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One novel because I don't know if Iggy will repeat any of this

It all started with a name.

Ignis had been living a relatively normal life in Sonora. He held a few jobs, and worked hard to perfect his new disability. Though he’d been unable to locate Noctis in his time in the city, the retainer was undeterred. He learned every street, mapped every motion, learned every name that he could. Ignis could name buildings as he passed them, he could greet people before they greeted him. Life had improved exponentially for the blonde in the many months after waking up in an unknown land, and yet, it was nowhere near perfect.

There were memories still lost. Every once in a while, one of them would come to him, slipping delicately through his fingers. A face. A voice. A laugh. He could see other figures around a campfire, he could feel how much he trusted them and laid his life in their hands.

It was more than infuriating that he couldn’t remember them. They felt like extensions of himself; parts of Ignis Scientia that he often held back, due to his duties, because of what was expected of him. He feared he would not remember them, anything about them, until he reunited with Noctis. Or, worse, he would never remember them at all, and they would remain lost in his mind, even if he were to reunite with them.

Such worries were unfounded, however.

Sonora was a city that blended rough life with that of comfort. Back alley deals and criminals easily bled into higher up areas, as the city guard was lackluster with all of the other terrors plaguing the area. Ignis was never surprised to overhear bits and pieces of conversation as he passed along streets here or there on his way to and from his small, dingy apartment. That day was no different, as he paused for a moment to listen in on a conversation about some prison fight from around the corner.

“Yeah, yeah man don’t you worry, I got the footage here that you ordered.”
“Finally! The roster at the prison keeps changing, I never know who I’m betting on these days. How many fights are on this?”
“Ehhh, six? Seven? I forget, look, I’m just here for the money, okay?”
“Alright, fine. Here’s your payment. But hey, give me your honest opinion, I know there’s a scheduled match coming soon. Who’s worth the big bucks?”
“Watch the tape and you’ll find out. But keep an eye on the Gladiolus fellow--.”

Ignis audibly gasped, stumbling backwards and losing his balance on the sidewalk, tumbling down to the cement roughly. The two men quickly hushed their conversation, coming out to check on what had caused the ruckus. One of them grumbled, fumbling for something in his coat before the other coughed and nudged Ignis’s sight cane with his foot.

“Apologies,” the blonde breathed, his hands trembling underneath of him, “I must have tripped. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

The memories were all flooding back in a near instant, it was overwhelming. Gladiolus. Gladio! He could see the man so clearly now, from the scars across his face to the tattoo that covered most of his upper body. Honest brown eyes beneath a tough exterior. A low voice, always pushing them forward, no matter the circumstances. A lifelong friend.

“Just a blind guy,” the man who had accepted the tape sighed. The other man stopped shuffling about in his pocket, snorting ungraciously as he made to leave.

“Well, my work’s done here anyway. I’ll be back for your next order.”

“Wait,” Ignis asked, pulling himself up from the ground. He tapped his cane on the ground a few times, walking forward with one hand out, “I need to ask you--.”

“Lay back down, blind man,” the delivery man grumbled at him, “What we were talkin’ about’s none of your business.”

“That’s just the thing,” Ignis murmured, “It really is.”

He dropped his cane, and in a flash summoned a dagger into his right hand. He darted forward, immediately pinning the man with the footage against the building, the blade pressed against his neck. The man yelped, hands pinning themselves to his sides. The delivery man rushed forward, but Ignis summoned his spear with his left hand, quickly sweeping the man off of his feet before he could come any closer.

“Tell me what you know about Gladiolus. Now.”



That was how he found out the bitter truth. Gladio was in prison, but for what crime, the men didn’t seem to know or care. The prison was no normal place, not the typical jail house he’d come to hear about while living in the city. No, Gorgon was something special. Supposedly ruthless in the treatment of their captives as it housed some of the most dangerous men and women on the continent.

A part of Ignis wondered how Gladio could have found himself in such a place, but the thought passed as quickly as it came. If the Prince’s shield had been appropriately threatened and someone attempted to detain him of his duty to find Noctis, there was absolutely no way such a situation would have ended well. Had Gladio been outnumbered? Was he hurt? Well, perhaps not, if he was taking part in some sort of … fights.

People weren’t sent to the prison for petty crime, that much had been made clear to him by the men he’d accosted. No, the people in that prison were there because of something ugly. Something cruel. The prison was hard to find, and impossible to break into, supposedly protected by something other than guards. No, the only way in was to become a captive. He couldn’t become a part of the guard, after all. He was blind. He’d been laughed out of other places for much smaller tasks.

