#finally. finally the titus was born set can be done and out of my brain | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sparklecryptid · 3 years

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(internet is being wonky. have the next chapter of toward daylight here as well because internet is being bad)

ao3 link

Titus hates. He hates the woman in front of him, hates her and her spear and her magic. He hates Morgan more than he has a right to, more than he believes he should. The rational part of his mind telling him that she doesn’t deserve his hate, that she is not the Lucis Caelum that wronged him.

The other part of his brain sees her and remembers, remembers what he had done, remembers his time spent in a cage in Niflheim. In labs and on autopsy tables. He remembers and he hates that she reminds him of this. Of his flaws and the worst parts of him. Titus looks at Morgan and he wants to kill her.

Kingslayer he is already, what does it matter if he adds the blood of another royal to his hands? He already wades through rivers of gore with each step he takes, Morgan a steady and seething presence behind him. She hates him as well, he knows, she hates that Titus had taken what she thought was hers away from her. Yet they are stuck together, not out of worry, not out of love nor loyalty, but because they are two of a kind here. Trapped in bodies far too young for them and convinced that should they die no one else but the person next to them will get to strike that final blow.

There is a horrid comfort in that, Titus finds. The idea that Morgan will kill him if he steps out of line is more comforting than the sword on his back, more comforting than the idea that he might have a second chance. He has no desire to prove himself, no desire to try and right his wrongs. Titus knows what he has done, knows his crimes as well as the back of his hands. He knows there is no redemption for him. But if this gift - if the power Ramuh has bestowed upon him allows him to rip the head from Iedolas’ neck then it will have been worth it.

Titus is not a good man, cannot remember a time where he could earnestly call himself that, but if he can kill the Emperor of Niflheim then perhaps he can bring some form of peace to those who gave him their lives.

The spear is new and yet it slides easily into her armiger as though it was made to blend and meld with her magic.

Given it’s source, that doesn’t seem unlikely.

Morgan spares a glance at Titus, his face impassive as it has always been and yet without his scars and wrinkles lining his face he looks more like a surly teenager than someone who would one day be an Imperial General. He looks like a child, and Morgan feels a surge of anger in her as she thinks of what he has done.

He cannot be redeemed for it, she thinks, glancing at the sword Titus carries on his back. He cannot be redeemed for the fall of a city, for the blood that stains his every step. He cannot be redeemed or forgiven and she does not think that he can learn either.

Titus is Titus.

Titus is Glauca, and Morgan cannot think of him without feeling anything other than hate.

Morgan doesn’t dare call herself kind. Perhaps others do, perhaps others see the person she tries to be. Maybe they see a kind woman, an honorable woman, someone who would not hesitate to give her life for another. They would be wrong, for all that Morgan tries to project the image of kindness she knows herself better than anyone else; and Morgan knows that she cannot be called kind.

If she can call herself anything, it’s selfish. She cannot help but latch onto people, onto cities and places and things and call them hers. Morgan can’t help but take and take and take and she cannot recall a time she has ever given anything back equal to what she had taken. She’s selfish despite what her mothers family thought, and she has never had anything to give that felt like it amounted to the cost of what she had claimed as hers. Her mother called it love, said that all of them were like that, were selfish and wanting and that their love was enough to save them. But Morgan has always privately that this is a personal failing of hers; she has always tried to be kind in an effort to offset her selfish habit of thinking of people and places as hers without their permission.

Insomnia is not hers, Lucis isn’t hers, she is not royalty, has no gold blood in her veins that declares her so. She has no right to claim Lucis and it’s people as hers. Yet the moment she had set foot onto the Mainland she had felt something in her shift, had felt something in her roar to life before it quieted down again.

Mine, Morgan had thought, This is mine.

But it wasn’t it belonged to someone else. A line of kings and queens that Morgan had thought she had no connection to.

Then Insomnia fell, then she watched as a city that was hers but wasn’t began to fall apart. Morgan had watched her brothers and sisters in arms turn against each other and all she could think was that it was wrong. That those she had claimed as her own had no right to fight against each other. That this is not what she had fought and bleed for, that this is not what her Glaives had died for. Morgan had hesitated in striking down her comrades and it had cost her her life.

She regrets it. She regrets not being able to strike down those that had ripped themselves from her grasp. Morgan regrets not being able to go back and watch those who had turned against her and hers bleed and choke. She has never had the illusion that she was a tame thing, something in her blood always calling for vengeance against those who dared to take from her. Over the years she had learned to channel that fire into something productive, into the urge to better herself so that she had the option of tearing down those who thought to steal from her. Morgan knows that at some point she will have to let those she has claimed go, that she will let them go if they demand it but the thought of losing them still drags its teeth across her soul and leaves scars in it’s wake.

