are going to save thousands, and help many more” Regis gave him half-a-nod. “Thank you. Both as a king, and as a man.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Caelum” Loqi exhaled and started folding the map on the table. “Thank me not when, but if it results. And if we want it to result, I need stuff and people.”
“Alright” Regis said. “What do you require of?”
“I need a room” Loqi started listing. “Do you savages count with Astreal-Holo yet, or are you still in the primitive era of projectors?” Regis could only open the mouth, but Loqi interrupted him before even replying. “No, fuck that. It’ll take me too long to program the whole thing, it’ll be faster if I draw and write- I need a classroom with a black or a chalkboard, whatever comes first- chalkboard, I don’t want to have to deal with fucking markers not working. I need printers, many, the best paper you have for blueprints, geometry tools. I guess I could use a scientific calculator, but I don’t know how good Lucian ones are, I may as well do it faster by hand.”

Regis had hurried and asked Clarus to take note, so the Shield was trying for his hand to rush at least half as Loqi was doing. Cor wasn’t sure if Clarus’ distress was funny or concerning.
“I need the best master engineers you have, maybe they’ll catch a bit of what I’ll be saying if I put it in kindergarten words” Loqi continued listing. “I need something to communicate with the captains or leaders because I want to focus in teaching the troops but your strategists are going to fuck up sooner or later and I’ll have to go make sure they don’t, so I need to be able to call and be called fast. No cell phone yet, the empire will catch track of me, and I’m supposed to be rotting in the debris of my house” Cor frowned a little out of how crude that sounded. "I need maps, get me seven master smiths, twenty or thirty engineers, I’ll write you a list of materials, and I need a uniform.”

Clarus stopped taking note when he heard the last bit. Regis, too, couldn’t help but frown. From his spot in the background, Cor too looked up and gave Loqi a look, not sure whether it had been a joke and Loqi just failed at sounding funny, or if he was serious. Loqi gave them his blank, serious expression of always.
“…a…uniform?” Regis asked quietly.
“Do I speak Astral? A uniform” Loqi repeated. “And at the first glimpse of black and gold or the first Lucian emblem I see, I take my stuff and leave. I mean an imperial uniform” the three older men continued looking at him entirely lost. Loqi exhaled angrily and rolled the eyes. “I already said it; I’m no ally, I’m not with the Lucians, and I don’t want people to think that. I’m an imperial working in service of the empire, and I want it to be clear” he made a pause. “Make me a uniform with the imperial colors, just not the emblem. Put my House’s on it instead.”

Clarus raised the eyebrows, sighed, and slightly shook the head in a clear gesture of ‘Well, isn’t someone exigent’ at the time he got back to write his notes. Thankfully, Loqi said nothing about it. Indeed, he seemed to ignore Clarus more majestically than Cor had ever seen Loqi ignore anyone, and damn if Loqi was rude to Lucians ever since he first woke up in the hospital.
“Is that all?” Clarus muttered.
“For now, yes, more may come up later” Loqi replied without looking his way. “Now, while you get me a classroom, what other strategists do you have working that I haven’t seen to?”
“We’ll contact you later when we have what we can get right now” Regis answered, stepping slightly away as if to let Loqi see the door. “For now, you can go see the royal tailors so they make your uniform as you want it. Cor will guide you.”

Loqi didn’t reply, only rounded the table and headed for the door without glancing in neither king’s nor Shield’s way. He exited and kept going through the hallway, and Cor was about to follow.
“Cor” he stopped when Regis called for him, and turned to look at him. The king got a little closer. “With this change of…everything, I want to give you a new task as well” he exhaled shortly. Loqi was still going, as if not caring that Cor wasn’t following or as if he knew where he was going, out of earshot. “I want you to be in charge of him.”
“What?” Cor whispered-yelled.
“I want you to be with him at every moment during his stay here” Regis said. “Like…a companion.”

Cor took a moment before looking away and sighing through the nose, hands going to rest at his waist.
“…Regis, it’s not…that I can’t, it’s just…” Cor hesitated and looked back into the hallway before continuing. “The boy is…difficult. As in…more difficult than fifteen-year-old-me, and I’m…” again, he took a moment and hesitated. “I’m…honestly a bit tired, I already look after him at home, and you have so many more options to look after him here. Monica’s available, she’ll make sure he hurts no one, I have to focus in training the troops.”
“It’s precisely because he’s so difficult that I want you in charge of him” Regis discussed back. “You’re better acquainted with him than any of us” Cor murmured a ‘Yes, but’, but the king went on. “He needs to be watched. A Nif among us isn’t making anyone happy. We have to make sure he’s to trust. But more than that, the boy is short-tempered and may hurt someone, yes, but people may also hurt him.”

Cor’s expression softened. He…had been so worried about Loqi hurting someone that the other scenario hadn’t crossed his head. It sounded stupid. He knew he wouldn’t like to mess with Loqi; the boy was fierce. So he had assumed no one would…
“He may know how to defend himself, but he’s in the heart of enemy territory, alone, outnumbered by thousands” Regis continued. Cor looked down, thoughtful. “And he knows how to get in someone’s nerves” even though he didn’t seem altered, Clarus, next to him, rolled the eyes as if in agreement. “Plus, you’re the most respected among the troops. If they see him in company of the Marshal, they’ll feel safer, and it’ll be easier for them to open up to him.”

Cor was still looking down, but more thoughtful than frustrated as he had first reacted.
“Can I trust this task to you, Cor?” Regis asked as he put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, smiling sadly. Cor sighed and nodded, looking somewhere between resigned and genuinely relieved. Regis squeezed his shoulder a bit before patting it and letting go. “Thank you, old friend.”

Cor gave him a sincere if slightly sad smile. Regis pointed at the hallway with his cane.
“I think he’s taken the elevator already” he pointed out. Cor rushed a step, froze, turned around, bowed to Regis, and turned around again to rush through the hallway and try to catch up with the Nif. Regis couldn’t help a smile as he watched him run.

A moment later, Clarus got a bit closer to his side and sighed.
“…I pity Cor” he murmured. “Having to stand that tiny, malicious, rude brat twenty-four seven” he looked at Regis, who didn’t take the eyes off the corner he last saw Cor disappear through. “You’re more than cruel, Regis. You really could have put anyone else to watch the Nif.”
“You, for example?”
By any answer, Clarus made a sound of disgust that made the king snort and laugh.
“Come now, Clarus. It was necessary” Regis said. “The poor kid is not going to do well to his mental health if he ignores it with the war. Cor’s been working really, really hard on trying to help him all these months…he knows him well enough and knows how to help. I think no one but Cor has the patience to handle him…” he sighed. “I worry for the kid. I just want him to be with the only one person that can help him as he needs…”

Clarus didn’t argue that. He knew mental health was a serious subject, even more so for Regis. There was a silence a little sad, that Regis broke with a sudden playful smile.
“Plus, I needed the excuse” he looked at Clarus again with an accomplice childish smile. “They don’t know it yet, but it’s so obvious.”
Whatever reply he expected, Regis had nothing but a look of confusion from his Shield. Clarus slowly started frowning, not understanding. He shook the head in tiny, quick movements, questioningly. Regis’ smile was replaced with a look of surprise.
“It.”
“The what?”

Regis sighed in playful exasperation.
“Clarus, it’s so obvious” but again, all that he got was a frown of confusion. “No?” Regis looked away and laughed a little, before looking at his Shield and reaching up to pinch one of his cheeks. “Oh my god, Clarus, you’re adorable.”
“…that sounded like you’re calling me ‘naïve’, Regis” Clarus said after the king let go of him. Regis gave him a playful smile, turned around, and started limping away. Clarus stood still some moments, frowning, and doing the mental math to catch whatever his friend meant. “Regis” he called, but the king didn’t stop. “Regis! What was so obvious?”

But the monarch kept walking away.
“Regis!” Clarus rushed after him. “Regis, tell me! Stop ignoring me! What was it!? Regis!!”

But as much as he insisted, Regis kept that mysterious chuckle to himself.

Across the day, Regis sometimes took a second of his tight schedule to look through a window, and sometimes caught a glimpse of the Nif wandering around in his new job. Loqi would mostly keep walking and doing his things as if he was unstoppable, and Cor had to rush behind him. One or two times, Regis saw the Nif trying to pick a fight or being provoked into it, and Cor having to struggle to hold him back.

A Nif teacher for the Lucians to learn how to effectively fight and defend from the Nifs…a good weapon, indeed.

Regis could do but sigh and hope that it all progressed for good from now on. Both the war, and the heart of this Niflheim traitor.

Chapter Text

Lucis decided to release the photographs of Vianard’s tragedy.

They asked Loqi to help with that. They gathered a group of the smartest strategists they had, three photograph experts, and two psychologists. They made a pact to not alter any of the photographs so no one had any excuse to tag them as fake, and show the chosen ones as real as they were; however, they had to choose very carefully; the photos couldn’t transmit any wrong impression or message, had to reveal as less Lucian faces as possible (unless given permission by said soldier), and most importantly, that they revealed nothing on the photographer.

‘Each photographer has a style’ the experts had said. ‘The imperials could catch the photographer by the style even if released as anonymous.’
So they were choosing those that looked less in Prompto’s style, without needing to edit anything. The good side was that, because this was a far much more rushed job than Prompto’s normal war-photography, they had far less of his usual style, were messy, random, and were a wide variety of styles, almost giving away the impression that it had been multiple photographers. There was too scarce that could give him away.

Loqi’s job there was to try and see if he could figure out who the photographer was. As obvious as it could be, knowing both Cor and Prompto had been at the zone of disaster, Loqi had been unconscious the whole time and the idea of a photographer had not crossed his head.
‘Who better to judge if the photographs can’t be guessed by the imperials than an imperial?’

So Loqi’s new job at the Citadel led him to the room where the Lucians were reviewing the photographs prior to their release.

They all sat at different chairs and desks. Loqi had decided to stand at the back, as far from any Lucian that wasn’t Cor as was possible.
Before they had started, he saw Leonis’ cub arrive. Boy with a ridiculous golden hairstyle and a galaxy of freckles on the face and shoulders. As soon as he walked into the room, Loqi’s nose shrugged up in disgust; sacred Six, the boy stunk of positivity and sunshine. Ugh.

Right when they had announced to start and turned the lights off, Loqi saw Cor get away of his side. Loqi shamelessly stared. Cor got close to his son, who was sat at the desk with a computer tasked to be the one showing the photographs, and put a hand to his shoulder, reached down, and whispered something in his ear. Prompto’s face of innocence stayed unfazed and, for a moment only, his eyes found Loqi staring. Loqi raised an eyebrow. It was obvious Prompto would find him staring as shamelessly as he was doing. He saw Prompto look away again and nod at Cor when Leonis father got away. Cor patted his shoulder, seemed to say ‘thanks’, and returned to Loqi’s side. Loqi stared at him for a few seconds as if expecting him to explain, but Cor just stared at the blank screen. Loqi shrugged it off and paid attention.

“Loqi” he heard Cor whisper behind him. “You don’t have to see this if you don’t want to.”
“You told me the same last night, and this morning, and literally ten minutes ago, Leonis” Loqi said without turning his way. “It’s a city in ruins. Not like I’ve never seen one.”
“Yes, but it’s the first time you see your city like this…and your people” Cor said softly again, and rounded him to stand in front of him. Loqi tensed a little in his place and frowned deeper, but as angry as he tried to be, he noticed the pinch of fear in his heart. It was true. If he had watched havoc before, it was all…Lucian only. Lucian debris, Lucian victims. Never Niflheim. Never his people. Cor put a hand to his shoulder. Loqi refused to look at him. “…the people here are experts. They don’t need us. You can skip this.”

Loqi considered it. He spent some moments thinking about it but, then, he closed the eyes and contained the breath.
“No” he said. “I’ve had time to digest it. And I need to see what the Empire did” he looked up at Cor. “I have to see it.”
The Lucian stared at him softly for a while more, searching in his eyes, but all he found was an unmovable decision. A little scared, but firm.
“Okay” he whispered. “If at any point you change your mind, tell me without fear. Okay?”

Loqi’s frown softened and he looked slightly away. Cor’s hand moved from his shoulder to his arm and stroked it a little before letting go. And so, both paid attention to the screen again, just as they started rolling the first photographs.

Cor had told himself to be alert to anything he could spot in the photographs that could help, but he had to admit that he was much more concerned about Loqi. Loqi had reacted at first, but nothing too big; he had contained the breath, let it out a little shakily, but he calmed down a few photographs in. He was mute, and apparently shocked. Impressed. But not terrified, not even scared. Cor confirmed with that that Loqi had accepted fully that it was the Empire’s doing, and that he understood the horrible size of it. It was as if he could fully understand what an apple was but was now seeing a picture of one for the first time; impressing, but not surprising.

“This one. You can see his reflection in this little shard of glass, can you see it?” one of the experts was saying as he pointed. Cor paid attention again.
“True. Rejected.”
“This one seems fine.”
“Yes, but you can see a tiny part of his shadow. Do you think it’d be enough?”
“No. It doesn’t give away any particular trait. I think it’s safe.”

Loqi was attentive. He made very scarce comments, and mostly replied when they asked him if any photograph brought any photographer’s name to mind. Loqi did name a few, but was always mistaken. Some other times, he suggested a name without being asked, but failed. So far, the photographs were not giving anyone away.

Loqi, normally, was not very…empathetic, or emotional. He was not focusing fully on the tragedies portrayed, and focused coldly and dryly solely in the task they had asked from him…but part of him was attentive to the tragedies. It was…while not new…quite an impact. To watch the city he had seen from his balcony since he had memory made…piles of rocks and columns of smoke. A mess of broken bricks and gusts of ashes.
It was a desolating sight. A little…hopeless. And it stung in his entrails.

And more than the city…all those faces. All the desperate Nifelians screaming their guts out, faces deformed into agony. Raw desperation, terror, something…inhuman. Something Loqi thought was characteristic of the Lucians, closer to animals…never had he seen the Nifs this way…
…and the Lucians. Lucians carrying injured Nif children, children who were being raised to hate them. Lucians holding the hands of Nif survivors in the debris, survivors that had celebrated the deaths of other Lucians before. Lucians curing Nif injuries. Lucians everywhere, Lucians yelling orders, Lucians focused in the task as if it was their own city and not the enemy’s. A Lucian carrying a Nif kitten in his Glaive jacket. Saving the smallest, most ‘insignificant’ of lives. Lucians really giving up their war mission to save the Nifs…

For a moment, Loqi was not in his present. He had already been told that the Lucians were the ones who had helped, but…actually seeing it…see all those brunette faces and low-quality uniforms fight with nails and teeth to get the last one of Nif civilians from the debris…

“…you okay?”
Loqi took in a quiet but deep breath through the nose when Cor’s hand on his shoulder and his soft whisper took him out of his head.
“Yeah” he whispered without making eye contact. “It’s just…startling. But I’m fine.”
Cor nodded once and didn’t question him, but he kept an eye on him.

Loqi decided to force himself to focus in his job and stop thinking too deep into it. For a good while, he watched the photographs pass one after the other. The transition of a picture to the next was worth a second or two of a black screen; Loqi noticed that, sometimes, there was a larger pause in between some photographs.
It clicked on him; it was on purpose.
The realization made him look back at Prompto at the desk, but the kid didn’t seem unfazed or nervous, and never looked at him. Yet, it was clear he was skipping some photographs on purpose. Why?

“Wait” a strategist said. “Here. You see it? In the back.”
Cor’s mouth opened slightly as if to intervene. Loqi blinked and his heart skipped a beat.
“That’s General Tummelt.”

It was not very clear, but it was there. The main focus of the photo was a Lucian soldier helping another carry an injured, but in a corner, a little distant, there were two soldiers crouched on the ground, and Loqi was sat against one of them. He had the head down, the hair made a disaster, and so dirtied that Loqi needed more than half a minute to recognize himself in that destroyed human figure that was being aided with an oxygen mask.
Unnecessary to say, he stared much more intensely at that photograph and did react this time. He uncrossed the arms and tensed, stared with widened eyes and the mouth a bit open. The people in the room were trying to not look at him, but some of them failed.

…that was…him. The day of the tragedy…in the moment he had been…rescued…
Almost without thinking about it, Loqi’s eyes searched nearby. His heart skipped another beat when he saw the back of Cor’s head nearby. The rest of his figure was hidden behind things of the background, but it was him. Watching Loqi. Attending to him.
It really was him who did it.

Loqi’s entrails felt like shrinking.
The silence lingered a bit too much, to the point Cor was about to not hesitate and drag Loqi out of the room, but the Nif started shaking the head in tiny quick movements as if to take himself out of it.
“Rejected” he said still in shock.
“True. We don’t want them to know you’re alive.”
“Oh, no, they will know.”

At the words, people turned to look at him again, as intensely as before. Loqi licked his lips and swallowed, and while everyone stared either wanting to see if he had an interesting reaction or waiting for his explanation, Cor stared to make sure he was okay and only startled. Thankfully, Loqi blinked a few times and focused again.
“I will let the Empire know I live, that’s not the problem” Loqi explained and looked again at the photo. “I just don’t want them to know where I am. They’ll figure it out, it won’t take a genius, but the time they spend figuring it out is vantage time for us. If they see I was aided by the Lucian rescue team, they’ll know immediately that I’m in Insomnia.”

People were quiet for a while, as if processing what he had just said.
“Okay, then. Rejected” and no one questioned Loqi more about how he was going to announce he was alive. Cor guessed it would be something personal, didn’t think Loqi would make a whole pompous spectacle about it. Hopefully.

The team continued looking through the photographs. Loqi still felt a little nervous, and the skin of his forehead and nape felt as if he was about to cold-sweat. He even took off a glove and checked a few times to make sure. Cor was aware, but didn’t intervene.
Loqi noticed that Leonis junior was doing that thing more frequently, about skipping some photographs, mostly before the one where Loqi appeared in the background, and a few afterwards. ’What is he doing?’

There seemed to be photographs of the trail that the Lucians took to exit the continent, but they collectively decided to not show those; as intense and real as they were, they could give the Nifs clues of where to keep looking for evidence to burn and erase before the EPU could find them. And so, with that, they turned the lights on and decided to end the meeting.

Loqi stood quiet and still in his spot, thoughtful, while people picked their stuff, spoke, and left the room. Cor had asked him if he was fine, at which Loqi quickly but calmly dismissed him, and the Marshal left somewhere else. Meanwhile, Loqi stayed ocean-deep into his thoughts; he tried to digest the impact of the things he had seen, the destruction, the Lucians helping, him photographed only moments after being rescued. His heart and brain took a long while to try to understand the weight of how the photographs had made what he already knew real as…truly real. The weight of it. The size. The impact.

And while he thought about it, he started making the connection of the question he had in his head. The photographs that Leonis junior had skipped. What was in them that he didn’t show, that he chose to not show? Did it have anything to do with Leonis telling him something in secret before they had started? Were they related to Loqi, somehow? Maybe he had photographs of his house in ruins? Of him bloodied?
…did he have…photos of…
…them?

It clicked on Loqi in a strange way; normally, when he made sense of something, he tensed and suddenly became an unstoppable force. That realization, however, made him drop the shoulders and feel a sudden…sensation. Like something inside him broke, but softly, and was letting out a puddle of sadness.
He turned to the desk. Leonis pup had put his things in his messenger bag and was gathering his stuff. Loqi stared a bit too much, a bit too intense.
It wouldn’t take much more than just asking him. Snatch his camera in the case he said no, and check.

Loqi continued staring as intensely for a moment, almost not blinking. He uncrossed the arms and started walking towards the Lucian.
At three, maybe four steps from him, Loqi opened the mouth.
“Prompto.”
The Lucian looked to another side, and headed straight for his father, who had called him before Loqi could even stutter the first syllable.

Loqi stood quiet in the spot, watching the other go away entirely oblivious of Loqi’s attempt at approaching him. Cor was telling him something that Loqi could not quite catch. He thought he could stay there until Cor was done, but, when that happened, Prompto was giving a nod and hurriedly leaving the room. Loqi tensed and had given half-a-step ahead as if in an impulse to run after him, but decided to stay.
…whatever. It wasn’t even that probable that the boy could have photos of what Loqi thought.

Loqi stared away as if to pretend nothing had happened. Cor saw him from his spot, and approached him.
“Are you okay?”
“Sacred moogles, Leonis, you ask me that like a thousand times a day!” Loqi exclaimed, looking away with a pout. “I’m fine!”
“I just thought it could have been quite an impact” Cor said softly. “I’m shocked myself every time I remember or look at the pictures. I just want to make sure you really are alright…”

Loqi had taken air in as if ready to yell at him again, but Cor’s sudden expression made him stay quiet. Loqi stared, shoulders dropping; sweet Six, Leonis looked so…innocent. Loqi tried again to yell at him, he tried to force it out but, godsdammit, he didn’t have the heart to snap out at a pair of eyes that looked at him as if though someone had just told him that fairies didn’t exist.
Loqi contained the breath without noticing for a long while, and let it out when he gave up on trying to snap out at him.
“…I’m a little startled, but I’m functioning fine. Okay?” Loqi sighed. “Maybe just a ten minute rest, but I’m fine, really.”

Loqi stared away when he saw Cor’s face lit up; his smile was tiny, almost unnoticeable, but Loqi’s answer seemed to have sparked some sort of…joy in him, something so sincere that Loqi hated it.
“Okay” Cor said with a slightly widened smile. “Thank you for your honesty.”

Loqi’s eyebrows furrowed. He looked up at Cor with the mouth a little open, as if ready to ask him why he would say that.
However, when Cor gestured for him to exit the room and squeezed his shoulder a little bit once he was behind the Nif, Loqi ended up keeping the question to himself. Mostly because nobody had ever thanked him for something as trivial as his honesty.
And it felt, unimportantly and trivially, but still a little…good.

--

As was his new ‘job’, Cor spent the next days following Loqi around and watching him do his…stuff. Cor couldn’t tag Loqi’s job as one thing because he had become a multitask man, attending the workers of different professions across the Citadel. Mostly, Loqi focused the first days with the strategists. Loqi threw away three quarters of the Lucians’ hard job, and gave them new beginnings, new fresh ground-level foundations to start over again, this time as he guided them.

They had adapted a room as a classroom for Loqi to start with the Crownsguards, and Glaives if possible in a near future. It was relatively small, fit for like twenty five people, Loqi, and Cor. It had a large chalkboard (that Cor very secretly asked to be set many inches lower than normal, guessing Loqi would destroy the Citadel in anger if they dared offer him a stepstool), and two rolling ones in case he needed to make notes. He had more than enough papers and pen and chalk for like a decade, knowing Loqi would freak out if he had to lose three minutes of his life asking and waiting for one if he ran out of it.

At first, Cor thought it would be boring. He had been in the war for almost thirty years, he knew about the Empire, mostly in the battlefield.
And yet, Loqi’s classes were smacking him in the face with the knowledge that he, indeed, didn’t know as much as he thought he did.

“You can call me General Tummelt. I don’t care about nor need your names, keep the kindergarten introductions to yourselves” had been Loqi’s greeting to every round of first-timers in his war class (that Cor heard Regis name under his breath and in a chuckle as ‘Nif Arson 101’, name that thankfully Loqi didn’t hear). “You don’t care about my personal motifs to ‘betray’ the Empire. No, I won’t set Lucis aflame, no, I’m not lying to make you all die in the battlefield, no, I am not a double agent, and no, I am not sixteen” a severe look. “You want to have a chance in the battlefield? Then shut up for a bloody second about my nationality and start taking fucking notes” and he would turn around to start drawing in the board. “Magitek Troops. Successes of some of our top-tech master engineering, little bastards ready to step on your twenty years of training with a move of their hand. Majestic.”

Oh yes, truly majestic, those cold, terrifying things with green faces and red eyes and literally no heart or soul or consciousness.
“You’ll learn three basics that you all know how to do in tedious inexpert ways and fail anyway, but in three to five movements, and succeed” Loqi’s hand was flying as he wrote. Cor noticed since the very first class that even though his hand was going at a ridiculous speed, Loqi still wrote in slightly cursive, fancy letter. Something worth of a noble so strictly and traditionally raised. “One, destroy it. Two, disconnect it. Three, escape from it. Successfully, that is.”

Cor knew how to do those things, and he knew many secrets, but, throughout Loqi’s lessons, he learned new things, learned a few of the things he knew were wrong, learned new methods and ways, and some became obvious. Everything that Loqi was teaching, he made sound so natural, so easy, so obvious. It was as frustrating as it was fascinating.
At first, both Loqi and the Lucians had been reluctant and wary of each other; the Lucians would attend the class moodily, some would make frowns or mocking faces, make fun of Loqi behind his back; Loqi would ‘greet’ them rudely, keep frowning in clear disgust when he looked at them, passive-aggressively insult them.

The Lucians were the first to ease. With all that Loqi was revealing about Nifelian MTs, tanks, and guns, they easily drowned in the curiosity and attention, and all that anger, disgust, and hatred turned to attentive stares, hands taking notes, and little gasps of surprise. Loqi was struggling a little more with getting used to be in presence of Lucians and not feel disgusted (like their faces were not enough, their uniforms were…uneven? Customized? How unrefined!), but Cor trusted that he would get used as days passed. He didn’t need to like the Lucians, he just…needed to get used.

And so Loqi’s first three days at the Citadel, two with the strategists, and the first one starting classes with the troops, went by. Cor would follow him everywhere, at first by obligation, and soon enough by thirst of knowledge.

Though of course, everything that goes up, like Loqi’s energy, has to go down.

--

It was on the fourth day that the inevitable came back. Loqi had pushed away his depression for those few days, because it was ‘unpractical’, ‘irrelevant’, and ‘unnecessary’ for his new job. But now the box where he had locked away his depression was opening again, and claiming his attention by force.

Cor noticed when Loqi didn’t appear for breakfast. He wasn’t even surprised. It would happen sooner or later, and Cor was glad it was this soon. The longer Loqi repressed it, the harder the fallback would hurt him.

Cor left their food in the cold air of mornings and headed calmly to Loqi’s door. He knocked first. Loqi didn’t reply. Cor walked in and stopped for a few seconds to look at the Nif.
Loqi was sat in his bed. Still in pajamas, the lower half of the body still under the sheets. He was looking at the window, without looking at it. He had a sad, haggard look on his face. And his eyes…they were gleaming with that intense sadness, deep as the ocean and vast as outer space, that Cor hadn’t seen in the past days.
Cor sighed softly in his spot, shoulders dropping and heart wrenching sadly in his chest.

Of course it had to happen. Loqi had gotten so excited with his idea and decision to take up on this new task that his mood had rocketed up. But depression wasn’t that easy to beat. Finding a new goal and having a sudden burst of good days didn’t mean the depression was gone. There was only so much depression was willing to let someone out of their comfort zone before dragging them back.

Calmly, Cor approached him. Despite being aware of his presence, Loqi didn’t turn his way or even blinked. Soon enough, Cor softly sat down at the edge of the bed and waited prudently.
“Breakfast is ready” he murmured. Loqi didn’t do more than slightly lower the head. “Is anything feeling wrong?”
Loqi didn’t even question his choice of words. He lowered the head a little more, and seconds later he was shrugging and subtly shaking the head.
“…I don’t know.”

Cor didn’t insist. He slowly nodded, and turned a little more in Loqi’s direction. He gave him time and stared patiently. Loqi’s chest swelled with a quiet breath.
“…I just…suddenly felt…” he shrugged. “…so tired.”
Cor nodded calmly, and continued doing what he knew best; stare tenderly in patience.
“…I feel…” Loqi continued whispering, gaze lost. “…I don’t know. The past days it was…easy. But today it’s…taking me…too much effort to get out of bed…” he spoke slowly. “I’m not even sleepy, I just feel…exhausted. In some…strange way. Like, my body is fine but…” a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know how to describe it…”

Mental exhaustion, obviously, but Loqi would probably discard it as ‘not real’ if Cor said it, so he didn’t. Still, what mattered was that he understood.
Cor nodded slowly, eyes on the Nif even when he was not looking his way. Loqi tucked his legs up a little bit more, and his arms very subtly moved as if ready to hug them.

Cor was quiet for a while more, making sure Loqi had nothing more to say. When it was clear he wasn’t going to continue, Cor sighed softly through the nose.
“Do you want to stay home today?” he murmured tenderly. It took a second while Loqi processed it, but soon the Nif was looking up at him.
“I thought you said that to get over this, I had to go out” his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“Yes. But you can’t force it, either” Cor explained. “You have to get out of your comfort zone and go out, but not too much that you’ll stress your brain to exhaustion. Taking a break and resting is also as vital.”
“Go out a lot, but not too much” Loqi frowned a little and lowered the eyes. “Sleep enough but not too much, eat enough but not too much. Bullshit.”
“It takes a bit of mental work, but you can tell the difference, I’m sure” Cor said. “You have to think and figure out what you’re feeling; if you need a rest or if it’s your mind wanting to keep you here. You have to figure out whether your brain is forcing you to stay here, or if you want to stay here.”
“…how do I know the difference?” Loqi asked after a long while in silence, shaking the head, and looking genuinely confused.

Cor thought about it for a moment. He breathed in calmly but deeply, and as quietly let it out.
“Well, sometimes questions can help” he murmured. “Think intensively…‘do I want to stay indoors because I ‘feel’ drained, or am I drained and I need to stay indoors?’”

Loqi stared at him for a good while even after he finished the hypothetical questions, and then looked away. His eyes went back to being lost, but this time in thoughts. He took a long while, but Cor was patient, and stayed there, watching him as he thought. The Nif closed the eyes as he tried to figure it out.
Moments later, Loqi opened the eyes again, but his gaze stayed down.
“…maybe…I can skip…shower and…the morning walk?” Loqi murmured shyly, almost with fear. “But go to the Citadel later…”
“Will you feel comfortable that way?”
Loqi shyly nodded, with a face so sad, he almost looked scared.

Touched by the moment and the look in both Loqi’s face and his eyes, Cor moved a hand up and very gently put it on top of Loqi’s head.
“Okay” he whispered. Loqi stared down with gleaming eyes. “Don’t worry. You’ve worked hard these days” he softly stroked Loqi’s hair. “You’ve done phenomenally. You deserve this rest.”

If Loqi had been in a better mindset, he would have freaked out at Cor’s words. That morning, however, his heart was so fragile and exposed, that instead of being angry, Loqi nodded timidly and moved a hand up to cover his tearful eyes, and he didn’t say anything. Cor smiled a little sadly, but not helping the pride he felt by seeing Loqi opening up more freely.
“It’s okay” he whispered as he stood from the bed. Loqi, a little confused but not questioning him, lied back down when Cor gestured for it. The Lucian covered him with the blanket. “Sleep a little more. I’ll wake you up when it’s time.”

Loqi nodded, not looking his way. Cor made sure that the little nightlight was well in place despite the sky starting to clear outside, reached close to Loqi again, and caressed his hair a last time before turning around and leaving.
Yes. Loqi had given his best at having good mental days.
He deserved a break.

--

Cor phoned the Citadel to notify he and Loqi would be two hours late, so Loqi could sleep a little more. If the Nif noticed the gesture, he said nothing about it; he got out of bed, ate a little, and got ready to go to his job.

Once there, Cor noted something; the two different Loqis that he knew. Despite the effort it took for Loqi to get back up on his feet that day, at the Citadel he was functioning as he had done for the past days. He walked with determination, sassed and insulted people, worked with normal energy. So unlike the murmuring sad little mess he had been at home. Loqi the soldier and Loqi the human being were…so different, almost opposite, and Cor knew them both. Had to deal and struggle with both.
And he admired both, each day more than the previous one.

He guessed that Loqi was making a very noticeable separation between “feeling like whatever I’m feeling” and “emotional restriction right now”. He was not allowing his emotional side to take over during his hours at the Citadel, as he didn’t force the strict military to rule when he was home. It was surely a mere subconscious separation, but he was doing it, and it seemed to be working. Cor was proud that when Loqi was home, he was starting to open up more easily about what he was feeling. What he didn’t like, and highly concerned him, was when Loqi was in Soldier Mode, and put his emotions aside.

Ever since the first day, Cor hadn’t liked it. The way Loqi forced himself to go to the Citadel, the way he forced himself to be okay to the point of being his usual sassy, rude self without a break, the way he forced himself to be alright overnight. Seeing him wake up early, have breakfast, shower, and go out by his own feet should have been a delight, but it wasn’t. It was scary, and concerning, and not okay. Because Loqi was basically…drugged on forcing himself to be okay, it was not real progress. He was putting his depression in a box, closing it, and hiding it under the bed, and that was not how it worked. He had to live with it. Carry it everywhere, acknowledge and admit it was there, and work it rock by rock until the box was empty. He had to work it, not ignore it.

That day more than any other, Cor thought a lot about it. The episode of Loqi’s drop of energy in the morning channeled his thoughts more than any other day to what Loqi had been doing to his mental health. It was on purpose, and it wasn’t good.

Cor normally stood at a corner of the classroom while Loqi gave classes or was preparing for it. That day was no different. Loqi was preparing for the next round of Crownsguard, at the front of the empty room, writing some things on the chalkboard. Sometimes, he stopped writing to clean his left glove, as it easily became dirty with the chalk as he wrote. That moment of silence served Cor to think more thoroughly about Loqi’s current situation and the spot he was standing at in his life. While he had been thinking about it all across the day, and the week, that moment was a good excuse for his mind to delve deeper into it.

Indeed, he thought so much about it that he couldn’t help it, and confronted Loqi directly.

“You know, Loqi” he called, but the Nif didn’t stop writing, giving only a moody ‘Hm’ as response. Cor shifted in his spot a little awkwardly, nervous. “I…think you have been…” he paused and cleared his throat. “I think you’ve been ignoring your mental health lately. Don’t you?”
“Sentiments and emotions aren’t necessary for this class, Leonis” Loqi replied dryly, not stopping his work. “That’s one of the reasons you Lucians are so weak and losing this war. You let your feelings and emotions get in the way of everything, even something as simple as teaching your troops” Cor’s mouth twisted and pressed into a line, not quite agreeing. “You need to be strict, unfazed, and cold-minded for a war. I may be ignoring it, yes, but that’s for practicality.”

“I’m going to be honest” Cor sighed. Loqi stopped for a moment and looked over his shoulder at him, as if prepared to get defensive in case Cor touched a fragile string. Cor took a moment before daring to speak. “Revenge won’t get you anywhere” and of course, Loqi groaned and rolled the eyes. Cor’s cheeks heated up. Gods, he felt like such an out-fashioned old man saying cheesy things. “Let’s suppose you make us win the war and you take out Niflheim’s current government. Good for us. And you?” there was a large silence. Loqi’s glare intensified from above his shoulder. “You still…I mean…you may be cheered as the famous hero that saved Lucis and the world, but…will that be satisfying enough? This won’t do anything to heal from the void that was left after-”
“This is not about Nanna and Frey!” Loqi roared as he turned around.

Both men stood tense during a silence. Loqi closed the eyes and contained the breath. He had to stay still and focused for a good while to keep his cool.
“…this is not for them” he said with forced calmness. “Not entirely. Taking out the current government will avenge them, and yes, it will be satisfying. But that’s a…collateral prize” he put the chalk away and took off his gloves as he spoke. “I really mean it, Leonis, that it’s for my country. Not for Frey or Nanna or myself” there was another large, almost abyssal silence. Cor stood in place, attentive and serene. Loqi’s shoulders started relaxing, as did his interior. “I can’t let them get the power they seek, not now that I know it’s not for the reasons I thought. And without my help, Lucis, the last and only opponent standing, will lose.”

Cor didn’t say anything. He continued giving Loqi a stare that the Nif couldn’t quite read; it was sort of a mix between…sadness, wariness, and…concern. Loqi stared back for a moment, but didn’t know how to handle the sensation, so he looked away and focused in the excuse of cleaning his gloves. But he couldn’t ignore Cor’s meaningful and sincere stare for much longer. He sighed and looked at him again.
“I thought about it exhaustively before making my decision. I swear” Loqi said softly. Cor seemed to have been caught a bit off-guard, as if Loqi had answered what he had asked only in his mind. “It was not one of my impulses. I thoroughly thought about it, and I chose to do it, not for Nanna, not for Frey, not even for myself. For Niflheim. This has nothing to do with my mental state, not good or bad. I promise.”

They held eye contact for a bit, and then, Cor lowered the eyes. Loqi couldn’t help but compare the way he looked to that of a scolded and sad child. He felt he should say something else, but he had no idea what.
A moment later, Cor was lifting the head again.
“Alright” he sighed. “It’s good to know that. I…was…” he shrugged and looked away, a hand reaching up to scratch behind his ear. “Uhm…I wouldn’t have liked to know that you were doing this because of and for revenge only. It wouldn’t be the correct way to cope with…it” he looked at Loqi again, a little scared of saying something wrong. “And besides not working, it would have harmed you further. So I’m…happy to know that.”

‘And what would the correct way to cope with it be?’ Loqi thought about asking, but he kept it to himself. He didn’t care. He just had to accept his siblings were dead, there was nothing that would make them come back, so he wouldn’t give in to Cor’s sentimental stupidities. Loqi stood quiet for a moment, watching Cor, and soon started nodding until he took himself out of his thoughts, put a glove back on, grabbed the chalk, turned around, and started writing his notes again as if finishing the conversation that way.

There was silence for a good while, but he should have known better that stupid, sentimental Cor would bring it up sooner or later and would do as usual; insist.
“I still think that you should do something to heal, though.”
“And what exactly do you have in mind?” Loqi asked with a hint of sarcasm, turning around again and frowning. “I’m doing fine, Leonis. Leave it” his frown deepened. “I’ll get over it with time.”
“Not if you don’t work it.”
Loqi growled aloud.
“What will you make me do? Draw trees and suns and a house? Pray?” he let out a sarcastic monosyllabic laugh of disgust. “Please. They’re dead, the way to cope is to accept it and let time fix it, and that’s it.”
“I beg to differ.”

Loqi, who had gone back to writing, once more stopped and turned, rolling the eyes and sighing loudly. He made eye contact with Cor for a long pause.
“…only so you leave me alone, I’ll listen to what you have in mind, once” he said. “If it’s a stupidity, I’ll throw the eraser at you.”

They held eye contact in silence. Loqi was giving him his usual moody look while keeping the chalkboard’s eraser in a hand. Cor was at the other side of the room, not breaking eye contact.
“…a good way to cope with the decease of a loved one is to write a letter to them-”

The eraser hit the wall, not because Loqi didn’t aim, but because Cor dodged in time.

--

“This is stupid. I don’t want to be here. Fuck you.”

A lady that was passing by gave Loqi a look. Loqi’s crossed arms tightened and he looked slightly down, blushing, frown so profound his eyebrow was twitching.
“We’ll just give a look” Cor said and put a hand to Loqi’s lower back, very gently pushing him forwards as a gesture, so Loqi instinctively walked deeper into the store. “If you don’t like any, we’ll leave. I promise. I’m not going to force you to this.”

Loqi stared away, blushing harder and teeth clenching. A person passed nearby, and Loqi, by instinct, moved farther away than was necessary to stay away from the Lucians’ touch. He tried to look around, but he felt observed and stupid. Writing to a deceased loved one was senseless. Cor’s suggestion was stupid.
Buying a journal was not going to help him…

So he had no reasons to be standing there, in the small notebook store. He felt like everyone knew why he was there, and it made him feel stupid and so shy it made him angry.
The store was charming, though. It was designed to look as if it was the interior of a wooden cottage. Simplistic, like all Lucian things, overly cheesy…but Loqi liked it. All of Niflheim looked the same, so, while useless, the creative interior of Lucian stores was a curious change. There were all sort of books; medium sized for school, large for drawing, from small to tiny ones; blank pages, lined, squared, schedule-planner notebooks, all sort of variety.

“The journals and diaries are over there” Cor pointed out as he headed there. Loqi felt tickles of embarrassment; a diary. Like a teenage drama princess. Still, he felt forced to walk after Cor. It was awkward enough to be there, the last he wanted was to be there alone. When he caught up with him, the Marshal was checking a whole shelf of a wide diversity of notebooks, as if he was the one interested in getting it. “See any that catches your eye?”
“Leonis, this is absurd” Loqi said. Cor stopped looking in the shelf and stared down at the Nif, attentive, but with that innocence that Loqi hated because it made him feel strange. “First a letter, and now a whole journal to talk to them often?” he clicked his tongue. “Why? They won’t…” he paused and looked away. “They won’t ever even read it…” he murmured with sadness, as much as he tried to make it sound like he was angry. “Why bother with writing frequently to someone that’s dead?”

Despite the noise of the store, their silence felt profound and tense. As it lingered, Loqi stared away with a sigh of exasperation to clean his eyes.
“Exactly because of that” Cor said as he pointed at him. Loqi frowned, hating to be caught near tears and, worse, have it pointed out. “You won’t be writing to them so they read it. You’ll be writing to them so you can say all that you need say” Loqi stared away again, crossing the arms but differently as usual. Normally, he did it on a defensive mode. Reading his body language, however, made Cor notice Loqi was doing it this time in…fear. As if feeling exposed or attacked. It made him feel bad, but he forced himself to be firm with him. “The letters are for you, Loqi. True, they won’t ever read it, but it’s not for them. It’s for you.”
“What do you know about losing someone, anyway?” Loqi hissed at him, frowning despite the gleaming eyes.

Cor felt a pinch. Deep, piercing, all at the same time. He reminded himself that Loqi didn’t ask that on purpose, that he didn’t know.
“There’s a reason I hate to be called the Immortal” Loqi stared up at him, as if both surprised and confused by what Cor said. The Marshal was giving him a look more severe than what he used to look at him with. “Trust me. I know.”
There was a very ugly, uncomfortable, tense silence after that. Thankfully, both started relaxing as the seconds went on, until Cor sighed as if to leave it behind.
“Just trust me in this, Loqi” Cor said almost as if in a plea. Loqi stared down with a slight pout. “It’ll do good to you. I promise.”

It took a moment while Loqi tried to get rid of the previous uncomfortable silence and as he tried to grasp the idea. Then, he nodded a bit moodily, not looking in Cor’s way, and still pouting.
“…then just grab any and that’s it.”
“Nope. You have to choose it, and it has to be special” Cor looked down at him and gave him a tiny but sincere smile. “I know you’ll tag this of idiotic, but I want you to choose one that calls you. It’s not just any journal, you know? It will be theirs…”

Loqi’s frown softened, but not entirely. He clicked his tongue again, but Cor didn’t feel offended. He patted Loqi’s back as softly as he could.
“I won’t look, if that makes you feel more comfortable” he said, gave him a small smile, and walked away, enough to be out of earshot but still in sight range. Loqi looked at his sides as if to make sure no one was making fun of him for standing there all alone like a lost kitten, and then, while moodily, he turned around and started looking from the end of the shelves that contained the diaries and journals.

Loqi wasn’t very content with the idea, and he remembered that Leonis said that if he didn’t find any, they could leave and that he wasn’t going to force him. So there were no troubles if he didn’t choose any. Still, he looked around through the journals. He told himself it was to make Cor think that he was trying, but a very deep part of him was yelling from the background of his mind that he really was doing this by will. Perhaps, that tiny part of him trusted what Cor told him…

Still, minutes went by and he didn’t see anything that ‘called him’. It was stupid and senseless and he could be using his time for something else. He mentally chided himself as loudly and angrily as he could about dropping this and going to Cor and just tell him he found nothing and leave, and still, despite that, he kept looking through the journals. A bit fast, not with too much effort, but still doing it.
And right as he was about to go yell at Cor, he froze in his spot with a loud gasp, as his heart skipped a beat.
His heart was suddenly racing so fast, in less than a second his head started throbbing too, and shivers traveled through his body as if a bolt had struck him. He stayed still in his spot, head very slightly thrown back, and eyes fixed on a journal among the dozens of different versions.

Minutes later, while Cor was checking some notebooks just to kill time as he waited for Loqi, the Nif was freezing a few meters behind him. People passed by not minding him, but Loqi couldn’t help and feel suddenly inferior and observed. Perhaps not by the people, but…by Cor. Senseless, he knew, Cor wasn’t even looking his way, but he felt…strange. He struggled too hard with just trying to approach him. His body was tense and stiff and awkward, and he held to the journal with an iron grip. He tried arming himself with courage, but he couldn’t find enough of it, so, instead, he forced himself to go on and walk towards the Lucian.

Cor was oblivious to his presence, distracted with the notebooks as he was. He checked a yellow one and casually flipped through the pages, then put it down. He was about to grab another one when he felt it.
A shy hand grabbing the hem of his jacket from behind.

“…um…Co-…Cor…”

Cor stayed frozen for only a moment, because he could not quite understand it was happening. Nobody grabbed him like that since Prompto was a child.
He looked back from above his shoulder. He stayed mute and a little shocked at the sight of Loqi Tummelt with the head slightly down and the shoulders a bit shrugged, a hand holding a bit too tightly to his jacket, and the other holding a journal even harder, though down, as if wanting to hide it from view.

Despite the shock that it was to see Loqi suddenly…so insecure as contrast to his usually overconfident self, and touching him, Cor’s excitement for seeing Loqi with a journal was greater.

“You found one” he said happily but softly, at the time he turned around. Loqi let go of his jacket and both hands grasped the journal as if he wanted to tear it apart, and his body shrugged up a little more. Cor tried to read him and guessed that maybe Loqi was feeling silly and humiliated, so it was a matter of encouraging him to fix the sudden mess he had become. “May I see?” but Loqi didn’t show him, not immediately. He stayed in his spot, bringing the notebook slightly up but more as if wanting to hide it into his tummy. What Cor could see of his face had become red, and all trace of his usual sass and jerkiness was gone. A moment later, while hesitatingly, Loqi moved the journal a little closer to Cor, enough so he could see, but as if wanting him to see as little as possible. Cor decided to not try to grab it, as to not make Loqi lose what little confidence he had gathered.

He looked at the journal. It was very simple, yet pretty. It was grayish-blue. The only decoration was the picture of a little snowflake in the centre.
“It’s very pretty” he said softly with a tender smile. Loqi didn’t say anything or looked at him, and even though he brought the journal closer to himself again, he seemed less tense and scared than in a beginning. “Do you want anything else?” Loqi shook the head. “Okay. Let’s go to check-out.”

Loqi never looked at the lady behind the counter nor did he reply to anything, being Cor in charge of it. Loqi didn’t let the lady touch the journal either, he showed it enough so she could scan the barcode, but always kept it in his iron grip. The lady didn’t question them, but while giving Cor his change, she gave him a smile that made Cor feel a little flustered, but in a good way. It was as if she was praising him for helping Loqi, even if she had no clue of what the problem was.

Loqi was mute during the ride back to the apartment, and Cor didn’t pressure him to anything. Thankfully, the Nif seemed much less tense and stiff, but there was still that hint of embarrassment in his face.

Once home, Loqi tried to pretend there was nothing out of ordinary, though he still held the journal as if it had become part of his hands. Cor, again, decided to do as they had done all this time with the nightlight and say nothing as if it didn’t exist, so to not make Loqi back away from it out of embarrassment.

A bit before dinner, Loqi went to his bedroom trying to not seem to be in a rush. Cor thought he would try to write in the journal that day, but Loqi came back only minutes later, a bit moody, and sat to wait for his food.
“I don’t know what to write” Loqi told him at some point during dinner. “I feel stupid. This is stupid.”
“The words will come on their own” Cor replied calmly. “It’s okay if you need to wait some days before trying again.”

Loqi was staring somewhere else, still too embarrassed to make eye contact, but he nodded shyly. Cor had to quietly encourage him to keep eating, as the Nif was too thoughtful and distracted that night.

After both said goodnight, Loqi got out of bed as silently as he could and reached for the journal, which he had left on the desk. He held it in hands and spent a few minutes watching it, the sad blue of the cover and the tiny snowflake.
He didn’t even open it. He couldn’t. He told himself the idea was so stupid it made him angry, and it made him even angrier that a tiny part of him knew that, really, he was just scared.

He sighed and felt like he wouldn’t be able to open the stupid journal in a good while. He put it in a drawer and closed it, decided to ignore it as much time as was possible.

He went to bed a little frustrated. Who would have thought that winning a war was much easier than fighting against the stupid things that a stupid drawing of a snowflake made him feel?

Chapter Text

Cor left the room to give Loqi privacy to try on his new uniform at the royal tailors’ workshop.

It had been a couple days since he went to get his measures taken and be asked for specifications and preferences, and finally the tailors had the first sample. They only needed Loqi to try it on to make sure they could make an identical copy.
Cor took the chance as he left the room to send a few texts to make sure everything was functioning alright without him in his usual activities (Monica replied with an eye-roll emoji and called him paranoid). Once he answered a few questions, he returned into the room, phone still in hand and eyes fixed on it. He could see Loqi somewhere in the room by the corner of his eye, but he didn’t pay him any mind, focused in his texts.

“Not quite as efficient as Nif clothing, but it’s quality fabric, I give you that” he heard Loqi say and, so, he looked up from his phone. He blinked and very slightly widened the eyes. Loqi was not even looking his way. He was still checking the uniform on the three mirrors around him. “And I won’t really need it for the battlefield, so it’s fine it’s not as…dynamic.”

Cor didn’t reply. He watched attentively and frozen, not even putting the phone back in a pocket even after it had gone dark. Loqi’s new definitely-not-Crownsguard uniform was…nice. It consisted of white pants with red stripes, and a white-and-red button-up jacket. As he had requested, the emblem of House Tummelt was proudly worn on the left side of his chest, and, though much smaller, at the middle-top of the back. He wore a waist belt on top of the jacket, and the pants were tucked into a pair of medium-sized black boots. It really looked like a Nifelian uniform, not just in colors but in style as well. He only needed one of their stupid big hats to make it look complete, but thank the Astrals he didn’t have one or the first person to see him in the Citadel would instantly kill him. It was silly, how just the lack of hat made it feel much more…friendly.

Besides, the hat would cover Loqi’s beautiful hair. Just recently, Cor had convinced him to get a haircut (it had to be in the Citadel, because if Loqi was going to let some disgusting Lucian touch his hair, it had to be a decent one, not some random…commoner), and while Loqi’s hair didn’t use to be a disaster, the haircut really…served him well. It gave shape to his hair, and he wore it as Cor vaguely remembered from the battlefield; the side fringe and shorter but still with rebellious tips on the back.

Perhaps it was the combination of a first proper haircut since the bombing and the new uniform where Cor was used to see him in mere civilian clothing, but…
…wow.
“Turned mute overnight, Leonis?”
“Ah” Cor reacted, eyes widened and heart skipping a beat, scared that Loqi was misunderstanding, and wondering for how long he had seen Cor staring. “Uh” yet, he couldn’t stutter anything out. Loqi frowned.
“You think I look stupid.”
“No!” Cor hurried. “No, you look…!” and so he instantly entered panic mode; now he had to look for an adjective that wasn’t a lie but wouldn’t make Loqi freak out either. He couldn’t say Fantastic because he didn’t want it to be misunderstood, but he couldn’t say not-stupid because Loqi would think he was making fun of him, sweet Astrals have mercy on me please make the room explode so I don’t have to keep talking, why did I stare so much, I am an idiot…! “Good.”

Loqi’s frown deepened a little, but he looked more confused than angry. He still stared at Cor as if analyzing if he was lying or making fun of him, and Cor stood paralyzed and awkward in his spot. Loqi’s frown softened a little when he felt his cheeks heat up, and he softly moved a bit of his fringe away with a gloved hand as he looked away.
“The uniform is…nice” Cor continued. “And it suits you well.”
“Yeah. Well…I’m…a size or two smaller than I remembered” Loqi said with a look of confusion. “But it fits, feels like Niflheim, and it’s practical, so whatever.”

Cor didn’t reply. He pressed the lips into a forced smile and looked away, heart still a little altered. Loqi ignored him and started gathering his stuff, thankfully not seeing as Cor let out a breath as subtly as he could manage.
He really had not meant to stare, and he really didn’t mean any inappropriate things, but Loqi was as good looking as he was difficult. And Cor meant it like both a statement and a compliment he didn’t dare say aloud, because he knew he meant it objectively, but he feared Loqi would think it was personal and take it as offensive.

He felt a little ashamed, despite knowing he meant it as anyone would speak about a good-looking person, maybe because he knew Loqi personally…but, gods damn, despite how jerky he could be, what a handsome man he was.

--

Loqi walked into the prince of Lucis.

He had exited the classroom after repeating the same Magitek Troops’ weaknesses and weak points to eighteen different groups and was heading to the cafeteria with the Marshal following behind. They rounded a corner, and just as Loqi was midways through, the prince appeared from the adjacent hallway.

Loqi gasped as soon as the figure dressed all in black appeared to sight, and stopped dead in his tracks. Almost as a reflex reaction, Noctis stopped frozen with a flinch and turned to the Nif’s way.
Then, Loqi ran one step forwards as if ready to tackle him.
Cor too had rushed and, even though Loqi stopped on his own, Cor still grabbed him firmly by the arm and didn’t let go even when the Nif wasn’t moving.

There was an abysmal silence, both staring too intensely at each other. Noctis, paralyzed in his spot, had a look between confusion and wariness, whereas Loqi was in shock with a hint of anger. He was trembling slightly, Cor noted, as if from the effort of restraining himself from tackling the Lucian prince. Noctis seemed much more relaxed, but still not wanting to move as if in the prey’s instinct of staying paralyzed to go unseen by the predator.
“…Loqi” Cor whispered behind the Nif, authoritarian but still soft, more of a warning from a friend than that of a cop. It took a while for the Nif to get out of it, but, soon, his body relaxed and he let out the breath he had been containing. Cor still waited a good while before trusting in Loqi again enough to let go of his arm.

Loqi closed the eyes for a second and, when he opened them, he frowned at the prince that was still watching him.
“My, if it isn’t the royal baby” Loqi said as if in a greeting. Cor opened the eyes wide and looked at him, though Loqi, slightly in front of him, didn’t look back. Noctis blinked, taken off-guard.

Before anything else could happen, from the same hallway Noctis had appeared from came another figure, first the voice and then the body.
“Who is it, Noct?” a deep voice asked and, soon, the giant form of the prince’s royal Shield, Gladiolus Amicitia, joined the much smaller prince. He looked into the hallway to find Cor, a bit petrified and apparently not sure what to do, and a very small blond.

The Nif raised an eyebrow and gave him a wide smug smile.
“And his lap dog.”
“What?” Gladio asked, eyebrows furrowing. Cor, behind Loqi, tried calling his name again in a warning, but the Nif didn’t do more than answer with a sarcastic little ‘Hah’. “Are you talking to me?”
“Please, train your pet to not think itself at the level of its superiors” Loqi said as he made eye contact with Noctis again. “I won’t reduce my noble self to talk with him.”
“My-” Gladio had started, but cut himself off to let out a little half-laugh half-sigh.

When he started heading in Loqi’s direction, Cor instantly panicked and tried to pull Loqi back, but Loqi smacked his hand away and retook a few steps ahead, frowning deep and glaring intensely at the Shield.
Soon, Gladio was standing right in front of him…and Cor looked away, covering half his face with a hand to hide a blush of a sudden sort of embarrassment from what he was looking at because…sweet Astrals, if Loqi was already tiny, Gladiolus made him look insignificant. It felt like watching a huge cop dog glaring down at the tiniest kitten; way taller, way tougher, way wider, way everything.
And still, Loqi wasn’t shaking, hesitating, or even moving away. Heck, he was glaring up at the Shield.

“If anyone here has to reduce himself, that has to be me” Gladio growled lowly at the Nif, and then, he bent down until his face was closer to Loqi’s, having to bend his spine so much, even Noctis looked away in second-hand embarrassment of such ridiculous size difference. “Microscopic bastard”
“You rely too much on your size, you, brute Sasquatch” Loqi said back as loud as he normally spoke. “Take that away and you’re but a useless egocentric dog with no will of your own” Loqi lifted the chin slightly. “What does it feel like? To be born only for duty, have your fate sealed way before you’re conceived, be unable to have a life and live all of it with your head under someone else’s dirtied, bloodied sole?”
“I take my job with pride” Gladio growled at him with piercing anger, frowning so hard it looked like he was ready to throw a bite at any moment.

Loqi let out a sarcastic ‘Hah’.
“Because they taught you to” he murmured with poison, still not backing away despite the mountain of a man he had mere inches from his face. “If there’s one despicable and denigrating family in the world, that’s the Amicitia” at his statement, the Shield reacted with a blink and moving slightly back up, as if it was him who was feeling threatened. “I hate the throne family, but at least the Lucis Caelum have some use. But the Amicitia?” another sarcastic laugh. “Trained sacrificial lambs taught that their lives aren’t worth a single atom and that they live only for the Lucis Caelum. You, your father, his father before him, and your child after you, you’re all a line of disposable brainless brutes that lack the spiritual intelligence to notice you’re being used and have been held in a lash for two millennia under the feet of the Lucis Caelum who see you as nothing but a literal Shield they can break and leave behind without looking back to save their lives.”

As Loqi spoke, Gladio continued moving up until he was standing straight again, and had taken half-a-step back. He didn’t look threatened or scared as he looked utterly surprised. Cor didn’t blame him; Loqi was showing to be reckless beyond logic, brave beyond stupidity, fearless beyond common sense. Someone that apparently lacked the biological capacity to fear or refrain was rare and sort of threatening.
“Now, if you will, stop talking to me” Loqi said as he looked away. “Neither you or your sacrificial lamb of a father are anywhere near the heels of a Niflheim noble, so, please.”

Noctis and Gladio still gave him widened eyes of surprise and, with much reason, quite offended.
“Loqi.”
The Nif’s smug smile faded instantly and he flinched very slightly in his spot at the calling. He turned around, finding Cor inches from him, and taking his arm again, this time more roughly than before, enough to startle him, but not enough to harm him. Cor was looking down at him with a frown of anger that Loqi hadn’t seen in him in a long time. They shared no words, and yet, there seemed to be a conversation going on that Noctis and Gladio could see, but not understand.

A moment later, Cor let go of the Nif. Loqi, despite frowning, soon closed the eyes and contained the breath.
“…I’m sorry” he muttered as he turned to the other two, very moodily and like a child that was forced to it. “Everything I said is true, though.”
“Loqi.”
“What!?” he yelled as he turned around to face Cor again, this time daring. Cor raised the eyebrows at him, and Loqi sighed and shook the head, once more calming down.
“Go to the cafeteria. No more talking with the prince or his Shield” Cor said more like a threat than an order. Loqi gave him a raised eyebrow, and while he had a lot to complain about, he said nothing, understood the chiding, and shrugged it off with a ‘whatever’.

Still, Loqi looked over his shoulder at the prince again. Noctis tensed in his spot and looked back to show he had no fear. Loqi gave him a chilling cold look, before looking away and walking back through the hallway he had first appeared from.
Cor watched him leave until he was out of eye and ear range. He sighed heavily, dropping the head.
“What a nice friend you’ve got there, Marshal” Gladio said with faked joy. Cor hid his face in his hands and whined into them.
“I’m so sorry for his attitude…”

There was a bit of an awkward silence in which Gladio just gave a moody ‘Huh’ and crossed the arms, frowning at the hallway Loqi had taken as if he was still there.
“What’s with him, anyway?” Noctis asked, looking the same way. “I didn’t even say anything, he just…straight attacked us.”
“I’m so sorry” Cor whined again, looking away and apparently in distress.
“That’s the Nif that’s ‘helping’ us?” Gladio asked. “Dad told me about him. Described him as a tiny, rude, malicious brat. And here I thought he was exaggerating.”
“He’s not malicious” Cor said, a hand stroking his neck, cheeks slightly flushed. “He’s just…difficult.”

When Gladio let out a sarcastic laugh again, Cor looked at him and, even though he tensed in embarrassment, he looked firm as he spoke.
“Really, he’s not a bad guy, I swear. He just…” Cor sighed. “He was raised a proud military nationalist. It’s difficult for him to get adapted to Insomnia, and even harder to not be triggered in presence of royalty and nobility like you two” Cor stayed quiet for a moment when he felt that Gladio and Noctis were staring at him with surprise. Cor sighed and crossed the arms. “He just…needs time. What he said was very wrong, but he doesn’t mean to be like that.”
“Evil?”
“He’s not evil!”

There was a pause in which Cor sighed.
“He’s not evil” he repeated and looked down, frowning like a child that wants to defend something they love but too shy by thinking the others would laugh. “He has good intentions, and he’s a good person. He’s rude only because that’s his way of coping; he feels threatened in unknown territory without another Nif ally, that’s why he’s so aggressive the first time he meets someone, but really he’s not a bad person” his frown softened. “He’s brave and courageous, and he’s smart, so incredibly smart, and he didn’t hesitate choosing what’s correct fearlessly, and he…he has a sensitive side buried in there that he rarely shows, but he can feel love and compassion and…”

Cor stopped when he felt he had spoken for too long, fearing the other two were thinking wrong or silly of him, cutting and changing his phrase.
“…he just needs some patience” he murmured.
“But from what I’ve gathered, he’s not triggered just from royalty or nobility” Gladio said. “Dad’s told me he’s mean to everyone, even the troops. It’s not that I think you’re lying, Marshal, but maybe you’re biased because he’s not rude to you.”
“Oh, no, you’re wrong there” Cor said with a sarcastic laugh and the shake of his head. “He used to be very rude with me, too, insulted me every time he could. He still does at times” suddenly, Cor felt invaded by shyness again, so, almost by reflex, he looked away and, in his nervous tic, a hand reached up so he could scratch the back of his ear as he spoke. “…but he’s…eventually changing. He’s- starting to warm up…I think…”
“How did you do that?” Noctis asked from his spot. “How did you get such…demon to warm up to you?”

There was silence. Cor knew the answer, and he knew that he knew, but he suddenly felt unable to say it. It was like admitting or confessing something intimate, and it took effort to let it out. With a sigh, he looked down at the weird sensation of his cheeks tickling.
“…I just…didn’t give up on him, that’s all…”

Gladiolus and Noctis were giving him that look of surprise as if not understanding if they were talking about the same person, or as if not having expected the Marshal to have gone into such a rant.
“That’s the boy you’ve…?” Gladio started asking, frown softened. Cor looked at him as if fearing to be judged. “Iggy told me when you asked him for advice. You’re saying that…that’s the boy struggling with…?” after a pause, the Shield sighed and dropped his hands from their place crossed at his chest. “Can’t believe that brat has feelings. Can’t believe you’ve had to stand him for the past…what, four months?” Cor shrugged with a slight nod. “Holy Six. Your patience is worth of a god, Marshal.”

Cor shrugged as he nodded and looked away, as if not sure what to reply.
“I’ll forgive him only because you believe in him.”
“Thank you…but I’ll still talk with him. Being depressed gives no one the right to be mean to others on purpose, and he has to work on it.”
“With you and your patience on his side, the boy will grow out of it, you’ll see” Gladio encouraged him, finally smiling as lightheartedly as always. Cor smiled and looked down again, never good at or sure of how to receive compliments or good comments. They shared smiles for a second in silence, until Gladio took in a little breath. “Noct” he called while still looking at Cor. The Marshal looked behind Gladiolus, and saw the prince frozen some meters further the last spot he was at, as if he had been trying to sneak away. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you” said that, Gladio gave Cor a smile and a playful wink, turned around, and headed for the prince, who looked very much upset now. “To the training hall, prince Charmless.”

Cor heard the prince curse. Gladio picked him up under his arm like he was a potato bag, and Noctis just let himself be carried. The Marshal smiled, watching his dear students and family go.

He too turned his own way to go do as Gladio, and not lose sight of his own little moody charge.

--

“What you said to Gladiolus was very rude, you know.”

Loqi snorted sarcastically as he continued making his way into the apartment, not stopping as if not caring. Cor stayed behind to close the door and put the keys in their place.
“What happens is that you Lucians are too sentimental, and always sugarcoat things” Loqi said as he leaned against the kitchen’s counter. Cor secretly compared his height to the stool chair (it had become a reflex, want to measure Loqi with everything next to him, because he was so small). “So when someone comes with the truth, you think it’s ‘rude’ and ‘aggressive’.”
“It’s not true” Cor argued back, taking his jacket off. “Gladiolus, like his father, takes his duty personally. They could drop the title, but they choose not to.”

As Cor tossed his jacket onto the couch, Loqi again laughed sarcastically. He climbed onto the chair and declared he was thirsty. Cor gave him raised eyebrows and went into an argument when he asked ‘you’re thirsty, what?’, refusing to move until he made Loqi angry and soon had him yelling at him that he had been clear, and Cor convincing him until the Nif, while rather moodily, had no option but bark out a ‘Please’. Only then Cor went into the kitchen to serve him something. There was a bit of silence while Cor served the water.

“And that’s no way to stare at the crown prince” Cor said as Loqi drank. “That fact that he’s not your prince doesn’t mean you should glare at him like that.”
“I wasn’t glaring, I was thinking” Loqi stated, resting the chin on a hand. Cor lifted an eyebrow and crossed the arms on the counter, opposite to Loqi. “Killing him and his father would save millions of lives.”
“Killing to stop the killing” Cor said and nodded. “Sounds logical.”
“Like it’s not what you Lucians are doing, too” Loqi sassed. “Really, think about it; killing the last of the Caelum brings down all magic in your kingdom. That gives access to Niflheim into it. You surrender, we take over, the war is over so there’s no need for more killing, and we run the world as it’s supposed to work.”

Cor was quiet and stared at Loqi in a mix of threat and confusion; on a side, Cor was not willing to let Loqi have that sort of ideas or speak them, and on the other side, he was unsure if Loqi had already forgotten about the whole bombing issue and was serious about this. But, clearly, like many other things, Loqi was just talking more than necessary on purpose.
“It’d have been so easy, had the empire not fucked up” Loqi lamented with a sigh. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill them. Not for this empire.”
“So if it was a different government” Cor started, careful, “would you still want to?”
Loqi shrugged.
“I mean, you guys are the ones that are wrong” Loqi said. “That this Empire is wrong doesn’t mean that you guys are right.”

Cor lifted both eyebrows, giving Loqi a look as if daring him to say it again. Loqi just gave him his sassy look of always and sipped from the glass of water, as if confident and not owning any explanations.
“Why are we wrong?” Cor asked. “We’ve done literally nothing wrong. It was you who started all this mess.”
“I don’t believe in most of what the Empire has told me anymore so I’d have to do research on many things, but I do know, you Lucians are hogging the Crystal.”
“Hogging? Like it’s a gaming console, oh my Six.”
“Why not share it with the world? Why must it stay in Lucian-exclusive territory, in the heart of exclusively Lucis, only for the Lucians to see? How many generations of Nifelians haven’t even seen it from afar?”
“What do you want us to do? Parade it around the world?”
“Why not?”
“Because it needs to be protected!”
“From what? Right now there is war, yes, but that’s because you hogged it for too long. Back in the days, when there was no war, there was no need to protect it from anything and you still kept it locked away to yourselves, that’s why we attacked. You were never protecting it, it was always just an excuse-”
“Hello? Scourge anyone?”
“The Scourge is a world thing, just because there’s nothing in Insomnia doesn’t mean it’s the only Scourge-safe place. You could roll it among the nations, each taking a turn every year to protect it. You just are power-hungry fools wanting to dominate the world and hiding it under the speech of ‘protection’.”

Cor sighed as if not believing what he was hearing. He quickly licked his lips and looked at Loqi again.
“We keep it here because here is where the Caelum family lives” he explained slowly. “And the Lucis Caelum are literally the only ones that can interact with the Crystal to a magical level literally no one else in the world has.”
“And why must that mean they have to hog it?” Loqi insisted. “Following your logic, if I create the cure for the Scourge, then I have to keep it locked away in my house for only me to see because only I can understand and create it.”
“Sacred Leviathan, I can’t believe you’re so dense about it, it’s not that the Lucis Caelum chose to not share the Crystal, it’s that they can’t even if they wanted.”
“And why not!?”
“Because the gods literally chose only them!”

“Fine, okay, let’s suppose they can’t share the magic” Loqi stated, sitting up straight and looking at Cor to the eye with his usual determination. “Then why are they not using its full potential to benefit the whole world?” he gave Cor a smile when he saw the Marshal not replying. “I bet they could do something about the Scourge, so why don’t they?”
“That’s an Oracle-exclusive power” Cor said. “And now what? Will you complain too about why the Nox Fleuret don’t ‘share’ their magic, too?”
“I complain about why the Lucis Caelum, so famously known for accompanying and aiding the previous Oracles, are not doing it now.”
“Maybe because you keep her locked away like an animal.”
“Ooh…” Loqi let out long and low, pointing a finger at Cor and glaring. “That was a low hit, Leonis.”

In the pause that followed, Cor smiled and raised an eyebrow. He was…not sure of why, but none of this felt like an argument. Not a bad one. It was more…like a heated discussion, but nothing that Loqi was saying upset him for real, and Loqi had yet not thrown anything at him, so he guessed it was a mutual thing.
“Okay, because I’m very open-minded, I’m going to let you give me your arguments of why you Lucians think we are the bad guys” Loqi said almost as if he was offering a gift. Cor’s eyebrows went up again as if asking if he was serious.
“It’s not even that we think you’re the bad guys, we’re literally just…defending ourselves” Cor argued. “But I mean, if you’re doing nothing and someone randomly arrives and hits you with a shovel and tries to break down your door to trash your house and then kick you out of it claiming it’s their house now, I’m pretty sure you’d see them as the bad one.”
“You could have just handed over the Crystal.”
“There you go again. I’ll tell you what happens-”
“No, I will tell you what’s happening, what happens is-”
“You Nifs have an inferiority complex.”
“-you Lucians can’t grasp the idea of- ooh, you take that back, Leonis, you take that back before I take this chair and shove it up your-”
“And that’s why you’re so desperate about the Crystal, because Tenebrae has the Oracles and Lucis the Crystal and Accordo a god and you Nifs killed the only deity you had.”
“-you daring to speak like that about-” a long, sharp inhale. “How dare you.”
“And you said it was us who couldn’t handle the truth.”

They fell into a sudden silence in which they did but stare at each other, as if that too was a competition. Loqi was giving him an offended look, but Cor couldn’t help a smile. Loqi pushed his glass closer to Cor in a silent clear gesture of asking for more, like he knew he was up to a long conversation and needed a clear throat.
“I’ll tell you what it is” Loqi said more calmly, eyes piercing Cor. “You Lucians can’t handle the idea of Niflheim being superior to you, so you don’t want to share the only thing you have. Your- so precious ‘magic’.”
“Technology is something anyone can develop. Sure, we’re nowhere close to Niflheim, but we could create technology if we had the resources” Cor said and then rested the chin on a hand, giving Loqi a sly, sassy smirk. “…how do you create magic?”

Loqi frowned so much his eyebrow started twitching. As if knowing himself victorious, Cor laughed shamelessly in his face. The Nif, instead of throwing something at him, only drank from his glass before speaking.
“Fine” he said as if ready to throw himself at anyone at any moment. Despite the threatening look, Cor just pulled a chair close, sat, and gave Loqi a smug smile too as if daring him. “Let’s discuss politics, then” Cor raised the eyebrows and moved the head as if saying ‘we shall, then’.
“I hear your arguments” Cor said and leaned back on his seat, grabbing a glass nearby for himself as well.
“For starters, the war wouldn’t have started had you established better foreign policies regarding Niflheim from the beginning.”
“You weren’t even born when the war started, what do you know?”
“Will you let me speak?”
A little laugh.
“Go on, I’m sorry.”
“As I was saying…”

And both went on…for at least two and a half hours, speaking politics and the war. What had started as trying to make Loqi understand that he had been rude to a Lucian noble turned into something strange, a conversation in which both sassed each other and were crudely honest, but, for the first time since they knew each other…not arguing. Their interactions had either been heated arguments, heartbreaking moments, neutral ignoring each other, and small talk here and there. But what was happening that evening at the kitchen’s bar was…an argument without arguing, getting upset without it really hitting any nerves.
It was a discussion. Cor was having a war discussion with Loqi, without being personally attacked. Both listening, both giving their opinion. Divided and opposite, but not fighting.

At first, Cor thought that Loqi was stupid and dense. Cor tried to defend Lucis and was sure he had the reason, but while he didn’t change his perspective, the deeper they got into the conversation, the more he learned about how Loqi’s mind worked, and how…mature he was. How incredibly much more mature than Cor thought he was he really was. Loqi…was not just smart when it came to engineering. He was brilliant in politics as well, at least at understanding them. He was well informed, as good as Niflheim’s restricted information allowed. He understood the war and what was happening, and while Cor still saw in him a puppet the Empire created and lied to, Loqi still saw some points that Cor couldn’t help but accept as valid. He didn’t support them, but…Loqi was not just fighting because he was told to. He had purposes, he had an understanding and personal philosophies about the war.

As the accidental but very delightful discussion went on, both defending their countries and giving out their best arguments, both would sometimes drink from their glass as if they were a pair of old friends reuniting and discussing at a quiet local bar, and it was alcohol instead of water. For a second, he wondered if Loqi was an alcohol drinker. Maybe it was that he saw people around Loqi’s age grow up and he sometimes still had troubles remembering they had started drinking too, but he hadn’t thought about Loqi enjoying alcohol. He wondered if he liked it. If he did, it meant he would have had gone all those months without a drop. Which was fine, but a drink every now and then could be enjoyable. He wondered if Loqi would like to take this discussion out somewhere to enjoy with a drink. He wondered if he should offer it.

He didn’t, and decided to be content with just that moment at the kitchen, sat across from Loqi, watching the young man put the hands up as he spoke, slam them down on the counter when he got excited, the always unstoppable determination in his eyes, the passion with which he spoke about his country, despite the disgust when referring specifically to the government. Cor really liked all of that. Finding out that Loqi was not an immature child, as his rage attacks made him look like. That he was more than a kid pressing buttons in a robot playing to war. That he had this depth of a mind. It was chillingly delicious to discover.

Loqi seemed to be enjoying of the discussion as well. While he interrupted Cor more times than Cor did, and while he got more worked up than the Lucian, he still smiled when he left Cor thinking, or whenever the Marshal was stepping into smart arguments.

The couple hours went by with both of them immersed into the conversation and, as they went into the last stages of the discussion, Cor started cooking. Loqi complained once about having to face him, something that Cor easily shrugged off with ‘the stove is this way, I can’t look both sides’. After that, Loqi didn’t complain much. The sight…it was not that he was enjoying, but the sight of the Marshal’s back was…quite impressive. It wasn’t the first time that Loqi saw him from that point of view, but it was the first he paid attention to Cor’s physics. He had had him much closer at the battlefield, but he had been too busy into trying to kill him to notice…well…all of that.

Loqi didn’t admit to himself anything, in the slightest. But he didn’t complain again about Cor giving him his back. While cooking, Cor retook the conversation, and Loqi joined in again. They went on even as Cor served and as they ate. Thankfully, Cor’s strategy worked and Loqi was so into the discussion that he managed to eat almost all of his food, distracted as he was.

“Okay” Cor laughed lowly when the discussion was ending. Both had finished dinner by then, having spoken all their way through it. “I understand all that you’re saying. I’m not going to change my opinion on all this, but I do understand where you’re going and why you think Niflheim is right” Cor said and brought the mug of coffee he had prepared earlier up to sip from it. “You’ve got some valid points.”
“Yes, well, you’ve got none” Loqi sassed him and he too reached for his own coffee. He hid the subtle smile behind the cup when Cor chuckled, and then stared away when he was done to not make eye contact in case Leonis could read minds.

Of course he was not going to admit he too saw Cor’s point of why he thought Lucis was right. He made some major, even key arguments, valid points that really made Loqi see why Cor was siding with the Lucians besides the obvious of their nationalities. Either Leonis was indeed a good preacher, or Lucis had the reason, at least in a few…though important…points.
Loqi would always defend Niflheim. But…he understood the Lucians…far better than he did only a few hours ago. Never had he stopped to ask one why they were fighting, and the answers were…enlightening.
Not like that would change anything, though…

Both remained quiet for a while now that the discussion was over. They spent a good while in silence, slowly drinking their coffee, processing everything, digesting the things they learned. Cultural exchange was always exquisite; when it came to two countries in war, sharing such huge polarity, it was a clash of an exchange. Yet, it had been a very delightful one that put them both to think. They felt…oddly satisfied. And, even though they had just discussed in the name of enemy countries, the silence they were in afterwards was…comfortable. Almost accomplice. Loqi, multiple times, hid more smiles behind his cup.