Ignis prayed that morning, but to what or who, he wasn’t sure. He begged for forgiveness. The retainer straightened his meager possessions and left behind a note on his bed for the only friend he’d managed to make in this land. Cissnei knew where he lived, and he didn’t wish for her to worry. Or, worse, to try and find out where he’d gone. Writing was still a difficult task, but using his fingers almost like a protractor helped him to trace the letters he needed. I’ll be back. It was likely awful scrawl, compared to his old handwriting, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

It was time. He’d built himself up for this moment for two days, steeling his nerves, reminding himself that he would do anything to help his friends. The guilt that trickled in at every passing moment was a motivator. The very same emotions that gave him strength threatened to bring a tear to his only functioning eye.

That day, Ignis let his feet carry him to the square closest to his apartment. He could hear people milling about as he waited with his cane and little to nothing else -- choosing to leave what few things he had behind. He straightened his glasses as he waited, finally hearing the click, clack of hard soled shoes on concrete. The ruffle of a uniform, the strict instruction of a local guard. It was his target.

Nothing he would ever do would make up for such a vile act. It was an unforgivable sin.

But, it was the only way.

Ignis approached the man, folding his cane and placing it within his pocket. He heard an alarmed cry as the halberd magically appeared in his hands. It was covered by his own yell, as he rushed forward, weapon expertly poised.

The rest was a blur of screams, of blood, and of pain.



The only thing that held him together through such a traumatic experience was the memories that had come back to him.

Ignis was woefully unequipped to find Noctis in this world alone. It was simply too vast, and while he could eventually master being blind, it would take too long. Every day, Noct fell further out of his reach. He needed help. He needed a friend, his friends. He needed them not only for Noctis, but also for himself. He hadn’t felt so alive as he had in that moment, hearing Gladio’s name for the first time in… well, gods only knew how long.

Ignis Scientia was charged with murder in the first degree. He was cuffed and shoved roughly in the back of a transport, keeping quiet despite the orders barked at him. He kept his eyes closed, only opening them to glare into the vast nothingness.

The hours passed with nothing more than torture and humiliation. He was brought through the prison gates, and warned of everything that entailed. No way in or out. No magic. No weapons. He had nothing now. He was nothing now. Every part of the process was somehow more terrible than the last. His pockets were emptied, his glasses plucked from his face. Ridiculed for even wearing them. They forced him to remove his clothes, took notes on his physique before hosing him down in cold, icy water.

The rules were barked at him by a heavily accented man, but most of it flew over Ignis’s head. His mind was spinning, overwhelmed by the sense of loss. He could barely tell where he was. Where anything was. The scents were acrid and putrid, dirty and disgusting. His prison garb was tossed on the floor and he was forced to find it, fingers wrapping around rough cotton as he quickly put it on. It stuck to him and soaked in the water, as he was never given a towel.

Not much else was said. He would have to fend for himself.

Ignis was placed in shackles once more and led through the twists and turns of the prison. It was cold and drafty, sending a shiver down his spine as his wet hair dripped, one, two, drops at a time onto his chilled skin. The floor was concrete and unforgiving, rough and filled with cracks ready to trip him. They took stairs and halls, and with each passing area he heard jeers. What they’d said, he couldn’t quite make out.

Finally, they paused in front of a heavy door. The guard escorting him opened it with the persistent jingle of a key -- rusted, maybe. The door opened, a soft and angry groan, like that of a monster once disturbed. The hand around his arm shoved him forward and Ignis shuffled his chained feet, soft soled shoes quiet against the floor. Now, the jeers and calls and taunts came at him full force. The guard steered him slightly to the right and hands and fingers found themselves wrapped around Ignis’s arm and clothing. He jerked away, an imprint of dirt and grime on his face. The other men hollered obscenities and laughed, they heckled him.

He should have suspected such a thing would happen, but … Ignis was wholly unprepared for what a prison was actually like. Especially one such as this, hidden and cruel. He had no experience with such a thing.

Would he survive long enough to even find Gladio?

The guard stopped him, stooping down to remove the shackles from Ignis’s ankles. He removed the ones from his wrists as well, before shoving a key into the cell closest to them.

“Hey big guy,” the guard snorted as the door loudly slid open, clicking loudly as it reached the end of its rope and began to slowly roll back, “Got some replacement meat for ya.”

Ignis was shoved forward unexpectedly, and he tripped over the entrance of the cell, hitting the edge of a metal bedpost with an unceremoniously unforgiving clank. The guard laughed, quickly closing and locking the cell as the jeers and taunts and yells quieted bit by bit as the footsteps faded behind the big, rusted door.

