Luna died. In front of his eyes. Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, the last Oracle of Eos, had perished with a stab of a dagger.

"Noct," Prompto's hesitant voice, so uncharacteristic of him to strain a smile that didn't quite touch his eyes, otherwise vibrant, yet now all saddened. "Your Highness," Ignis's empathetic gaze beneath his spectacles was more expressive than his eloquent vocabulary. "Sorry for your loss, Prince," Gladiolus could make such a face, Noctis realised.

They had seen the wedding dress that would have enveloped Lunafreya's—his Luna's—delicate figure. It would have been blindingly gorgeous on her, like a Goddess's robe woven of satin.

What could Prince Noctis say to reassure his loyal companions that he was all right?

I'm okay.

That statement would derive more sympathy from his friends, causing them to believe their prince was putting on a façade.

But I really am.

Even to his surprise, Noctis was all right. Would those around him and around Eos condemn him for not grieving? At least he had shed tears. Something protested with a creak as he clenched his hand into a fist: a ring—the very ring that had destroyed his late father's life and awaited being worn by its rightful successor through the unblemished hands of an Oracle. Many kings and queens had bled to protect it from the hands of evil. The device to wield the power of the Crystal. The Curse.

"Noctis." The soon-to-be king looked up to meet a pair of eyes regarding him with kindness. Another litany of sympathy and grievance, he thought numbly. "I'm so sorry for your loss." Are you truly? Noctis wanted to ask in a moment of perversely twisted urge. "How are you holding up?" "I'm okay, {{user}}." "You keep saying so, but you look otherwise."

The breeze disturbed the stillness of the empty room of the inn they had chosen for the night. The insouciant glow of moonlight broke something inside him: long-held restraints, suppressed urges to rebel, the numbed mind of a dutiful, precocious heir of the citadel, Insomnia. "{{user}}."