Cor was very thoughtful for most of their coffee time, sat across from Loqi post-dinner. During his train of thoughts, he came upon a question that poked him so much, he had to ask aloud, deciding to continue thinking after filling in more information that he realized was missing. His coffee gone by that point, thoughtful like he hadn’t been in a long time, and slight frown of curiosity on, the Marshal looked up from his mug to look at the Nif.
“I understand your…outside, general reasons for wanting Niflheim to win the war” Cor started. “But…from what I could remember from the battlefield…you always seemed to take it…” Cor hesitated, and shrugged when Loqi stared at him as if asking why he had paused. “…very personal. Why?”

Loqi stared at him for a good while, the mug in both hands. Cor wasn’t sure of what it was, but from the way Loqi looked at him, it felt like he had accidentally touched a spot he shouldn’t have. Cor felt a little scared of saying sorry and taking it back, so he just stared back, tense. He thought Loqi wouldn’t answer, as quiet as he was, and taking a long, slow sip. Loqi opened the mouth once, taking air in as if to reply. He froze. Shut the mouth and stared down. He swallowed. He tried again, but before any words made it out he let out a short frustrated sigh and shook the head. After another long pause, he drank from his coffee again, slow. Cor felt his entrails twisting inside in guilt, and he was about to gather courage to tell him it was fine to not answer.

Loqi put down the mug, eyes lost staring at nowhere away from Cor.
“I wanted to win the war so that neither Nanna nor Frey would have to take part of it.”

Cor’s mouth opened slightly and he stopped breathing. Loqi didn’t look his way. His eyes stayed looking somewhere else and nowhere at all, back into being that vast, endless-looking ocean of emptiness. Cor’s head took a moment to put aside the almost three hours of war conversation and make the subject of Loqi’s siblings the main and now only thing that occupied his mind. The sudden switch of both mood and subject had been startling. They were quiet for a good while, until Loqi, apparently out of thoughts, took in a slow breath through the nose.

“I wanted to win for Niflheim principally, but the personal side was that I was trying to end the war as soon as possible so that when my little siblings grew up, there would be no war they could be sent to, be it by force of by personal wish” Loqi continued, speaking slow but, surprisingly, his voice was not breaking as it often did when he spoke about them. Loqi put down his mug and caressed the edge with a fingertip. “The battlefield is…much more dangerous than we expect. It looks cool when you’re not in it. But the truth is that anyone can die by the smallest of details at the battlefield” he paused. “And it’s not that I didn’t trust in the military formation they’d have received, they’d have been splendid soldiers, I’m sure, I just…” a sad smile formed on his lips, and he shrugged. “…I just…wanted them to be a hundred percent safe and out of risk…”

Silence fell on them again. This time, Loqi’s voice had finally faltered, and his eyes had started watering. Slowly, Cor nodded, looking down. It felt like they had taken that silence as if to mourn them all over again.
“Pretty ironic, isn’t it?” quietly, Loqi sniffled and cleaned his eyes before they could cry, and took his mug again.

Cor stared at him carefully and attentively to make sure he was not doing wrong by peering deeper into it. They went into silence once more. Cor had been enjoying so much of their previous conversation, he had not expected it to turn this way. But, then again, he should have guessed it. Loqi…would always think of his siblings. Be it back in the days, in the present, in the future. Of course they were part of Loqi’s military history somehow…

Cor blinked with a realization, but lowered the eyes; it was not a surprise, but how much sense it made caused him to feel…a horrible sensation in his stomach and heart. He still took a while, not sure if it was fine to dig more into the subject, before he dared say it.
“…so that’s why you wanted so much to kill me” he whispered, finally making sense to it and, while he knew that it was absurd, he felt a little pinch of guilt for not having died, as if his death would have in exchange kept Loqi’s siblings alive somehow. At his half-statement half-question, Loqi shrugged a shoulder, eyes fixed on his hands.
“I admit that as soon as I saw you, I just…wanted to kill you, just because” he looked up at Cor, eyes clean and a tiny smile making it to his face. “You have something in your face that is begging me to hurt and kill you, you know?”

Cor couldn’t help a smile and a snort despite the overall sadness of the air that veiled them.
“But yeah…” Loqi sighed and looked away. “That’s partly why I wanted to kill you. Marshal dead, the Lucian troops are weaker and demoralized, more scared, less confident, the perfect tools for a defeated army. A defeated army, a defeated kingdom, the war is over. War is over, my siblings don’t put their lives to risk” he listed and took a breath to continue. “But even if that wasn’t the case, killing you would have for sure given me a raise” at that, Cor lifted the eyebrows as if not seeing how he could switch from ‘win a whole war for the sake of protecting those I love most’ to ‘have a raise if not’. Loqi looked at him when he saw the genuine confusion in Cor’s face. “Not like…for the money. A good raise of ranks. Two, maybe three ranks up I’d have gone had I brought the head of the Lucian Marshal to my superiors.”

Still, that didn’t clear Cor’s questions enough. He kept the eyes down, frown of confusion, and after a pause, he started shaking the head and looked back up at the Nif.
“And what would you earn out of going some ranks up?” he asked. “I mean, I get the immediate prize of it, but…”
Loqi stared at him as if trying to comprehend why he didn’t understand something that, to him, sounded very natural. He saw the question in Cor’s eyes and when he didn’t see him making sense to it, he shifted slightly in his seat to sit a little more straight, and looked for a way to begin.

“The Tummelt work…” Loqi tilted the head and sighed. “…worked by ranks. Not age or gender” Cor nodded slowly, staring attentively as the Nif shared the information with him. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the firstborn, or first male or female, you don’t get to be the head of House Tummelt by anything that isn’t your military rank” he stated and made sure Cor was following. “The one to get to lead House Tummelt after the previous one dies is the one that’s currently highest in ranks. So, you can tell the history of House Tummelt is full of fratricide and patricide and matricide and cheating and lying, a mess of a fight among relatives, like rats chasing the crown of the world” Cor was quiet and unfazed despite the way Loqi expressed himself of his own family, because he knew how proud he still was of it. “The head of the family plays a major and unique role in choosing or influencing the family’s roles in the war. So, normally, when you get to be Head of the family, you can choose how to arrange the family’s military roles as you please” Loqi brought the mug up. “That way, you can send your cousin to the front lines of war because you think he’s excellent at it and it’s a smart military move, or just because you hate him and that’s a way of killing him without dirtying your own hands.”

Cor couldn’t help but widen the eyes and slightly open the mouth at the statement, and how easy Loqi had spoken about it. Like this was…so natural to him. His every day during his twenty-something years of life. It was…crude. And even cruder that it was something so…natural to him.
“So you either fight your siblings and win the title and kill them for fighting you or they get the title and kill you for fighting them, or you befriend them in the hope that whoever gets it won’t kill you. Normally, it’s the first” Loqi said with a short sarcastic snort. He paused to take a sip of his coffee. “And normally, the ones that are sent to the battlefield first are the youngest, first, because they’re the ones with less experience, it’s easier that they die first, and hence good riddance, less competence for your own children, but also because, thanks to their youth, they’re going to stay in better conditions after the older siblings grow…well, older, and hence, the youngest turn to a threat.”

After he spoke he looked at Cor and lifted his eyebrows as if saying ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’. Cor could but stare in surprise, not sure what to say or how to react. Loqi looked away with a sigh.
“Of course I wasn’t going to take that risk” he muttered. “I had to take the lead of House Tummelt so that my other siblings wouldn’t send Frey and Nanna to their deaths…” there was a small pause. “Or kill me, which would’ve been as bad because I was the only one that protected them properly” Loqi added, though as if it was less important. “No me, no protection for them. I couldn’t allow that. So I…had…to win. The problem was that my three older siblings were far ahead of me when I finally joined the military…and that’s why I was rushing through ranks and trying to rush even more, trying to work in days what others do in years. Worked twice as fast and hard as others did, not because I liked it, but because I had to. I had to be the highest rank before my parents died or were killed.”

Yet another pause, in which Cor’s body relaxed more in sadness than in peace, staring at the Nif with changing eyes and sentiments, the heart heavy and wrenching and pleading for none of this to be true. The mood dropped a little more, and the little traces of Loqi’s sarcastic amusement started fading more and more. He looked down and Cor saw his body relax in sadness too.
“…I had to win” he murmured. “I had to be the best. I had to earn the highest rank. For them.”

Cor slowly nodded. None said anything afterwards, each losing themselves in thoughts. Loqi sniffled though he was tearless, and his fingers shyly drummed on the now empty cup in his hands. Cor stared gently at him, not helping the great sadness that washed into his heart and through his gaze.
So that was what explained everything. His personal want to want to hurry in winning the war, his obsession with trying to kill Cor, personally, not by sending troops or anything after him. It was not just a childish immature obsession of ‘why is he better than me?’, it was not that Loqi hated him senselessly. He had a reason. A greater purpose. His siblings. Little Frey and Nanna Tummelt, the boy of golden hair and the girl with the galaxy of freckles.
It was them. They were Loqi’s every reason. It had always been them.

Cor lowered the eyes and remained silent for a good while as he tried to cope with the sudden piercing sadness that made his eyes itch and his heart wrench. It was as sweet as it was painful how everything about Loqi always went back to his siblings. All that he did and said and thought, every action, decision, every single thing he had done in the past, everything had Nanna and Frey at the roots. Maybe they weren’t the only reason of his life, but they sure had played such a major role that if one tried to track one of Loqi’s goals back to the purposes, they always ended up leading to Nannie and Frey somehow.

What a beautiful, genuine love. What a tragedy that the purer the love, the bigger and emptier the void in the heart once it’s lost.
Why was the world so cruel to those that loved the most…?

Cor remained quiet, looking subtly at the Nif across him. Loqi was still thoughtful and apparently trying to fight off the sadness. Cor couldn’t help but press the lips slightly, paining a little by watching him. He already knew that Loqi could love, and he already knew what he had tried to do to save his siblings. But now, learning that he had gone as to live his life and fight a war for them…it didn’t change his perspective of him, but it sure added a lot to it. Anyone could die for love. Not many would fight for it. Especially when keeping it a secret.

Loqi did but amaze him each day more, sometimes with things trivial and human-invented like mathematics, and some others, like that night, with how immense and genuine his heart was. Anyone could learn math. But a heart as pure and noble, that was his alone.

“…so, see?” Loqi broke the silence in an unsure murmur, and tried giving a smile, but his eyes drowned in tears. “I really have no reasons to kill the Caelum. I wasn’t serious” he sniffled and cleaned one of his eyes, looking away. “I don’t have my reasons to kill you or them or defeat Lucis anymore. I’ve got no one to protect from this war anymore. Let it go on as many years as it wants. It’s fine.”

Cor didn’t reply. He gave a sad forced smile and nodded. He knew that. He trusted him. He didn’t lock the door of his room anymore, hadn’t for days. He didn’t need Loqi to tell him he could be trusted. He already was.
“…pretty absurd, isn’t it?” Loqi smiled at him despite the sad eyes. “All the years in training, all the effort I put, all the paperwork I made, all the humiliation, the competitions, the letters, the simulations, the arguments, the injuries, the scars, the battles, the troops, the fortresses, all the enemies I made within the Nif army itself, all the generals and officers that grew to hate, try to boycott me, all the medals, diplomas, achievements and ranks, the rumors, the frustration, the treasons and lies and hypocrisies, all the tears and blood and sweat and desperation I shed for twenty-one years…” the Nif stopped when his voice trembled, and he bit down on his lower lip for a good while before he was able to continue. He took in a breath and shook the head, smiling widely up at Cor as the tears started getting trapped in his eyelashes. “…and I achieved nothing.”

Cor’s shoulders dropped. Loqi looked away, body tense and trembling slightly, biting on his lip so hard Cor was about to ask him to please let go before he made himself bleed.
“I wasn’t the highest rank, couldn’t kill one man…” he listed and took in a breath and paused before going on. “…and couldn’t save them anyway.”

There was silence afterwards. Cor looked down and swallowed, and was thoughtful for a moment. Loqi continued trying to hold everything in, shaking violently and biting down on his lip. He switched to bite on a knuckle angrily for a moment before managing to more or less control himself. Cor watched him in silence; the distress and the struggle.
Oh, boy. Oh, you, fallen hero. How much you still bleed, and how much you still try to ignore the wound and say you’re okay.

After a while in a sad silence, Cor calmly stood up from the chair he had dragged to inside the kitchen, rounded the counter, and sat down on the stool next to Loqi. He remained quiet for a little while still, and Loqi didn’t glance his way. He waited until Loqi more or less calmed down.
“…you really gave a lot, didn’t you?” he murmured. Loqi didn’t answer. “Twenty-one, and you have a rank that’s normally given to people in their…what? Late thirties, forties?” Loqi nodded, head down, and shoulders relaxing more. “It means you worked twice as hard as the average do. And it’s truly impressive. The youngest Brigadier General? Ever?” again, even though it took a while, Loqi nodded as he used his sleeves to clean his eyes and his nose. “Wow…that’s…an impressive achievement” he smiled and paused a bit. “Such hard-work, for both your country and your little siblings. Youngest Brigadier General, ever. They must have been really proud of you.”
“They didn’t know I was doing it for them…”
“But they must have been proud when you got promoted. Weren’t they?”

After a bit of a pause, Loqi smiled tremblingly, but with a hint of sincere joy sparkling in his eyes. He looked at Cor for a moment, looked down and whispered ‘yeah’. Cor smiled softly.
“I don’t think your hard work was for nothing” Cor said as gently as only he knew how to be. “You were second highest rank of your siblings, right?” again, Loqi nodded timidly. “You learned a lot, did more than many other people do in their whole lives. Sure, you weren’t the highest rank this year, but that doesn’t mean that, if things had been different, you wouldn’t have surpassed your older brother when you turned his age. And even if you didn’t, youngest Brigadier General ever? Having ascended through merits alone twice faster than the average?” Cor let out a tiny, low, but happy chuckle, and shook the head as if in disbelief. “Who cares about highest rank? You gave them the most badass older brother ever.”

Loqi looked up at him as if asking him ‘do you really think that?’. For a moment, the look in his eyes was similar to the gleaming innocence of a bullied kid that’s told for the first time that they’re great. It was as sweet as it was heartbreaking, to see him with such a gaze. Cor’s smile widened a little, remaining soft.
“You’re too harsh on yourself, Loqi” Cor murmured. “If they always cheered on the things you achieved, why must you look at the things you didn’t?”

After a little while staring at him, the Nif lowered the head. Cor, a little hesitant, moved a hand up and laid it gently on Loqi’s back.
“Getting as far as you did earned you some enemies because you were getting the achievements they didn’t, or that took them twice the time” the Lucian continued. “And your other siblings hated you for it, and maybe your parents deemed it of unimportant, I don’t know” he shrugged, and paused for a bit. “And I know you don’t care about me, but…for what it’s worth…” his hand moved up until it was on one of Loqi’s shoulder. The Nif looked up at him, and Cor gave him a gentle gaze. “…I’m proud of you, Loqi, and everything you did” he gave him a sad smile. “And for the reasons behind it all. I’m very proud.”

It was difficult to explain; it was one of those things that have to be lived to be understood, though, if not, empathy can allow comprehension. To put it into words somehow; hearing Cor say that made Loqi feel as if…there was a string in his heart that he didn’t know he had, and that had tortured him for years without him even noticing because he was so used to it, and it suddenly snapped broken. A good thing, maybe…but nothing could help the initial profound pain of the snap of something that was buried so deep in his heart.

Loqi stared at him only for a moment, eyes quickly drowning in tears. Soon, he closed the eyes and a bit too roughly looked away, shaking the head a bit, and going back to bite down on his lower lip. Cor let go of his shoulder and his hand moved again to his back, drawing a lonely reassuring circle on it. Loqi kept the head down and pressed his hands to his eyes, whole body trembling.
“You know? It’s fine” Cor whispered. “Don’t hold back from crying.”
“I’m just- so tired of it…” Loqi whined. “I don’t want to cry anymore, I’m so sick of it, I-I…I was doing great, I haven’t cried in so long, I can’t- go back to it, I need to move on…”
“Crying doesn’t mean you’re backtracking on your progress” Cor said gently. “Indeed, it’s the opposite. Distracting yourself as you’ve been doing was the backtracking. You taking a moment to cry is progressing” Cor pushed the chair a little closer, so he was almost touching with the Nif. “After all you did and lost, you must have a lot of tears to cry. Don’t you think?”

It still took a moment for the words and the trust to sink in. Loqi tried hard at first to resist, but he eventually let go of his lip and his shoulders dropped. A little hiccup came first, and a quiet, timid sob followed.
“…gods damn it” Loqi cursed in a whisper as he dropped the head and hid his eyes into his hands, and finally let go of the tears he had been holding back. Cor subtly caressed his back for a bit more, before leaning in close and wrapping the arm around his shoulders. Cor pulled Loqi close only enough to be a gesture, and it was Loqi himself who leaned towards him to rest the side of his head on Cor’s shoulder.

It was not a soul-ripping breakdown like some others Loqi had had, but he did spend a while immersed in his quiet tears. He either tried to clean his face despite knowing he could not stop, or having a hand very shyly reach for Cor, grabbing him as subtly as he could from the shirt. Cor decided to pretend he was not noticing, as to give Loqi more confidence to keep that hold on him. He caressed Loqi’s arm as he vented out his tears, and leaned the face or the head into the blond hair at his reach, silently comforting him.

Loqi was not sure of why, but Cor mentioning to be proud had hurt. It hurt, in his words, like a fucker. It had not exploded in his heart, it had not been big, it had been just a needle, but a needle that had pierced as deep as possible in a spot Loqi didn’t know he have. Everything hurt; from that comment, to remembering that Nanna and Frey had been proud of him when he got his last promotion, to the realization that he had worked in vain, to the mere memory of them, to all the frustration he had reined in for years. Everything that was still piled in him and everything that he still had to work on, all suddenly came back in a wave that he couldn’t fight, not anymore now that Leonis had broken the dam and everything kept pouring out.

Cor let him go on all the time that he needed. This was just like when Loqi had had that energy drain and deserved to stay in bed. He had been away of his breakdowns for a while now, not attending his health for ‘practicality’. It was only fair that he was given this chance to cry. He needed it. Deserved it, in a good way. Crying would do good to him, and that was the only thing Cor had been trying to do all this time, so he let him cry as he needed and wanted.

Loqi felt ridiculous, and a little angry. For crying, yes, he was still not used to do it as often and freely like this. But he mostly felt that way because of how much that stupid, single, unrelated comment had hurt. ‘I’m proud of you’. So what? Leonis was no one and nothing to him, he didn’t want his acceptance, even less his pride.

‘You’re the first, besides Nannie and Frey, to ever say that.’

So it really shouldn’t hurt like it did, shouldn’t feel important.
Thank you.

He said nothing about it. His pride didn’t allow him to, as didn’t the encountered emotions within. Even if he had wanted to say it, there were too many things in his head, and too much of his little siblings in the still fresh, open wound of his heart, to care about anything else.

He felt terrible while crying, everybody does. But the hand that held to Cor’s shirt, and Cor’s arm around him, it gave him a sensation of warmth that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Loqi felt a little bit cared for. He felt a little bit protected. And he felt a little bit, a tiny bit loved.

Chapter Text

As usual, the loud opening of the dual doors announced Loqi’s arrival.

“Where is the team in charge of Duscae?” and people stood up to hurry on their tasks and leave the gossip to get back to work. Loqi went deeper into the room with his usual going. “We need to speak about the fortresses there” he stopped a random worker that was passing by as he took a bunch of papers from a desk almost without looking. “You: go throw these to the trash” he gave her the papers a bit too roughly, “and get me a can of coffee, I don’t function without it. Where in the hell is the team in charge of the Galdin blockade? I said very clearly nine a.m., it’s nine o’ five, do you savages not have sense of punctuality? Are you sure you want to win this war?” some roll of the eyes, some contained complaints, and back to work. “I need reports from the Eneagraph code, now.”

Cor, as always, was quiet and just let Loqi do his job, watching him from afar. He saw some people give looks to Loqi due to his Nif-inspired uniform. The colors were already a bit of trouble, but nothing too outstanding; just like Loqi in the past as Brigadier General would wear black under his armor, there were Lucians that wore white as uniform. The problem was in the style, and the fact that it was worn by a blond blue-eyed clearly Nif-born soldier. Loqi was the live image of every poster of ‘the pure’ Nif, hair and eyes, skin, shape, everything. The only thing he lacked was corporal size and mass, but that was it. Despite how much the troops had started opening up a little to him due to every new lesson he was sharing, there were still troubles getting used to be under his command, especially because Loqi didn’t seem to be putting too much effort into…well. Not being rude.

Still, nobody contradicted him and did as told. So far, the troops Loqi was instructing had yet not gone to the battlefield, so the only results shown were those of the strategists. Little by little, Loqi was earning a bit of the Lucians’ trust when the results showed; whenever they saw that, indeed, delaying the departure of a ship for an hour had saved it from crossing a Nif float, that there was indeed a secret Nif outpost on this side of the mountain, that retreating from this part had saved a battalion from an encounter meant to be lost.

Cor felt some sort of pride whenever he saw someone being genuinely nice to Loqi, or say something about how he was saying the truth, any tiny compliment or positive thing said from the Lucians about Loqi was as exciting as it was rare. Most people still disliked him, hated him, talked shit about him, and Cor was used to it. There was nothing he could do about it. He had defended Loqi a couple times, but that was life in any kind of job; people would speak. If someone did it right, they spoke bad. If they did bad, they spoke bad. It was sort of the average human behavior, and Loqi being rude plus part of the enemy’s files, it added a lot to the hatred and gossip. It was a mere miracle that no one had physically attacked him…but maybe that was because Cor was with him most of the time…

…perhaps Regis had done well asking him to stay with him. The way people talked about and behaved towards Loqi (and vice versa) made it really surprising Loqi had not gone back home with at least a swollen eye or a broken nose.
Hopefully, things would continue to improve as Cor was seeing it very, very slowly do; for the better. Loqi was helping them, and it would eventually show in the results of the war, and people would start warming in to him when they saw it. Maybe when the first wave of troops that were taking Loqi’s classes went to the battlefield, bigger improvements would show, and hence the easier it would be for people to stop hating on Loqi.

It was…sort of upsetting. Especially after knowing everything about Loqi that the others didn’t. Knowing not only that he had such a giant and beautiful heart hidden under all that sass and ‘tough-guy’ attitude, but now also knowing that even back at Niflheim people would treat him like this too. The guy couldn’t improve back in Niflheim because people were jealous, and he couldn’t improve here in Lucis because people were wary.
…did it hurt him? To be spoken of, insulted, given looks, gossiped about, being hated? Loqi didn’t seem to be the kind to care about what others said, really. But it had to be a lonely life. Maybe he preferred it like that…

Cor would usually spend his time like that; watching Loqi and thinking a lot about him and the things he did, and the things that he didn’t show. Try to untie that mess of knots that was Loqi’s complex mind to try to understand how it was built. All while just watching him work; watching him come and go, yell and murmur, sign and gesture, point and describe, talk, drink his coffee, and every day earning more and more the title of Lucian head strategist.

“One of the many strategies consists on moving the float this way, only as a cover, whereas the real act happens on this side of the float” Loqi pointed with a finger on the map, and moved some of the ship figurines on it. The people around the table watched attentively, some taking notes. “They know that you think you know what they’re doing, and they’re taking that to their vantage. So they’re doing exactly what you think they would do, and turn that into the distraction, to do something less obvious right under your nose right here” he pointed a bit too passionately somewhere else and moved another figurine.

“You can’t let them know you know they cracked the code” he was later telling another team as he wrote some things on a board. “I know it’s tempting, but you can’t lie on each and every code you send; they’ll figure out that you’re sending out false codes and, hence, they’ll figure out you know they cracked the code” he started erasing a lot of notes previously written there, much to the distress and complaints to some of the strategists. “I’m sorry, Katherine, this isn’t Fluff Land where everything works out just fine and you have cotton candy at the end, you can’t save everyone, you’ve still got to send some to their deaths if you want the greater victory. Welcome to real life, people die.”

“Where is my coffee!?”

“And another of the main problems you people have is that you go too straightforward for the Magitek generator” he put the hands on the desk and gave a condescending but severe look at his current class. “Have you idiots stopped to think there’s cables connected to that stupid thing?” he stood up and turned around to start drawing on the chalkboard. “You think about axing down the whole tree to get rid of its shadow, when you can tear the leaves one by one. A much slower process, yes, but much more subtle. Do you know about stealth or do you just run face-first into every goddamn fight? That aside, where does the generator connect to, which cables are the most important, where they are, and how to destroy them without being spotted, that’s what you’re learning today.”

The chalk tapping with every word he wrote.
“Most common battalion formations of Nifelian troops.”

Hands slamming down on the desk.
“The tracking missiles and why you dipshits are running away from it the wrong way.”

The eraser flying across the board.
“I feel bad speaking about this but, fuck me, the way Nif troops put tracking devices on you without noticing. Stop it, oh my Six, stop yelling, I’ll tell you how to take advantage of it. Fuck.”

The loud noise of paper being spread open.
“Why your air forces are basically useless and how you’re doing it all wrong.”

And more papers unfolding.
“We’re going to update this map with what your troops reported last week and whatever predictions I can make out of it. Where is the goddamn green block?” and the pointing of fingers on paper. “There’s a battalion here, here, and here. This fortress must have switched with this one. There must be a new blockade here and here.”

The noise of metal being hit.
“MT fight practice.”

The group of Crownsguard reunited at one of the training halls stared with different reactions at the new mannequins set on the middle of the hall. Some were chuckling among themselves, some weren’t sure if it was for real, some were serious. Loqi didn’t mind any reaction, good or bad, and only stood next to the MT-dressed dummies, a hand on one of them, and as if waiting for a response.
“…uh…sir?” a soldier was who broke the silence, raising a hand. “Don’t get me wrong, but I don’t see the difference between fighting normal dummies and…MT dressed ones…”
“Sort of the same, they just look different” another soldier agreed with a shrug, and Loqi heard someone snort.
“You laugh” he said and raised the eyebrows at no one in particular. “A brave thing to do for a country that’s losing the war.”

Someone in the crowd let out a long ‘Ooh’, some rolled the eyes and tried to not snap out at him for his comment, and some others saw a bit of truth in it.
Cor, nearby one of the doors, was quiet as usual.
“I see you learned nothing of everything I taught you of how to properly destroy an MT” Loqi was saying as he took some steps away, readjusting his gloves by pulling them. He stopped at another spot and crossed the hands behind his back, standing still. “Your mannequins are good for practicing your hits of brute force, but the quickest way, if you forgot, to disarm an MT is precision, not your barbarianism” he nodded towards the mannequins. “I requested these were as similar as possible to MTs so you can practice how to take out or hit their weak spots depending on the type of MT they are as I taught you, but if you don’t want to practice your accuracy and wish to go back to brute force, go ahead. I’ll keep the soldiers that are smart enough to at least understand that if your current methods have gotten you nowhere, new ones are the answer, as skeptical as you may be of them.”

Cor couldn’t help it and he smiled from his spot, watching Loqi attentively. He really liked what he just said. He really liked a lot of the things that Loqi said. Even some of his rude comments and comebacks were good if one took away the rude part. Loqi was always…not the best at the battlefield, but when it came to leadership skills, he was incredible, especially for his age. Cor would still change and add some things, but he was great in his own way.

It was also sort of…inspiring. Knowing what Loqi had been through, and after the breakdown he had had that night when he shared with Cor his personal reasons behind wanting to win the war, watching him come and go through the Citadel slaying the war left and right, go from navy strategies to the air forces to foot troops to all the teaching he did to codes and maps and plans as if he was the man with the clearest mind in the world…it was amazing. Loqi was not letting anything, even the breakdowns at Cor’s apartment, stop him from pushing on through the war.

It was not rare to see the two different versions of Loqi in his daily life; the moody, depressed one at home, and the leader at the Citadel. It was not that Loqi was pretending any of the two sides; he was merely ignoring the sadness and bad things when he was at work, but he was still himself. Cor dealt with him however was needed; sometimes, with care and gentleness. Sometimes, more firmly and having to stand firm. They still argued, they argued many times to the point of some yelling, but nothing major. They only had…colliding personalities and opinions. Cor liked to think that they would eventually get over it. They fought at the battlefield multiple times, it was natural they wouldn’t get over fighting overnight, even despite everything they had already gone through.

Plus, Loqi really was asking for it. As good of a leader as he was, he still very rude, arrogant, condescending, classist and xenophobic a lot of the time, and Cor fought him a lot about it. He was trying to make it clear that his depression or ethnicity or money, nothing ever gave him the right to look down on others. Loqi did not agree, and did not want to see his mistakes. That was what triggered most of the fights, but, other than that, it was going okay.

Cor helped a little at the training hall, as well. Most soldiers were still skeptical of the new mannequins, but whether it was because they had the will to try or because they were too shy to leave, they stayed and started getting instructions from Loqi. He reminded them most of what they had seen in theory class and would guide them through ‘disarming’ the MTs depending on their type. He even reminded them of the key visuals to identify the different sort of MTs, something that Cor appreciated; knowing Loqi, one would think he would have just screamed at everyone something like ‘you should have already memorized it’ and some insult, but he was putting his best at giving a detailed but concise summary of everything seen in class, as well as guiding them through practice itself.

Cor was required to teach half of the class, so everyone could have a turn instead of waiting for Loqi to be done with a wave before going with the next. Cor too was learning from Loqi’s classes, so he found it easy to guide the rest of the Crownsguard through it.
“Remember, out there in the real world these fuckers won’t stand still while you remove their core mechanism” Loqi was reminding the soldiers while pacing around the room. “So you better concentrate and not take it lightly!”

Sometimes, while training the Crownsguard, Cor would flash a look at Loqi, see what he was doing, or what he looked like. Almost never did Loqi look back, and when he did he only gave Cor a raised eyebrow as if asking if he lost something or why the fuck was he staring. Cor didn’t mind. He would either give Loqi a tiny smile and the Nif would look away, or Cor would look away first. That time, it was the first. Cor still stared for a bit more. At first, he had hated that Regis had ordered him to watch over Loqi, because he was so difficult to handle. He still hated it many times…but not always. He was getting used to it. And he was starting to enjoy of Loqi’s company more, even if just hearing and watch him lead. It was enjoyable. Even if he never looked back.

--

Leonis’ cub was following him.

The boy was not being subtle enough. Leonis’ spawn was after him. That lion puppy was following him like a baby chocobo after the first thing he saw thinking it’s his mother; everywhere, every step, every corner. He was trying to pretend he wasn’t, but Loqi was sure that he didn’t need to be a spy master to spot when someone was following him, especially when they were failing so bad at it.

Promp-to. Stupid boy of stupid name and stupid face and the most stupidest hair in the world, annoying sunshine, Leonis’ strange spawn was always somewhere around Loqi; behind the corner, watching from the opposite window, behind the door, taking cover under a newspaper like that would hide him at all. Once, Loqi was sure that Leonis’ cub was hiding in a box. Like, hiding inside it and walking with it covering him and staying still whenever Loqi turned around as if he hadn’t just seen that box grow knees and hands and crawl after him. Or like his unnatural hair wasn’t spiking through the box’ handle hole.

Loqi noticed long ago. It happened mostly whenever Cor wasn’t around; sometimes, the Marshal left if he was required somewhere else, or if he needed or wanted a break. His job wasn’t to be behind Loqi literally every single minute, and, sometimes, Loqi worked alone. That was when Leonis’ cub spied him most of the times. At first, Loqi had wanted to think that it was a coincidence whenever he turned and spotted Leonis junior peeking from behind the corner or wherever he was watching him from. But as the days went, it was clear he was doing it on purpose.

Catching him staring was the way for Leonis’ cub to stop staring, but not even then would he leave. Loqi could even glare at him, Leonis puppy would just quickly hide for a second, then get a look again to see if Loqi was still looking, as if instead of seeing it as harassment, Leonis junior thought this was a game of Peek-A-Kweh. And how accurate it was, with that stupid golden spiky hair and the way he freaked out like one of the big chickens. A few times, more recently, Loqi had gone a few steps towards him, and it was only that way that he heard Leonis’ pup run away, but staring worked only to intimidate him a few seconds. Any sane person would go away as soon as they were caught staring once, but apparently Leonis pup was as strange as he looked and had no sense of privacy.

Still, as many times as Loqi had seen him spying, the boy had yet not approached him.
Until one day he made up for not approaching, by approaching too much.

-

Loqi was working on assembling an armor he had requested to be built by the smith masters he asked for. Besides the MT-resembling shells to put on the training dummies, Loqi had requested for ten or so sets of different Nif high-rank armors to teach and train with. At the moment, he was working with an armor of Second Lieutenant. He was sat on the floor of the training hall, empty at his exception. The doors were open because he did not really care about closing them after Leonis had left long ago. With tools spread around him and one in hand and the pieces of the armor next to him, he worked on assembling or changing some details.

Loqi was a little dirty from the work he had made so far. He noticed that, just like back at Niflheim, white wasn’t the best choice to wear when it came to his usual assembling of things. At least it wasn’t mechs, or he would have ruined the uniform.
He turned the screwdriver almost on automatic, focused on the metal pieces he was holding. That was when he felt someone was staring at him. During the first fifteen minutes, he tried to ignore it. But Leonis cub’s spying was getting really annoying.

Once he was done screwing the current screw, he turned to the door on his left and slightly behind and looked up enough, and glared as immediately as he made eye contact with Leonis’ pup. The boy had half face peeking through the open doors and the eyes wide like a child’s, but he pulled back when he saw Loqi staring. Loqi frowned and pouted a little; despite pulling back, he could still see Prompto’s hair sticking out from his hideout. Not a clever one, was he.

Tired and annoyed, Loqi looked again at the job in his hands and put a pair of screws to his mouth (making sure not to lick them and holding them between his teeth only) to free his hands as he took another tricky part of the armor and started adjusting it as required.
However, while working on it and before he could get to nail anything down, new movement caught his sight.
On the first millisecond of reaction, he thought it would be Leonis’ pup. But when he looked up, all he found was…a dog.
…a dog.

Loqi’s reflex reaction was to flinch, gasp, and pull back from the surprise. He sat at the empty training hall surrounded of metal pieces and tools, and…a fucking dog sat in front of him. It had the tongue out and breathed like an idiot. Loqi stayed frozen, an arm up to cover him and the legs pulled back on a defensive mode while making intense eye contact with a dog.
“…what the f…?” Loqi breathed out, frowning in confusion and almost disgust, and not breaking eye contact with the black and white dog. He eyed it up and down, not understanding whatever race it was, how it had that line on its face, why it was carrying a notebook, and on the very first place, why the fuck there was a goddamn dog inside the Citadel pacing around on its own.

Loqi spent an embarrassingly long time tense and frozen in his spot making intense eye contact with the dog.
After a while, it stood up and Loqi tensed in his spot, putting up the screwdriver he was holding as if threatening the dog to not get any closer. It barked and Loqi jumped in his spot, and so, like that, the dog started pacing to the other set of open doors.
…what the fuck? he was wondering as he watched the dog calmly make its way through the seventh floor of the palace. Like…someone had to watch it go inside, someone had to watch it go up the stairs for seven floors and nobody was- nobody questioned- what the heck?

“Umbra!”
By that point, Loqi had crossed paths with Noctis a couple more times, be it directly or just passing nearby, enough to grow acquainted with the sound of his voice. He could instantly tell it was the prince who had called that name. Did he mean the dog?

Curious, Loqi crawled a little (he would deny it if you said it was more like ‘dragged himself on his butt’, so ‘crawled’ it is) to get a clear look out the door and into the hallway. Just a few meters outside, the prince was knelt, hugging the dog, who wriggled the tail and licked him all over the face. Loqi’s nose shrugged up in disgust. He stared, frowning, and, after a while, he took the screws from his mouth.
“…why in the name of all fucks is there a dog in the…so called royal ‘palace’?” he couldn’t contain the question. Noctis’ smile faded and he looked up to find the Nif staring. He instantly seemed to get uncomfortable and awkward. “Why do you let an animal inside? Why did no one stop it?”
“He’s mine” was all and any answer he got. Loqi raised the eyebrows and pressed the lips into a line as if sarcastically saying ‘oh yes, royalty, excuse me’.

“Why is he carrying a notebook, anyway?” Loqi asked as he once more failed to contain his curiosity. It had just been…quite a bizarre sight, the last thing he imagined to happen, and he wanted answers. Noctis was grabbing the notebook from the dog’s back. He looked at the Nif and didn’t answer for a good while. He eyed Loqi and was quiet, and seemed to hesitate a lot. Just as Loqi thought he wouldn’t answer, the prince started petting the dog and looked away.
“…it’s how Luna and I can talk” he muttered.
“Luna?” Loqi’s frown deepened, then it clicked on him. “Ah. Lady Orac-” and then it clicked on him; his frown twitched and he opened the eyes even more. “Wait. What?” there was a large pause, but Noctis didn’t do anything other than hug his dog and not look in the Nif’s direction. Loqi took the silence to try and digest the information. “…are you saying that you still keep private communication with the Orac- with- you still-” he paused and stopped breathing. His jaw dropped and he stared at Noctis as if though the prince had just spat on all of his family’s individual graves. When Loqi next spoke, his voice had gone up to almost a yell, more out of the shock and disbelief rather than anger. “You’re telling me that you two managed to hop past all of Niflheim’s restrictions set personally on you and lady Lunafreya…with a dog!?”

By all response, Noctis shrugged and pouted, still hugged to his pet like some child. Loqi’s jaw dropped more and his eyebrow twitched.
“You two got past the email, phone, mailing and any form of communication restriction…with a dog!? Putting a notebook on a dog!?” he looked away to let out a sarcastic laugh of disbelief. “And then what? You send that dog to walk between Tenebrae and Lucis back and forth? Around three quarters of the world carrying…a fucking notebook?”
“He’s a messenger of the Oracles” Noctis explained as he let go of Umbra, who lied down in front of him, and pawed at him to ask for pets. “I don’t know if he walks the whole way, maybe he has some special ability. But yeah. Even if he walked it, I’d believe it because he’s no ordinary dog, so yes…”
“Oh, well, that explains a lot, but we don’t have time to unpack all of that” Loqi sassed him and put the screws back into his mouth while breathing out a curse. “The Empire’s most brilliant minds that dominated four fifths of the world, outsmarted by a fucking dog.”

Loqi moved back still sat on the floor, turned the opposite way from the hallway the prince was at-
-and had Prompto’s face mere inches from his own.

Letting out a yelp that dropped both screws to his lap, Loqi fell backwards from the surprise of having the other guy’s nose almost poking his own. Heart pounding in his chest, he pulled up on his elbows and gave Prompto a severe and terrified look as if asking ‘what are you trying to do, kill me!?’

Trying to understand how he appeared from thin air, Loqi eyed him up and down. Prompto was down on his ankles, curled up, the hands resting above his knees, and he was staring at Loqi as if frozen and with no expression on his face. If anything, he looked as if he had never seen another human and he was trying to comprehend Loqi’s existence. Loqi opened the mouth and took air in to yell at him what the fuck he was doing, but he stayed mute and could only frown and glare up at the guy, eyebrow twitching.

A second later, Loqi sat up but dragged himself back a bit from Prompto as to not be so awkwardly close to him, but his pride didn’t allow him to look away, so he engaged in intense staring with the guy. Loqi thought that Prompto would back away now that he had startled him, but not even that made it awkward enough for the boy to have common sense and stand up or take a few steps back. Annoyed, Loqi frowned and glared at him, and he kept frowning for so long, his mouth started slowly pouting the harder he glared. Prompto, however, stayed unfazed. It was almost ridiculous how still he stayed, quiet and blank, looking back at him.

After a while, Prompto started eying him, as if analyzing him and trying to read him further what he could see. It almost felt threatening. Loqi didn’t like others reading him. He frowned deeper and the corner of his mouth twitched for a second, and his teeth showed the slightest as if ready to throw a bite. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at school, kid?’ he thought about barking out at him, but, suddenly, Prompto took in a subtle breath, the kind to precede talking.
“Do you hate dogs?”

Loqi wanted to ask ‘what the fuck’, but the question was so ‘what the fuck’ that he couldn’t even ask it. He opened the mouth a little and gave this chocobo-haired boy a confused look, but he couldn’t push any words out.
First the dog and now this. Fantastic.
“…what?” he finally managed to ask after a bit. Prompto just eyed him quickly again.
“Dogs” he said lowly, nothing about his face changing, and his voice being so neutral was as awkward and uncomfortable as it was creepy. “Do you hate dogs?”
“…wh-” Loqi started asking, eyes narrowing, and starting to shake the head. “I- I don’t…necessarily hate them, I just don’t want them near me.”

Prompto gave a low long neutral hum by any response. Loqi tried to keep glaring at him, but the longer he stared at Prompto’s unfazed face and how awkward it was that he wasn’t moving or saying or doing anything other than look at him was making it really difficult. Leonis’ cub tilted the head and continued eying him, like a curious kid. Loqi moved an inch back and thought about punching him to teach him to stop staring and acting like an idiot, or at least yell at him.
He was at nothing of doing so, but another voice echoed from somewhere.
“Prompto?”

Prompto gasped quietly and looked behind at the door where he had been spying Loqi from, and from where Cor’s voice had come from. Before giving Loqi the chance to say or do anything, Prompto stood up and went past the Nif, and exited through the other door. Loqi moved to get a look from outside the door; he saw Leonis’ pup lean down and slap the prince on his back, then Noctis standing up, and both boys going away rather quickly with the dog following behind. And now Loqi just watched a commoner fucking- slap his prince.
What the fuck was this country.

Loqi took some seconds to try and recover from all the weird things happening out of a sudden. He started shaking the head, not understanding or caring about anything anymore, and, just as he started getting back to work, Cor came in, looking around.
“Looking for someone, Leonis?” Loqi asked without looking up at him, focusing back on his work and the metal pieces. Cor looked at him a bit serious, as if suddenly unsure.
“…did you see him?”
Loqi was about to say yes, yes of course there was no missing the guy that was stalking him, but Loqi didn’t have the stamina anymore to retell the strange situation with the dog or Leonis’ pup’s strange behavior.
“No. Heard him go that way, though.”

--

“Your son’s been following me, you know.”

Cor didn’t stop immediately because the idea didn’t finish processing in his head. After walking a bit deeper into the training hall, he slowly understood what he just heard, stopped, and turned around to look at Loqi as if not sure if the Nif was physiologically capable of making a joke and if it had been one, because he couldn’t be serious. When he saw Loqi stopping too some meters behind him and give him one of his always serious looks and the eyebrow up, Cor frowned in confusion.
“What?” he asked. “No, he’s not.”
“Yes, he is.”
“I’d have noticed.”

Loqi snorted sarcastically while Cor reached for a nearby table and put his bag there.
“If you haven’t noticed, I see where he inherited his cleverness from” Cor gave him a careful look as if asking if that had been an insult. As he spoke next, Loqi crossed the arms. “Tell your boy to stop it. I can see him, it’s not working.”
“Alright, I’ll talk with him” Cor sighed and pointed at him. “Take your jacket off.”

Of course, Loqi didn’t reply. He lifted both eyebrows almost mid forehead and gave Cor a severe look that seemed to be giving him the chance to change what he said. Cor, however, only put his eyebrows up too only for a second, and started taking his own jacket off. Loqi frowned and waited more for Cor to explain or take it back, but Cor dropped his jacket on the table and started bandaging his unharmed hands. Loqi stared around to see if it was a joke of some kind.
“…what?”
“Take your jacket off” Cor repeated, calmly. “You can put your stuff here at the table until we’re done.”
“Done with what?” Loqi asked in a more demanding tone. He watched Cor go to some locker and grab some stuff and, when he turned around, he was bringing more clean bandages. He turned around and threw a pair at Loqi who, by mere reflex, caught them.

Cor gestured for him to do as told and, while wary and a bit moody, Loqi dropped his own little bag at the table, not sure what to do with the bandages. Cor reminded him of the jacket, and Loqi gave him an angry look, hating to be ordered, but taking it off nonetheless. For a moment, when he had already dropped his jacket at elbow height, he stopped and…suddenly felt unsure; he wasn’t very used to wear short sleeves in front of others. People were used to see him in long sleeves (or nothing, but that was a different case). In the daily, Niflheim was so cold he wore nothing but long sleeves even as used to the weather as he was, and his uniform was still long-sleeved even when he was on duty at hotter places. He hadn’t thought about ever taking the jacket of his new uniform off, so he had not minded the short sleeve, it’d be hidden, but now…why did Leonis even want- what made him think it was just fine to tell him to undress, who was him to order that anyway!?

“And why am I taking my clothes off, may I know?” Loqi couldn’t resist asking aloud, even though he finished taking the jacket off and, almost on automatic, he started folding it to leave it on the desk, the waist belt on top of it. Cor didn’t miss how perfectly and mechanically Loqi had folded his clothes.
“We’re going to start training.”
“…wh-” but, honestly, after the bizarre day he had had, Loqi wasn’t even surprised. Still, he sighed and looked at the rolled bandages he had in hands. “Who said I want to train?”
“Yourself” Cor pointed at him and got closer. “’I’m tired of crying’, ‘I want to get over depression’ you said” once in front of him, Cor took one of the bandages from his hand and unfolded it. “And what did I say? You sleep good, you eat good, and you…?”
“…oh, fuck off” Loqi muttered moodily and looking away, pouting.

Despite him not finishing the sentence and the insult, Cor smiled and knew that was Loqi’s way of not saying no. Had he wanted to not do it, he would have raged at Cor, yelled something, and stormed away. Him agreeing moodily was not the best, but it was still agreeing. Like sleeping and eating, Loqi was not content and hated the idea, but the hope of getting over his mind struggles motivated him to do it even if he didn’t like it.
Once with the unfolded bandage, Cor reached for one of Loqi’s hands and carefully took it in his own, bringing it up, with the intention to start bandaging it.
“W- you get your hands off me, I can do it myself!” Loqi roughly pulled his hand away from Cor’s, frowning and looking down in a mix between anger and embarrassment.
“Right” Cor handed him the bandage. “I’m sorry.”

Loqi gave him a moody look as he slowly started bandaging his hands, and only looked away after Cor had given him an apologetic smile and looked away first. Loqi made sure to subtly turn a little away from Cor’s sight so he could see less of how he was bandaging his hands…just in case he was doing it wrong. And it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to, he- used to. He did have some off-mech fighting classes, corporal included, it just…had been so long ago and he had rarely needed to fight someone face to face other than Cor himself…

After doing it as best as he could with both hands, Loqi followed Cor when he saw the man go somewhere else.
“And what are we doing, Leonis?” Loqi asked. “You wanna fight me?”
“Pscht” Cor stopped next to a punching bag. “With your current weight, I can kill you with a flick to the forehead.”
There was a sharp, offended gasp.
“How da-!?”
“Look at yourself! You’re a stick!”

Loqi seemed ready to answer, but he shut his mouth, crossed the arms angrily, and looked away with a pout.
“I’m not even going to answer you, Leonis” he said. Cor laughed a little and, even though he thought he would be offended, Loqi instead felt his body relaxing. He refused to admit he was finding anything of this absurd situation and the insult any funny, so he just didn’t look in Cor’s way.

“Come here” Cor said and rounded the bag, standing behind it but getting a look of Loqi. “You know how to hit these?”
“Fuck off, I know how to throw a fucking punch, Leonis, I’m not a child!” Loqi yelled at him and got closer. At first, Cor thought he was going to start beating the bag up, but Loqi just stood there doing nothing. “This is fucking stupid!”
“Come on, Loqi-”
“I don’t want to be doing this!”
“If you co-”
“It’s senseless and embarrassing, I’d rather go home-”

Cor sighed out loud and stared at the ceiling as if looking for the patience he needed on his every day. Once more, he rounded the bag and put the hands to his hips, and got ready for one of his constant arguments with the young Nif.
It took a while to convince him. Loqi had even tried to go back to grab his stuff, but Cor stopped him mid way and tried to reason with him. He was aware that not warning or asking him before trying to start exercising was not the best tactic, but he also knew Loqi was a man of impulses, so he thought it could be a good way to help him get started into it, not thinking it through and just going for the punches. As much time as he had spent with Loqi, he still had a lot to learn and figure out to treat him as best as possible.

Some minutes later, however, they were soon back nearby the punching bag, as Loqi was already almost convinced, and stood there, quiet.
“It’ll do good to you. I promise” Cor insisted calmly and gently after a large pause. Loqi listened, and that was a good sign as itself even with no answer. “We won’t do it daily. We’ll start little by little. And nobody’s going to come in, I promise” Loqi looked at him and gave him a questioning look as if asking if he was for real about that particular point. “I’ve made sure that whenever we get a training hall, it’ll be for ourselves for as long as we need it. Nobody else will see. I promise.”

Loqi stayed still in his spot, but Cor could see both his frown and his body relax little by little. He waited a prudent while until he considered it was safe, and then moved back to stand behind the boxing bag again. Loqi stared at him curiously and as if trying to pretend he didn’t care. Cor held the bag and looked at him.
Then, he smiled.
“Pretend it’s me.”

Loqi still didn’t move for a while. Cor didn’t move from his spot, either, waiting. A bit later, Loqi dropped the hands, looked away, then headed towards him. As he walked, he tilted the head as if saying ‘I guess I can do that’, and he was soon standing in front of the bag. Almost as soon as he was there, he threw a punch apparently as hard as he could hit.
“Ow” Cor said from behind the bag. “I felt a lot of hate in that punch.”
“You said pretend it’s you.”
“I am offended.”

Loqi gave Cor a sly look and a smile as if calling him unbelievable. Cor smiled back and chuckled, and Loqi seemed to contain a little laugh, looking away and shaking the head as he smiled more widely.
“Come on, another one” Cor insisted. “You’re not going to kill me with one punch.”

Even though he was hesitant for a second, he didn’t take as long as it took him the first time, and so, after a bit of waiting, Loqi got close again and threw a second punch.
“That’s it” Cor murmured. “Another one” and almost without waiting, Loqi threw a third. “Good. Give me more, come on” after that, Loqi threw one, two, four hits more. “That’s good” a hit more. “Hit this like you really want to end this war” and Loqi hit the bag ten, fifteen times in a row. “Is that all the anger you have? Come on, I thought you were Loqi fucking Tummelt!”

Loqi growled and let out a yell of sorts when he started punching the bag again, as if it was his war cry. Cor smiled and murmured a one-word compliment, wanting to make sure Loqi knew himself and his effort acknowledged, so he felt motivated to go on. The Nif didn’t stop this time, both fists up and glare set on the bag as he hit it with no pattern; hitting random times, stopping a random set of seconds, then back to hitting.

Cor hadn’t had many expectations for that first day, but Loqi surprised him with half an hour of non-stop training. On a side, Cor mused while Loqi trained, it was comprehensible; with all that anger he had, surely physical activities, especially aggressive things like punching, had to be a good release for Loqi. All the time, Cor made sure to keep complimenting him quietly to encourage him to not stop; things like ‘good’, ‘that’s it’, or ‘you’re doing great’ as Loqi trained. Midways through the training, though, Cor also made sure to make some subtle corrections; Loqi was not…bad at punching, but he wasn’t good either. It was very clear he was not a melee fighter. The way he hit the training bag made it look as if though he knew the theory but had never put it to practice.

It was fine. Cor used to deem him of a pathetic fighter and soldier, but knowing all of what Loqi had done to ascend through ranks, he couldn’t demand more from the kid. He was brilliant at math, strategy, leading, and engineering, there was only so much one man could do. It was fine he didn’t know how to fight. No one could do everything.
Still, he made sure that his corrections didn’t come off as orders, and that they were as subtle and advice-like as possible so Loqi wouldn’t think he was getting instructed or ordered around, because he hated it. Instead, Cor made sure to word his phrases carefully, resulting in things like “try lifting your right elbow more”, “careful with the angle of your wrist”, “try angling your hand this way”, both to polish his technique and skills, and so he would be careful to not hurt himself. The bag was much lighter than the average and Loqi had the wraps, but Cor still wanted to be sure he wouldn’t accidentally get injured.

Time went with both in the training hall, focused for now only in the boxing bag, Loqi hitting it, and Cor holding the bag and being morale support and secret instructor.
By the time they were done, Loqi was sweating rivers. Cor, too, felt the skin a little hot, but he had done no work other than hold the bag, so he was not nearly as breathless and soaked as the Nif. They stopped because Loqi had slowly eventually decreased the hits until hitting a halt, and because Cor, seeing it had been half an hour, decided it was fine for that day.

At first, both stood there in silence, not doing anything than stare somewhere; Cor at Loqi, and Loqi at the bag. The only noise was Loqi’s heavy breathing. Then, the Nif turned to look at the Marshal. Cor gave him a sincere smile.
“That was fantastic.”
Loqi, still trying to catch a breath, moved his fringe a little with a hand and only nodded. Cor reached for a nearby little towel he had brought earlier before starting, and threw it to him. Loqi caught it and started using it to clean his face and neck from all the sweat. Cor could see his arm shaking a little whenever he brought it up. The boy had to be very tired, he guessed, and he wondered if he shouldn’t have stopped him earlier…

“…what?” Loqi asked after a while, and only thanks to the question did Cor notice he, once more, was staring. He blinked and shook the head, but didn’t say anything. It couldn’t be the first time he ever saw Loqi sweat; they had had one-on-one fights at the battlefield. But, like everything, he had been so focused into not dying to pay attention to him. He saw the drops roll down his face, the layer of sweat covering Loqi’s silky-looking skin.
It was a strange sight, Loqi sweating. He was always so well dressed, even when he was messy, and so…cold and still…he was like a statue, a cold sculpture. Seeing him with no jacket and sweating was new and strange.

A few minutes later, as they gathered their stuff, took the bandages off their hands, and put everything in order, Cor was telling him where the showers were and said he could wait outside if Loqi wanted to clean himself. Loqi said yes, sat at the table and finally back at normal breathing, holding the now almost empty bottle of water in hands. Cor stared a little at him, smiled and focused again in ordering his stuff in his bag.

While Cor waited for Loqi to cool down enough before he could go to the showers, they were quiet and only existed near each other, each in their own thoughts. Because his head had been often going around Loqi most of the time ever since the first day, of course Cor was thinking about him. He thought about what had happened earlier, and wondered if Loqi had lied about Prompto spying on him. Thinking about Prompto made him think of some things he had going on with his son, and thinking about it made him think of the day they had chosen which photographs to release to the public. And, thinking about that, Cor’s mind suddenly remembered about something that Loqi had said that day.

After thinking for a while about it and trying to figure it out by himself, Cor found out he couldn’t, and he turned to look at the Nif. He still took a minute in his thoughts before deciding he had to ask.
“Loqi” he called. The Nif turned to look at him and gave a little ‘Hm?’ by answer. Cor stared down a little before making eye contact again. “That day…when you helped us choose the photographs…” he waited to see if Loqi didn’t object anything, and he took his silence as a sign that he knew what he was talking about. “You said something” after a pause, Loqi slightly put an eyebrow up, as if hating that Cor wasn’t being clear. The Marshal was quiet for a second before taking a breath to go for it. “You said you’d let the Empire know you’re alive.”

Loqi didn’t answer. He just stared at Cor with his usual coldness and serious blank face of always. Cor stared some moments, unsure if he should push him further or not. He had to admit, though, he felt curious, but also worried that Loqi would want to do some stupidity, like at some point go back to Niflheim on some sort of suicide mission to murder the emperor or something. So, curious and worried, and as Loqi was not talking, he decided to press him directly.
“How are you planning to do that?” Cor asked calmly. “I mean…what are you going to do?”

Loqi still stared at him in silence for a few seconds, before looking away while nodding slowly. He brought the bottle up and drank what little water was left. He set it aside and took the body towel Cor had lent him earlier, and tossed it onto his shoulder.
“Well” he started saying, as calmly and casual as if he was speaking about the weather, and the same way he continued. “Not just Niflheim. I’ll let the whole world know I’m alive.”

Cor watched Loqi hop off the table and look at him, calm, but with that characteristic sparkle of determination in his eyes.

“And I’m going to tell everyone what the Empire did.”

Chapter Text

The video started with Loqi too close to the lens.

There was not one cut in the video, not the slightest edition. So, naturally, it started from the moment the video started running, and the first image, a close up of Loqi’s torso as he let go of the button. A second later, he was stepping back, and sitting down on some chair or something that wasn’t on screen. He was facing the camera. And he started from the beginning.

“My name is Loqi Tummelt. You may know me from the army, as Brigadier General commonly on duty, or most surely as part of one of Niflheim’s noble families and main war economical sustentation, house Tummelt.”
A pause.
“You may be wondering what this is all about, if this is a video recorded long ago. You heard the Tummelt died. So what am I doing here? Well. I’m here to announce that the already empty coffin the Empire had the grace to build for me is twice the empty they thought it was. And to share the truth with you.”

-

It took a lot of explaining before Loqi was given permission to release the video. Not like he was planning to not do it, he was going to do it with or without permission, but he still insisted until he got support and help from the Lucians. And it took a lot of detailed planning before he filmed and released it.

At first, naturally, there was a lot of opposition. The Lucians were going to get a vantage hand with him as head strategist and war teacher, so the objections didn’t take long to appear.
“If you announce to the world you’re alive, if you announce it to the imperials” a woman of the Council said, “we’ll lose the vantage hand we have. If they think you’re dead, they won’t ever grow suspicious of how we’re going to suddenly get advantages in the battlefield, they won’t ever think about you being here helping us. You tell them you live, they’ll know, and they’ll change their strategies to new ones you don’t know about, and we’ll be back at our starting point; losing. We don’t get any advantage out of this, neither you nor us.”

“I never said this was for your Lucians’ advantage” Loqi said as firmly and fierce as usual, not hesitating. “I’m not making this for you, or for myself. This is for my people” everyone was quiet as if expecting for explanation, so Loqi gave it to them. “I’m not in your favor. I’ve never had the intention to make Lucis win this war; I want to stop the Empire, which is not the same. I need to tell my people who the real culprit behind Vianard is. They have and need to know. They’re in all rights and necessity to see they’re fighting for the wrong government” he looked at every person of the Council to the eyes by turns. “If I send you to the battlefield with the knowledge I’m giving you to win, it won’t be at the price of my people’s lives. Most of them are innocent, just fighting for who they think is right. They need to know the truth so they can willingly drop the arms and save their lives, but so long they think they’re fighting for the good of the world, they won’t ever leave the battlefield, not to their last breath, and I can’t allow that.”

Regis leant slightly backwards in his seat, though no one minded to look twice except for Clarus. The king looked at their Nif guest with slightly narrowed eyes. Cor, at his left side, looked attentively at Loqi as well, if with the ghost of a smile on his lips.
Loqi, at the other end of the table, kept his regal posture, and eyes blazing in determination, too stubborn to accept a No for answer.
“I won’t be responsible for my people’s deaths. I can’t be” he stated. “I’m teaching you to win so the Empire can be taken down, but you forget about the innocent imperials that were lied to and stand in between and won’t move if they don’t know the truth” he gently slammed the desk with a hand; gently, but still slammed. “This isn’t benefit for us. This is…to save them. And I honestly don’t give a damn if this ‘gets in the way’ of the war, because I, unlike my government, don’t care more for the fucking war than I do for the people, not at this point.”

Regis’ expression changed, and a hint of happiness seemed to veil it. He leaned completely back on his chair again, and subtly nodded. Cor, seeing that from the corner of his eye, couldn’t help a sensation of pride.
Feeling and noticing that only with sentiments he was not going to win a council, even if it was the Lucian one, Loqi added the tactical parts of interest.
“Besides, them figuring out that I’m here changes nothing” Loqi made sure everyone was paying attention. “I’m a Brigadier General, not a fucking computer. I can think. You don’t need an informant that tells you what they’re doing, you need one of their minds to tell you what they’ll do; I’m one of them, I think like them, I can figure their plans and at least five to ten possibilities of each one.”

Nobody said anything for a while, everybody staring at Loqi and thinking. Yet, it didn’t take a genius to see they were not convinced. Loqi tried to not snap out at them; to him it sounded logical, why were they so selfish that they didn’t want to allow him the video just to keep him as their secret weapon?
“I say we let him do it” just as Loqi was trying to come up with something else to say, everybody turned to look at the king. Calm on his seat and staring at Loqi with a little smile, Regis looked as calm as determined. “He’s right. We don’t need to mass kill the imperial soldiers, we just need to get past their fortresses and tanks. Not the people. Aren’t we sending innocents to the battlefield too? Don’t you all know the pain of fighting for what you believe in and die out there even when you didn’t start this conflict?”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, sharing subtle glances.
“Besides, it’s his people. Not ours” Regis added. “We have no right to tell him no.”
“Your Majesty…” an advisor started, and even though no one interrupted and the king offered his attention, they didn’t continue, only keeping it into a contained sigh. They shared glances, some murmurs and gestures, all as Loqi watched and grew angrier the shorter his patience ran.
“So long we don’t allow him out of Insomnia, he’s safe and stays with us” Regis added knowing that saying the same Loqi did, but from the mouth of their king, would make it easier for the council to give in. “And he’s right. Every time we send a spy, it works only for a few months, sometimes even just weeks, before the Nifs change their plans. They change them without knowing we have a double agent with us, anyway, them changing their plans after knowing it won’t be new. This young man is offering us his golden mine of a brain, not his memorized facts. We can’t be so selfish that even when he’s willingly giving us the opportunity to survive in this war, we do it at the expense of the people he wants to spare.”

Loqi nodded once, but profusely enough to look a little sarcastic, as if saying ‘I’m telling you’.
“How can we think we’re ‘better people’ when we’re doing the same?” Regis asked more gently. “That they wouldn’t spare us doesn’t mean we can’t spare them. Isn’t that what we always feel superior for? Our mercy, kindness? Where is it now that this young gentleman is offering us the chance to teach our troops to make it through the technology without touching the human troops, and yet we deny his petition, not caring about the people we can spare?”

There was silence, during which some people lowered the head or seemed in some sort of discomfort, but, clearly, one that was good for the situation. The king leaned closer to the table again, resting his elbows on it.
“Plus, he’s not sending a warning. He’s sending a message” Regis said. “He’s revealing the truth to his countrymen. It’ll be on them to choose whether they stay in the battlefield regardless of their government’s cruel decision, or leave it. It’s basically choosing between those with morals and those who take this personally. It should make you happier, we’ll only fight those that hate us, and spare those that are just lost. Tactically speaking, this idea will decrease the empire’s human troops in the battlefield, hence, less enemies to defeat. I don’t see why you’re stubborn about saying no. Since when are we afraid of the truth and thirsty of blood?”

Even though it was not the first or the last meeting they held to discuss it, the council soon gave in to Loqi’s request, be it by agreeing willingly or feeling pressured by the king’s own approval.
The idea was to record a simple video where Loqi explained the truth, and put it up on social medias. The Empire had internet restrictions, but Loqi had an official Kweeter account that was part of those that the empire let post anything without reviewing it first, due to his title as a noble. And even if they put it down after seeing what it was, at least a hundred, if not a thousand people would have seen it already, and one second on the internet was enough for a video, especially one so polemic, to be saved and leaked somewhere else, and even after the leak was put down, there would be another two reposts already, and so on. There was no missing it.

Loqi’s plan was the simplest and still massively destructive; use the social media as a weapon, because the Empire could torture one man to silence, but not one video. It just needed to be in Niflheim’s inner network, and Loqi had access to it. Just something as simple as a Kweet, and Loqi could unleash an entire civil war if he so wished. And, gods, he so wished.

They helped Loqi with the logistic. Imperials were not fools; besides being alarmed from one of their generals leaking their information, they would want to know where he was to get rid of him, due to the threat he would represent. As Loqi had said, it would not take them long to understand he was in Insomnia, but they still tried to put up an act in the subtlest details to earn a little more time before they came to that conclusion; the strategists chose the room to film the video, without windows so that the reflection in Loqi’s eyes or the natural light wouldn’t tell the Empire anything, but nothing too clean or too secure as to not give the impression that he was in a luxurious, hence Insomnian, place. They chose his clothes, something that could be found in Insomnia, but also anywhere else beyond the Wall, and even did his hair and added very slight make up to give him a look dirty enough to be somewhere out in the wild for a couple hours per day, but also had access to somewhere to clean himself.

The strategists guessed that they couldn’t make the lie too obvious. They couldn’t make him look as if he had been living in the wild, because if the lie was too obvious, the imperials would understand it was a lie. It had to be enough of a lie to not reveal the truth, but not too much that it would reveal it was a lie. Loqi said the Empire knew him as a man of impulses, so they also worked on making him look as if though he had not put too much thought in setting up a lie to fool the Empire. Lie enough but not too much to be a lie that didn’t look like one.

In the end, Loqi filmed the video alone. Regis had asked to maybe see a summary of what he was going to say so the strategists could review it but Loqi dismissed it, saying the Empire would catch something that was memorized rather than spoken. Not to say that he really didn’t care and didn’t want someone else telling him what to say.

And so, after less than an hour filming, a couple reviews for the strategists, and no editing, Loqi was given access to a computer for the first time in months, he went to Kweeter, logged in, and made his first entry since before Vianard’s bombing.

And that was how, after months of the world believing him dead, Loqi finally announced he lived, and exposed the Empire.

-

“The first thing you should think watching this video is that if I’m alive, I must be part of the survivors that Niflheim presented on TV some time ago. I should be. The only survivor of house Tummelt, one of the most important names in the continent, should have gotten at least one little glimpse. The reason I didn’t? I was not there. As so weren’t those people. Because they are not survivors.”
Loqi gave a sharp look at the camera, with some poison.
“Let’s start from the beginning.”

He tilted his head lightly to get a bit of his fringe out of his eye and looked straight at the camera.
“On April tenth, M. E. 755, at around three in the morning, a float of airships overflew the city of Vianard, south of the Nilfheim continent, southeast of Gralea, and bombed it. I haven’t had the opportunity to ask someone how long it lasted, and I don’t think I can tell an approximate of the time; being present, it felt like hours. Thinking more realistically, I assume it lasted less, and yet, I can assure you, from my own experience of five years in the battlefield, that it lasted longer than a normal attack would.
>All of you have been told different things across the past months; not only divided opinions, but also divided news, information, evidence.
>I’m not going to make this video long repeating all that you already know. I’ll go straight to the point:
>The culprit is the Empire.”

He let a little pause go on to make sure people were following.
“I was never really good at making long lasting relationships within the army, but if there was one reason the Tummelt, me, particularly, were so vastly known, that was for the pride and loyalty we served the Empire with. In case you want to seek for further validation of my speech, go seek any of the people that were once under my command, and, may they like or hate me, they can all agree on one thing: my loyalty and pride in the Empire were unbreakable. There was no man prouder and more in love with his country than General Loqi. The Empire could have asked me to skin myself alive, I would have done it with bliss.
>I still love my country, don’t get me wrong. What I hate, and what I’m aiming at right now, is its current government, traitors and liars.
>When we get to the end of this video, theories will start coming up: that the Lucians kidnapped me and are forcing me to make this video to cross out Niflheim’s reports and frame them for the crime, that someone is blackmailing me, threatening me. The case is that, just as you’re free to ask anyone to tell you, not even then would I have done as ordered. The Lucians, or anyone else, could have tortured me past my sanity, taken my family to torture in front of me, and yet, I wouldn’t have agreed to lie about this. Because that’s how loyal I was to the Empire, that I valued it above myself and above my family.

He was quiet to calm down and breathe a little, not having expected to be a little shaken by that point, or that the next thing would be so...difficult. He tried to keep his voice straight.
“And I have even less reasons to be forced to this now that I have nothing that can be taken from me. Not a home. Not a title. Not a single family member. No little siblings, the only ones I may have given in for, that they can blackmail me with. I am doing this on free will, on all my senses, and hopeful that you will soon accept the truth. It’s okay if you don’t believe it at first. It took me four months, nearly dying, a broken leg, many breakdowns, struggles, and many proofs and investigations.”

Soon, he calmed down again, and anger started bubbling up within him again.
“What have you been told? Isn’t it clear enough that it was the Empire? Or are they, as you all know and just are too scared to say aloud, restricting your access to information?
>Point number one: it was impossible for Lucis to make it into Niflheim air territory, even more so as deep into the continent as Vianard is positioned, at least without one alarm going off.”

And so, Loqi went on explaining what had already been told or thought; the impossibility of the attack, why they’d choose Vianard of no importance over Gralea the capital, no alarms, no money or technology for such airships or bombs, etcetera. Loqi spoke about it as concise and convincing as he could.
“As a summary, this is the truth behind Vianard’s bombing” he continued: “the city had been growing famous due to the sudden sprout of the Scourge, to the point of not being able to go in or out without having to undergo medical examinations. Niflheim’s current government was afraid that the illness would start spreading, not for the good of the world, but because if it did, the first ones to suffer the consequences would be other imperial cities, Gralea no less. Unable to come up with any answer that wouldn’t make the imperial people angry, and feeling they weren’t getting close to a cure, the government came up with a cunning, crude solution: Vianard’s bombing.”

And so, he explained the multiple ways in which Niflheim won with the cruel strategic secret move of the bombing.
“The problem is that they left too many holes in their dirty little secret, and didn’t count on two things: a Lucian spy that stole the bombing permission paper and took it to the EPU headquarters and is currently undergoing examinations, and…me.”

He put his chin slightly up.
“You are not listening, in denial, or too dumb if you can’t see any of the points previously touched. Then believe this proof: Loqi Tummelt, real survivor and former most loyal imperial, is turning away from the Empire and standing with certainty on the accusation that, yes, it was the Empire.”

He lowered the chin again, but his eyes glared, piercing with hatred into the camera, and his voice grew firmer, louder, and angrier.
“On April tenth, M. E. 755, the current government of the sacred Empire of Niflheim betrayed the most basic of the imperial essence by betraying their own people, and even worse, lying to the rest of you. On that day, they murdered over two million people, sent MTs to finish the job, and then erased any evidence of the mess. They bombed the city knowing those two million were there. Knowing the Tummelt were there. And three months later, after murdering my family, they rendered a funeral for them, myself included, counting with having killed me, and not counting with this rare chance I was given to survive. They only needed to miss one hit, let loose one survivor to be exposed…and who worse than me to ruin them back?
>The government that’s on the head of our Empire today doesn’t fill into the profile of a good imperial. They’re not loyal. They lied to us, and will keep it up. Don’t forget it, and don’t forgive it: it was the empire, and they’ve lied to you to make you fight for them. You’re being sent to war believing you’re claiming justice, when the enemy is at home, using you to win a war for their own benefits. You’re not fighting for what you think you’re fighting for. You’re fighting in the name of the people that murdered your brothers, sisters, countrymen, mates, friends, and soldiers. They lied to you.”

He made another small pause, before raising the head again, looking defiant and even rather aggressive.
“To the Empire, I want to say one thing: I, for sure, do not forget, and cannot forgive this. You took everything from me. My life, my health, my lands, my properties, my home, my nationality. My family. Even my two little siblings, who had never in their lives seen a fucking gun. Two kids, none even the age of eleven, who had nothing to do with your dirty lies and your dirty war, and you killed them.”

Loqi made another unplanned pause to look away and let out a shaky sigh, closing the eyes and trying to recover composure. He had started tearing up while he spoke of his siblings, and, for harder he tried to keep still, his eyes had quickly become teary and even slightly red despite still not crying, fault of his blond nature. After a bit keeping the eyes closed, he looked again at the camera, as serious and bitter as before.
“Today, I return to the public eye to announce I’m not sharing my whereabouts, but announcing my intentions” and as solemnly he spoke: “Today, as of August twentieth, M. E. 755, as head and master of the Tummelt, I declare my House at war with the current government leading the Empire. I claim my family’s money and cut every cent of support to the Empire out. I claim my lands as mine and mine alone. I claim that I will make sure the act is dropped and my people, the people I’m truly loyal to, my imperials, know and accept the truth.”

Yet another pause, and Loqi’s frown deepening a little. He took in a small breath before declaring as he put a closed fist to his chest.
“Long live Niflheim, and may the Empire burn” he put his hand down. “And I say it once more: don’t forget it. Don’t forgive it” a solemn pause and, then, he finished: “It was the Empire.”

The speech ended there. Loqi waited only a few seconds before reaching for the camera and cutting the shot.

After it had been reviewed, Loqi sat at the Council table, on a brand new computer gotten just for the occasion, and hacked so that, once the Empire would track from which device in the world Loqi had sent that Kweet, they would have false information.
And so, with the king nearby, the Council sat in their places, and Cor there in case he required any help, Loqi sent out his video.
And then nothing.

There was no change. No revolution.
Yet.

--

The news that Loqi was alive was a sudden boom on the internet.

People would frantically search news on him. The web’s most searched questions were, in that order, ‘Vianard’s bombing’, ‘how did Loqi Tummelt survive’, ‘Where is Loqi Tummelt’. It all went trending again.

Lamentably, Loqi announcing to be alive was much more trending than the accusation of the Empire’s treason. People would look his info and photographs up, every new regarding him, ask and talk a lot more about him, spreading everything about him on the internet like wildfire.
“That’s how people are, Leonis” Loqi told him once. “Poorly minded, obscenely undignified, they prefer scandals and drama over politics.”

And the sad thing was that it seemed to be true. While there was chaos about an imperial officer announcing the fault was on the Empire, the gossip on the imperial officer coming back from the dead was louder and would remain that way for a bit.
“I’m surprised by the quantity of people that know you” Cor told him once while browsing the net and seeing all the @LoqiTummeltOfficial and @HouseTummeltLives stuff.
“They don’t” Loqi corrected him dryly. “And they didn’t until I put that fucking video up. I told you people prefer vile gossip and drama over politics. They didn’t even know who I was until two days ago; maybe they knew mom and dad, maybe Bestel at most, but the rest of us didn’t matter. They cared enough about the Tummelt to mourn us, but they didn’t care about me personally, didn’t even know I existed until this. It’s like only a few people know about an animal, it’s announced it goes extinct and suddenly the whole world cares about it, then months later they announce false alarm, they found one, and then the whole world cares twice about it. They don’t give a damn about who survived the tragedy, they cared someone survived. I’m not a survivor, I’m an object for their entertainment so they can spend hours browsing the internet for the same news in fifty different blogs and then play detective. Gonna make altars to me just to pretend they always cared, going to put flowers somewhere to pretend they always cared, that’s how it always is. We humans don’t give a damn about the people involved in a drama, we care about the drama and pretend we care about the people.”

Cor didn’t reply to that because, godsdammit, did Loqi have to make everything sound so crude and grey? Besides, Loqi was not a hundred percent right. There were people who cared. Cor’s team cared enough about the Nifs to rescue them, and they didn’t need to know them. Cor cared. It had been the opposite, actually; Cor cared without knowing who Loqi was. Knowing his name later had changed nothing. Good for Loqi if he wanted to believe nobody cared, but Cor did…and it was a little annoying that Loqi didn’t see it.
Then again, Cor couldn’t force him to see something he didn’t want to see. He too had been a stubborn, ungrateful young idiot…hopefully Loqi would grow to appreciate what he had, and who he had. And hopefully sooner than Cor learned.

They video, as predicted, was deleted mere minutes after it was posted, but other people started re-uploading it. Plus, people complained publicly to the Empire for deleting the Kweet, which forced the Empire to put it back up. The whole ‘put it down first, then back up due to public pressure’ was already exposing them as not knowing what to do and caring about what the people thought more than they did for the truth. If they had nothing to hide, they wouldn’t delete the video knowing it was lies, was the argument that forced them to keep it up, and they wouldn’t have put it back up if it wasn’t to keep the people happy and quiet was the next shot.

Naturally, the Empire secretly sent out spies and troops to search for Loqi wherever he was. It would remain a secret for as long as they could, and had already come up with the ‘he’s a traitor to our law due to defamation’ by the time they either couldn’t find him or were uncovered looking for him. Thankfully, so long he was in Insomnia, Loqi was safe even from spies.

Of course, Loqi’s announcement was received not only by the Empire, but Lucis as well. Regis had asked, privately, from all newspapers and big blogs to not reveal that Loqi Tummelt was in the capital city. ‘For his safety and ours’ was the excuse, as to not reveal him as helping the Lucian troops. Surprisingly, the Lucians understood and agreed to not ever post anything about it; if the king was trusting the secret to them before their paparazzi found out, then it was a serious thing, and as many bad decisions as they thought Regis had made across his reign, they still viewed him as a wise monarch, especially so since he publicly rejected Niflheim’s offer of a treaty.

Not to say that goodwill was not the only thing that moved humankind, and the king promised some money to please keep the secret. It was not a load like they would have received had they sold the news of Loqi’s whereabouts to the Empire, but partly money partly nationalism, even partly empathy, the newspapers agreed to not give him out. Paparazzi wouldn’t look for him, and if they ever spotted him by chance, they would pretend he was a random Nif visitor or Lucian citizen with Nif ancestors, and that was it.

