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https://ift.tt/2PGepURcharlottedabookworm:
hamelin-born:
charlottedabookworm:
lightsaberwieldingdalek:
charlottedabookworm:
hamelin-born
The crucified /Cor/ as well? Oh, how Ardyn must have /wept: when he learned that. And Cor must have been almost literally shaking with rage when he learned that Gil was still kicking around - because Somnus and the others? Heâd thought theyâd been dead for aeons, beyond his reach - but one of them was still here.
Gil probably thinks - well, heâs probably wondering if reincarnation is actually a thing.
@hamelin-born
Originally, I was going to have him executed with his own sword â the sword that was given to him by his King, taken by the Usurper â with Gil swinging the blade, before I realised that I really did not want to figure out how Corâs immortality would work sans head. At all. Nope.
Then I realised that if Somnus and Bahamut were going for peak symbolism â which they probably were what with the whole crucifying Ardyn as if he was a daemon, making it public and slow and painful, and Somnus having hammered the first nail as a symbol of his rule â then, in that case, Cor would probably be crucified after Ardyn was pulled down and heâd seen the body, as a symbol of what happens to those who followed him.
Also, Cruellest Cut is all about torturing Cor, so *shrug* I apologise?
Yeah, anyway, Cor was crucified.
Cor doesnât really remember all that much of it, thankfully, because heâd lost a lot of blood by that point and infection had set in and heâd just lost his son and his King/lover/husband in quick succession and he might have been hallucinating a little and⌠Well, Cor wasnât really in his right mind and he canât remember much besides sharp pain and struggling to breathe.
By the time he woke up, miles away from city where his body had been dumped, the wounds had already healed over to scars. He has nightmares about it, sometimes, but he canât really remember most of it.
And when Ardyn finds out, which he will eventually â if not because Cor tells him then because of the faint scars that he still has, scars that match Ardynâs â he will weep, and he will rage. Because Ardyn knows that pain, knows it intimately, and it breaks him to see those familiar, hated scars on his husband. Because he is one of the very few who understands crucifixion and he hates that it had happened to Cor. Because how dare they?
How dare they execute him? How dare they crucify him?
Cor had done what he had sworn to, had stood by his King, and Somnus had tortured him for it and Ardyn hadnât thought that heâd ever hate them more than he already had, he was wrong.
(I feel like Regis et al would know about Corâs scars, would have seen them before, but theyâd never quite placed them â never really considered where those specific ones might have come from. Crucifixion has been outlawed in Lucis for centuries after all â Cor totally didnât step foot in Lucis again âtil that happened â and theyâd never seen the scars.
Itâs only when Nyx rages when he sees them, because he recognises them, that they start to consider. And Itâs only when Ardyn weeps at the sight that they realise what they mean)
Oops, didnât mean to babble on like that, anyway.
So, yeah, Cor is totally pissed. Like, so pissed that heâs gone nonverbal and is shaking uncontrollably with rage when he overhears this conversation between Regis and Clarus about the Blademaster and realises what it means. Because Cor hadnât been able to get his revenge on Somnus and Gilgamesh for their actions, had spent literal years recovering from the loss of his King (because Bahamut, being a complete dick, blocked Nyxâs and Corâs and Ardynâs bonds with each other so they thought each other dead and that sorta shit has consequences) and then by the time that he was strong enough it was too late.
As far as he had known, they had both slipped beyond his reach, into a place that Cor could never follow them, that he was barred access to, and how he raged when he learnt that. Heâd, not quite accepted but, forced himself to understand that their fates had been taken out of his handâs aeons ago. He didnât like it, but he understood it.
Thus was the curse of immortality.
Then, to find out that Gilgamesh â not his cousin, he doesnât claim kinship to traitors and kinslayers â lives?
Well, it was like a miracle.
He could finally get his revenge, kill the man who had betrayed them, who had held his King in place as the Usurper had nailed him to that cross.
Cor is so angry and determined to kill Gilgamesh once and for all.
(Itâs even worse when he fails, limited by his deaged body, and Cor has never hated himself more â he couldnât even bring justice to one of his husbandâs murderers, even after millennia)
As for Gil?
Yeah, he totally thinks that this is a reincarnation thing. Because like, this is his cousin â his cousin who he killed, who he stood vigil over as he breathed his last while nailed to the same cross that, days ago, had held Corâs King â but heâs young.
Like, seriously young. Gil sorta thinks that heâs been reincarnated into the current Amicitia Clan or something, because thatâs the only thing that makes sense. Since Gil didnât know about the whole, immortality thing except probably in Ardynâs case. He hadnât heard of reincarnation actually being real, but itâs the only thing that makes sense.
All he needs is for Ardyn and Nyx to appear and then all of his mistakes have come back to haunt him. There will be much family bonding after they all reunite, aka going to slaughter the traitor. Fun.
When Cor is first deaged, how old did he look? Did he go back down to 16? 10? 8?
