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ffxivimagines · 5 years

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Commission 005 | campy

Commissioned by @mathclasswarfare ! Thank you for your patience and cheer!

Noctis Lucis Caelum is having a no-good, horrible, terrible, very bad day. Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but the Regalia breaking down in the middle of gods-know-where combined with no cell reception that he could use to call Cindy for a tow feels abysmal. The sun is intense, making the back of his neck itch with the force of it, but it’s no worse than the height of Leiden summer. If there is any time worthy of regretting his birthright and the color that comes with it, it’s now. Even the dash of the Regalia grants him no respite once it heats enough to rival one of Ignis’s carbonsteel pans.

Noctis would quite like to go home now, please and thank you, even if home is a moderately stinky sleeping bag shoved up against the back of a tent.

He stands next to the Regalia and waits for someone to come down the road. When that fails, he starts pushing. The irony is not lost on him, but neither is his growing dehydration. There are only so many water bottles left in his Armiger and even fewer snacks (no thanks to Gladiolus’s appetite). He has time before he begins to truly overheat, but not a lot of it.

The first person that passes is very much in a rush, charging past on a particularly fleetfooted chocobo, and Noctis has nearly no time to wave and attempt to flag them down for help. They pass in a blur of yellow and brown without giving him so much as a glance. Right, onto the next. He waits, inching the car along toward where can make out the vague outline of a building, and wonders if it would be a better investment to walk there first and ask for help.

He waits and sweats in equal measure until there is a very clearly child-sized being charging toward him alongside the smallest chocobo Noctis has ever seen. “Do y’need some help there, lad?”

He has to stop for a long moment, squinting and blinking with his face scrunched up like the foreign being was some sort of hallucination. They’re not quite a child, Noctis notices, as if their tone of voice and way of speaking wasn’t proof enough, but he still grasps at nothing for a name. The closest thing he can think of is gremlin, but that’s a non-starter and rude besides. He settles for asking, “Wha─who are you?”

“Sabiha Humi, at y’r service,” they reply with a smile curving their words. “What’re y’ pushing?” They take a long look at the Regalia as if it’s some strange, likely dangerous deathtrap. It’s not the covetous appreciation he’s used to from Cindy whenever he brings the car in for maintenance, nor the casual-yet-respectful way Prompto always eyes it (he had freaked out after the Regalia had been dented by an Iron Giant’s sword, murmuring rapidfire apologies to Regis as if Noctis’s father would skin him alive for prioritizing his own life over the wellbeing of the car). Noctis is not sure what to make of it.

“I’m Noct and this is a car,” he says, feeling mightily stupid for phrasing it so rudely. He assumes they don’t know what in the Astrals’ seven circles of hell a car is, but he fears for his shins if they do. To his benefit, Sabiha just nods.

“I’ll call Cid, then.”

“Uh… Cid Sophiar?”

They shake their head and smile patiently, correcting him with a casual, “Garlond, actually. There a Cid where y’r from?”

Noctis huffs a laugh and says, “Yeah. He’s old and doesn’t like me much.”

Sabiha giggles and reaches up to pat him on the hip. “Let me call via linkpearl an’ he’ll be here within a bell.”

Noctis sits down in the shade of the Regalia to wait it out and wonders what on Eos’s great surface a linkpearl is.

Noctis finds that he likes this place’s (world’s?) Cid a lot better than his own. The Garlond Ironworks folk are intimidating when they grill him for part specifications and schematics he does not have, but are nice enough when not consumed by technophilia. Noctis really, sincerely hopes Prompto hasn’t left any empty chip bags in the glove box again when Cid suggests a cleaning and some attempts at maintenance. Sabiha tugs him away to wander when he keeps fidgeting and flicking things in and out of the Armiger with the very real excuse of finding him a way home.

“So y’r not from around here at all.”

“Yeah, about that,” he starts before something in his aether jumps, pulling taut at the vague sound of MagiTek weaponry echoing across the hills. “Nevermind. We have bigger fish to fry.”

Sabiha hops onto chocoback and follows along, chattering to ease his nerves as they search for the cause of his intrinsic anxiety. “─so y’see, I’m here talkin ‘bout how infuriatin’ it is to have some o’those midlander folk talk t’ me like I’m some sort o’child and then, to add insult t’ injury, they ask why a little gal like me is runnin’ about alone! I’m a grown woman, thank y’ very much! Even Gurney knows better!”