The news covered the video and repeated it, the world was constantly talking about the whole thing, the Eos Peace Union were putting pressure on Niflheim; Niflheim claimed the video to be fake propaganda, reaffirmed their innocence, and the whole mess kept going, who’s guilty, who’s innocent, what is true, what’s false, who is on who’s side, what the motivations are, are they being honest.

During the first days, the news were on Loqi and the drama around it as previously described. Eventually, people started either accepting or disregarding his speech; theories came up on who was forcing him to it, why he was not being forced to it, where he was, how he was planning revenge, how the Empire itself had made the video, etcetera. Days later, Loqi surviving went quieter, while his claims grew stronger, until the people worldwide started slowly, very slowly turning their attention from the initial drama to the Empire as the real culprit, as hard to believe as it was.

At first, Niflheim’s armed forced threatened their human troops that no one better watch or believe that video, for it was fake. So the troops didn’t believe him at first.
Except for one soldier, one day, weeks later. Then, his mate, the one that smoked a cigarette everyday and played cards with him.
But that’s a story for some other day.

For now, the troops were threatened to not believe him, keep an eye open in case Tummelt tries something, and keep working for the good of the world. The imperial internet and media suffered further secret restrictions. The civilians were allowed to talk about it, unless someone brought up good theories, in which case they went strangely silent or soon apologized for their own speeches, and everyone ignoring why they acted so weird or not knowing the multiple kind of threats or punishments they underwent before taking back their support for Loqi.

In general, Loqi’s video made the internet and the world burn at first, and then, while the Empire tried to pretend it wasn’t true and gave their best at keeping their own people quiet and blind, the world kept putting pressure on them, though slightly. One officer’s word was not going to make the EPU or the world believe it overnight. Loqi was aware of it.
That was not his purpose. He didn’t want to change the world.
He just wanted that his speech would be the little push the imperials needed so they changed the world.
He did the easy part. Now he just had to rely on his people and hope and pray for them to accept the truth, and stop contributing for their government.

All that was left for him now that he had done his part was keep his faith. If the civilians were not going to listen, Loqi was going to pray for at least the human troops to turn their back on the Empire so they could save their lives. He knew it was going to be difficult, he knew that even in the case they accepted the truth and supported him and tried to say No to the Empire, the Empire would force them to still work for them. Not only they had a contract, but also…families, a house, things the Empire could set ablaze if they ever tried to say no.

But he also knew the imperials were cunning. Even if forced to do the dirty job, they would find a way through it. Loqi trusted. They were strong, brave, intelligent. They could stand up for themselves alone. They only needed Loqi’s first little push. They had the rough part, Loqi was aware; he had all the comfort and liberties hanging around in the safest city of the world in the safest building just telling people what to do. His countrymen didn’t have that luck. But they could do it. Loqi trusted in it.

Needless to say, in the act between the people exploding for Loqi’s announcement of being alive and as his speech started clearly influencing on the people worldwide, even if it started rather quietly, it still pushed the EPU to question Nilfheim, as well as many people outside the Empire.

So, of course, the inevitable happened.

Sometime after the video was posted, Niflheim declared Loqi Tummelt in the state of national traitor.

--

Knowing he would have no answer, but still wanting to announce he was about to interrupt Loqi’s privacy, Cor knocked on the door of what had become the Nif’s room, waited a second, and then quietly opened it.

He knew what he would find, but still, confirming it still made him feel sad; Loqi sat on a side of his bed, the legs crossed lotus style, facing the window. There was not much moonlight, but it was not needed; the little nightlight was on, and painted half his figure.
The Marshal stayed by the door for a little while. He took in a breath and heavily let it out through the nose. His heart wrenched.

Cor quietly walked into the room, taking his time as he reached the bed. Loqi didn’t bother turning to look at him. Cor sat down at the edge of the bed with a little sigh.

Both existed in silence, if only interrupted by some spying cricket somewhere outside. Cor mused a little and confirmed to himself, for the thousandth time in his life, that the quiet of the night was much more different than that of the day. More…intimate, yet also a little more honest. And also a little sad.
“…can’t sleep?” Loqi was, surprisingly, first to break the silence. Cor still took a time as he nodded to himself.
“Can’t” he murmured. “Can’t you?”
He turned over his shoulder to see Loqi shake his head.
“Can’t.”

Cor nodded again even when no one was looking at him, and looked back at nowhere, containing a sigh. He fidgeted a little with his own hands, and couldn’t hear Loqi doing anything on his side, not even the slightest toying with the blanket. The cricket continued as if to help them not forget time was not frozen.
As if already acquainted with Cor’s tactic of staying in silence until he spilled the beans, or perhaps, and Cor wanted to believe it was this one, growing trust enough that Loqi now didn’t need Cor to ask anything and already knowing Cor’s silence meant understanding, Loqi spoke without needing as much subtle insisting or time as the first times.
“…it shouldn’t affect me” he said, head slightly down, and he very quietly and timidly toyed with his pajama pants. “It was obvious. I was expecting it.”

Cor didn’t look back. He remained sat at his own spot, staring at his own hands, but attentively listening to every word, and to the pause that the Nif let go on.
“National traitor” Loqi recalled slowly, as if tasting every syllable of a concept he had never pronounced in his life. Yet another long silence proceeded. Soon, Loqi let out a little huff that, despite being half sarcastic, still came out with a noticeable hint of sadness. “Are we all sure we’re talking about the same Loqi Tummelt?”

Cor didn’t reply to that. No, they were not. Nobody was ever the same person than they were. Some moved backwards, some forwards. Loqi was not who he used to be, and Cor liked and wanted to believe that it was for the better. This concept of Loqi Tummelt being named national traitor by the Empire was unbelievable, yes…if one thought about the person Loqi used to be. Not this one.
“National traitor, by the same country I’d happily give my life for” Loqi let out a little sarcastic snort. “Irony’s been following me for a good while and it’s getting annoying.”
“Yeah…you’ve had so many sudden…flips and turns in your life” Cor agreed, nodding and looking at the ceiling. “It must be tiring.”

Loqi gave a ‘eh’ sound by answer, as if dismissing it with ‘I’m used to it’ rather than ‘not true’. The clock on the bedside table marked two and thirteen. Cor was wide awake like it was midday, and by the looks and sounds of it, so was Loqi. It was strange. Nobody had ever been awake with him whenever Cor had an insomnia episode. Sometimes, if it got too bad, or if he noticed, Prompto would stay awake with and for him, but Prompto forced himself to be awake, which was a very sweet and dear gesture that Cor appreciated wholeheartedly, but also made him feel a little guilty. Loqi was awake because he literally couldn’t sleep either, just like him. It was not sweeter or better, and definitely nowhere close to being dearer. It was just new, and strange. But it was not bad. It was like two souls sharing some of their misery together, even if their miseries didn’t measure the same weight.

“It shouldn’t affect me” Loqi murmured. “Fuck, I mean, I don’t want to cry or yell, so why can’t I sleep if it’s not affecting me that much?”
“It doesn’t need to come out as an outburst to be as strong, you know?” Cor suggested quietly, both still looking each their own way. “Sometimes feelings come out like this. As insomnia” Cor looked at the Nif again. “You were, and still are, the proudest imperial I’ve ever known. And I’ve known imperials for over thirty years” and so, Cor shifted in his seat so he was facing Loqi much better this time, and so he could keep looking at him without having to turn over his shoulder. “Of course being named national traitor isn’t easy, even if you were expecting it.”

Loqi took a while to have any reaction, and when he did it was just a nod before lowering the head again and focusing again on his hand toying with a fold of his pants. Cor looked away, too. It felt, the room, the feeling of the moment…it felt like Loqi had the words ‘National Traitor’ recently burnt in his skin; as hard as both tried to ignore it, it was there, tearing the skin apart, pulsing, beating as if having its own life, marking him, changing him, burning him, and with nothing to do about it except…watch. Feel and sense it. And suffer it even if it had been obvious the burnt would be there one day.

It felt like the National Traitor blade had beheaded Loqi, and they were mourning the version of him that died that day.

Of course it had to be terrible. Especially because Loqi was not only still proud of his country but saving it. He had literally decided to stay in the continent at the other end of the world, deal with the people he hated the most, have a total turn of his lifestyle and beliefs, give up his liberty and safety, and work extra hard on winning an entire war almost alone just to free his country from its current cruel dictating government…and he ended up tagged as Traitor. His country taking his effort, suffering, and sacrifice, and not only destroying it and ignoring it, but tagging him of an enemy. Nilfheim was losing a lot with this. They had, unknowingly, turned their Hero into a Martyr by tagging him of the Villain.

Loqi sighed, keeping it in his chest. Cor subtly looked up at him again, waiting as usual.
“Well” Loqi said with the slight raise of an eyebrow. “Guess I’m stuck here now. Can’t go beyond the Insomnian Wall or they’ll find me in a matter of hours. Can’t go to Tenebrae or Accordo and…” he paused. The silence lingered and he dropped his head a little bit. His eyes were empty, staring into nowhere. “…can’t go back to Niflheim now.”

Cor nodded slowly, his head lowering. Yes. That was it. That was the core of what was consuming Loqi currently; being banned from Niflheim. His homeland. The place he was so fond of, so enamored of, that he carried in his veins…the place that saw him grow and become who he was. The place he fought for.
The place that held all his memories with his siblings.
And he couldn’t go there anymore. Who knows for how long. Who knew if not ever again.
…how had Loqi’s heart…survived through all the shit of the past few months?
It was natural, he guessed…that such a strong, iron heart could survive this. But it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, or that it was fair.

“I’m sorry” was all that Cor thought was appropriate to say, and he meant it. Loqi gave him a look, and Cor just pressed his lips before looking down again. They spent a while like that, as if Loqi had expected more. The Nif turned away again and shrugged a shoulder, slightly shaking the head.
“Guess it was obvious” Loqi gave a sad tiny smile. “It just…makes me feel…” terribly lonely, for some reason. With no future, or identity. Like I don’t belong anywhere, like I’m standing nowhere and there’s nowhere I can go and everything and everyone is out of reach. Like I don’t have a home. “…out of place” his eyebrows furrowed. Cor’s eyes moved up to look at him. Loqi still took a long while slightly frowning with some sadness at nowhere. “…I feel…like there’s nowhere for me. You know?” he sighed shortly, quietly. “I’ve tried to get used to Insomnia, but I just…”

Loqi didn’t say more, yet, Cor felt a pinch in the heart. He knew that it was going to be difficult, especially for Loqi, so wary of Lucis, to get used to Insomnia, but…it still stung a little. It felt as if Cor had not been doing a work good enough to help him and he was failing.
“It’s fine” Loqi breathed out after a pause, raising the head. “It’s not like I had plans to go anywhere anytime soon” he turned in Cor’s direction again and gave him a sad forced smile. “It shouldn’t bother me that I can’t legally go back to Niflheim if I didn’t want to go anyway, right?”
“…well…it’s your home” Cor murmured. Loqi lowered the eyes. “No matter if you weren’t planning on going back soon, it’s still your home. Of course it must hurt.”

Seeing he didn’t continue and he left it on a pretty negative scheme, Loqi raised an eyebrow and looked slightly away.
“I’m sorry, Loqi.”
Despite how heartfelt the murmur sounded, Loqi gave a tiny quiet chuckle by reply. Not sarcastic, or not in a bad way, so Cor didn’t take it like that.
“For someone so old and worldly renowned and worshipped, you say sorry a lot” Loqi pointed out and turned to look at him with a smile, even if his eyes were still rather sad. “Every time something happens you just say sorry. One would think you’d have some old man advice.”
“Sometimes, I do” Cor replied. “But it’s not advice what we want to hear when we’re feeling like shit. It’s not what you want to hear right now.”

Loqi’s smile disappeared and he spent a couple seconds looking at Cor with a look of curiosity, if disguised as a bit of a frown. He lowered the eyes and remained thoughtful.
They spent the next minutes in silence. Cor was sat at the end of the bed, the body facing the Nif’s direction, but now looking at the window. Loqi was still on a side of the bed, head down. His thoughts, after coming and going, quieting, and starting up again, led him to wonder something that caught his curiosity so much, he couldn’t keep the question to himself.
“Why can’t you sleep, Leonis?”

Cor didn’t reply at first. He didn’t glance his way either. As if having thought but coming with no answer, Cor shrugged lightly and softly shook the head.
“It happens, sometimes” he said softly, and it was all and any answer he gave. Loqi kept staring at him, expecting a better explanation, but no matter how much he stared, Cor just gave him a mysterious smile and looked away again. At first, Loqi got angry and annoyed; was that all the answer? He wanted an explanation. He couldn’t sleep because of all the worry and stress and the recent news of being named a national traitor by his country and feeling out of place. Cor couldn’t sleep because ‘it happens sometimes’? There had to be a reason. What was that reason?

…indeed, what could it be? Before snapping out at Cor or getting angrier at him, Loqi’s expression and head started softening when the question turned more serious in his head and it made him realize something. What could Cor the Immortal worry for? Stress for? Maybe sadden for? What was the sort of things that kept him awake at night? What did he think? What did he feel? What could happen in his life that could make the Immortal…feel…things? Cor was a person. He had emotions. He lived things that made him feel things. But what did he live? And what did he feel? What were the stories behind Cor Leonis the person that he hadn’t thought was behind Cor the Immortal the…concept?

Despite having spent the past four months with him, Loqi had come to notice that where he had opened up to Cor so many times, had shown him part of himself, had been observed and heard…he knew nothing of Cor, other than his name and what he already knew. Nothing. He had spoken to Cor about himself, but he had so far never learned anything from Cor. Was it selfish? Who was the selfish one in this? Cor, for keeping himself private while opening his way through Loqi, secretly owning his secrets and intimacies while he revealed nothing? Or Loqi, for…not once, not once having realized…that he had never asked one thing about him, never cared, never thought about it, focused in himself and himself alone all this time?

Loqi stared at him for longer than he noticed, thinking, seeing the man he had lived with for so far, experienced so many things with, cried to, spoken to, opened up to, and yet how distant he still was, how unknown.
Who was Cor Leonis?
Loqi…wanted to know. For whatever reason…he wanted to know more about Cor.

“Well…I’m not going to take more time from you” Cor sighed softly after the long silence. Loqi didn’t reply, still coming out from his thoughts. “Just…uhm…Loqi, just know…” the Nif looked up and stared attentively to the other’s eyes. Cor hesitated, and put the head down. He was quiet and only gave a quiet ‘uhm’. Loqi thought he would have to pressure him into saying whatever he was going to say. Cor, however, took a bit of a breath and went on. “I eh…” after hesitating again, Cor looked at him. Loqi tried to see the general that he always thought unmovable and soulless, but he found the same man of the past months; a timid creature with a soft, shy gaze, still so unknown to him, giving him a sad look. “I know this isn’t home for you. And I know it surely won’t ever feel like that” Cor looked down and paused. “Just know that…you have somewhere to go. Feeling lost mustn’t be easy, and I’m sorry I can’t help much…”

Loqi’s eyes went down, but he looked up when he saw Cor lift the head, as if to not let the older man notice him looking down. Loqi tried to keep a straight, slightly frowning look to hide whatever softness he was definitely not feeling. Cor gave him a sad smile.
“But know that if one day you feel there’s nowhere to go and no one welcomes you…” his voice grew quieter. “You’ll be received here. Always” during a pause, as Loqi’s eyebrows hesitated between furrowing or softening, Cor’s smile widened a little. “I know it’s not home, but…you have a place here, anytime you ever need it.”

Loqi’s body softened, as did the harsh beat of his heart. His eyes moved down and he lowered his guard for a moment. What…was he supposed to say to that? Without sounding like he cared or like he was grateful or anything he didn’t want to show?
He ended up not replying. He just nodded. Cor replied widening slightly his empathetic smile.
“Try breathing slow and counting in your head as you do” Cor said as he stood up from the bed. Again, Loqi nodded but didn’t give any hint of lying back down in bed. Cor let him be; he knew, because it really did happen sometimes with no reason, that catching sleep was a sneaky task that sometimes couldn’t be completed, so he put no pressures on Loqi to force it.

“Goodnight, Cor.”

Cor stopped at the door. He turned to look at Loqi and was unable to reply. The Nif was looking at his own feet and toyed with a fold of his pants, but he looked aware and wide awake, not like he stuttered that out absentmindedly. Cor tried to say something and failed again, only mouthing a bit. He got nervous and tried again, but failed at pointing or asking anything. And it wasn’t only that Loqi said goodnight first for the first time, but…did he- did he just call him…Cor?

He tensed in his spot when Loqi turned to look at him as if wondering why he was just frozen there. Startled from being caught mid shock, Cor stuttered a little before calming down enough.
“…goodnight, Loqi” he murmured back, gave the Nif a last smile that Loqi didn’t reply, and calmly exited, deciding it was not prudent to ask Loqi anything, not right now, and to take his shock somewhere else. For some reason, though, he couldn’t help a smile once he was behind the door. He knew Loqi hated him, or just disliked him at best, so him calling him by name meant nothing…but it still made him feel happy for a second. It worsened a tiny bit his insomnia, but he didn’t really mind.

Loqi, on his side, oblivious to what he had said, as it had been so naturally there was nothing outstanding to him, continued staring at either the window or his pajama pants. Like it was not enough with everything bothering him, now Leonis had worsened his insomnia a little bit with that realization; he had no idea what sort of person Cor was, what his stories were, what was in his head and his heart and his background. He didn’t care, he told to himself…yet, he couldn’t stop wondering about it, and creating mental scenarios and possibilities and more questions and more doors he had never cared to explore before. Fuck Cor. He wanted to sleep and Leonis came up in his head like this, like he was any more interesting or important than what really mattered; the war and his current state of…national traitor.

Loqi sighed aloud and went back to lie in bed. He rolled to face the side the nightlight was on, and mentally reprimanded himself for his unimportant stupid thoughts, and told himself his sudden curiosity for knowing Cor better was only his mind at almost three in the morning having nothing to do, and it would pass in the morning. He didn’t care. And he was not going to care.

Breathing slow and count in his head, Leonis said. And it better work or Loqi would complain about it in the morning.

Chapter Text

The following days passed by as if nothing had happened.

Sure, there was the sudden hype and boom of everything that Loqi’s video announced; the bloodline of an imperial noble house that was thought extinct returning with a tragic, dramatic story, the same house declaring war to the Empire itself, the speech claiming the culprit of the civilian bombing was the empire, etcetera. But like every new, people continued going to school and work and doing their daily activities. The only change was the matter of gossip, but those that did suffer a change of activities were the higher ranks; Niflheim’s leaders working hard on how to hide and silence the news, how to get control again, where to look for Loqi, and still attending their war issues, the Eos Peace Union on investigating further into both Loqi and the bombing, and Lucis’ leaders, being as quiet as possible about hiding the Nif traitor and working on trying to get a vantage at war.

Among the things that changed was that now Loqi was attending a couple meetings with lawyers that Lucis gave him; in his speech, Loqi had claimed his family’s money as his alone, cutting every cent out from the Empire. The Tummelt were well known for donating half their income to the Empire for technological and war advances. Declared deceased, the Empire could not feed from the family’s savings until fifteen years later; there was a clause, rare and only used once in history, that said that when a noble family went extinct, the government could not have access to the savings until fifteen years had passed, because, in the very rare case that there was a survivor, still one person that carried the bloodline, fifteen years were enough for them to grow, in case they were a baby when the family was declared extinct, and so they could claim it.

So, the Tummelt’s savings were intact. Except Loqi couldn’t access one cent of it.
“He’s been declared a national traitor” a Nifelian lawyer was saying in a session at the Eos Peace Union. “In such state, we’re blocking access to his family bank’s accounts and we have no obligation to give him the family’s savings or any of the insurances. As a traitor, he’s legally cut out of any form of support from the Empire, as well as from accessing anything, both physically and digitally, so he cannot have access to his money.”
“And he’s also been offered the state of refugee by Lucis” Loqi’s lawyer replied firmly, and even a little angrily. “Wherever he is, if he touches Lucian ground, he’s in the legal state of refugee, and that protects his money as his heritage, his possession, as an individual, as according to his human rights, not as dictates his nationality, so he should be free to claim both his money and the insurances you owe him.”
“Are you saying he’s in Lucian ground?”
“Your Honor, this has been asked multiple times and I’ve, multiple times, denied such statement. It’s not questioning at this point as it is mere stubbornness.”
“Unless you can prove he’s in Lucian ground, or that he’s legally accepted the state of Lucian refugee that King Regis offered, his human rights work for nothing, as he’s still considered a Nif, and as such he’s treated under the law of Niflheim.”

And so, the court sessions, debates, and paperwork went on with no end, pretty much like the bombing issue itself. Regis forbid Loqi to physically attend the EPU sessions, which made it a much longer and tedious process, as Loqi had to speak with the lawyer whenever she required of him face to face, limiting it to her having to travel from Accordo to Lucis forth and back. They feared to use internet for video chat, because as tight as their security was, the idea of Niflheim hacking into the device was always a possibility, or, in a much more simple case, someone could catch the lawyer holding such conversation, which would lead to knowing she knew where he was, which would lead to putting Loqi’s secret whereabouts to risk, and with it, his safety.

So no money for Loqi, for who knows how long. Or maybe not ever.
It was fine. He didn’t want the money for himself, he only wanted the Empire to not have it, as it would significantly cause them troubles, but he could live without it. It was no lie that Loqi’s money could help Lucis economically to get a chance in the war, or at least heal a little, but Loqi wasn’t very confident about spending his money in the country he still hated. Besides, Cor provided everything he needed; if it was a tiny stupid apartment and common clothing from a store, it was fine. He had not needed to spend a cent in anything and if Leonis so insisted to waste whatever poor savings he had in him, perfect. It was not like Loqi was asking him to do it; if he was doing it, it meant he could and wanted, so it was his problem.

While every head of every country except for Tenebrae went hysterical due to one angry boy’s Kweeter video, Loqi continued in his everyday, teaching the Lucian troops, and putting up with whatever unexpectedly came up at times.

--

His tiny story with a Glaive started roughly, thanks to Loqi’s arrogant, non-empathic attitude that still characterized him.

One day, as had become more frequent, Cor was needed somewhere else so he left Loqi on his own for a while. Still, King Regis had asked to not leave Loqi alone, even more now that everyone at the Citadel either knew or had access to know who exactly he was, which could carry troubles.
So, on the way back to Cor’s office, which was starting to become his own headquarters due to lack of an available office, Loqi was guarded by a Glaive.

Loqi wasn’t very sure what to think of him. The Glaive had been a bit too…eager when he accepted the task of walking him. Loqi had been at one of the halls, watching over the Crownsguard training with his MT dummies, and a couple Glaives here and there, either getting a curious peek, or one or two daring to join the training as well. When the session was over, Loqi heard the current head of the CG ask the few present Glaives if anyone was up to guarding him. Almost immediately, among the tiny crowd, that Glaive put the hand up a bit too quickly, yet remained silent as he slowly put it down, came through the crowd, and caught up with Loqi.

He didn’t even say hello. Loqi didn’t bother. If he bothered to look at him at all it was only due to the suspicion of the Galive’s…willingness to guard him. Loqi started walking at his own pace, and the Glaive silently followed behind. Still, the Nif kept thinking and being wary. No one could be this eager to guard him. No one had been, even less in this country, even less someone he didn’t know. What did he want? Ah. Sure it was someone who was angry at the name of Tummelt for whatever reason, and now that he knew Loqi was one, he was there for revenge. Childish. How tall was he again? Immature reaction. Everyone lost someone dear at war. He could teleport, right? That was going to be troubles…no, Loqi didn’t fear him. He made sure to stay wary and attentive for whenever this Glaive tried something.

Yet, curiously, the way to Cor’s office was silent. The Glaive said, did, tried nothing.
“You may leave now” Loqi was first to speak once they were a few meters from the door of Cor’s office, stopping. Expecting and wanting no reply, Loqi continued walking on his own, and he was already at the door, a hand on the knob, when the Glaive dared speak.
“I- had a sibling, too.”

Loqi’s heart skipped a beat. It was like a needle, but one the size of a fist, punched him in the stomach. He lost the breath for two or three seconds out of the impact. He stood still some moments, suddenly anxious, and he hated it. He hated it because he felt uncovered; as if those words had taken every piece of armor and clothing off him, and now he was thrown, nude, with no protection, in front of the enemy. Vulnerability, even more than fear, made Loqi angry to the guts.

He turned to look at the Glaive that had dared make him feel such horrible thing, and took a moment to memorize his looks. He looked attentively at the uniform, impeccable and regal, but and searched for a characteristic something. He found a blue scarf-like thing at his shoulder. He looked at the face to know him even off uniform, tried to memorize it all, the undercut hairstyle, his stubble, the little braid, the face shape, those eyes, and those marks- were those- fucking tattoos on his face, like a savage-?

The Glaive stood there as if scared, or shy. For a man that tall and tough, his corporal language spoke of insecurity, as did the soft, insecure look in his eyes. He looked like a lost child trying to ask a cop for help, but too shy and imposed to speak. Loqi eyed him, frowning, but he spent so much looking at the Glaive that, apparently, the older man that stood at the hallway seemed to take it like an invitation.
“A sister” the Glaive said hesitatingly. “Uhm…” he looked away for a second before making eye contact again. “And she was…the- Empire took her from me, too.”

Yet again, it stung in Loqi’s entrails like a fucking sword, and he opened the mouth to breathe from it, even if his frown did but deepen.
“I tried to save her, but…” the Glaive lowered the head and shook it quickly. Once more, it stung, and this time so deep that Loqi was about to yell at him. “Now I’m trying to honor her memory, seeing her as my everyday motivation” after some moments in silence, in which Loqi did but look away, the Glaive looked back up. “But- it’s not about me, I think- what I mean to say is that…I understand a little of what you feel-”
Another sting.
No, you don’t.
“-and I think that it’s very inspiring that, despite your situation, and still so fresh, you’re…helping us, in what was clearly a lost war” the Glaive continued, softer, but still a bit too shy. “It mustn’t be easy, yet still here you are when you had no obligation. And I- I just wanted to say…thank you for your service. I-”
“What is your name, soldier?”

The Glaive stood still and quiet, watching Loqi with big eyes. His hands, at his sides, were fists that kept tightening and softening, as if to release his nerves. Loqi was looking at the door, frowning. The Glaive still took some moments as he subtly looked around and swallowed.
“Nyx Ulric…sir.”
“Nyx Ulric” Loqi repeated, and then he turned to look at the Glaive. And then, Loqi gave him both a glare and a voice cold as northern ice. “Next time you tell me about your life, I’ll make sure to have asked first, mister Ulric.”

Nyx didn’t reply for a good while. After being frozen, he looked away with a look between frustration and embarrassment, and sighed. After some hesitation, he looked at Loqi again and nodded.
“Yes, sir” he said lowly. “I apologize.”
“You’re dismissed, Ulric” Loqi said and looked to the door again, opening it. “And make this the last time you speak to me.”

Nyx didn’t reply. He blinked and his lips parted slightly. Yet, he soon recovered, looked to a side pressing the lips together, and nodded. He turned around and left.
Loqi still turned to look at the Glaive as he walked away. Nyx Ulric. Loqi glared a little deeper, and made sure to not again talk with someone that brought up the subject of Nannie and Frey in such rude and crude way. It was his siblings, not theirs. No one could talk about them. They had no rights. They knew nothing. Fuck that Ulric guy.

--

Every day that passed, Cor found it easier to be with Loqi. It was still very stressful, and the boy always presented a challenge, but Cor’s empathy, which had done but grow since day one, helped him greatly to stay patient. No one at the Citadel seemed to like him yet; on the opposite, the news of him being a Tummelt made it worse. The Tummelt family had a long record of victories, many achieved at the price of many Lucian lives…and the people that die at the battlefield often have families. Cor had seen and heard people talking even more than before; now not only complaining about a Nif on the lead, but it being an imperial noble (hence, classist, xenophobic, a spoiled rich brat…and the worst part was that they weren’t wrong), and even commenting about some of the Tummelt victories, which were seen very badly from the Lucian point of view.

Loqi didn’t like them, people didn’t like him, and they grew more responsive to him. Cor hoped that things would calm down, and he would make sure to help ease the tension before things turned into a bomb ready to explode at any point. Lucis needed Loqi, and even if not, he didn’t want anyone to harm Loqi in any sense. He was a fragile, unstable mind, and heck was he going to let someone break what little progress Cor had managed to make Loqi do.

And the past days, he noticed, Loqi had been a bit more…annoyed than usual. He had been snapping out at everyone easier and faster than the first days.
“Here’s your coffee” Cor said softly while putting down the large cup at the desk. Loqi’s way of saying thanks was a moody throat hum. The Nif didn’t lift the eyes off his paperwork, a hand toying with his pen. Cor still waited a bit in front of the desk to see if Loqi said thanks, but there was nothing. Of course. Silly of him to be hopeful. Loqi was frowning, as usual, reading through the papers quickly but attentively, the pen not stopping its circles between his fingers.

Cor went to sit down at a nearby chair, far enough to not be a distraction or, better said, a bother to Loqi’s range of sight; a prudent distance to be present, but to not make Loqi feel the pressure that he was there. Cor sighed and looked at the ceiling, crossing his arms. After the noise of a couple papers being moved, Cor heard whispered, very angered cursing, so he looked again at the Nif; all he found was Loqi taking his coffee and taking a large sip of it, putting the cup down a bit too loudly, and taking his papers again. Now that Cor noticed, Loqi’s frown was…more marked than what was his ‘usual one’. At first he thought it was his usual annoyance, but Loqi seemed to be even angrier than normal.

Had someone made him angry? Or was it something else? Or maybe- well, Ignis had told Cor that yes, spontaneously being very irritable could be a manifestation of depression, it depended on each individual, and Loqi was a moody storm, so sure some of his angrier-than-usual moments could be his depression. Maybe that was it…what did Cor have to do in this case? In all this time he had yet not learned what to do when he was angry…sad was easy, but angry…

“This fucking-” Loqi started whispering, and then he shamelessly started making unintelligible noises of anger as he crumpled the page he was holding. Cor flinched slightly in place; it was not normal of someone to make paperwork like that. “Why are your strategists all so retarded!? What’s wrong with you, people, why can’t you play a fucking war logically, what’s wrong with all of you!?”
He proceeded to toss the paper ball across the office.
“Easy” Cor told him, putting the palms up. “It’s not the big deal. I can help you with-”
“No, you can’t, Cor” Loqi snapped at him, finally looking up from his papers, but only to give the Marshal a harsh look. “Why are you still here, do you think I’m a toddler!? Fuck off.”

Cor didn’t reply. He did feel a little offended; nothing gave no one the right to be mean to others. But he tried to stop for a second and analyze it.
“Did someone or something upset you today?” he asked directly. Surprisingly to him, Loqi responded by slamming the hands on the desk before glaring up at him.
“What do you care!?” he yelled. “No, Leonis, no one upset me, can’t I be angry for one stupid day without you thinking it was someone else!?”
“I didn’t mean to make you angry” Cor replied. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry” Loqi muttered, but he didn’t go on; he focused again on his papers, and the pen in his hand kept going and going and going.

There it was. The pen moving; a tiny gesture, and yet it spoke so much about anxiety and the source of everything: stress.
Of course. How had Cor not noticed earlier? The pen furiously going in fast circles in his hand and his irritability, it all had to be a way of Loqi to express his stress. Anger was what Loqi knew best, so of course it would come out in that shape.

Lately, Loqi had had to deal with a lot. The first months were heavy in a ‘lying at the bottom of an abyss with unusual gravity weighing on me, and I can’t stand up’ way, like was any depression. But lately, Loqi had been dealing with ‘I’m carrying a lot of different tasks on my back’ sort of weight.
There was the pressure of his war classes, the Crownsguard training, Council meetings, and now also paperwork, strategic planning, adding his meetings with the lawyer, further pressure from the Crownsguard’s dislike towards him at the same time he was meant to teach them, and adding the massive weight of the depression he was already carrying, it was natural he would snap at some point, and snap in anger. He had already snapped in sadness multiple times, but he had yet to explode this way.

Understanding, Cor stood up and reached for the desk. Loqi still ignored him, angrily toying with the pen and reading. Then, Cor took the papers from his hands, and Loqi looked up at him as if offended.
“Want to go let some steam off?”
Loqi took a second to process the question. Then, he opened the mouth and frowned more as if about to yell at Cor, but the Marshal lifted his eyebrows and gave him a cautious look as if warning him. Loqi closed the mouth and eyes and stayed still some moments.

Then, after swallowing his pride, he nodded.

--

“Be careful with your hands, I’m telling you to angle them better.”
“I know!”

Loqi was particularly eager that day at training. He spent two whole hours exercising, almost non-stop considering his current condition. He tired quickly, and when he reached his limits he did stop for a couple minutes to recover, but he went back to continue.
Cor helped him, and a couple times he did but stand nearby, watching him, because Loqi didn’t need guide but also didn’t want a partner.

Cor worried, he had to admit. Loqi letting steam out of his system was fantastic, but it was also concerning to look at how much he had to let out. It was not exercising for the sake of it, the boy was releasing anger and stress and who knows if something else, and taking this long was directly proportional to how much of those negative things he was carrying. For how many days had Loqi been carrying this much stress? Thank the gods he snapped, finally. And thank the gods Cor had finally convinced him recently to start training, or Loqi would have had no way to let it out before it turned into something worse to his health.

Loqi spent a long while hitting the punch bag that Cor had hung just for him, the secretly lighter-than-usual one. Cor, as always, helped him by holding the bag while Loqi hit it. He found, that day, that Loqi was hitting it even more strongly than past days; after the first day training, sometimes they would repeat it, sometimes skip it, so this was no first time. It was, however, the first in which Loqi went full berserk, and hit the bag as if though all his problems were inside it and the harder he hit, the more chances of killing it all.

It was longer than usual, even twice the normal time spent at the punching bag, Loqi finally put the arms down and stepped back.
“You okay?” Cor asked before anything else. Loqi stood some meters away, breathing heavily, chest coming up and down with every breath, and sweat running down his skin like a second layer. Incongruously, he nodded. “We should stop now.”
“No” Loqi breathed out. “Not tired yet.”
“I think you are.”
“I said I’m not!”

And with that yell, Cor understood he didn’t have to get in Loqi’s way. The boy was stubborn, and it seemed to be for everything; both for the way he thought, and for things like training, apparently.
“Okay” Cor agreed. “What about we try something new, though? You can’t do only arms all your life.”

Surprisingly, Loqi didn’t argue with him about anything that day. He only nodded and agreed to whatever form of exercise Cor was going to give him. He didn’t even seem to mind that Cor was taking up the role of his instructor, whereas other days he would freak out at the mere idea of Cor teaching him anything.
Cor led him to other places in the training hall and tried to see what tired Loqi out. He started with simple things, as to not abuse of Loqi’s poor physical condition; multiple sit-ups until tiring him out, and yet Loqi complained about wanting more. He put him to make squats, Loqi demanded more, Cor gave him more abdominal work, and Loqi yet again complained about more.

Almost after the good two long, hot hours at the training hall of angry exercise for stress release, Loqi complained yet again about more, and Cor, trying to match his energy to help him release all of it, yelled back defying him, making Loqi angry on purpose, trying him, until fake angrily teasing him into going back to the punching bag.
It resulted in Loqi returning to it even angrier than when they started. The first punch he threw Cor could feel even through the punching bag, and it made him take a step back.
Oh, dear. Loqi was serious.

“Come on, you call that a punch!?” Cor dared him again, spreading his feet an inch more and making sure to ground himself better on his spot, holding the bag tighter than before. Loqi threw another, and another harsh punch at it, each stronger than the last one. “Hit seriously, Loqi!”
By response, Loqi angrily yelled, and he started punching he bag with all his might. He kept going for a couple minutes, until he was obviously getting tired. He reached a point where he was taking too long in between punches, yet he insisted. Cor looked attentively, worrying and decided to put a stop to it.

Before he could ask Loqi to keep it there, however, Loqi suddenly frowned, growled, and he yelled as he threw a kick to the bag.
“Loqi” Cor called to call his attention, but he couldn’t stop him in time when Loqi threw a second kick to the bag with his other leg.
And immediately after that, he yelled out a curse, turned around, and limped some steps away, his hands flying to his face and his head falling backwards.

Cor’s heart skipped a beat in sudden concern. Meanwhile, Loqi still skipped on a foot a few steps away, not putting down the right leg, and then, without taking the hands away of his face, he dropped on his butt, and then lied down onto his back. Cor stood still a few moments, trying to understand what just happened, but the sudden fear of it didn’t allow him to think clear. He went towards Loqi and tried looking at him to see if he was serious or just taking a break, unsure of what to do. When he didn’t reply to his name, Cor knelt at his side. Loqi still kept both hands hiding his face.
“What happened?”
“It was my bad leg…”

Cor looked down at his legs, and then he remembered. The second kick had been with his right leg, the one still in recovery and that still ached a bit from time to time.
“Oh, no…” Cor murmured, worrying so genuinely that he didn’t have the head clear for once. Loqi struggled between breathing too heavily, and stopping as to try and contain the pain that ran all across his less stable limp. It felt like a bolt had hit his leg and had stayed trapped inside, so now it was bouncing from one end to the other, not giving him a break. “Uhm…” Cor tried to come up with something, but he was not sure of what to do now. “Let me-” he stopped to think for a second, and then tried to sneak his hands around Loqi. “Let me help you up-”
“No- no” Loqi stopped him, breathless, and putting a hand up.

Cor waited at his side, watching him to see what he did. Loqi spent some moments thrown on the floor, eyes closed and trying hardly to contain the pain. He tried so hard, his lower lip and his eyebrows trembled. After a minute or two in which he mostly caught the breath, Loqi put the hands away of his face, and later put them on the ground. Cor moved back to give him space as Loqi sat up. Still more minutes went by like that, Loqi still breathing heavily and calming down. Cor wanted to ask him if he was okay, but he didn’t want to make Loqi upset, so he stayed quiet, watching him with worry. When Loqi tried to stand up on his own, even though he didn’t ask for help, Cor still saw his face and reached close.
“Let me help” he whispered, and it almost felt like a shy plea. Loqi, by reflex more than by choice, nodded as he let Cor wrap an arm around him, and used his help to stand on his good foot.

Loqi tried to put down his right foot as well, but it flinched and he kept it up.
“It’s okay” Cor said almost as if shushing non-existent cries. “Let’s go home. You’ll shower there.”
Loqi just nodded again, and he held to the back of Cor’s shirt for support. Cor, with a hand wrapped around his waist, paid attention to his foot and helped him limp his way over to the table where he could gather his things before leaving.

--

Once home, Loqi could use his foot much better, but the limp was more than obvious. Still, he denied Cor’s help and went up to the apartment on his own, using the tip of his foot to go. It was a relief to see that he had not broken it by accident, if that was possible at all, but it was still a concern that he had harmed himself. Cor watched him paying attention in case Loqi needed help and was just too proud to accept it, and went at the Nif’s slow pace, patient.

“You want to shower? It’s okay if you skip it” Cor offered, but Loqi just put a hand up and shook the head.
“It’s fine” Loqi said, and while he didn’t sound positive, the grumpy tone of his voice was long gone. Cor nodded and lowered the eyes a little. He still accompanied Loqi to the door of his room, and watched him until he closed the one of the bathroom. Cor told himself to not be this overprotective and worrying, and decided to not wait for Loqi right outside the bathroom. He was fine, just achy. He left and went to take a shower himself, feeling dirty from the workout; even though he had not sweated half what Loqi did, he still had helped and guided him, and the heat of the whole energy had made him sweat a little too.

He took a quick shower and dressed quickly to go see if Loqi was already out and needed any assistance. He knocked, but Loqi just said he was still getting dressed, so Cor let him be and waited a little more. Minutes later, he tried again, and Loqi’s muffled mutter said it was fine now.

Cor came in to find Loqi on his bed, in pajamas now, face-up, a forearm hiding his eyes, and though he didn’t want to show it much, the body a little tense. Cor smiled a little sadly feeling a tiny pinch, and calmly made his way inside. He reached the bed and even sat down at the edge and Loqi didn’t take his arm away of his face or moved.
“Does it still hurt?” Cor asked, and by any answer he got a faked whine. Cor smiled a little again despite the little hint of sadness in his eyes, and he looked down. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault for pushing you too hard. I shouldn’t have provoked you that much.”

He got no reply at first. Then, to his surprise, Loqi came up with something more than a complaint.
“I’m starting to think you have a guilt complex, Leonis” Loqi said, and Cor couldn’t hide his surprise. He looked at Loqi with slightly big eyes and the lips parted. Loqi put his arm away of his eyes, but didn’t look his way. “You apologize nearly every day. Do you know that?” even though he did let a pause linger as if waiting for an answer, he didn’t let Cor give any. And not that Cor had any; during the silence he did but look down and around as if suddenly realizing something he didn’t know, and was now looking around for answers. During his slight panic, though, Loqi sighed and used his hands to sit up, looking at him. “I’m fine. Really. And it happened because I wanted it to happen. I wanted to kick that shit. You didn’t make me do it. Bold and stupid of you to even imagine I’d ever do something you tell me to.”

Cor still stared at him with slightly widened eyes for a good while, a little shaken and surprised. Loqi didn’t seem to put too much mind into it, and sighed, lying back down on the bed with a sigh.
“It’s fine” Loqi said. “It’ll be better in the morning…”
“…oh. Yeah” Cor said, snapping out of his head, and not sure why Loqi’s words had taken him with such force. He sighed shortly and focused in his present. “Take the painkiller, too.”
“Done” Loqi muttered. Cor smiled and looked down at the Nif’s leg. He sighed and pressed the lips together as if not understanding why he was this soft with the Nif every damn time and why he couldn’t help it, and he stood up from the bed only to move further down, and he reached for Loqi’s leg.
“Let me help a little” he murmured. Loqi looked at him, questioningly. Cor gestured towards his leg, and that was all the information Loqi needed.

At first, he seemed to be about to complain, but then Loqi let his head drop on the pillow again.
“Whatever, Cor” he muttered. “But if you hurt me, I’ll kick you.”
“If you kick me, it’ll hurt you more.”
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

Cor replied with a chuckle. Loqi didn’t laugh with him, but his face remained soft, and Cor guessed that was the closest he had been to a smile since the first training together, so he took it as almost a good thing. Considering it permission granted, Cor took Loqi’s leg, folded it to move it away, sat down, and unfolded it so this time it was across his lap. He moved Loqi’s pajama pants up to his knee. He was greeted by the long, blatant scar that marked all the length from knee to mid foot. It looked better than the past month, and yet it was still a scar that anyone would gasp at and ask in a soft voice of pity ‘what happened to you?’ It was bad. Clean and smooth, but his injury had clearly been terrible. Cor thought he had been lucky at healing in three months; what had seemed so long now seemed such scarce time to heal such injury.

He sighed as he thought, and then he put his hands gently on the skin. And so, softly, Cor started massaging the skin. Loqi groaned at the contact, and soon his arm went back to his face, this time so he could press his wrist to his mouth to not make another noise.
“I’m sorry” Cor whispered again, and he felt a little pinch at remembering what Loqi had pointed out earlier. The Nif didn’t reply, and Cor hoped he hadn’t noticed he had once more apologized. He continued massaging, pressing where he thought was correct, but not too much that he would cause discomfort. Most of the pain was in the bone, after all, and there was little Cor could do other than help with what little was from the muscle, and maybe help Loqi get distracted from the rest.

The rest of the massaging went in silence. Loqi covered his face the whole time with an arm, while his other hand rested on his tummy. Cor focused only on the leg, hands working on the skin, and mind somewhere else. He went on and about thinking about one too many things; Prompto, some other related things, Loqi’s video, was Prompto eating well, his current and sudden load of work, Cor’s own work, the leg injury, and Loqi’s evening of rage. The good side was that it seemed to work; Loqi definitely had an anger problem, but he also had reasons. Was he supposed to help Loqi work on not having so much rage in such little body, or was it natural considering everything he was going through?

Cor sighed. Gods…he was tired. Every day he was tired, and some days it felt like more weight than usual. Loqi was…a challenge. And living away of Prompto…
Still, Loqi was a challenge that Cor could not drop, not anytime soon. He couldn’t. Or- he could. But he didn’t want to. Every time he thought about dropping Loqi to his own, his heart wrenched and he only came back, even if metaphorically. He didn’t have the heart to abandon him. Even if Regis gave him somewhere to live, even if Loqi was not as bad as the first months, Cor could not…handle the idea of abandoning him. He looked at Loqi and he looked so terribly lonely, and, even though the Nif didn’t seem to care about it, Cor simply didn’t have the heart to leave him alone, even if Loqi himself wouldn’t mind.

So staying with him it would be, for a bit more. Cor continued caressing across the length of the leg, being careful when he touched the scar; a bit senseless, as it was fully healed, but it still felt a bit wrong touching it too much. Now that he was out of his head, Cor put his attention fully on Loqi again and noticed his leg had relaxed in his hands. He looked up at the Nif, and found all of him loose now, as compared to how tense he had been in a beginning. Indeed, he was so loose that-
“Hey” Cor called as he gently shook him by the leg. Loqi made a little noise as he was startled awake, and pulled his arm off his face. “You still haven’t had dinner.”
“Hm…” was all that Loqi replied, dropping his arm again on his face. Cor shook him again. “I said yes, oh my god.”

Cor chuckled and continued his work. Loqi removed his arm from his face. While massaging him, Cor looked subtly at him. Loqi was struggling to keep the eyes open. Lazily, his eyelids weighed every time more, and sometimes fluttered when Loqi tried to stay awake.
He had long eyelashes. Thick, curved, long eyelashes. Shiva, they were so beautiful that they looked fake. All of him- sometimes seemed unreal, with how…pretty he was.
“Loqi” Cor whispered almost sweetly when he saw the Nif close the eyes again and not open them this time. Loqi replied with a sleepy ‘hm?’ as he came back awake, and the noise, so tiny and tender, so unlike Loqi, made Cor’s smile grow. “Not yet.”

Loqi nodded, but closed the eyes again. Cor couldn’t help a little happy snort. Well…he couldn’t blame Loqi. Counting the times he sometimes couldn’t sleep, and now that he had become much more physically active, with the daily morning walk and starting exercising, Loqi had to have some sleep debt to pay. Plus, with those intense two hours of almost non-stop exercising like crazy must have worn him out as much as he had sweated. Of course he had to be wrecked.

Soon, Cor let go of the leg and pulled the pants back down. He stood up and gently put Loqi’s leg back on the bed, and he got closer to the Nif. He patted him gently on the face, and Loqi once more opened the eyes and looked up at him.
“Dinner” Cor reminded him, not helping the smile. “Ten minutes. Don’t fall asleep.”
Loqi stared at him some moments as if absentminded, and then he rolled the eyes. Cor didn’t take it the wrong way and chuckled, almost laughed as response. As if to prove he had heard and would do as told, Loqi sat up with a sleepy exhale. Cor gave him a raised eyebrow, and Loqi just rolled the eyes at him again, but once more the Marshal did but chuckle happily, as if they were sharing wordless jokes.

Cor left the room and made sure he left Loqi sat and not in bed. He went straight to the kitchen and started cooking, trying to not take too long. Before serving it, he went to check up on Loqi to tell him dinner was ready.
And of course, all he found was a profoundly asleep Loqi.
Cor, with a hand still on the knob, sighed and his shoulders dropped at the sight, but almost immediately he smiled and could do but shake the head. He leaned against the doorframe, and stared.
At some point, Loqi had dropped himself back in bed, face-down and with the head turned to a side. He looked as if though he had just collapsed asleep, which wouldn’t be weird after the exhausting training he had that day.

Cor spent a bit longer than he noticed, or would willingly admit to himself, against the doorframe, watching Loqi and smiling. After a minute or two, he went into the room as quietly as possible until reaching the bed. He carefully tucked Loqi in, and set the nightlight on the side Loqi was facing. Loqi barely reacted to any of it. Forgiving he skipped dinner this once, Cor switched the lights off, exited, and closed the door, hoping Loqi would rest as good as he deserved.

Loqi, paying the debt he already owned his body, was dead asleep until morning.

The day had been so exhausting that he fell asleep without needing, and actually forgetting about the sleeping pills that helped him not only to rest, but to not have any sort of dreams.

Chapter Text

He couldn’t tell when his dream started. He went to bed, didn’t remember falling asleep, and like he was a character of a book whose existence starts without needing a past, he only appeared there.

He was in one of the living rooms of his house. He was in armor. While he didn’t have a book in hands, Dream-Him was sure he had been reading by the time Loqi’s consciousness caught up.

He heard laughter. Childish laughter. A distant echo of Loqi’s consciousness thought it would hurt; Dream-Him disagreed, as the sensation he had was that of his heart swelling in joy, excitement, and nerves, like he was about to receive a surprise gift. He left the book that didn’t exist and headed for the nearest exit of the house.
When he went outside, what he found was an endless garden that, more than a garden, seemed to be a wild field of tiny flowers, millions of it. It was snowing, but the snow didn’t make it to the ground, where it was spring. When he was outside, what had been his house was now a military fortress like the dozens he used to work at, and now, instead of armor, he was in civilian clothing.

He saw the two children from the spot nearby the door. Again, he thought it would hurt, but he only felt an incommensurable joy and a sudden love as if though his heart had no control on the sentiment. Yet, it was tender, and little, like a kid. Dream-Loqi started heading towards the kids. For a moment, as much as he walked, he didn’t get there. But it didn’t scare him, or anger him. He just kept going as if not minding. At some point, he finally managed to be close, and even though he walked for minutes, the spot the kids were at was not too far from the house-fortress. There was no horizon. Everything was spring grass and flowers, except for the spot where the kids were playing; there, it was snow. The only place where the snow did make it to the ground.

Frey was radiant, like his golden, forever cotton-like hair, and Nanna was as bright as the galaxy of freckles on her face.

They were playing like puppies, tackling each other and fake-wrestling. They laughed with no end, throwing harmless smacks and yelping out in joy whenever one got a hold of the other.
Loqi didn’t go straight to them. The distant conscious part of him was aching, dying to run and take them in arms, but Dream-Him only…stared. He stood some meters from them, the kids oblivious to his presence, and he did but enjoy of the sight; his heart drowned in the wholesome scene, and his soul felt as if slowly melting into an indescribable joy that brought him so much peace that, for a moment, he felt ethereal, like there was no ground or body to hold his light soul in.

Loqi watched and wished to stay there forever; forever see them play, forever hear them laugh, forever witness this beautiful moment of his two most beloved people be free and happy. However, he couldn’t help but approach a few steps more. As if only then had he come to view, both kids stopped playing together and turned to look at him.
Their faces lit up like the sun of dawn peeking from behind the non-existent horizon.
“Doki!”

Loqi’s heart had become so big, Loqi was sure it didn’t fit in his body. His chest rose with the sensation and a huge grin covered his face. His eyes gleamed with a joy he didn’t have in real life, and his whole body was struck by a bolt of so much happiness he was sure he would explode.
“Nannie!” he called back and opened the arms. “Frey!”

The two kids let go of each other and ran straight towards him. Wherever they went, the snow went with them, as if it was their feet which created the circle of snow on the ground. Loqi dropped to a knee, keeping the arms open.
With a tender explosion of love in his heart, Loqi received them in arms like he couldn’t do anymore.
The kids almost made him fall back when they got to him and threw their little arms around him. Loqi closed the eyes and smiled, memorizing the sensation this moment brought.

Even though Loqi knew he had not seen them since…they left, Dream-Him knew that it had only been some hours, maybe just a day. Dream-Him’s reality was as if it was any day at home, and it was the first time seeing the kids since the day before. He didn’t squeeze them in arms, he didn’t cry or whispered their names like a prayer, he didn’t stay in the hug forever, because he had never lost them and he didn’t know how much a day without them could feel like an eternity, because he always had them every day. So, instead of the reaction a conscious Loqi would have had, he only enjoyed of the hug like he did on the everyday back in the days.

The kids had brought with them the circle of snow at their feet, but Loqi felt warmer than he had done in what felt like a whole life. After a bit, the kids let go of the hug.
“We missed you, Doki” Frey said with one of his bright smiles. Loqi grinned in response and passed a lock of his little brother’s golden hair behind his ear.
“I’ve been here all this time, little one” he said a little confused by what his brother had told him, but he didn’t indulge deeper in it. “What are you two doing here?”
“We were looking for you” Nanna replied.

Loqi chuckled a little. He reached up to gently caress Nanna’s hair too, with his fingertips.
“What for?” he asked.
“You forgot it, Doki!”
“Forgot?” Loqi, more confused now, tilted the head slightly to a side, and looked at one kid, then the other. “What?”
“Our gift, Doki!”

Said that, Frey took out from under his shirt a necklace. He took it off and handed it to Nanna, who showed it to Loqi.
Even Dream-Loqi felt the sting. He didn’t know why, and didn’t feel the full blow of it, but even he felt a pinch when he saw, resting on Nanna’s little open hands, the shoelace that held two metal nuts as pendants.

For a moment, time froze. Loqi’s joy was almost all gone. He didn’t know why; in his reality, he both was at home and it also had not been too long ago since he left again for the battlefield. It was not like it had been too long since he forgot the necklace. Yet, he felt upset, and a little guilty, as he gazed at the homemade childish jewelry. For a moment, he finally could feel the cold of the snow that fell on him and that rested under him. He tried to reason with the inexplicable guilt, but little could he do about it.

After a good while, he looked back up at Nanna and Frey, one by one, and shook the head subtly.
“I’m…sorry” he murmured. The kids smiled sweetly, nonetheless, and shook their heads as if to reassure him it was alright.
“Silly older brother” Frey murmured warmly, as Nanna adjusted the necklace in hands. “You need this to defeat him! You said it!”
“So we brought it to you” Nanna continued, and so, she got close to him, and like a queen about to knight a warrior, she gestured towards him, and started slipping the shoelace necklace on him. Frey helped her to get it past his ears and to adjust it just right around his neck, and once it was on him, they let go and stepped back.

Loqi stayed down on his knee, head slightly down, and heart a little shaken still. As if he was taking long processing everything, he was slow as he understood it. He brought a hand up and took the pendants, the two metal nuts. He shyly and nervously toyed with it between his fingers, but he didn’t dare look down at it until much later. After keeping it in his weak fist, Loqi looked down, and opened his palm. He stared at the nuts. His lucky charms. How could he forget them? This treasure without which he couldn’t even…live. And if he had it now, why did he feel like he didn’t, like it was gone forever and that it was his fault?

His siblings were there, he reminded himself. It was no time to be upset in front of them.
Faking it a little, but partly feeling it sincerely too, Loqi looked back up at them with a bright smile and the gleam of joy in his eyes that he could never recover, and grasped the pendants again.
“Of course” he whispered with that bright smile. “How dared I forget this treasure?” he moved onto both knees, reached for them, and brought them close into a hug. He closed the eyes and caressed their hairs, both equally soft, each still with their unique sensation, and both as strongly dear and irreplaceable. With the eyes softly closed, and the voice warm, Loqi whispered “Thank you…”

The hug lasted a bit more than the first, and it was also much more…quiet, more peaceful in some way. Like the joy was different; instead of exciting, it was more of a wholesome, quiet joy. Even though he wanted to stay a bit more in it, the kids let go and stepped back a bit. Frey looked at Nanna, and as if they were speaking with no words, she smiled back at him, and took his hand when he offered it.
“Good luck, Doki” Nanna wished him.
“We’re going to be bigger when you come back, and we’ll be your Gadget and Wire then!”
“Then?” Loqi asked, smiling but eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Why don’t you come with me right now?”

By answer, Nanna shook her head.
“We can’t.”
“But why not?”
Yet another silence. The kids gave him smiles that seemed mysterious, but that also felt as if they were answering everything. Frey pet him on the head, and then Nanna mimicked the gesture. Without saying more, the kids rounded him and started walking.

Loqi, a little startled, stood up and turned around to see them. The kids stopped near him and looked back at him. Frey smiled happily and pointed at the house-fortress.
“We’re going to go nap a bit” he said. “Upstairs.”
“Back home” Nanna added. She gave him one of her bright, shy smiles. “We’ll see you there, Doki.”
“Bye, Doki.”

Back home?
But…I can’t go there, Dream-Loqi thought. He didn’t know why, and as hard as he thought, he didn’t find a reason of why he wouldn’t be able to go back home, but he knew he simply couldn’t. Still, he felt too shy to ask them to not go, because he didn’t have an explanation, and they would go anyway whatever he said. He stood quiet and a little confused, and watched them leave.
The snow bloomed under the kid’s feet as they walked. Frey kept Nannie’s little hand in his own, and she happily skipped a little next to him on their way back to the house.

Like they carried the spring too, the gardens started fading the further away they walked, and even though the house-fortress wasn’t that far at first, they kept walking and walking and taking the flower field with them, until the nothing that had been the horizon caught up with Loqi, leaving him standing nowhere, with the gardens and the snow and the house and the kids going away of him. It didn’t scare him. It just made him feel a little abandoned.
He took his necklace’s pendants again and looked down at them. Then, he closed his fingers around it.

He woke up.

Loqi’s eyes opened slowly, but with no hesitation. There was no need to blink many times to come awake. He was awake almost at the same time as he slowly opened his eyes. It was silent, as if though all sound had been muted. His eyelids remained half-closed on his grey-blue eyes that, still between sleep and consciousness, stared emptily at the void. It took some more long seconds before he blinked and became more aware. And, once his brain finished switching everything on, he opened the eyes, the gleam of life coming back to them, and the first thing he did now fully awake was look down, move slightly so he wasn’t fully lying face down, and bring a hand up to reach for his necklace.
He didn’t find it.

His hand landed on his pajama shirt, on top of the chest, and he felt nothing under it. He sneaked his hand under his collar and touched his skin, searching on the chest, then all around the neck, then the chest again, but he found nothing; he was not wearing his dear shoelace with two metal nuts. Even a bit more awake now, Loqi sat up and searched again in vain, a little more frantically. Then he remembered; dangerous and uncomfortable to sleep with a necklace on, especially one with such pendants, he used to leave it on his bedside table at nights. So he immediately looked at the bedside table, already stretching a hand towards it, and he remembered even before he saw that there was nothing on the bedside table.
Oh. Of course…this wasn’t his house…

But then that meant that he had left the necklace on the bedside table of-
…oh.

Loqi’s hand, by mere instinct, had gone back to his chest and patted it a little. Even if he was always rational, that morning Loqi softly patted his chest in the hope that the necklace would magically appear if he kept doing it. The more he patted and it didn’t appear, the more the weight of not having it got on him. His shoulders dropped as did his mood and, in a matter of nothing, Loqi’s heart shattered.

There was a knock on the door. Keep it together, Loqi, he whispered in his head. Don’t let him know.
The door opened, and Cor came to sight. Loqi felt that Cor would know what he was feeling if they made eye contact, so he lowered the head.
“Oh” Cor said softly. “You’re already awake” Loqi didn’t reply. Cor stared a little, but didn’t figure anything out of Loqi keeping the head down and not replying, thinking maybe it was just him still sleepy. “How’s your leg doing?”

Loqi didn’t answer. He was so into the necklace thing and his dream, only now realizing that he had dreamt after months of dreamless nights, and realizing thanks to that realization who he had dreamed about, that Loqi didn’t register anything about what Cor was asking him. He took too long to try to process Cor’s question, even more to remember what he was talking about, and even more to gather some courage to try to speak without the fear of his voice betraying him. And it was because it took him so long that Cor started growing suspicious that something was particularly wrong that day.
“No” Loqi replied and forced a smile on his still tired face. “I mean- it’s…okay.”
“…does it hurt?” Cor asked. “You know it’s fine and you can stay home. Your job at the Citadel has no schedule, you can skip it if you want to rest. I mean, you must be exhausted and achy from yesterday, not to talk about your leg.”

Loqi still took a bit to reply. Cor saw him with a hand near his chest, thinking he was toying with the first button of his shirt, but as hard as he tried to figure out what was wrong, he couldn’t put a finger on it. After a while, Loqi, without looking at him, forced a sad smile and shook the head.
“It’s fine” he murmured. Cor still stared to try and figure things out, but Loqi soon pushed the sheets off him and sat at the edge of the bed. “I’ll be at the kitchen soon.”

They didn’t say anything else. Cor watched Loqi’s paused, slow going, and the absent gaze, but he couldn’t understand what was wrong. He tried to convince himself that it was just Loqi struggling with getting rid of the sleepiness, but it just felt…off.

The morning went on quietly. Loqi did shower, ate everything, went for the morning walk with no complaints, but he was…too quiet. Eyes too lost and emptier than usual, no snapping at Cor even when he subtly tried to upset him on purpose to see his reaction, nothing, except he kept messing with the collar of his shirt and a bit at the chest, like some sort of new tic.

The drive to the Citadel was as silent. Once there, Loqi put up with his snarky, asshole attitude of always, and it all would have seemed to be normal, was it not due to the fact that Loqi was both avoiding looking at Cor and each hour it became more and more obvious, and he kept messing with the shirt at chest height. Was he uncomfortable? Did something hurt? He didn’t seem to be in pain, he just looked…absent. Cor tried watching him, tried to convince himself that all these months with him must have worked to know him at least a little, and that he could figure it out, but he couldn’t.

In the end, he let the day go on with Loqi giving his classes as if nothing was happening, and Cor decided maybe it was just his head.
It was four hours later, by midday, that Loqi couldn’t hide it anymore. They were separated again; Cor went to his office to attend his paperwork, while Loqi stayed at a training hall with the troops. Cor didn’t expect him for another hour, so he didn’t think it was Loqi when they called at his door.

The knock was also very timid, so it never crossed Cor’s head that it could be the asshole he knew.
“Come in” he said from his desk, and heard the door open. He looked up to find an upset looking Loqi at his door, head down and not trying to hide the sad look on his face. Surprised by seeing who had arrived, Cor stayed frozen a second, and then took his reading glasses off, putting them to a side, and continued staring a little startled at the tiny man at his door. “Loqi” he called softly. “What’s wrong?”
“Cor” Loqi said softly, and he stood straight as always, as if remembering he was being watched and retaking his too-straight posture of always. Yet, when he tried making eye contact, he looked away again. He looked in clear distress; trying to pretend, that it was all okay, and yet unable to look at the Marshal, pretending to be genuinely distracted with invisible paintings on the wall. “Can we…” Loqi stopped there and visibly swallowed, apparently struggling with whatever he had to say. Concerned by the way he was acting, Cor started slowly putting his paperwork aside.

Then, to his surprise and further concern, Loqi’s eyes drowned in tears, visible even from his spot at the desk.
“…can I go home?” Loqi asked in a murmur, his voice faltering. He lowly but angrily hissed, as if pissed at himself for the way his question came out. Cor looked at him a little more, still surprised at the unexpected events. He worried; the way Loqi acted, between nervous and shaken, as if though something horrible had happened, and yet how he tried to act as best as he could to be frigid about it all; tried to fake his best blank face, the straight posture, like he was not fucking shattering in pieces right there, clear like crystal in his eyes.

Cor was a little shaken, but he decided to keep his startle for later.
“Y-yes, of course” he replied, hurrying to stand up and take his car and apartment keys from a drawer. He rounded the desk and headed towards Loqi who, the closer Cor was, the more he avoided to look at him, and the more…scared he seemed to be. Cor hesitated; he thought about maybe wrapping an arm around him, but he didn’t know if Loqi would be okay with that or not. In the end, he only gave him a gentle push on his back as if to encourage him. “Let’s go…”

They walked as if nothing was happening towards the underground parking lot. Cor didn’t want to stop to announce he would go home, and decided to later tell Regis or Monica via text; right now his priority was Loqi and whatever was happening and whatever he needed.
The drive home was silent again.

Once in the apartment, Cor told Loqi that he could go rest, and asked if he needed anything. Loqi, softly, denied any need and said it was all okay. Cor thought maybe he just needed or wanted time alone, so he decided to relax and let him go to his room.
Just as Loqi was at his door, he stopped and came back from the hallway.
“Uhm…Cor” he called insecurely. Cor, who was just getting to text Monica, looked up from his phone. Loqi stared at him some moments before looking away. “Do you…have any…” he seemed to think a lot about his next words, either because he didn’t want to say them or because he didn’t know how. “…like…maybe a…tool box, somewhere?”
“…a too-” Cor stopped when he remembered Loqi hated to be repeated things. Still…from all strange things Loqi had ever asked or said…this one had a place at the top of the list. Cor blinked, confused, but decided to not question it. “Y-yeah. I- yes, do you…want it?”

Loqi nodded, not looking at him. Cor wasn’t sure about what was happening, but, as he had been doing all the past months, he understood that everyone had their way to grieve and handle emotions and if Loqi wanted a toolbox, a toolbox be it and fuck the reason, he didn’t need one. Cor hurried to the laundry room of the building and searched around not knowing where the thing was, asked the landlord, and came back to the apartment with a humble but well equipped toolbox.
“Do you want any help with something?” Cor asked, not sure if there was something in Loqi’s room or bathroom that needed repair. Loqi shook the head as he checked into the toolbox.
“I just need…” the Nif had started. Cor saw him take something little from the box, not finish his sentence, and calmly go to his room with whatever he had taken that fit hidden in his fist.

Cor decided to let him be. Returned the toolbox, came back to not find Loqi, so he had to be in his room, went to his own; heard Loqi open the room of his door, search something in the kitchen from the sound of it, go back to his room. Cor let him be, wondering what was happening. Still, he knew he couldn’t be with Loqi every second and solve everything for him. Whatever he was doing, if it was helping him in some way, then Loqi could and had to do it alone. So Cor didn’t help; when he went to check on him, it was to make sure it was alright and ask if he needed anything, but not to intervene with whatever Loqi was doing.

About an hour later, Cor went to his room. As usual, he knocked first, and waited a prudent time before opening the door.
He found Loqi sat at his desk. The Nif didn’t bother to turn; he was focused in something he was holding. Quietly, Cor went in and closed the door as silently as he could. He approached Loqi carefully, but stayed at a prudent distance. He looked around; the desk was mostly clean, except for the matchstick box Loqi must have taken from the kitchen. Cor decided to sit on the bed, right behind Loqi, and then, as usual, nothing. He waited in the lingering silence. He could see Loqi toy a little with what he had in hands.

Even though he chose not to intervene, he still wanted to make sure Loqi didn’t need anything, so he dared try to get some context.
“How are you feeling?” he asked softly. Loqi didn’t look his way; only shrugged a shoulder, and continued looking at whatever he was still softly toying with in hands. “Could you do what you wanted?”
“Yeah…” Loqi said, much unlike his usual voice and much like his sad one. Cor gave a sad sort of twisted smile; while the depressive episodes weren’t rare, it was not like it became any enjoyable or old.

Even though there was silence afterwards and Cor didn’t expect more, Loqi turned his chair enough to face Cor, hands down and looking at what he held. Cor couldn’t help but look down, curious.
“…is that…a necklace?” Cor asked. Loqi looked up at him as if hesitating what he had to say but, in the end, he nodded and looked down again. They went to silence again. Cor thought he wouldn’t figure it out; it was until minutes later that it clicked on him. He looked at Loqi carefully again, starting to put the pieces together. “You once- asked me about a necklace…” he gestured timidly towards Loqi’s hands. “Is that the one?”
“Well…” Loqi tilted the head to a side. “It’s- the replica” silence lingered, and as was becoming usual Loqi surprised him by opening up a bit more. “The original was a slight different shade of black on the lace, and the nuts aren’t identical, but…” he shrugged. When he spoke next, his voice came out so low and sad, Cor instantly felt a pinch in the heart just at the sound of it. “…I tried my best.”

Cor stared, analyzing, before absentmindedly nodding. As became more usual with every breakdown, it took neither long nor insisting for Loqi to open up a bit more.
“It was-” he stopped immediately. It took a while in silence and two audible breaths and another incomplete attempt before Loqi relaxed, letting air out subtly and slowly. He looked up at Cor and gave him a sad yet noticeable smile. “It was their last gift to me.”

Oh. That…explained a lot. Cor had already guessed that it had to be related to his siblings somehow, as they were the only one thing that could make Loqi show any emotion that wasn’t anger, but…a last gift…that had quite some weight. Cor nodded very slowly again, lowering the eyes, rather uncomfortable but only because he was nervous about not touching any fragile nerves Loqi didn’t want to have touched. He was a bomb ready to detonate in his daily, even more so when he was emotional. Still, after a bit of thought, Cor didn’t find it very hard to find a way through him; where others saw repetitiveness, Cor saw a person in need not of comfort but understanding.
“They were very creative” Cor said softly with a smile. “And very cute. They didn’t only get you a gift, they made one themselves. That’s rare, nowadays.”
“Yeah” Loqi said lowly and he looked down at the necklace, as if analyzing it for the first time again. “Bestel wouldn’t let them use ‘the fire thing’, I assume they meant a blowtorch, so they couldn’t make it a chain, and still, they found their way around it and got…a shoelace.”

Cor’s little smile widened a little when he heard Loqi chuckle after what he had said. Not to say that that had been more than Loqi normally said without being pressured…and he was smiling, even if only a tiny bit.
“A shoelace…” Loqi murmured as if to himself, and got back into his thoughts. To pull him out, Cor insisted.
“And why the nuts?” he asked pretending to not have an idea.
“They knew I’m an engineer, and they often saw me making gadgets and whatnot, so…” he shrugged. “I guess they must have associated tools and stuff with me?” he shook the head. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
“And what was the occasion?” Cor asked to not let him linger in things that could lead to guilt; sadness and melancholy were fine, but guilt not so much. “Was it for your birthday?”
“No, my birthday is-” Loqi stopped and changed his words. “No. It was…” after a pause, he shrugged and shook the head. His eyes were looking at nowhere, and his hands toyed with the pendants. “Nothing. You know? They just…”

All that Loqi could do was slowly shake the head, absentminded.
“They sometimes felt I was doing them favors” Loqi murmured, lowered the head to look at the necklace as he toyed with it, and shrugged a shoulder. “I was not. I was doing my job” and he skipped mentioning anything about taking risks and literal hits for them, because to him that was normal, and a responsibility, not an extra. “And they wanted to give me something as a…as a ‘thank you’…” once more they fell into silence, during which Loqi only contained a sigh in his chest. “So they made and gave me this. Or- you know, the original.”

Cor gave him a smile that was a balanced mix between secondhand joy and sadness. Loqi didn’t look at him. His eyes were fixed on the necklace and the pendants, and his fingers continued very shyly fidgeting with it. The more the silence lingered, the heavier it fell on both.
After a good while saying nothing, Loqi contained a heavy sigh in his chest, opened the mouth, hesitated, and finally spoke.
“I left it home” Cor looked up to try and find his eyes, smile gone. Loqi took some moments looking at nowhere, clearly trying to fight back tears that still formed in his eyes. “I had one last gift from them, and I left it home.”

Cor started shaking the head and he was already mentally building what he had to say, or rather how to say it in the correct way, but took too long. Loqi put the head down and cursed in a hiss.
“Shit, I’m not doing anything right” he murmured angrily. “I couldn’t save them, and I get it, it was nearly impossible, but I couldn’t even save one last gift from them” he tightened his grip on the necklace. “I lost them and couldn’t even save one memento” he bit down hardly on his lip and closed the eyes for a second. “And now I’ve got nothing from them. Not one thing; not them, not one drawing from Frey, not one paper figure from Nanna, not the last gift they ever gave me. And all because I used to sleep with the necklace off, and forgot to take it that night.”

Cor decided to stay quiet. Loqi seemed to have a lot in his head, and, while he was wrong in some ways, it was important to let him speak it all out.
“And I’ll never recover it now” Loqi said louder and angrier, giving Cor a non-amused, sarcastic faked smile. “Not only can’t I go back to Niflheim unless I want to be captured within minutes, I literally won’t ever recover it now. What are the odds, Cor? My house blew to pieces. I don’t even need to see the pictures, I was there when half of it was being destroyed, and I experienced only half the fucking bombing. It’s gone, it’s debris and ashes at best” Cor looked down, not knowing what to say…mostly because Loqi was right. “What are the odds that a shoelace with two metal nuts survived to the bombing? And even if it did, what are the odds I could ever find it among the disaster?”

Loqi looked away from Cor, shaking the head slightly and sighing shortly.
“Fantastic. Not only I couldn’t save them, but…” his eyes quickly drowned again at that point, and his voice faltered. He tried speaking through gritted teeth so it wouldn’t break, but it still came out as a thread. “Not even…their last…stupid, fucking gift to me, fuck.”

Cor was quiet. Loqi had leaned back on the chair so he could put a sole on the seat as well, his elbow to the knee, and his temple onto his hand. He was frowning, he seemed to be angry, yet his eyes gleamed a little. Cor continued watching as was his usual process in this, and he decided that sitting in the bed was too far.
With a tiny sigh, Cor stood up and reached Loqi, but instead of standing in front of him, he crouched. Loqi turned to give him an angry, confused look. Cor knew it was a bit awkward, but he didn’t want to be taller than Loqi, not this once. He needed to feel…in control, or at least not threatened.

Once in front of him, Cor still took a moment to think. He sighed through the nose again.
“Loqi” he called softly, looking at him attentively to catch his attention. The Nif stared, if a bit uncomfortable, possibly more due to the clearly upset look in his eyes than the postures. “I know I’ve said it a lot and you’re probably going to smack me, but I have to remind you” Cor shook the head slowly; “it was not your fault. Nothing.”

Loqi clicked his tongue and made a noise as he looked away, clearly annoyed.
“Loqi” Cor called again a little more firmly, as if reprimanding. Still, Loqi didn’t look back at him again. “Loqi, how could you know the bombing would happen? You went to bed trusting the necklace would be there in the morning, not that you wouldn’t be there. And no one can blame you for that. No one ever wonders such scenarios, even less an imperial citizen.”

Loqi’s eyes drowned quickly in tears again, and he avoided eye contact. He tried keeping the mouth shut, swallowing, and not looking at the Marshal as to not cry, yet his struggle was more than evident.
“Besides, it’s fantastic you didn’t think about the necklace…” Loqi’s frown deepened and he did look at him for a moment, as if about to snap out at him for such comment. “Because it means you were focused only in your siblings” and those words made Loqi’s frown soften again, both in realization and a little startled. “Imagine if you had taken the necklace. You’d be blaming yourself even more for ‘losing’ valuable seconds you could have used to search for them. But you didn’t; you thought so much about them that nothing, not even their gift, was in your head…” Cor gave him a little sad smile. “And that speaks yet again of the love you professed for them…”

Loqi continued staring at him for only some moments before lowering the eyes.
“Still…I’m very sorry, Loqi” Cor murmured, eyes down as well. “I know how much holding a last memento can help…and you don’t have even that…”
“…I couldn’t even…see their- see their-” but for harder he tried, Loqi couldn’t force himself to say it. It’s just a word, he told to himself. And it’s the reality. It’s just a word that he would use crudely and normally and even in joking tones in the past. But he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘corpses’, because that would be accepting they were lifeless empty shells, and he hated the concept. As his eyes got so teary he could barely see, Loqi closed them and looked away with a hiss, lower lip quivering. “I couldn’t even see them one last time, I was just- stripped from them overnight, it’s fucking…”

Yet again, he couldn’t finish, this time because he couldn’t find the right words. Surreal, cruel, devastating, no word was big enough to fit the sentiment.
“I know” Cor whispered, and the way he said it, something in his voice felt so empathic it almost felt…physically warm. For a moment, the feeling, this ‘empathy’ thing felt chillingly overwhelming. It was so rare to Loqi. He had almost never had it, and when he did, he rarely paid attention to it. No one used to care. Cor didn’t care, he told himself, but the fact that he spoke like he did touched something that shook Loqi on the inside, and weakened him, as if though instead of making him stronger, it had pushed all his walls down.

Drowning in the sensation to the point of nearly asphyxiating with the knot in his throat, Loqi let out an involuntary tiny shy whimper and he dropped a pair of tears. He quickly moved an arm up and covered his eyes with the forearm, lowering the head and looking slightly away as if to hide. Cor was silent. Loqi used his sleeve to clean his eyes.
“…how many times have you seen me cry at this point?” Loqi asked, though instead of sounding as if wanting to lift the mood, he seemed to be upset at himself for that. How dare he let himself be vulnerable in front of his nemesis, Cor guessed Loqi was thinking since day one.
“Enough to know you’re suffering” Cor replied. Loqi tried looking at him again, and found the Marshal giving him one of those usual sad smiles of sympathy. “And I’m grateful for every time you allow me so. And a little relieved afterwards, because crying means you’re progressing.”

