Shadow Slave

Sunny stared at the immortal sorcerer, stunned by those words. The scale and scope of the bloodshed and adversity Noctis was striving for were… were simply beyond comprehension. And yet, he had confessed this terrible desire with the same carefree, nonchalant, jovial attitude… as though he was indeed talking about brewing tea instead of waging war on four deathless Saints and their armies.

Sunny remembered the first time he saw Noctis… bloodied, crestfallen, sitting motionlessly in front of the fire with a diamond sickle laying at his feet, its blade marred with crimson.

A grim and somber thought formed in his mind all by itself:

"Insane… you are insane. All of you are…"

He flinched, then removed his trembling hand from the emerald amulet.

Noctis threw his head back and laughed, as if he heard the funniest joke in the world. The silent sailor dolls stood around him, motionless, staring into emptiness with their crudely carved eyes. The scene that was strange and fantastical a few moments ago suddenly seemed threatening and eerie.

After a while, the sorcerer grew quiet, then glanced at Sunny with a mischievous smile and asked:

"Yes, indeed. I could not have said it better myself. All of us are insane. But don't… don't you get it yet, Sunless? Don't you understand why?"

Sunny frowned, then shook his head.

'What the hell is he trying to say?'

How was he supposed to know why everyone in this damned Nightmare seemed completely mad…

And then, something moved in his mind. A seed of a thought… a nascent hint of understanding.

His pupils narrowed slightly.

There was something... strange about the Kingdom of Hope. He had first sensed it after escaping the Red Colosseum and facing Solvane, that beautiful and utterly demented fiend… her actions made a perverse, and yet perfect sense. But there was still something wrong about her.

Back then, he had felt a vague suspicion. Something seemed out of place, something didn't make sense. And after, when he had been thrust into the neverending nightmares, this feeling only grew stronger. He just had no time to think about it.

Everyone here seemed slightly… or greatly… off. Every emotion was sharper and cut deeper, every vice or virtue grew out of control until it turned into a destructive obsession. He had experienced it all, lived through all of it in the nightmares over and over again.

Pain, sorrow, tragedy... madness.

Even Sunny himself was affected by this insidious strangeness. His single-minded obsession with learning how to weave, the sudden intensity of his affection toward Elyas, the subsequent crushing heartbreak over the young man's death, the unquenching hatred he had felt for the black steed… all of those things were not exactly out of his character, but slightly more consuming than they should have been.

Remembering the past few months, Sunny shivered.

'Wait… wait…'

Feverishly, he tried to recall all he knew about this Nightmare. The seven knives, the seven immortals… a thousand years of solemn duty… the terrible torture one of the rules of the Ivory City had been subjected to by his own brother… the destruction of the Sacred Grove… the Shadow Lord making a choice to take a coward's way out before, before…

Before what?

Suddenly, an expression of shocked understanding appeared on Sunny's face.

He looked at Noctis for a while, and then cautiously picked up the emerald amulet. A single word formed in his mind:

"Hope?"

The sorcerer smiled, then nodded and looked at the vast expanse of the shattered kingdom below them.

"...Indeed. Hope."

Noctis took a sip of wine, the smile disappearing from his face. A few moments later, he said indifferently:

"The Lord of Light bound Hope with seven brilliant shackles, and made those shackles eternal. That was us… me and the rest of the Chain Lords. He entrusted each of us with the fate of another, and a solemn duty to never let the Demon escape. And, for a few centuries, everything was fine…"

His face grew dark and cold. The sorcerer remained silent for a while, and then continued:

"But slowly, we grew tired. Doubt found its way into our hearts. Eternity… eternity is a heavy burden, Sunless. And under its weight, unnoticed, one of us grew twisted. So, another one made a choice to uproot the corruption… that was how the first of the Chain Lords died. Aidre, my dear friend… murdered by that wicked slayer, Solvane, her beautiful grove burned to the ground."

Noctis remained motionless, but the wooden mannequins surrounding them suddenly clenched their fists, their fingers splintering from the immense pressure. Their crude faces did not move, but Sunny could feel an almost palpable feeling of fury radiating from their figures.

The sorcerer sighed.

"...And so, all of our fates were sealed. Yes, six shackles still remained. But Hope's prison wasn't perfect anymore. Her will, her insidious influence sipped out, little by little, infecting us all… slowly devouring the whole kingdom, every living being in it, from the smallest insect to the mightiest immortal, igniting our desires, twisting them, changing us into something different. Something terrible, rampant, and vile."

He laughed.

"Oh! Of course, none of us noticed it for a long, long time. Hundreds of years, even. Maybe only Shadow… and by the time the rest of us understood, at least those who were still sane enough, it was already too late. The whole of the Kingdom of Hope had been driven mad by its former ruler. Had been turned into a vicious hell. We were all taken by Hope."

Noctis smiled and sipped his wine, then chuckled.

"So, yeah, Sunless. All of us here are insane… I thought you would have known already, judging by the scars covering your body. The Warmongers are all insane, and so is their leader, Solvane. The citizens of the Ivory City are also mad, just as their two rulers are. The One in the North is perhaps the craziest of us all. Well… except for me, of course! I am the maddest person in all of the Kingdom of Hope, I would have you know."

Sunny stared at the gleefully smiling sorcerer, suddenly overwhelmed by terror.

"That damned Seed… that damned Mordret! Curse the day he told me about how rare and precious it is!"

The sorcerer chuckled.

"Uh… well, I don't know who Mordret, and what seed you are talking about. However, there is one thing I do know. Actually, it's a question. That question… it has been tormenting me for centuries, Sunless. Do you know what that question is? What was the seed of my personal madness?"

Sunny frowned, then slowly shook his head.

Noctis lingered for a few moments, then looked away and said with a wistful smile:

"That is a question Aidre asked me, a long time ago. You see… if the Lord of Light wanted the seven of us to keep Hope imprisoned, forever…"

His smile widened slightly, then suddenly dimmed.

"...Then why did he give each of us a key to her freedom?"