firefallvaruna

[firefallvaruna]

Summary: You have an unexpected visitor, and are plagued by nightmares. Ardyn returns, and you discover more about him.

So happy I got this update out. PLEASE do mind the tags. I have it tagged as abusive relationships and toxic relationships and unhealthy relationships LMFAO so for the love of Shiva please mind the tags. Most of Ardyn's BS is psychological but still. ANYWAY.

I am going to be taking a bit longer between updates because real life, I also have a few fics planned for around Ardyn's bday (April 30th), one fluff thing that will likely be short and pulled out of some deep inner chasm within me (because truly I want this man to have some peace), the other will be way more depraved and what I'm used to, and very smutty.

Comments, shares, kudos, silent reads, I'm happy for them all. This fic, for better or worse, is the thing that got me to actually WRITE. And I have this fictional bastard to thank.

#precarious games #ardyn izunia #ardyn x reader #ardyn izunia fanfic #ardyn izunia x reader #ardyn lucis caelum #ffxv fanfic #final fantasy xv #ff15 fanfic

[firefallvaruna]

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

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

Audience: Teen and Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You are real,” he said quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

----

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

#ardyn izunia #ardyn lucis caelum #ff15 ardyn #ffxv ardyn #final fantasy 15 #ffxv fanfic #ffxv #ff15 fanfic #ardyn izunia fanfic

[firefallvaruna]

Full Hunter's Moon 2023 l Rami Ammoun

[firefallvaruna]

Fic Progress

Wow. Two progress reports in a single week. Novel.

I mentioned A Part to Play that's in the Twilight fic I've posted up on AO3 and that Noctis had been invited to work on a special project.

(For those who don't know, Noctis in Twilight ends up working in construction and woodworking after giving up his crown.)

He was invited to be involved in the small skeleton crew that's doing repairs on an antique player piano that predates the fall of Insomnia by quite a bit.

What's fun about this fic is that I've come to realize that a lot of stuff about the history of pianos (and especially player pianos) that we know here can't translate over to Lucis / Eos. So I've been having the time of my life doing some hole-filling and worldbuilding just for this random side story. This is also a side story that may end up being, hilariously, as many - if not more - than the original story.

To figure out the progression of automatic music technology, you have to look at the era that's going on around it. And because of that, this has been a blast to write.

So below the cut, I've got a small snippet from it. I hope you enjoy!

---

Later in the week, Noct found that he couldn't finish the work he started on the keys because of the keytops.

During his lessons before the fall of Insomnia, Noct never really thought about the keys he played on, not in the more critical way he thought about materials now, at any rate. He was also surprised to find that the keys weren't a solid piece of that material, just a very small slice of it glued by a heat activated glue on top of wood.

Only now did Noct notice the strange texture to the tops themselves. Aldis had removed one and handed it off for Noct to figure out the material. "I'd wager a shell or bone of some sort?" He lifted it and held it to the light. "It's translucent enough that it can't really be a solid resin..." A pause. Noct then looked at Aldis and handed back the fragile keytop.  "Is it a shell or bone?"

"Close," Aldis said as he gingerly took the keytop away. "Older pianos often had their keys made from the tusks - something from garulas or dualhorns. More expensive pianos went for higher end materials. I've heard rumors of some even sourcing their keytops from behemoth horns."

"Seriously?" Noct reached for the keytop once more to take it back. He wanted to examine it again, but a lot closer this time. Sure enough, when looking at it up close like this, he could see the organic look to the material. "That's wild."

"Newer pianos in Insomnia used plastic." Aldis explained while Noct examined the keytop. "Over time, the war with Niflheim made it real hard to source the materials needed for anything fancier. Anything with keytops like this were absolutely a luxury item."

#final fantasy xv #ffxv #noctis lucis caelum #ff15 #fic progress #ffxv fanfiction #final fantasy 15

[firefallvaruna]

969 Would you believe me if I said I didn't realize what number today was until I had already finished sketching 😂

#ammy art #ffxv #prompto argentum #noctis lucis caelum #promptis #final fantasy xv #ff15

[firefallvaruna]

i want 60 thousand votes by next thursday

[firefallvaruna]

Dawn

Finally got around to draw a comic with them <3

#hades #zagreus #thanatos #thanzag

[firefallvaruna]

*SIGHS*

Another AO3 app that's pretending to be official when it's not (or at least isn't making it clear its unofficial.) They're using AO3's name and logo, and embedding ads.

There is no official AO3 app

Someone else is gathering your data, potentially your log in information etc and making use of it how they please. (They say they're not but their privacy policy says otherwise)

They are making money from the ads without the fic writer's consent.

They've also rated it Pegi 3 (which is ludicrous)

Please, even if you care about nothing else, for the safety of your data, please don't use this app. Certainly don't give it your AO3 log in details.

I've told AO3 that it's infringing on its copyright. I will be requesting they remove access of my work as I do not consent to my creative content being used to generate ad revenue for them.

I will be reporting it as incorrectly rated.

The only email address I can find is [email protected] which is included in their privacy policy, and [email protected] as their developer.

[firefallvaruna]

#Mod: Mae #ffxv #ff15 #final fantasy 15 #final fantasy xv #ffxv ignis #ignis scientia

[firefallvaruna]

#Sailor Moon #Ronin Warriors #Dragon Ball Z #And Last Unicorn and Sanrio though I was really too young to know aside from my Japanese cousin being all geeked out #the poll answers skew so young lmao #WE'RE ALL ANCIENT OK

[firefallvaruna]

Last, but not least, @mementomoryo and Adamantiteyrie give us "The Tatters of the King." Read the story in our event collection HERE.

Thank you for supporting the teams in this year's event!

#fandom event #ffxv reverse bang #final fantasy xv #reverse bang #ffxv reverse bang 2024 #ffxv #fanfiction #fanart #ff15

[firefallvaruna]

#oficial art #sololeveling #solo leveling #ore dake level up na ken #only i level up #나 혼자만 레벨업 #俺レべ #igris the bloodred #solo leveling igris #igris

[firefallvaruna]

De profundis clamavi ad te Domine. (Out of the depths, I call to you, oh Lord.) - Psalm 130

In a far-flung future, the coldest reaches of space cradle the last legacy of the House of Lucis. Eager to claim the fabled lost treasure of Insomnia, clashing factions converge on a piece of ancient history that threatens to devour them all.

My second and final piece for @ffxvreversebang2024, this time for my collab with the fantastic Laurie (Adamanteyrie on AO3)! This sucker is huge, and I basically threw every traditional medium I own at it (watercolour, ink, gouache, acrylic gouache, pencil, you name it!)

Read The Tatters of the King here! (More chapters to be added soon!)

#final fantasy xv #ffxv #noctis lucis caelum #kind of #original characters #the ring of the lucii is basically a USB drive full of angry ghosts #what happens to data in a storage device over time? #CW horror #CW body horror #ff15 #traditional art

[firefallvaruna]

girl help I'm having fic ideas incompatible with the amount of free time I currently have

[firefallvaruna]

onion not even doing satire at this point

[firefallvaruna]

[firefallvaruna]

At some point in your life, you were taught that being slightly annoying is an unforgivable sin. Maybe it was by your parents or a teacher or a friend or a bully or an older sibling. But someone taught you that being slightly annoying is a crime punishable by death.

You must unlearn this.

You must accept that all people will be annoying at some point or another in their lives, maybe all of their lives, and that this is okay. It is okay for strangers on the bus, it is okay for children in the grocery store, it is okay for people on social media, and it is okay for you.

If you ever want to truly love your fellow humans, if you ever want to truly love yourself, you must have forgiveness for being annoying.