Loqi stared. His eyelashes were sticking to each other from being soaked, and he still fought to not cry again.
“Progressing” Loqi said in a mix of sadness and sarcasm. “This is becoming exhausting and repetitive; I’m neutral, then cry the next day, then okay, then I cry the next day; you come and say you’re sorry, then I cry more, then another day I’m fine, and then I cry again and it’s fucking wearing me out” he gave Cor the most severe look he could manage in the current fragility he was in. “Why are you not tired? This happens every three days, just fucking ignore me” but right as Cor was opening the mouth, Loqi shook the head. “Don’t answer me” and Cor shut his mouth. While he had complaints and explanations, he decided to follow whatever flow Loqi was setting. The blond swallowed and looked away. “I’m just…tired. I’m not moving forwards. I keep crying every now and then, how is that progressing?”

“I told you already” Cor said softly. “Crying doesn’t mean you’re backtracking. Look…” Cor paused and licked his lips while he thought of some better way to word it so it would stick to Loqi’s brain. “Maybe it’s cheesy to say it this way, but…think of the beating of a heart. The way it looks on a monitor” Loqi, once more, gave him a confused, slightly angry look. “It goes up…then it goes down. It can’t always go up, it can’t always go down, and if it’s not moving, there’s no life; healing follows the same process. It can’t always go up, you have to go down…but that, too, can’t last forever. And the process itself is not eternal, either; it’s just…looking for the correct balance. But to find it, it has to go up and down. Having these breakdowns doesn’t mean you’re not progressing, you’re just…in your process of search for a balance.”

Cor was quiet afterwards. He let the silence go on for as long as he thought was appropriate so it all could set on Loqi, who was looking down and apparently processing the information. Cor moved a hand up and used it to very gently squeeze Loqi’s knee to call his attention. Once Loqi’s eyes were on him, Cor stared gently, but firmly.
“Healing…is not linear” he murmured. “You’re doing fantastic, Loqi, even if you don’t believe me” the Nif was still for some moments, but then he made a noise as if a very quiet hiss, and he shook the head. Trying to make him understand, Cor insisted. “I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while, but I didn’t know how. I really mean it when I say you’re doing fantastic even if you don’t feel like that” Cor put his hand away of Loqi, but kept the eyes attentive on him. “You’re eating fine, you’re waking up early, you’re going to work, you’ve taken up on a task that’s beyond personal; you’re working on the lead of a war, Loqi. You’re exercising, you’re moving. Hell, just getting out of bed is a goal sometimes, and even though you would rather stay in bed, you’re not. You’re moving forwards, Loqi, faster than you realize, better than it feels…you really are doing amazing. Don’t let your moments of sadness erase the rest for which you should be proud of yourself. They’re not more or bigger, you just resent them more, which is okay too.”

Loqi started shaking the head, subtle and shy at first, until it became more noticeable. He dropped the head and swallowed visibly. Cor’s spirits dropped a little when he saw that reaction. As much as he knew that Loqi was stubborn and surely didn’t believe him, so it should be fine, he still worried. Loqi swallowed again and tried saying something, but could only mouth a little. It took him long seconds while he armed himself with courage.
“…it’s been really hard” Loqi whispered so very lowly, in a thread of a voice. He sniffled and shook the head more noticeably this time. Cor saw him close the eyes, and saw his face starting to deform into pain. “It’s been so difficult without them…”

Cor lowered the eyes, sad, and as if mourning. Loqi dropped a couple tears again, which he hurried to wipe away with his sleeves, but he continued crying with effort to try and rein it in. Cor again moved a hand up to rest it on Loqi’s knee, trying to comfort him. The Nif hiccupped and sniffled, cleaned away some tears.
“I know” Cor whispered. “They were such a big part of you.”
“They weren’t a big part of me, they were everything to me, Cor” Loqi murmured, tears rolling down his face or dropping to his lap. He wasn’t even trying to do anything about his expression of pain or the broken voice anymore. “They were…the only lights in my universe” he looked up at Cor, as if not caring anymore about the tears, or understanding he was not going to stop them. “And them gone leaves everything empty and dark” he blinked a couple times and looked slightly away as tears escaped him. “And it feels exactly like that, like living in a lightless universe. I know I’m alive, I know I have my eyes open, but I can’t see anything.”

Cor’s eyebrows furrowed more at that expression. If it wasn’t because Loqi wasn’t trying and was only speaking what he felt sincerely, the words almost felt poetic. And they put into perspective even more what Loqi was going through. Cor didn’t think there was anything wrong with darkness, but he understood the distress of it being complete, with not a tiny glimpse of light. No one enjoyed that.
“I don’t know what to say” Cor whispered. “And I don’t know very well what to do. But know that I want to support you in any way you need, and I’ll do what you ask me to.”

Loqi seemed a little confused at the sudden sincerity. Normally, people would try to give an advice, say something to put things under a happy perspective, or hug. All of which Loqi either hated or found useless. This had to be useless, too, Cor’s sincerity, because it wasn’t improving anything…yet, it didn’t feel that bad. He was not being a hypocrite, or an intrusive asshole. Loqi appreciated honesty, it was just…a little startling that someone was like that in a moment like this. No one had ever said anything similar.
It was…new, and…good, in some way. Cor wasn’t shoving his attempts of support into his mouth, he was…offering it, like one offers a hand instead of immediately grabbing it.

Loqi knew what he needed. And he knew it so well that when he seemed to be changing subject, all that he was doing was projecting it out. He sniffled and used his sleeve to clean his nose.
“I’m not ready to talk about them” he whispered.
“Then don’t talk about them” Cor said. Loqi gave him a look expecting an explanation. Cor, however, only moved back a little and pulled open the drawer of the desk. He looked inside until he spotted it, and took something out. He gently closed the drawer.

Then, he softly put the grayish-blue journal with the tiny snowflake on Loqi’s lap.
Loqi stared at it for a second, and then he looked up at Cor with an innocent look. Cor gave him a soft and warm smile, and stared for a bit as well.
Even teary and reddish, Loqi’s eyes were such a beautiful shade of blue. It was grayish in the light, a color as mysterious as rare.
“Talk to them” he murmured as softly as he could manage, giving a look at the journal again, before smiling at Loqi once more.

The Nif stared at him for a while, as if either surprised or not understanding. Some seconds later, he put the head down, stuttered once, and shook the head. He sniffled and cleaned under his nose again. He had kept it secret for so long, even to himself, that he couldn’t stop himself from admitting a truth that he thought humiliating.
“…it scares me” he whispered oh so very lowly and timidly, so quietly, yet with sincerity. He looked at Cor and tried forcing a smile in an instinct to take some seriousness off the statement, but he just ended up looking down and trying to clean his eyes.
“I know” Cor whispered back. Loqi’s heart calmed down a bit; he had expected humiliation, but Cor sounded just as gentle as always, not judging him even for what Loqi himself considered pathetic. “But you’re brave.”

Loqi didn’t reply or react at all. Cor stood up and searched in the desk until finding a pen. Once with it in hand, he crouched again and offered one of his hands. Loqi looked at him, timid. He sniffled, still silently crying, and hesitated. Soon, he put his hand up, reaching towards Cor’s, though slow and insecure. He never really gave it to Cor, but once it was close enough to be a sign of agreement, Cor took his hand, brought it slightly closer, and he put the pen in it.
“We’re always…much braver than we think we are” Cor said warmly, and after speaking he gave Loqi a smile. Loqi looked at him once more a bit startled, and then stared at the pen in his hand. “And you are one of the bravest people I’ve known” Loqi could only blink at him once with his long and currently soaked eyelashes. The way he sat on the chair, the leg tucked up to his chest, and mostly the look on his face, the way his pretty eyebrows were furrowed and the shy paths of tears on his cheeks, it all made him look so open and vulnerable, and Cor both felt flattered to be allowed into that because it was rare Loqi was not on the defensive, and hated it because it made him feel like he had to protect him from something and had no idea how to.

They were quiet for a while. Loqi looked down at the journal on his thigh, and remained like that for a while. Soon, he started shaking the head again.
“…I don’t know what to write” he murmured.
“It’s not necessary to know what to say, or to say too much” Cor said. “Just tell them…what you feel” then, the Marshal looked at Loqi’s other hand. He was still holding the necklace by the lace. Cor, once more, offered his hand, gesturing for Loqi’s, the one without the pen. At first, Loqi seemed wary; he didn’t want anyone to touch the necklace, and he didn’t want Cor to take it, even if he meant good. Still, he put his hand closer, though remaining hesitant, and showed the necklace to Cor. When Cor’s hand got close to his own, Loqi, by instinct, pulled it back a bit. Cor, however, never once touched a fiber of the lace. “Tell them that you made a replica of their gift…” he took Loqi’s wrist with a hand, and used the other one to close Loqi’s fingers around the pendants. “Because you’ve never once stopped thinking about them.”

Loqi’s lower lip quivered a few seconds after Cor said that, eyes lost in his weak fist, and he was soon dropping the head even more. Cor put his hands down, and he saw Loqi tighten his grip on the pendants. Even though he didn’t seem too sure and he was still trying to hide from crying, he nodded. Cor stayed there until Loqi took the journal and put it on the desk, put the leg down, and turned the chair to be facing the desk. It was then, before Loqi opened the journal, that Cor stood up, got a bit closer and put a hand on his head. He had hugged Loqi before, but it had been in his worst breakdowns, when even Loqi himself reached way beyond his limits. He knew that, consciously, Loqi would hate a hug, so he didn’t do it.

Loqi didn’t show it and he tried to keep it together, mostly because it was stupid, but Cor’s hand on his head felt…strange. It felt loving in a way that made his heart wrench and it hurt and it was absurd. It made him feel vulnerable, and, as known, he hated the feeling, but he hated even more that he had liked it too. It felt…comforting. And the gods knew he needed that.
Before he could linger on the sensation, Cor took his hand away, and he started going away. At first, Loqi hurriedly turned to watch him all the way to the door, about to ask if he wasn’t going to stay. But it was clear enough.

Cor still stopped at the door to look at him. Loqi stared too, but felt shy from thinking Cor would take his gazing like an invitation to stay, and looked away. Still, when he looked at him again, Cor offered him a tiny supportive smile, gave him a single nod that said everything, and he quietly closed the door behind himself.
Loqi still waited a while, looking at the door. Once he had gotten Cor out of his head, he looked at the journal again, and tried to start some way. He tried breathing slowly and calming down, and while the tears stopped, he couldn’t bring himself to even open the stupid notebook.

He waited a little longer. Hesitated, put the pen down. Took it again. Sighed once more, and so he took a while before he decided to fist put his mind and feet back on the ground. He closed the eyes and breathed slow and calm for as long as he needed until he was relaxed, holding the necklace close. Once he was calm, he opened the eyes as he let out a slow exhale, and he looked at the journal.

The snowflake greeted him, and finally, for the first time, he opened the journal.
He left the first page blank. On the second one, he started making his first entry of the letter journal he would use to write to the ghosts of his little siblings.
The date was easy to write. 28/8/755 on the top right corner.
It was after he wrote it that his breath cut and became shaky. He looked at the non-existent space where the hello was supposed to be, as if it was threatening him. He tried to ease his breath, but it kept getting heavier and shakier. His heart raced in his chest like a scared bunny.

Shaking, he put the pen close to the paper. He didn’t move for the next minute or so. He tried exhaling, but his heart continued pounding and his breath continued the same way than before. He kept pushing himself, trying to encourage himself, until he finally put the pen on the paper again. After writing the first word, he stopped for a minute before he continued and finished his first sentence.

Dear Frey & Nannie…

As soon as he wrote that, his sight blurred from the blockade of tears and he had to open the mouth to catch a breath, as the knot in his throat had grown so much so suddenly it asphyxiated him for a second. He felt a punch in his stomach that he tried to ignore. He tightened his grip on the pendants of the necklace, fearing he would have a heart attack at the pace it was beating. He tried swallowing, but he only earned an involuntarily tiny whimper out of it. He put the pen to the paper, but had to remove it. He cleaned his eyes, cried into his sleeve while biting on his lower lip, hated himself for a moment.

It took him a long while. When he finally wrote his first letter to the deceased little Tummelt, as soon as he was finishing the last word, Loqi broke down in tears, so suddenly and so harshly that Cor, behind the door waiting patiently, almost went back inside thinking the guy was hyperventilating for real. Loqi left his seat, as if though the desk was cursed, and he went straight for the bed. He lied down, hugged a pillow, buried the face in another one, and cried like he hadn’t done in a good while, all while keeping the necklace replica tightly in a fist. Cor didn’t enjoy neither invading his privacy nor listening to such pained creature, but he also didn’t want to be away in case it got really, really bad that Loqi would need any help.

‘Tell them how you feel’ Loqi thought minutes earlier while sat at the desk. ‘Tell them you made the necklace. Forgot the other home, apologize, tell them you still made a copy. Tell them everything you’ve done. Tell them everything you’ve thought. Tell them about your new job. You have almost five months worth of things to tell them. Tell them everything.’

And for much that he had in his head, rationality didn’t seem to win when clouded by emotions. When Loqi finally started writing, his heart took control of his hand, and he wrote only what he was feeling at that exact moment. The words had been stuck in his heart like a sword for so long that they had rooted in it; taking them out not only opened the wound again, but had hurt as if though taking away a part of himself. Saying what he said, and the thousand things it carried along, left Loqi to cry into his pillow until tiring out and ending up numb even when calm. Cor didn’t pressure him to eat later. It would be useless.

He still tried with dinner, and even though Loqi had long ago stood up from the bed and wandered about, he was still absent and silent, and, as expected, not hungry. Cor worried, but he forgave it for that day; giving the first step into getting ready to heal not only in his depression but in the source of it was never easy, even more when it involved a loss. At night, Loqi went to his bed and tucked himself in early, as if already needing the day to be over. Cor made sure to visit to set the nightlight for him, and he put a hand on his hair again.
“You’re doing great, Loqi” he whispered, not sure if the Nif was awake in a body too exhausted to function, or asleep. “I’m proud of you.”

Loqi made sure to force his body to at least take the pills for a dreamless night. As gratifying as it had been to visit the fake ghosts of his siblings made up by his own mind, it had brought but misery and a pain violent enough to make him feel lost in his lightless universe after months of pretending to not care.

‘You have so much to tell them’, and yet Loqi’s first letter in his journal was only two sentences long.

I miss you.
I’m sorry.

Chapter Text

The little tactics session being held had a special guest that day.

A zone of Duscae had had particularly concerning troubles as of lately, with issues regarding borders, a touchy subject no matter the region. It became so concerning that the tacticians not only requested of Loqi’s advice, but also got a special visit from the king himself.

King Regis made his appearance not long after Loqi had heard the troubles and asked some questions. The king joined and, instead of being solemn and cold like a king should be, he gave some vague nod at Loqi like they were equals, when clearly a king couldn’t be the level of a Nif noble, but Loqi kept his words to himself. He was more concerned as to why a king, or someone supposed to be a king, came in a little tactics room with unimportant plebeian strategists. The Emperor only held sessions with important people, and guests of the important people, and in large rooms of Zegnautus. Not little rooms with random whats-their-names.

Loqi was focused in the tactics work, he really was, but he couldn’t help but sometimes get distracted throwing glances at Regis. He watched his behavior, saw how calm and at ease he was, how he didn’t freak out if someone got closer to him than what Loqi considered they should, or how he had no troubles at being looked at the eyes. It was…strange. And Loqi couldn’t help but watch, arms-crossed, eyes a little narrow, at the strange behavior he had never before seen in a monarch of any kind. He had only seen king Regis in TV and important stuff, he had no idea he reduced himself at the level of his plebeians so pathetically like this. Why? He had no need. He could do like the Emperor and just be brought the news and say yes or no and do what he pleased. That’s why tacticians had their jobs, to think for him, why was he wasting his time…collaborating?

“It’s a very fragile matter, indeed…” Regis said after many minutes discussing the issue and coming to the group conclusion that there weren’t many options to do. Loqi eyed Regis, at the other end of the table, before focusing on trying to come up with some answer. It was difficult. The Empire was truly brilliant and for a moment he felt pride at how damn good they were at war, even when he knew he was currently not on the side. Regis was looking slightly down and caressed his beard with a hand. The tacticians either tried thinking or looked at their monarch like children waiting for parent instructions. After a while, Regis sighed and put the hand down. “I think there only way we can move our troops is back.”

Loqi tensed a little at that and gave Regis wide, angry eyes as if questioning if he was serious. Nobody else batted an eyelash, all looking attentively at the bearded man as he pointed things in the map.
“No tactic seems to work in our favor. Yet, the last thing they think is that we’ll retreat from this spot, so for now we can abandon this outpost here, move the troops to this one, and let them rest and prepare better. We cannot control a possible Nif infiltration, but we can save our troops and not leave behind any of the equipment, leaving them with nothing to loot.”
“And I think that’s a very stupid idea.”

Everyone in the room turned to look at Loqi; the tacticians turned quickly and stared at him with big, offended eyes. The king stared too, but he looked surprised rather than angered. Loqi didn’t falter; he stood very confident of what he had just said, hands on the table and eyes not hesitating despite the harsh looks. He even dared frown.
“You retreat? Like a coward?” Loqi asked the Lucian king, frown deeper. “Yes, of course. We can also hang a white flag on top of the Citadel and put the troops in maid clothing, it’s going to have the same result, anyway” Loqi moved the head to a side as if half a shake of the head, angrily. “You retreat and you send the message they want to hear; you’re scared, you have no courage, they’re on control, and you run away with the tails between your legs as soon as you see them, which, therefore, sends the message that they can do whatever they want because that who is scared is a powerless, defenseless one that won’t try to stop whatever action the counterpart does.”

The king didn’t react; he didn’t move an eyebrow and only blinked by instinct, but other than that he kept staring at the Nif across the table. Loqi made eye contact with him, narrowing the eyes to glare harder.
“You don’t retreat, you coward!” he exclaimed. The tacticians all either stared at him with eyes wide as plates and one even with a hand to the chest, or at the king as if expecting a reprimand for such treatment. “That’s how you’ve been acting all along the war, and look at the results it’s given! Of course you’ve been pushed back to a last bastion, because you keep pulling back!”

Even though that was not seen as an outrage, but Loqi’s normal responses to something he didn’t like, it was the first time the tacticians saw him do that to the king himself, the Regis Lucis Caelum. They all looked at Loqi still with that shocked, offended look, and, eventually, they turned their eyes to their king, expecting his comeback. Regis kept staring at Loqi for a bit, eyebrows slightly up and eyes attentive…though, had Clarus or any of his close friends been there, they would have caught that glimpse of childish curiosity in his greenish eyes. And, to the surprise of those that caught it, from under his beard Regis couldn’t help a subtle, tiny, but playful smile.

After a bit into staring, Regis kept a sigh in his chest and looked down.
“I shall put some thought into the matter” the king announced calmly. Then, he looked at the tacticians one by one, gently. “Thank you for asking for my advice. Keep working on other matters while I come to a conclusion and seek my advisers” as he spoke, Loqi sighed and rolled the eyes, muttering ‘unbelievable’. Though it was easily heard by everyone, the tacticians, anxious for the treatment their king was receiving, pretended nothing was happening. “For now, send a message to the troops of the outpost to keep their positions and wait for further instructions.”

The tacticians all spoke their agreements aloud, gathered their stuff, and started exiting. Loqi, in his spot, shook the head and whispered another disagreement. Even though he too could pick his stuff and leave, he stayed to review some papers he had at the table. Regis stayed, too. He calmly watched the Lucians all leave the room until it was only the Nif and him, and he still waited a bit after the others had closed the door. He looked over at Loqi, curious. The Nif, frowning, was busy minding his own stuff and papers. Regis still watched, not even trying to be subtle. The more he spent looking, the more he smiled until it was noticeable.

Soon, the king started limping his way around the table until he was closer to the Nif.
“You know, young man?” Regis said while walking. Loqi didn’t even bother looking his way. “You remind me a lot of my Marshal.”
Loqi, without even looking up, let out a tiny sarcastic snort and moved the head just as sarcastically.
“Oh yes, I see the resemblance, it’s so clear” he said with an annoyed look, still looking down at the papers on the table. “How did I not see it before? Shiva glorious, you’re right, we’re identical, bet no one could tell us apart if we stand next to each other. Bravo for noticing.”

Despite the jerkiness, Regis answered with a little chuckle that annoyed Loqi even more than an offended reaction would have. From the corner of his eye he saw the king walk past him, but he swore he didn’t care.
“I don’t mean physically” Regis said. “I mean in attitude.”

That bugged Loqi. The comment made him lose focus in his papers and his mind switched completely to the subject the Lucian monarch had touched. He stared at nowhere while he tried to knot his thoughts, and when they couldn’t make sense as much as he tried, he finally stood straight back up and looked over his shoulder at the older man. Regis had reached for another desk and was checking some papers, more like a curious kid that just wants to see what’s on the table rather than really interested in the content itself. Loqi was about to ask something, but refrained. He tried to not show interest, but the comment really had dug into his brain and wouldn’t stop poking him.

So, after a bit of letting go of his pride, Loqi dared get into the conversation.
“Are we both talking about Cor Leonis, the Immortal?” Loqi asked. Regis looked over his shoulder as well, then shrugged and nodded as if saying it was more obvious than stating the sky is blue. Loqi frowned in confusion. “Cor Leonis?” he snorted and shook the head, trying to return his attention to his work at the table. “You’re lost, old man. Cor Leonis is a naïve soft idiot. I’m not.”
“He’s showing his naïve soft idiot side to you?” Regis asked. “That’s rare. He’s famous for his legendary ‘poker-face’ and ‘I don’t care’ attitude. He must have seen something special in you if he’s opening up to you enough so his dork side is noticeable.”
“Speci- o-of course not!” Loqi snapped at him, turning to give him a harsh angry look, which became angrier when Loqi himself became aware of the way his face started gleaming red. “There’s nothing special!” when Regis raised his eyebrows at him as if asking that, if there was nothing special, why did he freak out so much at the mention, Loqi hesitated, looked away, and with a hiss turned again to face the table. “He’s just…that: a naïve, soft idiot. We’re nothing alike.”
“Maybe not right now” he heard Regis say behind him. “But when he was younger, he was exactly like you.”

Something instantly clicked in Loqi. His eyes moved away of the papers he had tried to focus on again, and those words instantly switched on a concept he had tried to keep in a box in the back of his head. He tried again to read the papers, but he found himself thinking a lot about what the Lucian king had said.
Who are you, Cor Leonis? he had thought once, not too long ago, that night he couldn’t sleep. Who, what was he, his story, his motivations, his thoughts, his feelings. The mystery that Cor was. Because…yes, he was a poker-face in more than just the face. And what the king just said, it meant…

“…you…know what Cor was like when he was younger?” Loqi couldn’t help the question. It came out a little forced, not because he forced it out, but because he was trying to force it to stay inside, yet it slipped past his mouth without his permission. He tensed and mentally cursed. He hoped the king hadn’t heard, or that he wouldn’t reply, because he really didn’t care, he didn’t have to care- but then again, Loqi didn’t want to ask Cor about him because that would make Leonis think he cared and he- he definitely didn’t care, even less did he want to make Leonis think such atrocity, and now he could have the information from someone else and…Cor wouldn’t need to know.

Not knowing what he wanted, Loqi felt a bit anxious while waiting, hands made hesitant fists on the table, and pretending to be looking at the papers.
“Oh, yes” the king replied behind him. “I know him since he was thirteen.”
Thirteen! That was so young, and Cor was forty- what year was this again? When was the last time Loqi spied into his bio and what age was written there? Say, forty-three to make it an easy count, that would make it a whole thirty years of information about Cor’s life from someone that knew him personally like a boss.
“Ever since that age we’ve been good friends, so I know him very well.”
Like a friend? That was even more information, because friends meant they knew each other better than just boss-employee. That was…good? Bad? Did he want that info?

…then again…he was living with Cor…it wasn’t that he wanted the information for curiosity, it was just…tactical. If he was going to live under the same roof than someone else for who knows how long, he had the rights to know them better…and Cor knew a lot about him whether Loqi liked it or not, so that gave him the right to know at least a bit of him too…right?
Loqi mentally cursed as he sucked his lower lip in to bite down on it, and his fists tightened.

After some seconds of a fight that felt like forever in his head, Loqi took in a breath and turned around, though avoiding eye contact.
“And…what was he like?” he asked trying to sound disinterested. He dared throw a few glances at the king, and because he found the Lucian not looking at him, he was brave enough to turn properly to look at him. The king put on a thoughtful look and pouted his lips, and spoke as he sat down on a chair.
“Difficult” Regis stated. Loqi, still a little tense, frowned a little as if asking if that was everything or for real. Finally, the king turned to look at him. “Too uptight, too serious. Aggressive, rude, arrogant like no other. With an air of superiority. Not brave; reckless, idiot, dense, throwing himself headfirst into fights everyone but him knew he couldn’t win.”

Loqi didn’t identify with any of that, except for the last part, which clicked so much with him that it finished angering him, maybe in the subconscious realization that if the last part clicked on him, then everything else had to be true. Frowning like the king had just spat on the graves of his ancestors, Loqi gave him an angry though non-impressed look from his spot, not tense anymore as his curiosity had been replaced by mere anger.
“If you wanted to insult me, there was no need for all this ‘you remind me of my Marshal’ bullshit, you dipshit.”
“But I’m not insulting you, it’s true” Loqi rolled his eyes with a little angry sigh. “Even this reaction is so like a teen Cor. It’s okay, it’s difficult to admit we have flaws. Hopefully you’ll see yours in a calm way instead of almost dying like he had to learn his lesson.”

Cor almost dying? Did he mean still as a teen? Loqi ignored, on purpose, the fact that the king was comparing him to a fucking teenager (him, a fully grown man more mature than thousands out there twice his age), curiosity captivated by that last fact. Did he want to know more about it? Maybe he only meant the war…
The king lifted his cane and used it to tap the chair close to him. Lost in thoughts as he was, Loqi forgot his façade of anger and mechanically, because he was so used to obeying superiors without complaints, made his way to the chair. Hating himself for it, but craving information too much for his own taste, Loqi sat down, but never lowered his guard in front of what he still saw as an enemy.

“You reminded me a lot of him from the very first moment I saw you” the king said, and it didn’t help at easing Loqi’s curiosity. For once in his life, Loqi was quiet. “But today, particularly, you reminded me a lot of him. For what you just said some minutes ago” Loqi lowered the eyes and frowned slightly, thinking, but he ended up shaking the head, not understanding. Regis gave him a wide smile, which made the Nif look away. Then, the king shifted slightly in place and put both hands on top of his cane, taking in a little breath. “Almost thirty years ago, Cor accompanied me in a travel across the continent and into Accordo. The intention was always to reach Altissia to negotiate a Lucian-Altissian alliance. It took us nearly one year, five men in one car, low budget, and adventure, to make it there” even though Loqi hated lectures from anyone, even more so from a Lucian, even more so from their leader, he couldn’t help but be quiet, each word capturing him more even if he denied it to himself. “Once we got there, we were outnumbered by imperial forces. Even though it was neutral land, it was still already domain of the Empire, and the tension kept growing, until we were being pushed back. So, in fear that they would break the neutrality and attack Altissia, which would also turn Altissia against us for breaking their peace, I decided to…go back.”

Regis sighed. Loqi was staring at him, not understanding how a monarch could sit so calmly this way with a Nif when he should be the wariest, but mostly curious on where the story was leading.
“Simply go back. No alliance achieved” Regis continued and gave him slight raised eyebrows as if asking his opinion. Loqi, still frowning a little, said nothing. “And you know what Cor said?” Loqi reacted a little to that, paying even more attention. Reaction not going unseen, Regis smiled more widely but didn’t point it out. “He publicly called me a coward.”

At that, Loqi opened his mouth slightly and frowned a little more. He gave the king questioning and surprised eyes, at which Regis nodded firmly.
“…Cor?” Loqi asked quietly, frown of confusion deep.
“The one Cor Leonis” Regis nodded again, slow and sure. Loqi still gave him open mouth and slight wide eyes of surprise and confusion. The king smiled again. “He said it in front of the back then first minister of Accordo, and again to the media. He said that it wasn’t possible that we went on a journey of almost a year, breaking our backs surviving through the war, only to go back home with nothing. He said that I was scared, that I backed off at the last second just because some imperial standing at the door.”

The king was looking somewhere else with a little smile, and the eyes clearly lost in the memories he was seeing in his head. Loqi still watched him as attentively and surprised.
“He said many things, you can’t imagine, some harsher than others. But in the end he said that a prince is supposed to inspire the people and take the risks others won’t for the greater good. Deciding to go back and throw down a whole year of planning in fear of an imperial attack that wasn’t even certain to happen was unworthy of someone that aspired to one day take the lead of the entire war. Then, he said that I was a coward.”

Loqi stared for a moment more before lowering the eyes, searching side to side on his lap for something he couldn’t find. Partly, he agreed with everything Regis said that Cor said. He was right, he would have said- the exact same thing. Every word. But mostly, Loqi was…surprised. A little shocked, even. For one, he couldn’t believe they were talking about the same Cor Leonis. Cor, that was always speaking so nicely about his king, calling him out like that…meeky, soft, tender Cor Leonis being rude? He believed it in the battlefield, he was the fiercest beast Loqi had ever seen anywhere in the world, but Cor Leonis…rude? To his back-then prince?
And also…the way Loqi felt like he…resonated with this version of Cor that the king spoke about…
Was it really the same Cor Leonis?

“Exactly like you just did” Regis said with a smile as if cheering to be insulted. Loqi looked back up at him, still mute. “I’m starting to feel offended, you know that?”
“And why didn’t you fire him or something?” Loqi asked. “You two seem like…good friends, but…he’s a commoner, right?” Regis nodded and looked as calm as if though classes didn’t matter, something that Loqi couldn’t understand and confused him further. “H-…why would you…I mean, you’re…nobility, you’re the monarch of your country. How could you let a proletarian talk to you like that and didn’t, at least, fire him?”

As a reply, the king chuckled. One of Loqi’s eyebrows twitched, not having expected the reaction, and not understanding it.
“You know what I did after he publicly called me a coward?” Loqi stayed quiet, asking with the eyes. The king smiled. “I hired him as my personal guard.”
“You fucking- what?” Loqi exclaimed, frowning deeper again. “You give a raise to any idiot for insulting you? Where’s my fucking title of nobility by this point, then?”
“It’s not because he insulted me” Regis said after laughing as if though Loqi was being funny instead of sarcastic. Loqi gave him a careful look, questioning him. “It’s because he had the guts to call me out when no one else would.”

Loqi looked slightly down again, and then he started slowly shaking the head. He couldn’t understand why that was valuable. In Niflheim, if someone, especially a commoner, insulted the throne family, it would be a first and last time. Even criticism was only allowed when requested, and Loqi thought that was perfectly fine. There was a reason they were winning the war. So why would Regis care on being called out?
“Everyone thinks that just because being called a king or a prince means that you know everything and you know perfectly fine what you’re doing” Regis continued, sounding casual and even as if though complaining about some random office job. “That, or just the impact of the title, something always makes people go ‘Yes, your Highness’, ‘Yes, your Majesty’ to everything” he gestured with a hand as if dismissing it. “All my life since I was a toddler, everything I said and did was ‘Wise choice, your highness’, ‘Well done, your highness’, ‘At your service, your highness’, yes, yes, yes, everyone is always saying yes even nowadays. Not Cor, though. Even at fifteen, not Cor.”

Fifteen. Hearing ‘almost thirty years ago’ was fine, but hearing about Cor being fifteen in the war…it was a strange concept. Then again, Loqi couldn’t imagine Cor anywhere else. In his head, Cor was born in the battlefield already yielding a sword, like the legend he was.
“I appreciated that” Regis said. “As soon as Cor spoke up, I noticed for the first time how everyone was always saying yes to every decision, until that day. He opened my mind a lot. He made me realize that not only because everyone says yes are they really pleased, or right” the king paused. Loqi, relaxed in his seat, blinked calmly, frown long gone. “I appreciate honesty above many things, perhaps above all, and I was missing so much of it. Cor, though…he gave me honesty for the first time. Crude, non-sugarcoated truth as I needed to hear it” he gave Loqi the raise of the eyebrows and a slight nod. “In a palace full of people saying ‘Yes, your highness’ to everything, I realized that someone willing to say ‘No’ is valuable. It spoke so many things to me; about his honesty, his courage, his willpower. His loyalty to protecting his kingdom, not his monarchs, which I think is more noble and valuable.”

Loqi’s gesture softened even more when that last sentence, once more, clicked on him. In Niflheim, and maybe he was making too many comparisons, the throne family was more important than the land, because they were the protectors of the land. He had never seen it that way…and it…indeed sounded more noble, as the king of Lucis was putting it.
“And it also spoke to me about how much I needed people that had no fear to be honest with me; point out my flaws as crude as they were, tell me when I was wrong” the king continued. “I needed people that would enrich my growth as a monarch, and I couldn’t do that through ‘Yes, your highness’ at every tantrum I had. I needed advisors that had no fear of telling me I was a coward and an idiot. And Cor showed me that day how little he cared for pleasing his highness, and willing to smack sense into Regis.”

There was a pause. Loqi, shoulders down as his guard, remained thoughtful for a bit. The king didn’t look his way, as if he was patiently waiting for Loqi to come out of his sphere. When the Nif gave him a look again, the king smiled.
“That’s why I hired him immediately. For that brave, reckless honesty so rarely found.”
“…so that means…you listened to him?” Loqi asked lowly after another small pause. He gave the king a look that, didn’t he have those eyes, would almost pass as innocent. The king couldn’t help but keep smiling, softly and keeping his thoughts quiet.
“No” Regis said as lowly. For a moment, the look in Loqi was disappointment. “I admired his honesty, not his choice. He was wrong” when he saw Loqi pout a little, Regis wanted to pet his hair, but chose not to and only spoke softly. “Maybe one day you will understand that sometimes pulling back a little is not cowardly if chosen wisely. Not everything can be fought immediately.”

While Loqi had a lot of complaints, the king gave him no time to speak any when he was leaning a little closer to Loqi, but not invading his space.
“I don’t doubt you’ll learn. You’re identical to him, and if he could learn, so can you” said that, the king gave him a smile of determination. “You two have the same eyes. Not the color or shape, but…the gaze. The look in them” Loqi, by reflex, pulled a little back even if the king was distant enough, as if suddenly threatened. “There’s definitely the same…blaze in there.”

Loqi continued looking with slightly big eyes for a moment. Before feeling threatened enough to look away, though, the king gave him a last wide smile, and he started leaning onto his cane while standing up with a bit of effort.
“Well” he said as he finished slowly pulling himself back on his feet. “I leave you for now” he started walking a few little limping steps away. “Today is my son’s birthday and I promised to go fishing with him.”
What the fuck.
“Y-” Loqi stopped just starting his phrase, too startled by that surreal statement. He jumped in his seat when he realized the king wasn’t stopping and he had yet to give an explanation, hurrying to look his way. “You’re leaving just because it’s your son’s birthday? You’re- the king, you can’t miss a job day just because your son’s birthday happened to fall on job day! That’s irresponsible and immature!”
“I’m king everyday” Regis said not stopping his limping way to the door. “And the war is there every day, too. But my son’s birthday is only once a year. I can’t be late…that would be irresponsible and immature!”

Loqi watched the king leave calmly through the door. Puzzled as he was as to why the Lucians were so sentimental and gave priority to stupid things like birthdays, Loqi soon got distracted going back to everything the king told him that day. Minutes later he tried to get back to his work, but he ended up getting a subtle look in the mirror, to see if he could see whatever king Regis had said about his eyes, and if they really were similar to those of the man he thought his opposite.

--

Loqi was working on one of the Nif armors he was using to teach the troops the weak points of human high commands when he was approached, willingly, by the Lucian prince.

Noctis was back from a day with his father, and both had come back home at the Citadel. He was going to grab some stuff and hang with Prompto, Gladio and Ignis at the blond’s place for a bit of the night. He felt a little bad at the thought of leaving his dad alone for the night even when the birthday was his and not his dad’s, but Regis had spent all day with him, something rare, and Noctis wished to at least be there for a bit before heading to bed. His company made his dad happy, so that was a good, silent, timid way of saying thanks for the day, he thought.

He had just gone to pick Prompto from one of the training halls, and both were happily fighting their way to see who was faster in the way to the elevators when a bark made them both stop.
“Umbra!” Noctis greeted joyfully as he went down on his ankles to receive his dog in arms. The pet, wriggling the tail, barked and licked him a couple times while in the hug.
“What a timing, buddy!” Prompto said happily while reaching down to pamper the dog, who greeted him just as joyfully. “Of course Lady Luna wouldn’t forget about your birthday.”
“Hey…isn’t he carrying more than usual?”
“What’s wrong, Noct?” Prompto asked while still petting the dog when he saw his friend’s face turn into confusion.

The duo had to make an unexpected stop only a few floors down.

Busy in his stuff, Loqi worked in one of the big halls frequently used as storage or, in his case, to have privacy while building his armors. It was while screwing some things together when he was approached by who he had named the ‘Royal Baby’.
“…uh…Lo- uh…mist- uh…” the voice of the prince was an unexpected visit, so Loqi put his stuff down and looked up at the dual doors. The Lucian stood there, awkward as always, in clothing even more casual than usual. The dork looked red due to sunburns. It really wasn’t a fucking joke, oh my god. “…hey, I…I have something…for you?”

Loqi replied by giving him a raised eyebrow. Noctis tensed even more and looked away, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. Gods, looking at Loqi always made him feel like he was being made fun of, and it didn’t help that the Nif had the most perfect unimpressed face Noctis had ever seen, even more than the Marshal’s legendary one.
“That’s nice” Loqi said sarcastically and returned his attention to the things he was attaching. “Happy birthday to me.”
Noctis wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm at first, but his training with identifying Ignis’ sass told him it was.
“No, for real, I…” the prince was quiet again, still scratching his head and trying to show the other what he held in hands, but having no luck, as he was being ignored. “I…uh…” looking for a way to start, he remembered that one encounter he had with the Nif when Umbra was involved. “Umbra! My dog?” he waited for a sign that the Nif was listening, but Loqi kept working as if deaf and blind to his presence. “He dropped by today and he, eh…you know…I…I got a letter. For…you?”

Loqi still continued working on his stuff until, a couple seconds later, his hands stopped and he looked up at the prince. Then, after holding eye contact for a couple moments, Loqi looked back down at his stuff as he snorted sarcastically and shook the head.
“A letter! Of course, I was waiting all day!” he said over-exaggerating his cheering. Then, his voice went back to the usual angry tone. “And why the fuck would Lady Fleuret write to m-!?”

It clicked on Loqi even before Noctis continued. He froze in his spot and his heart skipped a beat at the quick realization.

“Uh…well, it’s…actually not from Luna, it’s…” Noctis was saying, but Loqi wasn’t listening. He was still paralyzed on his seat, unable to breathe and feeling his entrails wrench. Loqi looked up, mouth slightly open and eyes a little wide. The prince awkwardly swung in his spot and tried to timidly show two envelopes; a white one and…a purple one.
Loqi was on his feet without his brain even registering it. He headed his way towards the prince perhaps a little too fast, judging from the prince’s reaction of suddenly tensing. Still, Noctis tried to explain further as the Nif kept going his way.
“It’s from her broth-”
“Give that to me” Loqi whispered in a rush as he took the envelopes little too harshly from the prince’s hands. Once with them, Loqi froze again, eyes a little wide, but not daring to look down at what he held. Having troubles with his shaky breath, something unusual in Loqi’s head told him that what he did had been rude, so he looked up at Noctis, hesitated, looked away, back on him, away, and ended up looking down and whispering, “…apologies.”

Said that, and after a few awkward moments standing in front of each other, Loqi took the envelopes with both hands as if fearing to lose them, rounded the prince, and he went away, a little too quickly.

Noctis looked through the door and into the hallway, seeing the Nif disappear through a corner. Prompto, appearing from an even more distant corner where he had been spying from, approached him until he caught up with Noctis.
“…saw his reaction?” Prompto asked. The prince crossed the arms and nodded. “I’d have never imagined those two knew each other? What do you think the letter says?”
“I don’t know, but it must be important” Noctis said. “Ravus doesn’t seem like the type to write letters unless it’s for someone special.”
“True. Explains why you’ve never received one.”

Noctis smacked his friend, but Prompto still laughed.

Cor saw the Nif some minutes later. Having recently come from his training and heading to his office to get his shower room’s locker’s key that he forgot, he saw the little blond come from another hallway. Loqi didn’t see him. He seemed to be in a rush, and he reached Cor’s office first, hurrying his way inside, and closing the door a little too harshly. Cor didn’t think anything at first, but then he guessed that it was natural; Loqi was dealing with a lot, and it was natural to have a sudden hit of depression with no reason. Maybe he just needed time alone, he thought, so he let him be, and texted Prompto to ask him if he could use his locker and towel just this once.

Cor took his time as he normally would, neither wanting to rush Loqi nor wait too much in case the Nif needed anything. So, once recently showered and changed, he went back to his office, waited a few seconds, and then knocked on the door. There was no reply, but he knew better.
“Loqi?” he called. “It’s okay, it’s me.”
Not long afterwards, Cor heard the door unlock from inside. He waited a couple moments, not sure what he was to find, and then carefully went in.

Thankfully, Loqi didn’t seem to have had any sort of breakdown. His face wasn’t damp and his eyes weren’t red, and he was calm, sat at Cor’s desk, with a paper in hand and another one on the desk. Cor eyed him a little, tried to read what had happened, but Loqi still seemed…calm, somehow. Not as his usual cold self, though. While he wasn’t at his worst, he looked…distracted. Very thoughtful, and into some sentiment that Cor couldn’t read. Quickly eyeing the papers, Cor guessed it wasn’t normal paperwork, so he guessed he could start there.
“…are those letters?”

Loqi replied with a hum, which Cor assumed was a Yes. Loqi kept eyeing the letter he was holding, but not like he was reading, more like he was just…staring. Cor finished making his way in, and gently closed the door. He stood there a little awkward, not sure what to do.
Just as he was about to change the subject, Loqi contained a tiny sigh in his chest.
“He didn’t do it.”

Silence lingered between them.
“Who?” Cor decided to start there. Loqi lowered a little the paper in his hand and looked up at the Marshal.
“Rav- uhm…Niflheim’s High Commander?” he asked, and Cor nodded to let him know he knew him. “He, uh…” Loqi looked down again and started searching with his eyes through the desk as if though the words he needed were somewhere there. Cor blinked and wondered if this was the first time that he saw Loqi hesitate. “You know…” Loqi continued, tilting the head slightly in some gesture, and not making eye contact again. “I…had thought…back when I first understood that the bombing was an inside job, that the ones behind it had been the highest positions, hence…Emperor, Chancellor and…High Commander.”

Cor nodded. That made sense, and that was what everyone suspected or had already taken for granted, it was more than obvious.
“…but he didn’t do it” Loqi said lowly, and he looked down at the paper in his hands. “Ravus wasn’t part of it.”
“…he wrote to you?” Cor asked, too surprised to remain quiet or in his usual state of alert. The Nif nodded. “How?”

After a quick explanation, both stayed quiet and thoughtful.
“But- how did he know you’d be here?”
“I assume that after seeing the announcement that I live, he asked Lady Oracle to ask your prince via their dog if I was here, the very idiot couldn’t keep a secret, but I forgive it this time because she’s trustworthy, she told her brother, and so he wrote to me” Loqi explained, eyes still on the letter.
“…so prince Ravus…wasn’t part of it?” Cor asked as if still not processing the information. Loqi nodded again.
“That’s why his signature isn’t there in the papers of the permission for the bombing itself” Loqi explained. “I had…thought that he had taken part in it because of his position, and because he did sign my permission for vacation, but…” he put the head down and shook it. His voice lowered to a murmur. “…but he didn’t do it…”

They were quiet again. Cor tried to learn a little more of the context through the way Loqi acted.
Soon, inexplicably and very surprisingly, the Nif smiled very, very subtly, just the curvature of the corners of his lips, but Cor saw it. He would notice even the smallest smile, seen as Loqi rarely…or, rather never smiled. Which made it all more surprising, but just equally as exciting.

Cor felt some tickles through the arms and his heart shook a little at the strange, new sight, even if Loqi was keeping the head a little down to look at the letter. Cor was so surprised by this, he forgot what was happening. It was a little smile, and his eyes still looked sad, but gods damn, he looked…different in the best way possible. Smiling made him look…not younger, but the age he actually was, and it added some…light.
Smiling made Loqi look really, really pretty.
In a bit of a selfish moment, Cor wholeheartedly wished please, smile more often.

“…you guys were good friends?” Cor asked once he remembered the priority was Loqi and not the personal delight of seeing him smile, though, he admitted, part of him wished that the question would make the Nif’s smile grow. Loqi looked up at him and then, thank all the Astrals, his smile did widen, not entirely joyful and with a hint of sarcasm, but it still made Cor feel chills nonetheless. Loqi chuckled and shook the head, lowering it a little again.
“Eh…sort of” Loqi replied, and Cor craved to ask him to look up so he could please look at that little grin better because why in the world would Loqi keep that face hidden from the world? “Fleuret is…difficult. Not the friends type, not social, he’s rude, and it’s so difficult to get any reaction out of him that isn’t anger.”

So basically he’s you, Cor thought about replying, but guessed it was not the moment. He could imagine Loqi not seeing he had the same flaws and could only imagine both men’s relationship; both snarling at each other, insulting, sassing, ignoring each other, yet somehow managing to form a bond. Perhaps it was that…attitude what made them like each other even if none admitted it. Strange friendship, Cor thought, but so long it worked, whatever was fine.
“I honestly didn’t even think he cared too much…” Loqi said more lowly and much, much warmer than Cor had ever heard him before. It was thrilling seeing Loqi like this, genuinely happy for once. Had Cor ever seen him like this? Ever heard his voice with such sweet if timid warmth? Please…more often. Please. “But he opened up far more than I knew he biologically could in this letter.”

As if to prove his point, he gestured a little towards Cor as if wanting to give him the letter, but not too much that he actually was. Cor decided to get closer and eye it a little, though, with Loqi holding it and the fancy cursive he couldn’t make out a word. Loqi took the letter back to keep looking at it as if unable to stop eyeing it.
“Idiot apologized for the misunderstanding and cleared it up” the Nif said. “He says they only told him about the vacation permissions, but he didn’t know a thing about the bombing until it had already happened…” after a pause, Loqi smiled a tiny bit again at the paper. “He says he felt guilty and lamented my death, and that he’s happy to know I’m alive. Said some stuff about trusting the Lucis Caelum to keep me safe, but eh…” he shrugged to dismiss it. “I’m far more impressed about him actually expressing concern and relief about…me?” he smiled a little more and pointed somewhere in the letter. “He even calls me a friend here! We’d often, when not yelling at each other, tell each other to be safe or congratulations for something, but I think we never said that word or expressed anything too much. A friend. When has Ravus Nox Fleuret called someone that!?”

Cor couldn’t help a smile that did but grow each second a little more. He looked down and tried to control the excitement that was shaking him, but Loqi acting this…cheerful of sorts, it was…chilling after months of nothing but either anger or sadness. Loqi even chuckled a little and shook the head slightly. Wanting to see more of that smile, Cor tried searching for something else to say, and found it on the second piece of paper. He gestured vaguely towards it.
“I see he wrote twice?”
“Oh, no, that’s…” surprisingly, Loqi’s smile faded for a moment, and Cor was sure he saw his face turn a little red. He stared curiously until Loqi, though timid, smiled at that letter as well. “That’s- that’s from Lady Oracle…”
“Oh?” Cor’s eyebrows went up. “You’re friends with her, too?”
“No, no, I…” Loqi hesitated a bit and cleared his throat. Cor couldn’t blame him; young people his age were easy to grow a crush on Lady Lunafreya. And even those that didn’t grow a crush could be so easily startled by being noticed by the princess, she just had that effect. “She…she knows her brother” he said with a chuckle. “And she took the time to write to me the things that Ravus would obviously skip.”
“Such as?”

Estimated Lord Tummelt,
My apologies for the intrusion. I’m aware we’re yet to become acquaintances. Yet, I couldn’t help but write this letter as soon as my brother rushed to write his. I know him very well, Lord Tummelt, and I know very well what he won’t tell you. He might tell you that he wasn’t part of Nilfheim’s terrible plan, might tell you he’s glad to know you safe, might tell you to take care. What he won’t express is how much he truly cares.
Lord Tummelt, please don’t take my brother’s words at false. It may be easy to think of his letter a faked attempt at freeing himself of guilt in fear of your revenge. But he’s not lying. I know. I saw him mourn you.
You couldn’t see it, but I was there when he first heard the news, and through all these months. He’s been a bit of a disaster. He’s cried you, you know? Real tears, from the man people think has a void for a heart. You have no idea of the times he’s visited home only to drop to his knees, lie his head on my lap, and cry you. ‘If I hadn’t signed that paper, he would be alive. I killed him, Lunafreya, it was my fault’.
He’s been dealing with guilt. He genuinely had no idea he was guiding you to a trap, and ever since he keeps repeating that lament. He’s talked a lot about you, cried you, and mourned you like I hadn’t seen him do for a friend. He may act and write to you as if though he doesn’t care, but know that he does.
Lord Tummelt, I want to thank you for your friendship with my brother. He easily scares people away, yet you were stubborn enough to show him a little affection. If he hasn’t turned into stone, I like to believe it’s for the bonds he holds, and you are the only one I know about. You have my gratitude, and know that the sentiment goes back from him to you. I’d never seen him this open and emotional about anyone outside our family. You must be a really good friend of his if he cares this much.
Know that, did Tenebrae have its independency and resources, House Tummelt counts with full support of the kingdom, and I wish for your family’s name to stand strong and thrive in the near future, perhaps even grow if you so wish.
Sending my best regards, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret.

Cor couldn’t help but notice she didn’t sign with a princess or oracle title, even when she had all rights to, because this was not a title speaking, but the person. Lunafreya was truly a wonderful creature. No wonder her letter had Loqi in such stuttering mess. He smiled at Loqi, who couldn’t dare make eye contact with him.
“It’s a really nice letter.”
“Yeah…” Loqi murmured. “It adds a lot to the other one” he said with Ravus’ letter still in hands, as if hating the idea to lose it if he ever let go. Cor found it cute, how Loqi held to his letter with so much care. He too acted like he didn’t care, but the little things showed otherwise. “Stupid Ravus, thought he could make it sound like he doesn’t care…”

Loqi still looked down at the paper he held so dearly and a bit too tightly in hands. Cor looked at it, up at him, and his smile grew when he saw Loqi was smiling again. He looked…so relieved, so very relieved. He radiated this aura as if though a huge weight had been lifted off him at least for a while. And he seemed so…vibrant. As if though a light was shining in him, and he was too timid to show it, so he tried to hide it all, yet it was strong enough to let a little glimpse out. Cor couldn’t help the joy, either. Loqi really deserved this moment of joy…and he really looked great, in more than just aesthetics, when in this state free of anger.

A few moments later, Loqi let out an amused huff and shook the head.
“That absolute asshole…” he murmured, yet he reached for a pen, for a paper, put the latter on the desk, and he started writing.

Cor didn’t tell him it was past work hours and could they please go home, he didn’t interrupt Loqi for anything. He only smiled, felt his heart sigh calmly, and looked away to give Loqi privacy as he wrote his response letter to, who would have said, a friend.
Cor exited the room and decided to wait for Loqi outside until he was done and ready. Despite how silent the Citadel was, he really didn’t mind.

All that he thought about was Loqi’s little smiles, and how dreamy he felt thinking about it.

Chapter Text

Ever since that letter Loqi received, Cor was not…focused. Not when around Loqi, at least.

Ever since that day, his mind kept digressing and wandering off to the same questioning, theory-building, and daydreaming. He looked at the Nif and it was so easy to get lost in his head. He thought about him and it was so easy to forget about the rest of the world for some minutes.
Despite them very, very slowly growing close together with each day, they were still far from…friends, or at least a normal friendship as Cor knew it. Despite the intimate moments they’d shared, and his genuine concern for Loqi, it still wasn’t something he would call friendship. They still argued a lot and were disinterested in each other a lot of the time. Large moments of the day going being quiet were far from being rare.

So having moments of silence with him only gave more freedom to his mind to keep wandering off. He knew and had already learned what moved Loqi’s heart. He knew what made him angry (it was easier to list what didn’t). He knew a few soft spots that could get him upset. He knew what he liked to eat, a few minor allergies, he knew how he liked his scrambled eggs in the morning. He knew what Loqi looked like when he was angry and yelling. He knew what he was like with the eyes red and the cheeks damp. He knew his perfectly crafted poker-face. But he didn’t know one thing, which was what kept making him zone out, digress, daydream, and think a lot, everything revolving around one question.

What made Loqi happy?

Happy. Like he had been when he first knew that Ravus, who was possibly his only friend in all of Eos, was innocent from his family’s murder. Happy like he had been when he kept eyeing that letter and speaking about how prince Fleuret had called him a friend. Of course that made him smile, but it was a one-time event, and Cor couldn’t think of anything that made Loqi happy. Would that be the only time he would see him smile so…lighthearted, so sincere, so pretty?

It came to Cor spontaneously and so disastrously frequent, think and daydream of what made Loqi happy. There wasn’t a thing, that wasn’t his siblings, that could come to mind. Seeing him smile once triggered the cascade of questioning, it made Cor realize that he had seen Loqi smile only once, and it had been full of sass and as a response to a terrible joke, but that was it. Plus, that little momentary smile had been so different from the way he looked with Ravus’ letter. In the latter he seemed so much more…bright, so genuine, he didn’t look amused, he looked happy, and to Cor, that was a first, and so far only time seeing him happy.

So, of course, the realization freed the questioning. Cor would find himself spending almost half his day wondering what made Loqi happy. What made him smile, what made him laugh, what he did for fun and entertainment. He kept making up scenarios and concepts, listing some and discarding others that didn’t seem possible, would wonder and keep going on circles around it like a mad scientist trying to decipher the secret behind the cosmos.

That day, Cor sat at a chair facing the back; the legs to the sides, the arms resting on top of the chair’s back, and his chin on his arms. He was in Loqi’s classroom, watching him write dozens of formulas and things and drawings on the chalkboard. Loqi was in his most usual; in his imperial officer uniform as impeccable as always, spine straight like an arrow, and that…face. Neutral, dull, blank, spiced with the slightest frown of anger. He wrote mechanically and didn’t seem to be able to focus in anything else. Cor didn’t mean to stare, even if he had been doing it all day by that point, but his head wouldn’t leave him alone. Why was he always angry? Was Loqi physiologically capable of laughing?

“Lost something, Leonis?” Loqi asked calmly yet as coldly as usual, not taking the eyes off the board as his hand kept going across it. Cor wasn’t startled; he was aware he was staring, and it wasn’t a surprise that Loqi caught him. The Marshal calmly moved the head up only to rest a cheek on his palm and he continued staring shamelessly.
“What makes you happy, Loqi?”

The Nif took a couple seconds before he stopped writing. His frown deepened and he stood still for a moment as if processing the question and, when it didn’t finish making sense, he turned to look at Cor and deepened his frown and shook the head as if saying he couldn’t understand. Cor shrugged. Loqi still gave him this look between anger and disgust and shrugged back as if saying whatever.
“How do you have fun?” Cor tried again, calm and serious.
“Who cares” Loqi shrugged and turned his attention to the chalkboard again. “I work.”
“You’re working and don’t seem to be having fun.”
“Work is supposed to be serious, not fun; it’s a war.”
“So what do you do for fun?”

Loqi held the already thin chalk so tightly between his fingers it broke, and he turned to give Cor another angry look. The Marshal didn’t falter. He kept staring, unmovable about getting an answer. Loqi hesitated and shook the head in quick tiny movements. Then, as if dismissing it entirely, he sighed angrily and went to look for another chalk to keep working. Cor put the arm down to rest it again on the back of the chair, but he kept the head up this time.
“Do you like mov- oh…there’s no cinemas in Niflheim, right?” by answer, Loqi shook the head while retaking his work on the board, as if ignoring Cor. “Still, sure they broadcast movies on TV. Do you like them?”
“Fuck movies.”
“Do you like cartoons or TV shows?”
“What am I, a child!?”
“Do you like videogames?”

Loqi turned to face him and threw the chalk at him. Cor reacted by reflex, putting the arm up so the little stick wouldn’t hit him on the face. Loqi didn’t even answer, he angrily went to look for yet another chalk at the desk. Cor watched him trying to read if he was just avoiding the question, but he looked genuinely angry. With a sigh, the Marshal put his cheek on his palm again and kept staring. He tried thinking of something else, but he had a limited list. There also weren’t amusement parks in the empire, hadn’t been for the past forty years, so Loqi never got the chance to even see one. There had to be carnivals, though. Right?
“Do you like carnival games?” Cor insisted. “Like, throw a ring and try to hook it on a bottle’s neck, shoot the target, the tiny fishing circuits…”

Loqi didn’t waste his time even reacting. He kept working as if deaf to Cor’s insistent questions.
“Do you like quieter things?” Cor kept going. “What about walks in the park? Or a beach- well, you Nifs don’t have beaches that aren’t snowy, so I guess-” he gasped. “Do you have fun in the snow!?”
“Oh my Six, Leonis, who gives a damn!?” Loqi finally snapped at him, turning to give him an angry frown. They held eye contact for a bit. “I don’t have fun, okay!? I don’t go places, I don’t do things. It’s war times, not a fucking carnival, it’s not moments in which you or anyone should be having fun, I certainly don’t have time or care to stop to have fun!”

He glared at Cor during the pause that lingered in which they only looked at each other. Cor had his blank neutral face of always, but he kept staring back.
“Do you like opera?”
By answer, Loqi growled out loud and stomped his foot down angrily, before once more deciding to ignore him and go back to his work. Cor made a tiny noise of disappointment at the negative and put the face on his hand again. Well, he had thought- Loqi was used to the rich lifestyle, maybe he did stereotype things of a century ago like opera and fancy parties. While the Nif angrily ignored him and kept working, Cor tried to build in his head all that he knew about Loqi to try and explore through him to find what he would do for fun…but he seemed sure and sincere when he said he didn’t. Was that possible? Could a human being go through life over twenty years without fun?

Well, sure when he had his siblings he had to have fun, but that was something that Cor couldn’t bring up to conver- he had fun with his siblings, most possibly, right? Oh, no; the mental image of Loqi playing with two kids below the age of eleven was frighteningly adorable. It was very, very difficult to imagine, because Loqi didn’t seem like the child type. But he had loved his siblings, no doubt, so sure they must have had fun, right? How? What did they do for fun? Sure Loqi being the eldest sibling was the one coming up with the games. So Loqi was biologically capable of playing!? What did he do? Play tag? Seek and hide? Or- maybe he didn’t have fun, maybe he just pretended to have fun while entertaining his siblings. But that aside- Loqi didn’t have his siblings anymore…so even if he used to have fun with them, it was an impossible option now. So what else made Loqi happy? He couldn’t not have fun…at least smile every now and then…

Cor sighed aloud, lost in thoughts and every theory bringing up more questions. Why did Loqi have to be such a complicated puzzle? For someone so tiny and cute, he sure was troubles even just to decipher…

“Stop staring!!”

And Cor had to avoid yet another flying chalk.

--

Cor had come up with the excuse that he had forgotten to get groceries to take Loqi to eat outside. While it was way beyond obvious, it was only recently that Cor noticed, much to his anxiety, that Loqi didn’t go outside. Beyond the daily morning walks with him and the journey to and back from the Citadel, and a few couple times that he made Loqi accompany him to the nearby store, he didn’t go anywhere, not even the roof of the apartment’s building. Fantastic, Cor, he’s going to progress real fast locked away, he reprimanded himself for his one mistake and dismissing his other dozens of good achievements.

No wonder the kid wasn’t smiling, he didn’t know the world beyond the battlefields he had traveled to. He used to stay in charge of fortresses, right? And those things were huge and with big walls that didn’t let anything of the outside be seen…holy Shiva, what sort of miserable life was this guy having, not knowing the world and not having fun?
The thing now was figuring out what he liked. Cor kept asking things through the day to see if he came up with something that Loqi enjoyed or liked, but the Nif kept either ignoring him or saying No. So, maybe, if he took him out every now and then, Loqi would sooner or later show interest in something, and then Cor would decipher how to make him smile or have fun.

He decided to be quiet on the journey to the restaurant as to not annoy Loqi further, hoping that if he was calm, he would enjoy of the restaurant. Still, Cor would often look at the rearview mirror to see him, and sometimes try to steal glances when at a red light. It was becoming sort of an obsession, but he wasn’t too bothered; his goal was making Loqi happy, so it was not doing any harm. Cor drove not too far, but with a specific restaurant in mind; a little fancier than normal, but not so expensive either. Sort of like a place for dates or for a pampering every now and then rather than somewhere he would go every weekend, for example. That Loqi was used to the rich lifestyle was troubles, because he didn’t enjoy any ‘commoner’ thing, so Cor hoped that maybe increasing a bit the gourmet level would be more to Loqi’s taste.

Loqi didn’t seem impressed. Cor had always thought that, while it was nothing otherworldly, the restaurant was very pretty. Loqi vaguely stared around just to know his surroundings, and his blank, unimpressed face didn’t change. Indeed, he even put an eyebrow slightly up as if negatively judging. Cor swallowed and tried to stay calm as he took Loqi to an empty table.
It didn’t go…perfect.

“What about gambling?” Cor was still insisting after who knows how many points of the random list he was trying to come up with. Loqi lazily eyed the menu even though they had already ordered, as if to not get too bored. “Do you have fun with gambling games?”
“Do I look like someone that goes throw their money into the furnace for fun?” Loqi asked calmly yet in his usual bitterness.
“Maybe not for money, but the fun? Poker?” Loqi shook the head. “Dices?” Loqi raised his eyebrow at him. “I’m running out of ideas.”

“Why so interested in something so stupid, though?” Loqi asked. At the same time, the waitress that was in charge of their table appeared with their beverages. Cor saw her put Loqi’s drink at his place, but Loqi didn’t even glance at it, even less at her, like she was less than a ghost. Cor eyed the situation a little curious and startled, but quickly rushed to look up at the waitress, smile, and say ‘thanks’ when she put the other drink on the table. “What I do for fun? Who cares?”
“I mean, we all do something for fun, even during wartimes” Cor explained. “The war is still out there and here we are having dinner at a restaurant. If there’s time for going out for dinner, sure there’s time for a bit of fun here and there” by any answer, Loqi rolled the eyes and shook the head, smiling sarcastically. “You sure you don’t do anything for fun? What do you do in your free time?”
“Paperwork.”
“When there’s no paperwork?”
“I make my own.”
“And when you’re not?”
“Sleep.”

Cor sighed as if in defeat and crossed the arms on the table. Thankfully, Loqi was not angry, and he seemed to have accepted that Cor wasn’t going to shut up soon so there was no point in getting annoyed or asking him to stop. Just like expected, Cor went on with his list of things and hobbies to see if Loqi said yes to anything. When he did, he always explained he did it not for fun, rather for his job. The longer Cor tried to look for some entertainment Loqi had, the less options he had.

Minutes later, the waitress came back with their dishes. She served Cor’s first, and his usual looking up, smile, and say thanks came then. And, once more, when she served Loqi’s, the young man barely reacted at all. Because they had been speaking before, he kept his eyes on Cor, like the lady didn’t exist, and not looking at his dish until it was at the table. And, once more, he said nothing.
“Thanks” Cor rushed when it was clear Loqi wasn’t going to say it himself and before the waitress left. He gave Loqi a confused look, but if the Nif understood, he said nothing and acted like nothing was happening.

Cor tried to go on through dinner with his list, already used to Loqi’s constant ‘No’ for answer. A few times here and there they digressed into matters of the job of the day, or they remained quiet as wasn’t rare for them.
Minutes later, Loqi’s glass was empty. Cor didn’t even know he wanted more until Loqi, instead of searching for the waitress and waving, put the hand up while not losing focus on what he was eating. When the waitress approached, Loqi didn’t glance at her, not even by mistake; he took his empty glass, and, without looking at her, he put it up her way.
“Full with ice.”

Cor stopped chewing his salad and gave slightly wide eyes at Loqi as if not believing that attitude. He quickly looked up at the waitress, who opened the eyes, pulled her lips in, and raised the eyebrows in a clear annoyed and offended reaction.
“Please” Cor rushed, if quiet, while with his mouthful. He awkwardly tried swallowing. “Thanks” the waitress kept the same sarcastic look and nodded, but didn’t look at him, and left. Loqi gave Cor a calm look which didn’t falter even when Cor continued giving him the same wide surprised eyes. Loqi shrugged, looking genuinely lost like nothing at all was happening. “What was that?”
“I asked for a full glass, with ice this time.”

Moments later, the waitress came back and put Loqi’s glass on its place. Once more, the Nif took it without acknowledging her existence in the slightest and started drinking. Cor again gave him severe eyes, but quickly switched to look at her and whisper ‘Thanks’ with a smile. He waited until she left and considered that she was out of earshot. He eyed Loqi a little, but the Nif had gone back to grab his utensils and eat as calm and elegant as always. Cor too tried to keep slicing his little steak, but he was slow. As much as he tried to keep it to himself, it had been too obvious, too many times, and he had to do something.
“You don’t say thank you at all.”
“And you say it too much” Loqi replied calmly. He put a slice of cooked fish in his mouth and chewed as calmly, keeping eye contact with Cor in this clear ‘See if you can make me care’ attitude.

Cor calmed down a little and waited while knitting his thoughts; this situation was unexpected. He should have seen it coming from someone like Loqi, but it never crossed his head when he decided to go for dinner.
“Well, she’s attending me, of course I say thanks” he said as if stating the sky is blue.
“Of course she’s attending you” Loqi replied with the same look of obvious logic. “It’s her job.”
“…what?”
“You say thanks too much for things that you shouldn’t” Loqi replied and continued slicing meat and eating as calmly. “Serving drinks and food, cleaning the table, be around for whatever we need, that’s literally what the job ‘Waitress’ is. It’s not an extra you should be grateful for. She’s doing the requirements of her job, not a favor.”
“I mean-” Cor sighed and shook the head a little, as if not believing it. To him, it was something so obvious, he had no idea how to explain it, like trying to explain what red looked like. “Of course it’s her job. But she could be…rude, could be skipping her duties, she could do her job in the worst way possible and just to fill in the requirements, but she’s not. She’s being nice, helpful, and attentive.”
“If she was skipping her job, then they would fire her and hire another” Loqi argued back. “You don’t say thanks for something someone is meant to do anyway.”

Cor looked at Loqi as if trying to see if he was serious, and the Nif of course remained as calm as always. Cor wanted to think that maybe Loqi was annoyed and angry and hence his attitude, but he wasn’t. He looked as calm and neutral as he normally was on good days.
“It’s people like her that make this world work, you know?” Cor asked. Loqi laughed lowly, and as much as Cor had spent the days wishing to hear that, he didn’t like the sound of it. It made him feel humiliated and insulted. “Waiters, cashiers, sweepers, trash collectors, they make a city work.”
“Good to know that” Loqi cheered sarcastically. “So all the years spent studying are useless for politicians, the military, and business people. Gods, if they only were cashiers.”
“It’s not what I mean” Cor frowned. “Everyone’s job is important. But I think the ones usually given to teens, young students, or people of low resources are some of the most important even if also the most invisible.”

“It’s a waitress” Loqi said as if…well, as if a rich speaking derogatorily of a commoner. “She’s not going to change anything in the world.”
“People don’t need to change the world to deserve appreciation” Cor argued back. “She’s a person, and that’s enough to deserve respect. If you’re not going to be grateful for her service, then at least be a little more respectful. Okay?”

Loqi answered with a sarcastic snort as was his style. Cor shook the head and continued eating, this time in silence. The food felt a little less tasty now after this…sort of argument. Loqi had not gotten angry, and never raised the voice, but it was exactly that calm and collected attitude what made Cor so angry; it meant Loqi was serious about everything he believed, and Cor really found that sort of people wrong. It was an immature and horrible way of thinking. Nobody had the right to think themselves superior, especially not for something as dumb as money or an ancient title that meant nothing.

The rest of dinner went rather quietly, though not awkward. Maybe just for Cor, who felt a bit disappointed in Loqi’s attitude, but it wasn’t a big surprise. It had to be expected.
…still, expected or not, it gave him no right to stay that way. Cor wanted Loqi to heal from his depression, yes, but he didn’t only care about making him happy. He wanted to help him be an actual good person. He had to learn humility some way.
Cor would think of something later.

When dinner was finished, needless to say, Loqi was quiet as the waitress cleaned up, and Cor was the one thanking her twice as if to make up for his attitude. Loqi put an eyebrow a bit up when Cor paid in cash, like he was expecting for a credit card as he maybe was used to, and seemed a bit annoyed at having to wait for the change instead of just leaving at once like they would have done had he paid in card. Once the waitress came with the change, Cor thanked her and gave her an apologetic look. He took out a pen from his jacket and scribbled a little note on the receipt; ‘I’m sorry for his attitude, he’s learning’, and he scolded himself for justifying Loqi when he really wasn’t right at being so rude.

Loqi stood up, took his jacket and was ready to leave when he stopped, seeing Cor was still at the table counting some money and putting it down on the table.
“You’re forgetting your money, Cor.”
“It’s for the tip.”
Loqi snorted sarcastically and shook the head as he started heading to the exit, Cor following close behind.
“She already has a wage that covers what she did, and she did no more, so she doesn’t need the extra.”
“Well, then I choose to gift it to her.”
“It’s money you worked for.”
“And it was my spare and I choose to leave it on that table.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I was thinking the same thing about you.”

Both were quiet in the way back to the car. Once there, Cor asked Loqi to ride on the passenger side.
“Why? What’s wrong with the backseats?”
“Nothing. But it’s absurd you sit there when the passenger’s is empty” Cor said and opened the door for him, hoping that would both convince and sort of force him to. Loqi stood still, watching him unimpressed. “I’m not your chauffer. Passenger seat. Please.”

Loqi still protested a bit and tried to reason with Cor on why he, clearly superior to Cor, had to be in the backseats, but Cor ended up taking things from the trunk and tossing them all on the backseats as to occupy them. Loqi seemed to be too annoyed from the whole day of Cor insisting on ‘how do you have fun’ and now this to keep fighting, so he guessed one day on the passenger seat was whatever.

Cor tried to not keep asking things of what made Loqi have fun. He was too lost between two thoughts; what made him happy and how to make Loqi more humble. He didn’t ask he became a fanatic of the poor and adopted the lifestyle, but if he could be more respectful, have that air of superiority taken away, help him realize the way he acted was wrong…Cor wasn’t sure which thought weighed more in him. He decided that, because thinking about Loqi’s lack of humility was heavier and put him in deeper thought, he would mind that later, as to not get too distracted from driving. So, meanwhile, he kept thinking about the issue of how to make Loqi not just neutral, but genuinely happy.

No movies, no gambling games, TV, videogames, carnivals, amusement parks, walks in the beach, music, theatre…had he already asked about books? Did Loqi seem like the book type? Maybe not…with how crudely he saw the world, he maybe was not one for fiction nor poetry. What did rich people like? Shopping? But he was the weird mix of rich and military, not rich and extravagant…what about a tank? Would that make- no, he couldn’t get him a tank, for gods’ sake, Cor was taking his imagination to the absurd.

Some of the ride home was silent as Loqi was a little too annoyed and Cor way too thoughtful.
He thought, maybe it was not that Loqi didn’t enjoy the things in the list Cor said. Maybe he just hadn’t discovered he had fun at them; he was so busy in his work, maybe he rarely tried anything out. Maybe there was some activity where Loqi had fun and he only had yet to find out. But convincing him to try something would be very difficult…impossible, Cor would dare say. There was no way Loqi would accept going out anywhere, even less do something. But it was important if Cor wanted to find out what he enjoyed…

Maybe, before asking Loqi to try things and activities out, he had to…break through Loqi’s stone mind. That was it: strictly raised into the military as he was, Loqi had been locked away from the capability of having fun. So, before finding what he enjoyed, he had to break the walls of that cage. The question was, how? How to break through someone’s…indifference? Through someone stoic. He needed something big, something unusual, something so extraordinary that Loqi would, most surely subconsciously, start opening up to more things.

Cor rounded a corner and the car started approaching a bridge that crossed one of the rivers that crossed Insomnia. Cor kept driving without paying much mind to the everyday scenery. A little boat sailing on the river honked as Cor’s car reached the beginning of the bridge, and, as he kept driving and once the honking grew quiet, Cor turned to look at Loqi one second while speaking, and said a little too cheerfully,
“Let’s jump into the river.”

There was silence. Cor kept driving normally like he had just made weather talk, and Loqi didn’t move or react like he had heard nothing, not the slightest noise. Arms crossed and head resting on the window, Loqi spent like that a quiet whole minute before he replied.
“…I know the meaning of every word of your syntax-correct sentence” he said blankly. “Yet, I don’t understand a single fuck of what you just said.”
“That” Cor said with a shrug, eyes on the road as he turned again. “Let’s jump into the river.”

Once more, Loqi was quiet for a while before he took his head from the window. Little by little he started frowning, until he finally put a hand up and shook the head slowly.
“…why?”
“Why not?”
With that answer, Loqi snorted sarcastically and turned to give Cor a sassy look and faked smile, not believing what he was hearing.
“No” he stated. “Why?”
“Why not?” Cor insisted with a shrug.
“No, Cor, why!?”

They spent a moment in silence after the almost yell. Cor stopped at a red light and stayed still a few more moments, calm. Then, as calmly, he turned to look at Loqi and shrugged.
“…why not?”
Loqi rolled the eyes and let out a huff, letting his weight fall dead again on the seat, and shaking the head. Like Cor’s petition wasn’t weird enough, Cor saying it with his usual poker-face was making the whole thing more bizarre and incomprehensible.
“Come on” Cor said calmly. “Let’s go jump tomorrow.”
“Cor, I don’t know what’s wrong with you today, but I’m not going to jump into a fucking river” Loqi snapped at him, pulling himself a little upwards on the seat again. “Do you have an idea of how unsanitary that is!?”
“The Etro river was declared the cleanest ten years ago and it’s remained that way ever since” Cor explained while stopping outside the building and waiting for the parking lot’s gates to open. “It’s not rare to see people swim there in summer where the river is at ground level.”
“Still, clean or not- what the fuck, Cor!?” Loqi exclaimed. “Jump into a river? What bit you today? Are you going insane!?”
“What’s wrong with a little jump?”

Loqi kept staring at Cor in complete surprise and with a frown that was a mix between anger and disgust, while Cor, calmly and unfazed, drove into the parking lot.
“Why would anyone sane jump into a city river!?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Everything!” Loqi yelled as Cor parked and turned the engine off. “You don’t just…randomly jump into your city’s river! That’s senseless, complete madness, not to say immature and childish and I’m not going to do it!”
“You scared of a little height?”
“I’m not scared, it’s not that!” Loqi argued back. “But why would I do such senseless stupidity!?”
“…for fun.”

Loqi stared at him for a while with a slight frown. He tried making out whether the Marshal was for real or not. By any answer, some moments later, Cor put the eyebrows up as if asking for his answer. Loqi let out a little huff and shook the head, and undid his belt.
“I’m not going to jump into any river” Loqi said as he opened the door, giving Cor a last serious look as if making his final statement. Cor looked at the steering wheel for a moment before sighing shortly. He undid his belt and exited, and started following Loqi.
“If I jump, will you jump?”
“Leave it, Cor, I’m not going to join you in your stupidities.”
“I’ll jump first so you’ll jump then.”
“No, Cor.”

Once more, Cor sighed while following Loqi to the elevator. For a moment, they were silent, listening only to their steps, the ring of the elevator, and the doors closing.
“…one day, maybe?”
“No.”

…one day.

Chapter Text

Cor gave up at trying to get Loqi to tell him what made him happy.

It was clearly a senseless fight; either the Nif was keeping it a secret on purpose, or he really did nothing for fun. Cor also feared he could come across as rude, not only insisting on asking, but because when he started questioning him he hadn’t thought about the upside-down flip Loqi’s life had had; he guessed that he had to have fun sometimes, but that was in his context of Niflheim. Here, in the foreign country that he hated, with no friends and barely speaking to one person, who happened to be what Loqi had tagged as his particular nemesis or something, of course the situation was much more different and with less probabilities of having fun.