Cursing the names of gods he was sure to forget as this brain damage healed, Ignis brought his hand up to his forehead, rubbing the already aching wound. With his free hand he felt around the empty air, trying hard not to concentrate on the overwhelming scent of dirt, sweat, and other bodily fluids that drifted through the bars.

Oh, by the gods, there was another person in the cell with him! Ignis pulled himself closer to the iron bar of the bunk beds, glaring toward the (surely) empty space ahead of him. He hadn’t heard much movement. Perhaps the individual had little to no interest in his newest cell mate. That would be the first, and only, positive in an otherwise traumatic day.

“I think you may be the only person who hasn’t heckled me today,” Ignis muttered quietly, remembering what the guard has referred to his cell mate as, “”Big Guy””.

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He knows he's in trouble

As Ignis pleaded with the pounding in his head to cease, a deep voice above him, coarse and unsure, suddenly sounded out every syllable of his nickname.

The blonde snapped his head to attention, his functioning eye going wide while his left made a sad attempt to do the same. It was a voice he knew was deeply familiar, and yet, he hadn’t heard it in so very, very long. It had been lost to the amnesia he suffered from, from the moment he’d woken up in the forest of a strange world. Yet, just as the man’s name had snapped so many of those memories back into place, so too did his voice cement them there.

There was a loud rustling from the top of the bunk, the sound of scrambling limbs and huffs of disbelief, shaking the metal structure with the shifts of weight. Iggy took one cautious step back as his lips searched for the words, any words, any sounds as feet hit the floor next to him. He couldn’t see, but he could feel that familiar presence.

The sounds of the prison died away. The itchiness of the clothes he’d been shoved into, the putrid smells, the ringing in his ears. The goosebumps that had crossed his skin as strangers, criminals had manhandled him in the hall. The coldness of his wet hair, plastered to the top of his head. It all fell away the instant a strong hand fell on his shoulder, and the laughter shook through the desolate air.

Fate was a strange mistress indeed.

“Gladio,” he breathed the name with a mixture of relief and disbelief. Ignis’s hand, slightly trembling from the intense emotion he felt, fumbled forward to touch Gladio and concrete his presence in the blind man’s mind. Immediately, his hand made contact with a chest that felt more like iron than flesh, even buried underneath the prison garb. He moved his hand further up, giving the Shield’s shoulder a tight squeeze.

The insane risk he had taken had paid off tremendously. He thought it would take days of scouring the prison to find Gladiolus. Or, worse, he would have forced himself to be arrested to find out that it wasn’t Gladio at all -- nothing but a fictitious rouse.

Gladio’s relieved, manic laughter dissipated as quickly as it had come on. It seemed the realization of the situation had come back into the spotlight, and all of those things that had fell away only moments before came rushing back. The cold. The pain. The overbearing presence of it all. Right, this was still, quite possibly, the worst situation they could be in. His mind had carefully calculated the risks, and he’d memorized everything he could about the layout of the prison since he’d been brought in but …

Ignis knew this was a terrible, horrid idea.

His relieved smile gave way to a grimace as the blonde blinked his sightless eye, but he did not back down, “I received a bit of intel that you were here. Unfortunately … without a lot of powerful friends in high places, this was the only route I had left to find you.”

Not to mention the awful, stomach wrenching fact that he’d forgotten who Gladio was for months. That part didn’t need to be vocalized; now or ever.

He couldn’t imagine what Gladio had gone through in the prison. He knew, very well, he was in for one unpleasant surprise after another. But, despite the very high risks, it was well worth it. This moment was well worth it. To find Gladio, alive and in one piece, would make this hell on earth bearable, no matter what it threw at him.

At least, that was what he’d keep telling himself.

“I know this is no preferable reunion,” Ignis stated grimly, well aware of the consequences he’d assigned himself. He retracted his hand from Gladio’s shoulder, choosing instead to rub the sore spot on his head once more, “But, I couldn’t let you suffer in this hell hole alone. Not another moment. This was the only way, and whatever may befall me next -- so be it. Noctis needs the both of us, and you can’t be left here to rot.”

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Heartbreak

Gladio’s fury was nothing for one to turn their nose up at. He was a man who burned hot, full of passion, his emotions on his sleeves. Ignis had seen his dear friend truly upset more than a time or two in their lifetimes, but typically such anger wasn’t directed at him. Despite the way the words hissed themselves through a clenched jaw, despite the sound of grinding teeth, Ignis did not falter. He stood still as the fingers that had previously given his shoulder a grateful squeeze curled into the cheap fabric of his shirt, and Gladio’s arm began to tremble.

