aithilin:

(for day 5 and 6 of @gladiofluff– Protection and Growing Old)

It started with Noctis. Everything seemed to start with Noctis in some way. When he was young, Gladiolus remembered the lectures and meetings, the importance of his duties impressed upon him even when he was young. Often with the smiling, teasing, wide-eyed plea of a younger Noctis nearby, already bored of the lessons and tugging at him to play out in the gardens. When he was in school, the importance was placed on strength and cunning, the history of his family held up like a standard for the rest of the Crownsguard recruits around him— all of them wanting to prove their own worth by trying to take him down in training classes.

Gladiolus had grown up with the weight of expectations on his shoulders. With the understanding that no one in the world was more important to him than his prince (save for Iris, though he knew that she had been raised to look after herself, and he trusted her sensibilities more than he trusted Noctis unguarded). And he had shouldered it well, he thought.

His father had once told him that he was lucky that Noctis tended towards his mother’s temperament. That dating had never been an interest for Noctis throughout his life. That venturing out to where princes shouldn’t be wandering had never really come up compared to Regis in his youth. There had never been any quick, midnight excursions beyond the Wall. Or late night romps through the city to the seediest bars, just for the dramatic change in pace and setting. There had been a handful of planned trips, all filed and requested and granted, but never the impromptu rush for the open space beyond the city on a whim.

Gladiolus had been told that Noctis was tame compared to his father in most regards. He had been prepared for those quiet days spent near the Citadel, the late mornings and later evenings, where the riskiest behaviour Noctis leaned towards was going fishing without warning others.  

No one but the Glaives seemed to understand that the prince was a little hellion when he wanted to be.

“Do I want to know?”

Keep reading