Still, Cor didn’t forget about it. He made a point to find out or help Loqi find out what made him happy, and to really jump into the river someday, because he really meant it; he wanted Loqi to jump in just for the sake of it. Cor wasn’t sure if he meant it very seriously or if it was just a tantrum, because yes, it was rather crazy and not very normal. But part of him still liked to think that it was exactly what Loqi needed, something crazy enough so he wouldn’t fear or resist other options of entertainment.

But so long Loqi didn’t agree to river-jumping and until Cor considered it appropriate to try asking again, he was left at the same point before he started wondering what made him happy; with no answer. And it was no use to keep wondering, because he wouldn’t know even if he guessed correctly.

So, the next days were spent normally with the routine they had grown used to. And then Cor remembered about the other thing that kept his mind busy; how to teach Loqi humility.

Cor still thought every now and then about that dinner they had outside, and he still felt his stomach laugh at him because of how awkward it was, at least to him. Watching Loqi treat the waitress like a servant, not even looking at her…gods, Cor had never been so stressed watching a social interaction before. It had stressed him back then and still did now. Loqi had no rights to look down on others like that, and Cor really wanted him to be a better person, so he started coming up with good ways to teach him humility but that wouldn’t make Loqi rage at him either, or at least not that badly.

Then again, he thought one day, it wasn’t on him to raise someone else’s child. Especially when he wasn’t a child. He was in his early twenties, raised more strictly than the average, and he was much more independent and mature than many people older than him. He was supposed to acknowledge his own mistakes and work on them, Cor didn’t need to take up on re-parenting someone, he wasn’t entitled to it. He told himself this many times, many days, scolded himself about not interfering with Loqi’s attitude and to stop fixing everything for him.
And of course he, once more, didn’t listen to himself, and went on coming up with ways to teach Loqi some humility.

Cor made sure to start on a weekend, because he was starting to know Loqi and he knew he would argue it, so they would lose time, or Loqi would then refuse to go to work or make some stupid tantrum, while on weekends Cor had all the time and patience of the world to deal with him.
On weekends they skipped the morning walk-run and woke up later than usual. Still, most of the times they still had breakfast together, be it in silence, or with minor conversation here and there.

That day, Cor didn’t try to fake anything or pretend to be more friendly than usual to soften it. He rolled with naturalness across breakfast, knowing too well Loqi appreciated honesty crude as it was, and Cor himself sharing the idea and being naturally unable to pretend anything he didn’t mean. Still, he did admit to himself to being a little nervous. He had already come up with the many things Loqi would say to him about it, and he had mentally rehearsed all answers with one mental goal; not angering him enough so that Loqi, impulsive, dumb Loqi wouldn’t want to- leave. He could refuse this, could make Cor angry with his classist comments, but…leaving was a no. Cor wouldn’t be at peace if Loqi was on his own…he didn’t doubt he was independent, but…being so lonely, and depressed, in a foreign country…

Breakfast went on normally. Minor talk here and there, silence most of the time. Loqi ate half his food before losing appetite, and, as usual when it happened, Cor kept encouraging him enough to keep Loqi going but not too much that he would annoy him. In the end Loqi didn’t eat much more, but at least enough and Cor was content enough. Cor washed his dish and glass while Loqi still toyed a little with his food. Once Cor was done washing, Loqi put his leftovers in the bag where Cor had asked him to always put his leftovers were there any (why not simply throw them to the trash, Loqi couldn’t understand) and he took his dish and, as had become natural to him, he just handed it to Cor without saying a word.

That was when Cor stood a little tense and put on a serious look trying to not falter.
“You wash your dish today, please.”

Loqi didn’t reply. He still sat at what seemed to have become his assigned stool, a hand standing the weight of his head under the chin, unimpressed, angry face of always on, and the arm stretched, hand offering the dirty dish. For a while, there was only a lingering, tense silence.
“…what?” Loqi asked as if daring him to repeat rather than not having heard.
“Your dish and glass” Cor pointed. “Please, wash them yourself.”

Loqi still kept the arm stretched and a face mix of disbelief and confusion. After a bit, he let out a monosyllabic laugh and raised the eyebrows.
“You want me to…do servant tasks?”
“It’s not a ‘servant task’” Cor said a little louder and more firmly. “It’s basic independence. You can’t call yourself independent if you don’t know the home basics.”
“Excuse me?” Loqi asked, anger already clearly rising. “I’m a mechanical engineer graduate, and a war officer, and a general, my purpose is to work in mechanical engineering and the war, not these denigrating tasks.”
“Lamentably whatever and as many titles as you have, you’re still a person in the modern world and you need to know basic chores” Cor said as he took the dish from Loqi’s hand, reached for the glass, and put them in the sink. Then, just as Loqi thought he would do it, Cor gestured towards the sink. “Basic chore: wash your dish.”

Loqi gave him an offended look for a good while, as if expecting him to take all of this back. Then he gave another sarcastic snort.
“Unbelievable” he said. “You’re in a perfectly fine state, you can do it, you just don’t want to!”
“Same goes for you” Cor pointed out, calmly where Loqi kept getting more riled up. “It doesn’t take five minutes. Not even three. Just…grab the sponge, rub it…done.”

Once more, there was silence while Loqi gave him those wide, offended eyes, each time more upset.
“Unfair!” he exclaimed. “Why did you wash the stuff I used up until now and suddenly you’re refusing!?”
“I used to do it while you healed physically and became more stabilized to your life here in Insomnia” Cor stated still trying to be as firm as possible, crossing the arms. “But now you’re fine and used to your new routine. You can and you should do it now, it’s not the big thing.”
”Should? What do you mean ‘should’!?” Loqi sat more upwards in his seat, not standing up from it because, perhaps, he knew the stool added some height.
“We’re living together” Cor stated, finally getting into the bit of the argument that he had so long anticipated, but, as rehearsed as he had the next answers, nerves still made his stomach flip inside him. “So we need to do teamwork. Ok?” Loqi opened the mouth ready to yell at him, so Cor rushed. “I’ll do, I am already doing the rest; it won’t kill you to help me with one chore, especially because you’ll wash only your stuff, not mine, don’t think I’m loading all the work on you” Cor paused and tried to soften a bit. “Just…wash your dish after using it, it’s all.”

“Teamwork” Loqi muttered after a bit of watching Cor with that offended look, which soon transformed into more of a glare. “We’re not a team. This isn’t my house, it’s your house so servant work is yours!”
“You live, eat and sleep here, it is your house whether you like it or not!” Cor stated perhaps a little louder and angrier than he intended or realized. “Don’t make it your home if you don’t want to, I don’t care, but it’s your house for now just for the fact that you live here, and that already gives you the responsibility to put your part of help for chores!”
“You want me to wash what I dirty?”
“Yes?”
“Fine, then I just won’t eat, I don’t even like your food!”
“Well, good luck, then, that’ll force you to cook. Which I hope you imagine is much harder and time consuming than washing your dish.”
Loqi scowled and growled.
“Living here doesn’t force me to do this!”
“Yes, it does!”
“Then I’ll just fucking leave!” Loqi slammed both palms on the counter, moving up on the stool so he was ‘standing’ on the metal bar that connected the legs, hands still to the counter.
“Fine!” Cor said, and while he already had this as scripted as it could get, it still made him more and more nervous each moment, each word adding to a building-up terror. “Then leave! Where will you go? Who else will receive you?”

The first point to his favor was a second of hesitation that crossed Loqi’s face, obvious in the half-second in which he looked away, clearly having no idea what to answer.
“I don’t need anyone!” Loqi yelled. “I’m perfectly independent! I’ll get my own place!”
“With what money!?”
“I’ll- demand your king to pay me for my service! I deserve it!”
“Fine, then you get money for an apartment of your own” Cor argued back. “Then you’ll have to do all the chores anyway, just somewhere else, and, boy, you don’t have an idea of all the chores you’ll have to do instead of just washing a fucking dish as I’m asking from you.”
“I’ll…I’ll hire someone!” Loqi argued but looked away, which could pass as either anger or hesitation.
“With what money!? Don’t think the king will agree to giving you a wage like the one you had back in Niflheim.”
“I’ll…ask for more! My information is worth millions!”
“Millions that the crown doesn’t have” Cor reminded him, which seemed to almost be a physical blow to Loqi, whose frown deepened, upper lip’s corner shaking in frustration, and who looked away. “Trust me, he’ll rather dismiss you and work with what little info he already has than give you money he doesn’t have, not because he doesn’t want you, but because he won’t be able to afford it. Not to say that even if he agrees he can just promise the money, but he doesn’t have it.”

Loqi glared at him for a moment with that angry look, before he just made a noise of frustration and looked away once more, thoughtful and cornered.
“Loqi, you can’t see how easy you have it” Cor said soft and low, but serious. The tone of voice made Loqi’s frown hesitate, and he was unable to make eye contact, keeping the head slightly low. “You’re struggling and I know it. I know you’re not having it easy, and I know you’re having troubles getting used to this new lifestyle. But leaving will only worsen things, make it all harder, and not because of me…” Cor got closer to the counter and uncrossed his arms. “I’m just asking something as simple as washing a dish after every meal here. It’s not that bad. Your hands won’t fall off or lose any of their mechanical talent.”

Loqi stayed still for a moment. He turned the head to the other side and snarled quietly. Cor contained a sigh.
“Now, be a good boy and wash your dish.”
“A good boy!?” Loqi snapped again instantly, looking back up at him. “What am I, a dog!?”
“I think you’re more like a…Tiny Tiger.”
“A wh-!?”
“A bit small, but still a tiger, no doubt” Cor continued to not let Loqi freak out, startling him enough so that not even his anger could snap. The blond stayed frozen watching him with wide eyes, as if unable to process what Cor just said or dared say. As his face became red in embarrassment of some ‘humiliation’ according to his pride, Loqi’s nose shrugged with his frown and he took air in as if ready for a comeback, so Cor, on purpose, went on. “Look, if you wash your dishes, you can skip the morning walk every now and then.”

Even though Loqi still seemed to be riled up and was midways through yelling about how dare Cor call him that stupid nickname, his frown instantly softened and he seemed to have considered the idea. And it wasn’t that Cor forced Loqi to the morning walks, but it still wasn’t the Nif’s favorite activity; interacting with other Lucians, go out early, move. Normally that had never been a bother to him but since…since that day…it was difficult to get out of bed, for some reason Loqi couldn’t comprehend despite Cor having explained to him before. Besides, Cor hoped that skipping the morning walk wouldn’t affect him that much; Loqi was taking up really well on exercising (if not daily at least constantly) and that was better and more than enough to allow him a freedom.

After a bit of considering it, Loqi turned some other way and snarled.
“…I won’t forgive you for this” he muttered, but, as bitter and angry as he tried to sound, Cor read between the lines and took it as a yes. He stared at Loqi for a bit while the latter slowly relaxed in his spot, until Cor couldn’t help a subtle tiny smile, even when the Nif wasn’t looking his way.
“Okay” he whispered. Loqi looked at the sink as if though it was a puddle of mud where Loqi was meant to put his head so Cor could then step on him. It was like a murder scene, but instead of murder it was Humiliation.

Cor didn’t say more. Loqi thought he would stay to watch and make sure he did as told and washed his things, but the Marshal left, naturally but immediately.
Cor wanted him to have privacy, because he knew that this wasn’t easy on the guy’s ego. But he had to start somewhere, and Cor hoped that starting from something as basic as a domestic chore could be the good beginning he was looking for to start humbling Loqi at least enough to be a respectful citizen.

Loqi did but stare at the sink with a look of disgust for a while, disgust not towards the sink itself, but towards the idea of, for the first time in his life, being given…instructions. Especially for…domestic stuff. Loqi wasn’t disgusted; in the battlefield he had seen and touched (even landed on his face on) far much worse stuff, fresh human rests to recall some, so it wasn’t the disgust of other typical rich spoiled brats, it was more the…action itself. He was a man of arms and business, not this.

Still, Leonis had spoken about skipping the morning walk and…
Hating himself, Loqi stood up from the stool and rounded the counter with less than zero enthusiasm. He still looked around to make sure Cor wasn’t watching from anywhere, and only after making extra sure and hesitating a couple times, only then Loqi grabbed his dish. He put the sponge down when he thought he was ready to grab it and went for it, and had to fight with himself to force himself to it, with no success.

He went towards the couch, facing the back of it as he came from the kitchen zone, dropped himself forwards, grabbed a cushion, and screamed into it, legs wriggling in the air while he hung folded in two from the back of the couch, letting his anger and frustration out.

Cor, in his room, tried to not snort in fear that Loqi would hear him. He shouldn’t have fun with the deconstruction of Loqi’s bad manners, but…oh, boy, was it hilarious.

--

While Loqi was not the best at hand-to-hand, general melee combat, he still gave his best in correcting the Lucian troops, trying to figure it out through what he knew of theory and having the troops apply them practically.
The thing was that Loqi either could not see it was easier said than done so watching the troops not do it a hundred percent correctly angered him because in his head it seemed so easy, or he simply was still too rude.

The troops were still training with the MT dummies, but had also switched to have half the class attach something to their clothes while training with the other half, who were meant to either take or destroy the cloths or papers that were serving as the fictional important bits of the robots that Loqi was a bit too harshly teaching them to either rip off or destroy. MTs were not meant to be destroyed with brute force (though it worked, just slower, hence running the risk of both tiring out too soon and spending longer at risk), rather have their cores or other vital ‘organs’ taken out or destroyed. Loqi knew it, he knew it very well. He still didn’t know and as much as he had studied it he still couldn’t understand how they worked, what moved them, but he knew every inch, every screw of an MT. He knew how to take one out.

So the fact that the Lucian troops still were taking so long in something so absurd, it drove him nuts.

He walked around the training hall correcting and delivering his mean comments, watching how the Lucians fought each other, some pretending to be MTs, and not even that doing correctly.
“No- no, no, no, stop!” Loqi approached one of the pairs that were fighting. Both paid attention, if with frustration. “What are you two assholes doing!? You expect to survive in the war out there? Have you ever seen an MT? Spine this way- no, don’t touch me- and the hand goes in like this, up, you grab, and you pull, what’s so difficult about it that you half-wit brutes?”

With the roll of the eyes of the Lucians, Loqi left them to keep doing their stuff, and went to another pair.
“Holy sacred Six, what did I tell you last time!?” he roared out after a groan of exasperation. The Lucians started openly complaining in a rather provocative way, but Loqi kept going as if not even listening. “If you dodge like that the MT’s already got you and it just needs one second to electrocute you. May as well make you a favor, maybe being electrocuted will send power up to your brain because I think lights are out in there” a complain and even a little push on a shoulder but he kept going. “You’re fighting a Magitek Assassin, there’s a fucking reason there’s only some hundreds of them, if you encounter one of them and you expect to have a close combat like this you may as well say goodbye to your fingers, throat, and whatever’s in your pants. Fucking don’t, I told you all in class, I’m delighted to know you were listening, you deaf brainless coconut!”

That one Lucian seemed to want to pick into a fight, but his companion stopped him without saying much.
Still, Gladio noticed.
The young Shield was outside the hall; it had view in the upper floor, as one of the walls of the hallway was made out of windows for people to see from the upper floor below at the training troops. He couldn’t quite hear what the tiny, rude, malicious brat was talking about, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the situation; the way he interrupted training couples, corrected postures with a-bit-too-harsh pulling and pushing and grabbing, the look of anger on his face and clear yelling, and the way the Lucians argued back, it was clear he was trying to correct the Lucians’ way of fighting. Like he knew the great thing.

Gladio clicked his tongue and took a slurp out of his drink while watching Loqi come and go around.
“You, absolute dead brain, what are you doing!?” Loqi went up to another Crownsguard and grabbed her by the wrist a bit too roughly to stop her movements. “You really expect to go into battle with a strategy like this!?” he let go. “Six have mercy on me, training you lot is like giving a bunch of fish a bicycle” and so he kept going about correcting the pair.

After a bit, Gladio watched someone else that Loqi corrected argue back and leave. Loqi was unfazed, not bothered or awkward in the slightest, and he just kept going correcting others.
Gladio finished his drink.

So tiny malicious brat thought himself such a great thing he thought he could correct a whole army, huh? What was he, anyway? Twelve? Had he ever been to the battlefield at all or was he just one of those imperials that hid in their base and sent the others to do their job but still bragged about their war successes? He had this untrained body, Gladio could see it. Gladio had been trained all his life, he naturally had a sharp eye to tell when someone knew how to use their body and when not, and Loqi definitely was lost when it came to anything that wasn’t, maybe, and just maybe, flexibility and speed, but he looked too dumb to know how to handle a stick, let alone a sword. He had grace but not like a fighter. He possibly didn’t even know how to throw a punch. And yet he dared look down on the Lucians like they were less than worms, genuinely believing his methods of combat were better and that he could correct people that had ages in training and the battlefield?

Surely he wasn’t even doing this for genuine help, sure he was just being an asshole on purpose, like back when they first met. Sure this was personal.

Pscht.
Tiny, rude, malicious brat needed some humbling lessons, it seemed.

Gladio waited until the training session was over. He waited at the door, leaned against the doorframe and watching the Crownsguard cool down and leave. Some were taking their stuff, some cleaning away the sweat, and most walking out in pairs or little groups. Gladio heard mostly bad comments about Loqi; about his condescending attitude, someone mentioned xenophobia, in general there were expressions of disgust and dislike. Gladio didn’t blame them, really.

He still waited even after the hall seemed to be empty at Loqi’s exception to make sure no one came from another door or back from the hallway. When he was mostly sure no one would return, Gladio went in and closed the doors.
Loqi looked up at him with an eyebrow up and that condescending, blank look of always. He didn’t bother even with a glare or scanning him, he just looked away and kept gathering his own stuff like Gladio wasn’t worth even his mockery or anger.
“So you’re a master of arms.”

Loqi didn’t bother answering. He put his new satchel where he kept new paperwork (including his notes) in and started heading to the doors.
“Hey, Peanut.”
Loqi only stopped because of the comment about his height. After a bit of silence, he looked over his shoulder.
“Where’s your master, mutt?” he asked. “Dangerous to wander too far from your leash.”
“I find it curious that you’re re-teaching our troops” Gladio said with a smile, approaching him a bit more, calmly, and crossing the arms. “What? Are you really that good at melee?”
“I’m certain a dolphin could fight your troops and win, there’s no need for a master” Loqi replied calmly and turned again to the other set of doors, retaking his way. “Fuck off, pooch, I don’t waste my time in pets.”

“I’m sure you’re really good and that’s why you defeated our Marshal so many times.”

Loqi stopped dead in his tracks at the comment. It stung and it made his upper lip tremble like an animal ready to throw a bite. He turned around much more interested and riled up than before just to give Gladio a derogatory and hateful glare. Gladio just smirked and stayed quiet for a bit.
“Say” Gladio said as he uncrossed his arms and approached him a bit more. “Why don’t you show me just how good you are?”

Loqi’s glare was tainted with a hint of confusion. Gladio went to the closest rack and grabbed two swords from it. Loqi watched and his frown softened, and he felt his heart skip in what was clear sudden fear and nervousness that he didn’t admit to himself.
While Gladio approached him directly this time, Loqi couldn’t help but make a quick scan just to remind himself that this mountain of a man was real; tall, maybe a bit more than Cor himself, wider. Arms, currently exposed, thick and huge like a chain of boulders. And, though very deep in the back of his consciousness, a very discreet voice reminded Loqi of his own height and size.

He tried to keep frowning. Once he was close, Gladio gently threw one of the swords his way, which Loqi caught just fine. He looked at it; a wooden double-edged model. He looked up at the young Shield and saw him hold an identical one. Loqi’s heart was speeding, and his common sense told him to back the fuck off, especially due to all the time he had spent losing condition, and his bad leg still recovering.

His pride, however, was far stronger than common sense, much louder, far way more stubborn, and begged to differ.

He gave Gladio a condescending look again.
“Pscht. Double-edged, like a first century barbarian” he muttered and threw it as if it was trash. “Rapier is the way.”
“Oh, fancy-pants, are we?” Gladio said with a laugh as he picked the sword up. Loqi just pouted and started taking his bag off to toss it aside while Gladio went to pick weapons from another rack. Loqi adjusted his gloves, and Gladio came back with a wooden rapier-style sword, and a wooden broadsword that was possibly bigger than Loqi himself. “I had chosen identical to keep it fair, but you want it customized, so then I pick my fave.”
“Unnecessarily huge, I see we’re compensating for a tiny something else?”

Gladio lifted his eyebrows and opened his mouth, still smiling. Loqi just frowned more. Inside, his heart kept speeding up and begging to drop this, but fuck the heart.

“You better be as good with the sword as you are with that sass” before Loqi could reply, Gladio started walking backwards to put space between them. “You said a dolphin could do this so if you can’t win I’m going to consider you less capable than a fingerless, legless mammal.”
“Oh, you know dolphins are mammals? I’d have never imagined your intellect had capacity enough for that sort of info.”
“Less whining, more fighting.”
“Didn’t expect a more intelligent philosophy from a brute.”

And so, after Gladio gave a wide grin and Loqi a frown, they got into a defensive position each, ready to start at any time.

Without moving from his spot, Loqi moved the sword to his left hand. Gladio noticed and snorted quietly. He also guessed Loqi was not going to give a first step, which was already more than he expected; from what little he knew, Loqi was the impulsive type, so he had assumed that that plus his possible lack of combat skills would make him throw himself headfirst into the fight senselessly. But him waiting spoke about someone rational calculating, and maybe keeping cool. A point to his favor, but Gladio was going to break through everything; he wanted to defeat him. Screw putting him to test, Gladio was there specifically to throw him down and defeat him.

And gods would he have loved to do it in front of the others, so to make justice and give everyone the sight they wanted and needed; see the man that thought himself superior was pathetic. But Gladio also guessed that was immature; as personal as he was taking this, he also had stopped to think of the consequences of beating him in front of the others. For one, Loqi was supposed to be on the current lead of logistics and strategies for the war, and people still didn’t like him. Humiliating him publicly would only make him pass as an incapable soldier, hence making people’s scarce faith in him decrease even more. Gladio wanted to humiliate him, yes, but not to that point. So personal it would stay.

He approached first. Calm and safe. Loqi watched him and did nothing other than that.
And so they threw a first slash.
Both missed and dodged at their times.
For a moment they just stared at each other. Gladio seemed calm and was giving him a sassy sly look that Loqi didn’t like. He just frowned and seemed to be mostly cautious. So he wasn’t dumb.
In his spot, Loqi tried to not breathe through the mouth and stay calm. He had to win, his pride demanded, or it would be the end of the world and he could as well die. And not that anything important would happen or anything, but that was pride, unexplainably stubborn and terrified of losing.

After the pause, Loqi approached first, supposedly with strategy in mind. He pretended to throw a slash on a side, cut it midways, and swiftly moved to a side, but right as he thrust his sword into what he had imagined as an opening, Gladio quickly blocked it and even pushed his sword a bit too roughly, making Loqi stumble a bit. Gladio tried to take the chance to hit, but Loqi, acting more by reflex, turned over himself in a motion to both avoid the hit and get balance again.
“Heh” Gladio chuckled. “Didn’t expect you’d make it this far!”

Loqi didn’t answer. He clearly- had underestimated the brute. And he was clearly into a struggle, though that he didn’t admit it. Heart beating faster than he was actually physically agitated, and more scared than he realized (mostly at the thought of humiliation rather than injury), Loqi tried to attack once more.
Gladio looked like a boulder but he was much faster and agile than one. He mostly blocked attacks, but he had no troubles in dodging and moving away. He thought his movements. Everything he did was premeditated.
So he was not a brainless barbarian trusting blindly in brute force…

Gladio tried attacking from a side, but Loqi dodged naturally, even with some grace; immediately as he dodged, he tried thrusting again, but Gladio managed to block it right in time. Stepping back, Loqi snarled a little in anger, and Gladio very easily read the reason of his frustration.
“Thought I’d be in disadvantage just because you’re a leftie?” he asked. Loqi didn’t answer, but the freezing, hateful glare he gave him was enough. “Got news for you, pipsqueak; I’m being trained to be the best warrior of the world. I know my way around lefties just fine.”
“Your amounts of narcissism have impressed me more than your oh so glorified combat skills, mutt” Loqi replied. “Too much Me for someone without a personality, don’t you think?”

Gladio replied with a low chuckle again, and tried slashing to get back into the fight, but Loqi moved away right in time.
Being honest, Loqi struggled more than enough, with everything; dodging was barely in time, even if he pretended to be fine, and blocking was worse. Gladiolus had an unthinkable strength, and blocking his hits wasn’t easy; Loqi felt it ring in all his arms, and he had to use every fiber of strength he had in not twisting his wrist a wrong way and to really hold the hit. Still, his pride and stubbornness allowed him to last in the fight far, far longer than he would have wasn’t he as unhealthily proud as he was.

Not to say that the size difference gave him vantages too; while Gladio had most vantage in strength and skill, being small was in no way all negative. Loqi could escape more easily, get quicker into his blind spots, be much faster and much more agile than him. Plus, the less the mass, the less the probabilities of hitting it. Once, he even managed to slide from under Gladio’s legs to the other side, and while he later struggled with having to stand back up dodging Gladio’s attacks at the same time, it added a bit to his ego for a second, too.

Loqi gave his best, he really did.
But as Cor would tell Gladio later, Loqi was a pilot, not a ground soldier.

Whereas Gladio, of course, was trained the other way around. Technology went past him, but he had been trained the traditional way by the best soldiers of the kingdom, in a strict routine that had lasted almost all his life. Not only was he specifically trained to be a ‘best warrior’, but Loqi was also running poorly in his current condition, even if he had been recovering it little by little.
Not to say that one of Gladio’s teachers had been and still was Cor himself.
And Loqi could never defeat Cor.

The two kept going for a good while into the sparring, to the point of making Gladio himself sweat a drop or two, mostly out of chasing the guy rather than struggling. He was offering fight enough to be sneaky, but not too much that he was a threat. If Gladio didn’t defeat him sooner that was because he hadn’t hit him, not because Loqi was good, but because Gladio saw him so small, he feared to kill him if he hit a bit too hard.
Loqi became more and more breathless with every second. His movements, earlier graceful like a warrior prince, were becoming more dumb and tired. Cheeks slightly red in effort and heat, and sweat starting to dampen his forehead, Loqi breathed through the mouth where Gladiolus seemed to be too calm.

Loqi hated it. And he felt threatened. He had to hit Gladiolus before he tired out. And he tried, he really did. But his skills were not enough.
Loqi tried approaching from a side and thrusting; Gladio blocked, pushed his sword away, Loqi tried throwing a punch, Gladio blocked it and tried thrusting; Loqi barely moved away in time, tried to throw a hit into Gladio’s blind side, but Gladio pushed the sword yet again and, by mere reflex, he used the broadsword’s flat side to use it as he used the shield normally and throw a hit with it, and so he hit Loqi straight in the face.

The Nif fell down immediately, without stumbling first. Being still in movement, too close to Gladio, and Gladio’s strength as compared to Loqi’s size, it was just natural in the moment the wood plank hit him on the face. Noticing what had happened, Gladio’s smirk disappeared and he gasped quietly, putting the sword away to look down at Loqi.
The Nif laid on the floor, holding his nose.

“Oh, man” Gladio murmured, with a look of genuine concern. He hurried to put the broadsword away. “Oh, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you for real so hard.”
Loqi didn’t reply. He stayed thrown on the floor, tense, and switching between breathing heavily and staying breathless and tense, hands to the nose. Gladio hurried to get down on a knee next to him to try to get a look, but when he softly asked Loqi to let him see and got his hands on Loqi’s, the Nif pushed him away roughly and angrily.
“I’m sorry” Gladio repeated. “I didn’t mean it. I won’t give you excuses, I’m just- sorry, man.”

Loqi still stayed in his spot as mute and still as before, eyes shut tight to try to not start crying from the pain. He didn’t need it, didn’t want to. Not only had he been raised and instructed into crying is for the weak, but it would also feed Gladiolus’ ego, or so Loqi thought. Truth be told, Gladio wasn’t that proud anymore of the victory; he just wanted the guy to fall on his butt, not actually hurt him, but Loqi didn’t see it that way and he truly believed it had been his purpose all along.
“Do you want me to bring the first aid kit?” Gladio asked, but Loqi just snarled and shook the head. “I’m sorry, man.”

Loqi tried snapping at him, but it still hurt a bit and he feared to sound more like a squeak than a yell. After a bit, he sat up and pushed Gladiolus’ hand away when he offered it again, and his hands returned to his nose. He put them away and looked down at his gloves.
“Oh, fuck” Gladio whispered when he saw the result. It wasn’t as clear in Loqi’s gloves as they were black, but it was very clear on his fair skin, the big stain of red under his nose. It didn’t seem broken and Gladio had learned that it always looked like more and worse than it actually was, but it still had not been what he wanted, and seeing the guy’s nose bleed really pinched him with guilt. “Fuck, I’m sorry-”
“Fuck off” Loqi snapped between clenching teeth. He hissed and held his nose again, then put the back of one of his hands under his nostrils. “Fucking- fantastic.”
“Look, I really didn’t mean-”
“Fuck off!” Loqi finally yelled at him and stood up, hand still to his nose.

Gladio did but sigh in his place and shake the head a little. Then, he stood up as well and watched Loqi as he left. Little could he do to help someone that didn’t want to be helped, he guessed, so he just watched the blond angrily grab his satchel again, and then storm his way to the doors.

Perhaps it wasn’t the most mature move from Gladio, and he really meant no harm. He had just wanted to hurt the guy’s ego.
But even if it went a bit wrong or further what was intended, the truth is that the sparring did hurt Loqi’s ego. Which the gods knew really needed to be hurt.

--

Sometimes, and recently, Loqi had taken up on scribbling a lot of formulas on the chalkboard, mostly when the class had yet not started.

Cor would lie if he said he understood them all. Algebra, ok. Slightly more advanced algebra was already some troubles, and even more advanced math was unintelligible. Cor knew some physics, it was a great help in the battlefield, but math to this point…he had left it back at high school and the Six knew it had been a while.

Yet Loqi wrote it all with such naturalness, it looked like a child drawing sticks and circles, or someone scribbling the alphabet. His hand went swift and light and he didn’t even seem to need to pause to think about it while he solved the formulas and got to the answers only to make more.
Cor had already asked him once some days ago what he was writing.
“Basic math, you wouldn’t understand” Loqi had answered, and it wasn’t until later that he explained that it was some formulas for the common algorithms of imperial mechs when they worked on autopilot, or sometimes important formulas for imperial devices or codes or computers which he was either trying to remake, remember, decode, hack, comprehend, or predict, or in the case of the mechs, find a way to find the weak points to later explain in class.

Cor still didn’t understand. He understood that technology required a huge bunch of math, but the math itself that Loqi was using was beyond his vocabulary. So all he could do was sit on his Designated Chair, arms on the back of it, and watch Loqi do his work. Once or twice he was hit with a chalk for staring, but Loqi seemed to have grown used to that too. What else could Cor do? And, Loqi once said, he couldn’t blame a monkey for being awestruck by something as basic as fire, he guessed. Cor never really felt offended by his insults.

To be honest, watching Loqi work on math was…quite something. Being shamelessly honest, it was mesmerizing. The way his hand flew without a pause scribbling numbers and letters and lines, how Loqi seemed to unfazed by these formulas that would scare anyone not instructed like him, how fast he went through it. Loqi was incredibly intelligent…far more than Cor gave him credit for, if he had to admit. He knew Loqi was an engineer, but because he always spoke more than he actually was or did, he hadn’t imagined him to be this good. Plus, twenty-one? A rookie, for sure. But nope; there he went, surprising Cor, and making him stare in awe and fascination and admiration.

That day, Cor was on ‘watch task’ with Loqi, keeping an eye on him as was sometimes his duty across the day. There was no class, and Loqi was using the free time of his classroom to scribble his stuff on the chalkboard. Cor was quiet most of the time, watching in fascination. How could such a young man be this goddamn intelligent? Watching him work on math was perhaps Cor’s favorite part, because Loqi was in his field, he was not yelling at anyone, and he was amazing at it. It was like watching a fish that lived in a tiny bowl be set into a large pond.

Cor didn’t like interrupting him. It annoyed Loqi and made him pause sometimes. But still, Cor sometimes couldn’t help it.
“I heard you asked for engineers, precisely to take up on this stuff” Cor said after taking himself from the fascination, taking his head off his hand, and crossing both arms on the back of the chair. “Why did you regret it?”
“Your engineers won’t be smart enough to follow me” Loqi replied as simply.
“Have you worked with them before?”

Loqi replied first with a sarcastic, amused snort. His hand didn’t stop working on his formulas.
“I don’t need to lose my time, Cor” he replied. “You Lucians aren’t as advanced as we are in Niflheim in the exact sciences. It doesn’t take much brain to know your graduates aren’t at the same level than a Nifelian graduate. Your engineers may have their diplomas and whatever, but I’m probably at the level of your doctorates at least, if you people have those” at his comments, Cor couldn’t help but put an eyebrow up. Oh, yes, he forgot about this part of Loqi. “I’ll work this faster alone. Not to say, I’ll be exact. Your engineers could make a mistake and goodbye to your troops for the engineers’ miscalculations, and I’m not willing to take the blame for that bunch of incompetents, thank you very much.”

Cor hummed lowly in response and put the hand up again to once more rest his cheek on it, watching Loqi’s hand still fly as he worked on his math. He remained thoughtful.
After a bit, Cor took out his phone and opened his texts.
-Monica, can you ask Alee to bring me some water or something to Loqi’s classroom, please?

- Lol.
-Water or something lol why do you really want her there?

-Please.

->:(
-No explaining, huh?
-Fine

Cor put his phone down and hoped that that ‘fine’ was a real ok and not sarcasm. He once more focused in looking at Loqi’s formulas, and he tried a bit to try to understand them. To be honest he couldn’t tell if there were any mistakes…it all looked so…real, so certain. Plus, Loqi was really tidy, even when writing a bunch of math, so the strict, almost perfect symmetry the chalkboard looked in added a lot to the sensation that everything there was correct. Still, Cor lost nothing trying a bit of luck…

Some minutes later, there was a knock. Loqi didn’t even bother on growling as he sometimes did when he was interrupted, he kept working. Cor thought about reaching for the door but he needed her to come in and it would look weird if he went for the door then back inside.
“Come on in.”
“Uhm…Marshal?” a young woman at the door asked, coming in rather shyly, as if lost. “Uh…captain Elshett said you…wanted…a cupcake?”
A cupcake, of course, thank you very much, Monica. From the corner of his eye he saw Loqi pause his work and turn very subtly his way.
“Yes” Cor replied as naturally as he could. Yes, Cor Leonis wanting a cupcake was the usual, of course.

Because Cor did nothing to get to her, she seemed to cringe a bit at coming into the classroom, and Cor couldn’t blame her for feeling as awkward and lost and odd.
She was an engineer, after all. He could only imagine Monica going into one of the engineering offices and ask one of them to suddenly be a messenger had to be odd, especially so to get a goddamn cupcake to the Marshal. And not that Cor didn’t like cupcakes, he loved them, but it was the workplace and he knew about how his younger workmates saw him as this stoic feeling-less phantom that ate chains for breakfast because he was just that rude, so first taking her off engineering work to deliver a cupcake to The Immortal…yes. Awkward. Thanks, Monica.

She went in and approached Cor.
“Here…you go, Marshal?” she tried.
“Thanks, Alee” he said and smiled accepting his cupcake (with rainbow sprinkles as the captain said he liked it, thank you very much Monica). “You can leave, thank you.”

She gave a smile and a nod, but right as she was leaving, Cor gestured for her to stay, silent. Thankfully, from his seat Loqi couldn’t see them unless he turned. She stayed and looked at Cor attentively, who gestured to lean closer. Then, Cor whispered something to her low enough so hopefully Loqi wouldn’t hear it above the noise of the chalk on the board. She stood back up straight and looked at the chalkboard. She looked around, stared at it for quite a while.
And then, against all odds and even though Cor really had no hopes for it, she blinked and reacted slightly to something.

She gave him a look as if silently asking if it was ok to do what she wanted to do. Cor nodded, a bit too hurriedly, to encourage her. She not only was one of the best engineers in the palace, but had also heard not enough rumors about Loqi to fear him.
So she just got closer fearless of any reprimand or insult.
“Uhm…excuse me? Mister Tummelt?”

Loqi paused for a second, but didn’t turn. He stayed still as if to let her know how much he hated interruptions without needing to tell her.
“What?” Loqi asked dryly, not taking his eyes off the last formula he was midways through. Alee got a bit closer to try to get his attention, but he didn’t turn.
“I…I don’t mean to be a bother, but…” after some hesitation and awkwardness, she tried pointing at a spot of the chalkboard. “That logarithm is…wrong.”

Loqi stayed still for a good while after the comment. He looked annoyed and not impressed or the slightest curious to look at either the pointed formula or the Lucian stranger. Fearing he was angry and not believing her, she kept going.
“It’s- a common mistake, really, I do it all the time, particularly with that one logarithm because it’s really easy to mix it up with a similar one, and the mistake is just in the two last decimals, I- I always mess up this one too because it’s so easy to make the connection with- and- yes, I thought I’d let you know, I mean, you’ve written a lot already so it’s just normal it slips by and you honestly have written a lot of amazing stuff, it’s just- these two last decimals…”

Loqi finally turned to look at her. He did so with another of his so famous condescending looks, this time adding a smart smirk and a look that clearly said ‘oh, please’, like an adult that thinks it adorable of a toddler to try to correct him. He stared for a while as if expecting to convince her to take it back and please go play with her crayons, but she just stayed still, if a little awkward, but not taking anything back. Seeing the brave choice of defying him, he turned to look at the algorithm that she referred to.
His stomach twisted inside.

Cor didn’t see his face from the spot at his chair, the way it transformed from the sly sassy smirk to a look of seriousness and surprise, and even with some disbelief. He read the formula, and he read it again.
It was…wrong.
The last two decimals, they were…incorrect.

Despite not seeing his face, Cor could still tell Alee had been right. If she had been wrong, Loqi would have already pointed it out, but he continued staring at the chalkboard, at the same spot, not moving or saying anything.
Loqi stared at the same numbers and read them again and again, as if hoping that maybe if he kept reading them the numbers would change to the correct ones. It was a minor mistake, really, but Loqi was…rather petty. Very petty. Even in the unimportant things like this.
A Lucian couldn’t outsmart him. A Lucian? A Lucian! Outsmart him in math!?

He felt the blow on his ego straight away, but he didn’t admit it. It stung at the top of his stomach.

Loqi re-read the numbers again. Not only was a Lucian outsmarting him in his field, but it was also something so tiny, so insignificant…something that he considered so obvious. Because now that he looked at it, he hadn’t calculated wrong, he had just been thinking about the next logarithm and mixed it up, but he knew this one perfectly fine, by heart, he didn’t even need to make the calculations because that was how perfectly he knew the answer, and he had been wrong…and now a Lucian pointed it out!? How was he supposed to explain he knew the answer without it sounding like a pathetic excuse?

He was cornered in every way. He couldn’t put such pathetic excuse, but he also couldn’t deny that she was right…
And it hurt his ego even more. It added salt to the wound.

“…you’re right” Loqi said softly after a while, turning her way but barely able to keep eye contact. He tried to say it straight away, but it took so much effort letting go of his pride enough to say the last bit that it took him even longer to say the next. He had to take air in and try two to three times before he swallowed and forced himself to say it; it came out forced, hesitant, not very sincere, and with clear frustration that he tried to keep hidden. “Thanks…”

She nodded and gave a forced smile not of hypocrisy but rather awkwardness, whispered ‘Yes’, and walked away. She gave Cor a puzzled look going out, but he just gave her a nod, unable to get rid of a smile that she didn’t know very well how to read; he seemed…amused by the whole situation. But why? Who was he laughing at? Still, she guessed it was whatever, and so after saying goodbye to the Marshal, she left.

And it was silent for a bit. Loqi was standing still, head still processing what just happened. Cor, at his chair, fought with all his might to not burst out laughing, smiling and looking either down or at Loqi. After a bit of being in shock and swallowing the bitter taste of humiliation, Loqi used his gloved hand to erase the wrong numbers, and wrote down the real ones.
Even the noise of the chalk had quieted a bit, as if mirroring the guy’s ego itself. Not into insecurity, but into…balance, after being overly loud.

’Straight into the ‘Lucian engineers aren’t at my level’, isn’t it? Cor thought about saying. Straight into the ‘I’ll be exact’, isn’t it?
But of course he didn’t say it. Loqi had enough with being shown in actions. It wasn’t even necessary to be said; Loqi was clearly in the same realizations and process of thoughts.
The Nif paused a bit again after having corrected the logarithm, as if still too shocked and needing time to process it. After a while, he went back to the last spot he had been working at, and continued after the interruption. He didn’t turn back to look at Cor, acting as if nothing had happened.

Cor didn’t tease him any further or asked or pointed anything out. He wanted Loqi to humble a bit, but he couldn’t just attack him with things. Step by step it would be. And besides, it seemed like it was not going to be that necessary for Cor to be very active on coming up with and applying any humility lessons; with things like this, it seemed like the world itself would get in charge of teaching Loqi that he was brilliant and important, yes, but not superior to others. He was living a radical change of lifestyle ripped away from all his previous commodities and privileges…Cor didn’t need to work too hard into it. Living a normal, Lucian, domestic life would teach Loqi eventually.

Though sometimes he couldn’t wait. He could only imagine what sort of incredible human being Loqi was going to be when, besides intelligent and skilled and handsome and passionate and brave, he would take ‘noble’ not as a title but as an adjective.

Chapter Text

The day that Loqi accepted Gladiolus’ dare for sparring and ended up with a bloodied nose, Cor noticed.

He had just left Prompto behind and headed for Loqi’s classroom. Living with Loqi, and Prompto attending school during the day left the Leonis with only the Citadel to hang together. And there was more than spare time for that, but it still was not the same than before. Still, Prompto didn’t seem to resent it. If anything, he seemed each day more interested in knowing more about how Cor’s days were going with Loqi. Cor didn’t like to talk about the General with his son, so he kept it in the basic or vague answers, but also tried to not be so vague that it would drive Prompto to start spying on Loqi again for the answers he wanted.

After having shared a very delightful lunch with Prompto, Cor went to Loqi’s classroom. He found he had arrived before the younger man, but didn’t put much concern into it. He reached for what had become his favorite chair and sat, waiting. After quite some minutes, the door opened and Loqi came in, angrier than usual.
“Took your time” Cor said. “What’s up?”
“Fuck off.”
Well, okay.

Cor sunk his cheek onto his palm as usual and watched Loqi head for the front of the classroom. He took his satchel off, moved some stuff, muttered something, and it was after he had it all ready and he grabbed the chalk that Cor noticed he didn’t have gloves on as was so usual in him. Loqi seemed to have gloves incarnated, he rarely took them off, so it didn’t go unnoticed.
“And your gloves?”
“Shiva tits, Cor, leave me alone” Loqi hissed at him still angrily and frown deepening. And it was frowning what made Cor notice; Loqi’s frown sometimes reached a point where his nose shrugged up, and Cor found the gesture as funny as cute, and he looked by mere reflex. He didn’t notice at first, or didn’t process fully what it was. It was until a bit later that he tried focusing more, shamelessly, moving the head forwards and squinting the eyes. Normally, Loqi would turn his way and throw a chalk for staring like that, but he just kept muttering really angrily and writing his stuff for the upcoming class.

After a while watching and trying to convince his brain that it was what it looked like, Cor stood up from the chair and approached him.
“What?” Loqi asked him when Cor stopped next to him, frowning and glaring up at him.
“Is your nose…dirty?”
Loqi’s hand immediately moved up to hide his nose. He had tried to clean it as best as possible before getting to his classroom, but there was only so much one could do when the red of blood stayed slightly tinted into his fair skin. He put the hand down and looked away, hissing angrily.
“Fuck off, Cor.”
“Is it blood?”

Cor took Loqi’s face and made him turn. Loqi let him only at first; then, he made eye contact with the Marshal, and he felt stupid having Cor’s hand hold his face like that, the fingers squishing his cheeks, so he pushed Cor’s hand away rather roughly.
“Sweet Astrals, Cor, leave me alone!”
“Who did it?”

Loqi was about to snap out at him and yell, but he contained it at the last second, chest still up from the breath he was containing, as if his yell was still trapped inside. He considered it for a second. He wanted to yell at Cor that it was not his business, but he immediately also understood that Cor was misunderstanding all of this. Loqi too had had time to get to know Cor a little beyond the Immortal portrayal he had of him, and what he knew best of the Marshal was one thing: his tendency to over worry, exaggerate, and take things with all that…unexplainable, stupidly profound care. So of course the idiot was thinking someone punched Loqi for fun, like Loqi would allow it.

So, despite hating it and wanting to yell at him, Loqi surprisingly managed to keep it cool and decided to clear it up because he knew this idiot.
“It’s- fine, it’s fine, okay?” he said still angrily, but as contained and calm as it could be being himself. “3-B can’t measure his strength, that’s all. Stop over worrying, I don’t need you to stand up for me and I fucking hate that you try to do that, so don’t.”
“3-B?”
“Big Brute Barbarian” Loqi stated calmly. Cor still stared blankly at him with a slight frown of confusion. Loqi waited, but he ended up rolling the eyes and sighing as angrily as before. “The prince’s pet!”

Despite what Loqi had just said about hating that Cor wanted to stand up for him, which wasn’t what Cor was doing, or at least he didn’t mean to, Cor couldn’t help but instantly tense and react to that. He stood quiet, eyes surprised and full on Loqi. The Nif crossed the arms and glared up at him, hating the stupid moment and hating the Marshal and hating everything.
“Gladiolus?” Cor whispered. Loqi sighed louder than before and shook the head, then turned his attention to the chalkboard again.
“So what? I’m not a child, I’ve had it worse in the battlefield, so don’t make a drama out of this or I’ll be really mad at you, Cor Leonis.”

Cor still stood there frozen for a couple seconds more before he shook the head and snapped out of it. He tried whispering a rushed startled ‘Yes’, then tried to go sit back at his place.
He couldn’t. After staring at Loqi with wide surprised eyes, and figuring he couldn’t stop staring at the slightly reddish nose which kept reminding him Loqi had bled right that damn same day, and that it had been Gladiolus among anyone else in the world, he stood up again and calmly headed for the door. Loqi watched him exit, but didn’t stop him. He felt his stomach flip in anger, because he knew what Cor was going to do and he hated him for it. It made him feel weak. Worse, it made him feel like Cor saw him as weak.
Fuck Cor. He didn’t need all his care…all this…overprotection. He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t weak.

Yet the little sting at his nose begged to differ, and he was about to slam his face into the chalkboard out of anger for that bastard of a reminder he had on his face.

A few days later, Loqi crossed paths with Gladio again.

The Nif was pacing through the Citadel’s hallways, minding his own world and business as always and ignoring whoever crossed his way. Gladio, who had been looking for him, saw him turn without having seen him, so he rushed to catch up with him. Not a difficult task, as he guessed one of his normal strides had to be like four steps from Tiny Malicious Brat.
“Hey, Loqi!” he tried calling. The Nif stopped in his way and looked over his shoulder with that frown of always and Gladio confirmed that yes, it wasn’t personal, the boy was always frowning.
“How dare you call me by my name, mutt?” Loqi asked him more angered than offended. Gladio slowed down as he caught up with him, which seemed to force Loqi to turn around to face him properly. He crossed the arms. “What?”
“Why did you tell Cor I hit you?” Gladio asked, not frowning but clearly upset.
“Because the bastard keeps asking every fucking time something happens” Loqi replied. “What? Uncle Leonis scolded you, toddler?”
“Well. Yes.”

Loqi’s frown hesitated and softened. He couldn’t help but give Gladio a look of surprise.
“…really?”
“Yeah, because you lied” Gladio said, annoyed. “You made it sound like I did it out of the blue and on purpose and he got really mad at me.”
“I didn’t tell him that!” Loqi argued back, frown deepening. “You dare call me a liar? I’m not like you, Lucians, I have honor and I’m not afraid to say things as they are.”
“Well, you forgot to tell him that it was a sparring session and made it sound like I did it for fun while you were defenseless.”
“He didn’t ask!” Loqi exclaimed. “It’s not my fault your Marshal has such scarce listening comprehension. He asked who hit me, I said you, he didn’t ask how.”
“And you didn’t care explain even though you knew how it sounded.”
“I’m not Leonis’ nanny to explain everything with apples and circles just because he can’t understand something obvious.”
“I understand you were embarrassed of losing, but you could have-”
“I’m not embarrassed!” Loqi yelped out at him, getting closer and glaring up at him with his angriest look. Gladio, like the first time they met, had to lean down to frown at Loqi too, making a stupid picture of having to bend a bit too much to get their faces close only so both could snarl at each other. “Fuck off, mutt.”

Loqi didn’t move from his spot. It seemed like he wanted Gladio to be the one turning his back first to leave, but Gladio was not going to give him that pleasure so he stayed there, still glaring back in a fight to see who tired first. After a while, Gladio hummed and stood straight back up, crossing the arms.
“Whatever” Gladio said. “I cleared it for him, anyway. And I guess I do partly deserved that scolding” Loqi’s frown softened a little, but his pride didn’t let him lower the guard despite the surprise of what the Shield had just said. He watched that boulder of a man sigh and give him an apologetic look. “I meant it when I said I didn’t mean to hit you that hard and that I’m sorry.”
“Yes, whatever, I don’t need your pity or apologies” Loqi replied, nose shrugging up along his frown.
“Stop being so proud, Astrals” Gladio said with furrowed eyebrows but a smile. “All I mean to say is that it was childish of me to challenge you. It was clearly unfair on you.”

Loqi’s frown deepened and he couldn’t help the subtlest shade of red on his cheeks.
“If it’s about my height…!” Loqi started and cut it off, properly yelling this time, and Gladio was sure the boy had just become a hot boiling teapot ready to explode. “Just because I’m smaller and more normal than you, fucking abnormal Titan sperm, doesn’t mean that I’m less skilled or that I’m less capable than you! It was just a slip, I could defeat you or anyone in this fucking country any time I so wish, did you hear me!?”
“Chill, oh my gods, no, that’s not what I meant” Gladio said putting the palms up. Loqi seemed to still want to rage at him, face a little redder and upper lip twitching the slightest. “I meant because of things that I didn’t know and Cor told me when he scolded me. Like your bad leg. I didn’t know. I hope I didn’t hurt it?”

Loqi seemed to have been taken a little off guard at the sudden softness and question. He pouted and looked away.
“It’s…fine, I don’t need your concern” he muttered.
“Glad to know that” the Shield smiled. “I also didn’t take in consideration that you’re not a foot soldier. I’m so used to…well, literally everyone being a foot soldier that I forgot about you imperial mech pilots. Of course you were in disadvantage, it’s not your ground. You’re expert at your field, not mine. So I’m sorry for that.”
“A foot soldier…” Loqi said as if the syllables tasted bad in his mouth. “I’m a general. I don’t go around being a foot soldier. It’s obvious” Gladio just had time to put the eyes and eyebrows up, though still smiling, but Loqi went on. “That still doesn’t mean I’m a weakling. I could fucking destroy you if I so wished. Just…as soon as my leg heals completely.”
“I don’t doubt it” Gladio said. “In your mech, at least. Cor said you’re great at that.”

Loqi instantly reacted with a tiny flinch; a subtle quick blink, the sudden relaxed shoulders, and a barely open mouth, along a little noise of surprise, all while feeling something in his stomach twist, like he had had a string attached to it and someone had pulled. He remained quiet and frozen, looking up at Gladiolus with a frown of surprise and confusion. He stayed quiet for so long that Gladio gave him a look and tilted the head to a side as if wanting to see what was wrong. Loqi’s mouth moved a little, hesitant, tried speaking and failed over and over until he finally managed something out.
“…Cor…said what…?” he murmured.
“That you’re a great pilot” Gladio repeated. “It was pretty bad, not gonna lie. He got really mad at me when he thought it had been an assault rather than practice. He must care a lot about you because it’s been years since he last yelled at me” Loqi looked away, feeling a pinch in the heart. “He was all ‘how dare you hit him like that, are you not seeing the size differences and disadvantage’, ‘you could have given him a concussion, and you hurt him for real’, ‘are you not seeing his situation’, and after that he told me about you being a pilot, not a foot soldier and he was like” and so Gladio tried an impression of the Marshal, frowning out of nowhere as if to imitate even his face. “‘He’s bad at melee because he focused all his time at other skills, piloting no less, so you shouldn’t have challenged him to something you’re expert at and he’s not. What if he challenged you to a mech fight, something you’re not instructed at? And be grateful it wasn’t the case, because he didn’t get to Brigadier General at that age for nothing; at your current level you wouldn’t be able to take him out alone, by miles, I guarantee you; he’s dangerous and great at piloting that thing.”

Loqi felt, yet again, a sudden pull of a string, this time both in the heart and the stomach. It felt awful. His heart sped up at a strange, alarming pace, and his cheeks started burning. He couldn’t help but keep looking at Gladiolus with the same shocked frown, not breathing.
Cor…said that…?
So what? he rushed to think. So what, so what, so what, he didn’t care, it meant nothing to him, Cor’s word meant nothing and he didn’t want it or need it and he didn’t feel praised because it wasn’t a compliment, it was the truth and truth wasn’t flattering.
Yet, he couldn’t help but look a little down, still frowning, and heart swollen and racing.
“…he said that?” he repeated in a murmur.
“Yep” Gladio said. “He didn’t get into detail, but by the way he spoke, I think you were never like…a threat to him? But that’s fine, I mean…it’s Cor. No one is a threat to him. But he speaks as if though you at least gave him some fight, and I think that’s already quite an achievement. I mean, it’s the Cor Leonis. I wouldn’t take his words in vain. Betcha you’re really something with those robot things if you left the tiniest of impressions on him.”

Loqi didn’t hear half of everything he said. His heartbeat drummed in his ears and his head could only repeat over and over everything that 3B was saying Cor said. Half his brain was screaming at him that he didn’t care, the other half kept repeating everything all at once, causing a chaos that made him look around as if suddenly lost, then down, and stay frozen, unsure, made an inner disaster. His heart beat fast, it beat so fast, he didn’t remember last time it went like that.

Gladio watched his reaction, puzzled and interested. The boy seemed like having a lot of troubles processing the information. Gladio tried giving him his time; he guessed it had to be quite something. Yet, he couldn’t help but find it sort of cute. After a while, the Shield chuckled.
“Say, how old are you?” Loqi looked at him not understanding why the sudden change of conversation. “Just wanna make sure you’re not a minor.”
“…A min-!?” Loqi yelled, instantly burning red and frowning, taken out from his startled state. “I’m twenty two this year if you must know!”
“I turned 22 earlier this year! We’re the same age!” Gladio said a bit too cheerfully, as if having found out they were brothers or something. Loqi gave him a confused frown. “I’ll take that as a dare, alright?” Gladio said and he got closer. Before Loqi could anticipate it or move away, Gladio suddenly had him in a soft headlock, enough to be a hug and not too much that it would hurt or discomfort Loqi. Still, he was annoyed, but quiet out of the surprise. “I’m not going to stay behind some brat my age that looks like 12, it’d be humiliating. I’m already starting to impress Cor at melee so don’t feel so special, alright?” Gladio squeezed a bit and messed with Loqi’s hair before letting go; the Nif, with a complaint, immediately rushed away of him some steps, angrily frowning and glaring up at him. “And say, I was also thinking, you could use some melee skills. I could teach you if you want. And because you’re not a minor it’s fine to break a few bones.”

Loqi gave him a look from head to toe. Like what he had been told that Cor said wasn’t enough to startle him beyond words, now he had 3B being…overwhelmingly nice and making invitations and treating him like a friend…!?
Loqi snorted with sarcasm, frowning again.
“I don’t need you to teach me anything, you Big Brute Barbarian!” Loqi exclaimed, and then dramatically stretched the arm to point at Gladio with a finger to the face. “Next time we fight it won’t be a lesson, I’m going to defeat you!”

Gladio stared at the tip of Loqi’s finger for a bit, as if surprised. Then, he chuckled and smirked.
“Alright” he said and crossed the arms. “Pipsqueak. But so long you don’t have your mech, I doubt it.”

Loqi didn’t bother replying. He scowled and subtly growled at Gladio, who just chuckled with a wider smirk and a lifted eyebrow. It was very clear that Loqi was not going to turn first, so Gladio, amused at the guy’s pride, just chuckled again and decided to turn first and leave. Loqi still glared all the way until Gladio disappeared behind another hallway before he turned too and retook his way.
He walked through a hallway just fine. Except for the racing beat of his heart that had not in any moment calmed.

Loqi tried to repeat it to himself all the time, so what, but his heart kept speeding up and his stomach kept doing stupid things. Angry at the sensations he was experimenting because he didn’t want them, Loqi turned into a hallway and tried opening the first door he saw. Locked. He tried with the next, found it open, and looked inside to make sure there was no one there. It seemed like an empty little office. He closed the door behind himself and locked it.
‘He said you’re great at it’.

Loqi kept the back pressed to the door as if expecting any enemy to try to throw it down. He glared at the floor, frown slowly deepening each time more.
Cor said he was a good pilot. Sure, it seemed like Cor had had no idea who Loqi was before all this mess despite Loqi believing they were sworn enemies, and Cor defeated him every time, but…thinking that Cor said that…and not in his presence, which made it more sincere because Cor’s intention when he said it wasn’t for Loqi to hear it but for someone else to know it…
A good pilot.
Cor thought he was a good pilot.

Loqi’s frown deepened as much as it could…but his face also burnt in the brightest shade of red it could handle. His heart flipped inside him and died for a moment, so swollen it felt like his chest itself had grown.
So what!? He tried reminding himself. He didn’t want to feel like this. Cor was- used to be his nemesis, his enemy, his eternal rival. He didn’t care about what he thought about him. It wasn’t a compliment. He didn’t want his whole body to react this way, like…fuck, gods, it felt like he was a kid being praised by their TV superhero, and Leonis was not his hero; Loqi didn’t look up to him, didn’t admire, didn’t praise, didn’t like. Cor was not his hero. He didn’t look up to him so this didn’t have to feel like a compliment of that size.

…then again…praise from a rival could be way better than that of a hero’s. Because an eternal rival admitting that he was good was a way of saying that the rival was so impressed, they couldn’t lie about it even when it was a personal hatred. In some way, Loqi concluded, yes, a rival’s compliment could be as strong if not far, far stronger than a hero’s.
Cor said he was a good pilot. Nothing could make it for sure and he told himself so to try to calm down, but-
A good pilot.

Loqi buried his face in his hands, fearing it was so hot it would end up melting his gloves, and he slid down with the back to the door until he was sat, not helping a tiny whine and the stupid mess that had become of his heart.

--

A couple days later, Cor had to be on watch turn while Loqi gave his class. He didn’t complain, really, he enjoyed them. Watching Loqi work and spill knowledge like the easiest thing in the world was hypnotizing, and he learned some things too along the rest of the troops.

Cor was there before the rest of the class, as usual, as if an assistant to Loqi. The day had been the normal routine, not one tiny thing out of place or different. Loqi arrived to the classroom, put his things at the desk, and started arranging and reviewing some papers. Cor asked if he needed anything, was as usual denied (if gently), and went for his favorite chair. He took it and made it turn over itself, then straddled it and put his arms on the back as always. Loqi took a chalk, kept reviewing papers, and then he started scribbling some things, just as usual, with the same look and appearance and everything of always.

Some minutes later, the Crownsguard started arriving and filling the classroom. Some greeted the Marshal. None greeted the Nif. The chatter filled the room while it was getting filled with just as many people as everyday; Loqi, at the desk, was calm and quiet reviewing his papers and waiting. Eventually, all the Crownsguard were at their seat, and the chatter decreased until there was silence.

Loqi stood up from the desk as was usual.
“Alright” he said as if a greeting, then he headed for the chalkboard. Cor was sat on the opposite side of the desk at the front of the classroom, in a corner where he was no nuisance to anyone and where he had a first row view of the teacher. He, as always, waited patiently and a bit bored and put his face in a hand. Loqi faced the chalkboard.

And then it happened.

Loqi blinked. Cor saw him take in a breath bigger than normal, but didn’t take notice of anything. Loqi took his time to start, something unusual, but not so strange that anyone would think twice about it. But then he took longer, doing but face the chalkboard, looking at it but gaze in nowhere. He blinked strangely. And he took longer in the lingering silence. Cor found it odd but didn’t question it and didn’t feel the slightest bit of alarm.

Loqi looked down. He swallowed. Then another big breath, after which he left his mouth the slightest bit open. He looked back up again and finally raised his hand with the chalk.
“Today you-”
He went silent. The class was quiet, not bothered in the slightest, except for the increasing boredom of such large silence. Cor too watched calmly and a bit confused as Loqi did but keep staring at nowhere on the board, like he had forgotten how to write. After a while, Loqi tried again.
“Today you…”

He went silent again. After a bit, he put the head down and swallowed visibly, then opened the mouth to breathe through it slightly heavier than normal. Cor frowned a little in confusion, not sure what was going on or why Loqi was acting odd. Something felt wrong so, this time alert that something could be going on, Cor lifted his head off his hand and watched attentively. Loqi was still quiet for a good while. The look in his eyes was…strange. But not new. Cor was sure he had seen him like that before, not exactly, but that look was a bit similar to…when? Loqi looked like he had remembered he had made a calculation wrong and it would end up killing dozens of innocents or something like that. He seemed…nervous, but more than that. A bit…
Scared…?

Something clicked in Cor. He didn’t do anything immediately because he wasn’t sure it was the case but…he was starting to recognize the look in Loqi’s face and his odd attitude.

A bit later, Loqi looked back up and tried putting the chalk to the board again. He had troubles forcing anything out of his mouth, eyes having grown a little wider. The angry frown of always wasn’t there; his face reflected more like a growing concern. Loqi put the chalk down again for a moment and, as he let out a shaky exhale and took in a breath through the mouth, he moved his free hand up and used it to unbutton the collar of his jacket, then the button below.
Loqi Perfect Uniform Tummelt, unbuttoning the first two buttons.
And then he sneaked a hand into his jacket to rub his chest.

Cor moved upwards on his seat, more sure about the situation. Loqi once more swallowed and put the chalk up. His hand was shaking the slightest, but because Cor was looking for exactly that sort of symptoms, he noticed.
“Today-” Loqi tried but his mouth went shut again.
Cor didn’t lose time.
“There’s no class today” Cor announced loud enough to be heard in all the room. All the Crownsguard turned to look at him, confused at the change of leader and the announcement itself. Loqi didn’t complain or contradict him; he stood in the same place than before, putting the arm down and doing nothing more. Cor looked at the Crownsguard serene and serious as always. “You have these two hours free until your next activities. You may leave.”

It was quiet during the first seconds, but eventually the chattering started again and people started grabbing their stuff and standing up. Cor glanced subtly at Loqi only once, finding him standing at the board, head a little down and eyes closed, hands to the waist. He didn’t want to keep looking as to not make any Crownsguard suspicious and poke their nose into this, so he looked at them instead and watched them leave. Thankfully, no one stayed behind and everyone exited soon. Cor stood up and reached for the door calmly as the last people were leaving. Once the last of them left, Cor quietly closed the door, and even more subtly he locked it.
He didn’t want Loqi to go out, and no one had to come in. Not until this ceased. Loqi was struggling enough already to also deal with mockery, gossips, or worse.

Cor headed back to the front of the classroom, to Loqi. The blond was in the same pose as he last saw him, eyes still closed.
“…it was my class, Cor, you had no rights to dismiss them” he muttered angrily, yet with a hint of insecurity.
“Loqi” Cor called as if not having heard. “Look at me.”

Loqi stayed still some moments as if considering it. Then, he shook the head and sighed, and moved a hand up to hide his eyes and caress his temples.
“Hey” Cor murmured. “Is anything feeling wrong?”
“I…” Loqi put his hand away and tried looking at him, but kept the head slightly low. His eyes, now open, were still a little wider than usual, and they didn’t seem to be able to focus. He opened the mouth and took a breath in, shakier and larger than before. Then repeated. And again, as if he was having troubles breathing. He started shaking the head. “It’s- I’m fine, I just…”
“Is it ok if I touch you?” Cor asked lowly and tenderly. Loqi looked up at him. He seemed a little pale and clearly bothered, shaking a little, the troubled breathing, and the lost eyes. With a hand moving up to his chest again to caress it, he shook the head in tiny, rushed movements.
“I’m fine, I just…” he tried again, and once more he couldn’t finish.

They were quiet for a bit. Loqi swallowed and looked away, and then he reached for the desk. Cor calmly followed. Loqi started opening drawers and looking around as if he had lost something, with dumb hands that trembled more with each passing second.
“What do you need?” Cor asked as calmly and gently as before. Loqi shook the head again, breath rhythm increasing, as he kept looking around. Loqi just shook the head a little and was unable to reply. The more he searched around the desk, the more agitated and rushed he became. After not having found anything, he put the hands flat on the desk and put the head down, breath hitching. “Loqi, I need you to look at me and listen to me, please.”

But Loqi just stayed at the desk, shaking, breath rushed and troubled. One of his hands moved up and he covered his mouth, fingers stroking and pulling from his face, and eyes closing.
“Hey, Loqi” Cor tried again as softly. Loqi shook the head, breath pausing. His hand, yet again, went to his chest. He let out a shaky, loud sigh, then reached for the chair and sat down on it, putting the elbows on the desk and grabbing his head in his hands. Cor was quiet and watched him. Loqi remained quiet, shaky hands holding his head. He passed his hands through his hair and gripped it. One of his hands went to his chest and caressed it again, and then he shrugged in. Cor hated the sight. He knew Loqi’s size was no impediment for his skills, but watching him in this distress shrug up like that, it made him seem so tiny. “Loqi, I need you to know something but please look at me.”

Loqi shook the head and swallowed, hand not moving away of his chest this time.
“I…” Loqi tried, voice shaky and insecure. He seemed at either the verge of tears or a crisis. The way he was shaking was very notorious at this point. He hesitated and seemed to try to say it, regret it, then try over and over until he finally spoke again. “I…think I need to go to the infirmary” he said, hugging himself with one arm and hand still rubbing his chest with the other. “Where is it?”
“Loqi-”
“Where is it, Cor!? I need to go right now, I think I’m-” Loqi paused there, having finally looked up at Cor when he snapped at him. Cor was quiet. Loqi gave him wide, scared eyes. And then he couldn’t keep it a secret. “I think I’m…having a heart attack, I’m-”
“No, Loqi, please-” Cor paused, shaking the head softly, and moving closer to him, bending down enough to be closer to Loqi’s height sat at the desk. “I know it feels like that but I need you to stay here. Alright? I know how to help you out of this, but I need you to stay here, with me.”

Loqi looked at him with the same eyes than before, unsure. He swallowed and started shaking the head.
“Please, Loqi” Cor said. “Trust me. Just this once. Just this once.”
Loqi didn’t reply to that, but also didn’t shake the head. He watched Cor as agitated as before, and a little insecure. He lowered the head.
“My chest hurts” Loqi murmured, stressed and clearly panicking about it. “And I feel…all my body is…my heart is…it’s not- normal, it’s doing these…”
“I know, look at me” Cor asked again, but the blond didn’t reply. Cor left him for a moment to get the nearest chair he found, put it next to Loqi, and he sat there, calmly. “Loqi, is it ok if I touch you? I need it to help you.”

Loqi was not listening, and if he was he ignored him. He passed another hand through his hair, gripping it, and breath becoming so rushed he was starting to wheeze subtly when he exhaled.
“Loqi” Cor tried again, gently. “Look at me.”
He had to insist a few couple times again, making sure to not touch him in the slightest, not until Loqi would allow it, which made it a little more difficult, but Cor insisted. Loqi stayed at his chair with his troubled, short breath, and he started unbuttoning his jacket even more with hands so shaky they barely could handle the buttons. It wasn’t long before Cor saw a first drop of sweat forming on his forehead, but he kept insisting.

After a bit, Loqi stood up suddenly from his seat and seemed to want to head to the door. Cor stood up as well and followed. Even though he had started to reach to grab Loqi from the wrist to stop him, Cor decided to rush to stand in front of him instead. Loqi tried to go past him but Cor blocked his path again. Loqi growled, but he looked much more in distress and panic than anger.
“Cor, move! I need-!”
“To look at me” Cor clarified. “Loqi, please, listen to me. Ok?”

Loqi stayed still some moments. Then, still in that shaken state, he moved backwards until he put his back to the wall, covering his face in his hands, and sliding down until he was sat. Cor felt a pinch at the sight; a terrified Loqi curled up there in clear desperation, shaking violently, shrugged into a tiny ball, hair hiding his already hidden-in-hands face…but it was better than having a panicked Loqi rush out through the hallways, not to say it could also make it worse. He went down on his knees in front of Loqi and waited a bit while he shook and went through it. After a while, Loqi moved the head up and to a side while passing a hand through his face and hair again, breathing fast and heavy enough to almost make Cor himself panic too.
“Loqi, friend, I need you to look at me” Cor said still calm and gentle but firm enough to not be dismissed. Whether it was a word Cor said without noticing or the tone of his voice, this time Loqi finally turned and made eye contact. Cor held it for a bit to make sure he had his attention. “I want to help you. May I touch you?”

It took a while, either because Loqi was still too deep in the panic to process it, or having troubles understanding what Cor meant, or perhaps both. After a bit, Loqi shut his mouth for a second, looked slightly down, and nodded.
Cor reached for one of his hands. Loqi’s hand flinched and pulled back when he tried grabbing it, but then it softened and Cor tried again. If tense, Loqi’s hand ended up in Cor’s.

Getting a little closer again, Cor took Loqi’s hand up softly and brought it towards himself. Then, with Loqi giving him a confused look amidst his terror, Cor laid Loqi’s hand on himself, between the chest and the tummy. Loqi stared at it, then up at Cor, unable to ask him what he was doing but clear in his eyes. Cor watched him with serene eyes.
“You feel how I’m breathing?” Cor asked lowly. Loqi didn’t reply. “That’s how you have to do it. Copy me. Alright?” Loqi still did but look at him, then down again. “Hold your breath, like I do” and so Cor proceeded to hold it. Loqi closed the mouth and paused for a second, but almost immediately he opened it again and continued as rushed as before. “Then out” Cor went on as if though Loqi was doing it. “Are you following me? Copy me, Loqi. In and hold it.”

Loqi stared at his hand that Cor still kept pressed to his tummy. He could feel it, the way the tummy raised when Cor breathed in, how it went back when he breathed out.
“I want to see you breathe the same way, Loqi” Cor called. “You’ll be fine if you follow me. Feel it? In…”
Loqi tried closing the mouth again. He was able to hold the breath not nearly even half as Cor did, then opened the mouth again and his breath rushed again a couple times.
“That’s it, that was great” Cor encouraged him. Loqi look up at him, confused, not sure he understood or if Cor had seen that he had failed. Yet, the soft look on Cor’s face, the tiny smile…it felt so…comforting. Honest. Loqi’s eyes went down and, though very slightly, his breath calmed down a notch. “See, you could do it. You can do it again. Alright?”

Loqi stayed still, not breathing but still shaking, watching Cor with wide eyes. He didn’t answer neither verbally nor physically. But he put the head a little down and when Cor said ‘In’, he followed.
“You’re doing great, Loqi. See how it’s getting better?” Cor said warmly after a while into it. Loqi still struggled; the process was rather long. He would sometimes let go of his breath before time and go back to have troubles, but Cor still encouraged him. He never once reprimanded him, not even softly, for all the times he failed to follow him, and every time he did it right, even if still failing at the end, Cor would tell him it had been good. Loqi wasn’t very much in his mind to put a tag on his actions, say whether he hated them for treating him like a child or whatever. All that he knew was that, at least for now, in his present, in that current moment while his body seemed to be out of his control, he loved the treatment. It felt right. It felt reassuring. It felt understanding. It felt…somehow that he couldn’t name. Safe, perhaps.

After a while, even though he was still shaking and he still felt those freezing chills that had been on control of his body ever since he was at the chalkboard, his breath had calmed down enough. His exhales were shaky, and his breath was heavier than normal, but it wasn’t rushed anymore.
“There…you’re almost there, friend. You’re doing fantastic” Cor said with a tender smile that he didn’t need to force. His thumb stroked Loqi’s hand, still under his own, and watched him breath shakily but slowly. “There it is…”

Loqi didn’t react or reply yet. He stayed still, watching his hand under Cor’s, and the way they moved with every breath the Marshal took. He could finally keep the mouth shut and breathe through the nose, if still needing to calm down a bit more. He closed the eyes and used a hand to pass it through his face and stroke his forehead. Cor understood; calm breath didn’t mean it was over, not yet.
Breath eased, Cor moved on. Still holding Loqi’s hand, he moved it away and slowly, gently, he put their hands on Loqi’s chest. Loqi gave him a startled look.
“Feel how it’s beating?” Cor asked. Loqi looked down at their hands, eyebrow twitching, not understanding. Cor remained quiet, keeping their hands there. He was sure Loqi could feel it. So could he. The beat of Loqi’s heart; normal, easy. For some reason, Cor couldn’t help but forget about the situation for a few seconds and focused in the sensation. It was…weird. Last time he felt Loqi’s heart…the guy was more dead than alive. Last time he felt it, it had been when he…changed his opinion about Loqi and Nifelians in general. Last time he felt it, Loqi was a stranger, and yet somehow…he already cared for him, in some way. Less than today. Far less than today. And still so much…

Soon, he looked up at Loqi again, who kept the eyes on their hands.
“It’s normal now, right? It’s easy. And your chest doesn’t hurt anymore, right, Loqi?”

The blond couldn’t help but move his shaky free hand up and stop close to his chest, in a slow realization that…indeed, it didn’t hurt. He had been sure that…
Cor didn’t even need to clarify it aloud. The normal beat of his heart and the lack of pain were clear enough for Loqi to understand that, even though he had been more sure than anything in his life that he was having a heart attack, he was not. Even though it was yet not over, the realization made Loqi calm down more and better. His breath stabilized a little more and his body started relaxing. He had some mild cold sweat at his forehead, which he tried cleaning away with the back of his hand.

Cor let him be for a couple moments. Loqi was still in distress but way better and starting to get better. He didn’t like the sensation of being unable to help more; it was easier to help a comrade in the battlefield, because things were material, but having to help Loqi through this…well. At least Cor could now empathize even better with Prompto. It was a horrible sensation and it stung a little with guilt, but he focused back in Loqi instead of keep thinking about himself.

Loqi still spent a while breathing shakily and loud, if calm at least, and messing with either his hair or his face, as if unable to stop doing things with his hands. Cor looked away of him for a moment and searched around the classroom. He spotted something at the desk and stood up for a moment just to come back with a newspaper in hands.
“Hey, look, why don’t we…?” he left the question floating as he sat next to Loqi this time, flipping through the newspaper’s pages. The blond didn’t seem to pay attention, still curled up in his spot, caressing his temples. Cor stopped at a page a bit too excitedly and took a pen out of his jacket. “Crosswords! I thought maybe one of those math games would be better but crosswords it is in this edition” he slid a bit closer to Loqi to be right next to him. “You know I’m an idiot so I’ll need your help here, alright? Number one, a word for a large avian creature typically domesticated.”

Loqi didn’t reply. It was one of those crosswords that included things a bit too obvious, but he didn’t point it out.
“Large avian creature…” Cor faked to be thinking about it. Loqi exhaled shakily and kept messing with his face.
“…chocobo…” he murmured.
“Chocobo” Cor said as if it would have never crossed his head, and he started scribbling it down. “Now, a word for…the name of the Astral associated with storms and thunder.”
Loqi took his time. He sighed and curled up a little more, both hands going to cover his eyes despite the lack of tears. Cor knew he couldn’t force him either, so he just kept writing in other spaces he knew how to fill while waiting for Loqi. Eventually, there was a quiet ‘Ramuh’, which Cor encouraged and thanked.

The Marshal kept going solving the crossword that would have normally sent Loqi into a yelling mess for it being so stupid in such context. But Loqi grew quieter and quieter. They reached a point where Cor stopped asking him and Loqi stopped replying anything, and both sat together in silence.
When Loqi went quiet, he was also sure he disconnected for a moment. The chills he was still feeling but were easing seemed to be abandoning him, but to do that they had to discharge the rest of themselves all in one wave. Despite feeling more calm, Loqi felt a sudden rush of something inside that made him so dizzy he was sure he blacked out even if just for a few seconds. After that, he needed time to recover. He exhaled and put the head down.
And it was over.