Ignis remained quiet and still, his head held high. He closed his eye, as if that did much, releasing a calming breath as Gladiolus released his shirt and began to pace the short length of their cell.

Five steps one way, three another. Side-stepping.

The tension within the cell ebbed and flowed, like a wave crashing upon the shore. Iggy knew it would likely be short-lived, but he also knew well that Gladio’s anger was justified. He would not argue that point. However, this was the only viable path forward, the only way for them to be reunited and eventually move onward to find Noctis. Whatever came next, it was inevitable.

The stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Did those words ring true? In a way, Ignis supposed. He certainly had overstepped any imaginary rules he’d once given himself for life. Thrown away certain morals to obtain what he needed. Blindly stared the most dangerous of situations in the face. Only time would tell how stupid his decision had really been.

“What’s done is done,” the blonde murmured, as Gladiolus finally came to a standstill, the fabric of his shirt bunching up against the concrete wall. Ignis crossed his arms behind his back, keeping his eyes closed as he finally allowed himself to drop his chin, just a tad. Enough to show to Gladio, yes, he knew what he’d done was foolish. That he couldn’t imagine what was come next.

Other than the heartache. The question about Noctis hit Iggy harder than he expected it to. The dreaded sense of failure climbed through his veins, constricting his heart. Noct -- who he’d still failed to find.

“I …,” Ignis let the word hang in the air, before swallowing his shame and pushing onward, “He has no idea. I haven’t found him. I haven’t found anyone, other than you.”

It was Iggy’s turn to pace, albeit more slowly. He took a few cautious steps forward, one hand slightly extended as he sighed, clearly frustrated. His fingers found the opposite wall, brushing against the cool stone. For a moment, he thought he felt some sort of scratch on it, but he let the distraction drop for the moment, his hand dropping to his side as he turned his back to the stone, “He is here in this world with us. I am positive of that.”

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After this, move on to part 2?

The stone wall was cool against his back; the only remotely comforting feeling he had physically had the entire day. The uncertainty of Noct’s whereabouts and health had plagued Ignis day after day, night after night, until he’d lost count entirely. Some days had been easier than others, filled with distractions and the problems of other people, but the worry creeped further into his heart despite all else.

When he heard -- no, when he remembered Gladio -- it had been like a shock through his entire system. A harsh reality that he’d forgotten his closest friends, and the unbreaking desire to find them. It had finally been something tangible, someone that was really within reach. Though it had led to a literal hell hole, the likes of which he had only scratched the surface of … It couldn’t shake the little bit of peace that bloomed with Ignis’s soul.

Gladio murmured reassurances, and Iggy nodded along with his words, no matter how hollow or vain they may have seemed. Noctis was stronger than the lot of them, but from what Ignis could remember, he’d been left in such a vulnerable state. He crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his cold hands against his body. The rough, worn cotton he’d been forced into was hardly enough to completely take away from the utter cold within the cell.

Another silence settled between the two of them, the air still unbalanced with worry, rage, and elation. Ignis would not ask for forgiveness for what he’d done to end up in the unbearable prison, and instead he’d take the pain and punishments to come. Whatever this place had in store for him, it would be worth it to make it out with Gladio. Somehow, someway. Gladiolus hadn’t found escape, despite whatever he’d done within the barred, stone walls. But, two heads were better than one, and Ignis had knowledge from the outside they could potentially use. Blind, but far from useless.

Gladio broke the still air between them, and the anger in his voice had been completely drained away and replaced by something else. Raw and honest and worried. Ignis frowned deeper as the tone clawed away at him, and he further rubbed his hands at his sides in order to fidget away some of the anxiety. His wet hair dribbled a cold bead of water down over his scarred eye.

They’ll break you, is what he heard. Yet, as he listened to Gladio speak, as he remembered the fury from just a few moments ago, the relief at their reunion, he wanted to say, Yet, here you are, still whole.

“Of course,” Ignis agreed whole-heartedly to listen to his friend at every turn, “You have my word. I know better than to leap before I look, in a manner of speaking.”

If getting thrown into the prison were to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done, Ignis would proudly own it.

Ignis stepped away from the wall, taking a few measured steps before he was sure he was in Gladio’s presence once more. It took a couple of wandering grasps at the air before he found his friend’s arm, giving a brief, but tight squeeze, “We can’t waste away here, Gladio. Our secondary priority, second only to staying alive, is to find a way out. It has to be.”