Morgan’s mother Raven had called her a dragon. Something proud and terrible and something that hates losing what it thinks of as it’s hoard.

When Morgan had stood at the feet of her mother’s spectral form and the dozens around her she thought that she finally understood why.

Her family was royalty, was born to the man who was healer and demon both. Morgan’s family had the blood of kings and queens and yet they hadn’t dared to make themselves known, hadn’t dared to present themselves to their sister line for fear of what would happen should Bahamut and his Blessed turn their gaze upon them.

Blood of the Dragon, she thinks as she gazes at Titus who sits across their meager campfire from her, Delight in the slaughter. Morgan would delight in Titus’ death she knows, she knows that it would bring her nothing but joy to slice through skin and sinew and watch Titus pay for what he has done but the part of her that’s dragon and fire demands that she stay her blade.

Demands that she ensure Titus know that he belongs to her. Titus may no longer be her Captain, may have been a traitor for as long as Morgan was in the Glaive but he is still hers, the irrational part of her says, still hers and she cannot let him go and get himself killed by anyone other than her.

Titus stares at her, eyes cold but burning with something Morgan has never seen before, and she cannot help but grin at him. Her smile is sharp, with too many teeth showing for it to be anything other than a threat.

“Your life belongs to me,” she tells him, “That sword? Doesn’t matter. You’re life is mine, and it’s to me you have to prove your worth.”

“Here I thought Ramuh was The Judge,” Titus says, tone dry and short as his gaze sharpens when it lands on her spear; ruby red and glinting in firelight, “And what of you? Who does your life belong to?”

Morgan thinks of Bahamut, of the blood she bears. She thinks of the damage The Warlord has already caused and can feel the air around her crackle with magic.

She reels it back in and speaks before Titus can question it.

“It doesn’t matter,” she tells him, “The one who burdened my line will die.”

“You sound sure of that.”

“Because I am.”

The more time Titus spends with Morgan, the more he realizes that she is completely untrained in the emotional aspects of her magic. She knows how to use it, knows how to weave spells and access her armiger. Morgan knows how to warp and phase through objects and enemies and yet it appears the two of them have been relying far too much on her Glaive training to guide her through the use of her magic.

There is no emotion tied to the magic given to the Glaives. There is only logic, only a set of rules to follow as you weave your spells. There is no need to control the rush of anger or the fear they feel in battle as their magic does not respond to it. Lucis Caelum’s however, are a different beast. Their magic is tied to their very being, to their mind and their emotions and Titus still clearly recalls the day where he saw Regis Rage. The then Prince’s eyes had gone a brilliant, glaring blue as the ground under him cracked and rattled with the force of his magic. The air had been full of aether, had caused friend and foe alike to drop to their knees and Regis had been cold throughout it, had rained destruction down upon his enemies without a second thought.

The Prince had waded through blood as though he belonged on a battlefield and not in a throne room, and in that moment, Titus had been ready to call the prince a monster.

He has never forgotten that moment. Has never forgotten the ease with which Regis had slaughter his way through an army before his retinue had calmed him and he collapsed.

Morgan has no retinue, no one to calm her should she Rage. Titus looks at her, looks at her and thinks on her declaration that he belongs to her. The thought of belonging to anyone makes him bristle, makes him want to murder the one who dared to lay their claim upon him. He belongs to no one but himself; even if that feels like a lie.

He will not kneel to another king.

But Morgan needs someone to at least try and teach her how to corral her emotion attuned magic, and Titus is the only one here.

He glances at her, and is once again struck by how young she is. Her face free of the worry lines that had gathered there. Her eyes free of the dark bags under them from the countless sleepless nights she had endured during her time as a Glaive.

She looks like someone Titus would have regretted killing once.

Titus hates her even more for that. But she is a danger, and needs to know.

“Wyrmwood,” Titus says, and her gold eyes narrow at him, “If you lose control. I will kill you.” Something vindictive and gleeful passes through Morgan’s face and she laughs at him.

He toys with the idea of killing her then and there.

“I don’t doubt you will,” she says, and Titus cannot help but wonder why that makes him feel guilty.

(He knows why.

He doesn’t want to admit it.)

They travel for two days before they come across a sign and Titus recognizes it. A single flame is etched into a sign post pointing east while a sprig of lavender points west.

Morgan raises her brow and laughs.

“Khara or Furia,” she spins around and taunts him, “Which way should we go, Titus?” The grin on her lips tells him that she is not leaving him.

“Don’t you have family to wonder about.”

“My mother is dead by this time,” Morgan informs him, “Which way do we go, former Captain of mine?”

Titus does not want to go to Clan Furia territory. Does not want to face his mothers clan after everything he’s done.

Can he trust himself not to slaughter them?

He does not know.

He wants to find out.

“Furia,” he says, and they head east.

#toward daylight we run verse

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