@lightsaberwieldingdalek
Around 12 or so, he ends up wandering back to Lucis and the joining teh Crownsguard out of spite a few months later
@charlottedabookworm
Iâm actually thinking that Ardyn - might have found out Significantly Earlier just what happened to Cor. After he woke up for the first time, after Bahamut had descended in full regalia to inform Ardyn of the particulars of his Curse and his new place in the Prophecy/Cosmogeny - I think that one of Ardynâs first priorities would be finding out what had happened to his husband. Nyx was - Nyx was dead as far as he knew, but Cor, if Cor was alive, if there was the slightest hope that his lover remainedâŚ
Finding out what had happened to his lover, his husband, his Shield, would have been Ardynâs top priority. And - well. It wouldnât have been hard to learn Corâs fate - Gil and Somnus were probably broadcasting news of Ardyn and Corâs executions as propaganda/further validation of the new regime far and wide. Ardyn would have learned what happened to Cor in fairly short order, and the knowledge breaks him - Cor had to watch him be executed, and then Cor was dragged onto the cross, the same cross, the self-same cross that Ardyn died on to be executed in the same manner, and Ardyn feels his last hope, his last reserve, shatter. He knows that death. He knows it intimately, he knows it for the pain, the agony, the terror that it is, and his love, his husband, his Shield, his Cor, the last of his family, the last to remain faithful - he had died there, subject to the self-same wrenching agony that had torn Ardyn apart.
Ardyn cries, and mourns his husband.
Regis, once he realizes the source of Corâs scars and his nightmares, probably hopes that there is a special place in hell reserved for his ancestor. How dare he. How dare he; politically, he can understand why Somnus et al might have chosen said action, but this? This was cruelty for crueltyâs sake; this was torture for no better reason then it suited their interests. And this - they did this to Cor. To one of his closest friends; Cor, who was gentle when he could be gentle, who was unflinching loyalty and flint-eyed strength, who liked to collect marbles and smile at sunrises when no one was watching. Cor. Somnus did that to Cor, and Regis will never forgive him.
âSpent literal years recoveringâ? Iâm not even sure I want to know; recovering physically, mentally, magically, or all of the above? God(s), Cor mourned Ardyn, mourned his king, and hated himself - and then when he finally, finally has the chance to kill Gil, to kill Gil, who killed his King, he couldnât even manage that.
He does have the sword, though, for all the good it does him. And - itâs a small thing. But itâs his sword, the sword his king gave to him - itâs a tangle link, in some small way, to Ardyn. To his husband. He treasures the sword for that just as much as he hates it; the memories come thick and strong, and he remembers. Itâs - this is the sword that failed to protect his king. But itâs also the sword that Ardyn gave to him, had commissioned specifically for him, and he has reclaimed it from the hands of an oathbreaker. Thatâs - something. Almost something, for all the good it does a man (he thinks) centuries dead.
And. Well. If Cor hated Gilgamesh that much - I donât doubt that he would have let some interesting information slip when he staggered back to Regis et alâs camp, weary and bloodstained and clutching his sword like there was nothing else in the world. And - oh. Thought! Canonically, Gilgamesh spared Cor for Reasons, but - but. But, what if here, Gil did kill Cor (again), only Cor got back up afterwards?
@hamelin-born
Oooooo. I didnât think about that but yeah, youâre right. Ardyn would have desperately wanted to know what happened to Cor, already believing Nyx dead but his husband was alive â if dying, slowly and painfully â last Ardyn knew and he needed to know whether he had the chance to save him or not.
So Ardyn wakes, risen from the dead and newly discovered of his place in the Prophecy, and he searches.
He hears the rumours with hours of reaching the nearest settlement â rumours that he canât quite bring himself to believe. (because Cor had already been dying, is the thing. He had been wounded by Gilgamesh and denied medical attention, and how could they have done that? Cor wasnât tainted by the scourge, he had no place in prophecy, there was no reason for them to murder a dying man). Rumours that he doesnât want to believe.
Denial lasts until he hears the broadcasts. Until he sees the pictures.
Ardyn breaks down and weeps, unable to get the image of his husband â of his Shield, his lover, his sonâs faeder â strung to a cross (the same cross) out of his mind. He knows that pain, knows it intimately, and he wants to rage but instead he cries, and he mourns, and he shakes.
As for Regis, yes. Everything that youâve said. And itâs even worse for him when Cor mentions, with a self-deprecating smile and an absent hand on his chest, that heâd been dying anyway â that a wound had become infected and heâd been denied medical care and probably wouldnât have lasted a few days more. And Regis et al have seen that scar on his chest â the one that cut him open from navel to shoulder and had shocked them all the first time that theyâd seen it on a teenager, because that was a mortal wound. He canât help but hate his ancestor more the more that he learns of him.
Cor is his friend, is family, and he doesnât know how anyone could be so casually cruel to him for nothing more than furthering[CL1]Â their own intentions. Itâs wrong.