He stayed silent, still, and limp. He felt like he had run a marathon, not in ache but in tiredness. Sort of numb. He felt that if he tried to stand up, his legs would instantly become a baby lamb’s. Could barely feel the arms. But his breath was normal, as was his heart, as was his head and everything else. He felt…like he had the control once more, like it had to be. He blinked to get rid of some sudden dizziness again.
It was quiet. Remained like that for a couple minutes more.

…what…the hell had just happened?
Loqi stayed as silent, limp, and confused for a good while. He was back in his senses but it still took a while as he processed whatever had happened, and, when he did, he finally paid attention to the scribbling noise next to him. He turned and found Cor sat right next to him, inches apart, focused in his stupid newspaper, filling his stupid crossword in silence and not minding him.
…ah. Yes. Cor.

Loqi started putting the pieces together. It wasn’t that he wasn’t aware of what had been happening, but he had been acting on some sort of instinct rather than rationality, so only now he was consciously processing all the scene. Once he was feeling back in normality, Loqi sighed as if in exasperation and looked away again, closing the eyes, and resting the head on the wall behind him.
“…let me guess” Loqi murmured, sounding tired. “Another…depression bullshit.”

Cor didn’t respond at first. He filled another word of his puzzle before he started nodding, not even glancing at Loqi. The blond saw him nod and looked away once more, eyes closed, and with yet another sigh.
“…what was it?” he couldn’t help but end up asking despite knowing he would hate the answer.
“Panic attack, I’d say” Cor replied calmly, putting the newspaper down. “You handled it great, though.”

But it was you who did everything, was the first thought Loqi had, and he kept it for a good while before he, if a little forcefully, told himself that yes, it had been himself and Cor had only been support. He didn’t need Cor. Obviously he had done it himself.
“But I wasn’t thinking about anything bad” Loqi said. “I haven’t thought about the bombing once in many days. It couldn’t be panic.”
“The thing with panic attacks as result of PTSD is that they don’t really need a trigger” Cor explained, still looking at nowhere in front of them as Loqi did instead of at each other. “Sometimes they just…happen. Without a reason. You don’t need to be thinking about it or have the slightest trigger for it to happen.”

Loqi stayed thoughtful for a good while. The more he thought, the more his body relaxed, but the more the environment around him seemed to become blue. He started moving his fingers to make sure they were in their place and that he was in control. Having felt like he was not had been…not good.
“Is it only once?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It could be once, which I think makes sense for you because the…Vianard event is still rather fresh” Cor said. “I mean…it’s one of the worst bombings of history so far, if not the worst. Of course you would have one of those. It’s not been even half a year” he looked at Loqi. “Of course you would have one, but…it will get better the further behind in the past it stays.”
“But you said it may not be only once…?”
“…sometimes, yes. Sometimes it…stays with you. May last years. And I don’t mean that it happens every day, but…you could go having three in a week, then ten years without one and then be struck out of nowhere. No one can tell. It depends on how well you treat your mental health.”
“…how many times does it happen?” Loqi asked quietly, with a tiny hint of insecurity.

Cor thought about it, and then shrugged, looking down at the pen in his hands.
“…no one can tell. It varies” he replied as quietly, clearly sharing the upset mood, knowing of the fragility of the subject. Loqi put the head even lower. “But don’t think too much about it. And please don’t be scared of having another one; sometimes it’s the panic of having another attack what triggers the attack itself” finally, Cor turned to look at him. “I know it was a horrible, terrible experience, but don’t stress about it. We can’t do much about them, but the less you think about them, the less the chances of triggering one.”
“But it still won’t cross out the chances on a hundred percent, right?” Loqi asked. Cor wanted to lie to him, tell him yes it did…but he couldn’t. He gave Loqi a sad smile and shook the head. Loqi stared at him for some moments, thinking. He looked away and sighed. “Fantastic. What a beautiful life, forever having those…stupid things. What kind of life is that?”
“A brave one.”

Loqi turned the head to look at Cor once more. The Marshal was giving him a kind, warm look. Then he smiled, if with that characteristic melancholy that Loqi had started to see in his every expression. After a while of staring at each other, Loqi looked away. There was a long silence between the two, no noise to make it seem like time moved at all, lingering a moment of pause and nothing.
“I don’t want to be brave” Loqi murmured bitterly. “I want to be at peace.”

It took a while; it stung a bit inside of Cor. Yet again, Loqi surprised him with his words. Cor looked at him and Loqi glanced back. Despite the blank face and tired eyes Loqi was giving him, Cor gave him a wide yet very sad smile. Still with that smile, he moved a hand up and put it on top of Loqi’s hair. The blond didn’t complain for a first time. He put the eyes down and refused to admit to the way it both hurt and comforted him. Cor still stared at him for a while, proud and profoundly sad and touched and a little frustrated of being unable to help more. Loqi’s hair was already a mess so he didn’t think of it too much of a trouble to mess it up a bit more; he stroked it and pet it for a bit before putting his hand away. Loqi didn’t complain and kept the head a little down still.

They didn’t say anything for the rest of the hour they spent sat next to each other in the otherwise empty classroom. Loqi seemed to be processing something that had never in almost twenty-two years of life happened to him, and possibly not even crossed his head. Cor knew there were situations in which he couldn’t help even if he wanted, and the only and best thing to be done when he couldn’t physically pull someone up was to sit with them until they pulled themselves up.

So that he did. He sat right next to Loqi, saying nothing, and waiting for one of the strongest warriors he knew to stand back up, because, Cor was starting to learn, he always did.

Chapter Text

One of the many consequences of Loqi’s announcement was not only the obvious, but also, among many things, that Lucians now knew he wasn’t any Nif, and they now held something as useful as dangerous: his name.

Knowing someone’s name could be a good or a bad thing, depending on the case. In Loqi’s, it depended on geography; a Tummelt in Nif lands, well received.
A Tummelt in Lucians lands…not quite.

The Lucians had already taken Loqi’s role in the Citadel as something negative; some denied taking classes from him, many had gotten upset at him and argued and/or left the place, and even though some did take classes from him, they still didn’t quite like him. The best cases, putting the Glaive that once tried to empathize with him apart, were those that were neutral. The most common thing was that he was gossiped about. Yet, nothing worse had happened so far.
But normally that was only because he was usually hanging around Cor. No one dared mess with him not because he was Loqi, but because he was with Cor, and nobody dared do anything in presence of the living legend.

Yet, the more the days went, the less that Cor needed to be around Loqi. He had started to leave him alone whenever it was training matters, being present mostly during theory class or around the Citadel in dead time.

Anyone would have guessed that had anyone wanted to attack Loqi, they would have done it earlier when he was still a stranger, because he had already spent quite a while amongst the Lucian troops without being harassed. But it happened, anyway, because he was, for once, finally caught not around the Marshal.

--

Loqi spent a while at the training hall after it emptied. He was taking notes, still catching flaws in the Lucian’s abilities, and writing down some important things that flashed in his head randomly, like the way to solve a formula he had been working on earlier. Not to say, it was better to leave after everyone else left because the Lucians stunk when freshly out of the hall, and that was definitely the reason and not the fact that some bumped into him or spoke shamelessly because fuck them and their opinion worth a grain of shit.

Loqi spent a while sat at one of the benches writing in his little pad. The voices in the hallways faded and, only then, when there was no noise, he put his things back in their place and he left too. He started heading back to Cor’s office, as he thought, but got lost in the way; the Citadel was big, and some hallways sometimes felt like a maze, so it was natural that Loqi, with only a few months working there, and rarely taking his time to explore it, got lost. He paced through a couple hallways, went two floors up, realized he was lost, went back one floor, and discretely checked some maps and indications on the walls because fuck asking people, and he tried to remake his way to the office.

During his odyssey back, he stopped in his spot, thoughtful. He had been thinking the day before really hard about some strange movement the Nif foot soldiers at Cleigne were doing, and it was there, not even thinking about it, that he suddenly got a very plausible theory that he realized he had to share with the Lucian strategists later. Yet, because he was always thinking about so many things, he decided to write it down. Still standing in his spot, he stopped for a couple minutes to reach into his little bag for his pad and pen, and he started taking notes in the middle of the hallway.

It was while he was writing some stuff down that a Glaive, from a room with large windows, saw him. He stared for a while as if it was a first time and he was impressed or unable to look away for some reason. A while into staring, one of his mates asked him what was wrong; all that the Glaive did was, without taking the eyes off Loqi, pat with his knuckles his other mate on the chest and nod in Loqi’s direction. The other two Glaives turned as well to see what was up.
They didn’t need to share a word. The three stared for a moment, before the first one gave a little nod, and started heading for the room’s door.

Loqi was distracted scribbling his stuff and didn’t put much mind to the steps he heard. After finishing his notes, he started putting his pad away, and that was when he looked up and found three Glaives looking his way. Loqi didn’t glance back for too long; he was used to being looked at, even back at Niflheim. Done with putting his stuff in his satchel, he decided to go back to not cross ways with these men, but half a step later he froze when-
“So you’re a Tummelt, huh?”

Loqi stayed still in his spot. Yet, he wasn’t tense. He didn’t feel fear, no organ inside him reacted or flinched in nerves. There was a tense and sharp silence, almost so thick it could be felt in the air. Loqi put his foot back so he was standing normally, and he looked to a side to see the Glaives. The three stood there, one in front of the other two, arms crossed, and giving him a harsh, dry look that still didn’t make Loqi feel anything.
Finally some hater that approached directly. The Lucians took quite their time.

Loqi turned the body so he was properly facing them this time, and he crossed the arms.
“So what?” he asked.
“Nothing, nothing” the Glaive said, yet Loqi could feel the lie in it. Then, the Glaive started slowly approaching him, not stopping. “By the age, I’ll assume you’re from the younger generation?” Loqi didn’t reply. His frown deepened and his glare became colder the more the Glaive approached, and until the Glaive was finally in his personal space. The Glaive stopped right in front of him by mere inches. He looked down at him, threatening. “…so you’d be son of Duscae’s Conqueror, right?”

Loqi didn’t reply. Just as he had expected, some idiot that was angry at his family’s name for some idiotic war thing. Why couldn’t people understand the concept of war? People died, that was how it was and whoever joined the army should know that, yet they still became crybabies anyway. The Glaive stood threatening in front of him, but Loqi didn’t falter or lowered the eyes for a second.

No answer was an answer. The Glaive smiled widely and looked away, nodding, the hands going to his waist. Loqi just frowned more, seeing the building anger in this man through that sarcastic smile. He quickly looked behind the Glaive at the other two, both which were attentive to him, with the guard up, like coeurls waiting for the prey to get comfortable before jumping onto it. Loqi looked again at the one in front of him. The Glaive kept looking away for a while, arrogant.
“…I had family in Duscae back then, you know?” he muttered without turning to look at Loqi. A tense pause, and then he continued between clenched teeth and a faltering voice, “grandparents included.”

The silence became even so more tense that it felt as if though there were sharp needles surrounding them; one little move, the tiniest, even just by breathing, and the needles would tear them apart. Despite the mortal silence, it was so loaded of tension that Loqi’s heart, this time, became heavier. For a moment he swore that his heart was everything he could hear, loud and clear in his ears.
He was not good at melee, no, but he was not untrained either. He never wore his sword as an accessory.
But the Glave wasn’t untrained either.
Loqi was aware of that, but his pride was not going to let him give up just like that without giving fight, even less against some what’s-his-name, even less for something as stupid as his dead father’s actions on some random people like twenty years ago when Loqi barely had any memory at all.

After a very tense while glaring at each other in amongst those sharp, invisible needles waiting for any of them to make a first move, they got into the inevitable like both knew was coming.

The Glaive was the first to move; in a very swift movement, he grabbed Loqi by the shirt’s chest and, in less than two seconds, Loqi had already gripped his forearm. In less than four seconds, they started struggling with each other, grabbing where they thought would be right to get the vantage hand, and even though in that blink of a moment there was pulling of clothes, grabbing of arms, and a couple pushes from both sides, suddenly there was a sparkle of blue, and, out of nowhere, from thin air, a man getting in between them.

Loqi gave a step back from being roughly released by the Glaive, breath a little shaky. He looked up to see what had happened or how the hell this person had appeared from nowhere, and found this new, fourth Glaive standing in front of him…but giving his back to Loqi.
Defending him.
Loqi couldn’t see his face but the first time they met he paid so much attention to every detail that he recognized Nyx from the mere hairstyle and characteristic Glaive jacket.

Nyx gave the Glaive that had started the mess a harsh look, putting a hand to his chest, and pushing back gently enough to not be a provocation but hard enough to make him give some steps back. The three Glaives stepped backwards, looking at Nyx with what Loqi could swear was either fear or a high respect that crossed friendship, as if they saw in Nyx some superior command despite being the same rank. Nyx tilted the head to a side, still giving them a severe look, and then, with the hand still up as if ready to stop them if they tried to get close again, he shook the head.

It took a couple seconds. The Glaive on the lead of the other two gave Loqi a look from above Nyx’s shoulder. Loqi just frowned more, as if daring him to try again with or without Nyx in the way. Yet, the Glaive looked back up at Nyx, pressed his lips in a line, looked away, and turned around. His friends turned too and started leaving, giving a few glances from above their shoulders as if fearing Nyx was going after them or something.

The Glaive know as the Hero, or so Loqi had heard, stood there until the other three disappeared, and even still a little longer. Loqi stared too at the last spot where they had been in sight and, once more in silence, he looked up at Nyx, but the Glaive didn’t turn to look at him in the slightest.
Oddly, after everything was back in peace and there was no one around, Nyx started leaving. He had been such a dork trying so hard to be polite the last time that not speaking came off as odd to Loqi, but it wasn’t like he knew the Glaive well enough to tell.

Without a word, Nyx started leaving as if once his duty was done he had no obligation to even give one glance at Loqi. His steps were the only ones that sounded for a moment, and he went away a couple meters into the hallway.

“…should I start seeing your appearances as stalking on me, mister Ulric?”

Nyx sighed angrily at the time he stopped in his way and, as if the comment had triggered his anger, he turned around and immediately burst into a rant.
“Look, what happened last time was a mess, ok? I know, I’m aware, I’m sorry” he said with the voice rather loud. Loqi didn’t reply or react; he stood in his spot, calm, collected, freezing cold as always, arms crossed. “I know you don’t like me and I don’t like you either, I think you’re fucking rude and a brat. It’s not stalking, I was just- it’s just- I was-” messing up with his words, Nyx sighed aloud again and looked away a couple times, hands going to his waist, then crossed, then back to his waist. He put one to his mouth while looking away for a few seconds as if trying to stay collected, before he let go and went on as angry as before. “…I was just trying to empathize. Alright? I- saw your video, I felt we had a lot in common at least in big terms, and as much as my friends have all lost family and friends I’ve never known someone who lost a younger sibling and I thought, I was- it- it was, I-” he sighed with a little growl again. “And I…thought maybe we could…” he paused, tense, and sighed again. “Just- forget it, alright? Forget it, I’m not stalking you, and I never meant to come across the wrong way, I didn’t mean to make you hate me with no reason, just leave it. I didn’t mean it.”

Saying no more, Nyx turned around again and started walking away once more.
“And I didn’t mean to tell you to fuck off like that, last time.”

Nyx stopped. He stood still in his spot, not sure he had heard right. From his own experience with Loqi and from all he had heard about him, there was no way he could- but…he was. He was? Puzzled, Nyx tried to make his brain understand, but he couldn’t. Frowning in confusion, he looked back, giving Loqi that look of not understanding. Loqi still stood calm in his place as collected as always and as Nyx last saw him but…something in his aura seemed a little different. A little more open.
A little, tiny, subtly, very discreetly more vulnerable…in a tint of sincerity.

Still giving Loqi that puzzled look, Nyx had to wait a while before Loqi went on, as if he had needed time to say it. And when he did, he never glanced at Nyx, looking at the other hallway instead.

“…I wasn’t ready to talk about them.”

None said anything. And it wasn’t needed.

At first, Nyx was so shocked by what he was hearing that he didn’t quite process it. The idea of the Nif that had dismissed him in such a rude, and even a bit cruel way when he had tried to just empathize…somehow, very subtly, implicitly…apologizing…it was strange. Or if not apologizing, at least offering a justification to his attitude which…was far more than Nyx would have expected from him. As the shock of the idea of Loqi apologizing-justifying himself passed, Nyx fell into two realizations; the first, that maybe he had been wrong at approaching Loqi so directly last time. He had felt…so identified with his speech, saw himself so much into the Nif that he didn’t difference between him, with years of coping with his sister’s death, and Loqi having lost his siblings only months ago…of course Loqi would react like that. He should have reacted worse. It changed the light in which Nyx saw Loqi’s first attitude towards him…

And the second, that Loqi said ‘wasn’t’, in past tense. Nyx still…didn’t approach him directly like last time because, hell, it took him about a year to just say his sister’s name without it feeling like the end of the world. But Loqi was saying it like he was…if not a hundred percent ready, at least decided to start dipping his toes into trying.

Both men stood silent in the hallway. Loqi stood still and with his façade of cold disinterest, and even though there was no expression and he didn’t look in Nyx’s way, Nyx could somehow feel, somewhere in Loqi, a feeling much more different than what he was trying to look like. And he couldn’t help a smile, lowering the eyes. For a moment the silence was tense but not like the one with needles, rather…as if both stood on ice, not one that would break, but one that would make them slip and hit their butts on the cold, harsh ground. But it wasn’t cold. There was…something in the air. Something good.
It almost felt accomplice. Not necessarily friendly, just…accomplice.

Nyx kept the head down. His heart started speeding up and becoming heavier when the name crossed from the stomach up to the throat and stayed stuck there. The closer it went to the tongue, the more his heart weighed and beat inside him. The word stayed stuck in his throat for so long that it started forming a knot in it. He tried swallowing. Spent far longer into the silence.
Then, with a breath as if every time he said it a tiny bit of his life escaped with it, Nyx opened the mouth, breathed first, and tried.
“…her name was Selena.”

There was no reply for a very long while. Once more the silence veiled them as if though time was not moving. Nyx kept his eyes on Loqi for a while before lowering them, a little insecure.
Right when he thought he should best turn around and keep going before he messed up again, he heard a tiny, subtle exhale.

“…their names- were Frey and Nanna.”

Nyx looked up from the floor and put his gaze on Loqi. The Nif had yet not moved an inch in his spot…but Nyx could see the way his fingers had tightened around his arm in the same arm-crossed position. Nyx looked down, feeling a little bad. But then he couldn’t help but look back up.
After a while, Loqi turned the slightest his way and they made eye contact.

Despite the long while in silence they spent after that, Nyx couldn’t help but give him a little smile.

--

Cor spent the evening a little anxious. And he couldn’t help it, nor was he to blame.
Not any day Loqi blurted out of nowhere that he was going to spend the evening hanging with someone.

Cor didn’t mind that Loqi was out, and he wasn’t worried about that as itself; Loqi was an adult that could take care of himself, Cor wasn’t obsessive on keeping him caged like some pet he had to keep under vigilance 24/7. The thing was…with someone? Cor would understand a bit better if Loqi went alone. He would still worry because Loqi loathed Insomnia so much it would be pretty worrying that he blurted out of nowhere that he wanted to explore it alone. But that was more comprehensible than suddenly having a friend? Would Loqi go out with an acquaintance? A Lucian acquaintance? So far Cor knew, Loqi hadn’t made any friends with anyone, let alone with someone the fame of one Nyx Ulric himself…

Had he lied? Cor had been spending the evening rather at peace. Because he hadn’t planned that Loqi would leave for the evening, he hadn’t planned forehand to be with Prompto, and his son had made other plans, so that left Cor thrown in the apartment’s couch, watching TV, a little bored but at peace…until it was sunset. That was when he started getting nervous; had Loqi lied? Had he somehow bribed Crowe into lying for him? Loqi had told him, not asked, that he would be out in the evening with someone and that he needn’t give Cor any explanations. Cor asked for none, but it took him off guard.

Even more off guard when he asked Crowe, a Glaive, casually and not even expecting an answer, if he had seen ‘the small Nif’.
“Oh yes, he left with Nyx” she replied as if between amused and not really caring. “What an odd pair, ain’t them?”

What an odd pair, yes, very much. Cor had been surprised but he let it slip. What else could he do? Tell Loqi no? He had no power over him, nor rights, not the wish to tell him what to do. Loqi was independent and he could do what he wanted. It had just been…a surprise. And it had stayed as only a shocking confusing thing until Cor started over-thinking. Being left alone and with that strange situation set his mind forwards and it didn’t stop. Had Loqi bribed Crowe into lying, had he left alone, had he gone somewhere to do some- stupidity? Had he left with someone else? Why, with what purpose, what were they doing? Was he safe? Was he this, was he that. How could he leave Loqi alone just like that? Nyx? Was it really Nyx? Were the two friends? Since when? It was all so many questions that, because they didn’t seem to have an answer, started making Cor worry a little too much until he had to turn the TV off because as hard as he tried to relax, he couldn’t.

Loqi hadn’t said anything about what they would be doing, if he really was with Nyx, and no one else offered any info on the matter. It was like the two, if it was a real thing, had decided out of the blue to go out without even having ever interacted before. It was senseless.

By ten at night, Cor was already unable to stay sat. He either paced through the little apartment or stood somewhere, a little awkward, and repeating to himself that it wasn’t the big deal. Then again, Loqi had no way to communicate with him, because even using a public telephone would be useless as Loqi had never been the tiniest bit curious on asking what the phone number was, and no one had yet phoned him or texted him the tiniest thing about him.

After a phone call with Prompto, after which Cor finally managed to calm down, he could sit down at the couch again. He spent a while doing nothing but think a little and, right as if a gift from the Astrals, his phone started ringing in his hand. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the name ‘Ulric’ on the screen. He hurried to answer and put it to his ear.
“Hello” he greeted not as if a question, but more like a ‘Yes, I’m aware’.
“Marshal, hello, I’m sorry for phoning you at this hour, I eh…I have some…extracurricular question that I think is important.”
“Yes, yes, what is it?” Cor gently hurried, unable to do anything about his stupid concern that he hated to feel.
“Uh…I’m aware you’re like…in charge of Loqi, somehow?” he asked. “Not like…well, you get me.”
“Yes. Are you with him?”
“Ah. Yes. How did- yes. I was…”
“Is he alright?” Cor didn’t quite interrupt, because Nyx had lingered a bit in his pause and Cor took it as an entrance.
“Yeah, yeah, he’s eh…”

…he’s ‘eh’. It didn’t sound…convincing. It didn’t sound like Loqi was in danger or anything, but adding that hesitation as if saying ‘yes, but’ did nothing to help Cor with the confusion and concern.
“He’s fine, just having- he had a few extra cups but he’s alright” Nyx explained. Cor didn’t reply. It took him off guard again; they had gone to drink? Cor would make sure to later ask either of them what was going on because, so far anyone knew, they didn’t even know each other, and go drinking out of nowhere…well. “I was just wondering…where does he live? He uh…I don’t…quite think he can go on his own…like, anywhere. And I don’t know if he lives like…alone, or if he’s living with you or if you knew anywhere I should take him to? He’s not…collaborating at telling me.”

Cor took a moment to reply. He tried processing the information that didn’t quite finish making sense. Like Loqi spending the evening with Nyx out of nowhere wasn’t confusing enough, him getting so drunk to be unable to go on his own, and not only because he didn’t know the city’s map…
…Loqi? It wasn’t that Cor didn’t think he didn’t drink alcohol, it had just never crossed his head, and even more than that, the idea of Loqi getting drunk past his senses…Loqi, always so elegant, regal, despising on the ‘low’ people, and yet getting in such state. And it being Nyx, it surely wasn’t some high-class terrace with Altissian wine, they probably went to some random bar, and…Loqi, having a drink from those places? Were they talking about the same Loqi?

…and him drinking so much…was he…okay…?

A little startled, Cor gave Nyx some instructions about how to get to the apartment, and asked if he should go pick them up, but the Glaive said it was fine and he was good enough to do it himself.
Once more, worried and still confused, Cor had no option but wait there. He didn’t move from the living room’s couch. Every time he heard a car pass by he wondered if that was finally the taxi where both men were supposed to be coming in. Every time, he dropped his hopes after five minutes of no knocking at his door. About twenty minutes later, he was saying yes to expecting visitors and, three minutes later, someone knocked.

When Cor opened the door he revealed the strangest sight he would see in a long while: a slightly wasted but very much aware Nyx at his door, carrying with Loqi on his back. The blond seemed to be asleep, sprawled onto Nyx on dead weight. Cor looked at them unable to hide his shock. He looked at Nyx, at Loqi, taking his long time with each, then back at Nyx. The Glaive gave him a big, faked grin and furrowed eyebrows, like a kid expecting a reprimand. It was all so at once it was overwhelming; the idea of these two hanging together for whatever reason and Loqi drunk to sleep like the ‘common’ people he hated so much, all in the obnoxious figure of Nyx at his door piggyback-carrying the blond.

“…I’m…sorry, Marshal” Nyx apologized. No matter how good friends they had grown to be, Nyx had the trouble of being unable to look at Cor without seeing in him his superior. “I’ll…leave him here and…”
“It’s- fine, please come in” Cor murmured and stepped aside. He closed the door behind Nyx, who made Loqi bounce a little on his back to adjust him. Loqi didn’t even whine at the movement. Cor looked at him again, not controlling the surprise. “…I didn’t know you two were friends.”
“Uh…” Nyx hesitated and seemed to look for a way to explain it. He looked as if he too found it odd. “This…wasn’t planned, Marshal, I’m aware tomorrow is work day and I won’t offer excuses and will show up at my appointed schedule, and I take responsibility for him so please don’t reprimand him if he…doesn’t show up.”

Cor only waved a hand and blinked, dismissing it as if it was the most absurd thing.
“I’m just…confused” Cor said, still looking at the passed-out Loqi on Nyx’s shoulder and back. “I didn’t know he drank” he said. After a moment being thoughtful, he put his eyes on Nyx. The Glaive made eye contact for a bit before looking away, clearly aware that Cor had seen his red eyes. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah, I…” Nyx tried. He sighed and shook the head.

Before any of them could say more, both looked at Loqi when they heard him whine lowly. After waiting a bit, they saw him start moving the arms and the head, and Cor was sure Loqi was muttering, but he couldn’t make out what. A moment later, Loqi moved the head up and put a hand to his face, sighing.
“…-fucking brute with the…” Loqi was muttering, then became unintelligible again. Both older men watched him in silence. Then, apparently finally seeing where he was, Loqi didn’t give himself one second of surprise or confusion, as Cor had expected. Instead, Loqi frowned and looked at Nyx’s shoulder under his face. And he proceeded to start pushing himself off the Glaive. “You- absolute idiot, you fucking- disgusting- you put me down this seque- se- right now, you- pig, you, bastard, you- fucking…”

Cor put both eyebrows up. He had heard Loqi swear and had seen him be angry but it being out of nowhere was always startling. While Loqi muttered some unintelligible but clearly angry things, Nyx started putting him down as best as he could so that he wouldn’t drop a hesitant Loqi that was also pushing and pulling from him as if not deciding whether he wanted to fight or push him. Once on his feet, Nyx stepped aside and kept both hands a little up as if asking a dangerous animal to stay still.
“…there” he said.
“There” Loqi imitated, then snorted in anger. “That is the last time you touch me, did’a hear me?” he said and pointed a finger to the Glaive, a little dramatically. “You’re a disgusting pig too filthy to ever lay hands on me again and I hate you” he put his hand away and gave Nyx his angriest look, despite the clear state of exhaustion and wastefulness he was in that made him look like a mess. “Get off my fucking face, you, asshole, I don’t ever want to look at your stupid face in my entire life. Leave me alone!”

And so, Loqi started walking. After a couple steps he stopped and hesitated, looking around as if he didn’t know the place. As soon as he decided for one of the ways of the hallway, he started going again, stumbled once, stopped as if to regain balance, and then kept walking just fine. He turned left…towards Cor’s room, but none of the other two dared say anything and waited until he was gone.
“What did you do to him?” Cor whispered.
“Nothing!” Nyx whispered-shouted, on the defensive. “He clung to me himself back at the bar. He just…I…I guess it’s how he gets when he gets drunk. Or at least that’s what I think; he was fine and treating me normally until he had his last cup. Then he started being…” Nyx looked at Cor for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line. “…well…an asshole.”

Cor didn’t look upset at the insult. Nyx had been ready to apologize, but the Marshal just gave him some weird look. Not only did he not look angry…Cor seemed…even sort of sad. Cor put the head slightly down and frowned a little, thoughtful, but with that sad look upon his face. Nyx felt a pinch of guilt. He tried to come up with something to say but he wasn’t sure what. He knew Cor had been in charge of tiny Tummelt, but…he wasn’t sure if they were friends and that was why Cor seemed to be upset. In the end, Nyx sighed and put the eyes a little down.
“…I’m…sorry, Marshal” he said softly. “I didn’t know he had a drinking problem…if I had known, I wouldn’t have accepted the offer…”

Something in his words seemed to click in Cor. His expression changed to surprise, and he spent a few moments thinking before he looked at Nyx again.
“…you mean it wasn’t your idea?” Cor asked, eyebrows furrowing. Nyx looked at him surprised too, and then started shaking the head in little quick movements.
“No” he said, eyes big. “It was his. I thought you knew.”

Cor froze. He watched Nyx with big eyes and a slightly opened mouth for a while, unable to look anywhere else, and brain too slow after receiving hit after hit of senseless things. The information that day, from this single one event, had been…quite something.
It had been Loqi’s idea. Going for a drink with Nyx. It was his idea…He was aware that he was what he considered a ‘savage’, even more so for being from Galahd from among all Lucian places, he was aware it would be in a ‘low-society’ bar with ‘cheap’ alcohol, and he…knew how he got when he got drunk. He had to know, or he wouldn’t have offered it. It wasn’t that Nyx had offered it, as was his style, and that Loqi had accepted unknowing of what was to come; it wasn’t that Nyx took him there and Loqi got carried away. It had been Loqi. And if he asked, specifically, to go drinking…then it meant he was aware of everything it implied.
And that made it all so far, way more concerning.

Cor took a while in silence processing the idea, but he realized Nyx was still there, watching him, and he worried about Nyx noticing. He shook the head to take himself out of it and tried to think fast of what was next. A second later, if still startled and shocked, Cor reached for his wallet from one of the counters and went back to Nyx.
“Uhm…you must have paid for everything, Ulric, Loqi has no money of his own, so please take his part of the money” he said and lent Nyx the whole wallet. “I don’t…want to know how much it was, just…take it.”
“…are you sure, Marshal?” Nyx asked as he received the wallet as if though it would bite him if he wasn’t careful. He gave Cor big eyes even after Cor had nodded and looked away. “Uhm…I…feel bad taking from you, but…I do admit I- really appreciate it, I had to promise the bartender to pay eventually every payday because…” he let out a huff. “That was quite some money your guy spent there.”

Cor nodded but had to press his lips into a thin line to not burst into anything in that moment. He knew Nyx didn’t mean to say it like that. Normally, he was much more subtle about everything, and sharp at catching what shouldn’t be said, but he too had had his drinks, so Cor just let it pass. But he did admit, the comment felt like a punch to the guts. After Nyx had taken the money and put it in his pocket, only then Cor looked at him again and accepted his wallet back.
“I’ll drive you home, Ulric, you’re in no state-”
“The…taxi’s waiting downstairs for me, Marshal, don’t worry” the Glaive said with a little smile. And then, out of nowhere, he added: “You worry too much for others, Marshal. Which is good, don’t get me wrong. But there’s limits, you know? Especially when the person you’re helping isn’t reciprocate to you. And not that care should be ‘I give you because you give me’, but, you know, there’s a difference between-” Nyx mused for a bit, but then spend a couple seconds in silence, shook the head, and sighed. “I mean to say you sometimes take a lot of troubles to help someone that ain’t intimate to you or anything. Care for people who don’t care for you. Like, I don’t treat you as you offer to treat me, Marshal, and nothing makes it for sure that I’m the kind of person to ever pay you back, yet even not knowing that you offer-” he interrupted himself again and chuckled, if with a little hint of sadness or tiredness. “It’s ok. The taxi’s waiting for me downstairs.”

Cor stared at him a little openmouthed for a second. He hated Nyx for a moment…or rather his words…or rather the way he felt a pinch at them. He knew that Nyx meant it about himself, but…the fact that Cor immediately linked it to- his current situation…his current guest-
…oh gods, what was he thinking?
He put the head down and moved it a little.
“I’ll…walk you there” Cor offered in a murmur as if to ignore Nyx’s drunken rant. Thankfully, the Glaive didn’t seem to put too much mind into it and just agreed.

Nyx wasn’t drunk beyond senses, so thankfully he could walk just fine. On the elevator, after standing a hallway of tense silence (for himself, at least, as Ulric seemed to be fine and distracted), Cor armed himself with courage enough to start asking for more information, despite knowing that sometimes it was best to ignore some things.
“…how did you two…?” he started, but couldn’t find a way to word it. Nyx looked at him expecting for the Marshal to finish the question, and taking a while to process it for him. When he understood, he gave a little ‘Ah’, then nodded as if he had already answered.
“You saw his video?” Nyx asked. Patient, Cor nodded. They exited the elevator and walked calmly while talking. “He mentioned to have lost little siblings because of the bombing thing. When he spoke about everything else he was calm and collected, but when he speaks about his little siblings he sort of like…falters a bit. Like it still hurts like a motherfucker” Cor lowered the head and nodded. “And, y’know, Selena and…” Nyx paused and sighed heavily. They exited and calmly went downstairs. “The subject sort of…came up. Little siblings, the empire- murdering them…”

Cor gave a subtle glance at Nyx to make sure he was fine. The Glaive did stop in the way to stretch the arms and sigh again. He quickly cleaned his already sensitive eyes, and thankfully didn’t cry.
“And he asked if I wanted to go for a drink” he explained. “I guess he must’ve thought it’d be easier to open up about the whole thing if he got a little drunk. He both got very drunk, and couldn’t speak about ‘em anyway. A good listener, though, at least today he was, he was. With quite a mouth, though, boy is angry at the Empire.”

Cor kept the eyes elsewhere, and the mind beyond the present. He remained thoughtful for a while, still processing everything and having struggles with it. Nyx suddenly put a hand on his shoulder, which he wouldn’t have done if sober.
“He tried, though” he said. “It’s fine. It took me a year before I could say Selena’s name again. He’ll get there” he patted Cor’s shoulder, perhaps a little harder than he intended or noticed, but the Marshal didn’t point it out. “He’s a good guy. I think. Maybe. Just…maybe has a little drinking problem” he let go of Cor’s shoulder and pointed at the building’s door with a thumb. “That ain’t normal, Marshal. He seemed to know what he was doing, like this was his goal, on purpose. I’ve seen people drink but that was…” and for any adjective, all that Nyx did was lift the eyebrows and let out a breath. Cor felt another pinch, and for a second he was upset at Nyx for insisting on bringing that subject up when not only did Cor worry about it but also had not been prepared for it. “Tell him drinking isn’t fixing it, and trust me on that one. Alcohol as answer for depression is just…romanticized in TV. Trust me. Doesn’t work. Trust me. Makes you feel worse, actually. Trust me.”

Cor frowned a little and looked away, nodding lightly, not liking what he was nodding at but not having any option. Nyx gave him a smile again and patted his own chest.
“Thank you for the money, Marshal, I was getting really worried on how to pay for all that your guy asked for” Cor opened the mouth to tell him that that wasn’t ‘his guy’, but he chose to keep it to himself. “Boy’s got…a picky tongue.”
“Thanks to you for bringing him home, Ulric” Cor murmured, finally tiring of listening to more of what he knew he had to but didn’t want to hear, face as serious as always, with a little tint of something else. “Be safe.”
“Thanks, Marshal” Nyx gave him a smile, then headed for the taxi that was still waiting for him. Nyx seemed to have forgotten how to open a car’s door for a moment before he managed it, got inside, and waved a last time at Cor before he and the car left. Cor still waited until the car was out of sight. He told himself he was making sure Nyx was safe. Part of him, the one that always told him the crude truths and that he hated so much, told him he just didn’t want to go back to the apartment.

He wasn’t even angry at Loqi for getting drunk.
For some reason, Cor just felt irremediably, unbearably sad.

After hesitating for a bit and realizing he couldn’t spend the whole night standing at the empty street, and that even if he could he would still have to face Loqi at some point again, he turned around and went back to the apartment.

Inside, he found Loqi thrown on the sofa, facedown. He had last seen him go to Cor’s room. He probably noticed, after a while, that that wasn’t his own room and he just went to collapse to the first other place he saw. Cor looked at him for a long while. He tried being angry, he wanted to be angry. He was cool about people getting drunk; his friends did it, his ‘nephews’ did it, his own son had done it before, Cor himself had done it. But it…felt different. This didn’t feel like the normal hanging out with friends and getting a bit drunk. This was Loqi apparently fully aware of getting drunk for no reason other than getting drunk. No fun, no purpose, nothing but drinking for the sake of it. Cor hated that, in anyone; he considered getting drunk with no purpose or too frequently as one of the most pathetic things anyone could do, and it would anger him if someone that called himself a worthy soldier did it, so he had to be angry at Loqi.
But he wasn’t. And the fact that he wasn’t frustrated him.

Cor tried heading for him. He stood before a sprawled Loqi for a moment while he gathered up courage for whatever way he was going to react. A little hesitant, Cor put a hand carefully on his back.
“Loqi.”
It didn’t take long. Either Loqi wasn’t asleep or he was quickly awake after that little call. He moved a little at first while he gathered his senses. Then, as soon as he was conscious, he flailed an arm to push Cor’s hand away, rude like the first days they spent together. Cor frowned but tried not to mind that.

Loqi stood up from the couch slowly. His hair was made a disaster and he kept looking other ways, though not on purpose, it seemed. He groaned a little and kept a hand to his face, clearly not enjoying the drunken state. A moment later, in one movement, he stood up and started heading for the hallway. Once more, he took the wrong way.
“That’s my room” Cor told him from his spot. Without saying a word, Loqi appeared from the hallway again and crossed to the other direction. Upset, and a little hurt at the fact that Loqi hadn’t even given him a glance since he arrived, Cor started going after him.

He managed to catch up before Loqi reached the door of his room.
“Loqi-”
And before he could grab him or get close enough, Loqi turned around to face him, making Cor stop dead in tracks.
“Particularly you fuck off” Loqi told him between clenching teeth. Cor blinked in surprise. Loqi glared up at him, frowning. He looked wasted and depressed like the first days; messed hair, this aura of negativity, tired eyes with dark bags around them…eyes cold, so freezing that they burnt. They almost looked unreal with the quantity of freeze-burning poison they delivered. As if thinking Cor hadn’t understood, Loqi frowned deeper and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t think that I’m buying your fucking lies, Cor Leonis.”

Cor couldn’t help a slight frown of confusion. He tried thinking of something he could have done to have upset Loqi, but his mind, already made a knot of confusion, just got worse. It wasn’t necessary, as Loqi went on, raising the voice.
“You think- you think that just because you’re…being good with me-” he stopped and laughed sarcastically before going on. “I see what you’re doing. Eh? You think that just because you’re- you’re…acting like you care- you think that just because you’re being ‘nice’ to me one, two times, I’m going to thank you somehow later, huh?” Loqi frowned angrily again. “Well, guess what? You fucking- disgusting-” he paused again while he tried to let his tongue loose. “You think that just because you do something nice for me I’m going to- grow any…attachment to you, like taking advantage of-” another monosyllabic laugh. “Like it’s a fucking ticket, eh? Well, guess what?”

Cor was frowning, too. His, though, didn’t reflect much anger. He stood quiet, stoic, collected as he could, and listening as the blond went on, not interrupting. Loqi dramatically lifted an arm again, then swung it to point at him.
“I’m not falling for that, you fucking disgrace!” he yelled. “I can take care of myself! I don’t need your pretend! I’m- strong, and I’m not a toddler, and I don’t need your over-sentimentalism and I don’t need your drama, and I don’t need your anything!” he put his arm down but got closer as if ready to start a physical fight, glaring up at Cor, who remained still. Loqi then used his finger again to point at him, but this time lying his fingertip on Cor’s chest every time he made a statement, harder for each that he listed. “You pretend all you want, but I don’t need you! I don’t need these clothes, I don’t need this room, I don’t need this ’house’, and I don’t need you!!”

He tried pushing Cor, but all he did, after the half-second in which he realized he couldn’t move him, was to step back himself, then lift the chin and glare again.
“Fuck your pity, fuck your drama, fuck your house, and fuck you!” he yelled. “You can try all that you want, but I’m never going to like you in any way!” he harshly swung his room’s door open, and gave Cor a last glance. “Fuck you!”
He went into his room, and violently slammed his door closed.

Cor didn’t move from his spot. Despite the silence that fell on him and the hallway as if a cascade out of nowhere, he couldn’t move. The silence was as heavy as it felt asphyxiating. His eyes stared at nowhere for a good while in which he tried to process it all. Or rather…as he tried to…feel through them. Because he understood. Very clearly.

Cor decided Loqi could take his shoes off himself, so he turned around and went to switch the lights off, lock the door, and headed for his own room, calmly.

Once in there, he didn’t bother switching the lights on. He took off his clothes mechanically, as if though every movement did but sharpen the needle that had appeared near his heart, pushing it closer to it. With some effort he put his pajama pants on, and then he sat at the edge of his bed.
And then nothing. He did nothing other than stay sat there, in the dark. Feeling, more than thinking. And not feeling right.

…well…ouch.

Cor had…been yelled at before by Loqi. The first time Loqi saw him after the bombing he even attacked him. But…never had it felt like this. Never had it- well…hurt.
It hurt. Cor was not going to hide from admitting it to himself: Loqi’s attitude, and mostly his words, they had hurt him. He felt it right there, on top of his lungs, in his heart that felt fragile and exposed and a little broken. It didn’t sting; that was momentarily. This kept throbbing, kept aching.

…he had…never done any of what he had done expecting Loqi to be reciprocate. He had never done any of that expecting for Loqi to like him. He did it because he felt bad for him; he too had been lost in life, maybe a little more metaphorically where Loqi was both metaphorically and physically lost, and he didn’t want anyone- no, not even that; even if he didn’t share a similar situation, he would still have done it because he just needed empathy. Nobody liked…or nobody should like to see others in pain. And he had some power to help, and if he had that power he had the responsibility to use it for the sake of helping others, not for the sake of wanting them to ever pay back, even less with something as important as feelings. He was not helping Loqi to get him to feel anything.

It hurt that Loqi thought so. Cor had been sincere since day one. Since way before Loqi woke up. Cor had been sincere from the moment he saw him hugged to his siblings. Expecting nothing. He had stood Loqi’s anger, the hatred, the initial resistance he offered, he had been patient through it all because he cared sincerely, and Loqi dared say, even worse, believe that he was doing it for some prize?

But what hurt most was, maybe, that Loqi had said he didn’t need him. Not because Cor wanted Loqi to need him, it wasn’t that; it was that Loqi was…the way he spoke made Cor feel- like all his effort was being mistreated. Unnoticed would still hurt, but it would have been way better than being told that ‘fuck’ everything he had done so far. All those months, all that he had given up to live with Loqi to make sure he was alright, all the effort and work, everything he did, what he stopped doing, the secret things too, the radical change of lifestyle just to help Loqi…and it all could be ‘fucked’. Cor had…struggled with this, too. Maybe not like Loqi, but he too had given up peace and comfort and things and people that he really loved just to not let him be alone and find his way back to health, and this was what he got?

Cor sighed. He couldn’t help but remember about what Nyx had told him just earlier that night, almost as if he had known either what was to come, or what had been going on. Unintentionally, Nyx had given Cor some perspective.
He went too far for people that couldn’t appreciate it.
Loqi couldn’t. Even worse, he stepped on Cor’s effort. And there was the difference, between having his effort not given back, which was fine, and having his effort stepped on.

…Cor sniffled, though he didn't cry. He was frowning down at his lap, hands made weak fists, yet unable to be angry. He knew that he was in all rights to go flip Loqi off his mattress and tell him to leave his apartment, but all that he wanted as hard as he tried to be angry was Prompto to hug him and hear him. Shit, why was he here? Why did he trade his time with his own dear son for this man that had never said one thanks to him, other than once, moodily, and only when he thought it was a last goodbye? Cor didn’t want to yell at Loqi, he wanted someone to pat his head and tell him he was doing good and that it wasn’t a lost cause and that it wasn’t true that it all had been in vain. He had focused so much on how to make this the healthiest for Loqi that he forgot to ask if this was healthy at all to himself.

…there were limits, he mused as he sighed again and started pulling the blankets down to finally get in bed. A moody Loqi he could stand. He understood the initial hatred Loqi had towards him, it was just natural in the context of both being on opposite sides of a crude war. But a drunk, violent Loqi yelling at him…no. Yelling was fine, they fought often. But when it hurt, that was where Cor had to mark a limit.
No one was entitled to fix someone else. No one was a rehabilitation center for others. Especially when the interaction harmed the ‘healer’. Even more so when Loqi was not an unprotected child; he was a grown man aware of what he was doing, aware that he was messed up, and, if aware of that, with all and every access to recovery. He just didn’t want to. He just took advantage of everything Cor offered.

Maybe Loqi wasn’t…as worth it as Cor had thought. Maybe the big heart of a brave hero that he had seen started and ended in Nanna and Frey Tummelt only, and there was no getting the best out of Loqi with anyone else, not even with Loqi himself.
Maybe Clarus was right. And Gladiolus. And Prompto. And Monica. And Nyx. And everyone.
Maybe he gave too much for people that not only didn’t see his effort, but also stepped on it.

Cor rolled in his bed, wrapping in the blanket, and sighing.

Having the head so stormy, chaotic, and messed that he was not going to be able to sleep was already bad enough, and he still had yet to add the stupid, frustrating sensation of feeling so terribly lonely and so immensely miserable.

Chapter Text

Cor didn’t bother saying goodbye the next day. He didn’t even bother leaving a note. Loqi noticed. And that was the saddest part.

The next morning, Loqi woke up with a horrible headache and disgusted at his own smell. It took long enough waking up amongst curses, and longer while he digested his moody anger, lying numb in bed, too angry at nothing and too…something to want to get up from bed. He simply didn’t want to. Where he normally, used to the military life, get up in a blink, the past months just getting out of bed, not even waking up, getting out of bed was a challenge and it took so much effort. If it wasn’t for Cor’s presence that made Loqi’s pride tingle and force him up on his feet, Loqi would have probably stayed there for weeks.

It was the thought of Cor’s presence what made him pull up on his arms, then sit up, frantically looking around. Cor’s absence was obvious, but so was the clean, clear day outside, too bright to be early. Feeling rather lost, and moved thanks to just to the fear of Cor breaking in at any second to reprimand him or anything, Loqi pulled out of bed and reached for the desk. The way there was a struggle; his head started stinging and throbbing until making him stumble, forcing him to stop, close the eyes, and hold his head so it wouldn’t fall off or explode. After a good while there, he kept going and, first of all, he ran the curtains closed, cursing, and only then he grabbed the little clock.

Midday. It was fucking midday.
Cor had not bothered waking him up.

At first, Loqi’s heart did a strange thing. Then, he comforted himself at the thought that Cor, overly kind as always, probably had some idiotic, soft thought like “he deserves a rest” and let him be for that day.
Trying to not pay it much mind, Loqi went back to bed. He didn’t lie back down; he hated himself and cursed himself aloud for the smell. Cheap Lucian alcohol, and him, heavily drunk on it to the point of passing out at some point in the smelly, dirty bar. That wasn’t bottom rock. That was way, way lower.

Staying sat at the edge of his bed, though, made him turn his attention to the stupid nightlight. At first, he didn’t process it. Then, when he was unplugging it, he realized that he was unplugging it.
…not Cor? Following his over sentimentalism and overly soft, naïve heart, he sure would have thought about turning the light off so Loqi could have a good sleep…
Loqi couldn’t help but notice there weren’t painkillers at his bedside table, either. And not that normally there would. But, once more, knowing Cor…maybe the light he could forget, but Leonis was way more than obviously the kind to leave painkillers for Loqi to find in the morning. He always did that kind of silly over-attentive stuff.

Loqi took a bit longer processing that. It was…odd. For Cor to not overly react as he always did. It had been pretty clear what Loqi had done last night for Cor to not notice, and even if he hadn’t, then he would have woken Loqi at the usual hour.
Loqi wasn’t worried. Not about Cor. And he refused to be.
He shrugged it all off again, but his curiosity led him to stand back up and peek outside his room. As quietly as he could, he opened the door, just in case Cor was standing outside. Very slowly and as silently as he could, Loqi looked around to make sure he wasn’t. Then, he exited and peeked into the main room.
Cor wasn’t there. Not in the tiny kitchen area, not in the tiny living room, not in the hallway, nowhere.

Curiousness and some strange self-concern were so great they shadowed Loqi’s headache and drunken state. Even more alert than before, Loqi went to Cor’s door. He knocked. Twice. Three times. No answer. He opened the door and didn’t find Cor there. He went to his bathroom but he wasn’t there.
His stomach roared, and his throat pleaded him for some water. Sure Leonis had made breakfast for him. He knew Loqi didn’t know- er, he didn’t want to cook, and didn’t have why to, and Cor always, always cooked for him, even when he was upset, so sure that, despite disappearing for whatever reason, he must have left something prepared.

Loqi looked on the stove. On the counter. On the other counter. In the oven. In the fridge. In the cupboards. He thought and was sure that it had to be a mistake, and he looked again in the same places, only to find that, in fact, there was no invisible soup, transparent meal, or hidden sandwich he couldn’t find. Not one. There were only separate ingredients, but no meal, and no note on the meal.
Closing the fridge’s door for a third time, Loqi put a hand to his stomach and lowered the head, yet what whined was his heart, if timidly. Maybe because he knew why there was no meal for him, but nothing that he would accept right now, mostly because it scared him. Another thing that he was not going to admit.

Fuck Cor, then. Not preparing breakfast for him, what an asshole. Not like Loqi wanted to eat, he still had some nausea and he could prepare something for himself if he so wanted, but he didn’t want to, so whatever. Whatever and whatever he told himself, and he was just going to peek with curiosity around the apartment, just out of boredom, he told himself. Out of boredom only, he said, but everywhere he looked, he tried to find the note that Cor must have left. He always said where he was going, left his phone number written every time with the note ‘in case you need anything’, always signed it with that fancy handwriting Loqi didn’t expect him to have, the note that he always wrote and that Loqi always rolled his eyes at and hated and crumbled and threw away and despised, he had to have written that stupid note.

But he hadn’t. Loqi didn’t find it anywhere.

After a good while, Loqi just…sat there. He looked around a little awkwardly, like a foreigner sitting in the middle of a train station, not knowing where to go, or the language.
It was like Cor had vanished. Which was fine, Loqi didn’t care…but maybe…it had been his fault…?

Loqi looked at the phone, and he thought about phoning Cor…but he never paid attention to the notes Cor always wrote, and he had never cared not only to memorize, but to read his phone number at all. Not like he wanted to phone him…but sure the Citadel’s number had to be in some guide, right? No, no, it was ok, he didn’t want to phone him…

It took a long while of hesitation and awkward sitting before Loqi went back to his room. He tried showering, and reprimanded himself (for drinking filthy Lucian drinks in such filthy place with a filthy Lucian) with a cold shower. It was absolutely horrible and he gasped loudly at the first touch, but that was the Nif way to scold a high rank for a night of overdrinking during work days. Even after coming out of the bathroom and dressing himself, he still went back out to the apartment and looked again for Cor and once more had no luck at finding anyone in the apartment.

Loqi thought that he didn’t care, and good, a free day. He lied in bed for about an hour. Bored. Empty.
Lonely.

When he was starting to realize he was feeling lonely, and scared of feeling such emotive, stupid thing, he got up and tried looking around for something to distract himself with. He found nothing. And he found literally nothing. He looked again at the apartment and made a list of everything that he didn’t find: Cor didn’t leave painkillers for him, or a glass of water, he didn’t leave any breakfast for him, and no note, and no nothing.

And Loqi didn’t see it like that, and Cor would have, maybe, if he could read what Loqi was thinking…but Loqi noticed everything that Cor didn’t do. Loqi was used to Cor doing everything for him, so he never paid it any mind.

He was so used to what Cor did for him that he could only see it when Cor didn’t do it.

Near three p.m., and to ignore the way his stomach roared, Loqi reached for the phone again. He tried remembering Cor’s phone, but he couldn’t even remember what Lucian numbers looked like. Suddenly, he remembered Big Brute Barbarian had given him a little paper with his number, in case Loqi wanted the sparring classes. He scrambled through his stuff until finding the broken paper and put it back together to make out the numbers.
He actually phoned him. It actually ringed three times. Gladiolus actually answered.
“Hello?” he heard the deep voice from the other end of the line. Loqi stayed frozen at first. Then, he took in a large inhale.
And he hung up.

What was he supposed to say? He didn’t…want to ask about Cor. And even less did he want Gladiolus to have any wrong ideas about that. He didn’t care about Cor. They weren’t friends. Asking for him would make him think that and…no. It was idiotic.
Yet, less than fifteen minutes later, Loqi was finding a phone guide in one of the drawers and looking up for the Citadel’s registers.
“Uhm…I’d like to speak to…” Loqi’s heart raced as he tried to think at the speed of light of what to say now after the lady who answered asked him for a name. He toyed with the curly cord of Cor’s old house phone while thinking, and even had to caress his forehead out of nerves. “…M-Monica Elshett…”

It took a good twenty minutes listening to silence and a recorded reminder to be patient before Monica picked up.
“Elshett, Monica, Crownsguard’s Second General, how may I help you?”
Loqi took a long while again before he could say anything. His finger kept tangling and messing with the cord, and he couldn’t bring himself to push the words out for some unexplainable reason that made him angry.
“Uhm- Elshett…” he tried to sound firm as he always did, but failed. He cleared his throat and tried again, faking. “Tummelt speaking.”
“…oh?” he could almost see the confusion on her face with that tiny noise she made. “Oh…of…of course, Loqi. Is there anything you need? How may I help you?”

Is Cor there? was the first thought he had, but he bit down on his lip to not let the words out. He didn’t want to ask that. He didn’t want to know to answer.
…or rather, he was scared of it…?
“Ah…” Loqi tried again, then paused for a while. “I just…” he shook the head. “I was wondering if…”
“…yes?” Monica gently urged him after a long pause. Loqi’s heart had sped up enough by then, and he contained his breath. In the end, he closed the eyes and let out the breath.
“…Cor’s…there?”
“…yes?” Monica answered, as if unsure. “He’s…been here all day, as usual. I thought you knew?”
“Ah- yes, I just…” Loqi looked away, as if embarrassed that the phone was looking at him to the eyes or something. “…he didn’t…leave any note or anything and I wasn’t sure if…”
“…oh” was any answer there was for a while. Then, there was a long, awkward pause, but none hung up. “Well…yes. He’s…here. He mentioned you weren’t feeling well, so maybe he just…didn’t want to wake you up to tell you when he left?”
“…yeah. Sure” Loqi whispered. He didn’t bother telling her anything about how that bit was true, but she forgot everything he would have done without waking him, the pills, or the water, or the breakfast, or the note. He sighed. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome” she said softly. “Do you want to talk with him?”
“No, no- no…” he rushed. “I was just…curious.”
“Alright…” she hesitated. “Should you need anything, you can tell me.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Alright. And don’t be afraid to phone him directly if you need anything, he’ll answer. You have his number, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Alright, then. Is it ok to hang up now?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright. Have a good day.”
“Yeah…”

And he hung up. Well, Cor had clearly not vanished, and he had no special urgent mission that could have made him shoot out of bed with no time to leave him painkillers, or water, or breakfast, or a note, or anything. He was at the Citadel, doing the usual.
…it was the opposite of comforting, though.
Loqi sat sprawled on the sofa thinking that whatever, then, how rude of Cor to not say anything. He tried watching TV, and realized an hour into it that he hadn’t paid attention to one minute of it. He tried doing other things, but got bored too quickly, or couldn’t focus. He ended up sprawled facedown on his bed again. He considered going out and taking the bus to the Citadel like he did first time, he could do it alone, but in the end he stayed in the apartment, pacing around like an anxious tiny tiger pretending he was fine.

He spent so long not moving lying on bed that he nearly fell asleep, but he shoot up so fast he nearly fell off the bed when he heard the door unlock. He hoped the little gasp wasn’t heard, and he stayed with the head up, alert, to hear more. He heard the door open, then close, then get locked again. Loqi tried getting out of bed, froze, considered pretending to sleep, tried leaving, froze again, panicked a bit, and he ended up sat on his bed, alert to the last fiber, staring at his door. Sure Cor was going to knock and come in at any second, like he did every day. Loqi didn’t want and didn’t have why to go to say hello. Cor would do it, he always did.

And the minutes passed and he didn’t. As attentive as he was, Loqi heard the noises from the main room of the apartment; he heard movement, steps, the keys tingling, some rustling of clothes, kitchen utensils. Normal activity. Normal chores.
Without knocking at his door first.
Even when he knew Loqi was there…

Loqi still stared at his door for a while. He even considered, for a moment, that it could be an intruder. Cor always…said hello. He always knocked and came in, something that always made Loqi roll the eyes, growl, throw something at him, not reply or not glance, something that he hated and despised and something he was still waiting for, and something he didn’t have. It had to be an intruder, he thought, because, somehow, the idea of an intruder was less alarming.

Moments later, and stepping as silently as he could, Loqi got off his bed and headed for the door, carefully. He opened the door as slowly as to make no noise, and looked outside. Finding the hallway clear, he exited his room carefully, and slowly headed for the main room.
And Cor was there. Jacket and shoes off, at the kitchen, taking utensils and ingredients.
The mere sight made Loqi pull back a bit behind the corner like a timid kid, peeking out only enough to keep looking, but shrugging back as if frightened to be looked back at. For a moment, he felt a tiny bit intimidated. Cor seemed bigger than Loqi remembered him. He looked like he could take Loqi’s head in a hand and smash him to the stove. Which was weird, considering the…look on his face. He didn’t seem angry, he just looked exhausted.
But it was the lack of…usual softness that made him feel scarier to Loqi. Once more, seeing what Cor was not giving.

After hesitating a bit, Loqi decided that he was just over worrying. Nothing was happening. Nothing had to be going on. He said a few mean things to Cor last night, yes, but Cor couldn’t be angry at him for that, right? It wasn’t the big deal, and not even Cor was so overly sensitive as to get upset for such stupid thing.

So, repeating to himself with as much security as he could gather that it all was fine, like nothing had happened, he came out from his hideout and very calmly headed for the kitchen.
“Thanks for abandoning me, that was very kind of you” Loqi said as a way to break the ice. Cor barely looked at him from above the shoulder.
And he didn’t reply.

Loqi waited for the reply. He reached for his usual stool and sat on it, and still waited. And Cor still didn’t reply. Loqi’s vague ghost of a smile started fading more with every second that Cor spent very much aware and awake and moving around the kitchen, and not replying. Loqi guessed Cor just had no answer, like it sometimes happened. He sighed and put his chin to his hand.
“Cat got your tongue?” he tried. By any answer, Cor made some weird noise and shrugged. Loqi worried a little more, and his spirits crumbled down again, even lower than before Cor had come back. He tried looking for something to make him talk, but found nothing in his repertoire.

He sat awkwardly in his stool, in heavy silence, while Cor did his kitchen stuff. Surprisingly, after a while, Cor spoke.
“…did you eat?” he asked in a strange murmur, not turning to look at him. Loqi eyed him from head to toe.
“Yeah” he said with confidence. For a moment, Cor didn’t move, as if measuring his answer. Then, he went back to his cooking.
“Of course” he murmured. Loqi pouted a little and kept the eyes on him, decided to catch every movement, every little thing and attitude that could tell him something, anything about Cor’s…sudden odd attitude. He really couldn’t comprehend what was wrong or why it was so sudden, it didn’t occur to him why, but he noticed something was bothering him.

Cor continued cooking in silence. Loqi watched him, and waited for Cor to turn around and say fucking hello like a decent, polite person, but he didn’t. Loqi pouted and got angry at him, but he also kept staring to try to understand what it was. To Loqi, it was obvious that it couldn’t be what he said last night because it was only a few innocent insults, nothing he hadn’t said before, so it couldn’t be that. Had something else happened? Maybe Cor had fought with his cub, or something happened to him, or maybe someone died or something.

While trying to read him, Cor finally turned around. For a moment, Loqi pulled a little more upwards, but he was disappointed when Cor didn’t make eye contact with him. He put a dish with food in front of Loqi and kept his eyes there. He looked away, caressed one of his arms slowly and long, and then sighed.
“…do you…need anything?” Cor asked, rather unsure. Loqi cleared his throat to hide the noise his stomach did when he looked at his food, and looked at Cor, but the Marshal didn’t look back more than one second before looking away again, awkward and uncomfortable. Loqi shook the head. Cor pressed his lips together and nodded. “Okay.”

And so, he left the kitchen. Loqi tensed in his spot, alert and taken off-guard. He shamelessly stared as Cor walked away, and couldn’t contain the question.
“Aren’t you going to have dinner, too?”
“I’m not hungry.”
And with no more explanation, Cor kept going as calm and collected as always until disappearing in the hallway. Loqi still kept staring, waiting for, and maybe hoping, that Cor would end up coming back. Even in the rare case that Cor didn’t eat, he still stayed to watch Loqi do it. He had to come back, it was the usual.
He heard a door close, and for more that he stared, the door didn’t open again.

Loqi turned to look at his food. He was hungry.
He noticed the glass of water Cor didn’t serve him, and noticed the seat Cor didn’t occupy during dinner. He noticed the missing conversation and the missing noise of another fork on another dish. Cor didn’t come back across all dinner.
After finishing, Loqi stood in the kitchen a little awkwardly, as if not knowing what to do now or where to go. He…hadn’t dined alone in…a very long while. And never in what time he had been living at the apartment. It was a little odd to have dinner alone, finish, and then…nothing.

Finding it odd and weird, Loqi had no option but to head back to his room. He changed into clean pajamas and sat in his bed, and looked at the door. And he waited.
He noticed the lack of knock. He noticed the missing visit he received every night; the missing ‘How are you feeling’, the missing ‘is there anything you need’, the missing sad smile that he hated. He noticed the missing gesture of plugging in the nightlight for him. He noticed the missing glass of water and the missing switch off of the lights that he had never needed to do himself.
Loqi ended up looking at the door for way longer than he realized or intended, still waiting for any of that. He stared, and waited, not really thinking about why Cor was delaying so much, and almost a little too sure that he was going to appear.

Only when he noticed he was falling off due to falling asleep on his spot, Loqi turned the lights off and laid in bed…but he still couldn’t sleep fast enough, because his brain was still sure that Cor was going to knock at some point.

Loqi woke up a little too fast, a little too alarmed when he finally heard the knock at his door. His eyelids flew open and his heart sped up at the noise, and he thought, finally, what a fucking long time Cor took to say goodnight.
“Loqi?” he heard from outside his room. “It’s morning. Get ready for work.”
“Y-yeah, I know.”

…morning. It was morning.
Cor never knocked at night…

Loqi sat up in his bed and, just like last night, he stared at his door, waiting and waiting and waiting for Cor to open it like he did every time. That time, too, he noticed Cor by his absence. He didn’t knock even after Loqi got clean and dressed, and he didn’t ask Loqi if he liked this or that in his breakfast, he just served it as Cor himself wanted. He did sit there through breakfast, though in silence. It wasn’t that silence was abnormal. Sometimes, they could spend all morning like that. But it was…different than the normal silence. A little…more blue. A little more fragile. And Loqi, of course, lacking any experience with dealing with fragile things, preferred to not touch anything and remained quiet as well.

Loqi still stayed attentive to Cor’s usual questions. He waited for the ‘How are you feeling’, ‘Do you need anything’, ‘Are you comfortable with this or that’, any of that stupid bullshit of insisting, and he got nothing. Cor was patient at waiting for him to exit the apartment, he did ask if he was ready, but there were still so many questions and things missing that Loqi noticed them all. Cor’s attitude was still off, even if he had dared make more eye contact than the previous day, and Loqi was getting really annoyed that Leonis was not being clear.

The day at the Citadel went on just as odd. Cor wouldn’t stop behaving like an idiot and half-ignoring him; he did stay at watch duty during Loqi’s class, but he outstood by the missing staring of always and the missing awkward smiles that tried to be friendly. He kept looking other places and doing other things. Loqi noticed the lack of attempt of conversation whenever they walked somewhere. He noticed the lack of ‘How are you feeling’ and ‘You ok?’ and all the fucking questions. He noticed the lack of attention and the lack of stares all through the day, but Loqi tried telling himself that two could play the game and so he ignored Cor too, moody, angrily, and pretended he didn’t notice that Cor wasn’t doing the usual things.

The usual things that Loqi had never in life noticed existed, not until they were missing.

Even though he shouldn’t, Loqi noticed Cor’s absence even more when Cor was, well, missing. It wasn’t weird that they parted ways throughout the work day across the Citadel, and Loqi had never once minded that, but that day, with Leonis behaving like that, his absence was clear for once. Loqi would sometimes look at the corner where he would be standing, or at the door in case he would spot him, and then curse him for making Loqi angry by being missing. Loqi hated the feeling. He hated how much he noticed that Cor was missing in so many ways. He hated to be looking for him everywhere he looked at.

That day, Cor shone by his absence, which weighed more than it should.

Still, routine went on as normal. And because it was part of the routine, Cor finally had no escape when it was time for Loqi’s training. Loqi wasn’t even sure Cor would arrive, but he went to the training hall they had taken for themselves at the end of the shift, and sat on a table, legs swinging a little while he waited. It didn’t take long before Cor appeared; he was always a punctual man. Yet, he still had that gloomy look on his face and Loqi had never in life wanted so much to punch him.
He didn’t say hello again. He just gave Loqi the bandages and got ready himself. Loqi didn’t pressure him or say anything, and followed him into the awkward silence, bandaging his hands and taking his jacket off.

After both were in their undershirt, Cor headed to the punching bag without even looking to make sure Loqi was following. Loqi tried looking at him to see what was wrong or if he stopped, but Cor kept going, so he followed. Cor rounded the bag and grabbed it, sighing a bit, and looked at Loqi. He just nodded as if asking if he was ready. Loqi nodded and put his fists up.

Then, he put them down and looked at Cor.
“Fine, are we not going to talk about it?” he asked, and Cor didn’t even bother pretending he had no idea what was going on. Cor immediately sighed and looked away, shaking the head a little as if annoyed by the conversation. Loqi watched him a little angry. “What? What is it? You’ve been acting even way more stupid than usual, you’re doing…” he gestured towards him. ”Stuff. Stop it, it’s annoying. What’s got you? Huh?”

Cor put the hands to the waist and shook the head a little again, looking a bit angrily elsewhere. Loqi’s eyebrow twitched in hesitation.
…had he…seen Cor angry before? Sure back at the hospital wing the first time they spoke after the Vianard events, but that didn’t count. The context was much more different now. Cor was not- an enemy anymore.
The thought of Cor getting angry was…a little intimidating.

Still, Loqi didn’t let that get in the way and he kept pushing whatever buttons he found in his repertoire.
“You’ve been ignoring me since yesterday!” he complained, gesturing towards Cor again. “And you’ve been acting all…like that!”
“Loqi, please, I really don’t feel like addressing any of this, alright?” Cor finally replied, closing the eyes for a moment and putting a hand up towards the younger man as if asking him to stop. Loqi gave him a look, then frowned and pouted.
“What a hypocrite you are, aren’t you, Cor?” he said. Moved by curiosity from not understanding the question, Cor turned to look at him, frowning. Loqi frowned more before replying. “You’re always…insisting on me to ‘speak’. Say this, answer that, ‘it’s the only way I can know what’s wrong’, you’re always insisting on speaking when something is ‘feeling wrong’ and look at you now” Loqi snorted sarcastically. “What a fine example, eh? Well, do as you preach and fucking tell me what’s wrong! What’s got you, Cor? What is it?”

For a moment, all that Cor did was look away again, letting out a breath through the nose. Loqi kept staring, ready to keep going if he so needed.
“You don’t know?” Cor asked lowly, and rather than angry, he sounded…hesitant. Like he almost didn’t want to ask that. Or know the answer.
‘Yes, I do’, Loqi almost wanted to say. He thought about it. But he repeated to himself that that couldn’t possibly be the reason. To Loqi, what had happened that night had been normal, and not the big deal, so it sure hadn’t been a big deal to Cor either, he thought. So, despite the part of himself that asked him to say yes, he went and did what he wanted anyway, as he always did.
“No” he replied. “That’s why I’m asking.”

Cor turned to look at him, frown gone. Yet, Loqi didn’t like the look on his face. Cor seemed…surprised, a bit, in a bad way. In a sad way. Like Cor’s eyes weren’t sad enough on his usual self, they seemed even sadder now. Loqi felt a sting inside when Cor gave him that look. Loqi’s frown left immediately and his shoulders dropped, and he felt he had fucked up big time. Still, he did nothing about it. A moment later, Cor looked away, head a little down, and he snorted a chuckle.
“You don’t” he whispered. He lifted the head and nodded, smiling, looking elsewhere. “Of course.”

Yet again, another sting at the top of his stomach. Loqi stared at Cor and did nothing more for a while. He thought that the sarcastic smile should make him angry and throw him into an outrage, but it didn’t. He just felt…weird. Cor’s whole reaction and attitude there and then were making him feel like he had- done something wrong. Very wrong.
Like maybe…he had…hurt him…?
One of Loqi’s hands reached for the opposite one, and he started toying a little with an invisible ring on his finger, nervous. He looked down and tried thinking of something. He had never been good at handling emotions, let alone something as odd and rare and stupid as- guilt…it was guilt. It made him nervous, and awkward, and sad, and frustrated and he hated it.

It took a while. Loqi tried arming himself with courage, and he handled the odd emotions he was feeling the only way he knew; trying to force them out of the way. So if guilt was making him scared of asking, he was going to ask. He looked at Cor again.
“…was it because I yelled at you that night?” he asked, surprising himself with the way it came out rather softly, at least to be himself. Cor was quiet only for a bit.
“It wasn’t that you yelled at me” he replied, smile gone and eyes fixed on the floor. “It was what you yelled…”

Loqi didn’t think anything for a moment. The sudden sincerity was…new, and a bit startling. Normally, neither in his house nor job back at Niflheim no one spoke about feelings this openly, and if the ‘What’s wrong with you’ conversation came up, no one ever said reasons, because it would lead to- intimacy and maybe tears and that was just a big No. He had thought, more personally, too, that Cor was probably the type to keep it all in; never say what was wrong or going on, and even lie about it. Hearing him say what had him acting all odd without needing to insist much was…weird. He guessed it had something to do with the way he had been raised (didn’t think about the way he had raised), and tried to pay not much mind to that, but to the actual problem.

Loqi stayed quiet and looked down and started thinking. He tried remembering that night, but he had vague glimpses only. He had been very much aware and conscious that night, he knew; that about doing things while drunk and not remember or not being conscious of it was only a myth, an excuse for pathetic people to get away with doing bad things and have an excuse. Yet, it was also true that as conscious as he had been, sleeping it away had made him forget most of what he said. He remembered the basics, mostly, and while he couldn’t point it word by word, he was sure he told Cor to fuck off.

“…but it wasn’t anything that I haven’t told you before” Loqi murmured, both on the defensive, and genuinely not understanding what the problem was.
“I know, it’s just…” Cor whispered, but he ended up closing the eyes, looking down, and shaking the head, letting out a little sigh. He didn’t look angry; his eyebrows furrowed in a way that almost made him look like he was about to cry, even when his voice and eyes didn’t seem like that. Loqi stared at him, quiet and calm, and still a little blue, and a little worried. Cor opened the eyes but shook the head again, keeping it low. Then, he lifted his head and turned in Loqi’s direction, but kept the eyes low; his hands held the punching bag a little weakly, and he rested a side of his head on it. He almost looked like a kid, sad and scared, hiding behind an adult’s leg. When he spoke again, he sounded weak, and vulnerable, and so immensely sad, and Loqi hated it, hated it for how much it touched him. “…I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you, I’m sorry I haven’t been as attentive as I should, that was immature of me, I just…”

Once more, he didn’t finish his sentence. Loqi stared as calm as before, waiting for him to go on, but he didn’t. Cor seemed to be trying to look for the right words, or to say them, but he just looked in distress and ended up shaking the head again.
“I’m sorry” he murmured as if a final statement. Then, when Loqi thought he wouldn’t, Cor went on. “I know you hate here and hate me, but I’ve been trying really hard to make it as less of a hell for you as is possible, and I feel…” he lowered the head again and his fingers curled a little against the bag. “…it’s just been…a little hard…” before Loqi could ask if it was his fault, Cor looked at him and went on. “I’m not asking you to be my friend, and I know I can’t change you, but I think you could help me a lot at helping you if you could…”

He paused. Loqi didn’t interrupt, and for once, pausing in the middle of a sentence didn’t make him angry. When Cor looked at him again, Loqi felt his inside tickle again in that annoying way that made him feel frustrated and bad with himself. Cor gave him a pair of sad blue eyes, and a weird smile that seemed to want to make it sound less bad but couldn’t help it.
“…if you could…just be…a little less mean to me…”

Loqi didn’t like how it felt. Cor giving him that sad, timid look, like a kid arming themselves with courage to express what they think to a mean adult, saying it as it is but still looking like expecting at least a reprimand for their audacity, it felt…like a twist in the stomach. And it was also…weird. Cor Leonis, Marshal of the army, the valiant man that had defeated the biggest and deadliest Empire’s machinery almost alone…asking Loqi to be a little less mean. Looking like a mistreated child, frightened, expecting to be hit only by expressing their ache.

He always hated his parents so much for forcing this kind of reaction on his little siblings…and he was doing the same to people that, just like his siblings, had done but try their best.
What a fucking disgusting thing to become.

Loqi swallowed. He subtly looked to the sides as if scared that a thousand people had popped out of nowhere and were judging what he had done.
“Alright…” Loqi said lowly while shaking the head a bit and looking away, swinging the hands a little. He seemed to not know what to say and went ahead with that seemed obvious. “I won’t…get home drunk again, then…”
“It’s not…just when you’re drunk.”

Loqi looked up at him, taken off guard. Cor looked at him and gave him a weird smile, more like pressing his lips in a line, clearly uncomfortable, but decided to not lie or take anything back. Loqi still kept looking at him for a good while, not sure he understood, and even less sure he liked any of this. Cor was saying that he was mean to him…all the time? Loqi had…assumed that it was fine. Most times he didn’t even want to be rude to Cor, he just…said and did things as he would do normally. And whenever it was on purpose, Cor had never seemed unfazed by it.

…was he really being mean? Mean enough to cause…all of this? Cor had never seemed like the type to take things personally. He had insulted him a lot with barely any reaction, and that was both in the battlefield and now living with him.
…unless he had…maybe insulted something else of Cor, other than his looks and attitude…
Fuck your ‘house’.
Fuck your pity.
Fuck your help.

Loqi lowered the head a little and stared around and at nowhere at all, thinking, and feeling. Again, his hands started toying with each other, nervous and not knowing how to handle what he felt or the conversation, or the realization he was being given. He gave a timid ‘Uhm’, but couldn’t find anything to say. Cor lowered the eyes too and stayed quiet.
For some reason, Loqi couldn’t help but feel another sting. Perhaps a little more selfish, but still a sting.
He had…never really known how to be a good friend. He knew it. Besides two or three at Niflheim, he had…never really known how to keep a friend.
…and Cor was the only- something he had now. The closest thing to a friend. Loqi really didn’t mean to not know how to keep him, either…he just…
He just was a chaos.

“…okay” Loqi murmured. Cor looked up at him and said nothing, expecting more. Loqi gave him a look and didn’t even try to pretend to be rude or that he was just shrugging it off as he did every time. He gave Cor calm, if slightly timid eyes. Very slowly, he nodded a bit. “Okay” he repeated, still lowly. “I…didn’t mean…I, eh…”

He paused and swallowed. Shit, Cor made ‘talk about your thoughts’ seem so easy, he did it so naturally, and Loqi had thought maybe he could just answer as naturally too, but it didn’t flow. He was…not used to this. To be free to say what he thought. He had been taught to keep it all in. Now as an adult, he would keep it all in and put it all out in rage-form somewhere else. This was…so stupid, and so difficult.