Noctis nods along as they traverse the dry brush, tossing in a comment here and there to make sure Sabiha knows he’s listening. Her easy way of speaking reminds him of Prompto─they have a lot in common, the more he thinks about it, if you ignore the obvious difference in physical form─and Noctis misses him acutely. He wants to get back home, to Eos, to his friends, to the destiny he is eternally tempted to ignore.

He spots a MAX-Maniple clunking along and signals to Sabiha to wait. He sets his nerves in steel, summons a blade in a flash of blue-white magic, and watches her do much the same. They lay waste to the familiarly damning machine with ease and Noctis hopes it is the last of the ones that followed him.

They face other creatures over the course of their journey to find him a way home. The Regalia is repaired quickly enough, but Noctis hisses curses when Iseultalon all but shaves multiple years off his life with a few too many close misses. He keeps falling back on familiar patterns, calling for people that aren’t there to back him up, but Sabiha hurls magic into his bones all the same. Her arrows fly true and it becomes a familiar comfort to hear riffs amid the ringing of steel as she suffuses their surroundings with aether.

Camp is much the same. The first new nights are rough when he pulls a can of Ebony from the Armiger and has to fight to dismiss it instead of putting it on a cooktop that isn’t even set up. Sabiha asks him about his companions, pressing for details about Prompto when he admits they have a lot in common. It’s like something just unlocks─Noctis can’t quite shut up about it once he starts, and Sabiha sits and listens with rapt attention to every one of their adventures spanning from before the Fall to their most recent attempt at completing their Imperial Destruction Plan™ (named as such by Prompto, of course, and agreed upon by Ignis)─where he can talk about his troubles and how much he truly is grateful to Prompto for reaching out and being his friend without having to worry about anyone looking at him strangely.

“You’re a strong lad,” Sabiha tells him, “an’ I’m quite sure y’r friends are waitin’ for ya to come back n’ tell ‘em all about this. What’s the thing Prompto does? That “selfie” thing.”

“Want to take one? He’d like that.”

They wander through Gridania for a while, Noctis looking for a place he can fish same as take a decent enough photo, and they settle down for the afternoon. It’s a wonderful break from the usual adventuring-to-kill gig they both have going on. Having to kill Garuda (again. Of course it would be a murderous wind bird again) interrupts their relaxation and grants Noctis the way home he so dearly needs.

Noctis forgets that Sabiha is terrible at warping. She chips away at Garuda arrow by arrow, but most are knocked aside by gusts rather than hitting their mark. He yells over the storm every so often, but it’s a trial in futility when his voice is stolen away time and time again. They manage a few synchronized attacks, but not nearly enough, By the time they make it out of the fight, Noctis has smashed more than a few potions over his head and chest in desperation. Sabiha glares balefully for all the broken arrows littering the ground.

“I hate this fight.”

Noctis grimaces. “Do it often?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

They stare at the not-quite-Garuda with matching expressions, Sabiha not quite off guard yet while Noctis flicks his sword back into the Armiger. They listen while the primal speaks in a familiarly grating tongue as if its acceptance and blessing is all they’d need want.

“You have proven your might, Chosen King. At the world’s peril do we grant our might to the untested. I bequeath to you and your companion both my blessing.”

They share a look of absolute exasperation before Noctis remarks, “Divinities… one second they’re trying to kill you and the next they’re helping you. I’ll never understand them.”

Sabiha nods and pats his hand in solidarity. “Time f’r you t’ get going back, it seems.”

“Yeah,” Noctis agrees. “Thanks, Sabiha, for everything.”

She grins when he gets into the Regalia and flashes a thumbs up. “Be safe! Don’t f’rget t’show Prompto those pictures!”

And Noctis drives into the portal, lead home by the Oracle of his world, leaving Sabiha with the pulse of new-old aether still thrumming in her ears. She tests the bright blue sensation of it and pulls a note from the Armiger on accident.

Hey, Noct! Wherever you are, come back soon, okay? Iggy is drinking enough Ebony even Gladio is getting concerned!

I hope you’re safe.

Come back soon, Noct. Please.

Prompto

P.s. don’t forget to take pictures if it’s someplace cool!!

Sabiha presses it back where it came from and smiles.

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