It is most certainly all of the above :)
Physically, Cor is coming back from dying and having his soul denied access to the Beyond â and that leaves itâs mark on the human body, especially when the Astral doing so is doing it for cruelties sake. Also, while his physical wounds healed pretty quickly heâd also spent several weeks in captivity with minimal food and water alongside an infected wound so heâs not in the best shape and has a lot of muscle mass to rebuild. Mentally? Heâs been told that his son is dead, been betrayed by two of the people closest to him that heâd considered family, was forced to watch as those people executed his lover/husband/Shield, was then executed himself, and then he woke up after dying. And he has no idea why. So yeah, Cor isnât in the best of places mentally â especially since he blames himself because he should have protected them, that was what a Shield was meant to do.
As for magically, well Cor has had the bonds with his husband and son blocked â tho he doesnât know that at the mo, he just thinks that theyâre dead â and it feels like a piece of him has been ripped out and torn to shreds. Heâs hanging onto his sanity by a thread at this point and it takes him years to get to a point where he isnât just going to snap and murder everyone.
Not being able to kill Gil almost breaks him again.
He hates Gil like heâs never hated anyone else and he couldnât even manage to kill the person who had murdered his King and Cor hates.
Himself more than anything else.
But youâre right, the sword helps. Itâs a connection to his past, to his King, that he never thought that heâd have back. Itâs the weapon that he had failed with, but it was given to him by Ardyn â is basically the symbol of his vows to his King â and it eases Corâs heart a little to have removed it from the traitorâs hands.
And oh! I love that! Gil in this verse wouldnât spare Cor, not like in canon, but maybe thatâs how Cor also got his sword back in this. Gil stabs him through the heart with his own sword, the one that he had claimed from Cor after nearly killing him, and Cor lives and then uses the sword to cut off one of Gilâs hands while heâs shocked.
He leaves then, furious at himself for not being enough but fully planning to come back once he had grown to his full height once more.
Cor leaves and he stumbles back to the camp, coated in his own blood and clutching the sword to him like a lifeline, snarling curses in every language heâs ever spoken. Regis et al try to scold him â which, fair, he looks like a teenager and heâs covered in blood and they were pretty sure heâd gone to meet his death â and Cor just snaps at them because heâs so angry and he wants to rage and he hates himself right now.
I donât know how that conversation would go, but Cor definitely lets some things slip â not really enough to make sense of, but enough that the bros look at him a little differently and start seeing the adult beneath the childâs body.
@charlottedabookworm
Your description of Ardynâs reaction to learning of Corâs fate is - breathtaking and heartbreaking in one. Itâs just - well, no pun intended, but Corâs fate is. The final nail in the coffin, as far as Ardyn is concerned - he was the last thing, the only thing that Ardyn cared about that he had left (as far as Ardyn knew). And they killed him.
Itâs. Ardyn has nothing left. Nothing safe for hate and spite - theyâre the only things that he has, the only things that sustain him through the centuries, hollow and bitter though they be. Theyâre the base on which he, tentatively, begins to rebuild himself - and if some small corner of his being wails, knowing that Cor, that Nyx, that his Mother would not have wanted this for him - theyâre dead. Theyâre dead; what does it matter anymore?
âŚwhich. In turn. Might make his reunion with his lover/husband and his son just. That much more poignant. Because - hatred held and carried for that long wonât go easily, but at the same time, the very base on which he supported his sense of self has just been abruptly punctured. Someone swept the run out from under his feet; Ardyn is left reeling, and oh, but oh, he doesnât care. Because Cor is alive, because his son is alive, and he would not give this up for anything.
(Sometimes, post-reunion, I think that Ardyn wakes from terrible, terrible nightmares of the last time he saw his husband during the last days of the Empire of Solheim. And Cor - well. Cor really doesnât mind when his husband just. Clutches him and stares at him for a long, long time.)
Just wait until Regis and Clarus have children of their own. Wait until Cor sweeps forward, and absently soothes a crying infant with the easy of long practice - or corrects their stance. âNo, you donât hold a baby like that - like this, here, support the neck.â Wait until Regis hears Corâs hushed, almost absent confession - he had a child, once. A long, long time ago. (And Regis and Clarus know know know that Cor lost his child. And - they think on it, they try to imagine it, and they realize that there is no greater hell for a parent then that scenario.)
âŚRegis is probably seriously wondering if he can get Somnus re-titled as âThe Betrayerâ in all the history books. Because this is obscene.
I just. Have the mental image of Cor outright snarling at anyone who tried to take that sword from him after he stumbles back into camp, and - look. Cor never really tried to hide his maturity etc after entering the Crownsguard, but now? Now, with him snarling curses and calling Gilgamesh every foul name he can recall from a very, very long life? Itâs impossible for Regis et al to deny that Corâs feud with Gil is anything other but very very personal.
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