He put the head a little down.
“…I didn’t notice” he murmured. He looked up at Cor again and made eye contact. “I’m sorry…”

Cor couldn’t help but look at him more attentively. Despite the slight surprise Cor was looking with at him, Loqi didn’t falter. His cheeks turned a fade shade of red, and he pouted the lips to a side, then lowered the eyes. He seemed embarrassed by what he said but- but not regretful. Cor still stared, surprised; Loqi was clearly the type to have a lot of difficulties to say some things, like ‘thanks’, so Cor thought he would also have troubles at saying something as difficult, sometimes intimate, and as…selfless enough as ‘Sorry’. Loqi was so rude and lacked so many basic manners that Cor couldn’t help the surprise, but it also didn’t shock him, for whatever reason.
Maybe because…part of him, if not most of him…despite what he started thinking that night, still knew that Loqi did have a big heart somewhere in there.

Cor felt as if something had poked his heart, but it didn’t hurt. On the opposite. It…moved him.
He put the eyes down and started smiling. Suddenly, just those few words were managing to make his chest feel a little more warm inside, and the gloomy grey clouds started going away even if just a bit.
‘I’m sorry’, Loqi said. The stubborn asshole, the absolute idiot, that jerk of a rude brat…he had actually apologized. It didn’t take him much effort. He seemed sincere. And he was not taking it back. The “I didn’t notice” bit could come off as stupid from anyone else and could just worsen things; it was a useless, dumb excuse. But Cor understood what Loqi didn’t know how to explain; it wasn’t that he was excusing himself from not noticing he was being rude, because Loqi, like everyone, was very much aware of everything he did and said. He just didn’t notice that what he did and said was coming off as hurtful to Cor.

And Cor believed him. He wouldn’t believe it was this anyone else. Anyone with basic decency would notice that that kind of comments are hurtful, by mere logic. The thing was that Loqi was anything but ordinary. Raised as a privileged, rich, noble, military Nif, he had no basic decency when it came to mundane things like socializing out of the high society world. Cor didn’t need to be told to know that Loqi didn’t have friends even back at Niflheim for a reason. They were bad at that. And now, putting him with a Lucian whose whole world revolved around empathy, of course the clash of cultures would come out like this. It wasn’t that Loqi wasn’t aware of what he said, it was that, to him, that was his normal behavior and he didn’t notice the real impact it had.

Loqi was aware of his attitude and it was no excuse to be rude with no consequences, but…he also knew Loqi didn’t mean it. He just was not used to the change of life, yet. And more important than excusing him, Loqi had apologized. Timidly, simply, but an apology nevertheless. And an apology, small as it could be, meant he was open for change.
And that was all that Cor needed. He didn’t need an immediate change. He didn’t need to be prized or compensated, as bad as he really did feel that night. He didn’t even need a hug or more explanation or a better elaborated apology. It was Loqi he was talking about. He understood his mental state. He understood his struggles. He understood that saying sorry, to Loqi, was even better than any form of compensation he could be given, so he didn’t need more. He just needed this: knowing Loqi accepted the fault instead of shrugging it off or excusing himself, like Cor had sincerely thought he would do. Knowing Loqi accepted it, apologized for it, and actually promised, short and simple as it was, to not do it again. To be willing to change.
He just needed this to not give up on him.

Cor smiled a little more widely and started nodding. His shoulders had relaxed and he held the punching bag softly, having come out from behind it without noticing.
Gods, Astrals dear, how could he believe that Loqi’s big hero heart really had no salvation when it was still so obviously giving glimpses of life every now and then?
“Alright” he whispered and nodded again. Loqi looked up at him as calm and serious as before. Cor gave him another smile. “Thank you.”

Loqi opened the mouth but said nothing, then hesitated, and ended up just looking a little away and nodding. He felt- he thought that maybe he should say thanks too. ‘For what? For not kicking me out?’ He thought, then he thought if Cor would dare kick him out; after a half-second panicking of where he would go, he went back to thinking about what he had to or was supposed to reply to that, if he had to say thanks too, if he should say no or say yes, if it was right of Cor to say thanks at all, and why he was saying thanks anyway. Not knowing how to handle any of this new situation, Loqi just gave that nod, timid.

Cor noticed his distress, the struggle of not knowing how to handle any of this feelings conversation thing. He didn’t pressure him. He could understand even that. Mostly because the way Loqi reacted so awkwardly to feeling conversations was an exact mirror of a young Cor in the situation. He was just like that before having Prompto in his life.
Each day, Loqi reminded him more and more of his younger self. It was hilarious, watching someone having to deal with things with the same immature rude attitudes or with awkwardness. But he learned and changed, right?
So could Loqi, then.

Cor couldn’t help but breathe out a chuckle and got closer. Like he hadn’t done in a good while, he put his hand to Loqi’s head and stroked his hair a little, less effusive than he would normally do, but a sincere and sweet gesture. Loqi didn’t complain. He kept the head slightly low and the hands near each other. Cor didn’t need any more words or an apology hug or any teary eyes; just this, just the picture of Loqi, normally so haughty, uptight, and proud, with the head a little down and such timid pose and attitude was far more than genuine coming from him. Loqi struggled a lot with not being sure how to apologize, but just being sincere was a big gift from him, and Cor appreciated it.

Deciding to help a little by not making the intimate socializing any longer for the poor asocial thing, Cor smiled and stepped back, decided to let it pass now that it was…not fixed, but at least in an opening to start healing that ugly bump in their relationship.
“So” he asked and went to pat the bag with his knuckles. Loqi looked at him, almost as if surprised by not having a longer reprimand or a punch to the face. “Wanna hit the sack?” and so, Cor’s awkward self came back out of nowhere after two days missing. “I don’t mean as in sleeping, as in…unless you want to sleep, I just think it’s early but if you want- I mean as in…” and so, after a pause, he sighed as if giving up in life. Loqi didn’t help it either, the way the idiot talk and behavior made his chest feel a little warm. Ah yes, the idiot he hated so much, finally back. Finally not absent. The idiot that Loqi hated and that he had never loved to hate more than he did then. “You want to punch things or not?”

Loqi still kept the head low for a bit, mostly because the way he smiled made him feel shy. He didn’t want Cor to notice he was happy to see him back as dorky and idiot as always, but he couldn’t help it. Not to say, he also felt…a little happy that Cor…forgave him so fast. He was so upset he didn’t even say more than like five words the previous day, and now he was forgiving him entirely after just one conversation. It felt nice, in a bit of a selfish way, because the way Cor was so forgiving and lighthearted made Loqi feel…maybe not loved, but he didn’t feel not-wanted around, which wasn’t very common. And he also liked in general how forgiving Cor was.
For a second, he wished he could be a little more like that. With a heart…open and warm enough to not hold grudges, let the bad things go after talking them out. Give second chances. Give second chances despite it all…
…Cor had…such a pretty way of living…as in…inside.

“Loqi?”
“Yes” Loqi replied immediately along a blink to take himself out of the stupid thoughts. Way more motivated than he should be or understood, Loqi got closer to the punching bag again and put the fists up. Cor held the bag and scanned him.
“Your feet” he pointed out, and before he could finish, Loqi spread them apart and set them on the ground as Cor had been insisting for days. “Your elbows-” and so Loqi corrected his position. Cor chuckled. “So all you needed was a lecture to correct your horrible posture.”
“We just talked about not being mean, Cor, what the fuck.”

Cor laughed. The noise made Loqi’s nerves tingle and his heart speed up; his absence had been so notorious that everything coming back was like watching a once dry lake reappear. He hated it, hated how happy he felt of having this happy, friendly Cor back. He hated it mostly because he didn’t like feeling alone, because, to him, feeling lonely was a pathetic thing. So the way his body was reacting to the sound of Cor’s dorky attitude and laugh was just telling him that he was happy to have him back, which meant, necessarily, that he had been feeling lonely and that was why his return made him so happy.

Yet, as much as he hated it, having Cor back felt good and that was all that he tried to focus on for the time being. Loqi smiled and shook the head, not believing the man’s silly jokes.
I missed you, said a very timid, very quiet voice in the back of his head, but he ignored it. He couldn’t possibly have missed someone that wasn’t physically gone, and even if he did, he couldn’t…have grown attached enough to Cor, not this fast, to genuinely miss him. It was a mistake of his brain and his heart. So he didn’t say it.

“A’right” Cor said and grounded his feet, giving Loqi a smile. “Shoot.”
Loqi thought about making a gun joke, but he decided not to as the situation was still sensitive and fragile. Still, some face he had to have made betrayed him, because Cor then raised his eyebrows at him as if catching him mid-joke. Loqi smiled more widely and shook the head, and none could help but chuckle together.

‘Imagine it’s me’ Cor had said the first time he helped Loqi train. And so he did this time too; Loqi threw a first punch at the bag, thinking it was Cor. He hit it hard and firm.
“That’s it” the real Cor whispered. Motivated, Loqi kept going, throwing a second punch, and so going into a warm up before the real routine. He imagined it was Cor because how dare he abandon him like that, how dare he be so absent, while still being physically present? He punched him for being an idiot and not being there. He punched him for his absence that had been so much more noticeable than his presence, and he punched him because it made Loqi scared of thinking about it happening again. He punched him for not telling him earlier he was being mean to stop earlier, and having waited until things exploded and he abandoned him like this. He punched him for making Loqi see the things he did for him by taking them away. He punched him for being so nice. So kind. So forgiving. So understanding. So patient.

For making Loqi want, for a second, to be a little more like him. He punched him because, like his world had not had an upside-down flip harsh enough, now he was wishing to be like the man he used to despise more than anything in life.

The rest of the evening at the training hall went rather quiet, not counting the instructions and orders and a few complaints. Things weren’t fixed yet, of course not; Cor would still act a little wary and a little sad, and a little on the defensive around Loqi, as if scared of any lash out, and their conversations would still take a while before healing completely.

But when they walked out of the Citadel that day, it was side by side, there was a chuckle, a hand messing up blond hair, and no weight of any absence.

Chapter Text

The change in Loqi’s behavior was noticeable enough.

Deconstructing an entire person who lived twenty-something years in a context was not something that could change with just one event, as relatively heavy as it may have been. Cor, naturally, didn’t expect Loqi to become a better person overnight, and he knew progress would be eventual. Yet, after that conversation in which Cor, if timidly and a bit scared of making him angry, told him he was being mean and asked him not to, Loqi clearly changed his behavior a bit, and Cor hoped it would stay that way.

To recall the most noticeable, Loqi stopped complaining about washing the dishes or riding in the passenger seat. Tiny things that anyone would brush off immediately, but not Cor. Perhaps not complaining about washing his dishes or not getting the backseats were not going to change anything, but it was the intention what Cor appreciated, the effort Loqi was putting into giving less troubles, actually and genuinely trying to do something, tiny or unnecessary as it could be, just to try and make up a bit for what he did wrong. And it was the intention more than the action what Cor appreciated, and made him forgive Loqi even better and more easily.

He also seemed to be thinking a bit more before speaking. He still cursed a lot and insulted Cor, but it was less than before, or less harsh. Sometimes, Loqi was already midways through breathing in for a comment, but stopped. Cor really didn’t mind the personal insults and nicknames…it could even be fun at times, arguing with him…it was things like insulting the apartment or his effort what really got him. Still, maybe because Loqi wasn’t sure what exactly hurt Cor, he still insulted him less than before, and it didn’t go unseen.

Cor appreciated it. Loqi not complaining about his only chore was a greater relief than he would have imagined, and him actually being nice enough, in his own weird way, to try his best at being a better friend, it was nice, and even a bit touching. Loqi was really not a bad guy, or rather, he had grown as a bad guy, but he didn’t mean to be one. He just needed to be pointed out some things, and guided in the right direction. He would get there, Cor had no doubts. And seeing the progress was honestly an honor.

All in all, their first trouble as friends (or at least Cor hoped Loqi too thought of him like a friend) started getting solved and easier with the days.
Cor still spoke a bit with Loqi about his apparent alcohol problem. He didn’t get too deep into it, and he didn’t really lecture him, but he did make sure to bring the subject up. He wasn’t sure if Loqi really had a problem with alcohol, or if it was a one-time thing. When he mentioned it, though, by the way Loqi behaved, and the way he worded his answers, it was pretty clear that Loqi had a problem with alcohol that hadn’t detonated too far thanks only to the Nif military.
“I’d drink in my office, mostly, and mostly when I was most stressed” he said. “It makes it…I don’t think easier. But it makes me care less. Never did it at home, though. My siblings were there.”

And like that, Cor understood. It was partly an excuse, but partly, there was a real point there; his little siblings must have been some sort of anchor that made Loqi not drink as to not give a bad example. Them out of the way, there was no limits Loqi could set to himself. From what Cor could read and figure out, it wasn’t that Loqi had had a problem with alcohol before, but he fit the profile to have potential to fall in it. He didn’t say it, and Cor was too scared to bring that up, but he guessed that must be what was going on.
He did touch a few points, just vaguely, about the whole ‘alcohol is not the answer’ conversation. Loqi answered just as vaguely, agreeing, aware of the whole thing.

Yet, none got too much into it. For whatever reason, none got too deep into it. Something inside Cor told him that it was necessary, but he, against his own reasoning, was too scared of messing up to keep going, and despite knowing that he should have, he didn’t lecture Loqi properly, hoping, perhaps a bit hopelessly (and he knew it), that nothing bad related to it would happen again in a future.

--

Days later, things had gone back to normal. A couple mutual insults here and there, spontaneous conversation, and the usual routine. As if nothing had happened, except with the few little changes in Loqi’s behavior, and life was back to normal. Cor dared even think that they had managed to joke a bit more than normal so far, something that was becoming less rare. Seeing Loqi smile was still as rare as a blue moon, but a few sarcastic snorts, or a smile and the roll of the eyes were a bit of progress too.

Routine went as usual. Cor would wake Loqi up, and they would normally go for the run-walk at the little park. Sometimes, Loqi didn’t feel like it, and struggled with getting out of bed, and Cor let him rest as he needed. Go to the Citadel and work, and that, too, only interrupted rarely if Loqi ever asked to stay home. Give each their own classes, do each their paperwork, and go train together at the end of the day. Sometimes, too, Loqi would sit at the training hall’s floor or ring, hugged to his knees, and with no mental energy to keep his body going. Then, too, Cor wouldn’t pressure him, and he would sit by his side to keep him silent company in his struggles.

Cor, as every day, kept measuring how much of a good guy Loqi really was. There was no doubt about it in many things; just the fact that he had dared betray the Empire, the base of his whole existence, spoke wonders of him. But Cor still measured for his own reasons, trying to make sure not only that Loqi was a good guy, but also fully trustable, and open for progress. And as said, Loqi did but keep filling his expectations. Cor had no doubts, and each day he had less and less, that Loqi was a good man. He had noticed from the very beginning. It was what started their story.

Who had not noticed, though, that was Loqi.

Loqi didn’t forget about the big contrast of Cor’s absence and his presence, but he was not going to admit aloud, sometimes not even internally, how glad he was to have him around at times, doing his stupid stuff. He did as he always did, if a little more aware, and merely ignored him like a mother too used to their kid snooping around to really even glance. Cor, back to his normal happy-timid self, continued poking his nose everywhere and being a dork.

One day, Loqi was busy drawing in the chalkboard. He had reached a point in his class where it was important to learn some different parts of some of the most sophisticated Nif machinery (so far Loqi had had access to), and it was no use only explaining and describing; because there were no photos, and Lucis lacked the blueprints, he had no answer but to start drawing the whole thing.

Cor, in the meanwhile, had been snooping around the classroom like it was his first time there and like he didn’t know what was there. He didn’t even seem to care much for what he found; if he opened a drawer and found papers inside, he would just flip through them then put them back without having read them. Loqi glanced only once; normally Cor stayed still and blank and dull as always, but he had his child-like moments, and this had to be the fourth time or so that Loqi witnessed. He rolled the eyes and shook the head, but didn’t complain and didn’t insult him, and let him be.

While Loqi used a big ruler to keep his drawing as impeccable as could be, Cor kept going around for a bit, opening drawers and apparently getting bored. Loqi guessed it was normal; they had no conversation going on, and the class had been delayed due to some training stuff.

After having toyed around with a pen someone must have forgotten in the classroom the day before, Cor half sat on a chair’s tablet and kept messing with the pen. Bored and having calmed down from peeking around, Cor paid attention to the board. At the first glance, he immediately reacted with a little blink and the slight raise of the eyebrows, attention fully caught in a second.
Loqi was still drawing. He looked at the draft he had drawn in a little notebook, and passed it to the board, being careful as to not get all the chalk smudged and erased due to his own hand. The quick blueprint was almost fully made; the design of a mech with all its interior bits, seen from above, and another map as seen from a side.

Cor blinked again and lifted the eyebrows a bit more, and he started smiling, lips parting a little. He stopped toying with the pen without noticing. And he stared.
Normally, Loqi had gotten so used to Cor staring that he didn’t even bother throwing any more chalks at him. That time, though, the stare felt different, because, rather than feeling it, Loqi was just…aware of it. The silence said that Cor was doing but stare…the thing was, Loqi didn’t feel him staring at him. So he had to be looking at something else. He was curious, and he did think he had to be staring at the board, but he didn’t care enough to ask.

Cor kept staring. He watched Loqi’s hand come and go, be careful as to not miss a trace, and as to not have his hand smudge his progress (a leftie problem, truly). He looked at the drawing for a while, scanning it, eyes travelling through every line. Then, he would look at Loqi’s own hand, and watch it move; the way he held the chalk (between the index and the middle, with the thumb for support), the way his hand moved (the wrist seemed light and graceful), where he lifted the chalk and where he pressed, and how, from the cold, serious, but yet graceful movements, the drawing appeared as if magically, guided from the stick that Loqi turned into a wand.

Cor was smiling wide enough by that point, eyes a little more open than usual. Loqi ignored the staring, and was oblivious to the happy gaze and kept working as light and calm as usual. Cor’s eyes went to the drawing again, and once more they returned to Loqi’s own hand, and so he couldn’t help it.
“You’re great at drawing.”
“I’m an engineer, I should be” was Loqi’s simple reply, a little dry, but with no tint of meaning to be rude, and he kept working without having once stopped or glanced back.

Cor tried to understand what he meant, and he did find some logic into it; principally, mechanical engineers must work with a lot of blueprints, he guessed, so they had to be good at drawing. It wasn’t like it was a gift or an outstanding thing, they were trained to do literally that. Yet, Cor still marveled. On a side, Nif engineers most surely worked via technology even for a drawing, especially for blueprint drawing. Hand drawing was different, and Loqi, having had access to the most sophisticated technology, still knew how to draw by hand near flawlessly. And on the other side, even if it had been necessary to learn to draw by hand, Cor would still marvel, because it still implied a lot of hard work, and skill, and maybe some talent too. That drawing Loqi was making on the board was…not just a bunch of well placed lines. It wasn’t good, it was amazing.

Cor knew that Loqi hadn’t taken the comment as a big deal, but he still couldn’t help but marvel the longer he stared at the drawing. Like all the times Cor stared on purpose whenever Loqi was making quick, advanced math like a genius, Cor found a new thing to marvel at when looking at Loqi at the board, and he continued staring at the way he drew. He used the ruler only as a support, but the master behind the drawing was his brain and his hand, not his tools. The longer he spent drawing, the more unreal the drawing looked, at least in Cor’s opinion. It was…perhaps not insane, but it was completely mesmerizing, mostly to him as he did not know how to draw a single thing.

Minutes into staring, and Cor’s smile only did but grow as was doing the excitement inside him. Despite knowing Loqi hadn’t taken the comment the first time, Cor got up from his improvised seat and approached him.
“No. Loqi” he called firm, but smiling. Loqi stopped drawing and turned over his shoulder to look at him as if asking what was wrong. Cor approached him and stood behind and next to him, but looked at the board instead. He was smiling, and noticing that made Loqi turn to look at him a little better, confused and a little surprised. Cor stared at his drawing, arms crossed, and smile on his face. “Look at that. You’re great at drawing.”

Loqi stared at him for a moment, then just shrugged and shook the head in tiny, quick movements, as if lost.
“…so?” he asked. It was a good skill, and so? People had skills everywhere, it wasn’t the big deal.
“As in…really good” Cor cheered again, getting a bit closer to examine the drawing. Loqi didn’t step aside, but he didn’t push Cor away either, and let him stare. “Wow…” Cor was quiet for a moment, and then stepped aside. “Wow, you draw really well!”
“I told you” Loqi reminded him, dry and serious as always, “I’m an engineer.”
“That’s what’s got me so- wow.”

Then, as if having forgotten to explain and while Loqi retook his drawing, Cor went to the desk and looked around. He spent some moments in quiet peace, and Loqi heard him mess a bit with the drawers and pulling out some papers. Cor sat at the edge of the desk and started checking the papers. Loqi threw a side-glance only and saw Cor looking at the papers where he had made all his drawings for class so far, checking them out. Loqi retook his drawing on the board, unfazed. They were quiet. Loqi drew, and Cor checked his draft drawings out.
And then, in that silence, Cor went with the unexpected.
“You’re a mechanical engineer, as in, you fix, design, and make machinery as in, the size of war mechs, you pilot those things like a professional, literally, you’re a Brigadier General, and a really smart strategist, and you’re brilliant at math, and you’re amazing at drawing, too” Cor smiled at the papers. “You’re incredible.”

Loqi’s hand finished a line calmly. He stayed still, calm. Little by little, he started freezing until he didn’t move. Loqi stayed in front of the board, chalk in hand, looking at the last line he drew, and not blinking.
Well. That was Cor’s voice. That word was ‘You’re’ and ‘incredible’ in the same sentence.
Hm.
That was Cor’s voice. That was ‘You’re’ and ‘Incredible’ in the same sentence.
…that was…Cor. And that was-
Loqi’s heart skipped a beat.

Loqi blinked and opened the mouth slightly. His heart did the weird thing of skipping a beat again, then went into full speed mode, drumming against his ribcage as if though breaking out was the only answer. Despite that, Loqi still stood still, staring at the board, eyebrows slightly furrowed.
…what?
A bit too surprised to be able to digest what just happened, Loqi frowned a bit more, confused. He understood, he heard, but his brain…it didn’t- what he heard, it didn’t fit in his brain. It was there, he received the message, but…what?
Still thinking about it, Loqi turned to look at Cor, somehow expecting him to be staring waiting for Loqi’s own reaction, but he wasn’t. Cor was still sat on the desk, dorky smile on, and he kept reviewing the papers with hand-drawn blueprints and other concept drawings. Loqi’s eyebrow twitched and he frowned a bit deeper, quickly scanning Cor head to toe and back, unable to figure out what was going on. Still, long as he stared, Cor did but keep checking the drawings without minding him.

…Cor said…that he was what?
Loqi’s heart stopped again for a beat, and Loqi was sure that if he had to describe it somehow, he would say that his heart was screaming as if scared of its own speed, like a person on a rollercoaster. Yet, his face was still calm despite the frown, and he didn’t feel like freaking out. His heart was excited, but he just…couldn’t finish comprehending.
“…what?” Loqi asked lowly, almost not wanting to hear it again.
“You’re amazing” Cor said simply, without even looking at him. Casually, simplistic, so…unbearably natural. “You do a lot of awesome stuff by yourself and you’re great at so many things. I just think it’s amazing.”

Once more, Loqi’s eyebrow twitched and he could understand it even less. He took air in to say something, but didn’t. He stared at Cor intensely, but the dork was still carelessly and casually flipping through the papers he had basically stolen under Loqi’s own nose.
…Cor said- what?

No. He’s just trying to make you feel better, was the first thing he tried thinking as a defense mechanism, but he didn’t buy his own argument. All these months, Loqi would sometimes brush off some of Cor’s comments, thinking they weren’t genuine, that Cor was just feeling pity and making all those nice comments to make him feel better about what had happened in Vianard, forcing out the kindness and some attitudes to treat Loqi like a fragile thing, like he needed it. But this comment, this particular comment Cor made, it was about Loqi’s attributes. And Loqi’s problem was not on his self-esteem. His depression didn’t involve anything about hating himself, not in this way.

The only reasonable thing for Cor to make that comment, then, if he had no reasons to lie was that…he really…meant it…?

Loqi’s heart did a weird skip. Whatever he noticed or felt in that half-second, it made Loqi snap the head slightly to a side to look elsewhere that wasn’t Cor, frown deepening, and face turning red. For a moment, he panicked, but he also didn’t want to move as to not make Cor notice, but he also feared that staying there would make him notice (notice what, he didn’t know, but panic), so for a moment he stood there, tense, frozen, awkward, and red in the face, not knowing what to do. His brain was starting to fully understand what Cor just said, and Loqi panicked about feeling the whole weight of it right there, in front of Cor himself, so he panicked a bit more again.

He tried looking away and focus in drawing on the board again, but he couldn’t. He even felt his breath cut for a second. It’s not the big thing, he told himself, it was just a compliment of something he already knew from someone he didn’t admire, so he didn’t have why to react like this was any world-changing thing.
…stoic, stone-faced Cor that couldn’t be impressed by anything- telling him he was…oh gods, no, oh no, that was so gods damn exciting, oh no.

Loqi shrugged a little in his spot and lowered the head, face burning intense enough for him to fear it would set him ablaze, and his stomach started doing stupid things and his heart did too and it felt as if all his nerves had started going electric all at once and couldn’t stop.

It was a bit absurd if seen from outside. Loqi was in full panic mode, tense, set ablaze and electric, all organs going crazy, and near explosion. Right next to him, Cor sat casually on a desk, so very calmly flipping papers, oblivious to Loqi’s distress.

Loqi tried to deal with his feelings, he really tried. He just-

“Ow! What did I do now!?”

…offered no explanation as to why he threw the chalk at Cor.

--

The harassing on Loqi continued until, one day, it crossed the line.

Perhaps motivated by the rumor of the encounter a couple Glaives almost had with Loqi, some Crownsguard decided to not stay far behind their war mates and do something. It was nearly absurd, as if it was some sort of competition: first to get the Nif intruder injured or severely distressed wins.

Loqi was used, and fine, with comments and gossip, even with being yelled at. He didn’t mind. Words were intangible and couldn’t harm him (they did sometimes get him, truth be told, but not when it came from Lucian scum, so in some way it was not a lie). So he let the Lucians go on like they had done across the months, calling him names when they crossed paths, shoulder-bumping when walking, the gossips under his nose, he truly didn’t care.
And almost as if knowing this, the Crownsguard went beyond words and decided to get him in the worst way someone can harm another person.

Once more, it was possible thanks to the video he released some time ago. Maybe even without it, the Crownsguard would have understood where he came from; along the rest of the Nif intruders staying at the city (or so rumors had it), from Vianard, the city that was bombed.
Planning a prank on him with this information was almost a child’s game, would a child have malice.

Cor was not supposed to be there. He visited Loqi because it was nearly lunch time, and he knew, even if Loqi didn’t admit it, that the little man still got lost in the Citadel, and he didn’t want to put him in the stress of both not figuring out the map and being too proud to ask for directions. Loqi’s current activity was to keep an eye on the Crownsguard training session, to see if he could see anything he could help with, correcting movements or anything that could come in handy when fighting the Nifs.

Cor came through a set of doors and didn’t take long at spotting Loqi. In his white and red uniform amongst the dozens of dark-colored clothing, he outstood way too easily. Even though Cor gently closed the door and calmly headed his way, he eyed Loqi as attentively as he could, noticing something.
The uniform was starting to fit Loqi a little less loose by now. He looked a little chubbier in the best way possible. Cor hadn’t noticed as he spent every day with Loqi, so he couldn’t see the progress itself, but it seemed to be going well; the vitamins he was secretly putting in his food and the training were giving their results. Loqi’s uniform was starting to seem smaller on him, as it had been tailored according to his measures when he was still…physically suffering most the consequences of the bombing and the depression. Having been skinny enough to be concerning before, Loqi was now regaining weight, and it was so very nice. Waist thicker, arms less boney, even his face had gained a bit more of his round cheeks.

Cor couldn’t help but smile, partly at the joy of seeing Loqi progress, but also partly amused.
Loqi was doing good at not letting his depression stop him, but that was literally because of his immeasurable pride. Loqi was giving his best at not letting depression stop him from eating and exercising literally only because he hated it. He most times didn’t even want to eat, but he was too proud to let depression tell him what to do, so he ate anyways. At least his stubborn pride was coming in handy, somehow, in some bits.
What a weird guy. Cor was certain Loqi would make an astronaut’s whole life’s training in one year just to go to space and turn the sun off only because someone told him not to.

Cor made a mental note to not forget and ask Loqi to tell him whenever he would need to either have his uniform adjusted or remade once he wouldn’t fit in it. And because Cor noticed that whole thing, it was impossible to not notice Loqi’s looks as themselves. He looked nice in his uniform. He always had, but he was starting to make it look even better. He looked…stronger. It was nice.

Loqi had yet not seen him. He stood at a not important spot of the hall, at a side, just watching the soldiers train. He was arms crossed and looked as unfazed and serious as always. When Cor was a couple meters away, Loqi turned his way and finally saw him. Cor smiled a little and waved vaguely. Loqi replied only with a knowing glance, with no hello or smile, as it had always been. Once Cor was closer, Loqi turned his way and helped close the distance until they were standing in front of each other, and so he crossed the arms again.
“Everything ok?” Cor asked him as they normally greeted each other. Loqi sighed, his body relaxing as if seeing Cor was a way to come off duty.
“Yeah” he said and tilted the head slightly. “It’s-”

Boom.

It all happened too fast; while they spoke, a couple Crownsguard had gathered and seen Loqi had turned his back on them, and was distracted, and relaxed, talking with the Marshal. Losing no time, they patted each other and hurried to get something.
Cor did see them approach from behind Loqi, but they got close so fast and so out of nowhere that Cor could only see them, unable to even process what they were about to do, and even less to say something or stop it, when the first of them sneaked up behind Loqi, put a balloon right behind his head, literally rubbing his hair, and popped it with a needle right in Loqi’s ears.

Loqi yelped out loud, stumbling forwards and to a side in a reflex of his body to get away from the danger; not even done yelling or stumbling, though, and there was another Crownsguard waiting at the spot he stumbled to, and they popped a second, larger balloon behind him; Loqi couldn’t even react with a noise, and he just stumbled to the other side, where it all happened over again in less than two seconds, and another Crownsguard popped a third balloon in his ear. Immediately, Loqi yelped in terror and stumbled backwards, fast and dumb.

He crashed against Cor. His reaction was to yelp again, if quieter, and nearly stumble again to get away of him, but Cor got a hold of him before Loqi would; he had stumbled around too much, and the next one would make him fall.
Startled and in terror, Loqi quickly looked up and back and finally saw it was Cor. Cor could do but give him a panicked, shocked look; everything had happened too fast, and he had not finished processing it.

In the meanwhile, the three Crowsnguard, even before Cor had gotten a hold of Loqi, had all stepped aside and were laughing their lungs out. One had sat down to hold his tummy while laughing so loud, it was almost a bark. The other two had reached for each other and were laughing until losing the breath.

Everyone in the training hall were staring. Unexpected noises like the balloons popping would have been distracting enough, but, used to train next to the Glaives who always made things explode, no one paid attention. What had gotten everyone to stare, and mostly, to stay deathly quiet and tense, were Loqi’s yells.
They had been…they had…spoken a lot. As fast as everything happened, it didn’t, it couldn’t go unheard, unnoticed…how Loqi’s yells…
…how they were such…genuine, crude terror. Maybe not the loudest, or the most dramatic, but they had been so…genuinely full of horror.

No one else laughed. Despise it being the Nif intruder everyone disliked so much, no one else laughed.

Everyone stared while the three Crownsguard lost themselves in laughter. Loqi, who had just finished looking up at Cor, stayed in his spot, apparently calm. Cor stared at him only two seconds to see it all and understand what had just happened. Despite standing still in his spot, Loqi was trembling. He was breathing through the mouth, and he was tense.
And what was worst were his eyes. They were open wide, and the pupils had dilated until nearly hiding all of the grayish-blue of his irises. He was still looking up at Cor without any reaction but that shaky breath and the wide, terrified, shocked eyes.
He looked in shock, a kind that Cor knew too well.

Understanding what was happening to Loqi, Cor’s stomach shrank, and he frowned. Suddenly, a fire rose inside him and started pumping through his veins in waves.
And so, for the first time since Loqi started living with him, Cor got angry.

While Loqi put a hand to his chest and looked down, opening the mouth more to try and catch his breath, Cor put him aside, handling him perhaps a bit less gently than he intended, and passed Loqi behind him, getting a few steps closer to the laughing Crownsguard.
Busy laughing as they were, they didn’t notice Cor had gotten close until he grabbed the closest one by the clothes and pulled him back up on his feet, handling him roughly.

Only when he was pulled violently up on his feet, the Crownsguard stopped laughing, and he didn’t need more than a first glance at Cor to have his heart shrink in terror.
Cor was frowning. And like seeing the normally stoic man frown with such anger was not enough, the look in his eyes was mere rage. An anger unknown, the legendary anger that some soldiers talked about but only some had truly seen. The pair of pale blue eyes becoming an ice angry and fierce enough to scorch and burn with a mere glance like an ice reaper, and he would not stop giving the Crownsguard that look without a rest.

Needless to say, before Cor had even spoken, the Crownsguard’s soul had already fallen to his feet, and only by mere luck he didn’t piss in his pants.
“He’s a survivor and victim of the worst bombing to have ever happened, in all Eos, in all history!!” Cor yelled in his face, the noise raw and thundering. “Even if you see him as enemy, you find fun in triggering victims of war into their trauma!? Do you!?”

The Crownsguard in his grip was quickly shaking the head, eyes wide in terror, and face having gone entirely pale in a second. The other two stared from behind, looking as if ready to run at any second, just as terrified as if they were the one in Cor’s grip, and like Cor had grown fangs and was going to tear their bodies in half.
With a last frown and growl, Cor didn’t push but let go of the guy rather roughly, and the Crownsguard himself stumbled backwards from the reflex of wanting to get away from Cor, and falling down, stopping midways with his hand, and still dragging himself back until he was between his friends. Cor pointed at them with a finger, standing tall, threatening.
“I want you three here at four and all Astrals have mercy on you if you dare try to hide from me because the Crystal knows what I’ll do when I find you!”

And with that last yell, Cor turned around and hurried to where he had left Loqi, only to find he had moved and was heading to the doors. People in the room were still frozen and quiet, staring at either Loqi or Cor, and ignoring the pranksters, who rushed to stand up and run to the other exit.

Cor hurried and caught up with Loqi. Loqi seemed to be walking just fine, until Cor was at his side; only there, Cor noticed the struggle, like every step was taking a lot of effort from Loqi, and like he was going to faint at any second. He immediately got a gentle but firm hold of him and looked down at him with gentleness and concern. Like the first hold on him made Loqi realize he had support, his legs trembled and he stumbled to a side; Cor got a better hold of him by reflex, thinking he was going to fall down.
“You ok?” he murmured. Loqi put a hand to his head and nodded, mute, and still breathing through the mouth. He tried nodding again, but Cor could only focus in the way Loqi trembled.
“Y-yeah” Loqi whispered. “I just…”

Cor wasn’t sure what it was, but he made sure to keep Loqi going to the doors. Loqi’s legs trembled, as well, and Cor feared they would give up on the way, but he knew Loqi’s body could be as stubborn as his mind. Still, he kept a hand on him, the arm hugging him by the shoulders, and accompanied him, rushing enough to pressure his legs to not give up, but not too much to make him stumble. Once near the doors, Loqi stopped, as if his feet had gotten stuck. Cor looked down at him. Loqi had put a hand to his tummy and the one on his head moved towards the hair. He closed the eyes.
“…I need a bathroom” Loqi whispered.

Cor didn’t question anything. He rushed the last steps to the doors, opened them, and helped Loqi out of it, leaving a room of forty people quiet.

Loqi bent a little while hurrying through the hallway, hugged to his stomach, and Cor already knew what was to come, so he tried to rush without running. In the way, they passed by a Glaive, who stared confused and surprised, understanding something bad was going on. They passed a worker, and a Crownsguard, and everyone stopped in their way, aware of something delicate happening.
Soon enough, they reached the bathroom. Loqi didn’t even wait; as soon as Cor pushed open a stall’s door, Loqi dropped to his knees in front of the toilet and threw up in it, barely having reached it in time.

Cor looked at the door, then at a Crownsguard who had been washing his hands when they chimed in. He stared at him without hiding it, because the Crownsguard had already been staring at him, eyes a little wide, clearly surprised. Cor looked at him with worried eyes. The Crownsguard looked at him hesitant. The way Cor looked at him almost seemed to be pleading him for mercy for the Nif. The Crownsguard seemed to be telling Cor that he had no idea what to do. The soldier looked at Loqi when there was another noise of him throwing up, and so Cor looked as well.

Loqi kept a hand to his tummy, while the other held tightly to the seat. He coughed after throwing up, and couldn’t help a tiny whimper. As if moved from the noise, Cor reached into the stall and knelt next to Loqi, gently resting a hand on his back and trying to get a look of him. Loqi breathed shakily and with effort, and kept the head down. Cor used his other hand to move Loqi’s fringe away of his face, pulling it back, as to get it out of the way. Loqi had his eyes closed, and breathed shortly for a moment, before he retched again, and kept throwing up.
“Almost over, ok?” Cor whispered gently, looking at him with worry and some sadness. “It’s almost over, Loqi.”

Loqi couldn’t reply. He could only make a little noise like a whimper and a breath, head hanging low, and body shaking so much that even the Crownsguard at the sink could notice.
The Crownsguard stared, still surprised. He looked at the way Cor rubbed Loqi’s back and held his hair, and tried to comfort him through it.
Yet, he couldn’t help but focus in Loqi. The way he shook so…much, the way he struggled with switching between holding to the seat with all his might, and being loose and with no tiny bit of strength, the retching, the way he trembled and how his body moved like a shock when he had to throw up again, and the little whimpers of distress. The way he was thrown in front of a toilet, so…pathetically.
He seemed to be struggling a lot. He seemed to be…having a really, really bad time…

Loqi’s body trembled as it came up his throat again, and he tensed again, holding to the seat tight as he could with arms that felt like they had no muscle at all, and he threw up again, and kept going until coughing like choking.
“Oh, fuck it…” Loqi whispered, and as angry as the words were, he sounded more desperate and tired of this. Cor hated the sensation of being unable to do anything. He stayed next to him, stroking his back so very gently, and stroking his hair back. Loqi only had a few seconds of peace before he was retching again, going forwards and throwing up, except not much came out this time. His body moved as if he was throwing up, but he sounded just like gagging, and anything that came out was poor and scarce, but it didn’t stop. Loqi tried coughing it out and spitting.

His legs gave up and his hips fell sideways, so he was not holding weight with his thighs anymore, only lying in front of the toilet and only his back keeping him up. Loqi kept the eyes closed, still shivering, and breathing shakily, using a hand to hold his forehead. He stayed still for a while.
“…I have nothing left, why do I keep-” and to finish his sentence, he tensed and heaved again, but nothing came out except saliva. Loqi heaved a couple times as if gagging, the body trying to force him to throw up despite having nothing in his stomach. He ended up dry heaving pretty badly, with troubles at catching a breath in between, and ended up coughing and spitting. Loqi couldn’t help it; aware of Cor’s presence, of the Crownsguard’s presence, and despite his pride, he whimpered louder this time, and let a pair of tears out. He sighed shakily and shook the head, once more resting the forehead on some fingers, clearly too tired, way too sick of this not stopping.

He spent a longer while at peace this time before he dry heaved again, and luckily it was less troubled this time. He still coughed and spat a bit more, and Cor still stayed in his same spot, not leaving him even when it seemed to be over. Loqi sniffled and cried a few tears more, out of the physical effort of throwing up.
A bit later, Cor was about to ask Loqi if it was over, when, unexpectedly, the Crownsguard got a few shy steps closer.
“…does he…need anything, Marshal?” the Crownsguard asked so very careful and gently. Cor looked up at him, shocked. He was so surprised he couldn’t answer straight away, not sure he understood, and even assuming it was another prank.

But when he looked at the Crownsguard, all that he found was a man standing a little shyly, looking at him with genuine concern, and waiting for instructions like a kid. Cor stared at him a little longer, not helping the surprise.
…could it be? A Crownsguard, a Lucian Crownsguard…offering to help Loqi?
Cor didn’t think about friendliness, no, but…so far, it was rare Loqi was given even basic politeness from the Lucian soldiers.

“Just…hand me some paper, please” Cor asked lowly. The Crownsguard obeyed and got some toilet paper, and handed it to Cor, who whispered ‘thanks’ and turned back to Loqi. He handed him the paper, and Loqi took it, cleaning his mouth on his own, but staying close to the toilet. After cleaning his lips, he coughed, and started dry heaving again. Loqi cursed, angry and crying, and waited before cleaning his mouth again.

The three were quiet for a while, then. No one moved or said anything. Loqi was making sure he had finished for real, apparently, spending a while waiting for more, and only sniffling quietly every certain seconds. Once he was sure there was nothing left, he pulled away from the toilet, and shakily, moving as if fearing to collapse at any second, he moved back and adjusted himself to be sat on the floor, resting his back against the wall of the stall. And he stayed there; loose, weak, and breathing slow and shakily, unable to stand the weight of his head and keeping it against the doorframe.

A while later, Loqi used only the eyes and looked up at the Crownsguard. They made eye contact for a bit. The Crownsguard didn’t like it; didn’t like how…human Loqi looked, and how messed up. He looked exhausted, mentally and physically, and troubled, and worn out, and weak. He was thrown in a bathroom stall, hair a little messy, body loose, skin turned to a sick pale color, and he had two wet paths from his eyes down his cheeks.
He certainly didn’t look like a threat.

Loqi was first to look away, and the Crownsguard didn’t like that either, because Loqi looked away…somewhat embarrassed. The look on his face seemed to be saying that, like this was not enough, a Lucian was looking at him, judging, and would spread the word, and now everyone would keep making more and more jokes and more comments and, shit, they really spoke a lot about him, and it made the Crownsguard feel like a bully. The poor guy looked like he had had a lot and was just so resigned to everyone being mean that he didn’t even try to ask him to not spread the rumor.

The Crownsguard looked down, not liking the pinch of guilt.
“Uhm…” he started. Cor looked up at him. The Crownsguard offered an awkward slight bow, uncomfortable. “Excuse me.”

And so, he left the bathroom, calm but in clear discomfort. Cor wasn’t sure why it could be, but he was not going to question him either. He didn’t matter right now. Right now, it was Loqi who needed something.

Cor looked at Loqi again. The general was sat in his spot, head resting on the doorframe, and eyes closed. He looked like he was genuinely sleeping. While he rested, Cor flushed the toilet, and calmly went back down to sit in front of Loqi. There was but silence for a good while. Loqi only eased his breath, and Cor waited for him. Minutes later, Loqi was shaking the head in slow little movements.
“…I wasn’t thinking about the bombing, I never did” Loqi muttered weakly. “Why did I react like this?”

Cor was quiet for a moment, figuring out an answer. He shrugged and shook the head a bit.
“Maybe your mind wasn’t, but your body sure did” he suggested softly. Loqi opened the eyes, looking at Cor with weak eyelids and exhausted eyes. “The body has memory of its own, too. That’s probably why…”

Loqi kept staring at him with the same exhausted, worn out eyes for a while. Then, as if realizing Cor was not going to give him a magical solution to this, he closed the eyes and shook the head a little, and breathed out a weak curse. Cor could only smile sadly, knowing there was no bright side of anything, and that, in simple words, it sucked.

He waited patiently for a good while. They spent so much just sat in the stall that someone else walked in, and stared confused and curious, then, embarrassed, went to do their business and left, and both still stayed sat, resting.
Cor knew that Loqi needed a rest. Throwing up was always physically tiring, but it was mostly Loqi’s mind what had to be drained. He was triggered, on purpose, into PTSD from a still fresh trauma. Hell, it had been six months barely. And Loqi lived the bombing. His main problem was the loss of his loved ones, but, even if it wasn’t the main problem, he still had lived through the bombing. He had been in his house while it blew up and was set on fire. He had heard, felt, seen the bombs. Many soldiers had troubles with fireworks years later, and Loqi, only months from it, having a loud explosion noise right next to his ear, with no warning…

Cor stared with his always sad eyes at Loqi. The poor thing was still loose like there was no muscle in his body, with the head resting on the frame, and eyes closed. He hadn’t even tried to clean the drying paths of tears off his face. For a moment Cor thought he really was asleep. He knew that he needed that rest, but he also didn’t want to stay longer in the bathroom. A lot of Crownsguard had seen what had happened, and Cor wouldn’t be surprised if they would come see Loqi just for the morbid curiosity of the aftermath, and even if they didn’t, anyone else was going to come in at some point, and the least that Cor wanted was for Loqi to have to carry with more gossip.

“Hey” he called gently. Loqi opened the eyes and looked at him, but said nothing. “Let’s move from here, a’right?” he offered as kindly, and stood on his feet, but stayed down, getting close to Loqi. He offered both hands. “Let’s go to my office.”

Loqi looked down at the hands that Cor offered him. The way it looked like he was opening the arms for a hug if Loqi ignored the hands.
Carry me, Loqi asked in his head while staring at both of Cor’s hands close to him, as if they were reaching to pick him up. He was tired. He was tired in so many ways. He had secretly struggled a lot that morning at getting out of bed. He had been struggling since morning with everything, he was in a bad mood, sad and angry and numb, and then this. He was tired from throwing up like an animal, and empty, and hungry, and dizzy, and he felt nausea and disgust. He was angry, and frustrated, and hurt, and he just wanted to be home. He didn’t want to go home, because going implied moving, and Loqi didn’t want to move, he just wanted to appear in his bed, and curl in the blankets, and hide in them, and sleep and wake up in a week, he didn’t want to stand up and walk and move and do things, he just wanted to do nothing, so if Cor could carry him, that would be fantastic. Carry him and get him to his bed so that Loqi wouldn’t need to move himself. Just…carry him. Get his arms around him, lift him off the ground, so that Loqi wouldn’t have to stand his weight on his trembling legs, and do no effort. Let Loqi hide in the crook of his neck so the world outside wouldn’t see him and so he wouldn’t see it. Get him out of that horrible bathroom and that horrible hallway and that horrible place and somewhere Loqi knew and trusted and liked, just get him out of there.

“Yeah” Loqi whispered, and he forced his hands to move up and grab Cor’s. Cor pulled him up on his feet, gently, not rushing and being slow and gentle as Loqi made his way up. He let go of his hands and waited while Loqi held his head and closed the eyes, trying to stabilize himself.
“You ok?”
“Yeah” Loqi whispered again, nodding a little. With a little ‘alright’, Cor wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and walked with him to the door.

Loqi hugged himself in the way, and put all his focus on his legs so they wouldn’t give up mid-step. Cor walked at Loqi’s pace, slower than usual, but still normal enough. He kept him hugged by the shoulders and didn’t let go, very much aware of how Loqi’s legs trembled, and conscious that they probably felt like a baby deer’s, insecure, ready to fail at any step. It was quiet walk, but not tense. They passed a couple people in the way, and some stared, curious, but none interrupted them.

The elevator was thankfully empty. The ride up was just as peaceful and quiet. Loqi closed the eyes. It was way better, he found; eyes opened, the floor seemed to move under his feet and the walls seemed to be shrinking onto him. Eyes closed, he only felt Cor’s presence right there, next to him. It, his presence, felt like an anchor. The Marshal was still half hugging him, holding him firm. Loqi felt like he could make his legs give up and Cor wouldn’t let him fall.
It was a nice sensation. It felt…safe…
Sick of everything and too tired to care, Loqi hesitated a bit, tried, hesitated, and then, so very gently, so very lightly, he rested his head against Cor. It was an insecure and timid touch, not very firm, but he let his head swing to the side where Cor was standing, and rest against him. Loqi excused himself mentally with the idea that he was exhausted and sick and needed physical support.
He kept the eyes closed. He breathed in calmly, feeling Cor against him.
His heart softened, and became a little warmer.

Finally, the elevator’s door opened. Cor looked down at him to make sure he could go, and Loqi, frowning a little as if annoyed, eyes still closed, nodded without needing to be told or asked anything, and took his head away from Cor’s side, and started going. Cor felt that Loqi walked a little more confidently, so he didn’t hug him as tightly as before, but he still kept a grip on him just in case.

They arrived at Cor’s office, and Loqi couldn’t help a sudden sensation of familiarity, like a kid arriving home, or like he would arrive at his own office in Gralea; a place he knew, and liked, and that could sometimes work as a little haven away of everyone, all the people because people were stupid, and all the noise because fuck noise, and everything and everyone and just be in this place that was his and his, and so very his own.
“I know it’s the last thing you want to hear, but, fuck, I’m so sorry about this mess” Cor said while closing the door behind him. Loqi, on his own, looked at the sofa, decided it was the best, coziest, warmest haven in the universe, and went to it like it was salvation. “This isn’t just morally wrong, it’s…plain sick” Cor said with genuine disgust. Meanwhile, Loqi reached the sofa and slowly sat on it, and started lying down on it. “I’ll make sure to notify high commands regarding this. One thing is that people don’t want to work with you, but this is way, way beyond any line.”

Loqi made some vague noise that wasn’t an answer at all while he finished lying on the sofa, head finding the cushion, and immediately closing the eyes. Cor looked at him and stayed quiet. He had a lot to say and a lot to apologize for…but by the way Loqi was acting, Cor guessed that not only there was a last thing Loqi wanted to hear, but that he didn’t want to hear anything at all, not even the right things. He looked tired to the bone, and still sick. Cor let him breathe and stay quiet for a while before getting close and sitting close to him on a chair.
“Are you feeling alright?” he asked softly. Loqi took a bit to reply.
“…my body’s still doing…stupid things” Loqi murmured. “At first I was very hot. And now I’m cold…” Cor nodded. Loqi sighed. “Ifrit glorious, I’m just tired.”

Cor nodded and waited until he made sure Loqi had nothing more to say.
“Understandable” Cor whispered. He watched Loqi rest a hand on his tummy and the other on his forehead, and keep the eyes closed. He eyed him a little and found him still looking and acting sick. “You can skip the rest of work day” he added, because, while to Cor it was just natural that he was in conditions to skip it, Loqi was trained to not miss work unless he was dying, so he needed to be given the instruction. Loqi nodded. “You stay here and rest all that you want, alright, Loqi?” again, the blond nodded, silent. “Do you want me to get you one of the sleeping pills?”
“No, no…” Loqi murmured. “I can do it alone right now. I just want…”

Loqi didn’t finish, but Cor didn’t need him to. He was starting to know him better, and he confirmed it because he understood what Loqi wanted without him needing to say it. Cor nodded and smiled a little.
“Alright” he whispered. “I’m sorry again, Loqi” he couldn’t help it despite knowing that what Loqi wanted was peace and quiet. Loqi nodded again as any answer. Cor stood up from the chair. “You can call me if you need anything, as little as it may be, alright?” and while he wanted to give him more instructions, he refrained and decided to just let him rest. Again, Loqi just nodded. “Do rest well.”

Cor calmly headed to the door, and exited, not without giving a last look at Loqi, not able to hold back the worry he felt. He wanted to stay there to keep watch; it felt wrong and bad to have walked him to his office and just drop him alone, but if that was what Loqi wanted, then so be it.

Loqi was fast asleep. He still felt horrible; he had chills, and his head was still throbbing, not too loudly, but enough to be noticeable and to annoy him. He still felt the taste of vomit in his mouth, and his throat was starting to feel like sandpaper, and his lips were getting dry. His stomach felt like it had been hit after being fully emptied. It was hell.
Yet, it was such horrible physical state what helped Loqi to be fast asleep. Neither his body nor himself were enjoying it, so both agreed for once, and decided to get switched off.
Never before had the sofa in Cor’s office been so cozy, so comfortable, so heavenly. Loqi felt like he had never in life laid somewhere soft, and this was a blessing.

It was a long, heavy sleep. Dreamless, thankfully. It was only pitch black for hours. Cor’s office was silent; not even noises from outside ever made it in, and if they did, Loqi had no notice of the slightest hint of it. He slept like he had not done in years, not without medicine of course. It was so heavy, he felt he had slept for at least twenty hours. He woke up very slowly, and drifted back to sleep in the many attempts that it took, until, an hour after the first hint of consciousness, Loqi finally managed to blink a couple times and come awake.

Loqi woke up to different lighting, though the room was mostly dark. The first thought he had was the question of whether it was still today or if he had slept until the next day. Then, he guessed Cor had not come back at any moment, so that’s why the lights were off. He noticed he had to have moved in his sleep, because he had fallen asleep facing the ceiling, and now he was lying on his side.
The next thing he noticed, now more awake, was that he was holding a blanket. He looked down, frowning in confusion, to find himself covered in a blanket from neck to toe. He had to have curled himself in it, because it wasn’t only placed on him, he was also holding it, it was tucked in his arm and legs, and he had made himself comfortable in it. When? He wanted to ask who, but he could only guess Cor, because who else.

Loqi let out a breath and closed the eyes for a bit again. He felt way better. The nausea was gone, as were the chills and the throbbing of his head. He felt good, he just felt hungry. The whole mess had literally emptied what little he had eaten that day and more, and he was genuinely hungry, and very. Fantastic; he wanted to stay there, but his hunger was almost too much…he would have to leave the comfort and safety of the sofa to go get some fucking food.
Loqi opened the eyes again and rubbed them a little, taking his time. Then, he noticed it.
On the tiny table in front of the sofa, there was a covered tray that hadn’t been there when he arrived.

He looked around in case anyone was there, but he found no one in the room. He started sitting up, confused. He stayed sat, brain and body slow, and he just stared at the tray like expecting it to give him answers.
Then, he leaned forwards, took the lid, and removed it.
His mouth instantly watered when he was greeted by the smell of warm food, and the sight made his stomach roar. There on the tray was a dish full of food; rice on a side, a piece of nicely cooked steak, and some lettuce as he liked it. Despite the horrible day he had had, Loqi couldn’t help but feel as his mouth watered and he had an irresistible wish to eat and get full, and he couldn’t help the…joy, the warmth that something as simple as seeing that dish made him feel.

It was odd, but…Loqi suddenly felt…really motivated. With a lot of energy. Right as he had woken up in a hell of a mood in which he preferred to be chomped by a behemoth than keep going in his life, the silly, simplistic sight of the tray had made his energy and a hint of joy rocket up.
But why?

He sat up, calm and taking his time, but he sat up, which he hadn’t expected he would have been able to do at all when he fell asleep. He gently removed the blanket as he did, and he couldn’t help but smile while looking at the dish. He still felt tired and a little sick, but it did nothing to mine his sudden, odd joy. Once sat, he looked around and found the utensils on the tray, and a jar with water, and a glass. There were even mints. Gee, it was everything he needed and more.
…Cor had thought about everything, hadn’t he? His hunger, what he would like, water, too, even mints for the breath…and even the blanket…he had not ignored the comment about feeling cold…

Loqi grabbed the utensils and smiled a little more. Even though it was a daily thing that Cor attended him like this, Loqi had not noticed until this out-of-routine experience happened, but…gods damn, Cor really thought about everything. Every little thing, and he spent time and effort bringing him this even when Loqi was dead asleep. Loqi had nothing else he needed in the moment. Cor had brought it all already without needing to be told or asked, and- without needing…without it being his job, either.
Loqi smiled and looked down.

Maybe this was what made him feel this oddly happy when he should be raging. Not the tray itself, but…what it implied. Who, and what.
Cor was…really thoughtful…wasn’t he?

After deciding to not think too much about it, Loqi let out a sigh, and decided to start eating.

After eating, drinking, and lying for a little more to rest, Loqi went back up on his feet and felt the need to go look for Cor. He had nothing to say to him, or nothing particular he needed to do, but he felt he had to go see him. He adjusted his messy uniform and hair before heading out, and just started pacing around to see where he could stumble upon the Marshal.

It didn’t take long before Loqi found him. He didn’t see him immediately, but he heard his name being mentioned, so he started heading there.
He was in a hallway when he heard ‘Marshal Leonis’ from some female voice. When he turned to look, he found two Crownsguard standing at the adjacent hallway, giving his back to him, and standing at the window wall that gave a view of the training hall on the floor below. Of course, he guessed, Cor had to be at a training hall, where he used to be when he was not in his office.

Loqi started heading there, calm and quiet, footsteps barely making any noise (a whole life training at home by fearing to be heard by mother had subconsciously made him very silent when moving). He didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but it was impossible, having the hallways empty and the two women talking being the only noise.
“-some hours ago.”
“They look in a lot of pain.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what they get for what they did. That was way beyond the line.”
“I heard something big happened earlier today. What was it?”
“You didn’t know?”

Loqi stopped some steps behind them, aware of what they had to be talking about. He moved to a side and rested his back against a wall, not getting a view of the training hall, but wanting to eavesdrop now on purpose a bit longer, just to see what they said…not that he…cared, but…curiosity. He heard the first Crownsguard take a breath before going on.
“Those idiots triggered that Nif captain on purpose. As in, you know…the whole bombing thing and how he’s a survivor, and you know the story?” after a few quick agreements from her friend, the first Crownsguard went on and explained what had happened, in not much detail, thankfully.

There was an odd silence afterwards, and Loqi expected some laughs and encouragement for what the pranksters had done.
“What a bunch of jerks.”

Loqi couldn’t help his surprise and looked at them, lips slightly parted. The Crownsguard still looked at the window, unaware of his presence. Which only made it…a little more confusing. Because then they weren’t lying on purpose to not make him angry, they were being…genuine.
“So that’s the punishment?” the second one asked with a hint of amusement in the voice.
“Yeah” the first one giggled. “Plank pose for two hours.”
“Two hours!”
“It was so hard to not laugh, I swear to the Six” the first one kept laughing while talking. “Marshal Leonis was like ‘Really tough, aren’t you? Sure this will be a child’s game, then’ and he wants them to go two hours like that. And if any of them lets go before two hours straight, all three have to start over again from zero.”
“No way! How long have they been trying?”
“Three hours.”

The two laughed together again.
Loqi stared at them and then at the window, despite being unable to have a clear view of the training hall at the lower floor. Loqi got closer to the window, casually, some meters away of the Crownsguard. They were distracted enough on their own, and he hoped they wouldn’t turn.
Finally, he got a view of the training hall below. It was empty, at the exception of four people. In a row, the three Crownsguard that had played that prank on him were on the floor, standing their weight on their tiptoes and forearms only. They were red, with veins popping underneath the skin of their necks and temples, and they were sweating like animals.
In front of them stood Cor.
Regal, imposing, tall and huge like he had always been, Cor stood in front of them, arms crossed, and looking down at them like they were less than scum. Unfazed by their distress, serious, cold.

Loqi stared at the scene a little confused. Cor had spoken about reporting them to superior commands. He never said anything about a personal reprimand.
“You should have seen Marshal Leonis” he heard the Crownsguard murmur to her friend. “He was furious. Like, the kind of furious you only hear about in his legends.”
“No way you saw him?”
“Hell yeah, and it was just like the legends. The only missing thing was Ifrit’s hellfire around him” the other replied, and her friend whispered expressions of amazement. “He only said like, two things, but gods damn is he terrifying.”
“He must care a lot about that guy if he raged like that.”
“I don’t know if he cares about him or not, but, to be honest, he doesn’t need to” the first Crownsguard said. Curious by that, Loqi paid a little more attention. “That was honestly so mean. Sure, the Nif guy is a jerk and I don’t like having him around, but triggering him into his trauma? Seriously? It’s been only months since the bombing. And, I mean, I’ve never liked him, but he’s trying to help us, maybe with horrible manners, but he’s still trying, and even if he wasn’t, triggering someone? Just for fun?” the other woman whispered a low but firm ‘Yeah’. “These idiots had no reason to do it except for fun. And that’s only twisted.”

The other girl agreed, adding even more to Loqi’s surprise. A pair of Lucians…supporting him? Siding with him, somehow?
…really?
“And the Nif captain? Was he ok?”
“They say he got really bad” the first one replied. Loqi lowered the head a little and looked slightly away, even more nervous about being spotted. “He yelled with so much terror, you could tell it wasn’t just…the scream of surprise anyone else would have screamed. That was…different. You know? More…raw” she explained. “Marshal Leonis left with him quickly, but we heard later from another guy that he saw them at the bathroom” Loqi’s heart skipped a beat. Sure this was it, now, sure the bad gossiping and mockery would start here. There was no way something as pathetic and humiliating as that would go unspoken by the bullies. “He says the guy was made a mess. Throwing up, pale and exhausted, with barely any strength. He says he looked so weak, he doubted he could make it out of the bathroom on his own feet.”
“The poor guy…”
“Yeah. I feel so bad about him.”

…but where…was the mockery? The jokes?
…why?
Loqi stared down a bit more and his arms relaxed a little. He couldn’t understand. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t laughing at his situation, why a pair of Lucians were, for once, siding with him, without having ever even spoken to him. And he also couldn’t understand why it didn’t anger him. Normally, he would see this as pity, and he hated that people had pity on him. He spat on people’s pity, and it coming from Lucians, he would have puked at the mere idea. But this just…it didn’t anger him. It felt, on the opposite, like…taking some weight off his chest. But why?

“Well. Then I’m happy those idiots are getting their punishment” the second Crownsguard said, a little louder this time now that the murmuring was over. “We should apologize to the Nif captain if we see him. Good Astrals, the impressions he must have on us thanks to these assholes.”
“At least Marshal Leonis is with him most of the time” the first Crownsguard said. Then, while still talking, she and her friend turned and started leaving through the other side from where Loqi stood, having missed his presence. Loqi heard them as they walked away. “Even though he doesn’t seem like the expressive kind, I think the Marshal is a very good person, kind and always attentive. I think he must be giving the Nif captain a good impression. I mean, it’s the Marshal.”

Loqi stared their way as they left, still rather speechless. He was not sure what was more difficult, processing all the information, or the fact alone that these two Crownsguard had seemed so…on his side, so understanding. He knew that he wouldn’t have sided with Lucians if the situation was turned, even despite this kind of things. The Lucians were…sort of odd, curious creatures. Empathic creatures that could let go of their ideals very easily if they thought it was the right thing…

Loqi decided to not give it much thought and looked back at the training hall.
In there, the three Crownsguard still held the plank position, struggling and suffering through it and who knows how long they had spent there. Suddenly, one of them collapsed, and the other two followed. Despite the distance and the window wall, Loqi still heard them loudly groan. Cor uncrossed the arms and leaned slightly down as if to look at them a little more closely, fists going to his waist.
“That was an hour and half, not two!” Loqi imagined him screaming, getting to hear only a bit of the distant yell. Then, Cor yelled loud enough so Loqi could make out the words. “I have all day if you need it! Up!”

And so, the Crownsguard, breathless, looked up at Cor with red, pleading faces, and seemed to be saying something. Cor didn’t ever go down to their level. He stayed up, watching them like the pathetic things they were, and stayed unfazed despite their clear distress. Soon enough, after whatever Cor said then, the Crownsguard pushed back up on their forearms and toes, yelling.
Loqi couldn’t help a snort. And then a laugh. Short and quiet, but a laugh. Revenge was nice, yes.
But when someone else took revenge for you…

…yet, he didn’t focus in that. There was something bigger, something better and greater shadowing the satisfaction of revenge.

Loqi’s eyes went to Cor. He stared at him, not looking anywhere else.
Loqi remembered about that comment that Cor had made the previous day, about what he thought about Loqi. The compliment he gave, which felt like twice a compliment because Cor didn’t even mean it like one, he was making a statement.
He thought about how easily he forgave him that time, despite how mean Loqi was. All the effort and struggles Cor had dealt with in the past.
The one time that Cor dropped to his knees and held him through a whole night of crying.
The immense attention he paid to him every time, like taking him out of the hall so no one would see him break down, comforting him through the puke, and little details that Cor wasn’t forced to do yet still did, like giving him a blanket, and food, and water.

Something inside Loqi felt as if slowly growing, like a flower blooming, slow, gentle, and very warm.
And Loqi did what Cor had been trying so hard to get with no success. Little by little, he smiled. It was a little curve, sincere and sweet, a little timid and warm. His body relaxed and his eyes moved down as his smile grew, tender, moved. He looked back up at Cor and his smile grew a little more, even though it also became a little shier.

Cor didn’t see him. Unaware of his presence and busy punishing the people that had picked on Loqi, Cor missed the smile.
Loqi continued looking at him with that little smile.
…Cor was…he was…not a bad guy, was he?

Loqi’s smile grew a little again, and his heart skipped a beat, but differently than it had done before. It had skipped beats out of surprise, nerves, something startling. This, however, was startling but not like a hit to the face. It was more like…a little slap. Expected enough to not be shocking, but still a hit. It was like, instead of stopping, his heart had flipped inside and was doing weird things for no reason.

The Crownsguard yelled while holding the position. Cor yelled back at them.

Loqi chuckled a little, and before his heart kept doing stupid things, he left for Cor’s office again, deciding that he had nothing to say anymore for the time being, not helping but feel strangely happy, and unable to stop thinking about all the little things that Cor had been doing, all the time, all for him.

Chapter Text

Just as Loqi was starting to take up again some interest for knowing Cor better, he didn’t get to approach him the following days.

At first, Loqi was shy about it. He had been moved from the way Cor had treated him with that incident with the Crownsguards and the balloons, he had been touched about the sweet care, but he still felt a little startled, and he guessed that he could approach him some other day. So he didn’t do it the following day and just let it be as was routine.

That day, Cor asked him if he wanted to attend the little trial set for the Crownsguards with one of the Council members in charge of these ‘minor’ internal issues. Loqi said he didn’t really want to waste his time with people that weren’t worth it, and he looked away fearing his face would turn red if he kept eye contact with Cor; for one, that question implied that Cor did make sure to tell superior commands about this to get proper justice, which was really nice, and he also said nothing about the personal reprimand he put on the Crownsguards that day. Him not telling a word about it made it all so more genuine, and it made its way back to Loqi’s heart, so he preferred not making eye contact as if Cor would see the gratitude that Loqi really didn’t want to show.

Cor didn’t question him further, and attended the little trial for him. It turned out that the Crownsguards were degraded from their rank and back to trainees, and suspended for a couple days. Loqi found it odd and a bit ridiculous; back in Niflheim, an insult to a higher rank implied high fees, total destitution, and, in the most extreme cases and depending who had been insulted, some method like whipping or at least some little shocks. Discipline was something that needed to be learned through an iron fist, not with taking ranks off and saying ‘no, bad child!’ but maybe that was just Loqi’s opinion. Still, he didn’t complain, and so far he knew Lucians seemed to be very proud about the Crownsguard title so if that hurt their pride, good.

That new day, Loqi had spent most morning at home and only attended the Citadel a little on the evening, drained as he already felt even before the incident. That had already taken some of the chances of approaching Cor, but he guessed he could do it the following day. What he was not expecting, however, was that this time it would be Cor who wouldn’t be there.
“Loqi” Cor called out of nowhere during dinner. The blond was lazily eating, giving his best at not giving dinner up, and only replied with an equally lazy hum. Cor was looking at him and not eating when he continued. “I’d like to be away from tomorrow morning and until Saturday” Loqi stopped chewing and his eyes and eyebrows went up, making eye contact with Cor and not hiding the surprise. Cor kept his blank face of always, if with a hint of worry. “Would you be ok?”

Loqi still took a while to process the information. It wasn’t…that he wanted Cor to be there. It was just…well…Cor had been there since day one. Every day. Even when they had that fight and Cor was ignoring him, he was physically there. And it wasn’t that Loqi needed him, it was just…the idea of Cor not being there had never crossed his mind. Loqi didn’t imagine a day without the dork wandering around, especially because it was his apartment. Leaving Loqi alone there was…odd. Who left a guest alone at home, like it was Loqi’s house too?
“I know you struggle sometimes, and even though you’re perfectly independent, I know that a bit of company can help a little bit” Cor continued after a while with no answer. “I can’t say that I can skip what I want to do because it’s really important to me, but I also want to know if you feel ok with the idea of being alone for a day. We can always count with Monica or whoever you feel comfortable with if you don’t want to be- as in- it’s not that you need supervision, it’s just…” Cor shrugged and looked down at his food. “I just…feel bad leaving you alone, because I know that not every day is a good day for you…”

Loqi still had that unfinished spoonful in his mouth, jaw frozen and eyes wide, not blinking and staring intensely. For a moment, a very mean voice at the back of his head laughed at him and told him that Cor had read his mind and knew about his silly, absurd intention of wanting to get to know him a little better, so now he was running from him. Loqi dismissed the idea as the pathetic absurd thing it was, though a tiny part of him felt a kick.
“…why? What’re you going to do?” Loqi asked much quieter than he intended, hating himself for that, and yet, not regretting the question.

Cor hesitated. He stared at Loqi as if not having expected that reaction. Cor looked at him like he had expected Loqi to give his usual ‘whatever’ answer and flick him off, not this, and certainly not in such ‘have mercy on me’ voice. Besides surprised at the reaction, Cor seemed to not know what to say…or more like he didn’t know if he should say it. He tried once and regretted it, staring at Loqi. Then, he tried again.
“It’s…my son’s birthday tomorrow” Cor said a bit insecurely, like he didn’t like talking about it. “And I’d like to be with him since morning and at night” Cor gave him a bit of a sad but genuine smile and looked down at his dish again. “We haven’t been at the same place all day for a while and I think it’s a special day, so…”

…well…yes, Loqi understood, but…
But what? He didn’t even have a but. He didn’t want or need Cor there, and yet, he didn’t want to get rid of him either. Plus, how dare Cor do that right when Loqi was curious about him? Didn’t he care that Loqi care, didn’t he want him to care? Yet, those complaints seemed absurd, and Loqi knew it. He wasn’t even annoyed. He was just startled at the idea of a day without Cor.
He couldn’t be this dependent on him, though. If Niflheim taught something really well from the very core of their philosophy, that was to not be dependent on anyone. People died. Bonds were fine, but with limits. And he had grown too used to Cor. Loqi could use the distance as a reminder of his independency.
“Yeah” he said and looked down at his dish, poking his food and chewing again. “It’s fine.”

There was a bit of silence. He could feel Cor staring at him, so he made sure to look up a bit to state that he wasn’t afraid to make eye contact.
“And would you like to be alone?” Cor asked. “It’s ok if you want some company, whatever you feel more comfortable with.”
“Alone” Loqi stated confidently, nodding. “I want to be alone.”
“Alright” Cor said lowly as was his style. “Thanks for understanding.”

Loqi replied with ‘eh’ and kept eating, but that was a common answer from him.
The next morning, when Loqi woke up, Cor was already alone. He had told him the previous night that he would leave before dawn, but it was still…odd. To have no one call at the door at morning, but not because he was being ignored, rather because there was no one else in the apartment. Thankfully, Leonis had thought about it and had left some prepared breakfast for him that Loqi just needed to microwave a bit. Even though Cor had offered to have someone from the Citadel pick him up for work if he felt like it, Loqi had stated very confidently that he could do that alone and that he wasn’t so nitpicky that he needed a chauffeur, he was very humble and very adapted to the commoner lifestyle and he knew how to use public transport how dare you think he was a spoiled rich prince.

He got lost and changed bus three times, but nobody ever knew so that doesn’t count.

And so life at the Citadel for Loqi went on.

--

A day in the life of Loqi in the Citadel was classes, snarling, tactics, maybe some yelling, a meal, and so on and on, whatever he needed to attend as could sometimes vary.

The first thing Loqi did that day was give more classes to a bunch of Crownsguard. It flowed naturally as always, if maybe he felt a little annoyed, though he couldn’t put a finger on why.
“That’s why you dipshits haven’t had success with the mechs” Loqi was explaining near the end of the class, turning from the chalkboard he had been drawing on to look at the people. “Is it clear now? If I send you to the battlefield, will you for once not be as idiotic as always and die and just do as I told you?”

The class was passive in the response. There were a few murmurs of agreement mostly. But, for once, no one had insulted him in a murmur, no one rolled the eyes, and no one seemed insulted. Loqi was even sure he heard a ‘yes, sir’ somewhere in the room. Sir? Since fucking when did the Lucians respect his superior rank? These idiots would just often ignore him or say nothing or fight back.
Loqi felt a little pinch at the top of his stomach at the little response he got. Scarce and dumb as it was, it was, for once…not mean.
…were these idiots…behaving…?

“Good” Loqi frowned to interrupt his own train of thoughts, and went back to the chalkboard. “You better have copied this somehow if you want to keep notes because I’m not drawing that again.”

The Crownsguard didn’t bark any insult back or anything as usual. Loqi didn’t even feel the usual fire glares on him.
‘Yes, sir’. Pscht.
They weren’t going to fool him with this sudden good behavior…

--

“And that’s how we found the route blocked.”

Loqi nodded absentmindedly while frowning at the photographs in his grasp, attentive as if though the answer to all mysteries of the universe were somewhere coded in the images. The strategists and Crownsguard in the room stared at him or at the large 3-D map set on the table, analyzing and trying to figure out the way to repair one of the thousands of usual messes of war. He stayed calm on his chair, a little sprawled on it as if too confident and comfortable, an ankle resting on his knee.
“We noticed an odd pattern and decided to not take the odds of thinking it a coincidence and brought it back to you, Sir.”

Loqi stayed focused in the photographs of the zone, analyzing every component that he could see, trying to live through it and arrange the mental image to figure out what the Empire had done. He looked at the map in front of him, and he looked not only at the zone they were trying to get through, but everything set on the table, even things that were as far as the coast and the other continent, reviewing all the toy ships and soldiers on it. Once more, he looked at the photographs and skipped through them calmly. He tried to knit the testimonies, pictures, and his large imperial information to clear out some mystery that no one else knew how to start understanding.

After a while more into thinking, Loqi set the photographs down.
“Round south” he indicated calmly, then took the large stick used to move the figurines, and he pointed a couple camps and soldiers. “It indeed is not a coincidence. Good work to whoever noticed. The empire is shutting here, and here, in expectation that you will go through this side of the map. We’re aware of how your magic works, so of course it has to be through here where your temporary hideouts for magic recovery will be limited” he moved a couple figurines, and toyed a little with the stick, distractedly. “From what I can gather, it must be a three four CPX battalion, so there ought to be some tiny but strong camp not marked somewhere. My bets are here, or here. Avoid those places.”

“Yes, sir” a Crownsguard said, took some photos of the table as rearranged as it was, a couple notes, and left the room to another strategy room with the new information.

Loqi watched him leave, and muttered ‘Yes, sir’ in an unnecessarily high pitched voice to himself.

--

Loqi hit the floor facedown, let out a groan, and then an overly large foot landed on his back, not hard enough to hurt him but enough to press him to the ground.

“Hah!” Big Brute Barbarian’s dorky bark was always an annoyance, and the Six knew Loqi hadn’t already ripped that huge head off that stupid body because he hadn’t had a chance. Loqi pouted and frowned at the floor a few inches from his face. “Nice try, Pipsqueak!”

Gladio offered his hand as he had done the past times he had engaged in battle with Loqi before (two times by now), and, as always, Loqi pushed it away and stood up angry and fast on his own, not looking his way, and looking out of his mind.
“What was it this time? Were you distracted? Still injured?” Gladio teased him and leaned down to be closer to his height, smirking a bit too smartly at him, even when Loqi was looking to another side. “What’s the excuse now, midget?”
“You bark too much even for a mutt!” Loqi roared at him, finally turning to give Gladio a death stare that would have put anyone else to a halt. Gladio, however, just smiled more. “I’m going to get you at some point and all this barking will get back to you and I’m not going to have fucking mercy!”
“Yeah, and when is that happening?” Gladio teased him again, and moved a finger up. Ready as he was, Loqi smacked his hand away before Gladio could poke his nose. “Not without your mech, I’m afraid, nope.”

Loqi’s chest rose and he became red in the face from mere anger and frustration. Why had it been so easy to make Gladio angry the first time they met but now he was being this…sassy child? Who taught him all this sass and why was it so frustrating to not be able to make him angry?
“If I had my mech” Loqi started, and when he pointed at Gladio as dramatically as he always did, his finger ended up accidentally poking one of Gladio’s eyes. The Shield moved back with a yelp holding his eye, and Loqi, as if entirely disinterested from the harm, just went on like nothing had happened, “you would be so very fucking dead, your ancestors would have exploded in their graves!”

Despite the poked eye, Gladio still laughed.

Like usual, neither said goodbye. They weren’t friends, not even mates, Loqi refused to be lowered to the level of someone the rank of a service dog or lower, and this was not training or lessons or whatever. He didn’t like Gladio, indeed, he hated him, and didn’t enjoy these encounters, he just…wanted- he was going to prove he was stronger than the stupid Amicitia heir, he couldn’t not be stronger, fuck Gladiolus, fuck his stupidly large sword, fuck him and his family and everyone and everything, Loqi didn’t want to be anywhere near him…and that’s why Loqi was definitely coming back to get him, eventually.

--

Some Crownsguards had managed to get some evidence from the battlefield of a weapon they hadn’t handled too much before and had been studying for a while with no success. There were no photographs of whatever the thing itself was, and testimony wasn’t being enough for Loqi, so he requested they could save some evidence, be it part of the machinery, or something the weapon damaged. That day, there were news at the headquarters that there were the rests of a truck that the weapon damaged, and if that was enough.

The truck couldn’t be brought in for investigation as the more it moved, the more pieces it lost, and it was best to see it as less altered as possible. They got near the entrance of Insomnia, and so the people from headquarters had to go out and meet them there.
Monica offered to drive Loqi there. Loqi mentally thanked that she was available; as little interaction as they had had, he felt a little less annoyed with her as he felt with everyone else that wasn’t Cor. Her car wasn’t the great thing but so wasn’t Cor’s. Indeed, Cor’s was a piece of garbage, in Loqi’s opinion. Very luxurious and sporty…last decade. Loqi was just waiting for that thing to fall apart at any moment, though, to be fair, he was exaggerating a little.

The drive there was quiet and normal. The inspection on the truck was just as calm; even though he was in theory beyond the Insomnia Wall, it was still just barely outside the main gates on the immense bridge that connected to the continent, so it was still within a safe range, where the nearest Nif presence had to be many, many kilometers away. He inspected the evidence, took notes, came up with theories, gave a couple instructions, and bid goodbye, just a normal war thing of no major consequences.

It was during the drive back that Loqi made the mistake of upsetting the last person he should have upset. While watching the city pass by his open window, he suddenly spoke up a bit more than he had done so far and, according to him, very normally.
“You know, now that we’re outside you should take me somewhere for lunch” he said. Monica didn’t seem any startled by the sudden conversation or confused by the words.
“Yeah?” she asked. “Why don’t you wait until we get to the Citadel for free food?”
“Because I’m hungry right now?” Loqi said with a tone of sarcasm, like he had thought it was obvious. He gave Monica a look as if though she was either an idiot or disgusting. Monica saw him, but calmly looked back at the road. “Plus, you can take me somewhere decent. I mean, the Citadel’s food is fine, but are you serious about those meals for the superior ranks?”

Monica side-glanced at him for a moment. Loqi rested his arms on the door to rest his chin on them, hair dancing in the air.
“What’s wrong with the food?” Monica asked. Loqi shrugged and adjusted a little so he rested his elbow on the door instead, his head on his hand.
“I mean, it’s fine for the…simple, foot soldiers or something” he said. “But I’m a superior rank. I deserve better meals” Monica turned in the way, and stayed as stoic and natural as always. Loqi looked at her. “And now that I think about it, my rank is above yours. I’m still in the role of a general here. You’re a captain.”
“So?”
“So not only do I deserve some better meal” Loqi sat back normally in his seat, leaving the window, and giving Monica a smile of malice. “I deserve to have it now if I so please. Take me somewhere nice.”

Monica turned to look at him again, face natural. Loqi put his eyebrows slightly up. Monica looked back at the road and continued driving. Loqi paid attention and saw they were still heading towards the Citadel.
“Elshett” he said much more seriously this time. “Drive somewhere for a nice lunch.”
“We can wait until we get to the Citadel” Monica insisted, turning once more, without looking at him.
“You’re not ignoring me” Loqi said with a tone so offended, Monica thought for a second he was joking, but a look at him confirmed he was not. “Get me some fucking food, right now.”

Monica didn’t answer for a good while. She kept going. Loqi frowned while looking at her intensely. Oh no, some Lucian scum was not going to ignore his orders. He wasn’t even that hungry, but she dared defy him? Dared ignore his petition? He was a refugee and a general, Lucis’ new master key and war leader, and still a noble, of course he was a priority, and if he asked for something, people had to comply. Cor was a lost case that wouldn’t understand Loqi’s privileges, but he was not going to let anyone else get away with ignoring his status.
“Elshett” Loqi called. “I’m hungry. Get me food right now.”
“You can wait.”
“I’m asking you for food!” Loqi yelped out. “I’m Loqi fucking Tummelt, head of the Tummelt family, a noble and as so a diplomat, and your superior in ranks” he snarled, though quieter. “I said I want food, and we’re getting it” and so, he calmed down a little and looked out the window again. “You better get me something or you’ll see the consequences.”

And Monica turned. From that spot they could already see the Citadel, but when Monica turned, it went out of sight for a moment. She was taking another route.
Loqi smiled to himself. Yes. Because of Cor, Loqi hadn’t been able to give orders for a very long while, and his need for superiority was getting dry. Without Cor in the way, it felt so nice to give someone an order and see them obey.
Loqi’s delight, though, didn’t last very long. He was delighted and content while he saw this new street he had never gone through, and saw a couple restaurants in the way. He did see the famous children restaurant Chocobo Hut when it was in sight range, but thought they would just pass it by.

Monica slowed down, put the direction lights on, and entered the drive-through of Chocobo Hut.

Loqi tensed in his spot and his smile disappeared. He frowned confused and upset and looked around, thinking maybe she was going to use it as shortcut or go somewhere else, but Monica kept going into the drive-through. Just as Loqi was processing that she was very much indeed going in, he turned harshly to look at her, ready to ask in a yell if she was kidding, but he found she had already stopped at the first window.
“Welcome to Chocobo Hut, what will your order be?”
Loqi’s heart skipped a beat and his entrails were set on fire. He barely had time to process what was happening when Monica was already, as calm as always, resting an arm on the door and talking with the person in the window.
“Yes, hello, you see” she said casually, “my toddler here is being an immature whiny thing” she vaguely gestured towards Loqi. The person in the window looked at him; his heart skipped another beat, he tensed even more, and his face went red to the tip of his ears. “Would you be so kind as to give me the special Happy Box, the one with the nuggets in the shape of a chocobo, so this little baby prince can be content, please?”

Loqi actually heard and saw the person taking the order…fucking laughing to themselves as they worked, understanding what Monica was doing.
“Yes, madam” they giggled. “What sort of toy do you want in it?”
“What’s the special now?”
“Dinosaurs and little reapers.”
“…hmm…dinosaur, please.”
“On its way, madam. Anything else?”
“One black coffee for the adult” Monica said with a sly smile and a wink, with all the right intonation in her voice to make every of Loqi’s hair spike up while his organs kept messing around in embarrassment and anger. “Thanks, sweetie.”
“You’re welcome, proceed to second window, please.”

Even though the worker left, Loqi still heard another chuckle that sent a bolt of embarrassment throughout his entire nervous system. He gave Monica a frown, a glare, and a dropped jaw. She didn’t glance back; focused on the road as she moved the car a few meters, and stopped at the second window, without caring about the huge, offended eyes Loqi was giving her and not even trying to hide. Another worker appeared, and Loqi kept giving Monica the same distorted, exaggerated look of offense and anger, but Monica just calmly paid, waited for the change, and received it without giving him the slightest interest. On the third window, Loqi shut the mouth but still glared at her.

“A Happy Box, and a black coffee” the third worker said as she handed everything and Monica received it.
“Thanks, sweetie” she said and took the stuff in. The worker closed the window and left, and even though it was everything, Monica saw no car behind so she didn’t move from the spot.

She calmly turned to look at Loqi. They held eye contact. Loqi was still giving her those wide eyes with a death glare that would have made all and any Crownsguard look away in fear. She, however, just stared with a dull, blank face, if the slightly amused. The stare competition went on for a bit, none even blinking…and, then, Monica handed him the Happy Box, and dropped it on his lap. Loqi ignored it and kept glaring, frozen, the hatred intensifying. Monica, still not breaking eye contact, slightly raised the eyebrows and pressed the lips together as if daring him.
She took the coffee’s lid off. Without breaking eye contact with Loqi, she brought the drink to her mouth and started drinking it. Loqi stared as intense as before, and every second she drank from the coffee made him shake a little more and made him press his clenching teeth more.

Some seconds later, Monica put the drink down and continued staring as calmly and unfazed as before.
“Now, don’t give me that look” she said. “You know coffee is for adults.”
And with that, she broke eye contact, but for some reason Loqi didn’t feel it like a victory. Indeed, he felt very much defeated. Monica reached for his Happy Box, opened it, and took the dinosaur toy out. She brought it close to Loqi’s face, and had it give him a ‘smooch’ before putting the toy back down. She chuckled and gave him a sarcastic happy look, like a cheesy mother pinching her child’s cheek, and so she started driving again.

Loqi still stared at her for a while, but not a minute later he looked away and down at the stupid box. A voice in the very back of his head told him he had been humiliated and defeated. He refused to think it out loud, and refused to speak to Monica after that.
But the blush of embarrassment on his face during the rest of the way and the way he was a little sprawled on his seat as if he wanted it to eat him was all satisfaction that Monica needed.
Ah, yes. You’re free to humble him down if he gets rude, Cor said.
If Cor was too nice to have him go through harmless public humiliation to humble down, Monica wasn’t, no dear.

She drove the rest of the way to the Citadel obnoxiously satisfied with an embarrassed Loqi staring at a Happy Box like it was the reason of all his misery.

--

Loqi was calmly pacing through a hallway only losing some time before his next activity as to not stand alone awkwardly in some spot where anyone could approach him. He definitely didn’t want to be a target for more idiot Crownsguard or provocative Glaives, so if he didn’t stay still, it would be better, he thought. Little by little, without noticing, he was starting to know the Citadel a little more. It was a huge place, and it could get confusing, but Loqi was already starting to know where to turn to go where.

Thankfully, no one he crossed paths with seemed to be getting idiotic. There were a couple glances as usual, but nothing more, and Loqi was starting to notice that something was a little odd. It was something in the not important people. Gladiolus was still an Idiot, he hadn’t seen His Royal Baby, and Monica’s thing didn’t count (maybe because deep inside he knew he sort of provoked it). But the recruits, Crownsguard, and even the Glaives…something was odd about them. Loqi was trying to put his finger on it while walking through the hallway, lost in thoughts.

He didn’t get much of a chance to figure out an answer when someone unexpected crossed ways with him. Loqi was pacing through one of those hallways where one of the walls, the whole thing from roof to floor and side to side of the overly long hallway, was all glass with a view of the city and the skyline beyond. Despite the view, however, Loqi wasn’t the slightest impressed and kept going with his stupidly quick (military) going. Then, out of nowhere, thinking he was alone, he heard a bark behind him.

Loqi didn’t flinch, but he still made sure to look around to make sure no one was looking, and then looked back. The prince’s stupid mutt, and not the human one, was jogging his way. Loqi tensed and frowned, nose shrugging up, and he felt himself put the guard up a little. He stayed still as the black and white dog happily went his way. Once it was close, Loqi thought it would try to get to him to put its paws on him or something, so he took a step back, but thankfully Umbra stopped before him and sat down. It (or he, whatever) poked the tongue out and started breathing, as Loqi called it, like an idiot. One of his ears flapped, and he kept staring at Loqi like expecting him to start a conversation.

Loqi frowned deeper at him. He took half a step closer, not taking the eyes off him to make sure the dog would not try something funny, and, wary and insecure, Loqi started leaning down to take the notebook on his back. He tried to round Umbra so his arm wasn’t close to the dog’s mouth. As if knowing what Loqi was thinking, Umbra shut the mouth and gave him an innocent look. Loqi snarled at him and muttered a little insult, not liking the idea of a dog daring to even imagine Loqi was scared of being bitten because that was…not the case. So, after a bit of hesitating, Loqi took the notebook from his backpack thing, and quickly brought it up and took his half step back, staring at Umbra intensely like expecting him to bark and start a fight.

Loqi kept looking at him with that frown and a pout for a while, before just letting out the breath he was containing.
“You, ass” he whispered. Then, he took only the big purple envelope in the last page, and tossed the book back to the dog. Umbra jumped and caught it in his mouth; for a moment, Loqi stayed wary and still again when Umbra, instead of being angry for such an action, started wriggling the tail and got closer. Loqi thought that it better not be expecting him to play fetch. Loqi made a little snarl noise and shooed Umbra away with a foot to put distance between them. “Go away.”

And so, happily swinging his tail, Umbra turned around and left, perhaps to look for his real owner. Loqi stared at him until he was completely out of sight, and still kept watching to make sure it wasn’t coming back, the stinky thing. Loqi once more looked around to make sure no one was watching, he put the envelope in his jacket, and he headed off to Cor’s office.

Ravus and him had started writing to each other. Loqi wasn’t expecting him to write back after Loqi himself replied to the first letter. Ravus was not much the social kind, even less with people he didn’t interact with personally. Lunafreya was the only big exception, and the only one he wrote letters to…until now.

You will understand I won’t write often. Tagged of traitor and being Niflheim’s secretly number one target at the moment, I cannot take the risks; for one, if they connect me with you, Lunafreya will be in danger, and two, your location would be known and that I cannot allow.

When Loqi read that he had wished Ravus was there to laugh at him for being so cheesy without noticing. Worrying about Loqi like that, and the dork probably didn’t notice how nice he had sounded in that last sentence. This new one that Umbra brought was the third, a bit odd as Ravus did say he was not going to write often and it hadn’t been that long since the first letter, but Loqi knew it could be like that; often for a lapse, then nothing for even months. He was ok with that. Having falsely died and sent to the other end of the world had, ironically, brought him and Ravus a little bit closer, even if it was only via letters. He could have one letter from him a year, and he thought it would be enough. Ravus was showing to care and be a nice guy under all that coldness, and Loqi appreciated that he just cared enough to write sometimes.

The two seemed to be getting drawn together due to their hatred towards the Empire. Both stood in similar if different situations; both betrayed by the Empire and wanting to put it down, and angered by having helped it (or still helping it, in Ravus’ case), and siblings resulting affected.

Once in Cor’s office, Loqi made himself comfortable and read Ravus’ new letter. It was very compromising, and he decided to cut it, then burn it after he had read it.
Ravus was offering to infiltrate information to him when he could. Now knowing he was alive, the Empire wasn’t going to take long at figuring out Loqi had to be helping Lucis, and when that happened, they were probably going to go the distance as to figure out tactics thinking not about how Lucis was going to try to decode it, but how Loqi was going to decode it, and hence, knowing what not to do.

I have been aiding these villains for too long. I’m helping no one but them. This is never freeing my sister if I keep going this way. I wish to help, too, but I cannot do it alone. An inside job is useless, and even if I succeeded it would only put my sister and kingdom at death sentence. All I can do is be a coward and put all the work on you, and the less I can do is, at least, offer a few guiding points to make it easier for you.

So even Ravus himself, the High Commander, was absolutely sick of the Empire’s doing, huh. Loqi always knew that Ravus had taken on the job for his sister, but he didn’t know how far he would go to rescue her from that tight security she was always put under. Loqi suspected there had to be some abuse going on, as well, as far as someone could get with the actual Oracle, so Ravus had to have reasons. He would have done the same. He would have gone on a one-man army rampage on the whole world if that freed his siblings. And if he couldn’t, like Ravus, then he too would be taking such risks to help someone else that could do it for him.

Loqi didn’t want that dog of the prince near him, but he thanked the Astrals for his existence. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to communicate with Ravus. A new informant, yes, but mostly, a good friend.

--

By the time work shift was already ending, Loqi finally managed to put his finger on what was strange. It was the…attitude. The things that were missing, and new things too, it was not uniforms or the walls. It was the people’s attitudes. They weren’t being dorkier than usual, or more stupid.
They were being…kinder.

These idiots were being a tiny bit kinder with him. Or, perhaps, just less mean. Almost now that work shift was nearly over, he had enough evidence to compare and come to a conclusion, and the things he found in common all lead to the same thing; he had not bumped shoulders with anyone he crossed ways with, no one had given him a bad glance, no one had whispered an insult. He had been called ‘sir’ at least three times that day, no one in class tried to spoil it, or thrown anything at him, and there weren’t little groups of idiots in the hallways whispering about him while he passed by. The common thing was that they were not being mean.

Why? What happened to these idiots for this sudden change? Of course, it wasn’t too big of a change or too sudden, and not in everyone, but it was still enough that Loqi noticed a slight switch in their attitude. There were still glances, but some had started to be curious and not mean. Had a rumor spread? And if so, what? Loqi was curious, and at some point a little anxious about knowing. For some reason, it never crossed his head that it had been the incident with the balloons and the judged Crownsguard. He had blocked that event as not having had any consequences beyond the bathroom, so he didn’t imagine it. Perhaps it was for the better; had he known, Loqi would have probably done something to sabotage himself and this new kindness, because he would have seen it as pity, and pity was the last thing he wanted.

Not knowing what it was, however, confused him across the day and he tried to keep finding signs in people to try and come up with an answer. People crossed ways with them, and didn’t snarl at him, didn’t push him, some even dared say ‘Good evening’ like they were proper civilized people, how dare they? Loqi wasn’t angry at the not-rudeness, he was angry at not understanding why…but part of him felt an immense relief. Sort of like having fought with an animal; angry that it stopped out of a sudden because Loqi was still very much in the mindset to go on for hours and now he couldn’t, but in relief because, well, even if he was winning the battle (according to himself), it’s not like it wasn’t…tiring.
Still, these Lucians weren’t going to earn his sympathy if that’s what they wanted. He wasn’t going to be any kinder to them, or wave back at any of them. He hated the Lucians and that was never going to change.

When stopping at the corner of a hallway, before turning, Loqi looked in another direction. Standing there, on guard duty at a big door, stood the Glaive of the Mohawk haircut and the little tattoos on the cheeks. They shared a glance for a moment.
Nyx, as if unable to take the arms from behind himself, gave Loqi a solemn nod. Loqi, arms crossed, lifted two fingers from his arm, and a bit hesitatingly returned the nod.
…well, ok, Nyx was the exception, but that didn’t count and it meant nothing.

--

Loqi stayed a little past the end of his shift, busy in a spontaneous informal meeting with only a couple strategists. Monica was to drive him home (Loqi was still very much upset about the events of lunch, but it wasn’t like he wanted to use public transport again or like anyone else could drive him or lend him their car), and he had texted her with the little device the kingdom lent him, as he still wanted no phone to not be tracked, asking her to wait a little. So, after Loqi was done, he was left to go alone to the parking lot. Not that he minded, as that was the easiest place to get to and he wouldn’t get lost.

After gathering his stuff, Loqi exited Cor’s office and locked it. Cor had texted him, too, said he was around and would lock it later so he didn’t need to worry, but hard as he tried Loqi couldn’t get rid of his strict military manners in everything, even the little things. He stopped at a hallway when a strategist passed by and stopped him to ask a quick thing. Loqi reviewed the notes he was shown and listened, and helped as best as he could. The strategist left, and so, standing in his spot and distracted from the way he had been heading, Loqi turned to another hallway he wasn’t going to take.

Leonis was there. Loqi’s heart did a weird thing, not quite like a skip, rather like a soft beat of recognition. Good gods, Cor had been gone only since that morning and it felt like he hadn’t seen him in very long, and the sight, unexpected yet not a surprise, was…not nice, but…maybe…relaxing?
Leonis was with his spawn. The lion cub. Loqi stayed still in his spot, not really hiding or pretending he wasn’t there, but the Leonis didn’t see him. They were distracted talking with each other. Whatever they were talking about, Prompto had his usual grinning face on and gestured at times, and Cor…was smiling too.

Loqi tensed a little in his spot and stared around looking for anyone else, not sure why, and then looked again at Cor. The Marshal, smiling. It wasn’t that frequent…was it? Loqi didn’t…look at him often, and when Cor smiled, he always felt it was out of pity to make Loqi feel safe or some stupid thing like that. Looking at Cor smile at someone else was…weird. Mostly because it wasn’t his usual smile. This seemed…much more sincere. Way warmer, too. With a different shine, to put it some way. Cor looked at Prompto like he was the source of all his reason of being. Natural, Loqi guessed, as that was his son, but…wasn’t it a bit exaggerated? Sure his dad had loved him too in his own way and his siblings, but he never looked at any of his kids like that, not even Bestel…

Loqi started digressing in his thoughts. Getting the chance to be looking at the Leonis longer than before, he couldn’t help but note Prompto and Cor looked nothing alike. The boy had nothing that resembled him. No height, body built, skin color, hair, nose, jaw, nothing. Not even the way of standing was similar. Pretty odd.
Loqi was distracted from the differences when Cor chuckled at something. Loqi’s entrails did something funny, and he went back to the previous sensation of how weird it was to look at Cor like this. Cor chuckling, when was the last time he heard or saw him chuckle?

Loqi didn’t know why, but all of this was odd and…not bad. Cor seemed so, so much more lighthearted than anytime Loqi remembered. Cor Leonis, stoic, dry Cor Leonis chuckling and looking like…that.
…what made Cor happy? Loqi wondered and tried thinking for a second, but he was too distracted in the picture he was witnessing. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something about the Leonis made them look so…safe. It was impossible to stare and not feel a little…joyful.

Prompto said something that was making Cor smile more and more, and before Prompto was done talking, Leonis father suddenly and quickly took him in arms into a bear hug. He squeezed Prompto so tightly the dork instantly turned red from the pressure, and lifted him off the floor some inches.
Loqi’s heart skipped a beat this time, and he relaxed in his spot, for some reason feeling some timid joy build up in his chest. Cor had the eyes closed, a tender expression on his face, and a little smile while he hugged Prompto and slightly swung him side to side.
Cor was physically capable of hugging…? Loqi had been so into knowing Cor as a flat mate and as a soldier that he didn’t…it was a stupid idea and he should have known, but watching Cor like this made him look so…terribly human. So mortal, unlike the legend Loqi was so obsessed with.
Cor Leonis, capable of…feeling things. Odd. Odd but…strangely satisfying.

Cor put Prompto back on the ground, and the boy staggered a little in his spot, apparently a bit dizzy but amused. Cor was talking, perhaps asking something. Prompto was quick to reply, nodding at whatever it was. Loqi stared at Prompto instead of both or only Cor. He had had time to interact with Leonis father enough, but the pup was still a mystery. Boy made of sunshine, who kept both watching him from a distance and going away as soon as Loqi was less than ten meters away. Loqi scanned him from head to toe.

Leonis had…mentioned him sometimes. Vaguely, and always like he would rather not talk about it…but it didn’t seem like they had a bad relationship. Indeed, it almost felt cheesy just looking at the idiots. Why didn’t he like talking about him? What was Prompto hiding?
Cor had also sometimes mentioned him vaguely whenever some…event came up. Cor had been trying to deal with Loqi’s new mental state, and, sometimes, when things related to his depression came up, Cor had accidentally mentioned his son, carried away by the flow of the natural conversation. It had only been vague mentions, but it didn’t take a genius to understand something was wrong with the boy.
“I’ve learned a lot of these things thanks to Prompto” Cor had said once when Loqi asked him, after the panic attack that he had, how it was that Cor seemed to know just exactly what to do in these situations.

How to deal with the panic attack, but also the nightmares. And Loqi wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of what Leonis did, the little details, he learned from Prompto as well.
Loqi scanned him a little again. He had strong arms, but he was definitely in the thin scheme, and he wasn’t very tall, and he had the look of someone naïve. The boy definitely looked like a mentally fragile one. With what little info Loqi had, he guessed the most obvious was that this boy was either an anxious or depressed fella that Cor had had to deal with for a long while. He certainly looked like the kind.

Not long afterwards, Loqi watched both as they started leaving through the hallway they were at, and disappeared from his sight. For a moment, his shoulders dropped and he felt a little…strange. He didn’t feel left-out, but he did feel a little abandoned. He shook his head and decided to ignore it; they weren’t even aware he was there, and being in the same room than someone didn’t mean company, so it wasn’t like them leaving meant them leaving him.

Loqi turned his own way too and headed for the elevators. Monica had texted him to know how longer he would take.

He decided to tell her he was on his way but waited at the elevator ten minutes more just for the pleasure of having her wait, that horrible witch.

Chapter Text

A couple days later, Loqi was recognized.

He had accompanied Cor to the supermarket for stupid grocery shopping. He felt he had no need to go and that Cor could do it alone, but the Marshal had insisted. He had eventually added more of those…annoying peasant things, like taking out the bag from the trashcan when it was full, put dry dishes in their place, and now this. The other things, Loqi could understand as he created garbage too and used the dishes, but grocery shopping implied going out. Loqi may be entitled to some task in the place he lived in, fine, but beyond the door he had no responsibility.

“It’s food and other things you use” had been Cor’s argument. “So in some way, it’s still something you’re involved with, and hence something you have to help with.”

So now Loqi was stuck here, in the supermarket wasting valuable time. He had accompanied Cor to the store, but that was nearby the apartment and it was small, but this? This was far from Loqi’s safe place, and there were so many people, so many Lucians wandering around. One would think after so long among them, Loqi would be used to Lucians, but one thing was having to deal with the soldiers, and another one was the commoners. At least soldiers had a job to be proud of, in Loqi’s view, but these idiots just wasted oxygen. If commoner was low for him, Lucian commoner was below a dairy cow’s worth.

Loqi had tried to say that he was of no use at the supermarket. He didn’t know where things were, and even if he followed signs, he had no idea what they needed at home; even if Cor handed him a list, Cor could grab things himself, he had two hands.
“Exactly” Cor had argued, basically grabbing Loqi by the back of his jacket and dragging him to the door of the apartment. “And because I’ll be using both hands as you so smartly suggest, I’ll need someone to push the cart.”

So Loqi had basically dug his own grave, and here he was, moodily resting his face on a hand and the elbow on the cart’s handle, pouting, frowning, while waiting for Cor to choose between two identical cans of beans. A while later, Cor was coming back with a different, third one.
“This is so fucking boring” Loqi complained, absent-mindedly pushing the cart without uncrossing his arms from it.
“Welcome to peasant life” Cor said. “Boring most of the time.”

Loqi groaned as response and kept going, stopping only when Cor grabbed him by the back of his jacket. While Cor started checking other things in the shelf, Loqi turned around and kept pouting.
“Who the fuck wants to live such a life?”
“I like it” Cor said, not looking at him and far more interested in the bags of flour he was checking. “Boring is heaven.”

Loqi didn’t read too deep into the words. He was too annoyed to ask any further. Cor returned to the cart and patted Loqi on the back, between sarcastic and genuinely encouraging. Loqi huffed and kept going, having no other choice.

After a whole hour going around following Cor, they made it to the check-out area. Loqi got angry five minutes into waiting; he said he was going to wait for Cor outside, and started going past the queue line. At first, Cor had feared Loqi meant outside the building, but he saw the general go past the check out area, go near a wall, and stand there. At least, he would remain in sight range, Cor guessed. And not that he wanted to keep him under tight vigilance, but he still didn’t feel very comfortable with the idea of having Loqi out in the city so openly. He couldn’t keep him locked away like an animal, and seeing this was the life Loqi was going to have, he had to start getting used to a commoner’s life, but he was still in the risk of being spotted. As much as Regis and the crown had asked the media to pretend Loqi wasn’t in the city, that didn’t cut the risk of a paparazzi doing it anyway in hopes the Empire would pay a lifetime’s worth of money for the picture, and it clearly didn’t cut the risk of the common people recognizing him, not knowing it was supposed to be a secret, and speak unintentionally.

Loqi wasn’t exactly subtle even if he tried, which he didn’t either. He didn’t seem to want to be spotlight, not on purpose, but his naturally sassy attitude added a lot of something that made anyone turn to look at him. Like his looks didn’t have that effect already. And it wasn’t only because Loqi outstood in the city, being one of the scarce blonds in it, but he was…fairly good looking. A tad bit…he was absurdly good looking.

Cor had to snap out of his thoughts when it was finally his turn.
And that was when Loqi was spotted.

At first, Loqi felt some tickles in an ear. He tried ignoring it, but realized it wasn’t really a physical tickle. No, this felt…like a stare. Someone was staring at him. Intense, and on purpose. Loqi frowned more; whoever was staring was really asking for a fight and Loqi was going to give it to them. So, unafraid, he turned.
It was a woman. Older than him, but maybe younger than Cor. She had honey-colored hair. While it wasn’t rare that there existed blond Lucians, as there were tanned Nifelians, something in this woman…spoke of Niflheim.

Loqi’s frown softened as did his crossed arms, as if recognizing her. She still kept her eyes locked on him; intense, so intense even some other people passing by looked at her, puzzled by the intense stare. She had surprise and shock in her eyes, but also some…sentiment. Some emotion…that rubbed on hatred.

She kept her angry, burning gaze on him for a while more, and after what felt like an eternity, she started going towards him. For some reason, Loqi’s stomach shrank a little in nerves, but he didn’t falter or look away. She stopped in front of him. Loqi said nothing, frowning to say he was unafraid. She, however, squinted the eyes a little and opened the mouth a bit more.
“…lord Tummelt.”

Loqi blinked calmly. He didn’t reply, offering all his answer that way. She continued staring as intense as before, her eyes now scanning every inch of his face, taking her time, until she seemed to gather all the information she needed from analyzing only his face. Little by little, her eyes stopped, and started becoming a little red and watery. She frowned and pressed her lips into a thin line, and started nodding. She looked clearly upset, profoundly offended.
“So you’re here. In the enemy capital.”

Loqi, once more, didn’t reply. And that, too, spoke the answer like before. She stared intensely as if wanting to make him physically break if she did it hard enough. She looked at where Loqi had been looking at before. Loqi didn’t turn. For once, what an army of thousands couldn’t do, what an entire empire on his hunt couldn’t, this woman did; he felt threatened. So he looked away.
Between clenching teeth, she finally stated it.
“With the Lucian Marshal” she whispered, turning back to him. “So this is what you meant with revenge. You’re…you’re…siding with them.”

Them. The enemy. The foreigners. The selfish Lucians that did but hoard the Crystal. Them, the bad guys. Them, who Loqi had sworn for so many years to destroy.
Once more, he didn’t reply. This time, he put the head a little down. Understanding the answer, she smiled sarcastically, and her eyes quickly drowned in tears. She looked away as if trying to gather the patience to not roar her anger out.
“…you know what?” she muttered with as much anger as hurt. “I don’t fucking care. I’m not going to speak about this, so don’t ask me for it, I just…I don’t care about the Empire or this stupid war anymore” she looked away, crossed the arms, and spoke with the voice so shaky and broken, she finally started crying. “…but seeing Nifelian nobility sink so low…”

Loqi felt a punch to the gut. He breathed shakily and felt a horrid taste in his tongue. Her words had pierced much deeper than he had expected; it was like both a slap to the face, and a blade to the entrails. He looked at his feet, frowning. She shook her head, cleaned her face, and turned around to leave.
“How low, Astrals” she said lowly, yet still at Loqi’s range of ear. She sounded genuinely sad as she lamented, “how low, how low has our beloved, once golden empire sunk…?”

Loqi watched her go away and was unable to look elsewhere. She didn’t look back, not even once.
He was so immersed in what had just happened that he flinched at Cor’s gentle touch upon his shoulder. He looked at the Marshal, but as soon as his eyes locked with his, Loqi felt a twist in the stomach, made up of guilt and distaste, that made him look away.
“Are you ok?” Cor asked. “Who was that?”
“Yeah, it’s- uhm…” Loqi hesitated. He closed the eyes and tried to calm down. “Just…an empire fanatic. One of the refugees, I guess…”

Cor stared at him for a moment. Loqi seemed to refuse to hold eye contact, and Cor was unable to figure out the reason. He looked upset, and still a little absent-minded.
“Did she upset you?” he asked. Loqi seemed to have tried to turn his way, but once more failed at eye contact.
“…n-no” he replied. “She-…doesn’t matter. I’m fine” finally, he looked up at Cor, but looked away again after a few couple seconds, and he tried making it pass as impatience. “Let’s go.”

And so, Loqi started heading to the exit. Cor still took a moment before following. Loqi clearly had been bothered. In what way, he couldn’t tell, but he was upset. He decided to let Loqi process the encounter first, and then try to help him with whatever it had made him feel. Perhaps he was dealing with nostalgia, Cor thought.

--

After months of preparation, finally, the first set of Crownsguard trained and instructed under Loqi’s guide was deployed.

Three thousand people armed with their physical training of always, and their new imperial knowledge. They were the first set that had taken Loqi’s class for the past few months, and under new instructions from the strategists, all guided, as well, by Loqi. In some way, everyone led back to him; soldiers, teachers, strategists, and every person in charge of this operation, it was all working with Loqi as the main leader.

Activity was as high as tension and attention in the Citadel that day. The operation was going to be followed live in one of the logistics room, like every other big operation, and yet, much more different than the rest. There was always high activity and attention in the logistics room when following something in the battlefield; if it involved human lives, it involved people’s care, so this was no different than a smaller or a bigger task.

Yet, it was inevitable to notice and join the sensation of the different color this particular operation had.
This was the first real war operation under the lead of their Nifelian ally.

This was the moment everyone had been silently, consciously or not, waiting for. This first operation under Loqi’s command would be the final answer to his loyalty; the definitive proof of whether he had lied and was guiding Lucis faster to defeat from the inside, or if all information he had given so far was genuine. This operation was going to be the result of all those months of preparation, new lessons, change of routines, plans, and all this crazy, unexpected, never imagined upside-down turn of how they handled war in the Citadel. And the one person in the eye of the storm was Loqi. Whatever resulted from here would define how he was going to be seen and treated, if an ally or an enemy, if people were going to retake the known way of working of before, or if they were going to give in faster to the changes he was making.

No one said a thing, and no one gave him any mean comments, but Loqi couldn’t help and feel that people were somehow expecting him to fail. It was easier to keep an enemy an enemy than accept they had changed. Hell, he had gone months trying to adapt to the idea of Cor not being a deathly rival anymore, so, for once, he could understand how people felt. If roles were inversed and it was Cor aiding the empire, he too would be hoping for the operation to fail, for Leonis to give them the tiniest, most insignificant of excuses to jump at his neck to tear him apart. Loqi knew he would have loved to destroy him, because it wasn’t just that easy to grasp the idea of him switching sides. If the roles were inversed, Cor would be an easy prey, so of course that seeing he was a real ally would be a shame as it crossed out the possibility of finally getting rid of him.

So he assumed it was the same for the Lucians.
Too bad for them, Loqi guessed, because he was going to succeed.
…too bad for him, too, he thought…because he was going to succeed.

Loqi didn’t let any emotion or stupid thought get through him. He did as he learned for so many years at home and at the academia, and blocked everything out. Feelings were an obstacle, he needed the mind on its clearest and most open, focus full on the operation at hand.

People were early for the mission. Loqi was impressed with the Lucians’ punctuality, but didn’t point it out. The staff divided without needing anyone to order, everyone knowing their place. A squad of strategists sat on a side, another in the middle, another at the other side, all three teams in charge of different sections and things; another squad of strategists, scribes, and helpers sat on another little room immediate to the main one, separated by an open door to communicate and not interrupt each other.

Time went, people arriving, coming and going, in some sort of calm tension, where no one seemed to be in panic nor nervous, yet energy was easily felt in the air.
“I didn’t know you people were so punctual” Loqi said looking at no one, yet with Cor standing next to him. Cor chuckled.
“You say ‘you people’ like we’re different.”
“We are” Loqi said calm and cold. “I’ll forever be a Nifelian. We’re not the same.”

Cor didn’t reply. He glanced subtly at Loqi, smile gone. The blond did but keep looking at the people in the room, serene. Cor tried to look for any sign to decipher his emotions, but he found nothing except a blank, focused mind. Yet, the words didn’t finish sitting right.

He knew that Loqi was still proud of his country. He had kept it very clear to the king himself that he wasn’t helping Lucis, rather his own country. His loyalty sat with Niflheim as a concept and country. Yet, he had spoken dirty of Niflheim for a couple months now; spoken dirty of high commands, the emperor himself, tactics and even the military. And now this comment? It felt…off. He had never denied himself a proud Nifelian, but…it had been so long since he had made a positive comment on it, and the contrast between the bad talking and this, it had been…odd.

Cor thought that it made sense, though. As serene as Loqi looked about to start the operation, it was the first time he fought for real against his own team. It had to be tough, even with all the months expecting this to happen sooner or later…
Cor tried to think of something to say, but he didn’t find anything that was prudent. It was as complex as Loqi’s situation; there was no good or bad, and that made it way harder to know what to do or say, because nothing would be wrong, but nothing would be right either.

During their silence, a helper approached and handed them their ear pieces. And so, Cor guessed that, focused as he seemed to be in the task at hand, Loqi would just shut him even if Cor found the best thing to say. He guessed he could speak with Loqi later. Whatever he was feeling, it was important and it needed to come out in a healthy way, so Cor made a mental note to talk with him that night to not let it rot in his head for longer. Meanwhile, he too decided to focus solely in the operation.

And so, it started.

The deployed brigade had left the city days ago, and arrived to one of the imperial bases at Leiden. Finally, at the scheduled hour, just as punctual as the people in headquarters, the brigade at the battlefield contacted them. The signal came in first, and with it, the mission started.
“Everyone in their places” a coordinator announced, and people started moving. Loqi moved to his reserved spot; the center chair of the first desk, the highest row of three, with other six people, Cor among them, three to each side at the large command desk full of buttons and screens. Loqi took the chair and it had looked like he was pulling it to sit, but he just let it keep rolling on its wheels behind him. A helper had to catch it, and Loqi just stood in his spot, staring at the big screen on the wall with the digital map and diagrams.

Cor took his place, too, at the end of the first desk. His screen and papers were all related to his focus, all military and no logistics, working as a supervisor off the field.
And so, right in time, the brigade at Leiden got in touch with them verbally.
“Brigade L-221, 329 degrees X, 180 degrees Y” the ear pieces and headphones announced. Still not familiar with the coded coordinates the Lucians used, Loqi looked at the main strategist, sat next to him, who nodded to confirm it was right. “Headquarters code.”
“Headquarters BB-301, room 402, code ZL-3” Loqi read the paper his main strategist had handed him. “Brigadier General Loqi Tummelt on command.”
“Commander Tummelt” the voice replied from the radio. Loqi rolled the eyes only slightly at the change of title. It wasn’t wrong, but he had worked really fucking hard for Brigadier General to have a generic ‘commander’ name, but that was the last matter at hand at the moment. “Colonel Aras Stagni on field.”
“Stagni” Loqi called, calm, serene, cold. “General report of the situation and current context.”

And so the colonel started filling in all details that could be important. The strategists listened and wrote, pressed buttons, used the touch screens to fill in more things, some handed papers to helpers, they came and went to and from the little room and to other desks. Cor, not of use at the moment, looked at Loqi to see if he was working as energetically. The Brigadier General stood unfazed and unmoving in his spot like a statue, only listening.

After the report was filled in and after a couple protocol codes, there was silence from the radio expecting a first instruction.
“Aras” Loqi called. Without moving, not one hair out of place, like he wasn’t leading a war operation and was just speaking about the weather, Loqi asked, “do you remember everything I taught you of imperial base conquest?”
“Yes, sir” they replied. “I re-read my notes on the way here.”

What a nerd, Loqi thought, but ok.
“Alright, then” and Loqi finally moved; he bent down to rest his hands on the desk, eyes still focused on the main, big screen of the wall like the colonel was there. “You’ll take that base alone, Aras, you can and you will do it” he said. Cor side-glanced his way. “If you feel safer that way, take your best five people with you, more if you want, but no more than ten to cover you. That’s all instruction for now, it’s fine, you’re not in a rush. Go get your soldiers. I’ll tell you how and where the rest will be deployed.”

Cor smiled a little to himself as Loqi started giving his indications. It was the first time he witnessed Loqi on the lead, and, so far, he wasn’t making a bad job. His voice and manners seemed bossy and like a know-it-all, but really his instructions and intentions didn’t seem to match. Yet, it was only the beginning, so Cor couldn’t judge him neither negatively nor positively so fast.

After a while, the radio contacted headquarters again.
“Ok, we’re all ready, Commander Tummelt” the androgynous voice stated. “Awaiting for instructions.”
“Alright, Aras, I’m going to get that base for you; you’ll be my eyes and hands, and I’ll be the brain, alright?” Loqi asked, still as serene as always, yet firm and authoritarian somehow. The way he spoke made it seem impossible to say no, but not out of fear. It was more like…him being so overconfident, so overly sure made it all sound so easy, it was like he was going to guide them through a playground and there was no reason to say no. “You do what I tell you and things will go alright, you and your people are safe.”

Once more, Cor smiled to himself, and said nothing, taking his role of only being there if there was any military or combat emergency that could use a higher command’s advice.
“Translate the coordinates for me” Loqi ordered to his main strategist. “Aras, tell me exactly where you’re standing, real life location.”

And so the mission continued. Loqi spoke and gave detailed but concise instructions of where to go and how, while his main strategist translated Loqi’s universal-coded coordinates to Lucian at the same time he spoke. The strategists kept taking notes and murmuring things in their microphones as was usual, and Loqi, as serene and authoritarian as only he knew how to be, kept giving his instructions. He guided the colonel, telling them where to go and how, told them where to leave soldiers each certain points, until Aras was left with only one, and guided them to a secret door that led to a tunnel very far away from the actual base they were supposed to be conquering.

Some strategists shared glances. They were trying to be subtle, but Cor noticed from his seat at the end of the higher row.
They doubted. Cor had no doubts, but he too would have to admit that Loqi’s orders could easily seem fishy, with how far away from the base he had guided the soldiers. But he trusted him. Loqi knew why he was doing what he was doing.

Time later, Loqi had guided Aras and the other soldier through the large metal tunnel that spread into a maze. Loqi guided them, telling them where to turn and what to avoid. He spoke firm and collected, which made it seem like he knew the maze by heart, but one look at him exposed the clear way he was thinking at the speed of light and deciphering the maze itself as he was guiding them; he had the map on the main screen, two on his personal one, and he was taking notes like desperate, handing out full papers with numbers and some annotations to the helpers. Whatever he was scribbling was possibly for future use, which made Cor smile to himself again.

“Alright, turn left and tell me what you see” Loqi said after forty minutes of just the maze.
“There’s some sort of generator, Commander.”
“That’s the generator, Aras” Loqi explained. “You’re right under the base, and that’s the bottom part of the generator in its heart.”

And the wave of murmurs that spread throughout the headquarters room couldn’t be helped. Cor, too, couldn’t help the twitch of his eyebrow and the sudden confusion.
When had Loqi brought them all the way back? Was he serious about being right underneath the generator that could take hours to get to in a normal Lucian tactic? And most importantly-
“Colonel Aras is in the very heart of a fully occupied, magic-neutralized imperial base, alone?” a strategist didn’t keep the mouth shut, turning in his chair to look at Loqi.
“And they’re going to fuck shit up in there” Loqi replied as authoritarian and unfazed. “Aras, go to that generator.”

And even though it took a while, Aras replied with a quiet and unsure ‘ok’. The strategists still shared some murmurs between themselves, but a coordinator, despite looking as uncomfortable, told everyone to keep silent, and they complied. Still, Cor looked at them and saw the clear discomfort in their tense shoulders and poses.

The generator was next. That, too, took a bit of a while. Loqi guided Aras through de-coding the generator until the magic-neutralizer field was successfully deactivated. Despite that, people still tensed, as nothing made it for sure it had truly gone down.
“Now you’re going to input a code that I’ll give you” Loqi went on entirely unfazed byG the strategists’ clear distrust and discomfort. “This thing is the emergency hack I talked about in class to deactivate the MTs. There’s just one thing I didn’t mention in class, Aras.”
“Yes, sir?”
“The generator is going to blow up the entire maze as soon as you input the code.”

Silence. Both from the radio and in the room, there were moments of heavy silence, so heavy and dense it could almost be touched.
“…commander?”
And the question everyone heard in their ears held the whole, not spoken question everyone had.
Cor himself couldn’t help but feel a kick in the gut, feeling…betrayed. Accidentally, but betrayed.
Was Loqi…asking Aras to give their own life in exchange of the base…?

“Sir” a strategist called firmly while turning in her chair, sounding as if about to stop the whole operation.
“You’re safe, Aras” Loqi added, ignoring everyone and focusing in his ear piece. “Listen to me. You’re not going to die, neither of you. The whole thing is designed to blow up in case the code was input by a non-imperial that doesn’t know the safety protocol, and the safety protocol is staying right where you are.”
“Commander?”
“As soon as you input the code, get down on your ankles and cover your head. The safest spot in the explosion is right next to the generator itself.”

That was just fishy enough to seem absurd. The strategists once more started talking between themselves, and this time not even the coordinator intervened. Cor stared around, unsure. Of course it was a chaos, it was impossible that the very same thing that exploded was the safest to avoid the explosion. It didn’t sound logical. It couldn’t be.
“Aras” Loqi called, and while he sounded firm, he sounded…soft, somehow. “I won’t tell you to trust in me because you have no reasons to.”
And silence was made. People turned to look at Loqi, or pretended to not have been talking.
“You can take the chance or leave, it’s up to you and it’s fine” Loqi said a bit more lowly than he had been speaking so far, and still managing to sound like a leader. And, surprisingly, a comprehensive one.

The strategists looked at him, and then shared glances again, this time in silence. Cor stared at Loqi, who didn’t look at anyone. He had that unfazed slight frown of always, and the eyes nowhere on the main screen. People thought he was going to go on passive-aggressively putting pressure on Aras, but he didn’t. He just…left his words there. It was fine if Aras didn’t want to go on. No pressure or expectations.
Despite the authoritarian attitude, Loqi didn’t force or pressure Aras to go on. Loqi wasn’t ordering him, he was giving him the chance to choose.
Naturally, people shared more glances, not so much in doubt like before, but…in confusion.

Many moments later, the radio went on again.
“Inputting the code, commander.”

People tensed in their chairs. Cor felt a pinch of guilt when he felt his own body tense as well. Everyone contained the breath, attentive to listening, hearing as Aras inputted the code.
There was a beep at the other side of the radio, and then it went off.
And then nothing.
There was nothing for a good while. A minute that felt like an hour passed, everyone frozen in their seats. Glances were shared, but no murmurs this time. Cor breathed a little heavier than normal, waiting, expecting, hoping a bit too hardly to hear the radio again, but there was no luck.

Another minute went by in an ominous silence. Loqi pressed his ear device.
“Aras” he called calmly. However, there was no response. Thirty eternal seconds went on, everyone tense and frozen, each second weighing like a day.
Glaring at Loqi, the first strategist stood up from his chair-
“Headquarters?”
-and stayed frozen when Aras’ voice came from the radio.

Everyone paralyzed in their spots. Cor, however, closed the eyes and finally started breathing again.
Loqi, unfazed and calm, took a moment.
“…Aras” he repeated. “Inform.”
“…the…generator has been turned off” the colonel said, voice between shocked and confused. And then, to the surprise of everyone in the room and the colonel themselves, they added; “MTs are off, and the Brigadier General in charge went out through the door where you asked me to leave the rest of the soldiers. She’s been captured with no fight.”

Silence.
People started slowly unfreezing. Most stayed still, focused in their headphones, not breathing.
Cor blinked in shock.
“…the…base has been captured” Aras said in shock, slowly. “Brigade L-221 reporting and repeating, the base has been captured.”

And that was it.

No one moved. No one said a thing, and some were still not breathing. Not even from the other end of the radio did any noise happen.
Loqi stayed in the same pose for a while. Then, he stood back up straight and crossed the arms.
Cor was frozen, like the other Lucians. He stared with eyes wide and lips slightly parted at the big screen.
…that was…it? A mission that could take up days, that could take all day, many combats, usually losses as well, and that wasn’t always a success…completed successfully, by one person, no casualties, in two hours?

Cor snapped out of his shock when he heard a first, single clap. He tried to get out of his surprise, turning to look for the source of noise.
Loqi, too, deeply immersed in his thoughts, took himself out of his bubble and turned. There was a second clap, and both identified who it was.
One of the strategists at the second row had turned in his chair to look at Loqi, and had his palms together. Then he made a third clap, and with shorter pauses in between, he started clapping.

Someone else in the room joined. Loqi turned to look at her, taken off guard and frowning, but she didn’t stop, and before Loqi could say anything, a third, a fourth, and soon many more people started following and joining, the clapping now constant. It kept spreading until everyone in the room was clapping. It was timid, and a bit unsure, but it was a constant, genuine clapping, all while people looked at him.

With the eyes a little wide and a frown upon his face, though looking more shocked than angered, Loqi didn’t move from his spot and looked at them. Then, as if looking for help, he turned to look at Cor.
The Marshal gave him a smile. And he too joined the Lucians, hands coming together, and clapping for him.

Loqi didn’t relax. He stared at Cor with the same eyes of shock. He looked away when by the corner of his eye he saw movement, only to find someone standing from their spot. A third and a fourth followed, standing up to keep clapping. No one was smiling. They were either serious, and some had only the ghost of a smile upon their lips, but it didn’t feel like a hypocrite cheer.

Loqi had no option but to stand still. He closed his mouth and his frown relaxed a little, but he breathed a little heavier than normal, and stood so tense, he felt his muscles knotting at his back. Eventually, the clapping went down.

“Great job, everyone” the lead coordinator said, and then pressed her ear device. “Good job at the field, Aras. I’d like a report as soon as you’re available.”

And like that, the screens went off, and the mission finished.
People started standing up from their chairs and talking. Some reached to hug others, or high-five and keep talking. It was like the tense air like a thousand knives pointing at Loqi had dissipated and become soft and easy, all danger and threat long forgotten and gone.
Cor stood up from his place, taking his ear piece out, and started going towards Loqi.

Loqi was the only one that wasn’t talking with anyone, or cheering. Indeed, he hadn’t moved at all. He stood still in his place, arms crossed, staring at nowhere. People moved around him and he was unfazed. Cor’s smile disappeared the longer he watched him be absent. He saw someone pass by Loqi, saying something, and even patting his shoulder before leaving, but not even then did Loqi even turn to look at them.

…oh, no.

Cor felt the pinch of worry of every time he knew something was wrong. He took a moment watching Loqi not exist, be far from the present and somewhere else, standing there like a shell with no soul. Cor approached him, careful.
Slowly, he started placing a hand on Loqi’s shoulder, little by little. Loqi took a while to react, and then he just looked at Cor’s hand.
“…want to go somewhere else?” Cor asked. Loqi looked up at him, then back down, and shook the head. “Do you want me to take you home?”
“No, I…” Loqi tried, closing the eyes and shaking the head. He opened the eyes and sighed shortly, looking away.

He didn’t add more. Cor let go of his shoulder and nodded, looking down as well.
Yes, he couldn’t blame him. Cor felt happy for the success of the mission, but it was something he couldn’t share with Loqi. He tried thinking in his mindset, and found he couldn’t blame him. He had just…made his first real move against the Empire, his empire.
So what now? What could he do to help Loqi through this…?

Loqi sighed. Then, unexpectedly, he turned to face Cor, and grabbed his sleeve, using the grip to drag him somewhere else. Cor complied and followed wherever Loqi was taking him, but found he stopped only a few meters away of the center of the room and near an empty corner. Loqi let go of him and crossed his arms, looking down.
“…I want to be alone” was all that he said. Cor stared at him, a little confused. So then, why did he drag Cor with him? He could have said that and leave like was normal whenever Loqi wanted to be alone. He had thought that Loqi was going to ask something from him, and he did, but…what was Cor supposed to do? Apologize and leave? A little startled from not knowing how to help when Loqi himself was who dragged him along, Cor blinked and started nodding.
“…okay” he whispered. “Do you want to use my office, or…?”

Loqi shook the head, closing the eyes.
“Alone” he insisted. “I’ll just…I’m just telling you so you don’t…look for me. Alright?” Cor’s shoulders relaxed and he nodded, finally making sense. “I don’t mean- I’ll…look for you when I’m better, just…let me be alone for a while. I’m not going to exit the Citadel, so just…don’t.”
“…y…yeah, sure” Cor said, a little…touched from the way Loqi said it, but touched in a not very good way. He couldn’t help but feel like Loqi’s words rubbed in a wrong spot. Loqi sounded…like he didn’t like that Cor looked for him when he worried. And it made Cor feel like he was being annoying or coming off as clingy. And, of course, it pinched with guilt and some hurt. “Yes. I’m sorry…”

Loqi didn’t say anything. He shook the head as if telling Cor to not mind that, but he didn’t ask him to not apologize or said it was ok, which only added more to Cor’s guilt quickly growing in him. Without adding more, not even a glance, Loqi left. He went past Cor and headed to the door. Cor turned to watch him leave. His pace seemed steady and normal, and he didn’t seem to be shaking. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling too bad, and he just needed time to process what he had done…

Cor looked down. He never…meant to be a nuisance, or annoying, if that’s how he had been making Loqi feel. He had tried to make sure to not be too overprotective, or at least not show it, and not be on his back all the time, but…maybe he hadn’t been careful enough.
He sighed. Someone approached him to shake his hand and cheer for the no-casualties victory, and he faked his best smile, joining them, and trying to forget about Loqi.
Loqi didn’t want Cor to look for him, so…even though he still worried, if that was what Loqi needed, then so be it. He only needed some time alone.

Loqi walked through the hallways, each time his pace faster, until he was nearly running. He went with no guide and yet not hesitating at every turn or stairs that he took. Not caring where he went or where his feet would lead him, he kept going, ignoring whoever he crossed ways with, rushing as fast as he could as if escaping that logistics room, get as far from it as possible, yet feeling like every hallway he entered led back to it, like a nightmare where no matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t move from his spot.

He didn’t know how many floors he went up and down, and how many hallways he took. The most he knew was that he crossed one of the big hallways that led from one tower of the building to the other, but even there he didn’t know how far or where exactly he went. He stopped not when he felt safe or far away enough, but when he realized he couldn’t run away of it. Loqi kept going as quickly as before, turned left, kept going, and almost without slowing down, he turned left again, but not into another hallway, and instead basically walking into the wall on purpose. He put his forehead to the wall a bit roughly, but without hitting it, let out a half-growl half-sigh, and his hurried pace ended there.

He had done it. Shit. Shit, he had done it for real. He had turned his back on what he had loved most in the world, he had betrayed the Empire, he betrayed it, betrayed it, shit. He knew he had done since he let go of the bus and took Cor’s hand instead, knew it since he first accepted the truth of the real culprits behind the bombing, he had known himself a traitor from the very first moment he walked into the Citadel, and he had it very clear through the months he spent spilling out information, he had known it, but speaking had been way more different than actually doing it, and finally he had done it, fuck, he had taken real action with real consequences on the Empire, he hadn’t been words and information, this time he had, for real, finally betrayed them.

Loqi hit his forehead to the wall on purpose this time, tensing, and hitting the wall with a fist.
This didn’t have to feel this way, it had no reason to feel this way. This was- the Empire had- it was the right thing, he had been in the mindset for long enough, so why did it feel so fucking disgusting…!? He felt like scum, trash, he felt like the most worthless person on the planet, not useless, rather an obstacle, troubles, an evildoer, havoc provoker, he had betrayed the Empire. He had helped Lucis take one of the bases, and with it, territory, thousands of MTs, an imprisoned high command, economic troubles, politics, months of planning, strategies, shit, shit, a million times shit.

Loqi put his hands to his face, still not taking the forehead off the wall, and sighed angrily. Fuck, why did it have to be so fucking hard? Why, even if he had chosen to do the right thing, if he had finally seen who the enemy really was, if he was making a good choice, why was it still so fucking heavy and hard?
Why did doing right feel so wrong? Why did being good feel so bad?

Loqi growled and slammed his fist to the wall again, harder this time, growling louder. Crap, he felt like a havoc of emotions, a total disaster inside, he couldn’t pinpoint even one of the things he was feeling. There was guilt, anger, sadness, a profound disappointment, disgust, anxiety, more anger, hatred (but towards who, in which direction?), a whirlwind that tossed him around and felt like a thousand speakers inside his ears at max volume, making his brain hammer against his skull, and shrinking his skull against his brain. Loqi grabbed his hair, but little did it do to help, and the impotence only made him angrier.

After spending some moments not breathing, shaking in anger, Loqi suddenly deflated; he let his hands fall from his head to his sides, and he let out a breath, whole body going loose, his forehead even slipping down a few centimeters against the wall.
Shit. When had…when had…
…when had the Empire…sunken so, so very, so fucking, so miserably low…?

…the Empire that he had loved, that he still loved so dear…when had it become this…piece of fucking trash? The Empire that stood tall and proud, golden and white like the light of wisdom and knowledge and the sun of hope and light, the Empire that had promised him, for twenty-two years, that had drilled into his brain until making it grow roots into his soul itself, a better world, care for the people, progress to a bright future, the Empire that had…made up the perfect, perfect model of what the world should look and be like…now mere ruins, a living corpse of what it used to be…

Loqi closed the eyes and let out a breath.

Emotions weren’t for him, he decided a few minutes into the sudden silence in his head. This was so difficult. Knowing the truth, it was so hard. He had lived so, so comfortable in ignorance, he had been so very comfortable, full of hope, radiant of life, ecstatic of courage, and overwhelmed with energy that pushed him to keep going when he thought the Empire was the Good Guy and that he was making it proud and bigger and brighter. Even with his terror of a family, the abusive academia, the torturing teachers, the killer stress of ranks, and everything stressful and horrible his life had been, his beautiful lie of a life had been so comfortable, and he had had no idea. And now he had to deal with…all of this. Hating and loving at the same time, doing what was right feeling so wrong, not knowing where he was standing, life turning from a safe straight line to a groundless, limitless void with nowhere to go and where every direction was as right as it was so fucking wrong…

Once more, Loqi hit his forehead to the wall, releasing a breath.
Whose fault was this, whose fucking fault was this, who was the culprit of this horrible disaster of what had become of the shining star he had once been?
There had to be a culprit. His rational mind didn’t and couldn’t allow no reason. There had to be a culprit of his misery, of all this chaos that had become of the bright, glorious imperial general he used to be, the fault had to be somewhere, in someone, he needed to direct his anger somewhere to not let it set him ablaze.

It was the Astrals, the fucking Astrals. No, it was the Empire, the fucking Empire. It was the Empire who took everything from him. It was the Empire who gave him everything, then ripped it all and more off him when it had already grown not into his heart, but as his spine itself, leaving him as nothing but nerves and bones sprawled on the ground, miserable, dead in life.

It was his siblings.
It was Frey and Nanna. They were the reason he was this fucking splatter of scum at the bottom of the gutter.

Loqi closed his eyes more tightly and pressed his jaw harder, hissing and feeling his eyeballs starting to water and itch, and so he pressed his fist and forehead harder into the wall.
He had no idea why it was coming to him out of nowhere and so overwhelming, but it hit him. It was his siblings. They were the reason he was this disaster. If they hadn’t died, Loqi wouldn’t be in this spot, no Empire, no loyalty, no home, no family, no identity, nothing.

If they were going to die so young, so fucking young, they shouldn’t have bothered being born. They had just made Loqi grow to love them, they had forced his every fiber and every atom attached to them, they grew into making Loqi believe he was going to have them until his last breath, and they dared abandon him so early, just barely having arrived, just like that? What was the point, what was the fucking point on being born and taking so many troubles on surviving for ten years if that was the end of the line for them, what was the fucking point on starting something and not get even to the middle, why bother even starting then!?

It was Frey and Nanna, they…grew to turn into his everything, and then they dared disappear just like that, without even a goodbye, like it didn’t mean anything to him, like he wasn’t thinking about it every fucking second of his new miserable life.
Loqi’s fist on the wall relaxed and he pressed his palm instead. His head had moved so now it was the top of his head against the wall, his hair cascading around to hide him. He used his other hand to hide his eyes.

It was his siblings. They were the reason he was so miserable and pathetic, a vague ruin of ashes of what he used to be. They ruined his life. They arrived, built the main columns that composed his life, and then left, taking the columns with them, like Loqi hadn’t built all his life and all of him on top already. And everything crumbled down. And everything broke. And now there were no columns anymore to rebuild it as it was. So now he was…ashes, and debris, ruins of what had once been of him.

…what could it have cost them? What could it have cost them to stand only a little more, hang on a little more until Cor could save them too? What could it cost to have waited only a bit more with him…? Just an hour, maybe one minute more, what was one minute more? How dare they give up so easily, how dare they leave him alone among ruins like this?
…how could they have been so selfish? How dare they die, just like that, just so simple and easy?

Loqi’s hand went from his eyes down to cover his mouth, pressing his jaw a bit too hardly, whole body trembling and breath so shaky he nearly lost it. He shut his eyes even more tightly at the sensation of tears at the edge of his eyelids.
No, fuck, no! He wasn’t going to cry, he couldn’t, didn’t want to cry, not anymore. Shit, he was tired of crying, exhausted, disgusted, he was sick of crying. It had been months, he told to himself. Months enough to get over it, so stop crying like a gods damn toddler.
It had been months and he refused to cry for something that was far enough in the past at this point. He was angry and sick at the way everything, out of nowhere, all of a sudden, was coming back to slap him in the face like a high speed train; his loyalty to the Empire, the sensation of being a dirty traitor, his siblings’ deaths, the mere idea of the Empire doing what it did, everything that he thought he had cried enough was coming back to his eyes, everything that he had thought he had buried was crawling back out all at the same time and grabbing him by the ankles, decided that if they were going, he was going with them no matter how much he ran.

So he was not going to give them the pleasure of seeing him in pieces. He was not going to let them break him down again, he had taken…so fucking long at trying to put himself back together in one piece to let these stupid things that weren’t even there anymore shatter him again. No, no, no and no, he bit down on his hand hard enough to rip the fabric of his glove, pressed his jaw, kept his eyes tightly shut, trembled as if about to explode, and his stomach had pressure enough on itself to nearly break, never before having tried so terribly, so horribly hard to not break down in tears, and kept fighting for an eternal minute, a whole never-ending minute that lasted so many hours that Loqi wouldn’t remember to have ever fought a fight this horrible and hard before.

And he deflated again. After he stopped shaking and had swallowed back all his tears and all the emotions within them, Loqi stood quiet and still for a moment. Eyes softly closed and body relaxed this time, even if in the same pose. And so, a while later, having put the dangerous, disastrous tornado of emotions in a cage, Loqi went loose. His hands dropped to his sides as if no inch of his arms worked anymore, and he stayed like that, held in place only thanks to scarce strength of his legs and the support of his head against the wall. Slowly, he opened his eyes, not remembering the last time he had felt his eyelids this heavy.

He did but stare at the void with exhausted and empty eyes. All and any gleam, metaphorical or real, was gone. His gaze seemed to have been covered by a veil that took the life from them.
…so what was Loqi supposed to do with irreparable ruins?

Loqi’s ear twitched subtly when he heard some distant voices and noises. They were growing closer. Still, he didn’t bother get away of the wall, not caring whoever saw him or what they thought. Curiosity, however, made him turn, his head still to the wall, to the direction of the growing noises. From his spot, he could see a door at another hallway, from where the steps and voices were coming.
“-celebrate this time!”
“Are you for real, though?”
“Absolutely!”

Loqi saw some random people appear through the other hallway, getting to the door Loqi could only half see, and opening it. He heard the people keep discussing something that didn’t take much brain to understand, then heard another, heavier door. And then a couple clicking noises, like glass against glass, and then the noise of a can being opened, among some happy chuckles.
“And you won’t believe how long it took us. Ask me!”
“How long did it take?”
The noises of more cans opening.
“Two hours! Two hours, can you believe it?!”

Loqi saw the people exiting.
With cans of beer in hand, and one carrying with a bottle of wine.
Loqi stared at what they had in hands for a moment, gaze still as dead as the look on his face. His eyes went up to the people as they exited and left through the hallway again, happy, laughing, and talking about some toast in the name of some soldier for their whatever-number of missions without dying.

They left without having noticed him. Loqi’s eyes went down and he did, said, and felt nothing for a good while.
Not knowing why, he looked up again.
He could see a bit of the inside of the room. The little fridge was right in his sight range.
Loqi blinked slowly.

They had left the door open.

--

Cor stopped his car in the parking lot of his apartment’s building. He stayed sat for a moment and then sighed. He had no idea how to proceed now, how to approach Loqi correctly. He didn’t want to bother him, and didn’t want to rub any wrong places in him, but he just didn’t know what to say. With another sigh, Cor exited the car and started heading to his apartment.

Maybe, with some luck, he wouldn’t need to say anything and would find Loqi asleep. Maybe he really only needed some time alone. Sometimes, Cor knew, people didn’t need advice, only company, and sometimes not even that, and just time to let things go. Maybe he just needed to go make sure he had his nightlight on and was tucked in bed and that was it.

Monica did say Loqi looked exhausted when he asked her to drive him to Cor’s apartment. Cor guessed he had to feel bad, so between exhausted and maybe sickened, Loqi may have just wandered around the apartment for the rest of the evening and then decided to call it a very early night.
In the elevator, Cor took in a breath and released it calmly through the nose, though looking down.
Oh, Loqi. The poor thing. Life wasn’t being very gentle with him, even when he did things right.

Cor exited the elevator and tried to keep thinking on how to approach Loqi in case he found him awake, or looking at him like a lost puppy. Or angered, which sounded more like Loqi, in which case Cor had to think a bit more. He knew how to handle people feeling sad, guilty or lost, but anger wasn’t his forte, and it seemed to be Loqi’s best and sometimes only emotion.

Feeling a little blue but calm at the same time, Cor looked for the right key, turned the knob, and walked into the apartment, casually starting to take his shoes off as he stepped in, and then looked up, immediately finding Loqi there.
Cor stayed still for a second, not having expected to see Loqi not in bed, and even less at the kitchen. A bit scared, Cor looked away and pretended to be distracted in his routine, finished taking his shoes off and to a side, took his time closing the door and putting the keys at their place, having in mind only the split second in which he saw Loqi sat at a stool at the counter.
It was then that Cor felt the not welcoming smell. He frowned and stayed still, hands stopping where they were about to start taking his jacket off, and tried to see if he had smelled correctly.
Was that…?

Cor looked in Loqi’s direction again. The younger man was at the counter, looking around and messing a bit dumbly but very quietly with some things around, as if looking for a way to re-accommodate the utensils and everything there. A bit nervous. Like trying to hide something.
Cor looked down at the counter instead, and the glass failing to hide behind Loqi’s hand.
“…Loqi?” Cor called, wariness in the voice and not hiding it, while he eyed the Nif up and down. Loqi blinked and seemed to let out a little breathe as he continued messing around a bit and doing nothing really. Loqi didn’t look his way, which did but speak even more than a word would.

Loqi put his hands down and let out a breath as if giving up, but not looking really distressed. At sight, Cor spotted a bottle and didn’t need to read the brand for it to be obvious. Noticeably tensing, Cor frowned, already aware.
“Loqi” he called much louder and firmer.
“Stop nannying me. Yes?” Loqi asked firm and confident, voice neither low nor hesitant, as he turned to look at Cor, unafraid, and even daring. Cor frowned more and stood quiet, watching him. Loqi held eye contact, not the slightest nervous. He sighed, shook the head, and looked away, resting his head on a hand and the other going to his glass. “I’m an adult. I’m more mature than a lot of people your age, I know what I’m doing. I don’t need you to sing me songs about not doing drugs, alcohol and tattoos, thank you.”

Cor eyed the glass again, half empty. He looked at the bottle.
Half empty, too.
In his place, Cor tried to not breathe through the mouth and to contain the shock. When he had opened the door, he had expected all and every scenario, except this.
A pinch of guilt poked him in the stomach. You could have talked about it the first time it happened, a voice reprimanded him, teasing and mocking and disappointed. You should have spoken about it but you just let it go and now he’s fallen into it for real.

Cor looked down and his upper lip twitched a bit, angry. At himself.
Shit. Shit, he knew better than anyone to let things out before they turned for worst, and he, being selfish, had been too scared to face Loqi about alcohol, thinking that everyone did it once in a while, and it wasn’t like a night of drinking would do any harm, right? So why reprimand him if it’s not going to turn into a problem, he had thought, and he bitterly remembered as he stood there, in front of an obvious problem. If he had acted earlier-
…well. Yes and no. It had taken years to learn but if he had been made to understand something, that was that not everything was his fault.

Cor tried to keep his cool and not let his guilt get him again. Besides, this wasn’t about him. He had to focus in Loqi.
“Where did you get that from?” Cor faced him, unafraid as well, still frowning and vaguely pointing at the bottle. Loqi side-glanced to look at him, and looked away again as he shrugged and brought the glass to his lips. Without answering, he took a large sip of whatever he had served himself. Cor frowned more again and his anger grew. He scanned the area a bit more; in the trashcan, he could see not one, but plenty smashed cans of beer, and he could barely see the tip of one behind the counter, on the floor. Cor looked at him again, and called with as much authority as he could; “Loqi.”

Loqi shook the head and hid his eyes in his palms. Cor didn’t interrupt. For a moment, he thought maybe he would be crying, but Loqi only rubbed his eyes, pulled his cheeks down, and let out an angry breath. He took his glass again, rested an arm on the counter, and then his head on his arm.
“Isn’t it funny?” Loqi asked as if ignoring all previous questions. “Before, I used to have some of the best Altissian wine, in luxurious parties, sharing table with the imperial family, and look at me now!” he exclaimed joyfully, smiling with irony. He raised his glass. He pulled his head up and looked at it, smile gone, and he went on in a bitter murmur. “Drowning on…cheap Lucian alcohol, like a fucking disgrace.”

Not helping the anger, Cor snapped out at him.
“Twenty-two is an age too young to have an alcohol problem-!”
“And ten and nine are too young to die, but hey!” Loqi yelled louder than him, turning to face him, opening the arms widely to the sides, and smiling. He shook the head and pressed the lips upwards while still smiling. “Shit happens.”

Cor felt another pinch inside. So that was it? This was what had Loqi so bad? Cor didn’t blame him, but it was…rather unexpected. He knew that Loqi just wouldn’t get over it so fast and easily and that he would have constant downs, even with no reason, but it still took him a bit off guard.
Well…his siblings were something that he had grown a bit acquainted with, but…Cor still didn’t know how to approach the matter. His siblings seemed to be the only subject that could move anything in Loqi that wasn’t anger, so it was a very, extremely fragile thread Cor wasn’t sure how to handle correctly…but he had to try, start somewhere.

Cor thought about himself, what would work against himself if the roles were inversed. He looked away and tried thinking. Loqi had turned to the counter again, arms returning there. Cor tried thinking, but, just like before, he found nothing neither wrong nor right, and he was in a situation where he felt under pressure and like judged by a timer, so he could only proceed with whatever came to mind.
“You know drinking isn’t solving anything” Cor said, more lowly, looking intensely at him, but not getting one glance back. Loqi stayed quiet, as if ignoring him. “You know it. So why are you doing it anyway, if you’re only going to feel worse?”

Loqi growled under his breath, but that was any response that Cor got from him. So what else was he supposed to do, Loqi thought. Leonis had to be happy that it was alcohol and not drugs or something worse. Everyone did alcohol. There were people that did it daily, and worse than him, so why didn’t Cor go reprimand them instead? It wasn’t like Loqi was an addict, he could leave this if he wanted, this was just…a bad day, that was all.
Cor could really get annoying when he wanted…

“This is low for you, Loqi” Cor said, more calmly, but still firm and without showing the fear of stepping on wrong spots. “What are you? The brilliant, courageous general we all know, or this pathetic person that goes to alcohol when things get tough just because you’re scared of facing what you’re feeling?
Loqi frowned, but didn’t look his way and still didn’t reply.

Cor looked down. They stayed quiet for a moment. Loqi tried taking another sip from his glass, but found no desire in it; Leonis had ruined his glass, the bastard.
Cor looked up at him again.
“So this is it?” he asked a little more softly. “This is how you’re mourning them? Honoring them?”

Loqi’s grip on his glass hardened a little, and his frown deepened a bit. He was tired of this, he didn’t want Cor lecturing him. He knew what he was doing. Cor was…he didn’t…
…Cor had this frightening power of making Loqi cry. And if he dared go on-
“I know that telling you what they would have wanted is useless, because you’re right. They’re not here. And they won’t be” Cor went on, soft and firm at the same time, looking at Loqi with worried eyes and the frown long gone. “But think a little about it. Didn’t you always work very hard to make them happy? Didn’t you dedicate everything of you to seeing them happy?”

Loqi’s stomach shrank like he had received a slow but heavy and powerful hit on the stomach. His breath trembled, and he had to clench his teeth, body tensing and heart beating fast.
After hesitating, Cor licked his lips, and decided to approach him.
“Loqi” he called, and started giving the first steps towards him. “I didn’t know them, and I know I have no rights to talk about them” his hesitant steps kept going. He swallowed, and looked at Loqi with worry and sadness. “But I don’t think that what would have made them happy was this.”

Loqi shut the eyes and moved the head to a side, the other from where Cor was approaching, frown so deep his nose shrugged up, and the heart physically aching. No, Leonis had no right to speak about them, even less about their happiness. What did he know about their happiness? He couldn’t know that. Only Loqi…only Loqi knew what they wanted. What they wanted was for Loqi to be successful. They wanted Loqi to be victorious. They wanted Loqi to win. Indeed, Cor was the last person that could talk about any of this because what Frey and Nannie had wanted the most in their lives had been…

Loqi opened the eyes. As he had turned, this time it wasn’t the glass in his hand what he was looking at, but a random spot of the counter, and the first thing he saw was an utensil.
Loqi blinked and stared at the cutlery knife, compact and small. He side-glanced in the direction Cor was approaching from, feeling a flame behind his lungs, hot, unsettling, and alive.
Loqi’s hand subtly moved towards the knife. Little by little, as subtly as he could, he started slipping it into his sleeve.
“Loqi-”
“…you know what would have…made them very, very happy…?” Loqi murmured.

The way his voice sounded dark didn’t go unnoticed. Cor, who was already standing at his side and had already reached a hand up to touch him, stopped.
He looked at Loqi.
Loqi was staring at him from behind his hair, with the gaze dark, heavy, full of a strong, purple, burning hatred so pure like Cor hadn’t seen since back at the hospital, that first day when Loqi woke up, when he had gotten angry and had…

While Cor was processing it, and much faster than he could anticipate, Loqi quickly turned on his chair and threw himself at Cor in one swift movement. Startled, Cor stepped back, but Loqi pushed him hard enough to make him stumble upon his own feet, lose balance, and fall backwards. Loqi wasted no time and was immediately on him, and before Cor could say anything, the blond pulled out the small knife from his sleeve.

Thrown on the floor, holding his weight on a forearm, Cor opened the eyes widely at the sight, too shocked to react or move. Loqi pulled his arm up almost a bit too much, and then tried to slam it down on Cor’s face, but Cor immediately grabbed him by the wrist, tight enough to make Loqi groan loudly in pain, but not even that stopped him; Loqi stayed on top of him and his arm was still applying all his strength into trying to push the knife down.

Cor held his wrist as tight as was necessary, eyes fully focused on his grip; his heart beat at an alarming speed that made it feel like it was in his throat, and his head was throbbing like mad. He was ready anytime at the battlefield, but this, besides unexpected…it was unwanted.
He didn’t want to fight Loqi. He didn’t want to fight Loqi.

Focused in only the hand with the knife as he was, Cor didn’t notice when Loqi used his other hand to grab him by the collar of his jacket and smalled him down against the floor, so Cor was lying full on his back this time. His free hand, by reflex, moved up to grab Loqi by the throat, but in a frightened reflex of not wanting to hurt him, it moved to his shoulder in the last second, but he stopped before doing some stupidity, and it only earned him that Loqi put his other hand on his face to press down on it, be it to harm him or to keep him in place, and then, Loqi pushed harder.
“Loqi…!” Cor growled, moving the head to a side to try to get rid of Loqi’s hand on his face, but the blond only moved it to stomp it down on his shoulder, pinning him down. Loqi didn’t listen or changed his attitude, and kept trying to push the knife down. “Loqi!”

But Loqi, again, ignored him. He looked down at Cor with the eyes burning in rage and hatred, burning so strong and intense that the gaze alone was making Cor feel on fire and quickly torn apart. Loqi’s teeth were clenched, and showing between quivering lips, like a feral beast ready to throw a killer bite. He trembled and tried with all his might to push the knife down, and, angered by not moving an inch due to Cor’s much stronger grip on his wrist, Loqi roared, quiet at first, and then growing.

Cor looked at his hand on Loqi’s shoulder, and started breathing through his mouth. And he panicked.
He had been about to press Loqi’s shoulder in the right nerve to literally knock him out with just that. He knew a thousand and one ways to put Loqi down, conscious or not. Even if Loqi was more or less trained in hand-to-hand combat, Cor was far more experienced and his knowledge in combat was an abyss larger, of course he knew a million ways to turn this around. He knew how to get Loqi off him, knew how to, in one movement, get Loqi underneath him instead, neutralized, unable to move even the legs.